Do concepts exist?

[labmath2]

After contemplating John Searle's lecture i came to the conclusion that he actually makes the question "do concepts exist" even more difficult to answer. The best way to answer the question in light of his lecture is to ask "Do you mean concepts as in the physical manifestation (like trees) or the mental conception (something with root, stem, branches and flowers)." If it is a concept with a one to one representation (a particular fish or tree), then yes it exist. If it is a concept without a one to one representation (patience, perseverance or even a generic tree), then no.

[Kevin Beal]

The google definition of concept is :

"an abstract idea; a general notion."

 

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a concept of a particular tree, rather that would be a perception, right? I think "concept" is a little more specific than all that, if that makes sense.

[labmath2]

Conception

the way in which something is perceived or regarded.

[Kevin Beal]

Conception

the way in which something is perceived or regarded.

I don't think that's the sense in which Stef is using the word in the video. He mentions a few times that it's an abstraction, like a category.

[jpahmad]

It seems what we really want to do in this thread is define the word "exists." 

 

Logically, one cannot respond to the question "do concepts exist?" without aknowledging a priori that concepts exist.  If they didn't exist, how would the question "do concepts exist" have any meaning?

 

If concepts didn't exist, or if they existed only as a subjective experience, then the quesiton would sound like this:  "do fliperflappasnickfidlednanks exist?"

[Kevin Beal]

It seems what we really want to do in this thread is define the word "exists." 

 

Logically, one cannot respond to the question "do concepts exist?" without aknowledging a priori that concepts exist.  If they didn't exist, how would the question "do concepts exist" have any meaning?

 

If concepts didn't exist, or if they existed only as a subjective experience, then the quesiton would sound like this:  "do fliperflappasnickfidlednanks exist?"

If your argument is that if we can talk about something, then that thing must exist, then, you're wrong. We can talk about gods or unicorns, but that doesn't mean that they exist.

 

Trees and rocks are easy. I know they exist because I can touch them. But, where are these "concepts"? Can I touch them? If you cannot measure them in any way except through people's reporting of their own conscious states, then you can run into logical problems when you use the same word to describe both things.

 

As Stef points out, countries do not exist like rocks and trees. And yet we ascribe properties to countries as if they were like living breathing human beings. Things worthy of protecting and fighting. But you cannot protect or fight a concept. That a country is somehow different and separate from the individuals and / or land mass that make it up is the kind of logical problems that come up when you use the same word for both things.

 

Stef and Ayn Rand and a lot of other thinkers' solution is to say that concepts do not exist and use "exist" to describe rocks and trees, and not concepts. And I would agree if not for the fact that concepts and other subjective experiences are causal. My concept of a chair causes me to expect four legs and it causes me to sit down expecting to be supported when it might be the case that one leg is missing and I fall backwards as the chair falls apart underneath me.

 

And that's, I think, the reason that Plato invented his realm of perfect forms. How can that subjective experience cause anything? And honestly, I have no idea. I suspect that advances in cognitive science will solve that one.

 

A materialist, determinist perspective would be to say that it's not the concept that was causal, but rather electrical and chemical signals in my brain which caused me to have those expectations. That the concept is just fluff on top in an epiphenomenal sense, and that neurological activity causes the conscious experience and never the other way 'round.

 

I'm inclined to think that my thoughts of a hot naked chicks caused me to feel aroused, rather than the thought and the arousal originating from some common underlying process. If it were an underlying process that caused it all, my experience of the thought causing that arousal would be illusory. And maybe it is, but that's a claim that needs to be demonstrated.

 

When I use the word "exist" I mean to say that it is causal. The way in which it is causal is either subjectively experienced or occurs in the world and is something we can measure (objective).

 

And that's why I really like the distinctions John Searle makes between different senses of the words "objective" and "subjective". It's a much more accurate way of looking at these issues to avoid any potential equivocation.

[meta]

@Kevin

"

P1. You told me I'm wrong about how I am addressing your challenge.

P2. You told me that telling people that they are wrong is disrespectful to their perspective.

C1. You are not respecting my own perspective about how to address your challenge.

