Gilbert Ryle attacks Descartes' Dualism as a 'Category Mistake'

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This is a lecture video about a selection from Gilbert Ryle objecting to what he calls "the Official Doctrine," which is the dualist theory of mind espoused by Rene Descartes and many other philosophers following him. Ryle claims that dualists are making a 'category mistake'. He explains the idea of a category mistake with a famous example of a visitor to Oxford University. The reading also includes several other examples of category mistakes. When applied to the mind, Ryle is claiming that the dualist's mistake is to think that the mind is in the same logical category as physical objects. Instead it is not some additional thing, but rather just some ways that physical things are arranged and interact.
For background, you might want to watch my videos about...
Descartes' Theory of Mind: • René Descartes - Medit...
The notions of the 'mental' and 'physical': • What Philosophers Mean...
Princess Elisabeth's attack on Descartes: • Princess Elisabeth's a...

[@0SGE0]

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[@Mozzarella-and-Tomato]

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[@marc.lepage]

And as always, thanks for watching.

[@jedgar568]

This is an excellent video! Clearly explained- will be a great help for students in the OCR A Level Course!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Glad it was helpful!

[@void7999]

It’s acc rotting my brain rn, im in year 12 doing my mocks in 2 months

[@rsanche4726]

It was NOT a MISTAKE to watch this video. Thank you man! Amazing easy to follow lecture.

[@jeffreykaplan1]

You're very welcome!

[@liz5773]

Writing a thesis on posthumanism in literature and was absolutely not prepared for the amount of philosophy I'd end up needing to understand. This was MUCH appreciated.

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Thank you so much for making this public! It‘s really helpful!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

You're welcome. Thanks for the kind words!

[@tantalus3881]

Best explanation on the entire internet and it's not even close, I've searched for hours, well done man

[@originalandfunnyname8076]

I love this playlist and your videos, you explain everything so clear and comprehensible, also with humor and passion. Have you considered maybe doing some summaries for analytical philosophy?

[@princesssuzanenavarrodelfi2409]

Thank you very much! From the reading materials our school sent us, I was having a hard time understanding this topic. Your video saved me. Thank you very much.

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[@mattmerc8513]

This is a really really good video, and uve explained this theory extremely well and made it incredibly easy to understand. thank you!

[@JamesSouthwood]

Very clear, thanks. Look forward to watching more of your stuff.

[@jacobhackman8861]

Awesome video! Really helped unpack Ryle's ideas.

[@jeffreykaplan1]

I am glad you liked it and that it was helpful.

[@saimafaheem5976]

Very helpful indeed to understand the 'Category Mistake'.

[@CuriosityGuy]

The University analogy helps a lot! Wonderful!

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Thank you Doctor Kaplan! You are a scholar-communicator of the highest level!👏

[@kidharpt315]

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[@jeffreykaplan1]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@kidharpt315]

Hope u will make another video on the 'Ordinary Language Philosophy of Gilbert Ryle.....All those available on KZbin fall short of being comprehensive......

[@JYT-Official]

Thank you sir, after a long search, you've clarified this for me. You just got a subscriber 👊

[@dheepgeorge5636]

Love this! Really helped me understand behaviourism better.

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Thanks. Glad it was helpful!

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6 months of struggle came to an end. it took 15 mins to watch this. whooaa could have saved so much time in the past.

[@colteischens6422]

This was killer, thank you so much!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

I agree! You're welcome.

[@ramkumarr1725]

Very nice academic video in the "You Say, I say" book mode!

[@imnotme5074]

Omgg, this is very helpful. Thank youuu so much!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Glad it was helpful!

