Re: Quote of the week

Posted by Eric Charles on Jun 05, 2011; 9:49pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Quote-of-the-week-tp6442957p6443262.html

One things many philosophers might point out in response to such an assertion, is that we don't have a very good handle on the notion of "determined'. In fact, there are quite a few big-named dead white guys, who would say that physical causality and mental causality are equally illusory (and by that, I mean, completely illusory). Thus, one of the BIG challenges for a realist philosophy is articulating a theory of causality. It is not nearly as simple as basic physics, with its naive realism, might make you think.

In the last real chapter of my up-coming book on Holt (Nick circulated his chapter a little bit ago), Alan Costall argues (among other things) that naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess.

Eric



On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 04:30 PM, Marcos <[hidden email]> wrote:

Not to mention, the white elephant in the room (which I brought up to Murray Gell-Mann to no avail), the relationship of consciousness to matter, and by implication: physics.   To say consciousness is only a emergent property of matter, is to say that we're all deterministic robots, however transient within the view of cosmological history. 

That position, for me, is no longer tenable.

mark

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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org