On the Ideas of Quine: Section 2

[German1184]

"And we all are prepared to recognize that the will is caused when we try to train children in such a way to influence their behavior… All these are cases of causing people to will; but their freedom of the will remains, insofar as their activity is the result of causal chain… one link of which is the willing.” -- W. V. O. Quine

[German1184]

“The will is free in the sense that people, very often, do what they will to do. They are free, within limits… of their strength or talent, to do things they will to do. The freedom of will does not mean that the will is free to will as it will, that would be nonsense. And doesn’t mean that the will is uncaused; the will is caused." -- W. V. O. Quine

[TheDavid2222]

I do not approve of Quine's position on free will. Immanuel Kant is one of my philosophical hero's and I think his Critique of Pure Reason is more on track with what we can know.

[TheDavid2222]

My emotions tell me that materialism is incorrect. I don't know how Idealists respond to materialism, but I truly hope that they respond with fervor.

[watayapupuya]

Cut the crap.Get over,finally,all this nonsense.(re:all this modern-day so-called "philosophy") Let go of it.Pull your head out of your rectum.Go to the seaside.Take a breath of fresh air.

[fuckooo]

@watayapupuya What the Hell are you talking about?

[watayapupuya]

@fuckooo You wouldn't know,of course.Maybe you're too fuckood-up.

[boskinator]

@watayapupuya

translation:

"this stuff is, uh, too complicated for me, uh, so i gunna shit on it, and anyone who wants to discuss it".

You are a shining light of intelligence and truth.

[watayapupuya]

@boskinator

No,actually.It is not at all"uh" too complicated for me ,as it evidently is for you.But in your own intelligent,inspired words of wisdom:"so "i gunna" shit on it" .You'd better go back to 1st grade ,you poor moron.

[LooksAeterna]

[reprinted because for some strange reason it doesn't show up]:

@TheSuigeneris1986 "there is no ground for the concept of dualism" Your point ? That is Quine's red herring too.

"I've read several of Quine's writings and I don't get the impression he was lazy." Oh one can be very assiduous in one's striving to avoid one's lazy spot. The lazy spot of dogmatic members of the church of materialism is that the trilemma of idealism/dualism/materialism is NOT a dilemma between the latter two.

[rbh104]

Magee isn't included in my category of 'nearly everyone I know today' which is very different from 'absolutely everyone in existence today and forty years ago'.

And saying that most people I know see it as common sense is not a tautology at all. If you're taking 'common sense' to mean 'widely believed' (not my intended meaning) I would actually be saying 'amongst the people I associate with, it is commonly thought that views such as Quine's would be widely held by those I don't.'

[Thinkingbeingone]

I do not think Quine is ?beg @ 5:04. His arg is not physical bias of sci. His arg is why subatomics are construed physically. His arg is like,

ALL ELEMENTS OF WORLD ARE CONSTRUED IN CLOSED PHYSICAL SYS

ALL SUBATOMICS ARE ELEMENTS OF WORLD

ALL SUBSTOMICS ARE CONSTRUED IN CLOSED PHYSICAL SYS

This is valid non?beg arg.

Yes, the premises assume physical stance. But nonphysical arg assume nonphysical stance. There is no escaping bias premises; just which way do you fall.

[johnuio]

My main point is that, just as the notion that philosophy is talking about "talking about," Plato's status as philosophically fundamental is that he is really doing something eternally GENERAL (because I see the reality of Plato in Generality itself, not in terms of disembodied forms, which to me is a misread): Plato introduces a still un-transcended attitude about attitudes! From this classical point of view, Quine and the like are knowingly choosing to dignify a certain "special" sophistry.

[johnuio]

BUT... I think with only a LITTLE charity to Plato, what Platonism does is SUGGEST that - while notions of virtue and goodness are inevitable and therefore inherent in humanity - precisely these most basic things-that-make-us-who-we-are (i.e. the what-we-are) seems to vanish as we intend to grasp it. So if "philosophical" is a characteristic, as opposed to Sophistical, we see a hint of Platonic wisdom that is precisely an attitude, but still a very unique one.

[kkallebb]

His view of the freedom of the will seems very similar to that of Jonathan Edwards.

[lourak]

Listen carefully at 9:35 - "There is another point in favor of the physicalistic ATTITUDE. Quine basically admits (I believe unwittingly) that his entire philosophical posture derives, principally, from an ATTITUDE! Spin it any way you like, Quine devotees...

[GolumTR]

@lourak You mean exactly like he said explicitly in his paper "On What There Is"? Wow, real shocker there.

[johnuio]

@lourak --> All "honest" pro hard science / pro math philosophers admit this, that in pragmatic terms this attitude pays the best; and I don't think it bothers them at all that they are begging a question about philosophy. I think the serious question has to do with personalities and politics. Since Hegelianism, many "important" philosophical trends have come across to me more as "advocated" attitudes. Maybe this is good. Isn't that what philosophers have always done? BUT...