[@petermeyer6873]

Some Philiosophs like Ryle are just making easy problems sound totally complex - maybe they are enjoying writing/speaking to much ("page 34"). Its actually quite simple: - Descard states, there are 2 exclusive categories of existing things. The physical stuff (bodily) and the spiritual stuff/mind (bodyless). These two interact somehow, otherwise the distinction wouldnt make any sense, as the mind could not know about the physical stuff. - The Problem with that in simple words is: How do these two interact? Descart couldnt explain an neither does anybody until now. Thus 2 things are possible: a) Descards statement is valid but incomplete or b) it is not valid and the categorical destinction is an error due to the vast but subjective differences in the appearence of the two.

[@antimaterialworld2717]

its is actually described by vedic philoshopy called Acynthia bheda-abeda which means simultaneous oneness and difference. It addreses this question from the perspective of whole, not as separated problem without considering conscious observer of the problem.

[@thinkingahead6750]

Thank you, you are a credit to your profession. By the way do you know a resource which covers the love and falling out of love between More and Descartes and how their views of dualism compared?

[@itisxenia8784]

Thank you, now I totally understand it😊

[@eithardaher8939]

Amazing and helpful video

[@yaamir7201]

Bro this is incredble. I am resitting AQA A level philosophy in October. Got a B. I wish I found you before!

[@lakesjaymusic]

Thank you soooo much for this video!🙏♥️ Very clear and comprehensible.💯 It would be a CATEGORY MISTAKE to put you in the same class as other teachers. You are definitely in a CATEGORY of your own!!💯

[@JayV98]

This is very helpful for my philosophy of the mind course!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Glad it is helpful!

[@neepamonoara499]

nice presentation. thanks a lot

[@jeffreykaplan1]

You're welcome!

[@richardaddo2506]

Wow. This guy is exceptional👌

[@blaked.2778]

Ryle's charge that Descartes is making a category mistake by treating the mind as a substance (albeit a thinking, non-extended one) is interesting and may well be true. However, as it stands, it is just a charge, not a refutation. In fact, the charge could go the other way. A committed Cartesian might say that, in treating the mind simply as the collection, arrangement, and activity of neural stuff, Ryle is taking mind out of its proper category of substance and placing it into a category to which it doesn't belong. Thus, we have something of a stand-off and need further argument to determine who is right.

[@samueldimmock694]

Or maybe what we need is empirical evidence as to whether the mind can be fully explained by neural stuff (though that gets more complicated when you introduce the idea of embodied cognition)

[@iinc6290]

​@@samueldimmock694we would love to have this, but it's sort of obvious that *this* would prove one correct. This is not in the field of philosophy therefore we do not have any true effect of whether or not this happens, though im sure that there are some scientists trying to figure this out. Hes moreso saying from a philosophical perspective, we need to have an argument that breaks these 2. I guess that the Bat paper by Negel does take a different enough approach that it could be lumped in here

[@HenrikMyrhaug]

Had a mandatory, low level philosophy course this semester in university, and never learnt about this criticism. It perfectly puts into words my issue with dualism.

[@renatorobles7440]

Christopher Langan solved it with the CTMU, thanks. 👏❤️👍🏻

[@emmahands.]

Thank you for this

[@Mozzarella-and-Tomato]

I'm having an exam in metaphysics right now, this is very helpful! Thanks!

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Glad it helped! Good luck!

[@Mozzarella-and-Tomato]

@@jeffreykaplan1 Thanks!

[@AoisheDas]

hello sir, can you help me out with few questions I have in mind: 1. what is the main point of difference between the 3examples of category mistakes given by Ryle (university, military parade and team-spirit) - i.e why is he giving 3 examples in the first place when he could make his point with one example itself. 2. can you construct 3 more examples corresponding to the 3 given by Ryle preserving the same point of difference ( 3examples of category mistakes)? please reply to this comment as I have my assignment submission and this is the question I can't find an answer to anywhere, or mention the sources where I can find answers to these question. (I have checked standford, iep.utm.edu an all.. cant find any answer)

[@marktorochkin3125]

But still what is the relationship between elements and the category? When you say that colleges, museums, libraries etc. belong to University, does it mean that the University function as a category? Even if mind is in a different category from that of body, is there a relationship between the two? Sure, we can assume it is not causal, but what is it?