C2. You put forward a rule that I must follow, but you don't have to.

 

If we can't hammer out something as simple as this, I can't imagine we could make any progress in a discussion about advanced metaphysics.

"

I never meant to say that you were wrong, i never put forward any rule.When I said " i think you should respect my perspective"all i meant was to say that i thought acknowledging my perspective would make more sense than categoricaly rejecting it.I cannot convince you that Searle's framework is wrong from my persepective if I don't get in at the root of the concept you use, into your framework. And you cannot convince me my framework is wrong by keeping using Searle's vocabulary and angles (status function, ontological subjecticvity) because they just don't fit in my view.Those framework are just too different.I guess I got frustrated because you kept using Searle's realm of concept, which still makes no sense to me., without adressing what was wrong with my framework.I never said it was wrong, i never made a moral judgement on your doings. I meant that it was not productive.And the thing that I found not productive was not the fact that you told me that I am wrong, but the fact that you categorically refuse my framework.Refuting the existence of a scientific framework on the matter of existence like you did makes no sense to me, but I never said it was wrong to do anything.Anyway, I didnt mean to discredit your opinion from a moral ground. All I meant is that i thought it was not productive.Of course you don't have to do anything. I apologise if I gave you this impression of judging your method, I might have poorly express myself.

It seems what we really want to do in this thread is define the word "exists." 

 

Logically, one cannot respond to the question "do concepts exist?" without aknowledging a priori that concepts exist.  If they didn't exist, how would the question "do concepts exist" have any meaning?

 

If concepts didn't exist, or if they existed only as a subjective experience, then the quesiton would sound like this:  "do fliperflappasnickfidlednanks exist?"

That is what i thought as well, my choice of title for the thread is actually reflecting my opinion on the question.Existence seems to be the epicenter of this matter.Existence can be discussed as linguistic construction. A formulation of reality based on consciousness.Or it can be discussed as a "natural state". Which doesn't need consciousness to exist.This is where Kevin's view and mine set apart. 

If your argument is that if we can talk about something, then that thing must exist, then, you're wrong. We can talk about gods or unicorns, but that doesn't mean that they exist.

 

Trees and rocks are easy. I know they exist because I can touch them. But, where are these concepts? Can I touch them? If you cannot measure them in any way except through people's reporting of their own conscious states, then you can run into logical problems when you use the same word to describe both things.

 

 

If you allow me (and if i am not being wrong this time):You earlier mentionned that when you got scared in the bushes from an imaginative tiger, the only thing that was objective and real were the chemical and eletrical signal in your brain. Am I right?So even though you cannot touch those signal, you can measure them, therefore they have objective existence.So your fear was real because its components are real (measurable brain stimulies). But the tiger was not real, because only in your head.Now if I say that a concept like  a unicorn is present in your brain as electrical and chemical stimulies, where am i wrong in saying that those electrical and chemical stimulations (measurable and ontologically objective) are real?I think I totally fit in this category:

"A materialist, determinist perspective would be to say that it's not the concept that was causal, but rather electrical and chemical signals in my brain which caused me to have those expectations. That the concept is just fluff on top in an epiphenomenal sense, and that neurological activity causes the conscious experience and never the other way 'round."When you say:"

When I use the word "exist" I mean to say that it is causal. The way in which it is causal is either subjectively experienced or occurs in the world and is something we can measure (objective).

 

And that's why I really like the distinctions John Searle makes between different senses of the words "objective" and "subjective". It's a much more accurate way of looking at these issues to avoid any potential equivocation.

"

That is exactly where we disagree.I think that existence can only be backed up by Nature.Since we all use Language to talk about anything, everything we talk about fits in ontological subjectivity (specifically as a collective intention as Searle says), I don't see the point of his categories.

To take the previous example I took regarding the definition of Searle's categories:Can you explain where the difference between a "claim which conforms to reality" and "those things we can touch / measure"?Because your example are: a tree and a 26 years old human, so what is the difference between those two entities?How does the fact that you are 26 is not ontological objective? You are an entity that can be touched, your age can be measured.How does the fact that you named this entity "tree" is not Ontological subjectivity (Language,biological classification, collective intention like Searle says)? 