[Drastam]

@SuperWorldwide23 Well said.

[lourak]

5:04 - 5:18 reveals a remarkable instance of question begging from Quine on the issue of dualism. Stunning in revealing, ultimately, how brilliant minds are not immune from philosophical bias.

[favouritedress]

@lourak does it, though? isn't it just consistently applying what he's said a few minutes earlier about the necessity of taking seriously the presuppositions of the natural sciences, given their success (in quite a Kantian spirit, I suppose)?

[lourak]

@favouritedress I don't see how materialistic naturalism (with its atheistic implications) is a necessary "presupposition" of the scientific enterprise - I have never heard a viable explication as to how a theistic world view is an impediment to scientific inquiry.

[favouritedress]

@lourak well, in the passage you referred to, i don't think it's a question of the assumption that the universe is a closed physical system being necessary to science. rather, it's the case that science does in fact assume that the universe is explainable in terms of a closed physical system. and so, because of science's astonishing (and unique, presumably) successes, we ought to take that assumption seriously. so someone rejecting that assumption would have to provide some (near impossible) ->

[favouritedress]

@favouritedress reason for doing so. thus his brand of physicalism, even with its problems, is still attractive. and that's not the same as begging the question. all of that with the caveat above that i may quite wrong in this interpretation, of course.

[lourak]

@favouritedress Briefly now - I think that there is philosophical vagueness in your term "closed physical system". Simply examine some of the most recently proposed cosmological models to realize that, according to the simple meaning of this term, as you present it - this is an unduly restrictive burden (particularly for physicists) to shoulder.

[favouritedress]

@lourak Oh, I was just trying to paraphrase Quine in saying "closed physical syrm", not trying to introduce my own term. I'm not, to be clear, unsympathetic to what you're saying: just trying to clarify why I don't think that it's right to say Quine is begging the question in the passage you mention, whatever about your further arguments (which, as I said, I do think are interesting). Great to have this kind of video on youtube to talk about though, however restrictive the comment feature is.

[favouritedress]

@lourak and just to reply to the second half of what you're saying: i suppose - in a quite formal way - theism might be difficult to reconcile with scientific inquiry in the sense that it forbids, in advance of experience, the explanation of some things without recourse to a something necessarily beyond experience. but i expect that might depend on your views about our interaction with the theistic parts of the universe. so perhaps there is some interest in what you're saying there.

[lourak]

Part 1 - @favouritedress Here, I think you will find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which the mere assumption of a transcendental ultimate cause of the universe, will be an impediment to scientific inquiry.

[lourak]

Part 2 - @favouritedress Your point has some theoretical interest, but, upon reflection as to its practical implications for rigorous analysis, whether in the domain of philosophy, science, or the like, you will be hard pressed to maintain this view. It is my firm opinion, that the preponderance of a "naturalistic"  world view among scientists is a matter, principally, of sociological and psychological factors - (another discussion).

[Drastam]

@lourak well said.

[lourak]

It seems to me that Quine is fumbling on his explanation of how and why the success of the scientific enterprise allows one to infer the irrelevancy of mind as an entity independent of physical processes and the metaphysical implications.

[Drastam]

It is unfortunate that on foot of the undoubted successes of science that intelligent men such as Quine have felt obliged to reduce the totality of reality to the objective criteria of scientific materialism; and have managed to convince a lot of people that they are nothing more than machines.

Future humans will see this period in our intellectual history as equally bizarre as we presently see the medieval period.

[lourak]

@Drastam I concur with the tone, tenor and psychological "health" of your comment - Bravo!

[baronmorris]

@Drastam

bingo! nicely done.

unable to solve dualism, Quine and others retreated into objectivity. Wittgenstein and some others retreated into the subjective.

some people just aren't comfortable with dynamic tension, I guess. amateurs.

[xoxgodofgodsgodxx]

I see no such problem in such thinking.

So, then what do you propose we are other than complex machines?

[rbh104]

I find it interesting how Magee seems almost surprised by this rejection of dualism when nearly everyone I know today sees Quine's explanation on the whole as the most common sense option.

[Drastam]

@rbh104 hi. What I find interesting is that so many people today have accepted the intellectual arguments of those such as Quine and ignore their own first person subjective experience.

[MrPfund]

@Drastam Thank you for this comment. One of the most common sense things said so far either in the video or the comments.

[Drastam]

@MrPfund thank you. It is encouraging to know others are not fooled by this.

As SuperWorldwide23 above says, most people dont really examine this matter first hand; they just parrot the current cultural memes residing in their heads.

