If you could push a button and simply cease to exist, would you press it?

huh

How do we know he still felt need to obliterate soul in that one day ?

I'm not sure I understand the question, but on that one day the dualist takes the drug, which would seem to establish how he felt about the matter.

I don't think you can say the effect of the drug was felt at all, cos dude took it while he was asleep and the whole point of that part of the story is that he wasn't aware of it at all in any capacity.

What is the point of this parable? Cos i can't get past the logical inconsistencies. There's a drug that eliminate mind-soul and mind-soul is unrelated to subjective experience so even where he completely awake the first time he would register no difference and he takes it a second time knowingly and is upset that there is no noticeable change despite the fact that there would be no noticeable change even if it worked. Sounds more like a joke about nihilism or something.

the thing turns on this imo: But he was sure they were quite separate substances.

granted my understanding of the soul comes from theology, which may not have much overlap with how it is understood in the philosophical tradition this story comes from.

the separateness of the substances of material and soul doesn't really cover it; the substance-ness of the soul is absolutely and forever out of reach of the material/any effort of will. even its verification. believe it or don't, but it's there, inhering to you (or not.) the point is that the drug is snake oil.

I have to read this line (in bold) as being a wry joke: The next morning the body of the dualist awoke-without any soul indeed-and the first thing it did was to go to the drugstore to get the drug.

the second and related joke is that the man thinks his "suffering" is somehow attached to his soul and not his material self. clearly he fears the accounting for his suffering and response to suffering will be levied on his soul, but why would that make him feel any better now, should he manage to get rid of it?

There's a drug that eliminate mind-soul and mind-soul is unrelated to subjective experience so even where he completely awake the first time he would register no difference

"He" would register a difference in that his subjective experience would end.

From the story: Its effect on the taker was to annihilate the soul or mind entirely but to leave the body functioning exactly as before.

I've been using "subjective experience" for what he's calling "mind/soul". So the drug eliminates subjective experience but leaves the body alone.

So: the body - somehow - gives rise to subjective experience, but subjective experience doesn't affect the body. For you to believe that, though, you have to admit that his complaining about subjective experience isn't caused by subjective experience, because him complaining is an action of the body, and we've just said the body is unaffected by subjective experience.

So he takes the drug, it works - subjective experience goes away - but the body is still the same as before, and he keeps complaining.

I'm not sure I understand the question, but on that one day the dualist takes the drug, which would seem to establish how he felt about the matter.

― Aimless, Friday, 11 January 2013

does it?

i thought his body was supposed to carry on regardless? wouldnt his soul-less out of torment body also taken the drug the second time? where does it presume he felt anything about it on that particular day?

that line is a wry joke yes. xps

So mind/subjective experience has nothing to do with bodily self-awareness? What exactly is it then?

contemporary epiphenomenalism isn't really dualist, is it? the likes of davidson or dennett are really monists who just think that even though it's in some sense possible to reduce conscious processes to mere physical processes, it doesn't really make sense to talk about them in that way. (i'm guessing he's not really picking on anyone, cuz today no one but the hardcore religious type is a dualist in the old fashioned sense.)

This story is like an attempt to rescue people from drowning in ankle deep water.

there are a lot of hippies and art students who are dualists in a pretty old-fashioned sense

some people get really angry about physicalism! we had a student write "PHYSICALISM IS BULLSHIT!!!" on their course evaluation for a class I TAed.

xp hardcore religious types of all varieties imo.

notxp ha. I'm kinda disappointed that all of the students I've TAed so far have been wimps, OH YOU LIKED EVERYTHING HOW INTERESTING.

Sorta feels like Epiphenomenalism is BS. Just say "I don't agree with the standard definition of mind" and be done w it.

I don't know that simple physicalism is really the standard definition any more though, over the last ten years the neuroscience-philosophy crossover stuff on consciousness and subjectivity and the like as somehow abstracted from the brain has become pretty prominent.

Yes, there are materialist and dualist ways of using the word epiphenomenalism, depending on what kind of phenomenon you're trying to describe (mental activity, qualia.)

no one but the hardcore religious type is a dualist in the old fashioned sense

Chalmers certainly is, right? Isn't this the main disagreement between him and say Dennett?

As far as the current state of the field, I'll have to trust you - that's very interesting.

http://loymachedo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/What-The-Bleep-Do-We-Know.jpg

oh come on

As far as the current state of the field, I'll have to trust you

I don't know it that well (one of those things where I get it second hand from people I know working on it more than my own research), but I think Jeannerod been one of the major players from the neuroscience side, Metzinger and people involved in his school from the philosophy side (even if Metzinger's own enquiries into the self end with him saying that it basically doesn't exist).

I realise that I'm probably using epiphenomenalism in a slightly fuzzy and dodgy way that's encompassing a more general physicalist-but-not-physicalist relation between mind and brain, but maybe I can dubiously claim that this different understanding of it corresponds to the orientation of current research.

don't know anything about Chalmers tbh, but looking him up I see that he needs to join the list of philosophers who don't look like philosophers, alongside James Ladyman

http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/storage/images/guests/jamesLadyman.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1347149650078

I got it, it's a moral argument against magical non-consenting soul euthanasia.

oh, Chambers is yer zombies man. Not something I've bothered to engage with beyond the dumb-sounding premises rly.

