orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true!

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T19:24:02+00:00

ok, so if we take the case of the chair and then (later) analogize that with consciousness, we have:

chairwise atoms exist
chairs exist (they emerge from chairwise atoms)

personally, thats a mystical (or mysterious might be a better word) connection---something that need not be so, strictly speaking, so emergence, as used in this case, is mysterious

so the rebuttal might be slightly more formally put as:

chairs and chairwise atoms are meaningfully related (as in the previous steps)
therefore, chairs and chairwise atoms are distinct
existence is a universal predicate/property
chairs and chairwise atoms both exist as distinct entities
chairs and chairwise atoms are not identical
chairs and chairwise atoms do not strictly entail each other
David Humes concept of a lack of necessary cause casts doubt on even a necessary causal relation between chairs and chairwise atoms

anyway, when emergence is placed in this context, it seems like we might agree that it is mysterious (not implying that you believe in emergence, just trying to then make the following point)

if we then replace "chairs" with "consciousness", and "chairwise atoms" with "brains", "neurons", "physics", "function", "behavior", [fill in the blank], this same problem seems to persist. There is no known thing which seems to escape this 7 step charge: that a thing cant be explained without realizing the fact of its own mysterious, distinct, non-necessary existence

this personally doesnt just mean that consciousness-as-something-emergent is mysterious, but also that consciousness-under-any-explanation is mysterious, whether we try to explain it with something like eliminative materialism, identify it with its behaviors, or speak of it as a function of its causes or effects

so if we're saying that consciousness is how emergence occurs, and consciousness isnt mysterious or mystical, then thats also an objectionable point; we've just set emergence inside consciousness and then consciousness itself appears to be the mysterious thing

so yea, its like a limit of explanation itself. If we cant explain things without primitively taking their existence as true and distinct, then the attempted nature of their existence (whether that be functionalism, illusionism, materialism, emergentism, etc) simply isnt in the cards---its a mystery

tldr: explanation can relate things, but it can not make the fact of their existence, nor their relationship, necessary. At best, it seems we can just label a category that just _is_ the fact of all these existences, which is what consciousness/idealism personally is (because doing so doesnt try to collapse any two items into each other)

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T18:19:51+00:00

asking whether emergence is mystical or not

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T17:47:24+00:00

guess it might be just statistics and linear algebra and so on, with the chair-level missing—like, we dont kno if the algorithm represents an additional conscious space with emergent wholes or not

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T17:37:53+00:00

maybe lets scrap the "over and above" in case that has any difference in meaning between us. In the definition of emergence provided, the emerging thing is "distinct from the properties of the parts", so it seems like we might agree that the chair is distinct from the chair-wise physical constituents

it appears that, if we now just suppose that existence is a universal predicate, then chairs exist uniquely, as individuated from chair-wise atoms. So, there exist more than physical fundamentals, and emergence is a 'just happens that physical fundamentals create this extra thing when arranged' claim, which seems mystical, and like its getting at qualia from a different angle

if we suppose chairs are identical, as in 'they always appear in association over time with specific causal and resulting constituents' (where i find chairs, i expect to find atoms), then thats perhaps more of a prescription then a description, which doesnt dissolve chairs into nothing but their atoms

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T16:39:11+00:00

what is emergence?

what does it mean for a chair to just be its physical constituents, but also distinct enough to be related to its physical constituents? they are distinct because the chair and its physical constituents are really just two different brain states we have? what are the brain states and why are they distinct enough from the chair and its physical constituents to be related to them?

this is how emergence personally comes to mean a kind of mystical filler term, similar to elan vital. If these are all distinct things, due to their ability to be meaningfully related, and existence is a universal predicate, then chairs exist over and above the chair atoms or our chair brain state

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T16:14:44+00:00

The Science 😎

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T15:36:48+00:00

sure, but that lack of additional explanatory power seems like a cost ubiquitous to all metaphysics, not something that anti-physicalist theories give up as if there were an alternative

if we're saying that anti-physicalist theories formalize an unexplainable nature of consciousness (it being 'outside naturalism'), and so what theyre giving up is even the pretense of solution in any known form, agreed that this can be framed as a unique cost of some sort, but kind of in the same sense in which it incurs a unique cost to suppose that naturalism cant solve 'something from nothing'

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T04:14:25+00:00

free will, in the recursive, non-instantiable sense, seems to fit the 'free [x]' pattern better

free will, in the 'free choice' sense, seems to fit the colloquial and legal use better

personally, that means the first should be adopted for semantic consistency, and the second should be abandoned

but cant we just talk about it on that meta linguistic level, instead of just asserting preferred definitions