[@shabaz1162]

Amazing 👌 explanation

[@jeffreykaplan1]

Glad you liked it!

[@DeathScyther006]

I wish your video descriptions made it more clear which sections of which books you assigned, or included some easy way to track down the readings.

[@renatorobles7440]

¡Buenos días saludos desde México bendiciónes!👏❤️👍🏻

[@arasharfa]

I had this demonstrated to myself when I underwent ketamine therapy for severe depression and observed reality layers unraveling before me, until i realised they were phasing changes of my own brainwaves. the phasing synced up gradually as the ketamine left my body and i entered back into reality, and it cured my derealisation. I know I might sound like a crazy person, but this is my hypothesis of what happened.

[@zenbanjo2533]

Wonderfully explained. I wish I could have you as a professor.

[@ralphclark]

It’s interesting to hear this idea expressed formally by established academic voices as I had long ago drawn the same conclusion, that the fact so many questions about the and consciousness are unanswerable results directly from the fact that the framing of those questions contains a category error. All of the features and components of consciousness - thoughts, beliefs, ideas, emotions - are *abstract* objects. Consciousness is a process involving the interaction and manipulation only of these abstract objects. You won’t find any downward causation into the physical world other than by accepting that our experience of both upward and downward causation is just an alternative explanation of the physical, mechanistic one, just as there exists both large scale classical and quantum scale explanations for the behaviour of fluids.

[@miro2711]

thank you beautiful man 🙏

[@jamesneville2352]

What is really amazing is that the lecturer is writing on glass backward so we can read it as he faces us.

[@MrMagicMarleyMarl]

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[@armanprangere5327]

Where can we find the readings ?

[@Fresh_Plema]

Is there something wrong with video and audio matching? or is this just on my side?

[@account1307]

Question from someone who isnt a philosophy student: Isnt the official doctrine (cartesian dualism) still the dominant metaphysical position of western culture? Or are we more materialist?

[@jeffreykaplan1]

I would say that Dualism is the dominant view among people in the Western world. Among those who study the philosophy of mind professionally, the split is more 50%/50%.

[@martinbennett2228]

@@jeffreykaplan1 Hasn't dualism become much less influential since Gilbert Ryle published A Concept of Mind - particularly amongst people who have taken time to consider the issue? Admittedly for those who have not really thought about it and in common speech dualism appears as a background assumption.

[@forbidden-cyrillic-handle]

Having watched fair amount of philosophical videos, I no longer feel I'm completely mad. At least there is one philosopher that has thoughts I could agree with.

[@maxwarswieder]

U da goat Jeff

[@mr.zafner8295]

Hahaha I was so puzzled about how you're able to do this: write on one side of the glass and It's not inverted for us I feel so stupid now lol It's so obvious Thanks man, this is a really cool way to make videos

[@darrellee8194]

2:51 "We are only making educated guesses about what goes on in other minds" In fact, we are only making informed guesses about what's going on in own minds (brains), because we are only directly aware of that small part of it that we call consciousness. This explains to some extent why consciousness can seem so mysterious, apart from its reflexive nature. Consciousness is the "public" presentation that the brain makes to itself.

[@ES-bi1hq]

I’m not savvy in the language surrounding philosophy so I’m probably going to come off a little ignorant, but I’m going to give this a go… Mind and body… If mind is understood as conscious thought, can it exists outside the body? If not, isn’t this a form of proof that these things are inseparable? Is our self awareness a subjective construct or is it a physical manifestation? This almost seems like a debate on mortality and the soul… if the mind is a physiological phenomena that occurs in conjunction with our body then what is death? What is sleep? When it comes to philosophy, I’m with Socrates and I can only admire his vision. I mean, I simply don’t know anything… but I love taking a trip down that rabbit hole. I may not understand half the questions but I’m glad to know that I’m not alone. On a related note… I don’t know if it’s true but I have heard that memories are inexplicable phenomena. That the electrical sensation we receive in our brains fades in minutes and the chemical reactions fade in days; therefore memories that predate that measure of time are difficult to explain. One could argue that memories are like echoes due to the structure of our brain, or that they resonate in some relative way to new memories and that we are reminded of their existence so they don’t fade… but I think it is evidence that there’s more going on than we really understand. Once again 🤷🏻‍♂️IDK. 🖖

