One may call a subjective account “conceptual decoration” – but doing so does not avoid the conclusion that such “accounts” are not reducible to accounts of individual constituents. One may also say this conclusion is unimportant, but perhaps we don’t all share this opinion. I also do not agree with the implication that a subjective account is not a "true account" of the part of the world we are trying to describe.

This seems to assert that only objective claims qualify as claims about a part of the world being described. Why so?

Why does a subjective claim (such as “the sensation of seeing red” ) not qualify as a part of the world being described?

DeathMonkey wrote:

The real claim is just that there is nothing more actually going on there, than brain activity. This claim is not made to forward some set of monistic metaphysical beliefs. Rather it is just the simplest possible position to hold. Until such time as it is demonstrated that there is something more to it, there is no reason to assume otherwise.

DeathMonkey wrote:
... the idea that there is somehow more to chemical properties than just complex interactions of particles, but we cannot prove that there isn't. We don't need to prove that there isn't. What would be the point? If there is something more to it, we will worry about that when the evidence demonstrates it to be the case. Until that time, not only would it serve no purpose to assume there is, but we don't even have any way to formulate such a theory, because we have no evidence to base it on. Anything we could come up with would just be blind speculation.

DeathMonkey wrote:

I very much disagree with the claim that the entire belief system needs to be included. Again this goes to the point I made that the neuroscience description is not obligated to provide anything more than the objective facts. One needs to include the whole belief system if one wants to preserve all of the aspects of the description that form the context, or "way of thinking about it", but as I have tried to explain several times now, none of that can coherently be considered to be "true facts about the world".

DeathMonkey wrote:

Now, the claim "I think ice cream tastes good", is an objective claim. Either I do think this, or I do not.

DeathMonkey wrote:

The situation is the same with respect to the mind. There is no evidence to indicate that there is actually anything more than physical processes involved, so not only would it serve absolutely no purpose to assume that there is, but when we do so, our dualistic theories end up being nothing more than blind speculation, because we have absolutely no evidence to base them on.

In this sense, reducibility is basically just a null-hypothesis. Until such time as we have reason to think that something more is involved, we have no good reason to assume that there is.

Yes, I'm still with you, except that it may not be impossible to "come up with" something that is neither blind speculation nor derivable from QM. For example perhaps there is a holistic phenomenon that defies being broken down to its parts.

I'm not sure that this type of situation would necessarily contradict physicalism.

Here we are not on the same page. You've described your stance on metaphorical vs. non metaphorical severql times, but I don't think its possible for you to have a precise definition of what a metaphor is that will succesfully and reliably do the job you want to do. I gave you an example which you side stepped. You seemed to feel you could securely fall back to QM but I have tried to describe several times that QM is founded on mathematics which derives from language which in turn ultimately depends on metaphors.

In other words, many scientists seem to work under the assumption that truth is foundational (I think this may be why you feel its essential to have a hierarchy of the sciences). My point is that close examination leads to the conclusion that no arguments can ever have any ultimate foundation. Instead arguments are ultimately circular though they can and do make reference to aspects of reality (a world that is shared by the community).

But getting back to your claim above, I was surprised to hear you disagree that the entire belief system is required.

Dunamis gave an ice cream example which I think it was supposed to be non convergent. Even if you reject the possibility that the question could have 2 true answers, it still seems to me that you'd need to examine all relevant memories in order to make a final call. Of course, "all relevant memories" ultimately translates to all memories period. Clearly all the memories in your brain are linked together in a complicated web. Each memory being able to trigger multiple memories so that in recursively following up all possible links of any given memory you will rapidly end up traversing the entire web. Your desire to abolish metaphor from descriptions does not seem to be relevant to this aspect of how the brain implements memories (ditto for beliefs).

(I think I just realized that you had misunderstood what was meant by the "entire belief system" claim.)

In my opinion, you haven't understood the argument. At no time have I ever been defending dualism. At no time have I considered that there is more than physical processes involved (for example triangulation is a physical process).

However, I don't buy the conflation of physicalism and reductionism implied by your final phrase. Remember that though Dennett is a materialist he warns against greedy reductionism. Nonetheless, I am with you regarding physicalism as a null hypothesis.