[Kevin Beal]

I think I totally fit in this category [epiphenomenalism]

Then there is absolutely no reason for you to debate or correct me. It's not an understanding of my position, or a desire for true beliefs, or a desire to correct me where I've gone astray, that has caused you to advance your own arguments. It's electrical and chemical activity in your brain that has caused you to advance your position.

 

Your consciousness is just along for the ride. You have no choice in the matter. So, there's no reason for me to debate you. I'd just be talking to a flesh robot.

[meta]

 

Your consciousness is just along for the ride. You have no choice in the matter. So, there's no reason for me to debate you. I'd just be talking to a flesh robot.

I believe in determinism, but also in free will. To me they are not contradictory.Intelligence and conscisousness are nothing more than ermegrgences of complex system made of physical stuff.I indeed see myself as nothing more than flesh. I think that inteligence is a miracle, an emergence that occurs so rarely in the organic world of Life that it makes it miraculous to me.If you imply that your free will and your consciousness are not rooted in natural realities (flesh, chemical and electrical fluctuations, evolution of the nervous system in Life, evolution of social beahvior as survival strategies), you are referring to the soul, or some kind of supernatural stuff. Aren't you? It sounds like it.What are you if not a flesh robot (when you say "flesh robot", i hear "animal", is there a difference in your mind?)

 

"It's electrical and chemical activity in your brain that has caused you to advance your position."Of course it is. How could thoughts could possibly be other than the result of brain activity?

[Kevin Beal]

What are you if not a flesh robot

A rational being whose consciousness has certain causal features including beliefs, perceptions, desires, etc.

 

I'm a man, who has a capacity for reason, where that reason builds on itself causally from one logical premise to the next until reaching logical conclusions. My thoughts lead to action.

 

All of that is illusory if epiphenomenalism is true.

 

My consciousness is not only sustained by brain activity, but also causes brain activity through some yet unknown mechanism.

 

But, as I said, there is no point debating a flesh robot. You are programmed to do what you will do and I can't argue with that. You are not responsible for truth, but to your programming.

[jpahmad]

If your argument is that if we can talk about something, then that thing must exist, then, you're wrong. We can talk about gods or unicorns, but that doesn't mean that they exist.

 

 

 

Unicorns don't exist, but the concept of a unicorn exists.  Can't we say that?

 

But, as I said, there is no point debating a flesh robot. You are programmed to do what you will do and I can't argue with that. You are not responsible for truth, but to your programming.

 

Unless you're programmed to seek the truth. 

[meta]

A rational being whose consciousness has certain causal features including beliefs, perceptions, desires, etc.

Isn't this is a fancy way of saying that you are a very intelligent ape, a very intelligent flesh robot?

 

My consciousness is not only sustained by brain activity, but also causes brain activity through some yet unknown mechanism.

 

I agree that consciousness can be seen as a loop, stimulating brain activity, so I am more on a deterministic and materialistic side rather than on the side of epiphenomenalism.

But the start of a loop is still the brain, the central nervous system, which evolution lead to the emergence of intelligence and consciousness, not the other way around, once intelligence is there, i totally agree that it can stimulate brain activity and growth.I said I fit in  this materialistic approach because i consider any thought as the result of physical interactions in the brain. But I agree that the thought could lead to new physical interaction in the brain.

Do you see a difference between an ape and a "flesh robot"? Because we are apes, very smart apes.I am programmed , I just see humans as the only "flesh robots" able to tweak the program. That is a bit reductionist, but we are animals. 

 

[Kevin Beal]

Unicorns don't exist, but the concept of a unicorn exists.  Can't we say that?

 

Unless you're programmed to seek the truth. 

With much hesitation, I accept that concepts of unicorns exist.

 

And whether or not he is programmed to seek the truth is actually irrelevant. It's the programming part that is the problem. He cannot claim to have reasoned anything thru since that implies that his faculty for reason is causal (from thought to brain activity). He cannot claim superior logic because all that means is that he was programmed to think that. Logical conclusions must be so regardless of what a person thinks (epistemic objectivity). And in order to reach that logical conclusion, you have to assume your (ontologically subjective) capacity for reason is causal in reaching that conclusion. But his programming is the causal part. His reasoning is epiphenomenal, fluff, nothing.

