If Dualism is true, all science is wrong?

Quoting TiredThinker

Please help me understand this article. Is it implying that assuming dualism is a possibility that all science must be false in order for that to be the case?

FWIW, I interpret Dualism, not as Matter & Spirit, but as Physical & Meta-Physical (or Menta-Physical). I make that distinction because the Mental aspects of Reality are emergent & subjective Qualia from the elemental & objective Quanta. Modern Science was deliberately divorced from ancient notions of non-physical essences. But both modern Quantum Theory and Information Theory have revived the necessity for dealing with concepts that are not physical objects, such as "virtual particles" and "memes".

However, I don't view them as fundamentally separate classes of reality. Instead I take a BothAnd perspective, which proposes essential & causal Information (the power to enform) for the fundamental "substance", as proposed by Spinoza and Aristotle, among other philosophers. From that Monistic perspective, I have derived a personal worldview for both Science and Philosophy for the 21st century.

Since, the essential substance of the real world (Information : EnFormAction) is closer to invisible Energy than to tangible Matter, I can make sense of problems inherent to both Dualism and Materialistic Monism. But that worldview is Agnostic about the post-death state of the abstract process we call "Life". We have no evidence upon which to base such speculations, except for unverifiable anecdotal (so you say) reports that can be interpreted in various ways.

Consequently, I think EnFormAction (like Energy) must be eternal. But Life is inherently temporal. Therefore, I'm not counting on a traditional afterlife. But, I can't absolutely rule out some afterdeath continuation of personal data (Information) -- perhaps "virtual" life?? :cool:


Qualia : Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives. In this broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.

Reply to TiredThinker

Well, it kind of depends on what dualism one espouses. This article argues that some people are what are called substance dualists: there are two kinds of stuff in the world one which known and understood, the physical (and this is false) and one which is not understood the mental or spiritual.

I've said this too many times here to go into details again, but, first of all, this physical stuff which is claimed is known so well, isn't, we postulate 95% of the universe as being made of dark matter and dark energy, we don't know what they are, but if we don't postulate that, then the 5% we can describe, doesn't hold.

If you then actually examine what the evidence says, you discover that physical stuff is waaaay stranger than our intuitions of it being "solid, touchable stuff", in fact, it's almost completely insubstantial.

What's also insubstantial, that is, not touchable and strange? The mind, which we don't know much about, other than we have it and are acquainted with it better than anything else.

So out the window with substance dualism. Now we have the world, with many properties (the mental, the biological, the chemical, the sociological). So one can be a monist-pluralist and say there's many kinds of things which are at bottom made of the same stuff, or you can artificially say that the mental is not physical and somehow has to be fundamentally different from the rest of the world.

Nothing follows if there is another life after this one in terms of monism.

So science doesn't necessarily collapse if the mind at least in part exists outside of the physical as we know it?

Quoting TiredThinker

Is it implying that assuming dualism is a possibility that all science must be false in order for that to be the case?

His description of dualism is completely fallacious. He's depicting the belief in soul as something like an ectoplasmic jelly, some amorphous stuff that exists. It's like matter, only spooky - 'mind-stuff' or something of the kind. It comes from the background assumptions that he makes, without acknowledging or possibly understanding what they are or when they were made.

[quote=Lewis]If the idea of a spiritual realm and a mind that outlives the brain turned out to be true and materialism turned out to be false, then this discovery would not just add new insights to science the way that the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics did, it would contradict science in its entirety.[/quote]

There is considerable documented evidence of children who remember their past lives. Such evidence comprises checking the claims of such children against contemporary reports of the lives they claim to remember, including newspaper stories, witness accounts, locations and other such records. The researchers who conducted these studies don't claim to be 'contradicting science in its entirety', although obviously such phenomena challenge scientific materialism, which is a completely different matter.

Up until about the 19th Century there was no conception of electric fields. They were discovered as a consequence of other discoveries in electomagnetism. Nowadays it is common to read that the fundamental constituents of matter are 'really' fields of various kinds. Obviously electromagnetic fields have been detected because of the instruments that are able to detect them and the observation of effects of magnets and compass needles etc. But why should it be assumed that fields are only electro-magnetic? What if there are biological fields, or field effects that the mind is able to detect, such as morphic fields?

Quoting TiredThinker

Please help me understand this article.

I like threads that are based on articles. They have the potential to provide far ore substance to chew on. Of course, they are dependent on folk reading the article.

For those who persistently ignore the cited work, here is the footnote that Lewis says contains the "cogent explanation by a renowned physicist as to why this is so."

Caltech physicist Sean M. Carroll framed the debate this way, in his book The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (New York: Dutton, 2016): "Is consciousness 'just' a way of talking about the behavior of certain kinds of collections of atoms, obeying the laws of physics? Or is there something definitely new about it—either an entirely new kind of substance, as Rene Descartes would have had it, or at least a separate kind of property over and above the merely material?" (p. 319). Carroll argued persuasively for the former (just atoms obeying the laws of physics). He went on to say "If these mental properties affected the behavior of particles in the same way that physical properties like mass and electric charge do, then they would simply be another kind of physical property. You are free to postulate new properties that affect the behavior of electrons and photons, but you're not simply adding new ideas to the Core Theory; you are saying that it is wrong. If mental properties affect the evolution of quantum fields, there will be ways to measure that effect experimentally, at least in principle—not to mention all the theoretical difficulties with regard to conservation of energy and so on that such a modification would entail. It's reasonable to assign very low credence to such a complete overhaul of the very successful structure of known physics" (p. 356). Carroll explained elsewhere why physicists are extremely confident now that the Core Theory is correct, and he explained what the theory entails. He also (like many other physicists) went on to debunk popular New Age beliefs (e.g. those promoted by Deepak Chopra) that quantum mechanics somehow supports the notion that the universe is pervaded by some sort of primal innate consciousness and the notion that consciousness is primary, creating matter (vs. the scientific view that consciousness is secondary, arising from matter). For a short, simplified version of the above explanation by Carroll, see https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thinking-psychic-powers-helps-us-think-science/.

Science wouldn't be wrong per se. It could restrict its applicability to the physical side of reality. The nonphysical would require its very own couture theory in the same capacity.

SO is the argument cogent? Let's pry it apart.

"If these mental properties affected the behavior of particles in the same way that physical properties like mass and electric charge do, then they would simply be another kind of physical property. You are free to postulate new properties that affect the behavior of electrons and photons, but you're not simply adding new ideas to the Core Theory; you are saying that it is wrong.If mental properties affect the evolution of quantum fields, there will be ways to measure that effect experimentally, at least in principle—not to mention all the theoretical difficulties with regard to conservation of energy and so on that such a modification would entail. It's reasonable to assign very low credence to such a complete overhaul of the very successful structure of known physics

My bolding. The argument as presented is not cogent. It is incomplete. But we might be able to piece together an improved version.

The argument seems to be that if mental properties had physical affects then we would be able to measure them. The law of conservation of energy is mentioned - if mental properties had some physical affect we would be able to measure these and see if the result complied with conservation of energy. IF it does, then the mental properties are simply more physical properties; and this is what physicists suppose happens when we move stuff around with our hands - energy is conserved.

If energy was not conserved, then there would be a problem for science. Conservation of energy is about as basic as a scientific principle can get. If it failed in the presence of minds, then we would indeed need to build science up from scratch, But moreover, if conservation failed, we would have no basis on which to make predictions as to the outcomes of experiments. We could never be sure that the results were brought about by physical laws or the intervention of mind.

It would render the world unpredictable. Science depends on the world being predictable.

So yes, dualism is anathema to science.

That argument rests on a fundamental problem with dualism.

IF there are two things in the world - say a physical world and mind - then how is it that mind can work to change physical stuff?

We know that this happens - I decide to raise my arm, and low, the damn thing goes up.

The only rational explanation is that there is a physical link of some sort between mind and arm; that they are basically the same sort of thing.

Those who suppose otherwise - the ball is in your court. It is over to you to explain how mind can have an impact on the physical world if it is an utterly different sort of thing.

The usual explanation is from Descartes: it just so happens that the world is set up so that at the time you decide to move your arm, the arm is caused by the laws of physics. But that is a quite useless explanation.

Quoting Banno

IF there are two things in the world - say a physical world and mind - then how is it that mind can work to change physical stuff?

That’s what begins to happen with the emergence of life. Living creatures are capable of intentional action. On planets where there is no life - most of them, as far as we know - then no such thing occurs.

Caltech physicist Sean M. Carroll framed the debate this way

There was an opinion piece published in Scientific American, by physicist (and physicalist!) Sean Carroll, called Physics and the Immortality of the Soul. Carroll argues that belief in any kind of life after death is equivalent to the belief that the Moon is made from green cheese - that is to say, ridiculous.

But such an assertion is made because of the presuppositions that the writer brings to the question. In other words, he depicts the issue in such a way that it would indeed be ridiculous to believe it. But this is because of a deep misunderstanding about the very nature of the idea.

Carroll says:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

I can think of a straightforward answer to this question, which is that the soul is not 'made of particles'. In fact the idea that the soul is 'made of particles' is not at all characteristic of what is meant by the term 'soul'. (I also think the claim that 'the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood' is ridiculously hubristic, but I'll leave that aside.)

But I think the soul could more easily be conceived in terms of a field that acts as an organising principle - analogous to the physical and magnetic fields that were discovered during the 19th century, that were found to be fundamental to the behaviour of particles. This is not to say that the soul is a field, but that it might be much more conceivable in terms of fields than of particles. (This is also congruent with the analogy of the lyre in the Phaedo, as a matter of historical interest.)

Morphic Fields

Just as magnetic fields organise iron filings into predictable shapes, so too might a biological field effect be responsible for the general form and the persistence of particular attributes of an organism. The question is, is there any evidence of such fields?

Well, the existence of 'morphic fields' is the brainchild of Rupert Sheldrake, the 'scientific heretic' who claims in a Scientific American interview that:

Morphic resonance is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organized by morphic fields. It enables memories to pass across both space and time from the past. The greater the similarity, the greater the influence of morphic resonance. What this means is that all self-organizing systems, such as molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals and animal societies, have a collective memory on which each individual draws and to which it contributes. In its most general sense this hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.

As the morphic field is capable of storing and transmitting remembered information, then 'the soul' could be conceived in such terms. The morphic field does, at the very least, provide an explanatory metaphor for such persistence.

Children with Past-Life Memories

But what, then, is the evidence for such effects in respect to 'life after death'? As mentioned previously in this thread, a researcher by the name of Ian Stevenson assembled a considerable body of data on children with recall of previous lives. Stevenson's data collection comprised the methodical documentation of a child’s purported recollections of a previous life. Then he identified from journals, birth-and-death records, and witnesses the deceased person the child supposedly remembered, and attempted to validate the facts that matched the child’s memory. Yet another Scientific American opinion piece notes that Stevenson even matched birthmarks and birth defects on his child subjects with wounds on the remembered deceased that could be verified by medical records.

On the back of the head of a little boy in Thailand was a small, round puckered birthmark, and at the front was a larger, irregular birthmark, resembling the entry and exit wounds of a bullet; Stevenson had already confirmed the details of the boy’s statements about the life of a man who’d been shot in the head from behind with a rifle, so that seemed to fit. And a child in India who said he remembered the life of boy who’d lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine mishap was born with boneless stubs for fingers on his right hand only. This type of “unilateral brachydactyly” is so rare, Stevenson pointed out, that he couldn’t find a single medical publication of another case.

Carroll, again

Carroll goes on in his piece to say that 'Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions (about the persistence of consciousness)'. However, that springs from his starting assumption that 'the soul' must be something physical, which, again, arises from the presumption that everything is physical, or reducible to physics. In other words, it is directly entailed by his belief in the exhaustiveness of physics with respect to the description of what is real.

He then says 'Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that "new physics" to interact with the atoms that we do have.'

However, even in ordinary accounts of 'mind-body' medicine, it is clear that mind can have physical consequences and effects on the body. This is the case with, for example, psychosomatic medicine and the placebo effect, but there are many other examples.

He finishes by observing:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV.

But that is not what 'most people have in mind'. That is what physicalists have in mind - because that is how physicalists think. If you start from the understanding that 'everything is physical', then this will indeed dictate the way you think about such questions. And it is indeed the case that there is no such 'blob' as Carroll imagines. But that is not what 'soul' is; but what it is is something that can't be understood given his presuppositions about what is real.

Take a look at our old friend:



That bit sticking out to the left - what is it? Is it a bill or a pair of ears?

Which is it really? That question doesn't work int his context. We can see it as a bill, or as a pair of ears; there's no "really" about it.

All this to show that the one thing might be seen in quite differently for different purposes.

The argument given above showed that in a physical explanation there is no room for a different, non-physical substance such as mind. When one is doing physics one cannot afford to allow magic without physics falling apart. So moving one's arm is presumed to have an explanation in physical terms that will set out the movement all the way from the arm going up right back to the firing of some set of neurones, without mention of a decisions being made.

Or we could simply say that decided to lift my arm.

These are two descriptions. One belongs to physics, the other to our intentional explanations of what we do. They are descriptions of the very same thing - me lifting my arm.

Like the duck-rabbit, they are different ways of seeing a nd talking about the same thing.

There's no two substances at work here, no magic interfering with the science. Instead of a physical duality, we just have two ways of talking.

And we needn't think one of these ways of speaking has some ultimate priority over the other, as folk do when they are sometimes incline to say that our actions reduce to physical explanations. An accurate and complete physical explanation of my raising my hand, including descriptions of the neurones, muscle, bones and other bits involved, would be would be useless as an explanation of why I raised my hand. But "I wanted to scratch my eye" suffices in a few words.

