My convictions and why I have them

It's been a while, I know. In this post, I'll essentially explain why I have my particular convictions: why I'm not a theist, atheist or agnostic.

Before that, I want to address some points that were raised after my previous post.

First, I want to make it clear that people should not stop making practical assumptions like the ones I mentioned. It is reasonable, for example, to assume that a person accused of a particular crime is innocent until proven guilty. Likewise, in many cases it is usually better to make default negative assumptions in order to avoid a waste of time/resources or any damage that would be caused by an unsafe assumption.

My issue is that people often conflate a practical assumption with the truth, and that is what I disagree with. These philosophical concepts have no practical use in reality, so there is no need to forsake the truth for any practical reasons when addressing them. In this case, the default stance should be no assumptions until there is evidence to either side, otherwise we are simply not being impartial.

The second point that someone mentioned is that it is reasonable to assume that there is nothing beyond what we can perceive for the same reason that it's reasonable to assume, for example, that there isn't an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage. That is a fallacy. I call it the "Unicorn Fallacy" because of the tendency many people have to equate anything that is metaphysical, or even "physical in a way that doesn't interact with our world", with magical beings, in an attempt to, sometimes subconsciously, ridicule such notions. It is very commonly used by atheists.

Why is it a fallacy? Simple: it grossly dismisses any difference in probability each scenario possess.

Consider this:

1. Absolutely any of the infinite possibilities contained within the realm of what we cannot perceive, including an invisible dragon in your garage.
2. An invisible dragon in your garage.

Which is more likely to exist?

Logically, you can say that option 1 is more likely. Because it is nothing specific. When you equate this realm of possibilities with something as specific as a dragon in your garage, you are ignoring the fact that this dragon refers to a comparatively infinitely small subset of possibilities within this realm.

The probability of the existence of either 1 or 2 is unknown (there could be infinite parallel universes, many of which contain dragons in the same place as your garage is in this universe, for example), but you can still say that 1 is much more likely, and dismissing it by comparing it to such specific imaginary human constructs is just silly.

I hope I've cleared that up. Now, I'll address the point indicated by the title of the post.

I don't believe in physicalism, though it is not just because of the reasons I mentioned before. It is because, even if you consider things we can perceive, it still fails to provide a proper explanation to certain phenomena (and it will never be able to explain them, for logical reasons I'll try to show).

The main phenomena I have in mind are the qualia, namely, the "sensations in and of themselves". The article mentions much controversy with the concept, and I encourage you to read it, but I'd like to have my own take at the subject and explain the analysis I've attempted to make.

I'll have to mention solipsism again, because the notions contained there are useful for the thought experiments we'll be making during this process. Despite our difference in convictions there should be one basic truth we can all agree on:

Everything you know is inside your mind.

This is one of the most fundamental truths one can think of. Perhaps, the only truth that is more fundamental than that, and that can be considered truly absolute, is this: something happens. Not very useful, though.

It is important to consider the fact that everything you know is in your mind because it means that everything you know are qualia, pretty much. Everything you know is what you feel, even semantics. This is a specific form of existence (I'll just refer to it as "first-person experience") and it cannot be adequately based on physicalism for a very simple reason: qualia and external reality have fundamentally different essences. That means that no arrange of one is capable of yielding the other, no matter how complex it is.

I'll attempt to prove this with a thought experiment:

Physicalists affirm that the mind is a physical phenomenon that happens in the brain, and nothing else. What is in the brain? Essentially: neurons, which conduct electricity to each other in the presence of neurotransmitters. It is possible to deduce that qualia are analogous to what happens in one's brain, but that does not mean that they are one and the same. Rather, the changes in the brain cause corresponding changes in the space of qualia for each individual.

And why are they not the same?

Because the observable properties of what constitutes the brain have absolutely nothing in common with qualia.

If you look at an object, you experience the quale relative to the object's color. It is not an illusion: it is definitely a form of existence that is there for you and nobody else (it may exist in a certain way for them, but you can't know). Remember that this image is inside your mind, and is not the object itself. You can tell that this color has certain properties:

• It exists in an imaginary bidimensional space that definitely exists for you, and that cannot be accessed by anyone else;
• It has a characteristic that cannot be reduced to any known physical concept, but that definitely exists: it is not "temperature", "mass" or "energy". It is simply "color". It exists in a dimension that is unrelated to the dimensions in the physical world that can be accessed by other minds (assuming solipsism is false).

