Do Venn diagrams work to give a birds eye view of philosophy?

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Reply to tim wood Don't the entropies of thermodynamics and information theory pretty much converge?

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Reply to tim wood
Just by definition specific to this model. I really don't want to take on all definitions of information.
The problem is non physical information doesn't seem viable.
Also brains and the ability to process non physicals would have been emergent at some point in history and evolved from simple to complex.

Reply to tim wood So is information physical, non physical or a physically contained non physical or something else?

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Reply to tim wood So information is not even a thing, non existent, and cannot be placed in the Venn diagram. I'm trying to identify a hierarchy of things.

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I hear you on the words and definitions problems. To keep things focused, do you think in a biological evolutionary process organisms could gain the ability to contain non physicals that would lead to a survival advantage?

Reply to Mark Nyquist Let me help you get your ducks in a row.

Suppose 3 or so ducks as material objects - what you call physical. Now get them lined up in a row. The row is not more material over and above the ducks that were already there, but it is a row of perfectly physical ducks. The row is what I call 'an arrangement' of ducks. This is the usual way of looking at it, material and arrangements, stuff and structure, material and information.

When the cat is on the mat, the cat and the mat are physical objects and 'on' is their relation or arrangement. One cannot manage without arrangements because if one tries, one quickly discovers that 01 has to be the same as 10, and that's information up the spout.

Reply to unenlightened :up:

Reply to unenlightened So the three ducks never existed but were a non physical contained by your neurons. As a second example you give the cat and the mat that never existed but were a non physical contained by your neurons. Why you not like this model in Venn form?

Reply to darthbarracuda You're not another entropy guy, are you?

Quoting Mark Nyquist

First start with a large circle that contains all physical matter existing in the present... And last I place a smallest circle inside the brain circle representing neuron contained non physicals.

Yeah. I see the contradiction was already pointed out.

Reply to Banno Did you consider that because a neuron contained non physical is irreducible it must (as a rule of logic) be considered a physical object? Therefore not a contradiction.

Reply to Mark Nyquist ...then your Venn diagrams are incoherent, such that this innermost circle must also lie outside the outermost circle.

The model doesn't work.

Oh, my model, outside the circle, is physically non existent. So that's not right. The neuron part of a neuron contained non physical is physical. It belongs inside the brain circle.

Reply to Mark Nyquist Yeah, nuh. The model is incoherent.

Reply to Banno And your reasoned opinion exactly why. You not think of bipartite form ever before Mr. 11.8k?

Quoting Mark Nyquist

And your reasoned opinion exactly why.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

First start with a large circle that contains all physical matter existing in the present... And last I place a smallest circle inside the brain circle representing neuron contained non physicals.

IF you can't see it, then I can't help you. Not my problem.

Reply to Banno I just love having people self document.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

representing neuron contained non physicals.

What are neuron contained non physicals? Is this some sort of dualist position? Neurons are electrically excitable cells made up of well whatever they're made of. Organic molecules, pink goo or whatever. They don't "contain" anything non-physical as far as we know. They appear to have a role in implementing thought, which seems non-physical if anything is, but even that's a totally open question. We don't know if thoughts arise from the activity of neurons, or if they could arise from the activity of other electronic neural networks in computers for example. Nobody knows any of this.

Stepping back from the particulars of non-physicals in neurons, your Venn diagram idea isn't wrong, but I'm not sure what its use is beyond serving as a visual aid as to what contains what. In math one can draw a big circle containing the real numbers, with a smaller circle inside it labeled the rational numbers, and a circle inside that labeled the integers. It's great for high school students to help them learn their number concepts, but it doesn't offer any insight.

You can draw a big circle labeled the US, an inside circle label states, a circle inside that labeled cities, and that would help high school students learn their civics. Not that they teach civics anymore. Maybe we can do one for oppressed social classes. "Intersectionality." There's a term from set theory misappropriated to bad purpose.

Reply to fishfry Notice that the non-physicals are within of the physical? The Venn Diagram is broken.