So it might be that we have two ways of talking about how things are - one physical, the other intentional. They are about the very same thing, but are quite different.

Thinking in this way, we may be able to have our cake and eat it; retaining a belief that there are only physical occurrences in the world, while accepting that we can describe these occurrences in terms of such mental properties as beliefs, desires and sensations.

Quoting TiredThinker

So science doesn't necessarily collapse if the mind at least in part exists outside of the physical as we know it?

Absolutely not! All scientism would necessarily collapse—not all of science, if any.

The article linked to in the OP espouses an opinion founded on a popularized but, imo, unlearned understandings of what empirical science is. (Prejudicially speaking, might have something to do with the author being an M.D. rather than a PhD.)

Empirical science equates to neither physicalism nor to physics—no more than it equates to theoretical mathematics. Or to technology for that matter.

Here, an impromptu working definition: Empirical science is knowledge consisting of inferred fallible conclusions derived from empirical evidence—i.e., from observations: be these the results from tests of falsifiable hypotheses (c.f., the results of any scientific test), of reoccurring processes in nature (e.g., the theory of evolution via natural selection), of one unique items found in the world (e.g., certain fossils), etc.—whose verity as empirical evidence is confirmed via consensus, such as via replication and peer review. I know this definition is imperfect but I wager that there is nothing in this definition that any empirical science lacks or does without.

If substance dualism (or any other number of non-physicalist paradigms), then some of the fallibly inferred conclusions currently maintained by the empirical sciences will be mistaken—especially those which by now have become amongst the most generalized conclusions which contextualize all others: as an example I'm keen on, such as the currently maintained fallible conclusion that teleology is a metaphysical impossibility or else is simply unreal. However, that said, absolutely none of the empirical evidence obtained via the empirical sciences would become invalid. All the data obtained by the empirical sciences would still need to be cogently explainable, at least in principle, by the non-physicalist paradigm.

Check out this statement of the author for example:

Quoting Ralph Lewis M.D.

Spiritual believers often accuse scientists of being closed-minded or dogmatic, for being so definite in their rejection of mind-brain dualism and a spiritual realm. So, how is it that scientists are so certain that dualism is false? Quite simply, because for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false.

But wait a minute, you say. There have been many scientific theories overturned in the past by better theories and new evidence, producing paradigm-shifts. Isn't it possible that dualism will replace monism just as surely as Einstein's Theory of Relativity superseded Newtonian physics? The analogy is misleading. Paradigm shifts do sometimes occur, but overturning the foundations of science is quite another matter, the likelihood of which is astronomically small.

Dualism so fundamentally contradicts the foundations and entire accumulated evidence of modern science that in order for it to be true, we would have to start rebuilding modern science from the ground up.

(Boldface mine.) No, substance dualism (and many other non-physicalist paradigms) does not contradict the “entire accumulated evidence of modern science”—all of which is empirical observations, i.e. empirical data. It in fact contradicts none of it, but instead only contradicts the “[metaphysical] foundations” of modern science, which are all conceptual rather than empirical raw data. Only the latter would need to be successfully reworked. But succeeding in so doing, “astronomically small” as the possibility might be, does not then entail that “all of science is false”—for fallible conclusions are part and parcel of what science is (part and parcel of empirical science's philosophical foundations as an epistemological endeavor)!

I really wish people would have a better understanding of what empirical science is and consists of. Scientism is destroying science's credibility in society the world over. :shade:

… acknowledgedly, this being just one person’s opinionated point of view. I’ll try to leave it at that.

You can feel the fear in that article.

Quoting Banno

I decide to raise my arm, and low, the damn thing goes up.

This meme is based on the way Cartesian dualism was misinterpreted to be a literal hypothesis. As if Descartes had posited an actual 'immaterial thinking thing' which was purported to 'act on' an actual 'extended non-mental body'. This then becomes an engineering problem - how to connect an actual material appendage to a non-material thingemy. Can't be done. You can't write a spec for it.

But Descartes' dualism was never intended as a literal model or hypothesis, it's more like an explanatory metaphor or maybe an economic model, although it's possible that Descartes himself tended to literalise it. He was a genius, but he had his blind spots. (There are valuable comments on this point in Husserl's Crisis.)

There's an insightful analysis by a scholar of Buddhism of the divide between idealism and materialism that developed subsequent to Descartes:

[quote=Dan Lusthaus]The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy.

Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas). Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating it as the primary substance while reducing the remaining substance to derivative status. Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.). Idealists countered that the mind and its ideas were ultimately real, and that the physical world derived from mind (e.g., the mind of God, Berkeley's esse est percipi, or from ideal prototypes, etc.).

Materialists gravitated toward mechanical, physical explanations for why and how things existed, while Idealists tended to look for purposes - moral as well as rational - to explain existence. Idealism meant "idea-ism," frequently in the sense Plato's notion of "ideas" (eidos) was understood at the time, namely ideal types that transcended the physical, sensory world and provided the form (eidos) that gave matter meaning and purpose. As materialism, buttressed by advances in materialistic science, gained wider acceptance, those inclined toward spiritual and theological aims turned increasingly toward idealism as a countermeasure. Before long there were many types of materialism and idealism.[/quote]

Materialism is based on 'the idealisation of the object'. Galileo's science posited the ideal object as what can be precisely described in terms of the fundamental forces of physics (i.e. its primary qualities). He conveniently assigns all the other qualities to the observing mind, out of the picture, as it were (well, until the observer problem came along.) As science developed, it was assumed that the mind was itself a 'product of' the activities of those ideal objects which the new science posited (whence Dennett's 'eliminativism'.) That's why Lewis says that should dualism be true, then science would have to be re-written. He's wrong, of course - science would stand largely untouched. What might have to be re-written is what it means.

Quoting javra

Scientism is destroying science's credibility in society the world over. :shade:

Yes, I wonder what the answer to that might be. People seem to need to worship things and this cast of mind necessarily turns science into the flip side and vanquisher of religion. An old criticism.

Your impromptu definition of empirical science is nicely done.

Quoting Wayfarer

You can feel the fear in that article.

It's quite the mini-manifesto - one feels there was a tirigger. Who is he trying to reassure, himself or someone close?

Quoting Banno

An accurate and complete physical explanation of my raising my hand, including descriptions of the neurones, muscle, bones and other bits involved, would be would be useless as an explanation of why I raised my hand. But "I wanted to scratch my eye" suffices in a few words.

So it might be that we have two ways of talking about how things are - one physical, the other intentional. They are about the very same thing, but are quite different.

Thinking in this way, we may be able to have our cake and eat it; retaining a belief that there are only physical occurrences in the world, while accepting that we can describe these occurrences in terms of such mental properties as beliefs, desires and sensations.

I'm not a philosopher but wouldn't one of the potential comebacks to this be: who is the I who holds those beliefs, desires and sensations? And suddenly some of us are back pondering the 'hard problem'.

Quoting Tom Storm

Who is he trying to reassure, himself or someone close?

It's 'handrail materialism'. It gives you something to cling to when you feel the ground beneath you falling away.

Quoting Wayfarer

It gives you something to cling to when you feel the ground beneath you falling away.

Hmmm. I guess I consider myself something of a handrail physicalist so I have empathy for him. It was the tone of it that stuck me, perhaps a by-product of needing to compress arguments for a such a brief opinion piece.

Quoting TiredThinker

Is it implying that assuming dualism is a possibility that all science must be false in order for that to be the case?

Yes, Lewis is saying that if dualism was true, then the foundation of science would be shown to be false.

However, Lewis is also saying that dualism is not true, even if, as he writes, "humans are instinctive dualists".

Lewis argues that if there's no basis for dualism, then on death the self ceases to exist, writing "So what happens to the mind, or the self, after death? If there's no basis for dualism...............consciousness is lost..........self or essence ceases to exist." But Lewis concludes with his belief that the self ceases to exist on death, writing "You only live once". Therefore it follows that Lewis is arguing that there is no basis for dualism as on death the self ceases to exist.

Lewis also said that if dualism was true, then the foundation of science would be shown to be false, writing "for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false." It follows that Lewis is saying that as there is no basis for dualism, then dualism cannot be used to show that science is false.

IE, Lewis is arguing that even though humans may be instinctive dualists, dualism is not true, and because it is not true, doesn't undermine science.

The article is setting out Lewis' beliefs, rather than justifying them.

Quoting Tom Storm

Yes, I wonder what the answer to that might be. People seem to need to worship things and this cast of mind necessarily turns science into the flip side and vanquisher of religion. An old criticism.

We’re in agreement. For my part, I find that those who uphold scientism then throw babies out together with the bathwater, so to speak: e.g., allowing for even the possibility of any kind of objective purpose in life—which reeks of spiritualism to many of a scientism ilk—becomes viewed as an opening of floodgates for religious fanaticism. Most humans on earth are however not on board with nihilism, and will reject this metaphysical claim—be they religious or not—thereby becoming mistrustful of science when science is deemed equivalent to, or else necessarily resulting in, scientism (this as those who uphold scientism maintain).

As to answers, I don’t have any ready at hand that I find to be meaningful.

Quoting Tom Storm

Your impromptu definition of empirical science is nicely done.

Thank you.

Reply to TiredThinker

The article stipulates, “...Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things—physical stuff and mind-stuff....”, and that, “...for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false...”

If it be granted the initial predication for mind/body dualism arises in Descartes,1641, and that there is further elucidation of it in 1647, and included in that latter a distinction in substances for each, then it should be noted that such elucidation of “substance”.....

“...As for corporeal substance and mind (i.e. created thinking substance), they can be understood in terms of a single common principle, all we can mean by ‘substance’ is ‘a thing that exists in such a way that it doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence....”
(Principles of Philosophy, 1. 52., 1647)

“....We can easily come to know that we are in the presence of a substance by one of its attributes. The nature of corporeal substance is extension in length, breadth and depth; and any other property a body has presupposes extension as merely a special case of it. The nature of thinking substance is thought; and anything else that is true of a mind is merely a special case of that, a way of thinking....”
(Ibid) 53

“....Thus we can easily have two vivid and clear notions or ideas, one of created thinking substance and the other of corporeal substance, provided we are careful to distinguish all the attributes of thought from the attributes of extension. (...) We must confine our idea to what we clearly perceive, not cramming into it any invented features beyond the ones that really belong there....”
(Ibid) 54

....does nothing whatsoever to justify that the validity of physical science is destroyed by it.

All that says nothing of other subsequent renditions of the stated dualism, but it’s always best to start from the beginning.

Quoting Tom Storm

I'm not a philosopher but wouldn't one of the potential comebacks to this be: who is the I who holds those beliefs, desires and sensations? And suddenly some of us are back pondering the 'hard problem'.

Of course.

Quoting Wayfarer

But I think the soul could more easily be conceived in terms of a field that acts as an organising principle - analogous to the physical and magnetic fields that were discovered during the 19th century, that were found to be fundamental to the behaviour of particles. This is not to say that the soul is a field, but that it might be much more conceivable in terms of fields than of particles.

The thing about a field is that it has a predictable and measurable affect.

And it conforms to conservation laws.

Quoting Wayfarer

Descartes' dualism was never intended as a literal model or hypothesis, it's more like an explanatory metaphor or maybe an economic model,

What is it, then? You didn't finish. You went of on a supposed criticism of materialism, a view that is also not scientific.

You've slid from dualism to idealism, Morphic fields and past lives. What about crystal healing and chakras?

Reply to TiredThinker Substance dualism is inconsistent with physical sciences insofar as the concept entails e.g. violation of conservation laws (re: energy), inertia, causal closure of physical systems (the body half of "mind-body duality"), etc. This inconsistency calls substance dualism into question as a scientific conjecture or paradigm just as "the MBP" (& its dissolution by Spinoza re: property dualism; also rabbit–duck illusion ... compatibilism) makes its incoherence explicit as a conceptual speculation. The physical sciences could be wrong, of course, but not because of any epistemically vacuous, dualistic metaphysics (e.g. Cartesianism, Gnosticism, spiritualism, non-physicalism).

Reply to Banno :smirk:

Mind can move physical things.

When a physical thing is moved, energy is used.

So mind uses energy.

If the source of the energy used by a mind is to be found elsewhere in the physical world then energy is conserved. Mind would be a part of the physical world.

If the source of the energy used by a mind is not found in the physical world, then energy has been created, and is not conserved.

If energy can be introduced into the world from outside, then the world is no longer predictable.

The impact here needs iteration. If the conservation laws cannot be relied on, it would not simply be the case that we need to extend the explanation to take the appearance of energy into account. Rather, the way energy functions would cease to be consistent with any laws.

To give an example, if you drop a weight, it will accelerate towards the ground at a fixed rate. If mind can introduce energy into the world ex nihilo, then a mind could change that acceleration, and the acceleration of the weight would cease to be predictable. A mind could simply make it accelerate at a higher or at a lower velocity.

If the world were unpredictable, this would undermines not just science, but the capacity to describe the world in a consistent fashion.

Quoting Mww

“...As for corporeal substance and mind (i.e. created thinking substance), they can be understood in terms of a single common principle, all we can mean by ‘substance’ is ‘a thing that exists in such a way that it doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence....”
(Principles of Philosophy, 1. 52., 1647)

Thanks for those passages from Descartes. I often note that the notion of 'substance' in philosophy is very different from that used in everyday life, where it means 'a material with uniform properties'. Here it is derived from 'ouisia' which is nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'bearer of attributes'.

Quoting Banno

You've slid from dualism to idealism, Morphic fields and past lives. What about crystal healing and chakras?