[@ruprecht9997]

Though I tend to think that self awareness and mind follow from complexity and sensory input alone, the issue of memories is a really interesting one. If there is a spiritual component to life, that takes care of memories and such, then it is clear that all living things, down to insects and spiders (who were observed doing REM-like movements in sleep), have a spiritual side, because of the ability to learn. On the other hand, if mind and soul has a dualistic relation with body, then they might not even have the same origin. Then you open the door both to deities and reincarnation. As I see it, dualism can even mean there is no physical world, that it is all a dream, if we decide that all we are is separate from the "machine" (body). I've toyed with the idea that my life is the dream of a higher dimensional creature, to whom a 3D lifetime has no more complexity than a 2D still picture has to us.

[@KristjanPruus]

Excellent explanation, thank you. Was G. Ryle a non-dualist?

[@adriancioroianu1704]

He was an obvious materialist. Just like his student D. Dennet. Unfortunately for them, explaining emergence of consciousness from matter is an even bigger problem than explaining causal interactions between mind stuff and body stuff (res extensa - res cogitans).

[@alchased]

@@adriancioroianu1704 A couple of months ago, I was probably at least a soft materialist. The Hard Problem Of Consciousness has changed my mind. I am now either a dualist (despite the problems) or an idealist, still not sure which.

[@rubiks6]

Y'know - In the realm of physics, things are particles and waves at the same time. All things. As I was driving on the highway in heavy stop-and-go traffic, I saw up ahead some cars that had come to a stop for a few seconds and then started going again and a "wave" of stopping passed backwards through the line of cars until it arrived at me. I had to stop for a few seconds and then go again. I mentioned to my passenger how the cars were acting not like discreet units but rather as a continuous wave and as a fluid. The comparison between the movements of traffic and fluid dynamics has been around for a long time. I believe in Cartesian dualism. I believe the physical and the spiritual (or "mental" - choose your term) are intertwined and inseparable, just as the particle nature and the wave nature of objects are intertwined and inseparable. They are merely different perspectives of single objects. When philosophers try too hard to separate these two perspectives (the physical and the spiritual) and analyze them as distinct phenomena, these philosophers create their own confusion (and also confuse others). The redness of the balloon and its roundness and lightness are all inextricably entangled.

[@nitika6409]

Why can't my professor teach like you

[@guillermoalarcon7235]

I frankly believe Descartes did not make a category mistake. I think we was simply avoiding de INQUISITION of the "holy" (inmaterial) CHURCH.

[@link6563]

ryle stay bussin fr fr no cap

[@hellomate639]

It's been a while since I looked at this. It was a good overview. I feel like Ryle is committing the same sin as emergentists, and in a sense is really just making the same argument from a different perspective. I.e. evolution is one of the best examples of an emergent phenomenon, and you could ask the question "Where is evolution?" Emergence relies on reduction of a collective process to a simpler one. Emergence as an explanation for consciousness fails because it doesn't add anything to the problem. Any attempt to reduce the problem to emergence reduces the problem itself to what it was before emergence was called in. Emergence, in my view, is irrelevant to the fundamental problem, however related it may be in other ways.

[@Leonardking425]

Are you writing reversed on that board so it's lined up for us?