[EndureTemptation]

@rbh104

Apparently Magee is not included in your category of "nearly everyone". Also I must say you commit advanced form of tautology saying nearly everyone regard X as common sense option.

Additionally I would remark that for any given world view it's being part of common sense doesn't contribute to it's validity.

Generaly I myself think that Quine's solution to dualism isn't most elegant one, though he keeps it consistent.

[DrDeist]

@rbh104 : Is it common sense or is it merely an explanation that no one is effectively countering at the moment. A hundred years from now this 'common sense' may be regarded as lunacy.

[rbh104]

@DrDeist What else could common sense be?

[Paraconsistant]

@DrDeist It is neither common sense nor a currently unencountered explanation. To the former, I suspect since most people believe in a supernatural agency and souls, so I would say the 'common sense' view is mind-body substance dualism. To the latter, plenty of philosophers are currently countering physicalism, albeit unsuccessfully...

[Paraconsistant]

@DrDeist Nevertheless, physicalism of the sort Quine defends, though construable as a metaphysical position, is best seen as the end product of the best means by which we come to know the external: common empirical methods made rigorous in scientific methodology.

[Paraconsistant]

@DrDeist As such, if postulating immaterial minds (granting pro tem that such a concept is coherent) better explains our sensory stimulations and more accurately predicts patterns of future sensory stimulations, then just as well. However, it does not seem necessary to postulate such entities; the sciences appear to have no need of such hypotheses.

[LooksAeterna]

@rbh104 No Magee simply participates in the conspiratorial rhetoric of the corporate establishment to simply ignore and not even seriously discuss the idealist solution to the mind body problem and present the exorcism of dualism to make the otherwise obviously nonsensical materialist solution more plaubsible.

"nearly everyone I know today sees Quine's explanation on the whole as the most common sense option"

You are surrounded by pretty backward people then, no offense :))

[LooksAeterna]

(contd.) Note 8:23 - 8:31 !

He admits that his physicalism does not arise from a philosophical truth search and a rational elimination of idealism, but simply from laziness and problem avoidance: materialism avoids 1. having to solve the mind body problem and 2. to face the dangers of the soteriological complexities involved in idealist solutions. Also it allows you to rub shoulders with the success wave of science and you still get a considerable income at a university and as an author.

[TheSuigeneris1986]

@LooksAeterna I've read a lot of biological psychology and the consensus is essentially that there is no ground for the concept of dualism. I've read several of Quine's writings and I don't get the impression he was lazy. He analyzed many philosophical dilemmas and logically found little ground for many of their fundamental premises. I have not done as much reading in philosophical idealism, though.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna Problem avoidance is a central criterion of good explanation. The physicalist can simply pass over conceptual problems posed by (1) mind-body interaction and causation, and (2) deities, spirits, souls, minds, etc. Read Wittgenstein; he showed why idealism deserves to be ignored.

You accuse Quine of riding the "success wave of science" as if it's some fad, but ask yourself why empirical investigation of the physical world has been more "successful" than introspective psychology.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt "Problem avoidance is a central criterion of good explanation."

bwaha.

"You accuse Quine of riding the "success wave of science"" Don't put words in my mouth and please follow basic criteria for reasonable discussion. What I said is that whatever I accuse him of has this little boon as further motivation to do so.

"Read Wittgenstein; he showed why idealism deserves to be ignored." If that is truly what he did, then equally can materialism. And here's the rub: I have no objection..

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.) .. to physicalism as such (which is idealism-prone just as much as materialism-prone) as long as it is ontologically neutral. And please do not ignore my precise formulation a second time around by omitting my word "his". It is Quine who sometimes reveals - by a sort of momentary lapse of self-control - the pretty Newtonian and hence today laughable materialist underpinnings of his physicalism.

Seems Cass Sunstein's troops out to periodically unnerve me. Read correctly 1st.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna First, I am not an ardent supporter of Quine, but he has some good reasons for his physicalism. Read Word and Object, for instance. Second, Wittgenstein rejected questions like whether the world is "made up of" one or another substance as a pseudo-problem and a misuse of language.

I did not misinterpret you in any substantial way, but I welcome you to nitpick instead of addressing the real issues, since you clearly missed them. BTW, most of my ontological views are negative.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt You keep evading my point which you obviously don't get and then pontificate about trivil matters based on such false impositions.

We are not listening to Wittgenstein on this video but Quine who elsewhere (togehter with Dennett) is more honest in that his physicalism is actually not just that but a metaphysical materialism. If W is right then materialism can be dismissed just on the same grounds as idealism. Idealists can be physicalists too.

