Great post, Marco, and very much needed! Debates in philosophy of mind concerning physicalism too often leave out what "physical" means, or explain it as "the laws of physics" or "nothing over and above the physical", as if those aren’t problematic and everyone is already on the same page about what those mean. But "physical" means very different things to different people.
I wonder if there's another layer of confusion that comes from a implicit belief in the ordinary “naive” view, which takes the physical to be tangible, concrete objects perceived through the senses? Put this view on top of a lingering materialism, and you get a weird idea: the fundamental quantum level is really just smaller bits of "not quite stuff" (a Matter replacement essentially) which you can somehow add together to get the world we perceive. These people have never thought of Matter as problematic, never thought of it as a theoretical entity that is never perceived through the senses. At least this is my conjecture as to why reductionism and determinism are still so popular. But who knows. I can't make sense of it.
“Is this a clear definition of what it means for something to be ‘physical’ as opposed to ‘unphysical’?”
Haha…not for me! But I wasn't even on board with Matter and materialism, and now everything's supposed to ride on quantum fields and spacetime and math! It's all too much for me to wrap my mind around. I’m still living in the naive primitive world where ‘physical’ means tangible, concrete stuff I can touch and see and smell and hear. This is the only kind of "physical" that makes sense to me.
"I wonder if there's another layer of confusion that comes from a implicit belief in the ordinary “naive” view, which takes the physical to be tangible, concrete objects perceived through the senses?"
Indeed! The next post will show how our everyday notion of material as solid objects is an emergent property that makes no sense at the more fundamental level. Stay tuned!
I am told the definition of physical in philosophy of mind is "Anything that can be exhaustively quantified without reference to qualities whatsoever". So it is rendered to whether someone is good at mathematics or not and whether they're stupid enough to believe qualities are "merely epiphenomenal" and quantities are "fundamental", all independent of an observer observing or inventing those very quantities, and, somehow in the absence of a person altogether. Thus, it is Thomas Nagel's "view from nowhere".
Notice, I never said "physicalism" refers to that which sensorimotor processes or properties or faculties interact with (e.g., that which you can touch or hold in your hand). Instead, physicalism here means math equations and numbers, conveniently written under the numerical Arabic system, and such and such, that are presupposed as pre-existing before spacetime itself (e.g. Max Tegmark).
In this view, if the universe implodes or explodes from some black hole or apocalypse, somehow what will remain "eternal" are the Schrodinger equations and such and such, as it were, as disembodied Platonic forms, but also in English and Arabic numerals, and all without an observer or interpreter. That's what the mathematical physicists want you to believe is "physical".
It is extremely rare for them to admit how outrageous this is.
I submit the start of such needless debates, and their religious wars, persecutions, and other systematic betrayals over the eons, began when mathematicians contaminated the gene pool with their criteria of "quantities over qualities".
Indeed, the medievals knew more about the human condition and consciousness than we do today.
I have never encountered this definition of physical before. I wonder if those who hold this view could provide examples of something physical that can be quantified without reference to qualities. Anyway, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be making a point similar to Don's, and I agree. Theoretical physicists, in particular, would acknowledge that there is a Platonic aspect to their theories and thinking. Nonetheless, I believe it is essential to achieve conceptual clarity. Precisely because this can make us understand how we mistake mental constructs for real entities in the world.
wonderful column and enormously clarifying, based on the past conversation you referred to.
But I wonder about "mass." Isn't the word "mass" at least as confusing as "physical?"
I just copied this from "study.com" - perhaps not the best source, but simple enough that it might reveal some of the challenges:
What does mass mean?
Mass is a measurement that refers to the amount of matter that makes up an object. Mass can also be thought of as the measurement of an object's resistance to a change in motion.
What is the formula for mass and weight?
The formula for weight states that weight is equal to mass multiplied by the acceleration of gravity (i.e., W=MG).
The formula for mass can therefore be M=W/G. However, mass is also equal to the net force needed to accelerate an object, divided by its acceleration (i.e., M = F/A).
******
"The amount of matter that makes up an object."
