Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

I've been meaning to dig deeper into the resources in that thread of yours for a while now, but your posting of it was curious timing for me, because while revisiting Titus's Exit Epiphenomenalism paper, including its discussion of evolution, and considering the discussion of natural selection in the SEP entry on epiphenomenalism, something roughly along those lines had suggested itself to me too, albeit that I hadn't fleshed it out (I know: it's probably hard to believe, but that really is how it went down). I've also been meaning to ping Titus to get his reaction to the argument, but haven't gotten onto that yet either.

Are there even any modern day philosophers of mind that are epiphenomenalists? At least from what I know most use it to fill gaps on their theories instead of stating consciousness is purely epiphenomenal.

Yes - I'm not exactly sure why, but the idea that a mechanical calculator can be conscious seems extremely hard to believe.

OTH, there was a fad for the idea that water driven machinery might be conscious:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restless-Clock-...B014RWV2CQ

Even Liebniz took an interest!

I was given that link in an email discussion with someone at the DI.

David

Yeah Leibniz's conclusions still hold today for computers and brains [though I'd possibly disagree with his considerations of what simple substances are and can consist of.]->

Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions.  And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill.  That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.  Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for.  Further, nothing but this (namely, perceptions and their changes) can be found in a simple substance.  It is also in this alone that all the internal activities of simple substances can consist.

Materialism has only the mere illusion of plausibility, that it somehow just has to be true. But when one looks at the issue without bias all the "explanations" fade away.

Of course, as apparently must be said a 1000 times over, this doesn't mean Survival/souls are real. Heck even the Filter Theory could be true and Personal Survival could be false, as was discussed in James' time.

But in my experience, once someone accepts Materialism is false and begins to read the Survival cases in an unbiased way it begins to feel increasingly that Survival is at the least a reasonable conclusion. This for me was a years long process, reading not just facts but the story involved. Things like Stevenson's travels, recorded by [Tom] Shroder [in the book Old Souls]. Actually reading the book now as I'd only seen excerpts in the past.

For Materialist fundamentalists caught in their faith, however, I'm sure any evidence of this sort will be picked apart though. As the proverb goes - "The man who wants to beat a dog will always find his stick."

Similarly, a single water molecules is not wet, but many together make a substance that is wet.

Leibniz’s Mill 

E.Feser

Landesman considers the following objection raised by John Searle in his book Intentionality:

An exactly parallel argument to Leibniz’s would be that the behavior of H2O molecules can never explain the liquidity of water, because if we entered into the system of molecules “as into a mill we should only find on visiting it pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain” liquidity.  But in both cases we would be looking at the system at the wrong level.  The liquidity of water is not to be found at the level of the individual molecule, nor are the visual perception and the thirst to be found at the level of the individual neuron or synapse.  (p. 268)

It is ironic that Searle should put forward such an objection, given that he is also a critic of materialism who has himself elsewhere denied that such cases are “exactly parallel.”  In particular, he has insisted that whereas liquidity, solidity, and other such properties of material systems have what he calls a “third-person ontology” insofar as they are entirely objective or “public” phenomena equally accessible to every observer, consciousness has by contrast a “first-person ontology” insofar as it is subjective, “private,” or directly accessible only to the subject of a conscious experience.  But then it would seem to follow that if we observed a system of water molecules on the large scale – not just an individual molecule or two but the whole system – and noted that they were moving around in such-and-such a way relative to one another, we would (given the standard scientific account of liquidity) just be observing the system’s liquidity.  By contrast, if we observed, on the large scale, the system of neurons which makes up the brain, we would not thereby observe the conscious experiences of the person whose brain it is.  This is a consequence of Searle’s own distinction between third-person and first-person ontology, and his own insistence that consciousness is unique in having the latter sort of ontology.  (See my paper “Why Searle Is a Property Dualist” for references and for further discussion of Searle’s views.)

Landesman makes a related point in response to Searle when he notes that when observing either a mill-sized brain or a mill-sized system of water molecules, we would not be limited to observing the individual neuron or molecule but could imagine instead observing the systems on the large scale.  And when we do so, Landesman continues, we would certainly be able to observe the liquidity of the water if by “liquidity” we mean a certain kind of interaction between molecules.  On the other hand, we might instead mean by “liquidity” the phenomenal features liquid water presents to us – the way it looks or feels to us, for example – and these, Landesman allows, would not be observable as we walked through a mill-sized system of water molecules.  But then, liquidity in this sense would really not be a feature of the water itself in the first place, but only of our experience of it.  And in that case it is irrelevant that we would not observe it in observing the system of molecules.  (Cf. my discussion of the fallacy Paul Churchland commits when he suggests that the red surface of an apple is really just “a matrix of molecules reflecting photons at certain critical wavelengths.”)  By contrast, thought and perception are features of the mind itself, and yet we would not be aware of them in observing the large-scale interactions between neurons in a mill-sized brain.  Thus, Landesman concludes (quite correctly, in my view), Searle’s objection fails.