Death Monkey wrote:

The issue is not whether it is derivable from QM. The issue is that there is no evidence to base it[some alternative model] on.

Death Monkey wrote:

Without first making some observations that are not consistent with QM, we have nothing on which to base any theory that posits something more than QM.

Death Monkey wrote:

Any additional claims such a theory (holistic or otherwise) would make, would necessarily be speculation.

Death Monkey wrote:
Now, that's not to say that we will never make observations that are not consistent with QM. And if we did make such observations, then it is not inconcievable that some irreducible theory would follow.

Death Monkey wrote:

I don't think it would have to. Nothing about physicalism requires that there be some grand unified theory that everything is reducible to. For that matter, we now know that neither QM nor General Relativity are complete theories. Most physicists are pretty confident that there is a unified field theory that both QM and GR should be reducible to (each as approximations that are valid under a particular range of conditions), but it is possible that there may not be. Frankly, I cannot concieve of such a situation, but my inability to do so is not a proof of impossibility.

Death Monkey wrote:

Incidentally, it is precisely the fact that we have no observations that are not consistent with both QM and GR,

Death Monkey wrote:

that makes finding a unified theory so difficult. It means that any models we formulate to try to unify them are currently speculative. We need some data from those high-energy-density conditions where we know our current theories will not work.

Death Monkey wrote:

As I mentioned previously, the term "metaphor" is not terribly precise. This is why I have tried to rephrase my point in terms of "objective facts" vs "features of the model which are not claimed to be objective facts".

Death Monkey wrote:

For example, any formalization of QM is expressed in mathematical terms, and as a result makes reference to various mathematical objects as though they were somehow "real". But QM does not actually claim that they are real. So this can be though of as being metaphorical. And of course any time I talk about QM, I am going to be using those metaphors, which seems to be what you are talking about.

Death Monkey wrote:

But nevertheless, the standard model of QM makes clear predictions about what will observed under various conditions. This is the part that can be taken literally,

Death Monkey wrote:

which is to say that this is the only part that is claimed to be objective fact.

Death Monkey wrote:

Indeed, the various metaphysical interpretations of QM illustrate this. They each use different metaphors in their descriptions of the world. Some talk about wave-functions. Others talk about non-local hidden variables. Others talk about multiple worlds. But they all agree on the observational predictions. That is the part that can be taken literally. To try to interpret any of that other stuff as being true claims about the world, would be a category mistake.

Death Monkey wrote:

But I think that when Dunamis talks about "the entire belief system", he is included much more than just information stored in the person's memories. Indeed, that seemed to be his point.

Death Monkey wrote:

I think I addressed this issue before. As I see it there are two seperate questions. First, what do we specifically mean by the qeustion "Does Bob like ice cream?", and second, does he like it? The first question is one that clearly involves more that just information stored in Bob's brain. But then nobody is claiming that neuroscience can answer that question. And once that question is answered, the answer should no longer depend on anything outside of Bob.

Death Monkey wrote:

If it does, then it is not actually a question about Bob. If what a person actually means by the question "does Bob like ice cream?" is a question not just about Bob, but about societal norms and how some group of people interpret behavior, then that is not a question about Bob's mind or thought processes. It is a question about society. And nobody is claiming that those questions can be answered by neuroscience, much less that they could be answered by studying Bob's brain.

Death Monkey wrote:
An emergent phenomenon is "more than the sum of its parts" in the sense that the emergent properties are a function not only of the consituent parts, but also of the configuration and/or interaction of those parts. For example, the chemical properties of a sugar molecule are emergent properties. These properties are not properties of the individual particles that make up the molecule, but are a function of the configuration and interaction of those particles. That said, those chemical properties are reducible to quantum mechanics, because the configuration and interaction of those particles can be described in terms of QM.

Death Monkey wrote:
In general, I would say that emergent phenomena are reducible to the systems they emerge from. They can be said to be "more than the sum of their parts", but only in the sense that individual descriptions of those parts do not say anything about the configuration or dynamics of those parts. But the system as a whole includes not only the parts, but also the configuration and dynamics.