So please drop the red herrings.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna (cont'd) Naturalistic physicalism of the brand supported by most contemporary philosophers is largely a negative thesis, viz, the rejection of any mysterious miracle substance or property used to fill explanatory gaps. It is the function of mentalistic language to fill such gaps by being an explanatory dead end or, as Wittgenstein rightly noted, to indicate that we cannot expect to understand the explanandum in question. All unparsimonious mystery-mongering can be ignored.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt Oh and I overlooked this: "the rejection of any mysterious miracle substance or property used to fill explanatory gaps."

Naturally, we all agree to that, but the only mysterious mystery substance implicitly clung to by backward materialist establishment is the ever so unadmitted idea of [dead !] "matter" (= mater = "mother"). There is nothing mysterious or inherently substantial about "joy", "funny". But your contempt is justly directed at the church of the dead mother goddess.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna You've made some fine points, but Quine isn't committed to Newtonian physics any more than he is to Greek atomism, phlogiston theory, etc. AGAIN, the draw of materialism isn't some semantically dubious claim about what "kind of stuff" there is, what the universe is "made of," or anything else, but scientific methodology and naturalist epistemology.

That said, I personally think that Quine puts too much faith in science and that (good) philosophy is not just generalized science.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt "Quine isn't committed to Newtonian physics...draw of materialism isn't some semantically dubious claim about what "kind of stuff" there is, what the universe is "made of," or anything else, but scientific methodology"

Here I disagree. The common assumption among materialists is that the existence of ANY qualia is totally dependent on the complexity of brains. This reveals a religiously ontological assumption about matter - Newtonian or otherwise - namely the ontology of deadness.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna Dizziness aside, you have not even attempted an explanation of what "dead" of "live" matter is supposed to be; do not confuse a slogan with a position. Saying that matter is dead or alive strikes me as drawing a distinction that is ultimately useless to the monist, so my fear is that you misconstrue this purported assumption of materialists. If you say that the universe is fundamentally conscious, then you run the risk of putting consciousness beyond the possibility of explanation.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt "you have not even attempted an explanation of what "dead" of "live" matter is supposed to be"

That's a flat out lie. I had said: "The common assumption among materialists is that the existence of ANY qualia is totally dependent on the complexity of brains". And it doesn't need much "explanation" as it is trivial: it means "devoid of any qualia, no matter how primitive and proto-mental".

"a distinction that is ultimately useless to the monist"

Exactly, all closet idealists ! ;)

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna Panpsychism is only appealing if you believe that the mental cannot be explained, which at least the last 100 years of scientific and philosophical investigation suggest is mistaken. It is only ignorance and lack of imagination that case one to say that no conscious process could be the result of unconscious processes. Why think that there is anything mental or conscious about atoms, energy, etc? There is no good reason to believe in qualia, let alone qualia in primitive matter.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt You cannot even keep track of the discussion lines !

1. I am not here advocating pan-psychism, nor was any of my arguments dependent on such. I do not even believe there is any such things as transcendental atoms or what have you, independent of mind. So how would there be any need for "something mental about them" ??? All these things, like molecules, are abstractions and trivially only exist in someones simplifying mind. Physcial reality itsdelf obviously does not contain them.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.)

2. I had been reacting to your outrageously disingenious claim that "you have not even attempted an explanation of what "dead" of "live" matter is supposed to be". By reiterating that, all I did was to point out how in fact YOU and these materialists DO exactly what you wanted to ridicule, namely to promote this idiotic metaphysical ontology of deadness.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.)

3. Instead of finally admitting this, you contuinue to try to obfuscate the clear distinction between physicalism and materialism by 2. (above).

Please, finally: leave me alone ! Your obvious lack of capacity to think logically - as demonstrated by your red herrings and empty rhetoric - has destroyed reasonable dialogue. I also believe you keep on with this nonsense for exclusively provocative purposes.

Get some basics in cogent reasoning, perhaps Walton "Informal Logic"

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.)

and finally, even though off topic:

4. "if you believe that the mental cannot be explained, which at least the last 100 years of scientific and philosophical investigation suggest is mistaken"

What a lie ! Now certainly, I AM a scientist and a philosopher, and NOTHING in scienece OR philosophy "suggests" that the hard problem of mind could be solved on a materialist basis. If anything, it is rather plausibly led to absurdity.

I suggest you graduate from the 19th century.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna Your lack of education on the subject comes through in every comment, and you clearly are not familiar with the current literature because you constantly straw-man materialists with your nonsense talk about dead and live matter (and you still have not explained what this is supposed to mean). Your "hard problem of mind" is a non-problem, a linguistic muddle following from sloppy thinking; there are no explanatory problems associated with qualia.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt "Your lack of education on the subject comes through in every comment"

Funny, if that were so, you might have succeded in proving how it did so in a single instance. Yet your rhetoric has been empty all this time.

"nonsense talk about dead and live matter (and you still have not explained what this is supposed to mean)"

I have even repeated it. Dyslexia ? The assmuptions about the deadness of matter, BTW, are what distinguishes a materialist (religionist) from a mere physicalist.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.)

