To just try to state what I understood so far (and hopefully therefore inspire further interest) : In the comments section to the post on “a priori”, Eliezer Yudkowky claims to be a “material monist”. That would mean that he thinks that there is only matter, and that anything that could be described as “non-material” must therefore actually be material. Which fits the section of this “Zombies”-post that I commented on in the first place. The argumentation seems to be as follows: The world can be described using physical laws, and one does not need any “mind” or “consciousness” to formulate why – for example – the lips of a human move. There is causality, from the processes in the brain to the muscles in the lips, that explains why the lip has to move as it does. And since this causal chain starts with something we might call “thought” in our “normal” language, and that starting chain link needs to influence the next link, it must be material and within the laws of physics as well. That means that – although we do not yet know the exact form of that physical “thought”-property – we are allowed to take it as given. What we have to presuppose is that the only influence on a physical object is possible through a physical object. Of course, some sort of “dualist” would never let that pass. If “thought” had no influence on the physical world, then that would go against our experience that for example we think and our body follows those “orders”. So thought must have an influence on the material world. That’s exactly the section of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Zombies”-post that I commented on above: He presents “substance dualism” where we have a not-yet-understood “thought”affecting our world. And he presents “Not-quite-faith-based reductionism”, similar to “material monism”, where we have a not-yet-understood “material substance”. One relies on the intuition that no material substance can possibly add up to consciousness, the other one on the intuition that material substance can possibly add up to consciousness. So: Which intuition is more reliable? Both admit that there is some kind of difference between “thought” and “material substance” at first. Then, dualism says that this difference is unbridgeable, while monism states the opposite (material monism stating that bridge would be built from “material substance” to “thought”). What kind of difference do we encounter here? Why is “thought” not the same as “material substance” right away? Because we can not see, touch, generally sense “thought” with our sense perception, whereas we can sense “material substance”. We can say that “material substance” must follow laws, whereas “thought”has a degree of freedom. “Material substance” is three-dimensional, whereas “thought” is not. Of course, the answer of the material monists to that could state that all these properties of “thought” are not what they seem to be. But, as I have seen here, the material monists Eliezer Yudkowsky, habryka and Said Achmiz’ argument is that they do not know how “thought” is actually “material substance”, but trust in physics to solve that question in the future because of a “track record”. And that besides that there did not arise another reason. In the comments section here, mitchell_porter2 pointed at Bertrand Russell’s “the Problems of Philosophy”, chapter IX (10 years ago). There, Russell points at Plato’s theory of forms, stating that not only “material substance” has being. So, when I adopt a neutral position, I still have both sides standing there in front of me. Even in this quite material monistic commentariat. This is about the very foundation of the mindset of material monism. If this repetitive questions by me really do cover well-trod ground, as I was told above, and there was so much said already – did all that solve the questions, or am I repeating them because they’re still valid?
To just try to state what I understood so far (and hopefully therefore inspire further interest) : In the comments section to the post on “a priori”, Eliezer Yudkowky claims to be a “material monist”. That would mean that he thinks that there is only matter, and that anything that could be described as “non-material” must therefore actually be material. Which fits the section of this “Zombies”-post that I commented on in the first place. The argumentation seems to be as follows: The world can be described using physical laws, and one does not need any “mind” or “consciousness” to formulate why – for example – the lips of a human move. There is causality, from the processes in the brain to the muscles in the lips, that explains why the lip has to move as it does. And since this causal chain starts with something we might call “thought” in our “normal” language, and that starting chain link needs to influence the next link, it must be material and within the laws of physics as well. That means that – although we do not yet know the exact form of that physical “thought”-property – we are allowed to take it as given.
What we have to presuppose is that the only influence on a physical object is possible through a physical object. Of course, some sort of “dualist” would never let that pass. If “thought” had no influence on the physical world, then that would go against our experience that for example we think and our body follows those “orders”. So thought must have an influence on the material world.
That’s exactly the section of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Zombies”-post that I commented on above: He presents “substance dualism” where we have a not-yet-understood “thought”affecting our world. And he presents “Not-quite-faith-based reductionism”, similar to “material monism”, where we have a not-yet-understood “material substance”. One relies on the intuition that no material substance can possibly add up to consciousness, the other one on the intuition that material substance can possibly add up to consciousness.
So: Which intuition is more reliable? Both admit that there is some kind of difference between “thought” and “material substance” at first. Then, dualism says that this difference is unbridgeable, while monism states the opposite (material monism stating that bridge would be built from “material substance” to “thought”). What kind of difference do we encounter here? Why is “thought” not the same as “material substance” right away? Because we can not see, touch, generally sense “thought” with our sense perception, whereas we can sense “material substance”. We can say that “material substance” must follow laws, whereas “thought”has a degree of freedom. “Material substance” is three-dimensional, whereas “thought” is not.
Of course, the answer of the material monists to that could state that all these properties of “thought” are not what they seem to be. But, as I have seen here, the material monists Eliezer Yudkowsky, habryka and Said Achmiz’ argument is that they do not know how “thought” is actually “material substance”, but trust in physics to solve that question in the future because of a “track record”. And that besides that there did not arise another reason.
In the comments section here, mitchell_porter2 pointed at Bertrand Russell’s “the Problems of Philosophy”, chapter IX (10 years ago). There, Russell points at Plato’s theory of forms, stating that not only “material substance” has being. So, when I adopt a neutral position, I still have both sides standing there in front of me. Even in this quite material monistic commentariat.
This is about the very foundation of the mindset of material monism. If this repetitive questions by me really do cover well-trod ground, as I was told above, and there was so much said already – did all that solve the questions, or am I repeating them because they’re still valid?