I've never understood the fixation with crystals. Chakras are a different matter. Acupuncture seems to work and it is based on something similar.

As for morphic fields, they are a possible explanatory metaphor. As I said, we now know that electro-magnetic fields are real, because we have instruments that can detect them. Prior to their discovery, nothing was known of their existence. I see no logical reason to presume that there may not be fields other than electromagnetic.

As for past life memories, they are a possible source of empirical evidence. Those who undertook that research didn't believe they were 'undermining science', in fact they attempted to observe the kinds of empirical practices that were deployed in other fields.

Quoting Banno

Mind can move physical things.

The definition of what constitutes the physical is constantly changing. The idea of the physical is completely different now to what it was 100 years ago. We now do things every day that would have been physically impossible in the past, and the concepts involved in physics would have been likewise inconceivable a few generations ago.

Quoting Banno

To give an example, if you drop a weight, it will accelerate towards the ground at a fixed rate. If mind can introduce energy into the world ex nihilo, then a mind could change that acceleration, and the acceleration of the weight would cease to be predictable.

A vulgar example. You don't have to prove telekinesis to challenge the claims of materialism. Psychosomatic medicine is closer to hand.

Reply to Banno

Presuming a lack of equivocation, your arguments are a tad bit circular, but this goes deep into foundational theories of physics that today are so commonplace they’re taken to be infallible: The energy you reference is purely physical and thereby quantitative (contrast this to the qualitative Aristotelian notions of energy from which modern notions of physical energy evolved) and, in substance dualism, minds are not physical - thereby being endowed with Aristotelian notions of energy but not our modern notions of physical energy. The law (more accurately, theory) of conservation of physical energy can only apply to the physical substance in substance dualism, but does not apply to psychical substance. So, as far as I can currently make out, your argument in sum: given that everything is contingent upon the ubiquitous presence of physical energy, hence given that physicalism is true, substance dualism is false, for it would contradict the tenets of physicalism, thereby demonstrating physicalism to be true.

Preempting a possible question, don't know about Cartesian substance dualism, but something along the lines of objective idealism could well account for mind using energy to move physical things ... but, here, energy would be foundationally qualitative, rather that physically quantitative, such that the latter emerges from the former.

Quoting Banno

If energy can be introduced into the world from outside, then the world is no longer predictable.

The impact here needs iteration. If the conservation laws cannot be relied on, it would not simply be the case that we need to extend the explanation to take the appearance of energy into account. Rather, the way energy functions would cease to be consistent with any laws.

Your assertion that the world becomes unpredictable in the absence of our upholding the theory/law of the conservation of (physical) energy runs into at least one issue: it amounts to the assertion that all lesser animals and those human beings existing prior to the 17th century are and were unable to successfully predict anything. Which is patently false.

Also, how might the law of identity be necessarily contingent on “the way [physical] energy functions”? (Other than by presupposing physicalism.)

Reply to Banno I decide to imagine a blue elephant. As I do so my brain goes through a series of states dictated by my decision and its content. It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things. There's only one world.

One can read in the article:

"Is consciousness 'just' a way of talking about the behavior of certain kinds of collections of atoms, obeying the laws of physics? Or is there something definitely new about it—either an entirely new kind of substance, as Rene Descartes would have had it, or at least a separate kind of property over and above the merely material?"

The only scientifically tenable way is to assume that physical matter like quarks, leptons, are not only what they are in theory: almost pointlike particles interacting by gauge fields on a curved spacetime. As we are what we eat, we are an enormous collection of them. An ordered dynamical structure, walking around, looking, reaching, smiling, and talking. As this can only happen if we are conscious, all physical stuff, by scientific necessity, has an unchanging ingredient or charge, which, when they massively and structured combine in our brain and body, give rise to consciousness. How else can it be? They have to contain something. We eat them!

Quoting Daemon

I decide to imagine a blue elephant. As I do so my brain goes through a series of states dictated by my decision and its content. It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things. There's only one world.

If the mind IS a physical thing (i.e., mind=brain), then when you imagine a blue elephant in your mind, shouldn't there be a blue elephant inside your skull?

Quoting Wayfarer

The definition of what constitutes the physical is constantly changing. The idea of the physical is completely different now to what it was 100 years ago. We now do things every day that would have been physically impossible in the past, and the concepts involved in physics would have been likewise inconceivable a few generations ago.

Yeah, all that. Use it to fudge whatever you need to fudge to excuse poor thinking.

But when I decide to move my arm, my arm moves.

So mind is part of the world.


Reply to Daemon Yep. The construct in the argument is only there to show the incoherence of supposing otherwise.

Quoting Wayfarer

Here it is derived from 'ouisia' which is nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'bearer of attributes'.

Yes, and Para 54 of Principles is prefaced with just that qualification, re: ”...each substance has one principle attribute...”, which is the same as saying each is the bearer of one principle attribute.

Reply to javra

In essence the argument is, if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm?
Quoting javra

it amounts to the assertion that all lesser animals and those human beings existing prior to the 17th century are and were unable to successfully predict anything.

How?

Quoting Banno

How?

One cannot rely upon conservation laws to make successful predictions when no awareness of conservation laws occur. Therefore, if the trustworthiness of currently known conservation laws is requisite for making successful predictions, then beings unaware of these laws—as is the case for lesser animals and humans of former generations—cannot / could not make successful predictions.

No?

But I’m supposing that underlying this topic—as it relates to science—is the issue of predictions in relation to what?

Our modern knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology (to the extent that neo-Darwinian biology relies upon chemistry) does indeed rely upon a worldview wherein physical energy is foundational, ubiquitous, and conserved—hence, they do rely on the presumptions of physicalism so as to optimally explain data. This said, two issues:

One, this does not thereby entail that physicalism is necessarily true: The pesky possibility of a future paradigm shift which would make sense of things physicalism addresses without itself being physicalism is not something that anyone can rule out … and it might likely hold advantages in explaining aspects of the world, such as ethics and value in general, that physicalism cannot cogently address (at least, imo) … but no one will bother exploring such possibility if it is virtually outlawed by scientism’s thought police, which nowadays seems rampant in much of society, on the one hand, and by the religious fundamentalists on the other.

Secondly, as I previously mentioned, science does not equate to physics but, instead, to an epistemic approach toward gaining, always fallible, knowledge regarding the empirical world we all share: for instance, social sciences such as those of anthropology and psychology are as much empirical sciences as are the natural sciences, and the former can make successful predictions without relying on conservation laws of energy just fine. If this seems dubious, as one measly example, check out advertising’s predictive success. This advertising has become insidiously omnipresent nowadays (again, imo) and, more to the point, is historically informed by behaviorist schools of psychology—this without giving a hoot as to whether the conservation of physical energy holds.

In short, again, what I'm arguing is that the potential downfall of physicalism does not in any way equate to the downfall of science (or, else, of successful predictions).

Quoting Banno

Use it to fudge whatever you need to fudge to excuse poor thinking.

...In contrast to the unsurpassable brilliance of Duck-Rabbit.

Quoting javra

No?

No.

The claim was not that prediction relies on conservation laws, but that prediction relies on uniformity. It would be trying to do science in the face of magic. Any experiment would be unable to discount the influence of that other world on it's results. That the uniformity is expressed in terms of conservation is irrelevant.

GO back to this: if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm?

If science can explain the movement of an arm with some subtle paradigm-shift then mind is not utterly different to the everyday objects around us, and dualism is false.

Quoting Banno

GO back to this: if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm?

Quoting javra

Preempting a possible question, don't know about Cartesian substance dualism, but something along the lines of objective idealism could well account for mind using energy to move physical things ... but, here, energy would be foundationally qualitative, rather that physically quantitative, such that the latter emerges from the former.

Reply to javra I can't make sense of that. Qualitative energy? Hand waving.

If the arm moves, a quantifiable amount of energy has been expended.

Reply to Banno I gave a link in that post to Aristotle's notion of energy, which is qualitative, and is where our modern notion of energy stems from. I'm guessing you're not interested in it, so I won't hand wave you to look.

Quoting TiredThinker

So science doesn't necessarily collapse if the mind at least in part exists outside of the physical as we know it?

"Outside the physical" is what I call "Meta-Physics" or "Menta-Physics" or "Mathe-Physics". Modern Science is materialistic, and does not concern itself with anything outside that narrow definition. So, Science won't "collapse" under the weight of evidence for any parallel realities. In fact, since the 20th century, it has been forced to accommodate several immaterial and non-empirical notions, such as invisible fields of "Virtual" (not quite real) particles, and sub-atomic "Strings or "Loops" of energy that are far beyond our current ability to resolve them. Likewise, Multiple universes and parallel worlds are strictly imaginary, yet plausible to scientists in terms of mathematics. Consequently, scientists are forced to stretch their definition of "materialism" to fit the strange dimensions of the quantum foundation of Reality.

Therefore, such Mathe-Physical concepts as quantum entanglement ("spooky action at a distance") are provisionally accepted as useful-but-unproveable hypotheses. That is, they accept the math, but remain agnostic about the philosophical significance of their reality. Do particles really "tunnel" through solid objects without a tunnel, and without moving through the space between point A & B? That's what seems to happen, although it's counter-intuitive. Instead of "collapsing", Science merely adopts new rules (see "ghostly" below). So, it's mostly feckless philosophers who concern themselves with the meaning of such bizarre immaterial concepts.

However, we must hope that sincere scientists will adapt to Meta-Physics (the metaphysical aspects of reality) as the evidence becomes more plausible or undeniable. Yet, at the moment, such notions as life-after-death remain in the province of Anecdotal and Mythical evidence. Subjective "evidence" may be acceptable to some philosophers and "soft scientists, who like to explore Possibilities and Potentials, but not to "hard" physical scientists, who insist on Objective evidence . . . or mathematical pointers into the unknowable. :nerd:

Anecdotal : 1. evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them "His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence".

Mythical : 1 : based on or described in a myth especially as contrasted with history. 2 usually mythical : existing only in the imagination

Subjective : 1. based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Soft Sciences : Any of the specialized fields or disciplines, as psychology, sociology, anthropology, or political science, that interpret human behavior, institutions, society, etc., on the basis of scientific investigations for which it may be difficult to establish strictly measurable criteria.

How Ghostly Quantum Particles Fly Through Barriers Almost Instantly :
At the subatomic level, particles can fly through seemingly impassable barriers like ghosts. Particles can pass through solid objects not because they're very small (though they are), but because the rules of physics are different at the quantum level.
https://www.livescience.com/65043-tunneling-quantum-particles.html

Meta-physics :
[i]The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).[/i]

Science is not materialistic.

Materialism was the metaphysical notion that all that exists is matter in space.

It was laid to rest by Newton - fields and such.

Reply to Banno

What if the mind, perhaps of ethereal substance doesn't effect the physical world and therefore cannot be measured? Maybe it is essentially 0 dimensional or omnipresent and cannot be quantified? And in any event even with physical measurements we keep underestimating the electrical and chemical effects within the brain. It is yet still too subtle. But assuming the brain is a receiver as some say, but not the mind, couldn't the mind influence the brain and the brain influences the body? What if we can't measure before a thought? Tedious perhaps, but what if that ended up being the case? Physics and science can operate within limited spaces if need be?

"If these mental properties affected the behavior of particles in the same way that physical properties like mass and electric charge do, then they would simply be another kind of physical property. . . . .Or is there something definitely new about it—either an entirely new kind of substance, as Rene Descartes would have had it, or at least a separate kind of property over and above the merely material?" . . .

I can always depend on Banno to get to the heart of a philosophical tangle. Traditionally, Dualism has postulated two different substances : A> physical, material & tangible, and B> meta-physical, immaterial & intangible. The latter was often assumed to be "super-natural" and somewhat miraculous. Hence, such "substances" were rejected by scientists as "beyond the purview of physical Science", hence literally and figuratively "immaterial". Those ghostly substances were relegated to the irrelevance of mystical and religious mumbo-jumbo, suitable only for primitive minds.

However, I don't think the "primitive minds" of ancient philosophers were defective. Some of them were clearly geniuses, but were working with an incomplete understanding of how the world works. So, I have tried to update their pre-scientific theories in view of 21st century knowledge. By combining non-classical & counter-intuitive insights of Quantum Theory with the novel notion of "Information as abstract (non-physical) Data that can be embodied in various substrates", I have concluded that the fundamental "substance" of Reality is actually Enformation (the power to enform), more broadly defined than Shannon's bits. In essence, it's like an ephemeral Quantum Field, but in practice it is like Energy : able to transform from invisible Causation into the tangible stuff we know as Matter, and back again : E=MC^2.

For modern scientific purposes, the concept of a single substance with dual forms is now taken for granted. But for Classical science it would have seemed bizarre. For example, Isaac Newton would have found the definition of Gravity-as-warped-space inconceivable. Now quantum scientists are forced to accept as realistic, such counter-intuitive notions as a dualistic Wave-Particle (one substance in two forms). So, I shouldn't come as a surprise that the mundane Information that has transformed modern culture could take on multiple forms. Hence, the apparent duality or multiplicity of Reality is built upon a single fundamental substance : the power to transform, as exemplified in Phase Change.