[@Franklin8491]

In 1967 and 1968, when I was a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I received a copy of the following limerick from a professor or teaching assistant. It was marked with the author's name as "Kenneth Brown" Descartes is the Man we must damn For Modern philosphy's jam. Said he, though I doubt What I'm thinking about I never can doubt that I am. It's a clear and distict proposition That my being implies a condition, And it's easy to show (This much I can know) That God must be real in addition. But this is important, you see; It implies a divine guarantee That in reason I must Put a rational trust When it posits a world besides me. My system is further attended By duality ever unblended, For reason has taught That no body has thought And a thinking thing's never extended. And so we must ponder in wonder A hudge philosphical blunder; When thus you've defined Both body and mind You always must leave them asunder.

[@Vision____.]

IS PHILOSOPHY DEGREE USELESS ? I am a philosophy undergraduate student, sometimes i feel so bad as people often told me what will you do with a philosophy degree.is there no carrer opportunity in this field ?

[@jeffreykaplan1]

I address this issue in my video about what philosophy is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rai3ZYGVq5VgjbM

[@custardCalliope]

I love that even in the video I get sent to watch for homework, he has beef with Christchurch

[@Maluhkye]

"okay what the hell does that mean" moments after I thought "what the fuck does that mean?!" - lol'd

[@vhawk1951kl]

Para =extra as in paralysed- extra relaxed.

[@pashute12]

Minute 15:37 you make a categorical mistake about mechanists being dualists. Now the question remaining is whether a slip of tongue can be considered serious enough to be considered, analyzed and categorized.

[@chriselyr2484]

Good ol' uncle Gilbert.

[@thinkneothink3055]

Great videos on this channel! That said, and I think that a metaphysical position like the one Schopenhauer developed is a way around the mind-body problem, although you find what a lot of people would describe as dualism there as well. I’m not an expert on the topic, and even if I were, the comments section on a KZbin video wouldn’t be the place to try and explain it. I would say, though, that with a change in a person’s fundamental view of existence, you can have mind and body-each distinctly different from each other-interacting in such a way that you could avoid dualism and the mind-body problem. Search “Schopenhauer will and representation” if you’re interested.

[@makarim.altmimialtimimi8541]

رجاءا انشر محاظرات باللغة العربية Please post lectures in Arabic

[@lunchbox4229]

It sounds like Ryle sort of thought experimented his way into Global Workspace Theory

[@maximilianovietri2666]

I just want to 'know how'

[@hissingfaunaa]

dogma whats dogma dogma balls thanks guys ill be here all night

[@DaddyBooneDon]

So the mind is a collection of all the parts of the body?

[@RosarioMourningStar9117]

I still don't get it. What's with this university visitor

[@fatmazehra5928]

I got distracted from the topic while watching how he writing from opposite direction.

[@arcrides6841]

Ryle's university example is merely a semantics problem. "University" is a human creation and has a known definition. The mind on the other hand is a mystery without an exact definition thus to call Decarte's theory a category error is going FAR beyond the scope of Ryle's own knowledge and understanding of the mystery that is the mind.

[@amberhalina3862]

wish u were my philosophy teacher

[@borislaviliev251]

What if dualists think the mind is another category, and its all a game of semantics?

[@attention2detail948]

I cannot believe that he completely ignores Spinoza

[@camilolym]

13:41 I think this is a mistake, you only mention dualists. Didn't make sense.

[@boooshes]

This categorical error is often also made with the creation and the creator. As in the thought that maybe God and Satan are somehow dualling it out to see who will prevail, or that the nature and essence of God is somehow subjected to the logic and intellect of humans. This is the age old fallacy of the argument "If God is good then why is there so much evil in the world" or "if God is loving and omnipotent, why does He allow babies to die of cancer? ". These types of questions, when presented as logical arguments make the strange assumption that the same God who is actually omnipotent is subject to human logic and can be analyzed (as opposed to observed) by His creation. A more honest but perhaps less analytically satisfying approach might be to say that an omnipotent and omniscient creator will surely not be discovered nor disproven through human rationale, logic, philosophical study or analysis.