Quoting Banno

Notice that the non-physicals are within of the physical? The Venn Diagram is broken.

Well the OP is saying that non-physical is "within" the physical, and that's going to be hard to justify. But I think OP really means that somehow the non-physical is implemented by the physical, and that's something a lot of people believe. The mind implemented by the brain kind of thing. My understanding is that the dualists are in full retreat these days.

Reply to fishfry An escape might be to formulate the Venn diagram in terms of information, as is indicated in the concluding paragraph of the OP. Then we would still have the physicalist assumption, but the innermost circle is :representing neuron contained information".

The notion of a neutron containing information is fraught, so another wording is needed. And even so, it is not only neurones that deal with information, so it could not be restricted to the innermost circle.

I can't see a way of rescuing this image.

Quoting Banno

I can't see a way of rescuing this image.

I think the OP is trying to get at the non-physicalness of information. I'm not sure if the particularities of the diagram matter all that much.

Re information, a bitstring is abstract, non-physical information. The same bitstring stored in a digital computer is a physical implementation of information. Perhaps OP is trying to make a distinction along those lines. But of course brains don't store information digitally (I guess some these days believe they do) so perhaps we should forget about brains for the moment and medicate on the distinction between abstract and physically implemented information.

@Mark Nyquist am I understanding you correctly?

Reply to fishfry Please, if you are trying to sort this, go back to my original posts and not the paraphrased misquotes. In particular, I don't model neurons containing information, but redefine information as a neuron contained non physical. Since no one thinks of information in this way I maybe do expect some blowback.
Some of the main issues here:
Can stand alone non physicals exist? I would answer no.
Can neuron contained non physicals exist? I would answer yes.
Can non physical stand alone information (common usage) exist? I would answer no.
Can information redefined as a neuron contained non physical exist? I would answer yes and this is in fact how we always experience information. Neurons and contained content.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

but redefine information as a neuron contained non physical.

I have only read your OP. I asked you how you define a "non physical" and what means "neuron contained non physical?"

Do you mean a neuron contains a non physical? What does that mean? Neurons contain organic goo, proteins and such. I don't know what it means for a neuron to contain a non physical. And I don't know what a non physical is. That's why I'm asking.

I'm not blowbacking at all. I'm trying to understand what is meant by the phrase non-physical (I hope you don't mind my adding the hyphen, it adds clarity IMO) and a neuron-contained non-physical.

Reply to fishfry You are right. That part does need defining and I don't remember doing it before.
So non-physical (as in having no physical form, mass, location, energy) I would identify as physically non existent.
Maybe by mental process of default I identified 'neuron contained non physicals' as the way it is in order for non physical (thought) to physically exist. The pairing of neurons and content seems intuitive enough to me but apparently fails in a philosophy forum. I should work on that.
Also it's a long standing problem in many fields of understanding how neural states match with mental content. So it's not just my problem.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

The pairing of neurons and content seems intuitive enough to me

Consider these two statements:

* A neuron contains axons and dendrites.

* A neuron contains mental states.

Now the word contains is being used in two very different ways here. Perhaps this needs clarification. Earlier I suggested that neurons implement mental states. People who believe in emergence (I don't) would say that mental states emerge from neurons, or rather networks of neurons.

That's another issue. Even if mental states do emerge from the brain by way of its neural network; that's not the same as saying a mental state emerges from an individual neuron. For example a fist emerges from five fingers (this is a favorite example of the emergentists). But a single finger doesn't contain fistness or have the potential to become a fist. It takes all five.

A computer may perform a calculation, but just the memory or just the cpu or just the keyboard or just the printer can't perform a calculation. You need the whole team.

I can imagine the brain's network of neurons implementing consciousness; or consciousness emerging from the network of neurons. But I can't imagine consciousness emerging from a single neuron.

And "contains" is not the right word. Tables come from carpenters, but tables aren't contained in carpenters.

Just my thoughts. The product of my neurons, but not the product of any one individual neuron.