"straw-man materialists"

It is Dennet with whom Quine concurred (in another video) that behind his (admitted) physicalism is really a materialist stance (which is quite religiously nonsensical). Also, apprently you have already forgotten the line of discussion in which my mention of materialism occured. So there is no way it was a straw man argument.

"Your "hard problem of mind" is a non-problem"

Yes, but only for idealists - which is forbidden secret.

[TheRedHutt]

@LooksAeterna You believe that nothing exists mind-independently; this straightforwardly puts the"mind" (a flimsy folk concept) beyond possible explanation. Idealists say that nothing exists outside the mind, but the mistake is assuming that minds exist and are metaphysically distinct from non-minds. When you get past this folk assumption, a mind-based ontology is useless. All your talk of the mind is based on folk psychology, which has been shown to be incoherent by Kripke and Wittgenstein.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt "You believe that nothing exists mind-independently"

I said that about abstractions like "atoms" and so forth, I do not see how you catch "everything" in that. The idea of totality is BTW best with serious problems (see Grim's "The Incomplete Universe").

I am not using ANY metaphysical theory of the mind, nor do I even claim that "a mind" exists. So your whole rhetoric is empty. But any reasonable person admits that abstractions exist only in (whatever) the mind (is).

[LooksAeterna]

@TheRedHutt (contd.) "the draw of materialism is...scientific methodology and naturalist epistemology."

Another reason this is cannot be true is - I get dizzy from reiterating - that one can in principle concur fully with this approach and still be an idealist. Hence these are unfit to characterize materialism. Materialism proper requires ontological assumptions about the basic nature stuff, namely as dead.

[TheDavid2222]

@LooksAeterna what do you mean by "soteriological complexities"? I quickly looked up the term "soteriology" and found it to mean the study of the religious doctrines of salvation. I don't understand what you mean here. Please explain how "soteriological complexities" fit into this discussion.

[LooksAeterna]

@TheDavid2222 The soteriological complexities of idealism are obviously avoided through the belief in materialism since the naive hope of the materialist religion is that salvation - that is the absolute cessation of all problems - is the automatic outcome of death: non-existence, regardless of how you lived. The simplicity and ease with which materialists hope to end all problems is, IMO, the main reason they favor this otherwise nonsensical belief.

[rbh104]

@LooksAeterna i don't know what the corporate establishment is, what it believes or what Magee has to do with it.

Neither I nor my acquaintances are professors in mental philosophy but it seems to me that it's better to try and work towards explaining what we don't yet understand with what we know and can see than bring in as yet unexperienced ontological constructs/hermaphrodites to fill in the gaps or compensate for the misleading nature of language. If there's something I'm missing, tell me.

[LooksAeterna]

@rbh104 "i don't know what the corporate establishment is"

Even today you don't know THAT ? Sorry, then all further discussion would be pointless since you are lacking a mind worth addressing. Just like this:

"or what Magee has to do with it"

So you don't think such a production has production costs or that Magee is free to invite anyone he likes ? Ever consider why this channel contains half a dozen series around Quine alone, more than anyone else ?

[LooksAeterna]

Start here:

c. photoshelter. com/ img-get/ I0000tk. sji3DbGc/ s

thebiggestsecretpict. online. fr/ nwo/ FreemasonsHall_London. jpg

There is a reason that materialism has been pushed in the media for decades, and spiritual views only in ridiculous, ridiculed or dualistic forms.

"it seems to me that it's better to try and work towards explaining what we don't yet understand"

Understanding is a mental value, and you are not paying me for alleviating bio-chemical imbalances that cause "seeming".

[LooksAeterna]

@craigpsimpson There is none - in that point idealists are in agreement with materialists. It appears you haven't properly read the comment you were responding to.

[craigpsimpson]

@LooksAeterna No i did not.

[chrish12345]

LOL listen to 6.03, he seems to say 'the willy is free' hehe

[bmikesci]

Q seems to say:: Every phenomenon can be explained by something real. There are people who believe in things or powers that do not exist.

-----

Certainly, I would agree with that position, but isn't it rather trite? If there are forces that we don't know about and cannot yet or ever measure, how can we deny them?

[bmikesci]

I love this guy's free will tautology.  Free will is obvious because people do what they will? Is he joking?

BTW, what about fields? They exist, but they are not bodies. Does Quine deny the magnetic field? How would that differ from a mental field?

[ezsparky]

There is no such thing as a mental field.

[bmikesci]

I guess the folks doing functional MRI's are going to be disappointed to hear that.