[@ruprecht9997]

If we believe asking the question of the evil in the world is to misrepresent God, then it follows that God is not as people believe. God can not both be personal, endlessly good, endlessly powerful, and ... not give a damn? Or can he? This is perhaps where those old evangelists thought they'd found the solution, in letting their (now invented "God") grant humans free will, so that all bad is due to free will. In that sense, babies getting cancer, simply ... wanted to? I'm a Godless, an atheist, so the "mysteries" of religion don't appeal to me on a personal level, but the philosophical considerations and solutions to the age old "problem of evil" are interesting, as well as the question you ask, whether God can be rationalized about, given that exists outside humanity. As long as the theoretical God does not want to prove he exists, there is no way for us to prove he does. Nor that he doesn't. Still, we can speculate about the nature of God, even if that is like a self contradiction in terms (God created "nature"). What we might end up with, is belief in an entity with no recognizable logic, seen from a human standpoint. This is where the usual "his ways are incomprehensible" and "we must trust in his plan" comes in, which is perhaps the best summary of what belief is, contrary to knowledge. Personally I think it a bit sad that Christians worship a God, believing in the Bible where it says that family and friends who might be good people, but don't believe, will burn forever, and finding that to as it should be. Since I don't think there is a God, nor Satan, I'm not worried about actual burning, but rather of the emotional coldness of the believers. If I firmly believed in a God saying such things, I would feel a strong urge to rebel, to make him change his mind, although of course there is no way of rebelling, when communications is a one way street 🙂

[@boooshes]

@@ruprecht9997 Thanks for the discussion. As a matter of my own experience, I have not found the communication with God to be one way at all. I also find that understanding what we are able regarding God's nature comes through the pathway of faith, not human logic, analysis, or rationale. For what it is worth, I am a natural and trained (Aerospace Engineering) analyst. For me, I find my belief logical and rational, but I did not arrive at that destination through merely analysis. This, I think, is because God is related to and understood through relationship with understanding, not by understanding alone. Similarly, you will never reveal the nature of your own Father just through analyzing his behavior from your own viewpoint. What or who you as a child deem as "good" might be very different from what is good to your loving father - and possibly for reasons you don't understand. This, of course, is a weak analogy, as all will be and leads only back to trust and faith rather than your father being able to explain it to you. I believe that is why the desire to find meaning in life by seeking the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" rather than "the tree of life" has always ended up unsatisfying. The "modern"philosophers have never pressed past this fundamental nature of life as it really is and have been as unable to unravel its essence as physicists have been unable to explain how the force of gravity is generated. Again, many thanks and respect to you for the forthright discussion.

[@ruprecht9997]

@@boooshes I guess the way philosophers engage with religion and God is from a "technical" stand point, creating concepts and structures with words, into which God fits, and from these trying to decode features of the God entity (mind, I don't say "creature"). But the problem of evil isn't easily dispensed with, like babies dying from cancer. As I see it, and let me underline that I'm no authority on religion nor formal logic, but I think this leads to a number of alternative conclusions: (1) there is no God (2) God represents presence of immaterial qualities in the universe, allowing for minds and love and thought, like some kind of field or force, without conscious thought. (3) God is a sentient entity that cares for humanity specifically, but not individual persons. (4) God cares for individual persons, but is (self-)restrained in what he can do. The why becomes the obvious followup. (5) God cares for *some* individuals, not all, which explains how single individuals may survive plane crashes, tidal waves etc (6) God cares for *all* individuals, and disease and early death makes some sense in a grander scheme, which we do not understand. (7) There is no free will, no God, no spiritual anything. Our minds and our thoughts are real enough, but we are not the masters of our minds, as the entire universe is controlled by cause and effect. The third (and second) points are perhaps a bit like the simulation hypothesis, where there is somebody (in the loosest sense possible) running a program, a simulation, where the points of interest (outcome) are unknown to us. I feel that Christians often defend point six, assuming that the soul is either eternal or at least has a life span different from the body. Alternatively there is the concept that the premature and horrible pain and death of children are intended as a lesson for the rest of us. A reminder that life can be snuffed out at any time, perhaps? Then there is of course reincarnation, where we assume souls are on some sort of training path, (re-)living various lives with the intent of learning, of bettering themselves. The issue of free will quickly becomes relevant, which leads to the last point. Point seven is a bit drastic perhaps. It might be combined with the simulation hypothesis, because even when all is predictable from the previous step, knowing some end result is not an easy compute, due to NP completeness. I've personally been pondering on how we would go about searching for clues that we live in a simulation. I think a relevant point, regardless of dimension or plane of existence, is that of optimization. The first logical solution is parallelism. Next is that if we assume the outcome to be human centric, the movements of quarks inside an atom, in the front leg of an ant living out in the woods, is also a good candidate for optimization, using statistical methods perhaps even at the ant hill level, saving tons of calculations. This leads to multiple threads of execution, working at different resolution of detail, with possible consequences which I will not go into now. Enough rambling, I have to report to work! :-)