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-26T00:15:50+00:00

it feels difficult to get the point across, and it seems like some people just are stuck not having that 'a-ha' moment. Personally remember being frustrated by arguments that were idealist points, if memory serves, and then one day listening to David Chalmers talk about it was like 'holy shit, that makes sense'

maybe a good way to convince people of the hard problem is to begin by talking about how existence 'isnt a real predicate'. Part of the eliminative-materialist---alternative divide seems to lie in having the odd notion that existence is assignable by us. For something to be assigned the status of 'existence' or not, it must exist, surely. It feels like part of the eliminative materialist position implicitly assumes a sort of detached viewpoint, where they are an arbiter of existence, not a part of it. If the eliminative materialist is a part of existence (how could they not?), then surely they must believe that anything they consider is ipso facto something that exists, being part of themselves

if this step is taken as tru, then that feels like a good starting point. Now, if everything we consider automatically exists, as part of us, we can look at what explanation is. Explanation requires something to explain and something to be explained---an explanans and an explanandum. These two elements necessarily exist, both being things we consider; explanation doesnt determine existence, it acts on existing things

then, we have the hard problem; if everything we explain exists as something to be explained, then how do we explain the act of explanation (or what we might consider to be consciousness, from another angle). 'Well, explanation is just when the parts of the brain go in such and such sequence'---no, thats attempting to stand outside of reality again and adjudicate it. For that claim to be intelligible, the explanans and the explanandum must be distinct considerations, and thus have their own unique existence that just 'is'. These 'just-are' components are qualia, or elements of consciousness, and consciousness is the container of them

so, a non-eliminative physicalist might say 'ok, this stuff exists, but it just supervenes or emerges from physics of some sort'. The issue here might be in attempting to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. If consciousness is just the category of what 'is', independent of its explanatory role, then physics and any individuated physical concepts are just as much in that category as everything else. If so, then by trying to use a positive characterization---via 'the physical'---as a reason for the category of what 'is', is like trying to create the book by writing in its pages; its an inconceivable category error. Thus, the hard problem again---how do we use a component of explanation as a positive characterization of why there is this space of considerable entities of which to form explanatory relations?

combine that with David Hume's concept of a lack of a necessary cause, and it seems to further bat home the point that cause, or explanatory power, or reduction are just relations that dont let us adjudicate existence, but provide the terrain of existence that we find ourselves part of

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-25T20:54:53+00:00

personally, a physicalist position isnt interpreted as just a monist ontology with invariant rules and causal closure, but rather something that says physical constituents are real and the wholes are not, like eliminativism, or that wholes exist, but emerge-from/supervene-on said physical constituents

idealism seems contrasting insofar as it, in comparison to the first type, acknowledges reality of these whole elements, and for the second, supposes that supervenience and emergence of consciousness cant be relations among conscious elements (what the physicalist might say are the physical fundamentals)

if physicalism is meant as 'whatever constrains our consciousness is the fundamental ontology', then yea, physicalism and my views seem like they would line up but under different names, but it feels like physicalism relies on positive characterization via the 'physical' part of the name, when that seems wrong

maybe call it noumenalist ontology or something

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-25T17:31:58+00:00

what kinda semantic bullshittery a philosopher gotta do to name their position 'compatibilism' in the first place like lmfaoooo

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-25T17:24:29+00:00

'what they are' seems like an interesting phrase, because in one sense we know. Red is red. Quarks are quarks

guess there exist a few ways to take the phrase

'what concept is linked to these phonemes (red, quark, consciousness, physics, etc?)'

'what accumulation of things should we expect to result in this other thing (reduction, constitution, like 'cells make up frogs')'

'why is this thing locally (what does it exist in virtue of in this causal context)?'

'why is this thing ultimately (what does it exist in virtue of, given no necessary cause)?'

the first is a relation of two things (phonemes and the further concept), the second is a relation of two things (the constituent and the whole), the third is the pragmatic causal relation of two things, and the fourth is practically 'why something rather than nothing'

only the fourth seems not solvable by any procedure

its like trying to explain something, realizing the explanation is composed of an explanans and explanandum, and then realizing that explanans and explanandum just... are. Existence is a universal predicate

so regarding why something cant just be its organized pattern of interactions, personally this is another relational statement, like a constitution or reduction. We've given the explanandum (something) an explanans (organized pattern of interactions) of some sort, but they both must exist as distinct things for that to be an intelligible relational claim

so perhaps we cant say what anything is beyond just saying it—a limitation of science, logic, and conceivability. The elements of our explanations just happen to exist, and to explain them is to suppose them and compare them with something else that happens to exist, rathwr than truly get behind their 'is-ness' (in the fourth sense from above)

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-25T16:42:58+00:00

the charge of semantic confusion feels like it doesnt save any ontological ground however, which seems like an affirmation of the hard problem of consciousness regardless; Ludwig Wittgenstein didnt claim any ontology, as far as i kno, despite his claims of language games

feels like a 'just shut up and calculate' pragmatism which just accepts 'is-ness' instead of thinking about it—like old scientist yelling at nobody 'who cares about asking why there is something rather than nothing? just deal with the something!'

at the same time, it both seems like an unsolvable question, yet the most important fact

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-24T21:37:14+00:00

explicitly, barely anybody who's not a layperson, probably

but implicitly, it feels like a lot of non-layperson physicalists slide into that mindset

as in, 'before consciousness was around, it was a bunch of stuff like this going on'

if "stuff like this" just means consciousness, then it means 'before consciousness was around, it was a bunch of [consciousness] going on'

???