I agree that consciousness can be seen as a loop, stimulating brain activity, so I am more on a deterministic and materialistic side rather than on the side of epiphenomenalism.

Determinism and materialism (with regard to philosophical dualism) is epiphenomenalism. Epiphenomenalism is a broader category that contains those two things.

 

Once you accept that your reason, desires and beliefs are causal in your action, you are not a determinist (or a materialist with regard to the mind).

 

Robots don't have beliefs and desires. Their programming simulates beliefs and desires. But by definition a simulation is not the thing itself.

[meta]

With much hesitation, I accept that concepts of unicorns exist.

 

And whether or not he is programmed to seek the truth is actually irrelevant. It's the programming part that is the problem. He cannot claim to have reasoned anything thru since that implies that his faculty for reason is causal (from thought to brain activity). He cannot claim superior logic because all that means is that he was programmed to think that. Logical conclusions must be so regardless of what a person thinks (epistemic objectivity). And in order to reach that logical conclusion, you have to assume your (ontologically subjective) capacity for reason is causal in reaching that conclusion. But his programming is the causal part. His reasoning is epiphenomenal, fluff, nothing.

Determinism and materialism (with regard to philosophical dualism) is epiphenomenalism. Epiphenomenalism is a broader category that contains those two things.

 

Once you accept that your reason, desires and beliefs are causal in your action, you are not a determinist (or a materialist with regard to the mind).

 

Robots don't have beliefs and desires. Their programming simulates beliefs and desires. But by definition a simulation is not the thing itself.

I think logic is an emergence of the practice of reasoning and communicating in  intelligent animal, it is the only way to understand the program. That is why it came to existence.Language is the best example of how programmed we are, we think in a language, we use logic within it, there is no reasoning without a language.

With language we literally shape the means of expression of our consciousness with arbitrary rules, like any program.

 

Consciousness brings the ability to tweak the program, to question our perception of reality.It is not epiphenomenal if we can tweak it. 

[Kevin Beal]

I think logic is an emergence of the practice of reasoning and communicating in  intelligent animal, it is the only way to understand the program. That is why it came to existence.Language is the best example of how programmed we are, we think in a language, we use logic within it, there is no reasoning without a language.

With language we literally shape the means of expression of our consciousness with arbitrary rules, like any program.

 

Consciousness brings the ability to tweak the program, to question our perception of reality.It is not epiphenomenal if we can tweak it.

You are saying the (basically) same thing I am, except I'm using the word "caused" and you're using the word "programmed". I could quibble about your characterization of "epiphenomenal", but it's close enough, I guess.

[meta]

You are saying the (basically) same thing I am, except I'm using the word "caused" and you're using the word "programmed".

I don't see it. Can you give more details?

[Kevin Beal]

I don't see it. Can you give more details?

You are saying that subjective experience is causal. I don't think you understand the implications of that and how it contradicts the things you said before, but that's all I was really trying to get at. And I don't know how to explain the contradiction without just repeating myself. That's like the whole point of the last few posts I made...

[jpahmad]

 

Once you accept that your reason, desires and beliefs are causal in your action, you are not a determinist (or a materialist with regard to the mind).

 

 

 

More acuratley, if I were to hold that position in conjunction with the whole "programming" thing, doesn't that make me a compatibilist? 

 

After all, aren't we all genetically programmed to use reason?  I don't see how they are incompatible.

 

Kevin, just out of curiosity, and forgive me if I have missed the obvious, but why is it so important to attribute human behavior to either "free will" or "determinism?"  What are the implications of one being true over the other?  How would this effect humanity?

 

For me personally, it is irrelevant.  I don't really see it changing how I myself would behave, or how I would regard other people.

[meta]

You are saying that subjective experience is causal. I don't think you understand the implications of that and how it contradicts the things you said before, but that's all I was really trying to get at. And I don't know how to explain the contradiction without just repeating myself. That's like the whole point of the last few posts I made...

