Interview with materialist atheist Tom Jump

[Bernardo]

I start kind of slow (it's Friday evening, after all) and the initial discussion is a little repetitive and antagonistic. But after 20 minutes it becomes very nice and engaging. It's fun to have a discussion with someone invested in materialism and atheism, who forces you to turn every stone. I think at the end he realized that I at least come at it from a purely rational and empirical perspective.

https://youtu.be/KVWP8h-KMEI

[Dana Lomas]

Suffice to say he did not live up to his surname? :))

[Jeff Falzone]

An example of Bernardo's quick wit and congruence is early on when he counter's TJ's counter of the Painter analogy. Bernardo is so quick to point out why the analogy stands. I love that stuff. 

[Finch]

The CD analogy totally missed the point too. The experience of sound is obviously the problem here, which none of the physical phenomena that we associate with it explain

[Finch]

Shame the comment section is a predictable heap of shite too

[Rigpa]

I am nine minutes in and while I am going to watch the discussion in its entirety, I can tell it's going to be a long ride! This host seems utterly confused and puts more effort into smirking and smiling, than trying to grasp what you are saying. UGH.

[Jeff Falzone]

While, I have no doubt that most of the Bernardo Warrior types will interpret Tom's smile as condescending and a sign of his laughable ignorance, I also have no doubt there are Tom Warriors who will see Bernardo's laughter and exasperation as signs of a laughable narcissism mixed with woo woo ignorance. 

But, I feel very confident that they are both nice and fairly humble guys who are simply confident in their assumptions and conclusions. 

THAT SAID: it drives me nuts when people can't see the difference between types of difference WITHIN an ontological category and the difference between two different categories. That does almost make into a Bernardo Warrior type who imputes bad motives and stupidity in my enemies! :) 

[Rigpa]

"But, we know what consciousness is. At least the ones amongst us who are conscious."

Thank you, Bernardo! <3

[Bernardo]

Would it help to say you've made some of the en passant points here many times already?

[Jeff Falzone]

I haven't made that point nearly as much as the point that you make some brilliant moves and really clarify fundamental issues. But I bet you're onto something if you are suggesting that we each pick the repetitive patterns that we love, that annoy, the we ignore, and that we can't stand. I bet that is very true. Lots of repeaters in these here hills and ain't an exception :) 

[Rigpa]

Side note:

Bernardo, is that an Idealist coat of arms on your hoodie and if so, please take my money! :)

[Juan Largo]

What's telling in this interview is how psychologically invested people (Tom in this case) are in defending their first assumptions.  As though if they don't pan out, they will blow a circuit.  

What you see here (from a physicalist POV) and in countless other arguments of this ilk, are a few basic assumptions that rarely get examined in fine grain detail.

1.  Reality and physicality are selfsame.

2.  Ergo, if consciousness is "real," it must be identical with neural functioning (which "causes" consciousness).

This invariably leads to Identiry Theory, and in turn to the "explanitory gap" and Chalmers' Hard Problem.

3. The belief that just because a linaer/causal physical process has not YET been shown to produce consciousness does not mean that such a physical process will not someday be found. We just need more physical data.

The fact that nobody can even provide a theoretical framework on showing how so-called physical process might cause consciousness is rarely if ever addressed, though I've seen Bernardo bring up this point repeatedly.  This, I believe, is the greatest examply of woo and magical thinking held by Type A physicalists.  And one that gets glossed over with the "just wait on further data" argument.

The argument here is what Aristotle called "pathos," an appeal to emotion (masquerading as logic and science), or "persuasion at any cost."

Freaking painful to watch...

[Jeff Falzone]

I haven't pointed out yet that Tom Jump fits exactly the picture of a greedy, headline grabbing charlatan that isn't worthy of Bernardo's time. In fact, a guy like Keith Frankish shows more genuine curiosity in Bernardo's view that Tom did.  If we are being little scientists and trying to understand what makes the critical difference, my hunch is that it is a combination of what platform is being offered to Bernardo, how 'safe' he feels emotionally with the person, and what's he's had for breakfast. It is very easy to imagine Bernardo on Twitter coming across something Tom Jump said and giving him the Keith Frankish treatment. 