If "Information is neither Matter nor Energy" as asserted in the link below, what is it? My answer is that it is the un-realized "substance" that we call "Potential" : the ability to become both Matter and Energy. Thus, a single substance (monism) can take on two real forms (dualism). And, since "information" originally referred to the contents of a human mind (ideas), it can even take on a third form : Mind. Thus, mental phenomena are emergent forms of material and energetic "substances". And that is the Primary Substance of Aristotelian Metaphysics, which I label "Menta-Physics" for those who are able to accept Quantum Queerness, but not Metaphysical immateriality. :nerd:


"Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether this Agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my readers." ___Isaac Newton

"Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent." ___Isaac Newton

Primary Substance : According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things that, according to the system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/
Note : Atoms were once considered fundamental, but then superseded by tinier & tinier particles down to quarks, and now by holistic Fields. Hypothetically and Collectively, all physical fields compose the generic Enformation field.

Information is neither matter nor energy. ... In near equilibrium thermodynamics the amount of energy needed to store or transmit one bit is proportional to the absolute temperature. In physics we have both bits, qubits and e-bits, and these are incompatible notions of information.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Information_matter_energy_or_anything_else

Quoting Banno

IF there are two things in the world - say a physical world and mind - then how is it that mind can work to change physical stuff?

This is the conundrum that I believe can be resolved by accepting the poly-morphic nature of Information. If Information is "Mind-stuff", and also "Energy", and also "Matter", then a transformation from one to the other is plausible. Mind provides the Intention (direction, goal), and the body provides the Energy (ATP), to cause a specified part of the material body to move. Thus, Mind "works to change physical stuff". And that's how it is. :smile:

If we stipulate that a "substance" distinction between two objects means the two objects are incapable of acting upon one another, then the mind/body interaction problem is logically unresolvable if we claim minds and bodies are composed of different substances. Logic 101.

To salvage dualism and maintain the explanatory power it provides in separating conscious states from ordinary objects, the typical response is to assert the mind and body are different enough entities to require they are to be categorized separately, yet admit they share a common physical element that allows for interaction.

This approach is known as property dualism as opposed to substance dualism, but, in terms of the actual difference between the two approaches, it's hard to meaningfully decipher because the essence of the "physical" is undefined. That is, if one asserts the mind and body are greatly distinct, but both ultimately physical, then scoop me a sample of whatever that shared substance is so I can see it under my magnifying glass.

This is to say, all this talk of physical monism versus physical/non-physical dualism should require someone explain what it means to be physical and what it means to be non-physical.

What I think is going on here is that "physical" is being used to designate those objects that are able to interact with other objects also designated as "physical."

Ergo, what makes minds and bodies similar is that they can interact with one another, but I'm not willing to commit there's actually a physical similarity beyond that (that you can put under my microscope to see). That is, the shared "property" of minds and bodies is that they can interact

Quoting Banno

... when I decide to move my arm, my arm moves. So mind is part of the world.

:up:

Reply to Raymond Compositional fallacy.

Quoting Mww

The article stipulates, “...Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things—physical stuff and mind-stuff....”, and that, “...for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false...”

[Descartes ...]

Quoting Mww

All that says nothing of other subsequent renditions of the stated dualism, but it’s always best to start from the beginning.

Of course not. But the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions. Did you read any further than that opening sentences? (I wouldn't blame you if you didn't - it's pretty blah.)

Quoting Daemon

It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things.

That's not dualism then, but identity.

Quoting Raymond

As this can only happen if we are conscious, all physical stuff, by scientific necessity, has an unchanging ingredient or charge, which, when they massively and structured combine in our brain and body, give rise to consciousness. How else can it be?

Um... Not that? Are you seriously suggesting that the only possible way that something can emerge is through aggregation of minute quantities of its basic ingredient into a lump of a particular size and shape? So I suppose round shapes are only possible because all matter that composes them has a bit of irreducible roundness in it?

Quoting RogueAI

If the mind IS a physical thing (i.e., mind=brain), then when you imagine a blue elephant in your mind, shouldn't there be a blue elephant inside your skull?

The correspondence between mental states and brain states

A computer may be programmed to give a response when input blue light. A brain may respond when sensing blue light.

As blue light is not physically present inside the computer, blue light does not need to be physically present inside the brain in order for the brain to respond when sensing blue light

It follows that a blue elephant does not need to be physically present inside the brain in order for the brain to respond when sensing a blue elephant.

Assuming Realism rather than Idealism, there are two possibilities regarding any correspondence between the brain state and the mental state.

Either the mental state mirrors their brain state, in which case when the brain state experiences a blue elephant, the mental state also experiences a blue elephant, ie Direct Realism.

Or the mental state is different to their brain state, in which case when the brain state experiences a blue elephant, the mental state could experience an orange crocodile, ie Indirect Realism

IE, whether one believes the mental state to be identical or not with the brain state depends on one's opinion as to Direct and Indirect Realism.

Quoting SophistiCat

Did you read any further than that opening sentences?

Yep, seeing as how the first snippet was from the beginning of the article, and the second from about half-way through it. But, yeah, I did skim over the life-after-death part, and bypassed completely the spiritual believer part.

I must say, though, “we struggle to imagine our absolute nonexistence”, isn’t the slightest, that “science forces us to accept that we are not living on a flat Earth” is a gross over-estimation of maritime history, but at the same time, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, to be informed I am “entirely normal and psychologically adaptive”.

Whether to advance my sympathies, or demean the author’s credibility.....I dunno. He’s a shrink, writing in a psychology journal, meaning he’s neither natural scientist nor philosopher, so yeah......blah, indeed.
————-

Quoting SophistiCat

the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions.

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were. Or if he did, he misrepresented them. Be all that as it may, it is quite clear Descartes never intended his mind “substance” to interfere with the material or body “substance”, even going so far as to warn his readers not to confuse the two. Not his fault some of his successors did it anyway, and to this day, they still do. All because of one little word. I mean...if the guy needs to be shot, shoot him for the use of the pineal gland, not the use of a word.

And probably to everyone’s annoyance, I shall mention the fact it was Kant who removed mind from any form of manifest causality, relegating it to a mere logical condition, thereby eliminating any requisite Cartesian “substance” dualism.

Quoting SophistiCat

Are you seriously suggesting that the only possible way that something can emerge is through aggregation of minute quantities of its basic ingredient into a lump of a particular size and shape

I'm not suggesting it. And certainly not seriously. It's just the way it is. We are a whole of huge number of quarks and leptons. The non-material charges they carry are holistically combined and the dynamical structure gives rise to a conscious creature.

So already at the fundamental level, a primitive form of consciousness is present. Very primitive. An electron cloud around a proton isn't conscious in the way we are, of course. But when material structures grow more complex, so does the charge inside them, culminating in structures like the brain on which these primitive charges run collectively.

This is the only way to explain consciousness. To assume it's a basic ingredient of matter. Matter carries it along while at the same time it propagates matter. Electrons are propagated by charge inside them and the charges of other electrons pulling on them. Likewise for conscious creatures. Slightly more complicated though.

Maybe this is panpsychism maybe not. Does matter have conscious drives towards other matter? No, of course not. But it can't be denied that matter fields passively interact. It doesn't make sense to say charge is carried along or that it's in charge, so to speak, as they form an indivisible whole, like brain and body.

Quoting 180 Proof

Compositional fallacy.

I can't discover the fallacy.

Quoting Raymond

It's just the way it is.

Ah, I see that I've mistaken a statement of personal belief for an argument or a proposal. Carry on then.

Quoting Mww

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were.

What Descartes' precise beliefs about mind-body interaction were is still argued over by scholars (which suggests that said beliefs were far from precise), but Descartes doesn't own dualism (whether or not we accept the premise that he was the first dualist), and Cartesian exegesis is not a prerequisite for discussing modern-day dualist positions. Whatever Descartes said or didn't say about the issue of interaction, the issue still exists as a unique challenge for any form of dualism, and that is where attacks on dualism, including the one cited in the article, are often aimed at.

All good. With reference to.....

Quoting SophistiCat

....attacks on dualism....

....do you think the attacks are legitimate, or is it just the human proclivity for arguing with each other?

Reply to SophistiCat

That's all there is. Personal believes...

What if I said that there are only quarks and electrons?

Reply to Mww It could be both, couldn't it? But to answer your question, yes, I think this is a legitimate criticism. If mind is truly apart from the corporeal world, then it is difficult to find a place for it in the world as we know it without denying or subverting the premise, or straying too far from the ordinary sense of the word.

Quoting SophistiCat

Ah, I see that I've mistaken a statement of personal belief for an argument or a proposal.

So an argument or proposal is not a statement of personal belief? They are just as well based on personal belief. Under an objective cover to shield criticism.

Reply to SophistiCat

"The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole."

I do exactly the opposite. I would be guilty of this fallacy if I claimed that consciousness can be explained by material processes.

Quoting SophistiCat

If mind is truly apart from the corporeal world, then it is difficult to find a place for it in the world as we know it without denying or subverting the premise, or straying too far from the ordinary sense of the word.

That's why it's easier to place it inside of the corporeal world. You can cut it loose, but then it's the question if the world can still exist.

Reply to SophistiCat

Agreed, both.

Reason always seeks the unconditioned, something to use as an irreducible bottom line, for which mind seres the purpose. After the conception of it, barring logical self-contradiction or non-compliance with natural law, best just to leave it be.

Quoting Banno

If the arm moves, a quantifiable amount of energy has been expended.

This edit of yours is irrelevant.

The issue is one of whether or not the mind itself is strictly constituted of quantitative energy - such that each conceivable thought (and intention, desire, emotion, perspective, percept, ect.) is part of the quantitative energy of the universe that is conserved. If so, and if e = mc^2, then an individual thought is equivalent to some physical mass multiplied by the speed of light squared that, via the law of conservation, removes energy from the non-mental aspects of the universe by virtue of the thought’s occurrence. Um … yea, I don’t think so. Though I’m sure some physicalists may want to endorse such a view.

This is the subject entailed by a mind making, hence causing, a hand to move: is a mind itself physical?

p.s. You may be wanting to argue for epiphenomenalism, wherein the mind has no causal powers.

Can we be sure the brain is where the mind is? A friend likes to remind me that our digestive system contains more neurons than a cat's entire brain and generally cats do ok.

Quoting TiredThinker

What if the mind, perhaps of ethereal substance doesn't effect the physical world and therefore cannot be measured? Maybe it is essentially 0 dimensional or omnipresent and cannot be quantified? And in any event even with physical measurements we keep underestimating the electrical and chemical effects within the brain. It is yet still too subtle. But assuming the brain is a receiver as some say, but not the mind, couldn't the mind influence the brain and the brain influences the body? What if we can't measure before a thought? Tedious perhaps, but what if that ended up being the case? Physics and science can operate within limited spaces if need be?

The trouble is, your mind can decide to do something and then actually do it. So your mind does effect the physical world.

The same argument applies to the intriguing idea that the brain is a receiver for the mind. Whatever and wherever the mind-stuff is, it must be a part of the physical world if it is to have an affect on the bits and bobs that surround us. It must be measurable.

If it can move the things around us, but is not measurable, then the world threatens to become incoherent.

Quoting javra

The issue is one of whether or not the mind itself is strictly constituted of quantitative energy - such that each conceivable thought (and intention, desire, emotion, perspective, percept, ect.) is part of the quantitative energy of the universe that is conserved. If so, and if e = mc^2, then an individual thought is equivalent to some physical mass multiplied by the speed of light squared that, via the law of conservation, removes energy from the non-mental aspects of the universe by virtue of the thought’s occurrence. Um … yea, I don’t think so. Though I’m sure some physicalists may want to endorse such a view.

This paragraph is not at all clear.

Quoting Banno

This paragraph is not at all clear.

:lol: :ok: :cool:

If the mind is physical, then thoughts are physical. If a thought is physical, it consists of physical energy. If physical energy can be validly quantified as e = mc^2, then our physical thoughts, which consist of structured physical energy, then consist of physical mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Ergo, our physical thoughts have physical mass.

Where's the logical fallacy in this?

Quoting TiredThinker

Can we be sure the brain is where the mind is? A friend likes to remind me that our digestive system contains more neurons than a cat's entire brain and generally cats do ok.

When you do a calculation with pen and paper, the pen and paper are part of your calculation. Does your mind extend to the paper?

When you rotate a jigsaw piece to rethink how it might fit, aren't you using your fingers as part of your thinking?

Other examples will become apparent with a bit of thought. Cognition is embodied.

Reply to javra I don't see a problem.

Quoting Banno

I don't see a problem.

OK, you. Given that you also find the premise true, let me know what the quantifiable mass of "the theory of evolution" is, or at least how to go about obtaining it. Next, is the physical mass of your average intention greater or smaller than the physical mass of the average percept?

But I grant, you are a dyed-in-the-wool physicalist. :smile:

Reply to javra

Seems you utterly missed the point. You want to know the length of the bill on the rabbit. You are mixing your language games.

Yes, the theory of evolution has a mass. But unfortunately that mass is mixed in with a whole lot of other stuff in such a way that it would not be calculable.

Anomalous, social monism.

Quoting Banno

Yes, the theory of evolution has a mass. But unfortunately that mass is mixed in with a whole lot of other stuff in such a way that it would not be calculable.

As to being mixed with other stuff, the same can be said of any physical thing, like a rock. You know, fields, quanta that fly in and out, and such. But we can nevertheless quantify the mass of a rock well enough for all given purposes.

You're basically saying thoughts are quantifiable energy that ain't quantifiable. A logical contradiction.

But have it your way.

Reply to javra

Your argument is rhetorical.

You cannot tell me the mass of all the rocks in the Simpson Desert, therefore those rocks do not have mass.

Your are basically saying that the rocks in the Simpson Desert have a quantifiable mass that is not quantifiable. A logical contradiction.

But have it your way.

Quoting Banno

You cannot tell me the mass of all the rocks in the Simpson Desert, therefore those rocks do not have mass.

Well with some empirical investigation and added resources I could give you at least a ball park figure.