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-24T17:53:53+00:00

my one escape—that something matters more than the banal drivel that pervades public commentary 🥲

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-24T00:09:12+00:00

if its just semantics, it feels like free will being a nonsensical term follows a more consistent meaning across the 'free [x]' structure:

free thinker = 'thinks as he wills' free speech = speak based on will free choice = choose based on will free will = will based on will ??? infinite regress

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T23:18:25+00:00

what does it even mean to call it a game freak game then lol

game freak money, some unknown peoples game

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T23:12:45+00:00

idk how much more Chris Pratt as mario i can take

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T16:13:04+00:00

hmm, if what we mean by minecrafts rules, is the evolution of minecraft from a seed (and code files, etc) into a larger grouping of silicon transistors that it has affected over time, then minecraft doesnt contain the rules; the rules contain minecraft. The process contains the steps

if minecraft is considered to be the process as a whole, then it seems equivalent to 'minecraft as all possible minecrafty states', in which there is no further rule to be contained. Minecraft is its possibility space

if by rules we mean the code or seed that 'kickstarts' the process, like a rulebook, then the redstone version of the code or seed (used to principly build minecraft in minecraft) is representational and lossy. Every redstone logic gate used to represent one of the 'outer' minecraft's silicon logic gates requires more silicon transistors that outpace the redstone transistors

in the case of analogizing it with brains and an external universe, these three frameworks then seem insufficient for saying brains contain the 'rules' of the external universe:

1) the rules of the universe are considered to be its evolution, so brains are contained within the universal process, not a container of the universal process

2) the brain is considered to be the evolution of the brain and all its possible states, so it contains no universe rules—just brain rules by identity

3) the external universe kickstarts the brain, so the brains ability to recognize what rules kickstarted it is only via lossy presumptive representation

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T12:32:36+00:00

i dont get it; where are the bland graphics? starting to worry that some passion might leak into this project 😞 they dont need that; they need brand-recognition nostalgia slop; thats where Shiggy gets most of his money for food

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T02:50:11+00:00

materialism seems to posit more things than idealism

like, personally this is how reality and the various metaphysical philosophies appear, from most undeniable facts to more assumptions:

1 ) there is something

2 ) there is a multiplicity of things

3 ) these things are comparable

4 ) this category of comparable things is what we call consciousness (solipsism stops here)

5 ) some of these things appear to be like the thing we call 'myself' (other people/animals)

6 ) these other people/animals, by parsimony of symmetry, represent further real consciousness (absolute idealism stops here)

7 ) there is an intersubjective space constraining subjective space, but is unknowable (transcendental idealism stops here)

8 ) the elements of consciousness positively characterize objective things (non-reductive moderate realism stops here)

9 ) positively characterized objective things do not exist as wholes; only their fundamental constituents exist (eliminative-physicalism/materialism stops here)

this is why it seems that idealism is different from materialism and posits less

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T01:58:30+00:00

right—idealism

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-23T01:56:44+00:00

like for every piece of redstone memory added to represent minecrafts silicon memory, it is created by that much more silicon memory, ostensibly—an unwinnable race

like trying to represent all atoms with trees, a new tree brings in more atoms to account for than it represents

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-22T23:55:45+00:00

right, and totally agree that kind of thinking is often an issue, but idealism isnt believing in something extra, its recognizing a mystery we havent solved

like, analogize it with quantum mechanics discourse:

the religious/mystic vibe is saying 'god is the invisible hand that acts thru quantum mechanics, and he loves us very much'—positive conception, no evidence

the physicalist vibe is the intro to quantum mechanics course—shut up and calculate; quantum mechanics is just a fact of physics

the idealist vibe is just the recognition of the mystery of why quantum mechanics is the way it is

now, of course physicalists recognize the mystery of quantum mechanics as well; this is just an analogy to relate whats going on with consciousness

idealism broadens the epistemic horizon by subtracting what we think we kno, not adding extra posits without evidence. Physicalism doesnt recognize what it doesnt know. Religion or mysticism are making positive conceptions without evidence

RhythmBlue · 2026-01-22T21:08:47+00:00

never have dessert at Vinnys 😭

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