These properties cannot be satisfied by matter. What exists in the brain is clearly physical: it has mass, temperature, energy and occupy a position in space. There is a group of cells whose interaction can be mapped and be proven to have a direct relation to vision, but the bidimensional space that exists for you does not physically exist in these group of cells. It is merely analogous to it. So, where really is this space?

"But what if the qualia actually exist in every particle of matter? What if every particle is a miniature observer?"

A possible explanation, but it can be proven false: consider a different quale (for example: sound). The quale of sound has no common properties with the quale of color. It is possible that changes in the sound-space may happen simultaneously to changes in the color-space (via synesthesia), but a color is still definitely a color, and not a sound. There is no "middle ground": you cannot combine colors to create a sound (not the qualia, I mean. Physical stimuli can be manipulated to create multiple sensations), and you cannot combine sound qualia to create a color. There is no form of existence that is "between" the quale of a color and the quale of sound, because they are absolutely different forms of existence, with completely different essences. The same applies to every other form of qualia.

And how does that prove that hypothesis wrong? It is simple: the physical processes relative to colors and sounds have the same physical properties, only with a different arrange. There is nothing essentially different between the cells responsible for sound processing and the cells responsible for color processing (aside from, possibly, number of dendritic interactions and available neurotransmitters). The cells are still composed of the same matter, yet the corresponding qualia have absolutely nothing in common. The neuron interactions do not operate in a subatomic level (that is, the resulting processing of color does not affect subatomic particles and their properties in a different way that sound processing does. The brain has no such power, as far as I'm concerned), so you can't say that the processing of color can directly affect the "color aspect" of matter while the sound processing affects only the "sound aspect", because there are no such "aspects" in matter.

That means that qualia are not material, they are a different form of existence.

There are other points that can be made to strengthen that notion. One of these points is the fact that the "space of qualia", as one perceives it, cannot be divided or reduced.

This will require a good amount of thinking: consider the bidimensional space of colors in your mind, again: you can try to imagine it being free of any information (absolute blackness), but you cannot imagine the lack of the space itself. I know, imagination alone is not proof, but consider this: if this space is directly created by matter, its existence would be directly tied to a certain group of neurons. That means that it would be gradually formed as these neurons started processing information, and that it would be degraded as these neurons started dying.

But it's a space, that makes no sense. It is literally fixed: you can destroy every cell responsible for the processing of images, but the black space would still be there. It can't become "smaller" or somehow "less of a space", it's absolute. Even if you poke holes at the image by destroying neurons, the underlying black screen will still be there. That indicates that this space must somehow exist independently.

There is also the problem of "the place of the first-person perspective", and it's a little complicated to successfully communicate, but I'll try. It's, in fact, a highly nebulous and mysterious problem, but it's not the main core of the argument (that was the difference in essence I mentioned before), it's just something to mess with people's worldviews a little.

It's about "being the mind that you are". I'm not referring to personality, memories or anything of the like. It's literally, the reason behind the fact that this particular first-person perspective is inside this brain and not another.

You can imagine yourself experiencing the world through the eyes of someone else. You can easily imagine yourself having a different person's personality, knowledge and feelings, and having their body and brain. The question is: why are you perceiving the world through this particular brain and not another?

Before you were born, did everything just appear as blackness to you? Why did that change when this specific body came to existence, and not any of the other billions?

To make that notion even more clear, think about this:

The experience of each brain is isolated. If someone made an exact copy of you, with the exact same neurons in the exact same position, would you start perceiving things from both brains at once? Obviously not. You would still experience things from your original brain.

From the physicalist point of view, this makes no sense, because the mind is nothing more than the arrange. There is no "difference" to speak of.

If you died and someone years later picked up the exact atoms that formed your body at a certain moment in your life and reformed your body at a state it was at the same moment in your life, would you come back to life and start feeling things again from that now reformed brain, or would you remain in eternal darkness?

Physicalism can't even model this question, because it involves concepts that can only exist when you take qualia into account.

If the answer is "yes, I'd start experiencing things again from the new body and brain", then physicalism proves itself wrong: all the atoms in your body are replaced every 3~5 years, and the state of your body and brain are constantly changing. If someone picked up all the atoms that formed yourself 10 years ago and reformed your body from an exact moment at that period, you would obviously not start seeing things from both your original brain and the new materialized brain at once. They would be different people, different minds. And yet, between the moment from 10 years ago, when you were exactly like that new materialized body, and the current moment, you've been having a continuous first-person experience, despite all the changes.