Reply to fishfry Reply to fishfry Yes, words sometimes fail. I'm trying to think of analogies that fit the relation. I could say my hand holds or grasps a physical object but how do I say my neurons 'fill in the blank' a non-physical? Would the word 'pair' or 'paired with' be more neutral? The important thing is to start thinking about the relation. Neurons have the capability to manipulate non-physicals and non-physicals cannot exist without being 'fill in the blank' by neurons.
I would think of a hydrogen atom as fundamental and the DNA molecule as emergent. Anything following the DNA molecule would also be emergent such as brains and the ability to process information (using the neuron contained non-physical definition).
I did get looking at neuron tables for various species and that's interesting if you want to correlate number of total neurons to capabilities. Interesting, a honey bee has 960,000 neurons and can do things like find food and get back to it's hive without direct visual input.

So without using the word contained, let's just show it this way,
[neurons,(a non-physical)] as an irreducible unit
and do something useful with it - model time perception:
[neurons,(the past)]; physically exists in the present
[neurons,(the present)]; physically exists in the present
[neurons,(the future)]; physically exists in the present

This model shows how time perception is always in the physical present but lets us perceive a past, present and future.

Reply to Mark Nyquist I dunno what you mean.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

Yes, words sometimes fail. I'm trying to think of analogies that fit the relation. I could say my hand holds or grasps a physical object but how do I say my neurons 'fill in the blank' a non-physical?[/url]

I've suggested "implements." Or perhaps even instantiates. Five apples instantiate an instance of the abstract number 5. And as I said, emergentists would say that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. I don't know what the reverse-direction verb is. The brain emergentizes consciousness.


[quote="Mark Nyquist;530472"]
Would the word 'pair' or 'paired with' be more neutral?

It wouldn't make much sense. Laurel is paired with Hardy, vanilla ice cream is paired with fresh hot apple pie, and Ricky is paired with Lucy (am I showing my age, or what?). But pairing does not suggest the instantiation or implementation relationship.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

The important thing is to start thinking about the relation. Neurons have the capability to manipulate non-physicals

Again you are imputing to the part what can only be done by an assemblage of parts. You say a neuron implements consciousness but you are wrong. It takes the entire brain/body system to implement consciousness. As an example, you would say a water molecule quenches your thirst. Thirstiness is a non-physical because it's a subjective sensation, even if it's caused by biochemical processes. So it's a good analogy. But a water molecule can't quench your thirst. It takes about [math]8 \times 10^{24}[/math] water molecules to quench your thirst. That's how many water molecules are in a glass of water.

You keep repeating that a neuron implements consciousness but that is simply false. You have your neurons but you also have all the other brain goo, plus your body and your senses and your living experience in the world. All that together somehow implements consciousness, and I can't figure out why you don't see this.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

and non-physicals cannot exist without being 'fill in the blank' by neurons.

Implemented. But FWIW. this is a supposition. The proponents of strong AI (of which I am not one) claim that non-physicals can be instantiated in suitably complex arrangements of electrical circuits. I don't believe that, but I had to start paying attention when Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov. Now weak AI systems can drive cars. It's impressive. You can't dismiss the claims of strong AI out of hand.


Quoting Mark Nyquist

I would think of a hydrogen atom as fundamental and the DNA molecule as emergent. Anything following the DNA molecule would also be emergent such as brains and the ability to process information (using the neuron contained non-physical definition).

Ok. Where's this going?

Quoting Mark Nyquist

I did get looking at neuron tables for various species and that's interesting if you want to correlate number of total neurons to capabilities. Interesting, a honey bee has 960,000 neurons and can do things like find food and get back to it's hive without direct visual input.

At least you're now admitting that it's large assemblages of neurons and not individual neurons. But yes, evidently brain size is correlated with intelligence. Not for nothing is "pea brain" a way to insult someone's intelligence.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

So without using the word contained, let's just show it this way,
[neurons,(a non-physical)] as an irreducible unit

Here you seem to be contradicting yourself. I'm willing to believe (for sake of argument) that large assemblages of neurons in the proper configuration (ie in a functioning brain, not sitting in jar of pickling solution on a shelf in a lab) may implement consciousness.

