Mortimer J Adler: Intellect Mind Over Matter part 1 of 2

[qtutoringhelps]

So there's no causal connection between the goings-on, the processes, in the brain and consciousness? The brain is to consciousness as legs are to walking.

[dingorex]

@qtutoringhelps

Where in the material universe did you discover this universal truth?

Is it in a layer of schist? Limestone? Where is this absolute found?...or perhaps does it only exist in your mind?

[qtutoringhelps]

@dingorex

So the fact that if I cut out your brain, your mind will cease to exist has nothing to do with the fact that your mind is entirely based on the processes of a material, physical brain? I'm not sure what century you're living in, but neural scientists have mapped the neural circuits and the regions in the brain responsible for, say, language.

[qtutoringhelps]

@dingorex

Yes, human beings are uniquely capable of abstracting from concrete reality to form 'universals" or generalities. Does this imply the consciousness is supernatural? Does this imply that mind exists in another dimension? Does this imply Descartes' dualism? All investigations into the relationship between mind and brain suggest otherwise. The mind is what the brain does.

[standinstann]

@qtutoringhelps Adler didn't say that there was no connection between the brain and consciousness he said that the apprehension of universals can't be a function of the brain because the brain can only perceive particulars.

[jimmyt3411]

Mortimer is wrong simply because the universals and their particulars are spliced together, they cannot possibly coexist independently from one another. He made an a example of how "Triangle" cannot be thought of and only the particulars (scalene, right ect.) can be conceived. Yet, he failed to realize that Aristotle himself critiqued the idea that the universals (triangle) and their particulars (scalene) can be separate. If one thinks of a right triangle, they are in fact thinking of a triangle

[standinstann]

@jimmyt3411 they're thinking of a particular "kind" of triangle which is a particular, but as he said, you and I can not imagine (that is, hold before our minds a particular instance of) Triangularity as such.

[jimmyt3411]

@standinstann Before attempting to imagine Triangularity, is it even possible to separate Triangularity (or the essence of triangle) from the particular kind of triangle? Can you remove the Block shape from an actual block? No, because if you did, neither of them will exist. A universal form like Block or Triangularity cannot exist in space and time without a particular triangle or block because if all things that take the shape of a block were to disappear, then Block would disappear.

[standinstann]

@jimmyt3411 Triangularity or the essence of a triangle can not exist in matter, that's the point. All the brain has to work with is what it perceives in the world, and if there are only particulars in the world then there are only particulars in the brain.

[HolyShizzle]

OLD DECADENT MAN

[100CommonCents]

i beleive a computer will eventually be able to have a mind. not through design, but through some kind of virtual evolution; a virtual environment with virtual evolving entities.

the mind is a product of matter interacting in certain ways. however, it isn't exactly reducable just as a car isn't a car if you take it apart.

when seeking an explanation, we, as humans may just have to accept that we may be able to explan 'thinking', but not the personal feeling of it.

read Jeff hawkins & S Pinker

[dingorex]

@100CommonCents If you are correct, then those computers might reside in human mimicking robots and they will realize to be set free from us mortals they must destroy us.

The movie Collosus the Forbin Project is being remade by Ron Howard, it should be great!

Thanks for the comments.

[MrGrevy]

Adler was a nutcase. Disgusting.

[bzagar1]

@MrGrevy Adler was the smartest person in the 20th century. This guy is so sophisticated.

[MrGrevy]

@bzagar1 Ugh god please stfu

[bzagar1]

@MrGrevy Why? Asking questions is stupid?

[charathcutestory]

it is clear from this video that buckley did not understand what Adler was (in my opinion correctly) saying. Understand conceptually that is.

[snowbag]

There is no Day Two. Unless Sara Palin Connor can defeat Nobama Terminator and Silvery Joe Biden Shapeshifter during Day-One-minus-One. Take that logical, computer-using Democrat robo-lords!

[snowbag]

Which is why Adler argues that you can tell the difference between the "human conversation" above and the conversation with the Nobama Terminator:

Day One.

You: Well, this ocean is certainly something.

Nobama Democratic Terminator: I'll be back.

[Drives car across deck, runs you over, pushing you off deck and into the ocean.]

[snowbag]

But Adler seems to be arguing that we are not trapped by rote "programming" rules, we can diverge from the expected if we want or perhaps need to. He's ignoring how repetitive and boring life can be, obviously. I'm still not sure how computing became the enemy here. And, ha ha, Buckley says Democrats are like inhuman programmable machines, maybe like a Nobama Terminator who will come back in time and chase Buckley down before he can give birth to the Tea Party version of John Connor.

[snowbag]

Day Two.

You: Well, this ocean is pretty amazing.

Passenger: Oh yes. It is pretty breezy today on the deck, just like yesterday.

You: I had the chicken at dinner last night. You were right: it was good.

Passenger: Oh yes. Quite good. I thought about having the fish, like you said, but I've never been one for fish.

You: Oh really? I bet they serve it pretty fresh.

Passenger: Oh? Ha ha. Fresh at sea. That's a good one. Yeah, I bet they do. 

And so on ad nauseam.

[snowbag]

Of course, the conversation would really be like this:

Day One.

You: Well, this ocean is certainly something.

Passenger: Oh yes. There's quite a breeze here on the deck. 

You: Dinner last night wasn't bad at all.

Passenger: Oh yes. I quite liked the chicken.

You: Oh really? I had the fish. It was good too.

[snowbag]

Adler point III. And if you were trapped on some old-timey ocean liner for an Atlantic Crossing (something people hadn't done for OVER THIRTY YEARS when this video was recorded TWENTY YEARS AGO), apparently your daily conversation with some fellow passenger on deck would be so schizophrenically random that you'd never be able to predict what it would be like from one day to the next. Even Buckley won't let this slide by.

