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

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/adler_mortimer.html
Mike Wallace interviews Dr Adler in 1958

http://audio.xanga.com/dingorex/fe1992585566/audio.html

:a discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics


Transcript of Intellect Mind Over Matter:
see comment field.
The June 1990 video of the last half ( some idiot I know taped over the first 14 minutes) of the Firing Line discussion of Mortimer J Adler's Intellect Mind Over Matter
Dualism Defended:
First, if theism is true, then physicalism as a worldview is false. God is not a physical being. Second, a number of people have argued that numbers exist and that they are abstract, nonphysical entities (e.g., sets, substances, or properties). Firstly, mathematics claims to give us knowledge. But if this is so, there must be something that mathematics is about. Just as the biologist discovers biological truths about biological objects (organisms), so the mathematician often discovers mathematical truths (he does not invent them all the time) and these truths are about mathematical objects. If one denies the existence of numbers, then it is hard to rescue mathematics as a field which conveys knowledge about something. Without numbers, mathematics becomes merely an internally consistent game which is invented. Without numbers mathematical and scientific knowledge is hard to maintain. But if numbers exist, physicalism as a worldview is false because numbers are not physical entities.

If physicalism is true, it is hard to see what one should make of the existence and nature of theories, meanings, concepts, propositions, the laws of logic, and truth itself. It would seem that theories themselves exist and can be discovered. The laws of logic seem to be real laws that govern the relationships between propositions. Propositions seem to exist and be the content of thoughts which become associated with the physical scratchings of a given langualge called sentences. Sentences may be made of black ink, be on a page, and be four inches long. But it is hard to see how the content of the sentence (i.e. the proposition or thought expressed by the sentence ) could be on the page. Such entities seem to be nonphysical entities which can be in the mind. Truth appears to be a relation of correspondence between a thought and the world. if a thought really describes the world accurately, it is true. It stands to the world in a relation of correspondence. But whatever else one wants to say about the relation of correspondence, it does not seem to be a physical relation like cause and effect.

Universals seem to exist and they are not material. A universal is an entity that can be in more than one place at the same time. Some universals are properties (redness, hardness, triangularity); others are relations (larger than, to the left of). Whatever else one may use to characterize the nature of matter, it is clear that a clump of matter is a particular. A piece of matter cannot be in more than one place at the same time. Physicalists deny the existence of universals at the level of general worldview, because universals are not physical entities.
For example, just because one cannot see the soul, weigh it , or say where it is, it does not follow that the soul does not exist. One cannot see, weigh, or locate numbers or values, but they still exist.

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[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?

[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.

[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.

[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).

[confusedmatthew]

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

[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.

[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 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[HolyShizzle]

OLD DECADENT MAN