I think most people don't even imagine these things and have an extremely simplistic notion of "mind". These problems are yet another point that indicates that whatever this "first-person experience" is, it must exist independently, somehow. I don't know what caused it and what made it connected to this particular mind, but I know it exists, and that it can't be explained by any physical models.

I don't believe this is enough for most people, though, so I'll at least try to tackle a few arguments I have read before. It is not strawmanning, as these arguments have actually been used (maybe with slightly different words).

"Qualia are material. The immaterial appearance of qualia is just an illusion caused by the overwhelming amount of information our brain processes. They really are nothing more than the neural interactions."

This is a frustrating notion, actually, because it is nothing more than a handwave. Essentially, what is being said is that "qualia, as you present it, have no physical explanation, therefore, they don't really exist. If they exist, they have to be physical". Instead of changing one's worldview to adapt it to things that it can't adequately explain, the thing that can't be explained is simply ignored in order to preserve the faulty worldview (physicalism).

Qualia are not an illusion. A great amount of information arranged in different ways does not explain the difference between qualia of different types, and stating such a thing is ignoring information that is readily available to anything with a mind. It makes no sense that the information contained within the brain itself , which is being processed by the brain itself, actually overwhelms the brain and appears as something completely alien. What I mean is that qualia are the information itself, they are not just a mask that "emanates" from a more complex mass of information. If it is overwhelming, the brain can't process it in the first place. It's like saying that a processor will start having first-person experience if the processing becomes too intensive. It's absurd.

"Qualia have no practical application in reality, therefore it's pointless to discuss or consider their existence."

This one is just plain stupid, for reasons I've already explained. It's not even an argument, actually. Qualia have no practical application, yes. That does not mean they don't exist. That is a very self-centered and nonsensical notion of existence. And "pointless"? This is philosophy: it's truth for the sake of truth, and nothing else.


So, this is why I believe that the mind, or at least part of it, is immaterial. Does that mean that it will exist forever? I don't know. Does that prove the existence of God or anything similar? Not exactly, but there is valuable information we can extract from it.

So, what does this have to do with the fact that I'm not an atheist?

As far as I can see, a primordial mind of some sort as an original cause does not seem like an unlikely possibility, at all. Whatever this original cause is, it must contain every essence of every different form of existence, and that includes qualia. So, whatever this thing is, it must also be an observer of some sort. Does it possess inteligence? I don't know. I don't understand the mechanisms behind the decision of where each first-person perspective must go, but randomness seems less likely than an intelligent cause.

Does that have anything to do with omnipotence, omniscience or anything of the like? No. It is a possibility, but stating such things about this "primordial mind" would be just speculation. It could even be the Absolute itself (a better name than God, in my opinion), but we really can't say for sure. However, there's more than just first-person experiences and perspectives about my worldview, and I'll mention more later.

"It seems like a lot of wishful thinking"

Indeed it does, but if you're willing to dismiss everything I said based on the single fact that the outcome appears to be "desirable", you may have to check out your own biases. I will specifically address "wishful thinking" in my next post.

Problems with Physicalism/Skeptical inconsistency

Before getting to the subject presented by the title, I need to point out that I'm part of a very small minority in this world. I am not religious or dogmatic in any way, but I'm also not an atheist. I am not entirely agnostic, either. I would have labeled myself as a deist years ago, but my convictions are more specific than that in some cases. I don't think I entirely belong to any previously named group.

The bulk of intellectuals on the internet is composed mostly by atheists/skeptics, and that is undeniable. That makes me wary of discussing my own convictions in most circles, because people are quick to label non-atheists as foolish and intellectually dishonest.

Having said that, I'd like to point out some inconsistencies in skeptical thinking before actually getting to my main convictions (in another post).

Though I believe asking for people to keep an open mind probably sounds redundant for most, I guess it probably helps. I found this really cool list on wikipedia the other day, it's a list of cognitive biases that a lot of people possess. Everyone has biases to a certain extent, including myself (though I try to keep them to a minimum). I think everyone should take a look at this list, because it might make some more prone to challenging their own beliefs, should that be necessary. And because the list is pretty fascinating.

Anyway, here goes.

Problems with Physicalism

Physicalism is the philosophical stance which states that everything derives from the physical and can be adequately described by the laws of our nature.

If you consider yourself a physicalist, you naturally assume that there is nothing beyond the physical world we perceive.

The problem is that, by its very definition, physicalism is fallacious.

Let me explain:

Physicalism assumes that everything that exists is physical, and the reasoning behind that is skeptical in nature: there is no evidence of something non-physical (actually, I think there is, but I'll get to that in another post).