How can one go about quantitatively approximating the mass of the theory of evolution in principle ... oh yea, one can't. :yikes:

Quoting Banno

But have it your way.

Alright.

Reply to javra Given the exchange rate, no more than a fraction of a gram.

Quoting Banno

Given the exchange rate, no more than a fraction of a gram.

Yes, maybe, but how do you quantitatively obtain that approximation?

Banno's method is to drag all of these debates into the realm of the banal by repeated use of innappopriate metaphors, cliches and over-simplifications repeated ad nauseum until all interest is drained out of the discussion and everyone looses interest. The debate isn't resolved so much as strangled in the crib.

There is one interesting and scientifically-validated piece of evidence for the immaterial nature of mind. This comes from a discussion of the 'neural binding problem' in neuroscience. 'Binding' is the cognitive process which brings together all of the various elements of perception - movement, shape, colour, position, the nature of the object, and so on - into the unified whole that comprises subjective experience (called the 'stable world illusion'). In brief, the neural binding problem is that neuroscience can find no functional area of the brain which can account for this unified sense of self.

There is a plausible functional story for the stable world illusion. First of all, we do have a (top-down) sense of the space around us that we cannot currently see, based on memory and other sense data—primarily hearing, touch, and smell. Also, since we are heavily visual, it is adaptive to use vision as broadly as possible. Our illusion of a full field, high resolution image depends on peripheral vision—to see this, just block part of your peripheral field with one hand. Immediately, you lose the illusion that you are seeing the blocked sector. When we also consider change blindness, a simple and plausible story emerges. Our visual system (somehow) relies on the fact that the periphery is very sensitive to change. As long as no change is detected it is safe to assume that nothing is significantly altered in the parts of the visual field not currently attended.

But this functional story tells nothing about the neural mechanisms that support this magic. What we do know is that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene (Kaas and Collins 2003). That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience. So, this version of the NBP really is a scientific mystery at this time.

The author of this paper, Jerome S. Feldman, from the Computer Science Institute Berkeley, acknowledges that this amounts to scientific acknowledgement of Chalmer's 'hard problem of consciousness':

There are intractable problems in all branches of science; for Neuroscience a major one is the mystery of subjective personal experience. This is one instance of the famous mind–body problem (Chalmers 1996) concerning the relation of our subjective experience (aka qualia) to neural function.

You can find the specifics here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/#Sec3title

The 'mystery of subjective personal experience' is a pregnant phrase. If you look into the subjective unity of perception, it becomes clear it is a long-standing area of interest in philosophy, and one of the major concerns of Kant in his famous Critiques.

Or, it might be a duck-rabbit.

Reply to javra Same way you did for the rocks.

I don't see a point to your questions. They show you haven't understood the suggestion.

Quoting Wayfarer

Banno's method is to drag all of these debates into the realm of the banal by repeated use of innappopriate metaphors, cliches and over-simplifications repeated ad nauseum until all interest is drained out of the discussion and everyone looses interest. The debate isn't resolved so much as strangled in the crib.

This is how folk respond when their arguments have been flattened - they attack their interlocutor.

The remainder of the post is an appeal to the god-of-the-gaps...
or should that be mind-of-the-gaps?

Quoting Wayfarer

In brief, the neural binding problem is that neuroscience can find no functional area of the brain which can account for this unified sense of self.

Yup.

Quoting Banno

Same way you did for the rocks.

You can empirically investigate - such as by visually seeing, touching, or smelling - thoughts such as the theory of evolution? Because empirical investigation is part and parcel of how I'd quantify the rocks' mass. No empirical data about them, no quantification of their mass.

I wager you can't. So your answer is, well, wrong.

Quoting Banno

This is how folk respond when their arguments have been flattened.

You have to understand something to flatten it. You can't flatten anything by incomprehension.

By the way, there's an excellent repository of arguments for, by and about dualism here

https://www.newdualism.org/newtheory.htm

Not all the links work but there's a trove of content.

Quoting TiredThinker

What if the mind, perhaps of ethereal substance doesn't effect the physical world and therefore cannot be measured? Maybe it is essentially 0 dimensional or omnipresent and cannot be quantified? And in any event even with physical measurements we keep underestimating the electrical and chemical effects within the brain. It is yet still too subtle. But assuming the brain is a receiver as some say, but not the mind, couldn't the mind influence the brain and the brain influences the body? What if we can't measure before a thought? Tedious perhaps, but what if that ended up being the case? Physics and science can operate within limited spaces if need be?

Close to the fact of the matter. Physics, science, and natural philosophy generally operate within the scope of the objective, what can be objectively measured and known. Obviously - it's very obvious when you reflect on it - 'the mind' doesn't fall within that domain, the mind is the subject of experience, not an object of analysis.

Quoting javra

You can empirically investigate - such as by visually seeing, touching, or smelling - thoughts such as the theory of evolution? Because empirical investigation is part and parcel of how I'd quantify the rocks' mass. No empirical data about them, no quantification of their mass.

That was the point of this.

Are you now agreeing with me? Good.

Anomalous Monism.

Quoting Wayfarer

You have to understand something to flatten it.

Ah. A worthy admission on your part.

Reply to Banno Talk about rhetorical bulshitology.

What does the theory of evolution visually look like?

How can one quantify its mass in principle?

Your answer: "I'm agreeing with you". This due to gestalt principles of awareness no less.

No.

@javra, @Wayfarer

You decide to raise your arm, and low, the damn thing goes up.

The only rational explanation is that there is a physical link of some sort between mind and arm; that they are basically the same sort of thing.

Those who suppose otherwise - the ball is in your court. It is over to you to explain how mind can have an impact on the physical world if it is an utterly different sort of thing.

Quoting javra

What does the theory of evolution visually look like?

This simply shows you have not understood the proposal.

Your question is like asking what the mass is of democracy, and using the lack of an answer to argue that since democracy does not have a mass, it doesn't exist.

It's just using words incorrectly.

Quoting Banno

It is over to you to explain how mind can have an impact on the physical world if it is an utterly different sort of thing.

You know they know they can't. :smirk:

Reply to 180 Proof Yeah, but it seems they don't.

Reply to Banno

Well what if the information goes in one direction? The mind to the brain to the body? We can measure the brain effects, but can't prove there isn't a power over it? What if the mind was arranged in a similar fashion as the brain except doesn't suffer physical death? It could be 1:1 relationship and remain hidden in that sense.

Dark matter and dark energy have noticeable and measurable effect, but they themselves haven't been tracked down. It often seems we learn more from the wakes than the things themselves?

Quoting Banno

You decide to raise your arm, and low, the damn thing goes up.

Humans are capable of intentional actions, as are animals.

Quoting TiredThinker

Well what if the information goes in one direction?

What would that mean? You could move things but not see around you? You could hear and feel, but not move? But we know the information goes in both directions - you see things around you and you move them.

Dark mater and dark energy are both things in the physical world, as is mind. We know they are there from what they do to the stuff around them.

Mind is special. It is different to everything around it. But it is as much a part of the physical world as are rocks, black holes and pop music.

And when it stops? You already know about not being conscious - you were unconscious last night, and before you were born.

Quoting Wayfarer

Humans are capable of intentional actions, as are animals.

Yes. Do you have a point to draw from this?

SO here's myaccount: there are two ways to describe raising your arm. One involves forming the intention and acting on it. The other involves the firing of neurones and the contraction of muscle tissue.

I say these are two differing descriptions of the very same thing.

IS that so hard to grasp?

Reply to Banno I answered the question. Anything else?

Reply to Wayfarer Which question?

How it is that humans raise their arms. It’s very simple, unless of course they’re quadriplegic or unconscious.

Reply to Wayfarer By giving the very same answer as I gave.

SO where is your account different to mine?

You seem to want to treat intentionality as magic - as if it comes from nowhere, and is not part of the world.

Reply to Banno You asked a simple question, and got a simple answer. It says nothing about intentionality, because the scope of the question is such that it doesn't need to be addressed. If you wanted to ask, how can an intentional action affect a physical change, then you'd be asking a more sophisticated question, which would then lead to a consideration of the nature of intentionality, which is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs. To say of an individual’s mental states that they have intentionality is to say that they are mental representations or that they have contents. And it is very difficult, or even impossible, to provide a physicalist account of intentionality, because there is no obvious analogy in physical theory for 'aboutness' or 'intentionality'. 'Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not do so in the same way. In presentation, something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on.

This intentional inexistence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it', said Brentano, who is credited with discerning the significance of intentionality.

But then, all you said was, you can raise your arm, so there's really no need to digress.

Quoting Banno

If the world were unpredictable, this would undermines not just science, but the capacity to describe the world in a consistent fashion.

This could be restated as "If the world were unpredictable, this would undermine not just science, but the notion of a world that can be made sense of". I suppose one is free to engage with the world as an inherently chaotic and arbitrary place, but one shouldn't be surprised if they get treated as a lunatic if they do.

Quoting Wayfarer

And it is very difficult, or even impossible, to provide a physicalist account of intentionality, because there is no obvious analogy in physical theory for 'aboutness' or 'intentionality'. '

But if you would defend dualism then you must go further and say that something is not part of the physical world.

SO far, you are agreeing with me that we have two different descriptions. The question is, will you join me in rejecting dualism and admitting that they are descriptions fo the same thing - your raising your arm?

Reply to Wayfarer

In other words, magic, i.e. mind-of-the-gaps.

Physicalism might not have worked out the precise relationship between mental phenomena and physical states/laws of nature, but at least its actually trying to think through the problem instead of engaging in this sort of lazy, hand-wavey magical thinking. I suppose that you could say that physicalism is the worst ontological proposal... except for all the rest (and especially dualism).

Quoting Banno

But if you would defend dualism then you must go further and say that something is not part of the physical world.

First, define 'physical world'.

Reply to Wayfarer No. You know what the physical world is. Stop dithering.


Or define it as you please, and I will respond to you in kind.

Reply to Reformed Nihilist One of the most important things to do when dealing with abused children is to provide a world which is predictable. Perhaps the ability to see the world in an orderly fashion relies on a nice middle-class upbringing.

Quoting Banno

You know what the physical world is.

You don't. That is exactly the kind of thing I mean when I said:

Quoting Wayfarer

Banno's method is to drag all of these debates into the realm of the banal by repeated use of innappopriate metaphors, cliches and over-simplifications repeated ad nauseum until all interest is drained out of the discussion and everyone looses interest

Accordingly, I've lost interest, more fool me for trying.

Quoting Banno

One of the most important things to do when dealing with abused children is to provide a world which is predictable. Perhaps the ability to see the world in an orderly fashion relies on a nice middle-class upbringing.

I suspect your tongue was firmly seated in cheek, but FWIW, as a child my step-father had a volatile and unpredictable temper, and yet here I am. I don't know that I can tease out actual psychological causes, but my post-hoc narrative is that the lack of predictability in childhood made me more strongly crave to find such predictability in the larger world. Or genes, maybe it's that.

Reply to Wayfarer

You can use whatever definition of "physical" that you need. If that is "dragging all of these debates into the realm of the banal", then that's down to you.

Reply to Reformed Nihilist Interesting.

If we are nothing more than the perpetually rotting physical I can't be sure it has any meaning. We do good, we experience good, we learn, we try to evolve. All is worthless if it all ceases when our bodies end.

Quoting Banno

Your question is like asking what the mass is of democracy, and using the lack of an answer to argue that since democracy does not have a mass, it doesn't exist.

And what duck-rabbit hole did you pull that out of?

I’m not the one claiming that if thoughts don’t have mass they then don’t exist, remember. As a reminder, you're the one upholding a physicalism wherein epistemically nonphysical things - such as thoughts - are ontically physical and thereby composed of physical mass. And I’m the one saying this is utter and complete bullshit. Next thing you’ll tell me is that unicorns, being existent thoughts, are mass endowed physical things that aren't real. Tough you got me, I’m now feeling ridiculous in even needing to express this.

Quoting javra

What does the theory of evolution visually look like?

How can one quantify its mass in principle?

The obvious answers to these two questions are “it has no visual appearance” and “no one can” respectively. You can’t quantify the mass of a thought like the theory of evolution even in principle because, if for no other reason, you can’t empirically observe it in practice, and empirical data is requisite for the quantification of any physical thing’s mass.

Quoting TiredThinker

If we are nothing more than the perpetually rotting physical I can't be sure it has any meaning.

Life has whatever meaning you give it. That's the case whether dualism is true or not. Meaning is not something that is found in the world but that is imposed on it by us. Quoting TiredThinker

We do good, we experience good, we learn, we try to evolve.

Yes!
Quoting TiredThinker

All is worthless if it all ceases when our bodies end.

Whether you like it or not you will have lived. That can never be changed; that you exist is in a sense eternal, unchangeable. What you do with life is up to you, as is what value your life has.

Reply to javra
Here it is again:
Quoting Banno

...there are two ways to describe raising your arm. One involves forming the intention and acting on it. The other involves the firing of neurones and the contraction of muscle tissue.

I say these are two differing descriptions of the very same thing.

You want a description of one in terms of the other. The confusion is your own.

Quoting Banno

The confusion is your own.

No, Banno. It's yours.

You've claimed thoughts have physical mass. Now your evading and, worse, projecting your confusion onto me.

Quoting javra

You've claimed thoughts have physical mass.

If I did, it was facetious. But you didn't get the joke.

Quoting Banno

Those who suppose otherwise - the ball is in your court. It is over to you to explain how mind can have an impact on the physical world if it is an utterly different sort of thing.

