From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:23:59 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.132338.13735@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.155837.4398@guinness.idbsu.edu>,
>holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>
>>The facts about "qualia" translate exactly to facts about physical
>>states of the brain; there is no need to maintain that there are
>>any additional facts, as opposed to additional sentences. The
>>additional questions you ask about qualia seem to me (and my qualia
>>have the same structure as yours, on the whole...) to be
>>pseudo-questions.  I think that the only thing which we can
>>"understand" about anything is its structure; qualia and
>>the brain states have precisely correlated structures and identical
>>"causal" relationships with the world, so I see no reason to doubt
>>that they are in fact the same.
>
>I don't agree that facts being perfectly correlated implies that they
>are the same facts. If that were the case, how could talk about
>isomorphism between structures make any sense? Or perhaps you believe
>isomorphism *is* identity?

Isomorphism is not identity.  But in the case of physical facts in the
brain vs. qualia, I see no evidence that the underlying facts are
different, while I do see isomorphism; the most economical way to
explain an observed isomorphism is via identity.

>
>For example, suppose that a perfect, complete, deterministic theory of
>physics is developed. (There may never be such a theory, but it is
>conceivable.) What this would mean is the development of a
>mathematical structure, together with a correspondence between aspects
>of the structure and aspects of the physical world, such that every
>fact about the world is mirrored by a purely mathematical fact about
>the structure. Does this imply that the mathematical structure *is*
>the physical world? Maybe so, but that is a fairly radical position.

Oddly enough, this is about what I do believe about the physical
world.  I do think that it is a "mathematical structure" in the most
general sense.  I agree that this is a radical position...

>
>I also don't believe that mental states are determined by physical
>states. I believe that the relationship between a mental state and the
>corresponding physical state to be something like the relationship
>between an algorithm and a corresponding implementation, or the
>relationship between a theory and its models.

This is a _possible_ position for me.  But note that the
"supervenience" of the mental state on the physical state is then
logical and necessary, not causal and contingent.  But this analysis
applies only to complex ideas, not to basic perceptual experience
("subjective blueness"); I definitely think that this is physical.

 I don't know whether you
>would consider this a "dualist" position or not.

For me it would not be a dualist position, since I see no difference
in kind between physical and formal ("abstract") objects.  But it
would certainly be viewed as dualist by a strict materialist.

 A mental state is
>compatible with a certain physical state if a correspondence can be
>set up between the two such that changes to the mental are mirrored by
>changes to the physical. However, there is no reason to think that
>there is only one possible correspondence relation. Without specifying
>the correspondence, it is not possible to determine the mental state
>from the physical state.

But then I would say that _all_ of the possible mental states were
logically "supervenient" on the physical state.

>
>Daryl McCullough
>ORA Corp.
>Ithaca, NY


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.math