[ezsparky]

An MRI does not work by picking up a mental field. It works by causing the spin of the H atoms to line up to a magnetic field where by manipulation of the spin energy state by a radio frequency is jump up to a higher state and then allowed to return causing the atom to giving off a radio frequency that then is picked up and converted to an image. The point being that an MRI does not work by picking up a mental field.

[bmikesci]

As scientists and philosophers, we should realize that we do know what we know, and we do not know what we do not know; so, there may be many energies that we cannot detect at this time, especially at smaller and larger length scales. Moreover, we may find that a particular mix of frequencies may comprise mental energy much in the same way as the fm band is comprised of a particular band of electromagnetic radiation.

[bmikesci]

In any case, Quine is a philosopher. Separating what we know & do not know is a part of his bailiwick. I'm sorry about the sarcasm, but you are very funny, and you don't seem to try to understand my points. Even your explanation of how an MRI works is ironic in that you describe a quantum effect to illustrate a procedure used in functional neurology - even after stating that all the phenomena of neurology can be explained by ion channels.

[ezsparky]

1) I did not mean to imply that quantum effects are not there but rather that at the scale at which the neuron function, these quantum effects do not affect the neurons information processing. i.e. If the neuron requires 500 atoms to activate neural firing and there are 2000 atoms released to trigger a neural firing, then the numbers released will overwhelm any small quantum effects that might be imparted onto the these 2000 atoms.

[ezsparky]

2) A quantum effect would have to act on 1501 in such a way that would prevent them from achieving intended job; which is statistically, a very unlikely event.

[ezsparky]

3) Now if in the future it can be shown that somewhere in the neural system, there is a process that involves just a single or at least just a very few number of atoms being released or manipulated, there may be a good reason to believe that there can be an influence from quantum effects on a neurons information processing process that has an effect on the outcome of the output.

[ezsparky]

4) It does not follow that if an FMRI or MRI makes use of the quantum effect of atoms that a brains information processing will directly affected by quantum effects from the atoms that make up the brain. Why? It is the scale of the systems function components that will determine when and if any quantum effects will be introduced into the systems output. You see this same thing in computer processor chips.

[ezsparky]

5) When the width of a CPUs wires shrink to below a few atoms wide, the effects of quantum mechanics starts to impart random effects into the electrical signal of that wire causing the voltages to become unstable. There is this same scale component in the brain.

[bmikesci]

Yes, those effects occur at that scale, but there are other scales. You sound like a guy who has never been out of his neighborhood. Different scales are like other countries. You've got to learn the language.

[bmikesci]

My point is that we, a part of nature, employ quantum methods. Therefore nature employs quantum methods. Do you wish to state that neurology is completely understood? Do you believe that new discoveries into the workings of our nervous system will never again occur? The smallest single cell is as large as the earth compared to the electron, much less a sea of quarks or biological pathways at the small scales near planck length.

[bmikesci]

What about effects at the sub atomic level? Mightn't we discover important neurological systems or subsystems at that scale? Have you ruled that out entirely? I'd like to see some good quantitative science if you want to take that position.

[bmikesci]

We are very much off the point here however. That is, until we can exhaustively understand every cause relating to mind, Quine is jumping to a conclusion in denying duality. Ultimately, he may be proven right, but I doubt it. That is to say, I don't think that we will ever possess that level of justified certainty. Quine states he is certain in his own mind, but is he justified? How can he be when his reason is a blatant tautology which he would not let a freshman student get by him.

[ezsparky]

6) I think why we been butting head as it were... lol is because we are coming at the problem from opposite directions. This is to say that you, as the philosopher study what could be where I, coming from a purely science angle, focused on those things that we have evidence for so far. This perspective is drilled into us. I should have made a better attempt at stating this. Of course new things can be discovered that very well could force us, scientist, to change our models of the mind.

[ezsparky]

Your approach, the philosophical approach, is vital to us, to our work, for you provide guidance in those areas beyond what we are currently able to know through scientific research. Your work and our work should, at least we hope, work towards each other as we both try to work out an understanding of the mind. I hope that was not too corny... lol Cheers!

[ezsparky]

I for got to address this par.

I think that you are correct in you point about Quine making a mistake in not leaving the door open to the possibility of duality. I agree that it is possible that new research could change things drastically. Is it your view that trying to prove the falsehood of duality to be akin to trying to prove the nonexistence of God, to prove a negative?

[bmikesci]

Exactly! We just don't know and probably never will. Both the theists & atheists make the same mistakes. The scientific view is the best we have for making predictions, but it cannot address that which falls beyond its purview or even technical limitations. It is easy to make fun of theists, but that cannot address the possibility of real mystical experiences. It the end, theists and atheists have a feeling about what is right, & then they back that feeling up with flawed logic.