[@PMA65537]

6:00 What RYLE does ... it's a mistake to use the wrong name.

[@jefreyestebanosoriomoreno3838]

It is really interesting, did you know that in psychology is a big problem define what is the ontological nature of the mind. Then, there is a big debate between cognitive psychology (who follow Descartes) and Behaviorst psychology (who defends the idea that the Descartes's theory of the mind is not the best to a scientific understanding, instead, Ryle, Wittgenstein and mainly Aristotle's theory of the soul is a better one).

[@adriancioroianu1704]

Yes, because what we call science today isn't actually science but scientific method (Nietzsche) which is in fact the science of perceptions (that's why it seems to work) but doesn't take into account anything qualia-related. Galileo, to start this endeavor we call science today, specifically put aside all qualities and focused on quantities only (which is the scientific method today). Of course we can't understand the mind "scientifically" because science isn't operating in the same realm. You can't derive qualities from quantities, that's why consciousness will never be understood with the current scientific method. Its the category error, but now it backfired.

[@DrinkWater713]

​@@adriancioroianu1704 You have no evidence

[@adriancioroianu1704]

@@DrinkWater713 For what?

[@DrinkWater713]

@@adriancioroianu1704 That: 1 - "We can't understand the mind scientifically" 2 - Science isn't operating on the same realm as the mind (whatever that means)

[@adriancioroianu1704]

@@DrinkWater713 ok

[@user-td3ut4tg3v]

Ghost in the shell😑

[@blue-iu7hv]

wait is he writing backwards? wtf thats so cool

[@jeffreykaplan1]

I am not nearly that coordinated. I get this question a lot. Here is a video I made explaining how I make these videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJDHZWeYocaSfaM

[@ct1freak]

It's flipped. I thought the same for a sec

[@TheHermit91]

Does Ryle have an argument for why the mental is just the physical or he’s just begging the question?

[@justus4684]

As far as this video, just btq...

[@kevinmartin8522]

🐐

[@jaantunnu]

He’s soooo cute.

[@BardovBacchus]

I dunno. I think it might be easier to refute Rene by pointing out the flaws in his various premises. He starts with the supposition that he can't know anything for certain because of the possibility of an omnipotent demon that is deluding his every thought and perception. THAT he is certain of?!? What are you doing my guy?!? He then posits that because he thinks, and because he thinks of god, then god might exist. WHAT?!? Wholly non sequitur batman! I mean, he's right that humans just imagined gods from whole cloth, but their existence is the same as dragons and unicorns, imagined. He then attempt to prove this existence by stating that god is all perfection. What TF is perfection? Undefined. Considering the subjectivity of the concept of "perfection", it hardly seems the basis for a proof. He said the same thing that most religious people say when asked for proof of their god's existence. He just used a ton more words to say, "I feel it in my heart."