I don't agree, you seem to be thinking of dualism again which is beside the point. The alternative (possibly holistic) model on the table would be something like Davidson's anomalous monism as described by the web page Dunamis provided. Observations are made and intentional explanations are postulated. These explanations are crucial for predicting the future and making informed decisions. So far it sounds pretty similar to standard science. The problem is that the explanation offered accepts the possibility of non convergence rather than assuming that whatever cannot be proven to converge now can hopefully be shown to converge some time in the future when neuroscience has sufficiently advanced.

The problem is that QM doesn't say anything at all about these intentions. This is the future science fantasy that Dunamis was referring to (deriving intention from QM).

You can call the intentional stance speculation but its all we've got at this point since QM doesn't say anything about how people will act in various circumstances. (Also, all science could be considered "speculative" in the sense that science is explicitly recognized to be provisional).

The issue is that reducing intentions to QM doesn't do anything useful and may never do anything useful (and there maye be a principle that indicates why it can't be made to say anything useful).

It sounds like you do not wish to conceive it since you must hope that a solution can be found one day (otherwise science would be at an impass).

I know the feeling, but think of it this way. Many eminent scientists have remarked at the marvel that nature can be tamed by mathematical formula. We should be surprised that taming via mathematics has been within the realm of human endeavors thus far.

That doesn't sound right to me. I'm under the impression that QM and GR are contradictory.

There is already dark matter/energy and black holes in dynamic evolution (as I recall Smolin lists 5 problems of physics that remain unsolved).

I'm not sure that "objective facts" is sufficiently precise. The best I can come up with off hand would be facts that are agreed upon.

Referring to the diagram above:

Person 1 sees a rabbit and also sees another person that is seeing the same rabbit while pronouncing the word "bunny". The 2 people agree to call the rabbit "bunny". Thus the production of an objective fact regarding what a rabbit is.

I'm not sure about that. It seems to me that science is about explanations that are assumed true until falsified. That is, we don't assume that the mathematical formulas may have discontinuities everywhere that hasn't been tested. If the formula works for protons and electrons it is assumed it will work for neutrons as well. If that is born out in one case we assume other cases will bear it out as well. (After all, you can't test literally everything experimentally).

I see the point you wish to make but I have been in disagreement with the example you have chosen each time you have mentioned it. As I see it, this example shows that an interpretation is NOT benign and has very definite consequences. For example, it was often assumed that the claim that schroedingers cat was both dead and alive was a superfluous interpretation. As it turns out, it was an essential aspect of QM that the cat could be both dead and alive simultaneously.

Denying that is denying that the superposition could be put to any use. As it turns out, the superposed states can indeed be coerced into doing real work in quantum computers.

But perhaps you are inappropriately forcing all meaning to be limited internally. Perhaps there is an alternative stance that would serve better to scientifically understand these behaviors and thoughts and thus obtain objective facts about them.

Yes I am claiming that society can be studied by neuroscience. But no, its not the type or norms you seem to refer to. Its simply that the meaning of words is derived from the community and most beliefs depend on words and their associated concepts.

It may be that to do physchology properly the question cannot only be about Bob (at least not in all cases). Perhaps, some of Bob's behavior can best be understood by drawing a boundary around him and his twin brother or around his entire family.

My example of the isolation chamber make it clear that Bob can be usefully studied by drawing the boundary where you suggest here. But perhaps there are other cases where the questions are insoluble unless you draw the boundary differently.

I agree that we can exclude the belief in Thor from our explanation of how lightning works. That's because we have a satisfying explanation of lightning that specifically excludes Thor so as to improve the usefulness of the explanation.

Regarding Janes reason for changing her style of clothes we don't have a satisfying scientific explanation that excludes her beliefs. On the contrary, its generally accepted that a vast number of her beliefs are relevant to the question.

My expectation is that all of her beliefs would have at least some vague relevancy. My expectation is that there will be no obvious way to draw the line of which beliefs to include and which to exclude (although it will be obvious that some beliefs are less relevant than others).

We don't know for sure that all the properties of a sugar molecule are reducible to QM (although I share your expectation). We can do minimization calculations to predict some properties and configurations of some simple molecules. Many properties (ex: shape) of complex molecules such as proteins (and probably sugar) are beyond what can be predicted via QM calculations.