But you just wrote that "neurons, (a non-physical) ..." But I thought we were agreed that neurons are physical.

And you said a neuron is irreducible, but a single neuron has axons and dendrites and various other parts, and is made of proteins and other organic molecules and bio-goo. A neuron is hardly irreducible.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

and do something useful with it - model time perception:
[neurons,(the past)]; physically exists in the present
[neurons,(the present)]; physically exists in the present
[neurons,(the future)]; physically exists in the present

This is a little woo-woo for me. Are you saying that in the present we have memories of the past? Yes, we have portions of the brain that store memories, in ways we don't fully understand.

And the future physically exists in the present? You'd better justify that claim or retract it.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

This model shows how time perception is always in the physical present but lets us perceive a past, present and future.

Of course, this is well known. I sit here today and think about the past and imagine the future. All part of my brain process, little neurochemicals swimming around in my brain goo.

What of it? If you don't mind my saying, you're going a long way to state the obvious. We're physical bodies in a physical universe, and we don't understand why we have consciousness, dreams, hopes, fears, thoughts, qualia, and so forth. Everybody knows this.

Reply to fishfryAs far as the time perception model goes I could restate it in sentence form.
The past is an idea held by present neurons.
The present is an idea held by present neurons.
The future is an idea held by present neurons.

My use of the semi colon was to add clarification. And in common terms a normal average Joe would understand it and there wouldn't be an issue.

So I'm getting you don't like models that use anything non-physical.
That's just fine. I like any model and often going deeper has surprises.
So would your Venn diagram of reality be a big circle with all the matter in the universe and small circles as brains being a special class of matter?
And do you have a model or definition of information in any form you wish?

Quoting Mark Nyquist

As far as the time perception model goes I could restate it in sentence form.
The past is an idea held by present neurons.
The present is an idea held by present neurons.
The future is an idea held by present neurons.

Perfectly agreed, perfectly obvious, perfectly well known to everyone. Don't you think? Also FWIW numerous studies show that memory is very unreliable. Something happens and you form a memory. Then you think about the memory and embellish it a little. After a while, your memory of an event can be quite different from the original event.

We don't store memories the way a video stores a scene. We store approximate memories which are also linked to emotional states. I think of that bad meal or long-lost friend and have an emotional experience that often induces a physical sensation in my body. So memories are extremely subtle and by no means a "record of what happened."

But why do you keep saying neurons? There's much more involved than neurons. I don't understand why you keep saying neurons. There are a lot of mechanisms in the brain and body besides neurons that are involved in experience.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

My use of the semi colon was to add clarification. And in common terms a normal average Joe would understand it and there wouldn't be an issue.

I apologize that I misunderstood. But as it happens I'm much pickier and anal-retentive than the average Joe so a lot of things jump out at me that most other people ignore. I heard once someone describe this as "sharpeners" and "levelers." Sharpeners, like me, take a small discrepancy and make a mountain out of it; levelers just smooth it out. Levelers have a much easier time in society, needless to say.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

So I'm getting you don't like models that use anything non-physical.

You couldn't be further from the truth. I am saying that your some of your terminology seems imprecise or a little off from the ideas you're trying to convey. I'm having to work hard to understand you. It could just be me of course.

That's just fine. I like any model and often going deeper has surprises.
So would your Venn diagram of reality be a big circle with all the matter in the universe and small circles as brains being a special class of matter?[/quote]

Brains are certainly matter. What minds are, nobody knows. If I had to make a diagram I'd have a circle for all the matter in the universe, and an other circle for mind, and a dotted line between them with a big question mark over it. That's my ontology right there! Thanks for helping me to clarify it.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

And do you have a model or definition of information in any form you wish?

Well information, that's a different concept than consciousness. Information was defined by a guy named Kolmogorov and studied by Shannon et. al. Here are a couple of links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

The idea is that a bitstring, a string (finite or infinite) of 1's and 0's, is either information or random depending on whether there's a short rule to describe it. For example

11111111 is 8 1's, so this is information rather than randomness. It can be "compressed" as they say.