What I love is this: the idea that despite Bernardo's reactions to those who strike him as charlatans, there will continue to be passionate physicalists like Tom Jump who enjoy conversations like the one he just had with Bernardo. If so, we have more of these conversations to look forward to. And Bernardo handles himself so well that I have no doubt this kind of video plays a role changing of minds that is taking place these days. 

My frustration obviously just comes from the fact that there's hardly anybody like Bernardo out there who can pop onto an interview and do what he does. I sure can't. So I greedily want his words to be heard more widely. 

And, sure, it's fun to debate against people who disagree with me on the specific strategy idea. And important to some extent. 

p..s I agree with Riga about taking my money if you are producing hoodies with your coat-of-arms~ 

[Bernardo]

You can order it from Vistaprint using this high-res PNG file:

[Ben Iscatus]

Great to see Bernardo practising for Hay on Wye! It can hardly get any better, except that eventually he won't have to think, just say what he's said before with even greater emphasis. The finer points of presentation can be important in winning hearts and minds.

[Jeff Falzone]

Yeah, this is the exact kind of conversation that will open (or begin to change) some people's minds.

[Rigpa]

"Yes, I believe that the water pipes in my own house, if we could organize them in a complicated enough way, those could be conscious."

Wait, what? 😲

[Martin Helmer]

What's the copyright?

(I'm assuming you're the owner of it)

On Friday, 21 February 2020 16:44:30 UTC-5, Bernardo wrote:

You can order it from Vistaprint using this high-res PNG file:

[Phil Harker]

"These examples point to the third and most fundamental aspect of the incommensurability of competing paradigms. In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds.  .... Practicing in different worlds, the two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction. Again, that is not to say that they can see anything they please. Both are looking at the world, and what they look at has not changed. But in some areas they see different things, and they see them in different relations one to the other. That is why a law that cannot even be demonstrated to one group of scientists may occasionally seem intuitively obvious to another. Equally, it is why, before they can hope to communicate fully, one group or the other must experience the conversion that we have been calling a paradigm shift. Just because it is a transition between incommensurables, the transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic and neutral experience. Like the gestalt switch, it must occur all at once (though not necessarily in an instant) or not at all.

Kuhn, Thomas S.. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (p. 150). University of Chicago Press - A. Kindle Edition. "

[Jeff Falzone]

I understand Khun's point but I think we can see clear examples of people who are holding the possibility of either interpretation. Maybe we could call that it's own paradigm shift.

[Phil Harker]

"That being the case, a second aspect of translation, long familiar to both historians and linguists, becomes crucially important. To translate a theory or worldview into one's own language is not to make it one's own. For that one must go native, discover that one is thinking and working in, not simply translating out of, a language that was previously foreign. That transition is not, however, one that an individual may make or refrain from making by deliberation and choice, however good his reasons for wishing to do so. Instead, at some point in the process of learning to translate, he finds that the transition has occurred, that he has slipped into the new language without a decision having been made [implying that the 'choice' to make the shift was not in the local brain of the avatar agent, but at the unseen level of the non-local Subject]. Or else, like many of those who first encountered, say, relativity or quantum mechanics in their middle years, he finds himself fully persuaded of the new view but nevertheless unable to internalize it and be at home in the world it helps to shape. Intellectually such a man has made his choice, but the conversion required if it is to be effective eludes him. He may use the new theory nonetheless, but he will do so as a foreigner in a foreign environment, an alternative available to him only because there are natives already there. His work is parasitic on theirs, for he lacks the constellation of mental sets which future members of the community will acquire through education. The conversion experience that I have likened to a gestalt switch remains, therefore, at the heart of the revolutionary process. Good reasons for choice provide motives for conversion and a climate in which it is more likely to occur. Translation may, in addition, provide points of entry for the neural reprogramming that, however inscrutable at this time, must underlie conversion. But neither good reasons nor translation constitute conversion, and it is that process we must explicate in order to understand an essential sort of scientific change." [insertion added]

Kuhn, Thomas S.. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (p. 204). University of Chicago Press - A. Kindle Edition. 

[Lou Gold]

Phil,

Thank you for these wonderful Kuhn quotes. One really can sense the difference by considering two places on a map, one that you've visited and one that you've not visited. The final step is direct experience. It would be a movement from an open belief to a faith beyond doubt. One might say this the difference between a true and false conversion. Going back to the map metaphor, one can believe the map is true but reading the map will not be the same before and after having visited the place.