COMMENT: Here we're assuming we know what "matter" is - also, what is an object? Does the word 'object" really have any meaning apart from "subject"? Objective to what?
Mass can also be thought of as the measurement of an object's resistance to a change in motion"
COMMENT: Now we're getting down to things. If you stop after the word "measurement" - "mass" is an abstraction from something that's been experienced, or at least, something with a possibility of being experienced.
So we wind up with the fact that all these words - physical, matter, mass, energy, etc - are abstractions, measurements, based on experience.
But what kind of experience?
I was just watching Mark Vernon speaking of Owen Barfield, who I assume you are familiar with. Mark was reflecting, with some friend in the zoom conversation, on Barfield's frequently repeated observation that "pneuma" in ancient times meant wind, breath, spirit, life, and more.
In our modern way of thinking about the "natural" world, there is a REALITY - (wind which is nothing more than vibrations of a purely dead, non conscious "atmosphere") and then a purely human, MERELY subjective imposition of our private imaginations which conceptualize "pretend" things like spirit, life, etc - or impose poetic meanings relating "wind" to 'breath."
As long as we think, imagine, perceive, engage with any concept - physical, mass, matter, etc with our modern abstract, detached, dissociated, "thinking," we can go on defining and redefining forever and never reach any understanding of what matter and life and mind and nature and everything else really are.
If William Blake saw something "real" when he looked at the "sun" and declared to the proverbial phlegmatic Englishman, "I do not see a small round disc about the size of a guinea but a host of heavenly angels singing "Glory glory glory to the Lord Most High, Hallelujah!"
(But Marco, I also realize this is not what you're going to be adding to the next edition of your book!!!)
That's right, everything comes down to experience.
But consider this...
Imagine a heavy stone suddenly levitating and, out of nowhere, flying towards you, hitting you on the head. Wouldn't you start asking questions? How can a stone fly? And why did it strike me? Then, another "miracle" occurs: your alter ego materializes, saying, "Oh, Don. What are you wondering about? The stone and your pain are merely mental abstractions. There’s nothing to know or understand other than that any explanation you devise will just be a narrative created by your mind."
?? I’m not sure what I said that relates to your question. If that happened with a stone, I’d certainly ask those questions.
But it’s no LESS mysterious than why, if I hold the stone in my hand, and let go, it falls to the ground.
In fact, equally mysterious (that is, within the physicalist framework) is the fact that when I hold the stone in my hand, it doesn’t suddenly dissolve in the next instant, or turn into a butterfly, or - well, levitate. All equally mysterious and utterly inexplicable within a physicalist framework.
In fact, the mere feeling of the solidity or weight of the stone, its visual image, it’s predictability in terms of its “physical” (in the everyday sense) behavior - its very existence is an utterly inconceivable, inexplicable mystery.
I never, until a few years ago, thought “the mystery of existence” was a practical way of countering physicalism. Until I came across David Bentley Hart’s “The Experience of God.” Hart specifically notes that under a naturalist view (physicalist naturalism) all of existence is an utterly impossible mystery.
The very fact that we do tend to find a flying rock more mysterious than the simple existence of a rock shows the extent to which we’ve unconsciously imbibed the incoherence and “not even wrongness’ (to borrow Pauli’s phrase) of modern thought.
And speaking of modern thought, I’ve been quite impressed recently with Mark Vernon’s videos on Barfield. I’m thinking that Barfield’s work (not Steiner’s!) might be a helpful bridge for many in the intellectual/metacrisis/meaning crisis community, to integral yoga. Curious if you know much about Barfield, given your background in Waldorf and Goethe.
On the other hand, when I started, at age 20, to see radiant golden figures of what traditionally were called fairies hovering in mid air, I was deeply moved but not at all surprised or shocked by it.
And at that point, if part of the furniture in the room started to levitate along with the appearance of the fairies, I might have found it quite delightful!
I've never understood why "mind" is considered to be non spatial and non temporal. This may be because I'm so ignorant of physics and the physicists' definition of time and space.