11001010 is more random, there's not an obvious rule that generates the bits.

So when you say information, I am afraid I immediately think about the technical meaning of the term. If you turn on the radio and hear music, that's information. If you hear static, that's noise, or non-information.

This goes back to something you said earlier about the physical versus the non-physical. A bitstring is abstract, it's just a pattern without physical existence. But if you program that bitstring into a computer, you are performing a computation that takes time and energy and space and generates heat. It's a physical implementation of the abstract bistring. Which is why I like the word implementation. If you have a physical process that makes an abstract thing real, that's implementation. The analogy's not entirely good, but in my semantics I would say that brain implements mind. And then the question is, could there be anything else (a computer perhaps) that could also implement mind.

I like the word instantiated but it's not a joe schmoe word. The subject of strong AI is possibly an exact analogy in containing non-physicals.
The form would be [computational electronics,(an instantiated non-physical)],
compared with [neurons, (an instantiated non-physical)].

I will try to write neurons instead of neuron; I meant neuron plural and you read neuron singular. It could be I have my own grammar on some of this and need to clean it up a bit. So if something seems off keep after me.
A guess, for humans, performing simple tasks, could involve tens of millions of neurons.
Something about Claude Shannon you may not know is he did not like the father of information (theory) title. His work was with signals, transmission rates, error rates and high level math for sure but the result was to implement on physical systems. Looking it up would be better than from my memory.
So my version of information is basically the mind stores and processes information and everything external is just physical matter. Communication works by coding (or encoding) and decoding matter in various forms

Quoting Mark Nyquist

I like the word instantiated but it's not a joe schmoe word. p/quote]

It's a computer programming buzzword. You create a specific instance out of an abstract thing. But I use it more generally, as in saying for example that five apples instantiate the number 5. The number 5 is a mathematical abstraction, and 5 apples is an instantiation of the concept in the physical world.

So mind or non-physical is an abstraction, and neurons instantiate it in the physical world. That's my chain of thinking, for what it's worth.


[quote="Mark Nyquist;530801"]
The subject of strong AI is possibly an exact analogy in containing non-physicals.
The form would be [computational electronics,(an instantiated non-physical)],
compared with [neurons, (an instantiated non-physical)].

Yes I completely agree. If somebody succeeds in implementing or instantiating actual self-awareness or consciousness or subjective experience in a circuit board, or any pile of circuit boards, that would show that the physical can instantiate the non-physical.

I don't happen to believe that myself, but plenty of people are working on it from many angles. And after all -- this is the counterargument to my disbelief -- my brain is a pile of atoms, and I have self-awareness. So why couldn't some other pile of atoms have self awareness? Why only people, why only living things? It's a darn good question, one I can't answer.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

I will try to write neurons instead of neuron; I meant neuron plural and you read neuron singular. It could be I have my own grammar on some of this and need to clean it up a bit.

Yes I see that now. I apologize that I've been going off into perpectual paragraphs of pedantic pickiness on this point.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

So if something seems off keep after me.

You don't want to encourage me to be even more pedantic and picky!! LOL. I'm pedantic and picky enough on my own.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

A guess, for humans, performing simple tasks, could involve tens of millions of neurons.
Something about Claude Shannon you may not know is he did not like the father of information (theory) title.

That's interesting!


Quoting Mark Nyquist

His work was with signals, transmission rates, error rates and high level math for sure but the result was to implement on physical systems. Looking it up would be better than from my memory.

I see exactly what you mean. He worked on sending "information," streams of bits, through wires. Not on human-to-human communication or "information" as in the contents of our minds. Makes perfect sense.


Quoting Mark Nyquist

So my version of information is basically the mind stores and processes information and everything external is just physical matter. Communication works by coding (or encoding) and decoding matter in various forms

Well I thought you were making the point that Shannon distinguished between information as strings of 1's and 0's traveling through a wire; versus information as what the mind stores. They are totally different things. The mind doesn't work on bitstrings. So I'm confused by your now equating bitstrings in wires with the mysterious processes of our minds.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

Also brains and the ability to process non physicals would have been emergent at some point in history and evolved from simple to complex.