However, the map (paradigm), especially a culturally supported one, may help one firm an intuition or the memory of an experience that would otherwise seem alien. A map may also lead to a false belief, if applied or extended beyond experience, like going to the wrong location because one was given poor directions. 

[Phil Harker]

Lou - "a faith beyond doubt" Yes! Now is that not the deep meaning of the Greek term epignosis? Gnosis is experiential knowledge that is beyond description, but epignosis refers to that special kind of 'spiritual' [not religious] awareness that relates to the notion of absolute certainty - and of course, this certainty cannot be 'given' to another any form of 'words' even though the manifest life of one who has found such a certainty may be a 'living letter' of such an epignosis. 

[Bernardo]

Yes, but I won't sue anybody who makes non-commercial, personal use of it. If someone starts making merchandise for sale with it, then it's another story.

[Finch]

I'd like top see a book called the structure of philosophical revolutions

[Anand Damani]

Bernado,

Great going and enjoyed the full conversation.:)

I am sure both of you have found reason to add more knowledge to the vast knowledge that you guys already have.:)

I am loving your posts, essays and the discussion in the group and am grateful to you for all that you are doing.

At minute  20-22 where you mention that Matter is not the reason for the birth of consciousness is where I would look at more closely and expand the same. 

I am sharing the information shared by a person who had seen them by yogic vision.(The process of getting that vision has been documented for centuries) 

The unit or basic component of matter is atom and anything below that all the quark and other stuff is not worth getting into as they are not in order and do not depict standard behavior.

So atom is what we in reality can see as the building block of all of the universe.

Now this atom is of two types. One that is having equal or more particles in the centre in comparison to those going around (electrons)and another type that is having only one particle in the centre and 60 in 4 concentric circles going around.(2,8,18 &32)

The first has mass and is affected by pressure. It can react and change form and will continue to evolve .

The second type of atom  is sentient and free of mass. Its composition is complete and it can no longer transform change or react.

It has consciousness .

It is this atom that  resides in the human body and gives it life.(Soul)

Once you have this basic riddle or puzzle understood then I am sure you will be able to explain the whole existence and the role of Human beings as a species.

We can be in oder and explain all the unsolved logic behind human behavior and pave the way for a global harmonious existence.

I would love to answer all the questions that you have on this proposition.

You have reach and can dissipate this information in time before human race blows itself out of this planet .

Hope this attracts your attention.

ananddamani.com

[RHC]

This was fascinating.  BTW I read Tom's facial expressions as pretty neutral. Seemed like a decent guy to me, based just on seeing him in this.

I thought from 1:03 to 1:11 where you summarize your core arguments is outstanding.

How the water through pipes analogy doesn't make the category error that IS materialism crystal clear to the point of absurdity is beyond me.  At the vary least it should cause one to see what a motivated reasoning based stretch both substrate independence and strong emergence are.

[Ben Iscatus]

Thanks, Phil. The gestalt switch is much anticipated.

[Finch]

His time example was interesting, seems like a pretty smart guy. Would maybe counter and mention that, besides the Einsteinian interpretation, there are the Minkowskian and Lorentzian views of time pertaining to special and general relativity (the Lorentzian view seems to have a little more evidence in favour these days, but they are empirically equivalent views).

So it's not so clear that time and it's related issues (paradox of the present, arrow of time, duration etc.) have actually been solved as yet.

[RHC]

Watching this reminded me that the primary reason people are materialists is because they end up personally identifying with it before they peel it back to starting assumptions. And reverse engineering like this leads you to the wrong place.

Once you realize that we can never step outside the boundaries of our own experiencing, then claiming that anything is other than a category of experience can only be a kind of declarative wishful thinking.  If I pick up my pc mouse, and clear my mind,  the only thing there is my/the experience of experiencing it in my hand in front of me, in the context of the surrounding field of perception..  I can then have the experience of describing the experience to an ever expanding level of granular preciseness, relative to other experiences and concepts in mind (ie Science) but at no point is the description more than an experience that follows and informs another.  Using  the concept matter in that description doesnt change the ontological status of the description, including the concept of matter.  The order of precedence in the existence of all of this is unquestionable.  Descriptions follow whats being described. Describing follows a describer.   Because we cant step outside the boundaries of experiencing. matter can not be more than a descriptor, a kind of mnemonic. To claim it exists beyond this is as reasonable as believing in the tooth fairy, it is blowing out the candle and embracing the Dark; that worse adds nothing to its conceptual utility.  To reverse the order of precedence and say that matter,  a descriptor, is what is primary is nuts.  