But if "awareness" - as we experience - takes in the full range of phenomena, then it "pervades" all of space and time. Certainly, in a dream, if I'm fully lucid - that is I'm aware I'm dreaming - one of the characteristics is a non-verbal 'knowing' - a direct visceral seeing of it - that everything I see is permeated by living/conscious/knowing/feeling. The objects around me are felt and seen and known as "mind-made objects. The entire spatial-temporal make up is "made of mind."
When my thoughts are completely silent in the waking state, it feels exactly the same way. It feels as if the underlying Consciousness pervades and constitutes everything. In other words, Consciousness (not just mind/citta, but Consciousness/Chit) is utterly temporal and spatial, while the Silent sense of Being is timeless and spaceless (though in a way it's also felt to encompass all of time and space)
I realize everything in the previous paragraph would be seen as mere subjective experience constructed by the purely physical brain, but that seems to me to be a faith-based assumption rather than a purely logical analysis.
If we conceive space as a mental abstraction wouldn't it be natural to consider mind as non-extended? A mind that lives in time but not in space? Perhaps it isn't even in time but at least it thinks in terms of temporal successions of thoughts. Interestingly, physics offers a third option: neither extended nor non-extended, but non-local.
If Consciousness is the concrete “substance” underlying all things, then “space” is - as. Sri Aurobindo describes it - the extension of Consciousnss, and time the movement of Consciousness.
So Consciousness is *both* extended and non-local (the “non extended” descriptor might apply to some kind of mental abstraction, but Consciuosness is THE Real, not an abstraction at all).
And again, we can verify this experientially, if not experimentally. I just got up to feed the cats, (4 AM) so when I lie down, I’m likely to be in a strong REM cycle, with vivid dreams. I can make a point of seeing if I can notice in the dream the “space” of dream Consciousenss.
But even now, in the so called “waking” state, where is space without Consciousness?
But I'm talking about the individual mind that perceives and conceives through the brain, not the universal consciousness underlying it and all there is.
Great post, Marco, and very much needed! Debates in philosophy of mind concerning physicalism too often leave out what "physical" means, or explain it as "the laws of physics" or "nothing over and above the physical", as if those aren’t problematic and everyone is already on the same page about what those mean. But "physical" means very different things to different people.
I wonder if there's another layer of confusion that comes from a implicit belief in the ordinary “naive” view, which takes the physical to be tangible, concrete objects perceived through the senses? Put this view on top of a lingering materialism, and you get a weird idea: the fundamental quantum level is really just smaller bits of "not quite stuff" (a Matter replacement essentially) which you can somehow add together to get the world we perceive. These people have never thought of Matter as problematic, never thought of it as a theoretical entity that is never perceived through the senses. At least this is my conjecture as to why reductionism and determinism are still so popular. But who knows. I can't make sense of it.
“Is this a clear definition of what it means for something to be ‘physical’ as opposed to ‘unphysical’?”
Haha…not for me! But I wasn't even on board with Matter and materialism, and now everything's supposed to ride on quantum fields and spacetime and math! It's all too much for me to wrap my mind around. I’m still living in the naive primitive world where ‘physical’ means tangible, concrete stuff I can touch and see and smell and hear. This is the only kind of "physical" that makes sense to me.
"I wonder if there's another layer of confusion that comes from a implicit belief in the ordinary “naive” view, which takes the physical to be tangible, concrete objects perceived through the senses?"
Indeed! The next post will show how our everyday notion of material as solid objects is an emergent property that makes no sense at the more fundamental level. Stay tuned!
Looking forward to it!
I am told the definition of physical in philosophy of mind is "Anything that can be exhaustively quantified without reference to qualities whatsoever". So it is rendered to whether someone is good at mathematics or not and whether they're stupid enough to believe qualities are "merely epiphenomenal" and quantities are "fundamental", all independent of an observer observing or inventing those very quantities, and, somehow in the absence of a person altogether. Thus, it is Thomas Nagel's "view from nowhere".