Would it indeed? Hmph! If you manage to make the venn diagram no one is going to agree with it! Interesting idea though. It's making your philosophical views fairly clear in a way.

EDIT: one way to know you've made a good diagram is if people use it to clearly understand you view and start criticising your views, rather than focusing on the diagram.

Reply to bert1 You see that number under my name? It might read 16 or 17, not too much so maybe that's my one time excuse. With models you might not always know the end from the beginning or maybe a snafu would lead to a second attempt and a better model.
If you or anyone else feels up to it there is an image icon above the comment box. Maybe draw your best Venn diagram or picture model and post it. I did some Venn diagrams on a drawing program but haven't worked out how to post it here.
There's a basic question here that I haven't stated which is have some of our neurons (probably in the cerebral cortex) developed the ability to contain (or instantiate) non- physicals? Think of it as a yes or no question with big implications.

Reply to fishfry I actually did draw the Venn diagram you described on a cheap graphics program. The basic question I would ask is have some of our neurons evolved the ability to instantiate non-physicals. I would answer yes in the extreme but others might say not at all-a physical impossibility.

Reply to fishfry
Sorry I don't think this link works. Something about posting an image to the web that I'm missing and have never needed to do it before and it takes time to figure out.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

I actually did draw the Venn diagram you described on a cheap graphics program. The basic question I would ask is have some of our neurons evolved the ability to instantiate non-physicals. I would answer yes in the extreme but others might say not at all-a physical impossibility.

If one is a physicalist, then mind is ultimately explainable in terms of physics. I'm a pile of atoms and I have plenty of qualia and a rich internal life, so atoms must be capable of doing that. If one denies that, then one is forced to accept some kind of dualism. I think both alternatives are equally untenable.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

Sorry I don't think this link works. Something about posting an image to the web that I'm missing and have never needed to do it before and it takes time to figure out.

I copied your link but got 404. No matter, it's just circles. I don't think the diagram is the point, not sure why it's important to you. I thought that the real question is how a pile of atoms such as me has subjective experience; and if so, why couldn't some other non-living pile of atoms have the same? Perhaps there's something special about life.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

I did some Venn diagrams on a drawing program but haven't worked out how to post it here.

If you become a subscriber ($/month) you can upload images. Otherwise to link them it seems you need a source that is secure.

Reply to fishfry Quoting fishfry

If one is a physicalist, then mind is ultimately explainable in terms of physics. I'm a pile of atoms and I have plenty of qualia and a rich internal life, so atoms must be capable of doing that. If one denies that, then one is forced to accept some kind of dualism. I think both alternatives are equally untenable.

Here are my thoughts on this: Maybe, like in physics, philosophy should be looking for a theory of everything. So my opinion is that neurons, mostly cerebral cortex, possibly some more, do have the capability to instantiate non-physicals. If this is the case then you have an entirely physical process that supports non-physicals. Not sure if this would satisfy a duelist or a physicalist ( I would guess neither).
I'm kind of getting over Venn diagrams for just now.

Reply to jgill Thank you so much! Very good to know.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

neurons, mostly cerebral cortex, possibly some more, do have the capability to instantiate non-physicals.

That is exactly the physicalist position. The dualist believes there is "something else" beyond the physical.

Reply to fishfry Physicalism doesn't go far enough in exploring what non-physicals are or in what form they exist. I could be wrong, maybe you know some references. I'm always looking and I don't find much on it.

Reply to fishfry Quoting fishfry

The dualist believes there is "something else" beyond the physical.

Then of course there is the argument that physicalism is itself a form of dualism.

Quoting Joshs

Then of course there is the argument that physicalism is itself a form of dualism.

