[Serious Phil] Rejecting the Hypothesis of Phenomenal Information

[walto]

--- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "truthhunter55" <Philscimind at ...> wrote:
>
> I don't believe that this is the case. 

You don't believe that what is the case?

>You can for example distinguish color vision from black and white vision and you can communicate all of the contents of mechanics without reference to the former.
> 


What is the former?--black and white vision?  color vision? vision?  Exactly what is it to communicate information about vision without reference to vision?

>It is true that all information comes to us through quale. 

I don't know what that means.

>But there is information that does not. 

That does not what?

>For example, on the back side of the moon in some place their either is or is not a rock. That is information and it has never been phenomenal. 
> 

On that view, everything is information.  That seems to me a strange view.  Would it be information even if there were no people?  Or does it become information when the first person comes into existence?

> These meanings are clear for the most part. 
> 

Not to me, they ain't.


> > What makes this or that bit of "information" "phenomenal"? > 
> What makes a piece of information phenomenal is whether it has been perceived. 
> 

That makes no sense whatever.  Nothing is transformed (not even a rock on the dark side of the moon) simply by being perceived.  To perceive something isn't to do anything to it at all.


> > Is stuff in dictionaries "non-phenomenal information"?  
> 
> In a closed dictionary the words are non phenomenal. Open it and you will have an experience of it whose content is the phenomenon of that page. Whether the meaning you might get is phenomenal depends on your theory of meaning. I think it is. 
> 

Again, I don't think any of that makes any sense at all.  That I have an experience doesn't convert anything in the dictionary to something else (non-phenomenal to phenomenal).  I actually can't believe you really believe any of that.

> > Is whatever is "in people's heads" (or whatever y'all have on Claire) "non-phenomenal"? 
> 
> What is in peoples heads, like a closed dictionary, is usually not phenomenal except when opened during brain surgery. 


Now, I know you're kidding.

>However, should you make the identity of experiencing with the brain as for example SWM does the all phenomena occur in the brain. In that sense what is in the brain is phenomenal or better is phenomenalling ;) 
> 

That's a poor description of an identity theory, I think.  That some brain events are also mental events doesn't imply that everything in the brain is phenomenal (or 'phenomenalling' either).


> >Is info, if it's in the language of physics, thereby non-phenomenal, even if it IS in somebody's head rather than a textbook?  
> 
> See the comment on the dictionary meanings.
> 
> > When you look at your car does that once solid vehicle suddenly become a phenomenal entity, and lose all its weight? 
> 
> No. The notion of weight being substance is false. Weight is the attraction with the earth and is independent of the observation of the body. A body can fall unobserved.
> 
> > Your so-called "phenomenal dualism" doesn't actually mean anything at all.  It's like the "dualism" that exists between actual events and "longed for events."
> 
> Yes. It is. They are not the same set.
>   

Right.  One is a set of events, the other...well actually, the other is reminiscent of the set of unicorns on roundsquare cupolas.  I'll stop here: none of the Einstein quote below is relevant to anything I've said above.

W


> > All bilge--phenomenal or otherwise.  Or as the bard said, "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
> 
> Me thinks you do protest to much. Sound and fury? Here is Einstein:
> 

It is obviously useless to protest against arrant nonsense, but I can't resist doing it anyhow, for some reason.


> "It has often been said, and certainly not without justification,
> that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why
> then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let
> the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed
> be the right thing at a time when the physicist believes he
> has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts
> and fundamental laws which are so well established that
> waves of doubt can not reach them; but, it can not be right
> at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have
> become problematic as they are now. At a time like the
> present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more
> solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the
> philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical
> foundations; for, he himself knows best, and feels more surely
> where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation, he
> must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the
> concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.
> 
> The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of
> every day thinking. It is for this reason that the critical
> thinking of the physicist cannot possibly be restricted to the
> examination of the concepts of his own specific field. He
> cannot proceed without considering critically a much more
> difficult problem, the problem of analyzing the nature of
> everyday thinking."
> 
> 
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