(sputters) well if you can't accept a simple intuition about non-verifiable subjective experience i just don't know

all the interesting work is happening in science afaict, dualism is a total dead end.

but i do believe that subjective experience is logically separable from an objective description of the brain (ie i think the zombie thought experiment is interesting) so it puts me in a tough spot.

The interesting science work is happening in science, sure. Don't think that's taking us one jot closer to a mind/body solution though.

mind/body dualism was boring in the 18th century, wasn't it? Doesn't mean the distinction is meaningless of course...

So Kant transcended the distinction, all part of his thing of being GREATEST PHILOSOPHER in yr face Nietzsche/ Wittegenstein

it's like he pushed a button and made the argument cease to oh i don't know EXIST maybe

mind/body dualism was boring in the 18th century, wasn't it?

ha well a lot of different arguments are packed inside "the mind/body problem". when i said "dead end" i mean specifically the whole subjective experience thing I've been banging on about.

but i do believe that subjective experience is logically separable from an objective description of the brain (ie i think the zombie thought experiment is interesting)

I also believe they're separable - in fact I believe they're irreconcilable (as we currently conceive of them at least) which is why I think subjective experience must be a fundamental feature of reality. I also think zombies are a load of crock! It's a pretty neat trick physics has pulled, to take something that is surely a fundamental part of *our* world - experience just is subjective! - and make it seem like it's not a fundamental part of *the* world. At best an optional sideshow, at worst a complete illusion.

the greatest trick physics ever pulled was convincing us we don't exist (or something)

haha yes!

Kant is maybe the greatest metaphysician which is like fuck all really tbh

ah ignore me, hungover and grumpy, i don't see what's so hard about mind as a function of matter tho, it doesn't wave away mystery it mystifies the physical which is where we are tbh, peeps need to let this soul shit gooooooo

There's something racist/speciesist inherent in the concept of a discrete mind/soul that is privileged over any other physical process that makes the whole thing suspicious. Spike Lee needs to come down harder on this instead of twitter warring with Tarantino

The prejudice that human consciousness and one's subjective experience of the world while alive is the only thing that matters is the true evil.

It is ultimately a denial of the body. And denying yr body is ultimately bad for yr health

Living is ultimately bad for yr health

This thread is kinda maddening to read. All the people going no but how does it work? what'll happen to my kids? are like people who can't sit still during a time-travel film. It doesn't make sense!

Automatically connecting this question to suicide is weird. The question itself boils down to "Is life worth living?" which is sort of the most basic building block of all philosophy, art, religion and anything else. "Is life worth living?" is not the same question as "Can life ever be fun or fulfilling or offer moments of pure exquisite insight/pleasure/glory/connection?" - of course it can, for most people (even in terrible situations), for some of the time.

I hesitate to write this sentence because it is so obvious, but all the while I am happy, seeing people, going to shows, having sex, making music, I know it's true that a third of the people I meet will die of cancer and two-thirds of them will die of something else, and I will be witness to this if I don't die of cancer or something else first; the people I have sex with will die, and before they do they will become people I would not want to have sex with, and I will be unsexy to them; the children I might create through this sex will go through the same process: much joy, delight in their abilities, friendship, excitement, whatever, but ultimately defeat/compromise/infirmity/death. And so on. Lust for life doesn't get you out of this. Death is no different whined at than withstood etc.

Again, I must say that I know everybody knows this.

So there is this simple question that everything in our culture that is not strictly administrative is built upon: much of life is pleasure and much of it is suffering - what is a tolerable balance? Is any amount of suffering worth it? Does a small amount of happiness outweigh much suffering? How could happiness even be defined if there were no suffering?

There are practical examples that might give some kind of answer. People in the most miserable corners ever drawn who nevertheless wanna live, live, live. Old people gone right into the ending who don't seem to regret living or to seem to suffer much to themselves even when they seem to suffer to us.

These are pretty much the basic questions since the year dot, and there will never be answers. But I suppose everyone has an opinion on how much pain they are prepared to take for a certain amount of satisfaction, or about whether just glancing at nature or a pretty arse is sufficient compensation for being so vulnerable and minor, and lots of other interesting things to say about the value of tiny, tiny life... These are very basic ideas, I know, but it is bewildering when people say things like "Why would I think of this? I am happy/not suicidal/living it up!" Ach, I have seen this so many times. I think it would be worth discussing the perverse neurosis of this kind of person. It's a different kind of life. Inhuman!

― Eyeball Kicks, Friday, October 19, 2012 11:18 PM (3 months ago)

i think this is prob the one to take from this thread in a fire tbh

Worrying to note that i have finished the wheel of time and at least ten toffee crisps since post #3 itt tho

I have measured out my life with toffee crisps

Vg, vg

i tend to favour measuring it out in terms of my regular purchases, washing powder, tea, olive oil, converse.

i like that. 'twere two converses, one washing powder and three teas ago...

i swear i only bought this current pair six weeks ago and they're practically in the grave already.

conversely (sorry), washing powder seems to last much longer these days

i use those squidgy bag things

http://i.imgur.com/9MY0RMF.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/58DT6ok.gif
http://i.imgur.com/pX9XYtq.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/zWQR4W1.gif
http://i.imgur.com/OM7SPzs.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/WwQtpDK.gif