[bmikesci]

At least the theist recognizes, sometimes, that he is dealing with a vision or divine inspiration. The theists believes that he is operating from a rigorous scientific basis. He's not. So on the one hand, the atheist has the advantage of being better at predicting outcomes. On the other hand, the theist has the advantage of knowing that the world cannot be explained completely and probably never will be explained completely by logic and scientific method.

[CathySander]

There is still a lot we can't explain with science, but that does not mean that we will never find out via science. We should not jump to conclusions about what science will discover.

[bmikesci]

If knowledge falls into three categories: known by man, unknown by man, and unknowable by man, in your opinion, which of these categories is likely to be the largest?

[bmikesci]

Nor should we jump to the conclusion that science can solve every problem and answer every question. If I were to create something like the Drake equation to get a feeling for how likely it is that the largest set of knowledge is the unknowable, would that be science? What about Gödel's work? Is that science? Doesn't that prove the existence of the set of the unknowable? Isn't that already a basic tenant of modern epistemology?

[CathySander]

Mystical experiences are aplenty in human history, but they haven't been demonstrated to show more about the world reliably than science. If these experiences gives us this, then we will greatly accept it as a mode of understanding the world. But for now, we should wait and see.

[bmikesci]

If by mystical, you mean a mystery, then I agree. If you mean magical, then I say, "Who knows?" That's the problem. What cannot be proven by science is subjective. If I have an experience of connecting with god, how can I tell if that is a real experience or perhaps a delusion? This is a limitation of science. We cannot get outside the "system;" so we cannot know what exists beyond. Quine seems to say that anything unscientific is primitive and a waste of energy, but that is not a proof.

[manwaring]

"Quine is jumping to a conclusion in denying duality."

Sorry if this seems like an ad hominem... but you have been following philosophy for the last few hundred years right?

[bmikesci]

No, I'm not that old! On the other hand, I do believe in eternal recurrence; so...

[bmikesci]

I realize that the MRI is external, but do you really believe that nature cannot do in biology what we can do? Of course my question answers itself.

[bmikesci]

It's fascinating to me that Quine can speak on issues that science has not even begun to address while calling others primitive for their leaps of reasoning. We have no way of knowing what happens at length scales approaching planck length. There, mind or spirit may operate exclusively. Science has taught clearly that physical properties are often local to scale.

[ezsparky]

If you study neuro physology you will find that all of the brain functions operate at the chemical level where much of the activity involves large numbers of ions set up in a gradient that at the point of firing pass through a semi permeable membrane followed by a the reseting up of the gradient via ion pumps. The point being, none of the functions of the brain are effected by any quantum mechanical effects. This has been well established.

[ezsparky]

The description above is not an exhaustive description of the functioning of the brain but rather an example of the size level in which the brain functions. Any quantum mechanical effects that might be injected into the system simply would not be large enough to effect any outcome of any chemical reactions do to the large levels of atoms in the system. It would be like a car going down a road and running over a very small rock, that rock will not change the cars overall path down the road.

[bmikesci]

I'm glad to hear that science can stop studying quantum effects now that you've discovered the electromotive force. Good job Sparky!

[ezsparky]

WTF? Your statement says nothing. If you have a point then make it. Sarcastic remarks are not very helpful. Well at least that one did not do anything useful for you. It was useful to me for it showed me that you think and post emotionally. A very useless characteristic.

[bmikesci]

First of all, I said a functional MRI, which does work more or less as you describe. It has the added characteristic, however, of being specific to an area like the nervous system. As a student you should try to think of the ways particular language may be being used and not simply dismiss it. Since you are engaged in a conversation, it is appropriate to request clarification.

[zee757]

quines annoyin me with his " uhh, urms "lool

could someone explain his views on competing conceptual schemes?

thanks :D

[jhip87]

Perhaps you already know this, but helpful pieces to look at are ``Speaking of Objects,'' ``Two Dogmas,'' ``The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics,'' ``Identity, Ostention, and Hypostasis,'' and ``On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma.'' It's probably also helpful to contrast his view with Davidson's, as laid out in ``On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'' and ``The Myth of the Subjective.''

[zee757]

heyyy thanks for that-

I needed to know Quines views for a Philosophy exam, but luckily a question of Conceptual Schemes did not come up :D

thanks again anyway

[franzpolak]

i think he addresses the main problems of ontological statements in the article "On What There Is".

He also addresses conceptual schemes.

[LiberalVichy]

The identification of conscious with its physical constituents is what I agree most with in Quine. Aristotle had a similar view - there was no difference between material/empirical reality and logical necessity. Something only has real logical properties if it has real physical properties, and a thing can only 'exist' if it has certain logical properties. This is why, while being remarkably materialistic, Aristotilians have avoided the cognitive-dissonance of anti-metaphysicalism.

[Tractatus88]

Why do scientist and philosophers go to such extents to perserve the idea of the universe as a completly closed system? I guess I can understand scientist postulating this so they can represent the system, but why philosophers?