Your answer involved reintroducing an anachronistic definition of energy, while denying that this would involve a re-think science; all this backed up with a reference to single line from wikipedia.

Care to have another go? Explain how you can decide to move your arm.

Quoting Banno

If I did, it was facetious. But you didn't get the joke.

Really. Now that is a joke.

Quoting Banno

Care to have another go?

Not after reading about you sense of facetiousness.

Quoting 180 Proof

You know they know they can't. :smirk:

Yay! I win! Twice!

Anyway, the better reply might be something like:

But Banno, you are advocating dualism! Not property dualism, of the sort the article espoused, but some sort of dualism with regard to discourse, were intentional states are irreducible to physical states...!

That'd be more interesting.

I interpret Cartesian dualism as rooted in extended substance and thinking substance. And as always and given the absolute self sufficiency of the distinct substances, the issue always comes down to how do they interact. And after 400 years of Cartesianism, the answer is always transcendence. And of course transcendence always turns out to be a label we give to some sort of process we cannot explain. Isn't it wonderful?

Quoting Wayfarer

There is one interesting and scientifically-validated piece of evidence for the immaterial nature of mind. This comes from a discussion of the 'neural binding problem' in neuroscience. 'Binding' is the cognitive process which brings together all of the various elements of perception - movement, shape, colour, position, the nature of the object, and so on - into the unified whole that comprises subjective experience (called the 'stable world illusion'). In brief, the neural binding problem is that neuroscience can find no functional area of the brain which can account for this unified sense of self.

The 'binding problem' assumes there's a representation or image that needs 'binding'. But that's not the case, as Bennett and Hacker explain:

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:1.9.1 Misconceptions concerning the existence of a binding problem

The sense in which separate neural pathways carry information about colour, shape, movement, etc. is not semantic, but, at best, information-theoretic. In neither sense of 'information' can information be 'organized' into 'cohesive perceptions'. In the semantic sense, information is a set of true propositions, and true propositions cannot be organized into perception (i.e. into a person's perceiving something). In the engineering sense, 'information' is a measure of the freedom of choice in the transmission of a signal, and the amount of information is measured by the logarithm to the base 2 of the number of available choices - and this too is not something that can be 'organized' into perceptions. One cannot combine colour, form and dimensions into perceptions, just as one cannot put events into holes - this form of words makes no sense. And, correspondingly, when we see a square purple box, we do not 'combine' purple, squareness and boxhood - for this too is a nonsensical form of words. It is true that in order to see a coloured moving object with a given shape, separate groups of neurons must be active simultaneously. But it does not follow that, in the semantic sense of information, the brain must 'associate' various bits of information; nor could it follow, since brains cannot act on the basis of information or associate pieces of information. Whether the brain, in some sense that needs to be clarified, 'associates' information in the information-theoretic sense is a further question. But if it does, that is not because the features of the object perceived have to be 'combined in the brain', for that is a nonsense.

Above all, to see an object is neither to see nor to construct an image of an object. The reason why the several neuronal groups must fire simultaneously when a person sees a coloured three-dimensional object is not because the brain has to build up a visual image or create an internal picture of objects in the visual field. When we see a tree, the brain does not have to (and could not) bind together the trunk, boughs and leaves, or the colour and the shape, or the shape and the movement of the tree. One may see the tree clearly and distinctly or unclearly and indistinctly, and one may be sensitive to its colour and movement, or one may suffer from one or another form of colour-blindness or visual agnosia for movement. Which neuronal groups must simultaneously be active in order to achieve optimal vision, what form that activity may take, and how it is connected with other parts of the brain that are causally implicated in cognition, recognition and action, as well as in co-ordination of sight and movement, are what needs to be investigated by neuroscientists. Since seeing a tree is not seeing an internal picture of a tree, the brain does not have to construct any such picture. It merely has to be functioning normally so that we are able to see clearly and distinctly. It does not have to take a picture apart, since neither the visual scene nor the light array falling upon the retinae are pictures. It does not have to put a picture back together again, since what it enables us to do is to see a tree (not a picture of a tree) in the garden (not in the brain).

...

For the neural correlates, the various cells firing in the various locations of the 'visual' striate cortex, cannot be 'recombined', and do not need to be. The thought that the features a perceiver perceives must be correctly synthesized 'to form a separate object', the so-called 'binding problem', is confused. (For critical discussion see pp. 32-8.) To perceive is not to form an image of what is perceived, either in one's brain or in one's mind. What is perceived is the tree in the quad, not a representation of a tree in the quad. The brain does not have to synthesize a representation of the tree out of representations of its size, shape, colour and orientation - it has to enable the perceiver to see the tree and its features clearly.

Reply to Andrew M Thanks. However the journal article I referred to (which is here) is a peer-reviewed article that draws on contemporary neuroscience. So I'd be interested to know the specific sense in which he has it wrong. As I understand it, it has to do with the process of apperception, which is the process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas she already possesses. That is what is rather like an act of synthesis. It's not the creation of an image per se but the ability to recognise the concrete whole and to recognise it and interpret it.

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:Which neuronal groups must simultaneously be active in order to achieve optimal vision, what form that activity may take, and how it is connected with other parts of the brain that are causally implicated in cognition, recognition and action, as well as in co-ordination of sight and movement, are what needs to be investigated by neuroscientists.

That doesn't really contradict the passage I quoted, as far as I can see.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's not the creation of an image per se but the ability to recognise the concrete whole and to recognise it and interpret it.

Yes, that's the real issue. As B&H say:

Quoting Wayfarer

Which neuronal groups must simultaneously be active in order to achieve optimal vision, what form that activity may take, and how it is connected with other parts of the brain that are causally implicated in cognition, recognition and action, as well as in co-ordination of sight and movement, are what needs to be investigated by neuroscientists.
— History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.

That doesn't really contradict the passage I quoted, as far as I can see.

The above B&H quote doesn't assume a binding problem. From the passage you quoted (italics mine):

The neural binding problem(s) - Jerome Feldman:That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience.

The issue, as B&H argue, is that the "neural representation" assumption is mistaken, thus there is no binding problem to explain. But why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place? Because "subjective experience" (defined in the paper as "qualia") is a Cartesian conception of experience (the Cartesian theater, as it were).

Quoting Andrew M

why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place?

Because this: representation is necessarily the case, and because neurons are the only possible source of representations as such, therefore neural representations.

But not this: Quoting Andrew M

Because "subjective experience" (...) is a Cartesian conception of experience (the Cartesian theater, as it were).

Cartesian theater was never the case, and subjective experience has long evolved from Descartes, as Reply to Wayfarer so aptly noted.

Brain machinations can be scientifically determined all day long, but how the “sense of self” manifests out of them isn’t answered by them. So either there is no sense of self, a veritable species-wide anathema, or, science wants it to be that there isn’t, by physical means.

Sad state of affairs indeed, that science wishes to determine rationality right out of being human, and at the same time, manifests a self-contradiction in attempting to do it.

I mean....so what if all the science is right? So what if all the brain machinations are determined as pure physicality and therefore subjective experience is pure physicality as well? B.F.D. The scientist is still going to sit there, and wonder what to do about it, which requires him to employ the very thing he just proved doesn’t exist.

Probably outta stick to better toaster ovens and birth of the Universe and such. You know....that which might make a difference.

“HEY!!! TEACHER!!! Leave us kids alone!!!”

If dualism is true, is science wrong ?

Questions about the mind-body problem
How does the mind as a whole emerge from disparate parts, the neurons that make up the brain.
How to explain the binding problem, the unity of consciousness, seemingly from the integration of highly diverse neural information.
How to explain that when we have the intention to raise our arm, our arm rises.
How can the mind emerge with properties that cannot be scientifically discovered in the neurons from which it has arisen.

Does substance dualism being true mean that science is false
Substance dualism is the idea that the mind and body are two distinct substances.
Science is an epistemic approach to gaining knowledge of our world, the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

A new physical property emerges when two permanent magnets are placed alongside each other
Substance dualism claims that, because the properties of the mind cannot be scientifically discovered in the physical parts from which it has arisen, then the mind must be of a different substance to the physical brain from which it emerges.
To disprove this, one example is needed of a system which has physical properties that cannot be discovered from the physical parts from which it has emerged.
Consider a system consisting of a pair of permanent magnets. When placed in the vicinity of each other they may repel or attract resulting in a movement.
A single magnet may have certain properties, such as mass, but no scientific investigation of a single magnet may discover the property of movement that the whole system is able to show.

New physical properties may emerge when parts are combined into a whole
IE, the whole physical system has properties that cannot be discovered in its individual physical parts.
In a sense, a new property has emerged from a combination of physical parts, none of which have previously exhibited this property.
The example of the magnets is not to infer any resemblance between magnetic fields and interactions between neurons, it is just being used to prove that it is possible for new physical properties to emerge from physical parts that don't exhibit the same property.
It is a fact that the new property of the system that has emerged from its parts can have an effect on the parts, even though the individual parts don't show this property.

Dualism may be true, but it isn't necessarily true
In summary, this example of the magnets proves that because some properties of the whole cannot be scientifically discovered in the physical properties of its parts, it does not follow that the properties of the whole are not also physical.
The example of the magnets does not prove that dualism is not true, but it does prove that dualism isn't necessarily true.

Quoting Andrew M

But why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place? Because "subjective experience" (defined in the paper as "qualia") is a Cartesian conception of experience (the Cartesian theater, as it were).

I'm sceptical about their dismissive attitude, as I think that the subjective unity of experience is an elemental constituent of self-knowledge; our experience, our being, functions as a unified whole. But the Feldman paper says 'There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008). The structure of the primate visual system has been mapped in detail (Kaas and Collins 2003) and there is no area that could encode this detailed information. The subjective experience is thus inconsistent with the neural circuitry.'

I think what is being described here is close to, or identical with, what Kant describes as synthesis - 'the act of putting different representations together, and grasping what is manifold in them in one cognition (A77/B103)' (I wonder if @Mww would agree with that.)

I'm sceptical of this passage:

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:when we see a square purple box, we do not 'combine' purple, squareness and boxhood - for this too is a nonsensical form of words. It is true that in order to see a coloured moving object with a given shape, separate groups of neurons must be active simultaneously. But it does not follow that, in the semantic sense of information, the brain must 'associate' various bits of information; nor could it follow, since brains cannot act on the basis of information or associate pieces of information. Whether the brain, in some sense that needs to be clarified, 'associates' information in the information-theoretic sense is a further question.

I see no reason to presume upfront that the notion of 'binding' whereby the mind (not brain!) synthesises the disparate elements of experience and judgement into a simple whole is 'a nonsensical form of words'. Sure, when I see a tree, I don't form a mental image, but an act of synthesis is clearly occuring. I have vague recollections of experiments which demonstrate that this is just what happens in regular cognition, conducted by exposing a subject to various moving, coloured shapes for very brief periods and measuring the time it takes for the subject to be able to recognise the colour, shape and direction of motion. It's not a conceptually difficult issue. So I don't know if I accept their dismissal of the neural binding problem - in the quoted passage, there is an implicit acknowledgement that the question remains open. Feldman is merely stating that the question of the source of that unified perception can't be resolved in terms of known neural systems.

Quoting RussellA

Substance dualism is the idea that the mind and body are two distinct substances.

Important to note that 17th century philosophy still operated with the concept of substance derived from Aristotle - substance as ouisia, the 'bearer of attributes', not a 'material with uniform properties'. It is nearer in meaning to 'kind of being' than 'kind of stuff'. Where that is important is that this usage is no longer current in either popular or scientific discourse. I'd bet that most people talk about 'distinct substances' have no inkling what 'substance' meant in the original context, and instead try and conceive of 'res cogitans' as some 'spooky mind-stuff', like conscious ectoplasm, which is why it sounds such an absurd idea. So:

Quoting RussellA

then the mind must be of a different substance to the physical brain from which it emerges.

Not so much a 'different substance' as 'of a different order'. It is not manifest as an object of analysis but as the indubitable reality of the observing subject. (Which is why 'eliminative materialism' believes that it can't be real, as in their view, only the objects of analysis are real.) That is the change of emphasis that has come about through embodied cognition and enactivism and the realisation of the role of the subject central to phenomenology.

How much weighs a thought? Per day the brain uses about 1500 Joules. This is about 1500/(9x10exp16) or about 1.4x10exp-14 kilograms. It depends on the length of a thought but this it the maximum weight of a thought. Note that the kind of thought is irrelevant for its weight. Heavy thoughts weigh just as much as thoughts involved in making a cup of tea. It's difficult to put a thought on a scale. Like it's difficult to put a moving ball with kinetic energy on a scale. Neurons can be put on a scale, so can ions, but ions flowing through channels are just as difficult as the thrown ball.

Reply to Raymond :wink: :up:

Here's Mental Events.

Reply to Wayfarer

Look here

Or here


Forms in the real world can be seen in the brain.

Reply to Raymond

Yeah neurotransmitters are chemicals, they are physical, they have physical properties which are in principle quantifiable/measurable... so the comparison to the mass of the rocks in a desert actually wasn't a terrible one (and certainly not some decisive argument or distinction against physicalism as javra apparently took it to be); in other words, its practically infeasible, but not impossible in principle.

And just in general, the form or style of argument by those defending dualism here just appears to be one gigantic appeal to ignorance. As with creationism in biology, the idea seems to be that dualism is the default and so if one can pose questions or problems that physicalism is purportedly unable to answer, that suffices to establish dualism. Which, obviously, it does not, this is patently fallacious. And ultimately, even if we grant e.g. the "hard problem" and other popular arguments against physicalism, dualism is stick with its own even harder problem, of how a metaphysically distinct category of the mental interacts with and causes changes in the physical world.