How so? I thought physicalism is the belief that everything, including mind and all non-physical phenomena such as qualia, can be explained via physical phenomena and without recourse to any non-physical mechanisms. Maybe I don't know what physicalism means in a technical sense, I claim no philosophical knowledge in this regard.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

Physicalism doesn't go far enough in exploring what non-physicals are or in what form they exist. I could be wrong, maybe you know some references. I'm always looking and I don't find much on it.

I'm afraid I don't know any of the official literature on the subject nor am I familiar with any of the standard arguments. I think of physicalism as "Mind is a byproduct or output or emergent property of atoms," and dualism as, "Mind is some kind of non-physical thing that's independent of or separate from atoms." I'm sure those aren't the official definitions.

There's Cartesian dualism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism

Quoting Mark Nyquist

The part I'd most like to discuss is treating information in this two part form which is the only way I can see to give information a physical existence. And the problem with treating information as a singular, non physical form would be that it's physically non existent, an impossibility.

That is a really interesting idea. You have set it out as per your paradigm, and as you say yourself it does not work. I would set out the Venn diagram idealistically:

Information is everything, and everything only makes sense as integrated information ( consciousness ), so the large circle would contain all information and it would represent mind. Within would be a circle for the physical - we can not walk through brick walls, so this circle contains absolute truths / facts. The next circle would contain concepts describing the physical facts - theory ( physics, science, etc ). Then all that is left would be beliefs - beliefs are not part of the set of truths, they have a probabilistic validity. So circles for beliefs of high, medium, and low probability would seem in order. Along these lines you would have mind, and then within it would be sets containing conceptions from high to low confidence value, and this way the Venn diagram would seem to work, without conceptual conflict. Why is that? :chin:

Reply to Pop That gave me hiccups.
To answer your question in a roundabout way and re-establish my original premise, I made up this list:
An idea is a neuron contained (or instantiated) non-physical.
A paradigm is a neuron contained non-physical.
Information is a neuron contained non-physical.
Consciousness is back burner for me.
A concept is a neuron contained non-physical.
A belief is a neuron contained non-physical.
Mind is a neuron contained non-physical.
A conception is a neuron contained non-physical.

Actually I had a similar list made up but yours was more complete.
Edit: Please read neuron as neurons (plural).

Reply to fishfry

Quoting fishfry

Then of course there is the argument that physicalism is itself a form of dualism.
— Joshs

How so? I thought physicalism is the belief that everything, including mind and all non-physical phenomena such as qualia, can be explained via physical phenomena and without recourse to any non-physical mechanisms.

Physicalism thinks it leaves dualism behind, when in fact it simply ignores the subjective dimension of experience that is built into , but hidden within, the very assumptions of physicalism.

You may find this from philosopher Evan Thompson interesting. He adheres to the Enactivist approach in psychology.

“...we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualist–that is, beyond the divide between the “mental” (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the “physical” (understood as not conceptually involving the mental)."

“Many philosophers have argued that there seems to be a gap between the objective, naturalistic facts of the world and the subjective facts of conscious experience. The hard problem is the conceptual and metaphysical problem of how to bridge this apparent gap. There are many critical things that can be said about the hard problem (see Thompson&Varela, forthcoming), but what I wish to point out here is that it depends for its very formulation on the premise that the embodied mind as a natural entity exists ‘out there' independently of how we configure or constitute it as an object of knowledge through our reciprocal empathic understanding of one other as experiencing subjects. One way of formulating the hard problem is to ask: if we had a complete, canonical, objective, physicalist account of the natural world, including all the physical facts of the brain and the organism, would it conceptually or logically entail the subjective facts of consciousness? If this account would not entail these facts, then consciousness must be an additional, non-natural property of the world.

One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however — but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) — this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world.