Now fleshing all this out into more speculative immaterialist detail is something reasonable people can disagree about, but sticking with Materialism for no other reason than because you were brainwashed into it by cultural programming and so personally identify with it for the social status it confers (where political economy meets metaphysics Lou) is one more way of living in a less true story of the world. A lie this basic and crazy cant help but have cascading proportionately bad repercussions.

[Dana Lomas]

The map/territory analogy does aptly emphasize the challenge at hand, in offering a map to one who is not only unfamiliar with the territory, but doesn't even believe in its existence, let alone having any intention of ever visiting there. Until such time that they they might stumble upon this newly discovered (or is it re-discovered) land, of what use and meaning is such a map to such an individual, no matter how well drawn it may be, and can that map alone change the locked-in mindset? However, perchance it might reawaken some recollection of a long-lost land with which they are actually more familiar than is normally realized ...

"The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown" ~ Hegel

[RHC]

"The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown" ~ Hegel

great quote!

[Dana Lomas]

In the empty lot - a place

not natural, but wild - among

the trash of human absence,

the slough and shamble

of the city's seasons, a few

old locusts bloom.

A few woods birds

fly and sing

in the new foliage

 - warblers and tanagers, birds

wild as leaves; in a million

each one would be rare,

new to the eyes.  A man

couldn't make a habit

of such color,

such flight and singing.

But they are the habit of this 

wasted place.  In them

the ground is wise.  They are

its remembrance of what it is.

~ Wendell Berry

[Juan Largo]

Anyway you shake it, Tom was basically denying ontological categories, insisting that some day, the quantitative will entirely "explain" the qualitative by way of physical mechanisms. If it couldn't, that would place a limit on measuring (science), and that's really the underlying issue here, IMO.

Just as fundamentalist religious folk insist on the infalibility of doctrine, Type A physiclists will challenge you to the death before they accept that the explanitory power of time-bound (linear-causal) physical processes has limits.It doesn't matter what arguments are presented per the apparent impossibility of jumping from matter to mind, they'll have none of it.

This has led to a mountain of tedious, circular, tortured, and outright absurd agruments to try and posit physical properties as fundemental, as the end-all. But if we look closely at this whole fandango, with all of it's wonky loops and detours, the rock bottom issue is almost certainly epistemic.

As mentioned elsewhere, Nagel said that experience begets a data stream with information totally absent in any and all quantitive descriptions, no matter HOW exhaustive. As a long time rock climber, for example, a guide book might describe to me every last geological detail of a given strecth of rock (a climbing route), but it can never disclose what it is like (the experience) of actually CLIMBINGthat route. Moreover, I might have the total quantitative description of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon, or the total physical description of a certain woman; but neither "scientific" description of either the booze or the woman can POSSIBLY tell me what it's like to drink the bourbon or be with the woman. We all know this as a simple and certain fact.

. 

This seemingly irrefutable fact of life is roundly refuted by physicalists because it places limits on how much quantifying can tell us about reality. 

That, I believe, is the real psychological issue that drives a physicalist to conconct such a breaking wave of ludicrous counter-arguments to the fact that experience holds information beyond what science can explain in strictly quantative terms. Note that virtually all of these arguments involve  wholesale conflation: the experiential is actually the physical; the 1st person is "contained" and postulated by the 3rd person (Nagel's "view from nowhere); or most absurdly, Marry (Marry's Room), should she have the required 3rd person data, would be able to "know" all about color having never experienced red, green, etc. The idea that intelligent people can make that argument boggles the mind.

A last factor, perhaps, is our standard way of "explaining" any thing or phenomenon by virtue of some other thing (force, property, etc.) or phenomenon. While we can't yet do so with consciousness, the physicalist believes it's just a matter of finding the right measurements, then all will be clear.  

And the beat goes on....