Reply to TiredThinker The article misrepresents science as a saying anything certain about the soul. In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science.

Quoting Olivier5

In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science.

How so?

Quoting Seppo

And ultimately, even if we grant e.g. the "hard problem" and other popular arguments against physicalism, dualism is stick with its own even harder problem, of how a metaphysically distinct category of the mental interacts with and causes changes in the physical world.

I don't think this problem is hard to solve. If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved. The mental, like electric charge, or one of the other three, reside in matter too. They are properties projected into matter to describe its behavior when lumps of matter interact in space.

Charge and mass are properties of matter involved in their interaction in space. The exact nature of charge and mass are not known. Whatever theory you use to explain them, invariably leads to the use of the very ingredient you want to explain. For example, if charge is explained as a vibrational mode of a string confined within the bounds of a compact space, you are left with the question how a string can vibrate in the first place. Vibration needs charge or force so explaining charge by a vibration is circular as you use charge in explaining it.

So all you can say about charge is that it is a property related to the way things interact. I think the same holds for "mental charges". They are properties not of small particles, but of complicated structures, like a working brain. Particles are not carried along by charge and nor is charge carried along by particles. There is just an interaction between charged particles. Neither charge nor the particles carrying it are "in charge".
I think the materialistic approach faiIs in explaining the nature of charge (electric, colored, mass, though the nature of mass is different from the nature of its electric or colored counterpart). To assert it can explain the nature of the "mental charge" is equivalent (identical, similar, equal, corresponding, 1-1 related) to assert that physical charges can be explained. Which can't be, for who knows what's it like to be an inanimate piece of matter? We know what's it like to be an animate people, and thus we know the nature of the mental charge directly. Explaining the nature of mental charge by reference to a materialistic process overlooks the charges residing in these processes, which can't be explained but experienced only.

So dualism already exists at the basic level of nature. Does that remove science from the scene? Not at all. But it denies that science is able to explain both aspects of the dualism.

Quoting Mww

why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place?
— Andrew M

Because this: representation is necessarily the case, and because neurons are the only possible source of representations as such, therefore neural representations.

You say it as if you believe it. But if the conclusion fails empirically (as Feldman's paper claims), then that raises questions about the premises.

Quoting Mww

Cartesian theater was never the case, and subjective experience has long evolved from Descartes, as ?Wayfarer so aptly noted.

Could you expand on what you mean by "subjective experience"? I'm primarily addressing the paper that Wayfarer quoted where that phrase was used (and which was specifically equated with "qualia").

Quoting Wayfarer

I'm sceptical about their dismissive attitude, as I think that the subjective unity of experience is an elemental constituent of self-knowledge; our experience, our being, functions as a unified whole. But the Feldman paper says 'There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008). The structure of the primate visual system has been mapped in detail (Kaas and Collins 2003) and there is no area that could encode this detailed information. The subjective experience is thus inconsistent with the neural circuitry.'

I'm not sure you're fully understanding B&H's position. Feldman is saying that we "subjectively experience" a "full field representation of a visual scene" (which doesn't seem to be in evidence, hence the 'binding problem'). Whereas B&H's position is that we experience the world (say, watching a sunset). The inclusion of "subjectively" and "representation" just is the homunculus looking at a theater screen. Remove those terms (and the conceptual scheme they represent) and no binding problem arises, since there's nothing to bind or synthesize. There's no binding of a sunset, it's already of one piece, so to speak.[*]

In other words, there is no "subjective unity of experience" because there is no "subjective experience (aka qualia)". There's just the garden-variety experiences of watching a sunset, or kicking a football around with your kids. As Bennett and Hacker say:

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:The brain does not have to synthesize a representation of the tree out of representations of its size, shape, colour and orientation - it has to enable the perceiver to see the tree and its features clearly.

--

[*] What we might do is reflect on our experiences and use language to talk about them which, of course, is representational.

The Binding Problem - the unity of consciousness

Relevant sentences about dualism from SEP - Dualism
Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world.
Whether one believes that the mind is a substance or just a bundle of properties, the same challenge arises, which is to explain the nature of the unity of the immaterial mind.
In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical – or mind and body or mind and brain – are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing.

"Bearer of attribute" dualism
As it may be argued that relations only exist in the mind and not the world, then "bearers of attributes", of which relations are fundamental, must also only exist in the mind.
Then in this sense the mind is radically different from the world, which is dualism.
But "bearer of attitude" dualism does not explain the binding problem.

"Material with uniform properties" dualism
Even if there is a "material with uniform properties" dualism which has properties that explains the binding problem, and which is not part of the physical world, then how can we understand it if not amenable to scientific investigation.

Both routes seem insoluble to us.

Would we understand the solution even if shown it
It is true that one question to be asked is how do we solve the binding problem, but before we ask this, a prior consideration is that even if we were presented with the answer, do we, as humans, even have the intellectual capacity to understand the answer.

As we don't expect a horse to understand the allegories within The Old Man and The Sea, why should we, as humans, expect to understand the solution to the binding problem.

What does it mean to understand something
IE, before trying to understand the binding problem, can we justify to ourselves that even if presented with the explanation we would understand it. What does it even mean to understand something ?

:smile: All the very best to everyone for the coming year :smile:

Quoting Andrew M

Whereas B&H's position is that we experience the world (say, watching a sunset). The inclusion of "subjectively" and "representation" just is the homunculus looking at a theater screen.

No, I don't buy that. The subjective unity of experience refers to the way that all of the disparate elements of experience are present as a unified whole. I appreciate what I've read of Hacker and Bennett's analysis of the 'mereological fallacy' but it doesn't apply here. When we watch the sunset we're aware of the colours, the sounds, the wildlife, the trees, the clouds in the sky, our feelings, the thoughts in our mind, all as elements of a subjective whole, of watching the sunset. It's indubitable that I am a subject of that experience and that the experience is unified; I don't receive signals from my sensory organs in the third person and then work on integrating them. I see, hear, smell, feel, and reflect. The mind is integrating the data into a sense of aesthetic appreciation. The research quoted says that while scientists have been able to identify many of the specific neural structures associated with the elements of experience, they can't identify any neural structure which orchestrates all of those disparate elements into a simple unity. I personally find that is suggestive of the idea of there being 'a principle of unity', which sounds rather like the traditional designation of 'the soul'.

The need to posit an 'homonculi' arises when you try and imagine, or objectify, that natural process of synthesis that the mind is constantly engaged in - when you try to think about it from the outside, as it were. You can't do that, because you're never outside it.

Quoting Raymond

If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved.

If you consider the elements of thought, such as reasoning, inference, language, abstraction and so on, then there's no plausible way to reduce them to the physical, because they belong to a different order of description and explanation. Sure if you think about the mind in neurological terms as 'what a brain is doing', then there's potentially a neurological explanation. But consider what you're trying to explain. An important part of what the human mind does is the use of rational inference - if this, then that, if that, then this must be the case. The scientists conducting those neural scanning experiments are doing this all the time - they're saying that you can identify patterns in the neurological data which they say mean such and such. When you're educated to interpret that data, you can see what it means also. But that process of inference and explanation is itself what you're seeking to account for if you wish to explain the workings of the mind. And there's nothing like that in the data itself. You're not literally going to see the elements of reason or language in neurological, or any, data. You bring those to what you're viewing by your own power of reason, through all of those processes that are internal to the workings of thought.

Quoting 180 Proof

In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science.
— Olivier5
How so?

Science is a logos about matter.

Quoting Wayfarer

If you consider the elements of thought, such as reasoning, inference, language, abstraction and so on, then there's no plausible way to reduce them to the physical, because they belong to a different order of description and explanation. 

I totally agree. It's the mental content of matter which we are talking about here. Like physical charge contained in physical matter, this can't be explained by reference to the matter it's in. Thoughts are contained in matter like charge is contained in particles. Physical charge cannot be explained with a language referring to the stuff it's in, like particle fields, atoms, molecules, cells, organs, brains, you name it. Even the charge of an electron cannot be explained, let alone that of a huge collection of them.

So the supposition that everything is matter only leaves out a very important aspect of matter. The charge that's in it. Charge is routinely used in the description of matter. That can't be denied. What can be denied is that we have an understanding of the notion of charge. We don't know what it is. Which isn't to say we can't experience it, like the charge of our brains and bodies. Consciousness cannot be explained by material processes, only experienced. I think it's an a priori for interaction, like charge is for interaction between particles.

So, as you seem to imply rightly, looking at the brain by means of all kinds of advanced equipment, like you are looking at a physical process, lacks an understanding of the contents, the charge of what you are looking at. Only the one you are looking at this way can truly understand this content. You can note there is a neuronal pattern of a checkerboard in the brain of a mouse if she looks at a checkerboard but the very image of a checkerboard is a mental state that cannot be explained materialistically. You can use materialism for describing the mental from the outside, but what's on the inside cannot be explained.

Happy new year! My ears are still banging. Some pretty heavy fireworks were fired last night. As if war broke out! BHOMB!

Reply to Olivier5 How does that warrant your statement that "a dualist point of view is essential to science"? The "logos" is categorical and therefore pertains to metaphysics, not to physics, etc.

Quoting 180 Proof

How does that warrant your statement that "a dualist point of view is essential to science"?

I count two things: a logos on the one hand, and the material thing the logos is about on the other hand. Note that these two things are inherently apart, the map being by necessity always different from the territory.

Quoting Wayfarer

......the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008)

Quoting Wayfarer

....what is being described here is close to, or identical with, what Kant describes as synthesis. (....) I wonder if @Mww would agree with that.

He would, with the caveat that Kant is talking about the rational side of human mentality, but the brain having no representation of a visual scene, is the empirical side of brain mechanics.

Hence the inescapable duality of being human: there is no place in the brain for visual representation, but humans think in images.

(Delete overly extensive and manifestly unsolicited exposition on the real explanatory gap, so as to prevent the your sorrow, and the gallery’s dirty looks, for asking me whether I agreed with something or not.)

Quoting Raymond

I don't think this problem is hard to solve. If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved

Hardly, even supposing that "the mental resides in the physical" (and supposing that this is even a meaningful phrase in the first place, given that "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation) the interaction problem remains in its entirety: how do they interact? Where do they interact? How is a "where" even meaningful when we're talking about a non-physical metaphysical substance?

So I think its fairly instructive that, in a post claiming the problem isn't hard to solve, the best you can do is this same vague mysterian gesturing; this suggests the problem is hard indeed. And so even if the "hard problem" is hard, the dualist's problem is even harder by orders of magnitude. If I were a neuro- or cognitive scientist, or philosopher of mind, its pretty clear which paradigm would look more optimistic and fruitful... and its not dualism.

I still think the OP's proposition is overbroad: the truth of dualism wouldn't mean all science is wrong, since there's a good deal of science that doesn't involve any mental/physical interactions. But it would mean that a significant portion of our current understanding of physics is wrong, as Banno already argued (for instance, regarding energy conservation). And so the fact that our current understanding of physics doesn't look wrong (its predictions fitt the observational evidence extremely well), is itself fairly strong evidence that dualism is wrong.

Quoting Andrew M

Could you expand on what you mean by "subjective experience"?

I only used the compounded terminology because that was how it was originally presented. All experience is subjective, in that any experience belongs only to the rational agent that reasons to it, therefore “subjective experience” is superfluous.

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous as well, insofar as the given senses of them are already accounted for in established metaphysics. That is not to say they are false, or don’t have their own predication, but only that such predication has earlier, and better, representation.

While advocating modified theories, or generating new ones, is perfectly warranted, if the modified or new theory doesn’t justify relinquishing the old one, it doesn’t really serve any purpose, other than perhaps making a name for its provocateur.

Quoting Seppo

Hardly, even supposing that "the mental resides in the physical" (and supposing that this is even a meaningful phrase in the first place, given that "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation) the interaction problem remains in its entirety: how do they interact? Where do they interact? How is a "where" even meaningful when we're talking about a non-physical metaphysical substance?

Why shouldn't it be a meaningful statement? Is it meaningful to state electric or color charges reside in a particle? I think it is. Likewise with mental charge, which even can be considered as a huge collection of charges. The body then lies between these mental charges and the physical world, the outside of which we see as the material world.

Science is about this outside, material aspect of a dualistic reality, and there is a lot of knowledge about it, though artificial mostly. That's why science is kind of an art.

Quoting Mww

While advocating modified theories, or generating new ones, is perfectly warranted, if the modified or new theory doesn’t justify relinquishing the old one, it doesn’t really serve any purpose, other than perhaps making a name for its provocateur.

The question is: when is it justified? A new theory can always justify itself by the simple fact of being there. It might or might not relinquish the old theory. That just remains to be seen. In the early sixties, quarks weren't needed to explain the old hadron and meson world. Where they provocative? Same holds for preons nowadays. What is the provocation of today is the reality of tomorrow.

Provocative theories might offer new ways of investigation. If quarks and partos weren't introduced (Feynman didn't believe in quarks), there wouldn't have been searches for them set up.

Reply to Raymond

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation. How can a mental substance or entity stand in a physical or spatial relation, without itself being physical? What does it mean to say this, if we're not conceding that the mental is physical after all? No similar problem applies to particles having charge because particles are physical objects, and charge is a physical property.

Indeed, in this context its not uncommon to define the physical as that which exhibits the sorts of properties or relations we deal with in physical theory- to be physical just is to have properties like mass, charge, volume, velocity etc. and to be able to stand in physical (spatial, temporal, causal, etc) relations with other physical objects or forces.

