Talk:Physicalism

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Physicalism was a good article candidate, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. Once the objections listed below are addressed, the article can be renominated. You may also seek a review of the decision if you feel there was a mistake. Date of review: No date specified. Please edit template call function as follows: {{FailedGA|insert date in any format here}}

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Contents 1 Needs to be split 2 Old comments about Larry's Text 3 Non-reductive physicalism? 4 Physicalism and Subjective Idealism - What is the Difference? 5 Criticisms? 6 Supervenience 7 Please help 8 materialism 9 physicalism about the mental 10 Failed GA nomination 11 Mostly Wrong 12 History 13 et al? 14 distinct types of physicalism? 15 Writing style 16 Zombies 17 Definition of "supervenience". 18 Information 19 New discoveries

[edit] Needs to be split

I've just edited this article a fair bit, and placed a notice about it at WikiProject Philosophy of Mind - the introduction is about physicalism generally, and then the article goes on to talk about physicalism about the mental. I think it needs to be split into one article about physicalism generally (called just 'Physicalism') and one about physicalism in the phil of mind (or perhaps this content can be merged into articles about that which already exist?)

What does anyone think? Thomas Ash 11:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, so I picked up this link from WikiProject Philosophy of Mind and decided to comment. While I agree with your (implied) point that there is a difference between Physcalism in general and Physicalism in the philosophy of mind, this distinction doesn't seem terribly meaningful to me. What I mean, is that while the doctrine of physicalism is applicable to more than the philosophy of mind there is a serious lack of publications that chase this idea. Perhaps it is only just that I have been reading the wrong things, but can you point to anything on physicalism written outside the philosophy of mind? Ig0774 15:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

There is quite a lot of literature outside of the philosophy of mind on physicalism. It appears everywhere in philosophy of mind because it is, at present, the dominant position. Physicalism, on it's own, just says (in a variety of ways, with varying degrees of strength) that everything that is, is physical. The dominant position in philosophy of mind is that the mind is physica, but this just follows from one form of physicalism; so there's a sense in which the dominant position in philosophy of mind is a consequence of a more general physicalist commitment (though the commitment could run the other way too). Here's (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/) a good article on physicalism in general, including a discussion of it's role in debates on the mind. (This coment was written by Fabulist)

[edit] Old comments about Larry's Text

Great material here, but desperately needs to be rewritten to sound more like an encyclopedia article and less like a lecture. Wesley 20:33 Sep 18, 2002 (UTC)

Also needs to be basically completely rewritten taking recent (i.e. last 20 years) developments into account: the current text is basically discussing reductive physicalism, which is only one of the two main branches of physicalist thought (the other, unsurprisingly, being nonreductive physicalism), and makes it sound as if reductionism is synonymous with physicalism. I may attempt to begin a rewrite at some point, but it's a major project; there've been quite a few entire books on the subject. --Delirium 07:31 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Since a gigantic chunk of Larry's Text had been sitting fallow on this page for two years, attracting little to no edits, I decided to be bold and remove it. The sheer size of the editing project was enough to turn anyone away, including me. Plus, the text itself was entirely un-encyclopediac, being full of "What, that didn't make sense? Let me explain it again" and whatnot.

So here's my suggestion: let's start start from the first paragraph of Larry's text and expand from there organically, in our own words. I have retained Larry's Text on this subject in Talk:Physicalism/LT, so we can still use it as source material. I feel that this will produce a much more useful and readable article. If anyone disagrees, please speak up! -Adam Conover 02:58, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your decision. I added a notice at the article so that people can know there is a huge chunk of text that can be used. -- Taku 03:11, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, that's good to know. I also agree with your renaming of the sub-page. Man, we still have a lot of work to do, though... first order of business below. Adam Conover 03:13, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Non-reductive physicalism?

As this article stands it's currently only considering reductive physicalism. Even though I'm writing my senior thesis on this topic, I've always been frustrated by question of whether or not there's a viable non-reductive form of physicalism. If so, could someone give an outline of it on the article? Adam Conover 03:13, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how a physicalism could be non-reductive?

[edit] Physicalism and Subjective Idealism - What is the Difference?

I am a little unclear on the precise difference between physicalism and subjective idealism. Could it be that the only difference is subjective labels used? Both seem to claim that the world is made of one kind of substance, and simply give difference names for this substance. Different labels are not clear evidence of an actual difference.

So, what is the difference between the two? --Michael V.

Michael -- I think your characterization of subjective idealism is apt. I agree that the distinction seems as though it may be meaningless -- if there's only one kind of things, what's the difference between saying everything is made out of stuff A or made out of stuff B? Still, I would say that that's a meta-position about these two positions, and is thus one we don't have approach yet.