Notice, I never said "physicalism" refers to that which sensorimotor processes or properties or faculties interact with (e.g., that which you can touch or hold in your hand). Instead, physicalism here means math equations and numbers, conveniently written under the numerical Arabic system, and such and such, that are presupposed as pre-existing before spacetime itself (e.g. Max Tegmark).
In this view, if the universe implodes or explodes from some black hole or apocalypse, somehow what will remain "eternal" are the Schrodinger equations and such and such, as it were, as disembodied Platonic forms, but also in English and Arabic numerals, and all without an observer or interpreter. That's what the mathematical physicists want you to believe is "physical".
It is extremely rare for them to admit how outrageous this is.
I submit the start of such needless debates, and their religious wars, persecutions, and other systematic betrayals over the eons, began when mathematicians contaminated the gene pool with their criteria of "quantities over qualities".
Indeed, the medievals knew more about the human condition and consciousness than we do today.
I have never encountered this definition of physical before. I wonder if those who hold this view could provide examples of something physical that can be quantified without reference to qualities. Anyway, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be making a point similar to Don's, and I agree. Theoretical physicists, in particular, would acknowledge that there is a Platonic aspect to their theories and thinking. Nonetheless, I believe it is essential to achieve conceptual clarity. Precisely because this can make us understand how we mistake mental constructs for real entities in the world.
wonderful column and enormously clarifying, based on the past conversation you referred to.
But I wonder about "mass." Isn't the word "mass" at least as confusing as "physical?"
I just copied this from "study.com" - perhaps not the best source, but simple enough that it might reveal some of the challenges:
What does mass mean?
Mass is a measurement that refers to the amount of matter that makes up an object. Mass can also be thought of as the measurement of an object's resistance to a change in motion.
What is the formula for mass and weight?
The formula for weight states that weight is equal to mass multiplied by the acceleration of gravity (i.e., W=MG).
The formula for mass can therefore be M=W/G. However, mass is also equal to the net force needed to accelerate an object, divided by its acceleration (i.e., M = F/A).
******
"The amount of matter that makes up an object."
COMMENT: Here we're assuming we know what "matter" is - also, what is an object? Does the word 'object" really have any meaning apart from "subject"? Objective to what?
Mass can also be thought of as the measurement of an object's resistance to a change in motion"
COMMENT: Now we're getting down to things. If you stop after the word "measurement" - "mass" is an abstraction from something that's been experienced, or at least, something with a possibility of being experienced.
So we wind up with the fact that all these words - physical, matter, mass, energy, etc - are abstractions, measurements, based on experience.
But what kind of experience?
I was just watching Mark Vernon speaking of Owen Barfield, who I assume you are familiar with. Mark was reflecting, with some friend in the zoom conversation, on Barfield's frequently repeated observation that "pneuma" in ancient times meant wind, breath, spirit, life, and more.
In our modern way of thinking about the "natural" world, there is a REALITY - (wind which is nothing more than vibrations of a purely dead, non conscious "atmosphere") and then a purely human, MERELY subjective imposition of our private imaginations which conceptualize "pretend" things like spirit, life, etc - or impose poetic meanings relating "wind" to 'breath."
As long as we think, imagine, perceive, engage with any concept - physical, mass, matter, etc with our modern abstract, detached, dissociated, "thinking," we can go on defining and redefining forever and never reach any understanding of what matter and life and mind and nature and everything else really are.
If William Blake saw something "real" when he looked at the "sun" and declared to the proverbial phlegmatic Englishman, "I do not see a small round disc about the size of a guinea but a host of heavenly angels singing "Glory glory glory to the Lord Most High, Hallelujah!"
(But Marco, I also realize this is not what you're going to be adding to the next edition of your book!!!)
That's right, everything comes down to experience.
But consider this...
Imagine a heavy stone suddenly levitating and, out of nowhere, flying towards you, hitting you on the head. Wouldn't you start asking questions? How can a stone fly? And why did it strike me? Then, another "miracle" occurs: your alter ego materializes, saying, "Oh, Don. What are you wondering about? The stone and your pain are merely mental abstractions. There’s nothing to know or understand other than that any explanation you devise will just be a narrative created by your mind."