[McTheaven]

Those experiments would certainly kill the experimentee, and I think there's almost no way such a test can be conducted.

Put a person into a completely closed box, and check the constance of the mass as accurate as possible, until he dies. Or dismantle his particles and transmit them to other place, reassemble them into the original person, and check if he is alive and awake.

Until this kind of experiments are successfully conducted, don' t say about the closure of physical system.

[ebursch1]

wut bout plato or nieche?/

[johnmorgan27]

Well, he clearly hasn't seen Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back, has he?

[ejgiv]

Quine can't hold a candle to any of the great German philosophers. This interview is case in point.

[bevay]

He certainly burned a few Austrians.

[bevay]

He certainly burned a few Austrians.

[Jordenhauer]

Im also a bumbler myself. so I guess, logically speaking I annoy myself. I think maybe Im just manifesting some of the same qualities others do when they become annoyed with pausing and saying "ummm, and stuttering. It can damage a presentation because some people will not see past it, even when the content may be valid and poingnent.

[PhysicsDorian]

Just speculation, but in these videos it seems to me that he is awkward around the camera. It looks unnatural what he does with his hands and he doesn't know where to look or what to look at. Might be he's nervous. Poor guy.

[Jordenhauer]

He's say "UHHHHHH,, or UMM AHHH" about 1000 times in this short program

[Jordenhauer]

I find it really annoying how Quine says "uhhh, uhh, umm, uhhhh" every other sentence. I knw he's a great thinker but I am finding it difficult to not think of him as a bumbler...

[Yatukih]

theinternetscholar,

No , people are free to do what they want but the Quinean view on free will seems to be that questions on when free will is applied or whether an action I am taking right now is based on free will are essentially meaningless, or so I think

y

[theinternetscholar]

So. . . you are free, within reason, to do what you will, but, that will in itself is not free

[GodlessPhilosopher]

He's just defending a standard compatibilism. That part about the will being free but not free to will was just a rather convoluted, poetic way of stating it.

[Krelianx]

1) I am not very familiar with his views. But it appears to me he claimed free will could

a) be accounted for from strict physicalism, without appeal to the mental.

b) Do so in a way that does allows for it to be distinguished qualitatively to other processes in physics and neurology without compromising the opinon that we hace the capacity to choose what to do. It will 'keep 'its status' as the capacity 'to do what one wills to do', within a causal framework.

...

[Krelianx]

2) But if the will be merely substituted for the appropriate set of neurophysiological conditions under which we experience the 'act of choosing freely' this is not the crucial question for freedom of choice: but to know whether what we experience as an act of free choice is ultimately any different than attributing to God the origination of the Big Bang; that is to say, from 'freedom' qua non-determinism, and a merely metaphysical naivete we can safely dispense with now as mystical vocabulary.

[Krelianx]

3) If all that remains of freedom in the physicalist account is a strict framework of causal connections and a description of neurophysiological conditions, then such a notion of agency would be apparently reducible to being the product of a set of conditions in that domain; whilst being qualitatively distinguishable in those terms as corresponding to our experience of agency. But isn't this ultimately a reductionist dream camouflaged? Why physics and not sociology, or generative grammar?

[Krelianx]

3)... if our linguistic varience accounts for different neurophysiological conditions, why assume that a philosophical account of freedom and agency depends on physics rather than culture, or any other scientific domain? It is not clear to me what ontological privilege physicalism guarantees for the 'problem of freedom' that other scientific discourse don't, unless further tacit assumptions are in place, which I am very curious about.

[Krelianx]

4)... Finally, it is completely obscure how physicalism presents this advantage of intersubjectivity when we have yet to define how subjectivity and selfhood are possible from a physicalist perspective. If what constitutes selfhood is precisely something like freedom, then this assumes the physical 'link to will' be sufficiently maintained. But this is what physicalism is meant to prove if it means to preserve freedom, not its intuitive advantage. This is very confusing to me.

[AreYouKiddinMelol]

If Quine was a hero in World of Warcraft he would be a Blademaster Demon Hunter!

Woot! Quine pwns all philosophers!

[GodlessPhilosopher]

ROFL

[SavingPrivateBilly]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[1f3rn]

Hume wins but because of Quine.

[McTaggStar]

@AreYouKiddinMelol: Not quite, his rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy isn't accepted by most contemporary philosophers. He was a brilliant logician in any case, though.

[foxermcbride]

Damn skippy.  Thanks for getting Quine on Youtube, I haven't seen videos of Quine since college.

[LennyBound]

Quine is a rock star. End. of. story.

[flame0430]

Ha, he's got that great front man personality doesn't he?

[queenkyoko]

LOLOLOLOLOL

[randyhelzerman]

Intersubjectivity FTW!!!