However, I would be wary saying that subjective idealism is the opposite of physicalism, because dualism is also the opposite of physicalism in a sense -- perhaps "another view opposed to physicalism"? — Adam Conover † 16:39, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

I would answer very differently (and forgive the quick and dirty summary). Stuff A and B have very different properties and thus make up very different kinds of worlds, where very different kinds of things can happen. In p'ism, there can be a world of 'dead' matter with no minds at all, as possibly was the case a few billion years ago. And a universal grey goo scenario could kill all life, but the universe would still be there, perhaps to be noticed by life which evolved again later. On the other hand, in i'ism some kind of mind is required for the appearance of matter. Life/mind is not an emergent property of matter, and could not have evolved as science suggests it did. (Or evolution took place among matter-like ideas within a larger mind, etc.) Hope that helps. "alyosha" 22:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms?

Seems like at least a cursory review of criticisms of reductionism and physicalism/materialism are in order. Anyone care to tackle that?

[edit] Supervenience

Supervenience is not the claim that "every particular or property is at root a physical property or particular." It is the claim that "any change in a physical particular or property will cause a change in the corresponding supervening particular or property" (and not just "in effect"). I changed this section. (anon)

No that's the wrong way round. I've corrected it. Thomas Ash 11:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please help

We need to go through a major cleanup of these philosophical pages. Right now there are pages on reductionism monism pragmatism materialism physicalism naturalism (philosophy) natural philosophy rationalism empiricism positivism (philosophy) and hordes of others. There should be some way to distinguish between these so that they do not tread on each other. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to improve this growing spiderweb of interrelated articles? --ScienceApologist 01:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] materialism

Can any one please help me understand the difference between this philsophical approach to materialism...?--Procrastinating@^talk2me 14:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

While I am in no means an expert on this subject, I believe that physicalism differentiates itself from materialism in allowing for a process to be viewed as physical, and not only that which is clearly material, such as a rock or tree. Also, anything that can be understood and studied by physics, such as gravity, is viewed as physical but it is unlikely that gravity is in any way of a material nature.--Laplace's Demon 05:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wait, according to special relativity, doesn't E = mc² say that matter and energy are interchangable (i.e matter can become energy and vice versa), meaning that materialism is effectively the same as physicalism? D Hill 21:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, according to special relativity, there is no distinction between energy and matter. However, that does not mean that materialism is equivalent to physicalism. Materialism is the philosophy that everything is composed of, or supervenes upon matter. Physicalism is the philosophy that everything is composed of, or supervenes upon the physical. The two terms are not synonomous. For example, in contemporary physics, matter is made up of elementary fermions, i.e, quarks and leptons. However, gauge bosons, such as the gluon, photon, or hypothetical graviton are not considered matter as they mediate the fundamental interactions between matter. Though I know of no one who denies that photons are, in fact, physical.--Laplace's Demon 21:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Demon, this is a great explenation how bout adding it to the article ? (process vs. matter/energy) --Procrastinating@^talk2me 09:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] physicalism about the mental

Need a better explanation of the phrase "physicalism about the mental". It is used several times in that exact and peculiar wording so appears to be some sort of jargon, but its meaning is unclear to the general reader, well, it's unclear to me anyway. Nurg 12:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"Physicalism about the mental" simply means that the mind is physical in some way, and not non-physical as the mind is in Cartesian dualism or psycho-physical parallelism. Check out monism.

[edit] Failed GA nomination

I'm afraid this article doesn't meet the Good Article Qualifications just yet. Here is a brief list of some issues associated with this article that I feel are holding it back. Once these issues have been tackled, feel free to renominate the article.

• There are some serious jargon issues... While much of the 'philosopher jargon' is wikilinked, the reliance on jargon means that there should be more in-text explanations of terms, and wherever possible, jargon should be replaced with equivalent terms or sentences. I found it very difficult to get through the article, particularly in the Non-Reductive Physicalism section, where even the infographic seemed confusing and under-explained. "The ideal reader of an encyclopedia should be primarily the curious average man. He should only secondarily be the specialist and/or the high school student." - Charles van Doren. This article is currently aimed a bit up toward specialist. When one is an expert in something, it makes explanations that are clear to the non-expert a challenging task. Don't think of it as 'dumbing down' the article, think of it as casting a line out to those who wish to know more.
• The lead section does not give a clear view of what physicalism actually is. In fact, after reading it, I still find myself at a bit of a loss of how I would describe it to someone. The lead section should be able to stand on its own as a concise description of what physicalism is, and why anyone cares.
• There are some comprehensiveness issues. While comprehensiveness isn't as critical with GA as it is with FA, there are still some things that I think could be improved. The lead section itself admits that the rest of the article is about 'mental' physicalism. What are the other kinds? Where would we learn about those? The article should link to the 'other' physicalisms, or better yet, summarize the various types, and link to the main articles associated with them. Likewise, I feel like the lack of a 'history' section is a bit jarring. I'm left with some uncertainty about whether this is a modern viewpoint, or an ancient viewpoint. Was this something that Greek philosophers where discussing? Beat poets? Modern college professors? A brief history section could provide some valuable context for understanding.
• The tone is odd in some areas as well. Note the section on Token Physicalism - "It requires that for social, moral, and psychological particulars there must be a physical particular identical with them. Consider the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court exists, but according to token physicalism, there is a physical object that is identical to the Supreme Court. However, this physical particular does not necessarily exist in any conventional use of the word 'physical'." This sounds more like something a professor would say to a class, than something I'd read in an encyclopedia. Would it be possible to quote an expert giving an example, for instance?
• A bit under-referenced. This isn't critical, but there should be more references (inline, using the WP:CITET templates, if possible). When explaining a metaphysical concept, it can be easy to transition from explaining the most common viewpoint, to original research via creative interpretation. References will make it clear that the article represents the current accepted view, and not just the view of the editors.
• Minor formatting and copyediting issues. There are some spelling errors and grammarical errors sifted around. I'll try to clean a few of those up myself, since they aren't difficult, but a thorough copyedit would be helpful.