Would this explanation satisfy you?
?? I’m not sure what I said that relates to your question. If that happened with a stone, I’d certainly ask those questions.
But it’s no LESS mysterious than why, if I hold the stone in my hand, and let go, it falls to the ground.
In fact, equally mysterious (that is, within the physicalist framework) is the fact that when I hold the stone in my hand, it doesn’t suddenly dissolve in the next instant, or turn into a butterfly, or - well, levitate. All equally mysterious and utterly inexplicable within a physicalist framework.
In fact, the mere feeling of the solidity or weight of the stone, its visual image, it’s predictability in terms of its “physical” (in the everyday sense) behavior - its very existence is an utterly inconceivable, inexplicable mystery.
I never, until a few years ago, thought “the mystery of existence” was a practical way of countering physicalism. Until I came across David Bentley Hart’s “The Experience of God.” Hart specifically notes that under a naturalist view (physicalist naturalism) all of existence is an utterly impossible mystery.
The very fact that we do tend to find a flying rock more mysterious than the simple existence of a rock shows the extent to which we’ve unconsciously imbibed the incoherence and “not even wrongness’ (to borrow Pauli’s phrase) of modern thought.
And speaking of modern thought, I’ve been quite impressed recently with Mark Vernon’s videos on Barfield. I’m thinking that Barfield’s work (not Steiner’s!) might be a helpful bridge for many in the intellectual/metacrisis/meaning crisis community, to integral yoga. Curious if you know much about Barfield, given your background in Waldorf and Goethe.
On the other hand, when I started, at age 20, to see radiant golden figures of what traditionally were called fairies hovering in mid air, I was deeply moved but not at all surprised or shocked by it.
And at that point, if part of the furniture in the room started to levitate along with the appearance of the fairies, I might have found it quite delightful!
You must explain the physical aspects, the physics, before you can numerically express the quantities of said physics items
I've never understood why "mind" is considered to be non spatial and non temporal. This may be because I'm so ignorant of physics and the physicists' definition of time and space.
But if "awareness" - as we experience - takes in the full range of phenomena, then it "pervades" all of space and time. Certainly, in a dream, if I'm fully lucid - that is I'm aware I'm dreaming - one of the characteristics is a non-verbal 'knowing' - a direct visceral seeing of it - that everything I see is permeated by living/conscious/knowing/feeling. The objects around me are felt and seen and known as "mind-made objects. The entire spatial-temporal make up is "made of mind."
When my thoughts are completely silent in the waking state, it feels exactly the same way. It feels as if the underlying Consciousness pervades and constitutes everything. In other words, Consciousness (not just mind/citta, but Consciousness/Chit) is utterly temporal and spatial, while the Silent sense of Being is timeless and spaceless (though in a way it's also felt to encompass all of time and space)
I realize everything in the previous paragraph would be seen as mere subjective experience constructed by the purely physical brain, but that seems to me to be a faith-based assumption rather than a purely logical analysis.
If we conceive space as a mental abstraction wouldn't it be natural to consider mind as non-extended? A mind that lives in time but not in space? Perhaps it isn't even in time but at least it thinks in terms of temporal successions of thoughts. Interestingly, physics offers a third option: neither extended nor non-extended, but non-local.
If Consciousness is the concrete “substance” underlying all things, then “space” is - as. Sri Aurobindo describes it - the extension of Consciousnss, and time the movement of Consciousness.
So Consciousness is *both* extended and non-local (the “non extended” descriptor might apply to some kind of mental abstraction, but Consciuosness is THE Real, not an abstraction at all).
And again, we can verify this experientially, if not experimentally. I just got up to feed the cats, (4 AM) so when I lie down, I’m likely to be in a strong REM cycle, with vivid dreams. I can make a point of seeing if I can notice in the dream the “space” of dream Consciousenss.
But even now, in the so called “waking” state, where is space without Consciousness?
But I'm talking about the individual mind that perceives and conceives through the brain, not the universal consciousness underlying it and all there is.
Ah, didn’t realize that. Helps to clarify, thanks.