Victoribus Spolia wrote:You have not demonstrated a logical necessity in the relationship.
Cause is a physical relationship, not a logical one. Boom. Your "argument" is instantly demolished. You'll find that happening a lot, as long as you presume to dispute with me. Watch:
The fact that responses observed in an eyeball occur at the same time as the occurrence of certain wavelengths of light and at the same time as occurrence of certain synapses firing in the brain, occurring at the same time as someone claiming to have experienced the sensation of "redness" are ALL by definition just correlations.
Nope. Wrong again. That's just Hume's refusal to know that there is such a thing as cause. The causal relation is established by delineating the physical mechanism: the distinct chemical changes in retinal receptors in response to different visible wavelengths. So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
If they are observed to happen at the same time every time for a million years they would only ever be just correlations BY DEFINITION.
But it's not just that they are observed at the same time. A PHYSICAL MECHANISM explains WHY they are observed at the same time. That explanatory physical mechanism is what we MEAN by "cause."
So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
Except none has, how have you shown anything more than things occurring, as observed, either at the same time as one another (correlation) or in sequence?
See above.
Physical mechanism. So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
Show me and I shall willingly concede the point.
OK, I've shown you. Prediction: you will not concede the point.
This is not an argument
True: but it's an appropriate dismissal of
your non-argument.
and I am neither Humean, nor do I deny the reality of causation.
Sure you do. See above.
I believe in both causation and in consciousness,
Of some supernatural sort, perhaps....?
but you also assume here that man cannot make inductive inferences unless he assumes observable physical causation.
Nope. I have neither said nor implied any such thing. You -- unsurprisingly -- merely have the logic backwards again. The inductive inference is what stimulates the search for the physical mechanism.
This is false, to make inductive inferences one only has to observe a "pattern"
Correct. But that's not the end of the story. To discern cause we must
understand what
causes the pattern: the mechanism.
I do not deny patterns (which are the same as correlations but repeated in sequence sufficiently over time for one to confidently describe such with a "law"), but to say those patterns are causal in nature is false and can lead to other false conclusions.
Which might be why I did not say observed pattern is equivalent to cause.
Either way, to dismiss such because people allegedly act inconsistently with their principles is a fallacy" Tu Qoque (appeal to hypocrisy).....your really batting a thousand lately aren't you?
ROTFL! Wrong
again. The tu quoque fallacy (and please note the correct spelling) is only a fallacy when directed to the other disputant's OWN behavior, not human behavior generally. My argument was that NO ONE over the age of three acts as if they do not know what cause is, including those who explicitly profess not to. So it is not a matter of invoking just one individual's hypocrisy, but the invariable PATTERN of behavior that demonstrates universal understanding of causation. So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
Sensations are mental content and cannot be reduced to physical properties.
Wrong
again. Mental content IS physical, as modern neurological investigations have established. You're just sticking to your cargo-cult view of consciousness because it accords with your Bible school metaphysics -- though it goes back at least to Plato.
Something cannot give what itself does not have;
Wrong
again, as Typhoid Mary proved.
Consider a computer making a move in a chess game. It doesn't know anything about chess pieces, the contest of intellects, why the rules are the way they are, etc. Its move is just our
interpretation of an output character string. But the character string is itself just an
interpretation of 1s and 0s in a certain memory register, and in fact even those 1s and 0s are an
interpretation of electrical states in physical logic circuits, the end result of myriad previous electrical states in myriad logic circuits. The computer gives a response to its opponent's move, but it has no such thing in its physical circuitry. The move is an
interpretation, just as our sensations are
interpretations of physical processes in our nerves and brains.
therefore, if only a mind can have mental content,
Tautology. Not informative.
than whatever mental content I have must have come from some other Mind.
No, your mental content is your brain's
interpretation of the neurochemical events your own mind
consists of. So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
Function presupposes activity, sensations are not an act of the will or body,
They are definitely an act of the body, as anaesthesia proves. So another of your "arguments" is demolished.
but are passively received.
Nope. A rock passively receives light, but has no accompanying sensation.
That without such one could not "survive" is irrelevant to whether or not sensations are an active process (function) or a passive reality.
Wrong
again. If they were a passive reality, we wouldn't need active, FUNCTIONING sense organs to receive them.
A constituent in the way that term was just used is by definition irreducible.
No, that's just you trying to impose a redefinition of "constituent" ex post facto.
I can demonstrate its irreducibility if you want to go down that road.
No you can't. Watch:
Likewise, "physics" and the "laws of physics" are based on observation and inferences based on observation, but the content of observation "objects" (percepts) and their relations are themselves reductive to sensation.
No, physics and its laws are not
based on observation and inference, they are
discovered by observation and inference, and thus pre-exist independently of them.
If you had no ability to sense, you would have no knowledge of physics.
Wrong
again. Sensation can be eliminated by medical intervention, leaving knowledge intact.
Physics is dependent on sensation.
No. Only its investigation and discovery by human beings is.
Thus, physics is reducible to sensation and not the other way around. Prove me wrong.
Done. See above. But really, is that the quality of "argument" they taught you in graduate Bible school?? Never mind, it's on a par with what passes for argument in peer-reviewed philosophy journals.
Not an Argument.
But suffices to dismiss a non-argument...
Genetic Fallacy.
No it isn't. You are just incorrectly claiming a fallacy based on misunderstanding what I said, as you did with your incorrect claim of a tu quoque fallacy. A genetic fallacy assumes a conclusion based on origin, my statement was of a
causal explanation of a
previously observed conclusion based on origin. Totally different thing.
I should start keeping score.
You really don't want to go there, champ.
Once again, recognizing patterns and assuming causation are not the same thing.
Delineating a physical mechanism and assuming causation are not the same thing.
Where did you get your degree with honors? Night school at a community college?....holy fuck.
No, an internationally respected university. Certainly not some silly graduate school of "Bible Studies."
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