You make the mind sound very like a computer.

Do you believe that a computer is actually conscious while it is doing a calculation, or that a mind (yours for example) just clicks through a sequence of states and is never conscious at all?

No, the mind is far different from a computer. The mind is the output of the brain and whatever works in conjunction with the brain to make its output. The functioning of the brain is very different from the functioning of a computer.

No computer ever does anything close to conscious thought, and it is doubtful it ever will.

Do you see how what looks like common sense in materialist philosophy, breaks down when you look at it in detail.

Straw man. As I said before, I am not here to argue that the brain must be totally material or totally physical. My claim is that my mind is dependent upon my brain and cannot in any meaningful sense continue to exist as my self after the brain is gone. See https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-i...7#pid52457 and https://mindsetfree.blog/if-only-souls-h...Conclusion .

Straw man. As I said before, I am not here to argue that the brain must be totally material or totally physical. My claim is that my mind is dependent upon my brain and cannot in any meaningful sense continue to exist as my self after the brain is gone. See https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-i...7#pid52457 and https://mindsetfree.blog/if-only-souls-h...Conclusion .

I think it's unfair to claim @David001 is attacking you with a straw man, you are kind of all over the place. Sometimes you seem to be arguing that if Materialism is false souls would be real, other times you accept there is something possibly non-physical yet somehow this "soul" - or whatever you wish to call it - will [be] a kind of lobotomized wraith.

In any case, you haven't given any good arguments for Materialism or this weird lobotomized wraith claim.

Really though it seems to me you are arguing with yourself, hedging your bets -

"Well God cannot damn me because I have no soul, but even IF I had a soul I shouldn't feel anxiety about damnation because I won't be able to feel any pain once the body is dead."

If it's Hell you fear I think you'd be better off doing a serious reading of Survival research, rather than persisting in clinging to the Materialist faith + lobotomized wraith fallback. Materialism makes no sense and it seems an increasing number of atheists are willing to acknowledge this...as predicted by the B. Russell quote in my signature.

Look at the stuff the atheist Emerson Green writes, he seems quite intelligent (IMO wrong about a few things but only I have Perfect Opinions ) and has explicitly moved away from the virulent pseudo-skeptic / New Atheist community.

No, the mind is far different from a computer. The mind is the output of the brain and whatever works in conjunction with the brain to make its output. The functioning of the brain is very different from the functioning of a computer.

No computer ever does anything close to conscious thought, and it is doubtful it ever will.

You wrote this in response to my statement:

You make the mind sound very like a computer.

I give up!

David

In any case, you haven't given any good arguments for Materialism or this weird lobotomized wraith claim.

I am not arguing that there cannot be anything non-material. I am arguing that the mind is dependent on the brain, and could not survive without the brain.

Really though it seems to me you are arguing with yourself, hedging your bets -

"Well God cannot damn me because I have no soul, but even IF I had a soul I shouldn't feel anxiety about damnation because I won't be able to feel any pain once the body is dead."

If it's Hell you fear I think you'd be better off doing a serious reading of Survival research,

Its got nothing to do with the fear of hell. I am simply pointing out that the evidence is clear that the mind could not continue on without a brain.

I am not arguing that there cannot be anything non-material. I am arguing that the mind is dependent on the brain, and could not survive without the brain.


Its got nothing to do with the fear of hell. I am simply pointing out that the evidence is clear that the mind could not continue on without a brain.

You don't see how crazy this sounds? That there could be a soul that is non-physical, but somehow this soul *must* be dependent on the brain?

Anyway you haven't made any good arguments that I can recall, so this bizarre claim remains utterly unconvincing.

You don't see how crazy this sounds? That there could be a soul that is non-physical, but somehow this soul *must* be dependent on the brain?

Huh? That's not what I am saying.

I have said that the mind is dependent on the brain. I have shown the evidence for this at See https://mindsetfree.blog/if-only-souls-had-a-brain/

I am not even arguing for the existence of a soul, let alone arguing that it is non-physical or dependent on the brain.

Huh? That's not what I am saying.

I have said that the mind is dependent on the brain. I have shown the evidence for this at See https://mindsetfree.blog/if-only-souls-had-a-brain/

I am not even arguing for the existence of a soul, let alone arguing that it is non-physical or dependent on the brain.

Even in that link:

Sure, let’s suppose that there is some part of us called a soul that survives without our brain. If we survived death in this soul, but lost our brain functions, what would we be missing?

Can't think of any arguments you've made that haven't been addressed in this thread at this point. Largely because the answers were easily at hand because we've seen this sort of stuff before.