[@et-nh9fj]

In the end everybody copy paste the Ancient Greek philosopher

[@johnajjugo3388]

Was Ryle successful?

[@philipoakley5498]

Oh, that mind-body opposed dualism is like having to decide if a coin is a head-coin or a tail-coin, with a clear separation. While Ryle is into Caber Tossing - the coin always lands on it's side and all you (Cartesians) see is the 'ends', and not the link-span. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5CvaYeHqZ6rsLc Coin tossing for big 'boys'.

[@trashygit]

Tried to falsify Descartes' 'category mistake', but Ryle apparently ended up making a series of logical mistakes. First of all, "categories" are not natural but human-made; one can categorise things arbitrarily for any purpose. So Descartes or anybody else can come up with any category. If you are claiming that someone is making a 'category mistake', then you must have a 'criteria' (or a thought category) or a measurement in your mind. Secondly, Descartes' was dealing with the essence of things: Imagine someone shows a piece of wood, or stone and claim that 'the essence of these things are physical' then tries to explain love, feelings, etc. The first question that comes to the mind would be "how?" Descartes did not or could not find a single source that can explain the essence of everything, so he divided them as body and mind, or material and non-material. Ryle, or anybody else has yet to manage to show this common essence. Therefore, Descartes did not make any mistake, he only made a category. If Descartes himself or someone else gives some examples 'according to' this 'already-made' body-mind category, then we can either say "this example is a mistake according to this category" or "the body and mind category is not working". But we cannot say that "category is a category mistake", this would be something like "game is a game mistake".

[@galek75]

I'd love to have the confidence to speak falsehoods like you do

[@Cuythulu]

Wow you really missed the point if the criticism. It worries me that you got 5 thumbs up.

[@ryoukboy1010]

@@Cuythulu How so?

[@Cuythulu]

@@ryoukboy1010 Imagine a friend tells you they went to the mall and bought three things; a left shoe, a right shoe and a pair of shoes. Your friend didn't actually buy three things because the shoes *are* the pair of shoes. Ryle's critique of Descartes is that mind and body are the same entity but he treats it as if they were two. The person who wrote the comment either never read Ryle or completly misunderstood him.

[@ryoukboy1010]

​ @Cuythulu I think something similar can be said for Ryle. I think Ryle is actually talking about mereology rather than dualism. To give an example I can adopt the view of mereological nihilism and say that the friend didn't actually buy any shoes and instead they just bought some atoms or whatever the universe is made out of. Like the commenter said above, category is just an arbitrary construct. I adopt the view of Nagel in that physicalism is like trying to objectify something inherently subjective, thus making it useless in what its supposed to accomplish. To go back to the shoes analogy, I can tell my friend that he is an idiot because he only bought atoms, and I would be right. But it is meaningful to apply subjective labels and information to objective matter and energy, like "shoes". I like to give the analogy of Mathematics. Pretty much all of Mathematics can be developed from ZFC set theory. When we look at a field like number theory do we call numbers ghosts because deep down they are actually just sets? Is all of mathematics just an illusion? Maybe so, but it is an extremely useful illusion. As for my current views and beliefs, I don't think physicalism will ever solve the entire picture of consciousness. It may lay the groundwork for it (like ZFC set theory). But another theory/framework is needed ontop of that to fully describe consciousness. This other framework is the kind of dualism I believe in. I am kind of on both sides here, I'm for physicalism and dualism in the way that I described (At least for now).

[@ramkumarr1725]

Solution : A child in the military sees the land, water, air and space in addition to civilians in the nation state all of which are served by certain people and equipment authorised for violence or peace keeping and asks the tour giver : But where is the military? But where is the Nation State?

[@sandburgmedia7028]

great ideas. audio is terrible

[@paveljancik1287]

It is only a problem if you don't believe in supernatural/spiritual.

[@dogsdomain8458]

Sounds like aristotle's form and matter

[@AbhinavKumar]

Hylemorphic Theory.