Finally, I'd like to note that I do think this article is a good one. I know its a challenging subject to translate, and it seems like the details of the concept are well laid out, including arguments for and against. The article has come a long way, and has a lot of potential. The biggest challenge is the tone and jargon/technical language issues, the rest are small, and should be quickly resolvable. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you want any more clarification on my reasons. Phidauex 16:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mostly Wrong

Practically everything about this article appears to be wrong. Physicalism is not a metaphysical position, it is not the same as materialism, it is not associated with Quine (a major critic of the philosophy), it is mostly associated with Carnap and Neurath. The references for this section do not include Carnap, Neurath, Schlick or Quine who might be relevant. Even more relevant would be the chapter "Physicalism" in A J Ayer's "Philosophy in the Twentieth Century". It seems odd that an entry on Physicalism would fail to cite an entire chapter on the subject by one of the most respected philosophers of the twentieth century.

Robin 17 July 2006

[edit] History

I have done a fair amount of research, but have found nothing on the history of physicalism. If anyone has any sources, this page needs to cover the history of physicalism. Гырша 13:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] et al?

Should the "et al" in the opening paragraph be replaced with an "etc"? The article on etc says that "et al" should only be used with persons or maybe places. Andrew zot 01:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] distinct types of physicalism?

I don't know much about this subject. In any case, I just spent several minutes convinced that Jackson's argument about Mary's Room is completely wrong. Then, in the "Mary's Room" article, i found this sentence.

"It is important to note that in Jackson's article, physicalism refers to the epistemological doctrine that all knowledge is knowledge of physical facts, and not the metaphysical doctrine that all things are physical things."

Should there be mention early on in this article of the distinction between these two doctrines so other's don't get similarly confused? SH

[edit] Writing style

"The zombie argument is a thought experiment that attempts to show that it is conceivable, and therefore possible" This is bad writing style.

[edit] Zombies

Has anyone noticed that this argument against physicalism affirms the consequent? If any one can find a source that says that it might help the argument. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by J Hill (talk • contribs).

[edit] Definition of "supervenience".

Something is wrong here.

"Supervenience is the relationship between a higher level and lower level where the higher level is dependent on the lower level."

Okay, with you so far.

"This means that one level supervenes on another if and only if a change in the lower level causes a change in the higher level..."

Makes sense, although should it not be "any" change?

"(e.g. a set of properties A supervenes upon a set of properties B when there cannot be an A difference without a B difference)."

Here is where I get lost. Isn't this backwards? Alternatively, the position of the biconditional in the main (non-parenthetical) sentence is wrong.

Either of these would make sense to me:

1) This means that one level supervenes on another if and only if any change in the lower level causes a change in the higher level (e.g. a set of properties A supervenes upon a set of properties B when there cannot be a B difference without an A difference).

2) This means that one level supervenes on another when there can be a change in the higher level if and only if there is a change in the lower level.

I am not familiar with the material, so I leave it to somebody else to rephrase this.

Drake Dun 07:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody has addressed this I have rolled it around and concluded that logically the answer must be (2) above. I am going to make the change myself.

Drake Dun 13:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Information

"The essential objects of physicalism ultimately include whatever is described by physics -- not just matter but energy, space, time, physical forces, structure, physical processes, information, state, et al."

Would "information" as used in the introduction to this article refer specically to physical information? If so, I'm going to change the link. Canadianism 01:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Since its been a few days and I'm almost certain physical information is the proper word, I'm going to change it. Canadianism 02:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New discoveries

Physicalism is not locked into 19th century mechanics as this article suggests - it expects that new discoveries concerning the nature of perception will extend physics. References can be found in the work of the Vienna Circle - who are all also positivists.

--Myscience 00:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)