{"id":8253,"date":"2013-12-22T14:03:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T14:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/mind-and-matter\/"},"modified":"2013-12-22T14:03:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-22T14:03:29","slug":"mind-and-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/mind-and-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind and Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are a couple of theses that are part of my credo<\/em>, though I do not merely believe them, but think I have good reasons for believing them:<\/span><\/p>\n

Thesis 1:  One cannot get mind from matter no matter how the matter is arranged  or how complexly arranged.  That mind should arise from matter is unintelligible<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To appreciate the force of this thesis, let's run through some objections.  And I do mean run: what follows has to be cursory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Objection 1.  "There is no question of getting<\/em> mind from matter; mental states and properties  just are<\/em> states and properties of the material world, patterns of behavior perhaps, or patterns of neural activity."<\/span><\/p>\n

Response 1.  Of course I reject identity theories that reduce the mental to the physical, whether they be type-type identity theories or merely token-token identity theories.  I have written an 'unconscionable' number of posts on this topic I and am not inclined to repeat myself in any detail.  But if you tell me that, say, my thinking about Prague is identical to a complex state of my brain, I would dismiss that as obvious nonsense and for a very good reason.  My occurent thinking, at this moment, is of<\/em> or about<\/em> or directed to<\/em>  an object that, for all I know, was nuked out of existence — God forbid — a second ago and this without prejudice to my act of thinking's now being about precisely the object it is about.    Now this intrinsic object-directedness  or intrinsic intentionality of my act of thinking — to use the philosopher's term of art — is not a property that it makes any sense to ascribe to any physical object or state. Now if x has a property that y lacks, or vice versa, then of course x cannot be identical to y.<\/span><\/p>\n

Objection 2.  "There simply are no mental states as you claim, and the argument from intentionality you give can be run in reverse so as to prove it."<\/span><\/p>\n

Response 2.  The objector is suggesting the following argument: "(1) If mental states such as thinking about Prague are anything, then they are brain states; (2) such mental states exhibit intrinsic intentionality; (3) no physical state, and thus no brain state, exhibits intrinsic intentionality; therefore (4) there are no mental states."<\/span><\/p>\n

This eliminativist argument issues in a conclusion that is obviously, breathtakingly<\/em> false, and so one of the premises must be false.  The stinker is of course (1).<\/span><\/p>\n

Objection 3.  "Granted, it is unintelligible that mind should arise from matter as conceived in current physics.  But the matter that we know might hide and contain within itself occult powers beyond the ken of current or any future physics, including the power to give rise to mind."<\/span><\/p>\n

Reply 3.  The game is up when materialists reach for occult powers.  The only matter we know about is the matter of ordinary experience and physics.  And there is no place in matter so conceived for occult powers that give rise to mind. If you tell me that what thinks when I think is an intracranial hunk of meat, then you are ascribing  a power to matter that destroys the very concept of matter that you started with and that you need to articulate your materialism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thesis 2:  That matter should arise from mind is not unintelligible.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Why not?  Because intrinsic to mind is object-directedness, or object-positing.  Mind by its nature is of objects distinct from mind.  Mind has the power to create objects distinct from itself and its states.  This power is not occult.  It is open to us in reflection.  The entire material cosmos could be be just a huge system of intentional objects for a sufficiently capacious and powerful mind.  The thought is thinkable.  It is intelligible.  That is not to say it is true or to say that we have good reasons for believing it.  It has its difficulties, but  it makes sense in the way it makes no sense<\/em> to maintain that mind arises from matter.  That is an absurdity that can be seen to be such by hard thinking.
<\/span><\/p>\n

So we get an asymmetry.  Matter could, for all we know, be the product of mind, but mind could not, for all we know, be the product of matter.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Pascal on Materialism<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Matter Thinks?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Thinking Meat?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Do Merely Intentional Objects Have Being of Their Own? With a Little Help from Ingarden<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Merely Intentional Objects and the 'Existential Fallacy'<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are a couple of theses that are part of my credo, though I do not merely believe them, but think I have good reasons for believing them: Thesis 1:  One cannot get mind from matter no matter how the matter is arranged  or how complexly arranged.  That mind should arise from matter is unintelligible. … Continue reading “Mind and Matter”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}