| | **Leibniz puts on his Bishop Berkeley mask, and begins**
If we don't perceive material objects, then how did we discover what a brain is (which, last I checked, is a material object), or that 'reality' can "really" be simulated through direct brain stimulus. Where did we get the knowledge of brains and of the effects of brain stimulus on conscious experience if not from direct perception?
It's called perceptual correlation. We know that when a certain electrode is applied to a bare brain, a correlative mental reaction occurs, which we notice in a correlative physical reaction from the patient undergoing this procedure. Though we might say that x causes y, which causes z, all we really know is that a certain correlation exists with respect to the sequential appearance of the phenomena.
Moreover, it won't do to say that what we perceive directly is sensory phenomena or sensations rather than material objects. A sensory phenomenon or sensation is not an object of awareness; it is a process or form of awareness; it is how we perceive, not what we perceive. You can say this all you want. But we all know that the only things which are directly presented to people are sensory phenomena. We then infer that there are material objects which make or cause us to be aware of sensory phenomena. But all we really have before us is the phenomena.
Well, if experience can tell us what is actual, then it can tell us that there are actual, material objects, which have a certain identity, part of which is their capacity to act a certain way under certain conditions. A red object, because it is red, will necessarily reflect light along a certain wavelength. An ice cube from my refrigerator will necessarily float when placed in a glass of water. Why? Because of what it is, because it is less dense than water.
How do you know that a red object will necessarily reflect light along a certain wavelength? You've just never perceived a situation to the contrary. How do you know that an ice cube will always float in water? How do you know that it is in the nature of an ice cube to float? You don't know this; you infer it based on seeing it often, and based on an analysis of the molecular configurations of ice and water. But how do you know that these molecular configurations cause ice to float? You don't. You just know that certain molecular configurations with respect to H20 are correlated to the phenomenon of floating ice.
I wrote: "Bill, are you an infallibilist with respect to knowledge? In other words, do you think knowledge is synonymous with certainty of truth? If so, then you might want to ease up on the rhetoric. You and I both know that you can't prove cosmological naturalism."
Well, if by "prove" you mean justify as true, then I can prove it, because all the evidence supports such a view and none contradicts it. There is no more legitimate evidence for supernaturalism -- for gods, devils, angels and other supernatural creatures -- than there is for fairies and ghosts.
So you're an evidentialist. In any case, you don't 'justify truth' by providing evidence. You justify truth by providing a proof. If you mean 'justify belief', that is perfectly permissible. You are entitled to say that your belief in cosmological naturalism is justified if you can find evidence in support of it, and no evidence to the contrary. But I would disagree that there is no evidence to the contrary.
Correction: I don't just think of human consciousness; there are other forms of consciousness besides human. But, as I've said before, consciousness requires a means of awareness, because it must perceive in a particular form, e.g., visually, auditorially, tactilly, etc. It doesn't have to be a human form, but it does have to be some form of awareness. I'm now 'perceiving' an isosceles triangle in my mind. While doing this, I'm quite aware that my means of awareness of the triangle is not sensory. This is a counterexample to your claim.
I wrote: "It makes more sense to say God is something akin to a conscious entity, since God has knowledge and will and other (what we understand to be) mental properties, though he does not have them in the same way that we do."
First of all, how do you know any of this? You're questioning my right to claim knowledge of material objects. Yet, you feel entitled to claim knowledge of a supernatural being that has no properties that we have any evidence of, let alone understand -- a being who thinks without a mind or a brain and who has knowledge and will without any of the preconditions for such faculties. If this isn't "wanting" to believe something without any justification for it, I don't know what is.
Whoa. I claim knowledge of God, but I realize that this knowledge may only amount to justified belief. This is fine, considering that I am a fallibilist with respect to knowledge.
I have evidence of God's existence insofar as I have reason to believe that God exists. And I do have such reason. I also have reason to believe that God has certain properties, though I admit that my knowledge of God is limited by my natural mental limitations, etc.
As far as your statement that God must have the 'preconditions' for mental faculties, I say: Why? Who says such preconditions are absolutely necessary for mental entities?
What you are claiming to exist is an entity that possesses knowledge without any basis for possessing it. The basis is God's nature. God has immediate knowledge of necessary truths and possibilia, since this knowledge is natural to him.
As I've pointed out repeatedly in my exchanges with you, It is simply impossible for a entity to be conscious and to possess knowledge and will without any means of doing so -- without any mode of consciousness or form of awareness.
Things aren't impossible just because you say that they are impossible.
God's mode of consciousness or form of awareness is apperception. This is similar to my apperceiving a triangle earlier on.
You can't even rationally conceive of an entity that possesses knowledge and awareness while lacking the physical preconditions for it. Tell me why there have to be physical preconditions for possession of knowledge and awareness. Your argument always takes the form:
1. I've never seen a conscious non-physical entity
2. And I deny the possibility of something I've never seen, ergo...
But these are not solid premises.
Please explain to me what you mean by "positive property." Are you now telling me that God does possess physical properties -- that he does have a material body, brain and nervous system? You say he possesses all positive properties. What could that possibly mean? Godel says two things about positive properties:
1. If any property is positive, it's negation is not positive. (Which means that green is not a positive property, insofar as it can be negated by another positive property, e.g. red. Omnipotence, however, is a positive property.)
2. Properties (in the argument) are positive in the 'moral-aesthetic sense'.
I wrote: Please tell me what direct perception is.
You can know it ostensively by direct experience. A scientific definition would be "a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism." Your making a distinction between direct experience and direct perception implies that there is a difference. What is the difference? Must direct perceptions be conscious (not subconcious) on your view, while not so for direct experiences?
First of all, direct perception is not sub-cognitive; it is part of the cognitive process; propositional knowledge is not the only kind of cognition. My cat engages in a process of cognition, but she does not have abstract or propositional knowledge; her cognition is confined to the perceptual level. Direct perception is the basis for concept formation. I've discussed in previous posts how concepts are formed from direct perception. I won't revisit that here. Suffice it to say that once a child is able to form concepts, he can organize these concepts into propositions, a process which enables him to express a complete thought. So you admit it is sub-propositional (which is what I was driving at by saying 'sub-cognitive'). This poses a problem? How does knowledge (which is propositional) derive from the direct perception? Put more pointedly, how does propositional knowledge, which relies on conceptual relation, derive from direct perception? Invoking 'abstraction' won't do. To abstract implies that you recognize a concept in the first place from which to abstract; to abstract from something non-conceptual is to create a concept ex nihilo.
Of course, they only take on conceptual meaning after passing through an active intellect, but that does not mean that perception does not constitute an awareness of objects in the external world. My cat is certainly aware of me, when she sees me walk through the door.
The whole problem is that I could make your cat equally aware of you by stimulating its brain in a certain way, and you (on your view) wouldn't be there.
Again, perceptions and sensations are not the objects of direct awareness, they are the form of direct awareness or the process by which we are directly aware of material objects. You know nothing of a rock other than what you perceive of a rock, and what you infer from this perception. So how are you aware of the rock itself? Telling a 'just-so' story, e.g. about how material objects cause the perception, is just an inference to the best explanation. It is not something of which you can be certain.
A direct perception cannot be mistaken; our senses can only perceive what is out there, and they do so in a particular form that is determined by the nature of our sensory apparatus. False. The brain can be stimulated so as to make it see red (or experience a 'red sensation'), even though nothing (on your view) is red to be seen before its eyes.
|
|