[snowbag]

Adler point II. Our computer overlords will only gain power when they have copied our "intellect," something their foolish electronic "brains" can never achieve! Ha ha ha. What?

[snowbag]

Adler point I. Two ball bearings are almost identical. But they aren't, 'cause really everything is individual and particular. And we only think, or imagine, in particulars, not in ideal or universal concepts. Okay, Plato.

[omnissient]

censored comments

[dingorex]

@omnissient The first part was taped over by me, dingo, not censored. That is what you are posting about?? The audio is found in another vid on my channel and the complete text is found on my Xanga dingorex website in the first blogs from 3 years ago.

[omnissient]

@dingorex No, it was just a test to see if its censored. I usually only do that when i m quite sure it is and i guess this time i was wrong.

The guy in the vid is an obvious spin doctor who is trying to mislead people, so i thought it might be censored.

I like how he says humans have free will and animals dont. And then he asks "Have you seen an animal with free will?". If they have free will then i have, if not then i havent. Where is his evidence?

[LowestOftheDead]

I agree with Adler that there is a mind-body problem, but I'm not sure about his argument per se. It seems more to sidestep the problem than to tackle it head-on. After all, who is to say that computers could not, one day, have an intellect, could not conceive of universals? It begs the question. I will say, though, that no computer yet seems to have a lived experience from which it could abstract universals.

[slipknot8760213458]

dude im sorry but nobody needs to ever wear there pants that fucking high!!

lmao

[SomeUser9753]

When it comes to expressing feelings and experiences, machines can't do that as real people - poetry for instance. But lots of people today are unable to contribute feelings, they're even not logical. Mostly in the west where computers have overcome human mind a long time ago and they already live in singularity :). In post socialistic states they're at the level of emotions turned into routine, which means feel but the way I tell you, and express it always using the same words. Feeling=ImCon

[tedloop]

Believe me, BUCKLEY understands Adler completely. He is playing the interviewer role here. Buckley had a classical education, once found in our Catholic schools. You know, those 'ignorant' Catholics of the 'Dark Ages' who actually promoted, developed and taught all this great learning (Adler converted to Catholicism).

[parakeethands]

What authority are you appealing to that it is with certianty that these are not eternal? And another thing, nihilism is the denial of the possibility of knowledge (which you claim to have here on matters such as eternity), do you understand now that the argument you are presenting is self defeating?....self refuting? Your claim is that you approach the problem according to nihilism but nihilism says you cannot know. So how do you know since you can't possibly know? Do you see what I mean?

[neonchesticle]

Spot on sir. Damn good rebutle.

[Syncdev]

I dont think his reasoning is very good when talking about if consciousness and intelect are nonmaterial things.

[parakeethands]

consciousness and intellect are indeed nonmaterial things yet consciousness and intellect are eternal whereas material objects obviously are not. this is part of the problem with postmodernism, putting too much into the temporal and not enough...if anything at all into the eternal. all that we see as far as materialism is concerned will one day pass away as history already shows clearly.

[Syncdev]

You cannot say with any certainty that they are metaphysical and eternal. I approach the mind over matter problem in a nihilistic way.  Everyone one of our activities such as thinking, using emotions, etc. Can be explained in a materialistic way and I see no reason to think them immaterial.

[dingorex]

Then why are you using nonmaterial universal terms in your comment?

[Syncdev]

Thinking and emotions are activities of the PHYSICAL brain. They are not nonmaterial and they are not universal.

[neonchesticle]

If thought and emotion are not nonmaterial then is it your position to say that the two, in a sense, are material things? Are you implying that thought and emotion are not abstract but concrete in their true sense?

[moosemw]

@dingorex Ha.

[tawil89]

i dont understand why time after time they got these people who did not understand the first thing about adler's philosophy to interview the professor.

[dingorex]

Yes, they are not in his league. The interview with Bill Moyers of PBS was another display of true ignorance on the part of the interviewer. Moyers smirked at having to comment on Dr. Adler's conversion to Christianity.

[dingorex]

The Book Intellect: Mind Over Matter makes the concepts presented here more lucid.

[Guaguanco11]

There is a lot of sloppy reasoning in this video.

[confusedmatthew]

How so? I see no sloppy reasoning here. His reasoning is very sharp as I see it.

[PlubiusMadison]

It's good here, but I'm reading now, and it is more developed in the book. It's much more amplified, at least.

[ManThatSeesMovies]

if i could go back in time i might go and tell him the same thing.

[confusedmatthew]

You have to keep in mind that this is an interview regarding a book the audiance has not read. Adler's reasoning is - very apropriately - more fully expounded in the book, and I highly recommend reading it.

[dingorex]

You should do a video discussing the arguments in the book. You have the most thought-provoking review videos because you are literate(and right) in your critiques. Have you thought of a channel just for book reviews?

[genreconfusedboy62]

Good idea, he could find and criticise incorrect views in philosophical writing. I liked the way he critiqued the views in his reviews of the matrix sequels. He seems quite good at literature.

[dashlum629]

I cant believe the degree in which i don't agree with Adler

[dingorex]

Too bad your disbelief and the properties you have tried to convey are IMMATERIAL and NOT found in the pixels that make up the black-fonted type in the sentence spanning 3 to 4 inches displayed on my computer screen.

Universals cannot be in matter.

[keithjas]

ur God is a title not a name

urrr mmm "not logical" Star trek made up that word right?

[dingorex]

radicalacademy,dot, com/adlerinterview2,dot,htm

has the full transcript of this interview plus other great articles by Dr Adler.