We know that scientific explanations regarding the structure of macroscopic materials are valid (even if they may sometimes be considered "wrong" or approximate). We see that those scientific principles have proved useful and reliable in building the vast number of cities and roads that have sprung up across the surface of the earth. Not so, with QM indeed many calculations have been made and many experiments have been done but there is also much extrapolation and presumption. When QM begins to a standard part of the electronics industry and when Quantum computers become commonplace the situation will de different.

If fact, the inability to surmount the calculation obstacles and achive the goal I've described here, could perhaps provide the clues to observations that might contradict the standard scientific model( relativity, QM, particle physics etc.). (I refer to the possibility of future contradictions to QM that you mentioned).

Death Monkey wrote:
I don't think that it is even meaningful to talk about "subjective facts". A fact is either true, or it is not. That implicitely makes it objective. One can have subjective opinions or subjective preferences, but those are not facts.

Death Monkey wrote:
But this makes sense when you consider that "subjective" does not really mean "non-objective", as dualists would try to claim, but rather "private" or "individual to a specific person".

Death Monkey wrote:
As I mentioned before, an implication of Physicalism is that (at least with respect to reducibility to the physical), there are no strongly emergent phenomena.

Death Monkey wrote:
I am not convinced that reducibility in the ontic sense is really a meaningful concept. I do not see how it can be formulated with claiming the existence of properties that are, in principle, undetectable.

In which case, I would ask why refer to “objective facts”? If I am to accept what you say, then the qualifier “objective” is redundant, and it should be enough simply to refer to facts?

Now, what about so-called qualia? How are we to categorise the facts of phenomenal consciousness (for example, “what it is like for me to see red” )?

Qualia (the feeling of what it is like….) cannot be subjective facts according to your intuition, since you deny the existence of subjective facts, therefore according to your intuition they must be either (objective) facts, or they are simply not facts at all?

(Dennett, for example, would presumably claim that qualia simply do not exist, therefore would say they are not facts – although I must admit that his publications confuse me because he seems to vascillate between “qualia do not exist” and “qualia are amenable to scientific investigation” ).

Recall that we agree a fact is “something that is true, or something that actually exists, or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation.”

Thus if one denies that qualia are facts, one is in effect saying that qualia are (a) not true, and (b) they do not actually exist, and (c) they cannot be verified according to an established standard of evaluation.

Agreed, but this is where the physicalist thesis comes up against the limitations of the scientific method. If we define strong emergence as “not possible to give an account of the emergent properties via accounts of the properties of the constituent parts” then we are making an epistemic, and not an ontic, statement.

Just because we may be unable to explain how the constituent parts cause the emergent property (epistemic), it does not follow that the constituent parts do not cause the emergent property (ontic). In the case of phenomenal consciousness, I do not believe we will ever be able to explain exactly how the constituent parts of my brain give rise to “my feeling of seeing red”, but this is not evidence against either physicalism or monism, rather it simply illustrates a limitation of the scientific method.

Let me put it another way, in terms of supervenience. It is possible that phenomenal consciousness supervenes on the physical (a physicalist would claim that indeed it does). This is an ontic statement, and if true it means that phenomenal consciousness is at least in principle ontically reducible to the physical.

It may be true therefore (and I believe it is true) that phenomenal consciousness is epistemically irreducible to the physical, whilst still supervening on the physical. This gives rise to a form of epistemic dualism, but a dualism which is emergent and supervenient on the physical, hence we preserve ontological monism.

Says who? You?

My point is that when reincarnated was talking about experiences, he was not talking about opinions. He was talking about subjective mental phenomenon. You want to argue that "mental phenomon about which there are facts" is not propositional knowledge, fine. My point was that when the word "subjective" was used earlier, it was used to mean subjective experiences, not gut hunches. That's all.

What I'm saying is that you said QM doesn't say anything about covalent bonds. But if we can derive the shape of bonds from QM, then QM does say something about bonds and the shapes of molecules.

Quantum chemists claim they can do that.

Some think the claim that QM does say something about bonds is controversial. But those who practice quantum chemistry don't see much controversy.