Any evidence we can perceive is necessarily physical. Anything that can be detected by our (physical) tools and sensors is necessarily physical. That dictates that an objective evidence of something non-physical is impossible by definition, which also means that physicalism is unfalsifiable by its own standards.

"But a metaphysical entity that behaves in a completely different way from what our physics dictate and that can interact with the physical world in some manner would be possible to prove, should it exist", someone would say. That doesn't change the fallacious nature of physicalism, because:

1- The perceived part of the metaphysical entity would be limited by our physical sensors and would, by default, be physical to us.

2- Physicalism still fails to address the possibility of independent forms of physical existence, which have their own set of physical rules but cannot interact with our physical world in any way. E.g.: other universes.

This is the reason why I believe that physicalism is not the most logical stance. In this case, I think it would be wiser to simply make no assumptions about the existence of what we can't perceive.

"What is the point?", you ask, "Anything that doesn't interact with our physical world is useless to us. It is simply more practical to believe only in the physical."

You are correct. The problem, though, is that practicality has nothing to do with existence. Existence is absolute: the truth concerning whether something exists or not does not depend on whether this thing is useful to you or not. And we are talking about assumptions of existence, not usefulness.

Another possible justification for physicalism is what skepticism naturally dictates: there is no positive proof for the existence of something non-physical, so the negative assumption is taken by default.

I get that, but I still disagree, because, from a strictly logical standpoint, the probability of existence of something beyond our physical world is absolutely unknown, and a negative assumption implies that it is unlikely. There is no evidence of any kind that it is unlikely, because any evidence we can obtain is only capable of describing what is already a part of this physical world.

There's this quote from one of the characters of my story (yeah, I made it up): "You cannot judge a system if your judgment is determined by the system."

Think about it.

Skepticism

So, besides what I said previously, I want to mention a few other things I find strange about the behavior of most skeptics.

Please note that I am NOT saying that skepticism in general is wrong. Requiring evidence to believe in something is a logical behavior. I'm talking about something I find strange about skeptics. Specifically, the need for a negative assumption when evidence is lacking. That negative stance is not necessarily "believing that something doesn't exist", it also includes "believing that something is not likely due to lack of evidence" (this is actually the most common view I've come across, by the way)

My view is like this: if there is no evidence for something and there is no evidence against it either, I make no assumptions about it. Depending on the subject, I might act as if it doesn't exist due to practicality, or may simply act neutrally if its existence/nonexistence doesn't affect my situation. But I don't assume anything, either way.

If you are a skeptic and think that "believing that something is not likely due to lack of evidence" is logical, when there is no evidence supporting either side, please answer me this: are you a solipsist?

No?

You probably answered "no". If you said "yes", I guess this text isn't for you.

There is no evidence that there is anything beyond our minds. Not only that, but it is impossible to obtain evidence, and it will always be. Before being a physicalist, it should make more sense to be a solipsist, because the existence of one's own mind is infinitely more certain that the existence of external reality.

And, yet, most skeptics are not solipsists (as far as I know). Why?

That is inconsistent behavior, yes, and the most likely answer is simply "convenience". Realism is a lot more convenient than solipsism. Solipsism raises a lot of unanswerable questions and would be a potential justification for psychopathic behavior. You would be alone in existence, and everyone else would be simply figments of your imagination, feeling no love or pain.

Still, I don't see anyone bashing realism due to "wishful thinking"... Hmm... I'll probably analyze this later.

"Solipsism is actually very unlikely", you say, "What would be the mechanism behind the illusion? What are the motives for such a thing in the first place? It's highly suspicious."

Honestly, I could say the very same thing about physicalism. Something so incredible that just starts existing out of nowhere for no reason is also "highly suspicious", as far as I can see. That interpretation is subjective at best, and does not invalidate solipsism in any way (I am not a solipsist either, by the way).

If you think there are arguments against my case that I haven't addressed, please tell me. But try to be as honest as possible with yourself. I'm still going to get into the details of my convictions in the next post. It will probably be a little harder to swallow than what I've already presented here, so I'll try to pick my words carefully.

Welcome to the Labyrinth

I've had certain ideas for many years, now, and I thought it would be a good idea to share them in a place like this. The subjects are far too many, but I will mostly deal with philosophical issues that have always fascinated me or worldviews I strongly disagree with for certain reasons.

It's nothing special, I know. And I don't expect many people to change their beliefs based on what they read here, but I have some hope that it might be insightful for some.

The title of the blog is a reference to a story I'm writing, by the way.