I never said that subjective experience is causal.I said that consciousness can be seen as a loop. It can have an influence on thought, but it stills originates in physical interactions within a network.And the fact that I consider the program  as part arbitrarily imposed and part tweakable is not contradictory in the sense that i think it has both characteristics. 

 

After all, aren't we all genetically programmed to use reason?  I don't see how they are incompatible.

 

I agree.

[Kevin Beal]

I never said that subjective experience is causal.I said that consciousness can be seen as a loop. It can have an influence on thought

Influence is just another way of saying it's causal. It's a distinction without a difference.

 

 

More acuratley, if I were to hold that position in conjunction with the whole "programming" thing, doesn't that make me a compatibilist? 

 

After all, aren't we all genetically programmed to use reason?  I don't see how they are incompatible.

 

Kevin, just out of curiosity, and forgive me if I have missed the obvious, but why is it so important to attribute human behavior to either "free will" or "determinism?"  What are the implications of one being true over the other?  How would this effect humanity?

 

For me personally, it is irrelevant.  I don't really see it changing how I myself would behave, or how I would regard other people.

Compatibilism maybe. I'm assuming incompatibilism in order to make that statement.

 

We are not actually programmed by our genetics. It's a useful analogy, but that's not what programming is. When you use "programming" in the literal sense it already implies causal determinism since programming is conditional symbol manipulation. If it's a choice to use reason (and it is) then it's not exactly programming.

 

I program for a living. My programs do not literally decide to go with or against the conditional logic I put into it, but I do decide whether or not to reason things.

 

The reason it's important is because of morality. If I cannot choose my actions, then I am not culpable for them. We don't get mad at a rock for falling on and smushing my toe. The reason is because the rock doesn't have any culpability. And the reason it has no culpability is because it is not a moral agent capable of making decisions independent of the conditions that led it to fall on my toe.

 

I really don't want to debate determinism. It's actually against the forum guidelines. I've done it multiple times already to my own dismay. It seems to be just one of those topics that people cannot debate productively, which is part of the reason it's against the guidelines of the forum, I'm sure.

[jpahmad]

 

I really don't want to debate determinism. It's actually against the forum guidelines. I've done it multiple times already to my own dismay. It seems to be just one of those topics that people cannot debate productively, which is part of the reason it's against the guidelines of the forum, I'm sure.

 

Obviously that topic has an extensive histroy here on the boards.  I'm not interested in debating it either.  However, you can't deny it's lurking presence in this thread.  It seems that many philosophical discussions come to this inevitable fate. I completely agree that chasing a a ghost through an endless rabbit hole of conundrums, paradoxes and semantics is a waste of time and resources, especially when there are more important things to tackle (cruelty to children).  I'm just confused on why Stefan is so hostile towards people who take a deterministic view of human action.  Does this view lead to immoal behavior?  Have people been using it to justify evil? 

 

I'm not saying they do or they don't.  I just would like to be updated on what FDR supporters have witnessed as far as people with this mindset.  I've only been following the boards for a little over a year so I might have missed out on some important dialogue.

[meta]

Influence is just another way of saying it's causal. It's a distinction without a difference.

You just cut my sentence. You keep only referring to the causal side , and you omit the materialist side by cutting out the end of  the sentence :"but it stills originates in physical interactions within a network".I never said it was causal only, i said it has both characteristics. Cutting my sentence in two will not make this more true.You considered that a deterministic perspective would be to say that it's not the concept that was causal, but rather electrical and chemical signals in my brain which caused me to have those expectations.I think that thoughts (expectations for example) are the result of physical interaction within a network. So by your standard I fit the determinist category?And the fact that I fit this category implies that there is no point discussing this?I think the determinism that is not allowed here is the one regarding origins of humans behaviour. Not the one talking about the physical origin of thoughts.This was still interesting, thanks for your input.

[Kevin Beal]

You just cut my sentence. You keep only referring to the causal side , and you omit the materialist side by cutting out the end of  the sentence :"but it stills originates in physical interactions within a network".

I didn't include it because it makes no difference as far as I can tell. Of course consciousness requires brain activity.