Another way to make this point, one which is phenomenological, but also resonates with William James's thought (see Taylor, 1996), is to assert the primacy of the personalistic perspective over the naturalistic perspective. By this I mean that our relating to the world, including when we do science, always takes place within a matrix whose fundamental structure is I-You-It (this is reflected in linguistic communication: I am speaking to You about It) (Patocka, 1998, pp. 9–10). The hard problem gives epistemological and ontological precedence to the impersonal, seeing it as the foundation, but this puts an excessive emphasis on the third-person in the primordial structure of I–You–It in human understanding. What this extreme emphasis fails to take into account is that the mind as a scientific object has to be constituted as such from the personalistic perspective in the empathic co-determination of self and other. The upshot of this line of thought with respect to the hard problem is that this problem should not be made the foundational problem for consciousness studies. The problem cannot be ‘How do we go from mind-independent nature to subjectivity and consciousness?' because, to use the language of yet another philosophical tradition, that of Madhyamika Buddhism (Wallace, this volume), natural objects and properties are not intrinsically identifiable (svalaksana); they are identifiable only in relation to the ‘conceptual imputations' of intersubjective experience.“

Reply to Mark Nyquist

I don't think we are on the same page at all, I think we are miles apart - too far to bridge today.

Anyway good luck with it. :smile:

Reply to Pop Sorry, didn't mean to chase you away.
I could be the the only one here who sees it this way and it must not be a common view by the reactions I'm getting. One reason I'm posting is to stress test it. Fishfry is good at it and I don't mind at all.
And I don't see philosophy as something where you take a position and defend it forever but more iterative where you try something and if it's not right you go back and try it again.
Edit: I should have said try something else. You shouldn't repeat if it's not working.

Reply to Mark Nyquist There is quite a gulf to be bridged. You posit a mind independent world ( "First start with a large circle that contains all physical matter existing in the present"). Please read this thread, and explain to me how such a world could exist. If you come to understand that it cannot, as I do, then you will also understand that according to your list, the world is a "non physical", so, from my perspective, there is quite a conundrum to unravel and put back together before we can reach an understanding.

Reply to Pop You are right, a bit of a gulf.
The point of the list was to show a universal principal or mechanism at work.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

The point of the list was to show a universal principal or mechanism at work.

Perhaps another time. :up: What strikes me about your Venn diagram idea is that the outer circle must always be mind dependent - it has no other way of materializing - both literally, and figuratively, both in the diagram and in the real world, from an idealistic perspective.

Reply to Banno I could set this up differently. If I set the big circle as the universe, a second circle as a brain, and a third inner circle as the cerebral-cortex (or other region) and stopped the Venn diagram there I think you would be satisfied. And it has some of the elements I want to examine.
Then looking at that Venn diagram I would ask if information defined as a neuron(s) instantiated non-physical is a viable theory

Quoting Mark Nyquist

...information defined as a neuron(s) instantiated non-physical is a viable theory

What are non-physical neurones? OR is it the information you think non-physical?

Reply to Banno Quoting Banno

What are non-physical neurones?

I didn't use the term non-physical neurones, you did.
Quoting Banno

OR is it the information you think non-physical?

I think information cannot be non-physical. For example, thoughts have a non-physical aspect but are always supported by physical neurons (as in many millions into the billions).

Reply to Banno Cancel duplicate.

Reply to Banno Cancel duplicate.

Quoting Joshs

Physicalism thinks it leaves dualism behind, when in fact it simply ignores the subjective dimension of experience that is built into , but hidden within, the very assumptions of physicalism.

This is just the thing I'd like to sort through with a birds eye view of the problem. My approach would be to develop physicalism to the point that the neuron instantiated non-physicals are recognized as emergent from physical matter. Then you are back to dualism with a defined form of the non-physical such as mind, thought, ideas and so on.
The general form that emerges is [neurons,(an instantiated non-physical)].
Some examples would be:
Information is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Mind is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Thought is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Ideas are a neuron instantiated non-physical.

Philosophy and it's subdivisions also take this general form:
Philosophy is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Dualism is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Monism is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
Physicalism is a neuron instantiated non-physical.
...and on and on. The neuron part would be millions or billions of neurons, whatever is required to instantiate specific content.
I'm a little weak on the history of philosophy but you give a good overview. I only recognized a few names you covered, so I'm working on matching names to philosophy.