Neuroscience and free will

Why is he saying that there is no physical stuff relevant to Paris?

He must have a conniption when he contemplates a dictionary. Other than some photos, it refers to nothing outside itself.

~~ Paul

You have missed the author's point.  There is a lot of physical stuff relevant to Paris.  The question is how and where are the neuron cells that are related to Paris?  Is Montmartre embedded chemically in interneurons?

In the case of a dictionary - how does optical perception of patterned lines on a paper - lead to understanding french fries?

Of course, one must ingest fries or walk the Champs Elysees to experience the meanings that a dictionary can predict.

You have missed the author's point.  There is a lot of physical stuff relevant to Paris.  The question is how and where are the neuron cells that are related to Paris?  Is Montmartre embedded chemically in interneurons?

In the case of a dictionary - how does optical perception of patterned lines on a paper - lead to understanding french fries?

Of course, one must ingest fries or walk the Champs Elysees to experience the meanings that a dictionary can predict.

I'm in agreement until the last line - the full meaning can perhaps only occur if one has a referent experience, but  the semantics are comprehensible to minds capable of the aboutness Alex Rosenberg notes that materialism cannot possess?

I've waited with baited breath...

Pet peeve...*bated*

Hmmm, but the statement I quoted isn't saying meaning is immaterial?

It's just saying that if you think mind comes from atoms, then the thoughts of the mind follow from the course of the atoms. Isn't that the basic premise of physicalism?

[From there the point is how does one achieve rational justification if the atoms are unconcerned with rationality.]

From the Wikipedia page on Materialism:

Werner Heisenberg, who came up with the uncertainty principle wrote "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct ‘actuality’ of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible … Atoms are not things"

From the Wikipedia page on Materialism:

Yeah that's a good point - atoms depend on our ability to have thoughts about things. Not (necessarily) because atoms are mental in an Idealist sense (see here for that argument) but rather without mind pointing to the world there is no division of the world in conceptual categories.

One might say no mental aboutness, no causes in the interest relative sense we use to build the machines that give us readings that give us atoms.

Pet peeve...*bated*

You bit though

1. Materialism holds that thinking consists of nothing more than the transition from one material process in the brain to another in accordance with causal laws (whether these transitions are conceived of in terms of the processing of symbols according to the rules of an algorithm à la computationalism, or on some other model).

4. So if materialism is true, then there is nothing about our thought processes that can make one thought a rational justification of another; for their physical and causal relations alone, and not their semantic and logical relations, determine which thought follows which.

(1) ignores randomness, but let's not worry about that.

(4) States without justification that physical and causal relations are not related to semantics and logic.

Again, there seems to be some sort of suggestion of an external meaning oracle.

~~ Paul

(1) I can't imagine how this randomness you've described holding the world together by Luck alone would figure into rationality.

(4) The point is that even if one believes they are acting logically, that feeling/qualia of rationality is ultimately grounded in atoms. The semantics problem is a larger one (how is matter about things unless mind is involved?) but the argument here is that semantic content is not the shepherd of thoughts but rather the swirl of atoms decides what thought comes next.

The immaterialist would say it is the mental content that drives the logical sequence, making the case for mental causation that connects to the world state's past/present (though of course more has to be said in relevance to the topic at hand...).

Another way of putting the "Argument from Reason" might be

"In the materialist picture, what I thought today is dependent ultimately on material states at the beginning of the universe + randomness in the ensuing causal sequence leading to the Present.

That would mean that my seeming logical reasoning is not based on the semantic content of my current thoughts but the causal sequences of matter that underlie all events in this picture of reality."

So if two students are seeking to solve a math proof, whether one makes a mistake and one solves it is dependent on atoms that have no semantic content. One could, conceivably, describe both students as atoms (or whatever base matter constituent one prefers) in equations of physics.

You seem to suggest that there is something in, say, evolution that leads to not just semantic content from non-mental matter but also an isomorphism from material patterns to logical relations? Is there a rough sketch of how this comes about?

You have missed the author's point.  There is a lot of physical stuff relevant to Paris.  The question is how and where are the neuron cells that are related to Paris?  Is Montmartre embedded chemically in interneurons?

In the case of a dictionary - how does optical perception of patterned lines on a paper - lead to understanding french fries?

Of course, one must ingest fries or walk the Champs Elysees to experience the meanings that a dictionary can predict.

Wait, all that chit-chat was just the usual question of how relations get encoded in neurons? Then what's this about stop signs?

"After all, that’s how the stop sign is about stopping. It gets interpreted by us in a certain way. The difference is that in the case of the Paris neurons, the interpreter can only be another part of the brain..."

I don't understand the difference. Is he saying that the interpreter of stop signs is something other than the brain?

As far as the dictionary is concerned, the definition of French fries refers to other definitions. Eventually, hopefully, the reader gets to definitions they understand because of relationships they have in the brain between some words and other words, and between words and external things.

~~ Paul

Yeah that's a good point - atoms depend on our ability to have thoughts about things. Not (necessarily) because atoms are mental in an Idealist sense (see here for that argument) but rather without mind pointing to the world there is no division of the world in conceptual categories.

One might say no mental aboutness, no causes in the interest relative sense we use to build the machines that give us readings that give us atoms.

Sorry, can you restate that last sentence? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

~~ Paul

(4) The point is that even if one believes they are acting logically, that feeling/qualia of rationality is ultimately grounded in atoms. The semantics problem is a larger one (how is matter about things unless mind is involved?) but the argument here is that semantic content is not the shepherd of thoughts but rather the swirl of atoms decides what thought comes next.

I agree that the swirl of atoms decides what thought comes next (sort of). What is a just-so claim is that the swirl of atoms cannot include meaning.

The immaterialist would say it is the mental content that drives the logical sequence, making the case for mental causation that connects to the world state's past/present (though of course more has to be said in relevance to the topic at hand...).

Another way of putting the "Argument from Reason" might be

"In the materialist picture, what I thought today is dependent ultimately on material states at the beginning of the universe + randomness in the ensuing causal sequence leading to the Present.

That would mean that my seeming logical reasoning is not based on the semantic content of my current thoughts but the causal sequences of matter that underlie all events in this picture of reality."

Why is the writer assuming that the causal sequences of matter do not create the semantic content of my thoughts? In other words, why is the writer assuming that there must be an immaterial meaning oracle?

So if two students are seeking to solve a math proof, whether one makes a mistake and one solves it is dependent on atoms that have no semantic content. One could, conceivably, describe both students as atoms (or whatever base matter constituent one prefers) in equations of physics.

You seem to suggest that there is something in, say, evolution that leads to not just semantic content from non-mental matter but also an isomorphism from material patterns to logical relations? Is there a rough sketch of how this comes about?

I don't understand the mystery here. If there were no semantic content in my evolved thinking ability, then my actions would have no relation to the world. And, similarly, if I constantly defied logic, I would be dead.

Perhaps if you could explain exactly what is in this immaterial meaning oracle, I might understand better why you think it cannot evolve under physicalism.

~~ Paul