Quoting Seppo

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation. How can a mental substance or entity stand in a physical or spatial relation, without itself being physical

Because it's mental stuff. Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff. Physicists even call it something: charge.

Quoting Raymond

The question is: when is it justified?

Depends on the premises of the theory, I guess. Empirical theories are justified by correspondence with natural law; metaphysical theories are justified by correspondence with logical law.

Subtleties sold separately.

Quoting Raymond

Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff

I've answered this twice now:

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation...

Indeed, in this context its not uncommon to define the physical as that which exhibits the sorts of properties or relations we deal with in physical theory- to be physical just is to have properties like mass, charge, volume, velocity etc. and to be able to stand in physical (spatial, temporal, causal, etc) relations with other physical objects or forces.

If you're saying that "mental stuff" can stand in physical relations with physical stuff, then you're essentially saying that the mental is physical after all (on at least one plausible/common definition of the physical). Either that, or making a category error.

Reply to Raymond

(I also think you're either confused about what "charge" is- charge is a physical property of physical objects/matter- or are using words in a highly non-standard way without indicating that you're doing so)

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation

No. Residing in is not a spatial relation. Charge can reside in an electron. What's spatial about that?

Quoting Seppo

also think you're either confused about what "charge" is-

There is no physicist who is not confused by this concept. You can name or label it. But that's it. Explaining it as a vibrational mode of a string redirects the question to the string. What makes a string vibrate?

Reply to Raymond

Given the usual English meaning of the phrase "residing in" is certainly is a physical relation ("residing in" is equivalent to being situated, located, or physically present in- a spatial relation).

If otoh you mean "reside in" as something like being a property of ("charge can reside in an electron"), its hard to see how this isn't a physicalist proposal, that the mental "resides in" the physical in the same way that charge "resides in" an election. At the very least, you need to be much more specific here.

Reply to Raymond

Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff. Physicists even call it something: charge.

Physicists don't use the word "charge" to talk about "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", they use the word "charge" to talk about a particular physical property of matter. So far as I'm aware, physicists don't have a word for "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", because that's not something physics concerns itself with (and if it did, then the mental = the physical after all).

Quoting Seppo

Given the usual English meaning of the phrase "residing in" it certainly is a physical relation ("residing in" is equivalent to being situated, located, or physically present in- a spatial relation).

Charge is attached to a particle. So both have to be at the same place. Always. They can't be pulled apart. So charge always has the same spatial relation to a particle. Which makes it non-spatial.

Quoting Seppo

Physicists don't use the word "charge" to talk about "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", they use the word "charge" to talk about a particular physical property of matter. So far as I'm aware, physicists don't have a word for "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", because that's not something physics concerns itself with (and if it did, then the mental = the physical after all).

But what is electric charge? They don't know.

Quoting Seppo

If you're saying that "mental stuff" can stand in physical relations with physical stuff, then you're essentially saying that the mental is physical after all (on at least one plausible/common definition of the physical). Either that, or making a category error.

:up:

Quoting Mww

Subtleties sold separately.

:smirk:

Quoting Olivier5

I count two things: a logos on the one hand, and the material thing the logos is about on the other hand. Note that these two things are inherently apart, the map being by necessity always different from the territory.

Yes, there is distinction but not separation (i.e. "inherently apart") insofar as a map, like an analogy, is an abstraction of formal aspects of the territory derived from some concrete aspects of the territory that is used to survey delineate and interpret some other concrete aspects of the territory (origami or "rhizomatic"-like); therefore, only in the sense of property dualism, Oliver, do I agree with you.

Quoting 180 Proof

a map, like an analogy, is an abstraction of formal aspects of the territory derived from some concrete aspects of the territory that is used to survey delineate and interpret some other concrete aspects of the territory (origami or "rhizomatic"-like); therefore, only in the sense of property dualism, Oliver, do I agree with you.

If that works for you, why not? To me the idea of "property dualism" means very little, just like the term "substance dualism" by the way. "Dualism" is clear enough for my taste, though.

In any case, it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature. And thus it implies a duality. A scientific theory is inherently different from the part of nature it tries to model. For instance, the current theory of evolution is different from the actual evolution of life on this planet. The latter is a process that took billions of year to unfold, while the former can be understood, mastered and taught by anyone, given a little effort.

Likewise, geology = logos about the earth and its minerals <> the earth and minerals themselves. Geology is not a stone.

Quoting Mww

He would, with the caveat that Kant is talking about the rational side of human mentality, but the brain having no representation of a visual scene, is the empirical side of brain mechanics.

An important distinction. However, percepts however require concepts. A small infant doesn't see distinct objects, only senses its mother's presence or things waved directly in front of its face. It hasn't built up the conceptual structure within which apperception is possible in the first place. That is a process that occupies the first several years of life and is ongoing up to maturity.

There's a writer, Andrew Brook, who says Kant is 'the godfather of modern cognitive science'. See an example here. (Seems the whole chapter is provided in this preview, also has a good discussion of 'the unity of self', that's my Sunday reading looked after.)

Quoting Raymond

Charge is attached to a particle. So both have to be at the same place. Always. They can't be pulled apart. So charge always has the same spatial relation to a particle. Which makes it non-spatial.

I've been trying to educate myself on concepts in physics - very difficult without doing all the maths - anyway, I've gleaned that the property of spin which is associated with sub-atomic particles has no analogy in the world of regular perception. It is nothing like the spinning of a ball or a top. There are quite a few other concepts in fundamental physics like that - they're intrinsic to the mathematical description, but there's no plain-language or common-sense equivalent. That's another of the pitfalls of trying to provide explanations derived from physics for philosophical problems.

Quoting Olivier5

it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature.

"What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning" ~ Werner Heisenberg.

Quoting Olivier5

In any case, it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature. And thus it implies a duality.

If this were so, it seems to me, natural agents could not have any "knowledge of nature" because entities which are "fundamentally divided" from each other entail lacking any relation "between" them (re: interaction problem); and yet this is not the case – thus, we have (some) "knowledge of nature". Epistemic distinction, not ontic "divide". Otherwise, your unqualified "duality", Oliver, is too vague to make sense.

Reply to Wayfarer

Spin has at least an analogue in the everyday world. It's associated with rotation. Rotate a fermion particle twice in space and it's spin has rotated only once. There is some strange kind of zero point spin of 1/2 (Js), like a zero point energy of 1/2 (J) for oscillators. Still, these can be identified with everyday objects. Charge has no counterpart. Two magnets attract, but exactly what is the electric charge causing this?

I think a physicist claiming they knows doesn't understand the concept. Like mental states. Modern science has transformed something inaccessible to science into a materialistic asset, which it isn't.

Quoting 180 Proof

If this were so, it seems to me, natural agents could not have any "knowledge of nature"

And de facto, our knowledge of nature is always imperfect and provisional, to the extent that some philosopher once opined that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing.

Quoting Olivier5

And de facto, our knowledge of nature is always imperfect

Why should that knowledge be imperfect? Doesn't that depend on what you call perfect?

Quoting Raymond

Why should that knowledge be imperfect?

Because of the epistemic divide I am talking about. Any knowledge is an interpretation, and any interpretation involves an epistemic jump. The map is not the territory.

Quoting 180 Proof

Epistemic distinction, not ontic "divide".

Epistemic divide.

Quoting Wayfarer

A small infant doesn't see......

Right, and I don’t think any epistemological science or metaphysics should concern itself with pre-teen individuals. We want to know the rules, after all, not the exceptions to them.

Quoting Wayfarer

percepts however require concepts

Right again, at least as far as human knowledge is concerned, and I would add it’s pretty hard to get “concept” out of “brain state”, while it’s rather easy to get percepts....read as object of perception.....out of them.
———-

Thanks for the link; good stuff. Wouldn’t let me C & P though, which is a bummer.

Quoting Raymond

Charge is attached to a particle... They can't be pulled apart.

Um, right. That's because its not "attached to" it in a physical sense (again with the physical metaphor), charge is a property of a particle, and so its not meaningful to talk about "pulling it apart" any more than it would to talk of "pulling apart" the redness of an apple from the apple.

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there. The problem is the proposal that the mental "resides in" or "is attached to" the physical in the way that a physical property like charge does with a physical object, without itself being physical. In other words, the interaction problem, dualism's harder problem of consciousness.

Quoting Olivier5

Because of the epistemic divide I am talking about. Any knowledge is an interpretation, and any interpretation involves an epistemic jump. The map is not the territory.

The map is the territory. What we think we see is what we see. There is no epistemic divide. This leaves reality out of reach forever. The interpretation, the theory is the reality. An observation is not theory laden. The observation is the theory.

Quoting Seppo

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there.

Uh, yeah...right. a property. In any case. Well, not in my case. Then what's that property like? The name already implies it. Particles are charged, which mean they contain this property. That it's inside it. Where else it can be? A hundred meters away from the electron? You can't pull charge out, can you? If you can tell what that property is you would be awarded a Nobel prize, for no one knows. The concept of charge is a mysterious one. What's its nature? What's the nature of a particle?

And that's why consciousness is an even greater mystery. But because it's inside us, like electric and color charges reside in a quark or electron, it's familiar. Consciousness might even be a complicated arrangement of charges. It is, in fact. You can call charge physical, but its nature is not known, nor is the nature of consciousness. You can feel its nature though.

Reply to Raymond

:yikes: Um... alrighty then

As far as 'the problem of interaction' is concerned, those problems are unique to Cartesian and post-Cartesian dualism. That arises from the problematical conception of 'substance' which as already been noted. In short, it posits mind and matter as two radically different substances, then wonders how they are able to interact.

Hylomorphic dualism is a different matter. It is preserved best in Aquinas, which unfortunate in some ways, as his obvious centrality to Catholicism is a red flag for secular or modern naturalist philosophy. But I think what Aquinas articulates is a consequence of his absorption of the Western tradition of philosophy until his day, constructed on the basis of Aristotelian principles as developed by the subsequent tradition. So, I would argue that Aquinas is, in his own way, a representative of the philosophia perennis. Perhaps one of the last outposts, by virtue of his relationship with the institution which preserved and carried forward his ideas. (I'm not writing this as a Catholic, by the way.)

The crucial point about Aquinas' hylomorphism is the way that the intellect (nous) comprehends forms (ideas). The principle is that the rational element of perception is united with the ideas of things in a way that sensory perception cannot be; knower becomes united with known. As Lloyd Gerson puts it, paraphrasing the famous passage from De Anima

Quoting Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. ... Thinking [i.e. discursive reason] is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

So rational knowledge of particular beings comprises the synthesis of sensory knowledge with intellectual perception. Through the intellect, 'what things truly are' is known, because the intellect sees the essence, is-ness, of things, whilst sensory perception only perceives their material form, which is in essence 'accidental', according to this philosophy.

However, this entire approach obviously depends on acceptance of the reality of universals (even if in the Aristotelian form of 'moderate realism' in contrast to the supposedly 'extreme' realism of Plato) which is generally a no-go theorem for modern empiricism (for deep historical reasons). But all the reading I've been doing of the Western philosophical tradition, it seems to offer the most coherent base of operations.

Some refs: https://thomasofaquino.blogspot.com/2013/12/sensible-form-and-intelligible-form.html

https://aquinasonline.com/cognition-identity-conformity/

Oxford introductory bibilography to contemporary hylomorphism.

Quoting Olivier5

Epistemic divide

:ok:

Quoting Wayfarer

So, I would argue that Aquinas is, in his own way, a representative of the philosophia perennis. Perhaps one of the last outposts, by virtue of his relationship with the institution which preserved and carried forward his ideas. (I'm not writing this as a Catholic, by the way.)

This is certainly a healthy subject at present. I recently saw an interesting discussion about this aspect of Platonism featuring Dr Jim Madden from Benedictine College. Incidentally, the work of Platonist scholar Dr Lloyd P Gerson keeps coming up in discussions I have read. I just read Gerson's paper - Platonism Versus Naturalism intriguing, even to a layman. Any views on him?

Reply to Tom Storm He's challenging to read for the non-specialist. He's the leading professor of Platonist Studies and so his writings are situated in the context of classical studies, and many of his arguments are replies to or arguments against views of other eminent specialists, with constant allusions to the classical corpus and also many highly-compressed versions of philosophical arguments. A 'Gerson reader' for the non-academic audience would be very useful. But that essay you mention, that I quoted, and which is also available as a video lecture by him, is a good starting point. I have the e-edition of From Plato to Platonism and have just discovered his latest, Platonism and Naturalism - the Possibility of Philosophy. I'm starting to get used to his style and intend to persist with reading his books despite the challenges.

Reply to Wayfarer I know he reads the originals in Greek and is a Platonist, so certainly will divide some people. I personally find this useful because I am interested to read from someone with full commitment to the philosophy. The paper was highly accessible in terms of his use of language so I may check him out further.

Quoting Seppo

Charge is attached to a particle... They can't be pulled apart. — Raymond
Um, right. That's because its not "attached to" it in a physical sense (again with the physical metaphor), charge is a property of a particle, and so its not meaningful to talk about "pulling it apart" any more than it would to talk of "pulling apart" the redness of an apple from the apple.

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there. The problem is the proposal that the mental "resides in" or "is attached to" the physical in the way that a physical property like charge does with a physical object, without itself being physical. In other words, the interaction problem, dualism's harder problem of consciousness.

Interesting thoughts. I don't know if the analogy of apples to physical particles helps here. Apples as objects can be grounded in the certainty of common perception, if we so agree. But physical particles are only categorized by their properties and do not have any material or observable substance. The lack of identity of physical particles should also be of very serious philosophical concern.

a fairly recent take

Reply to Wayfarer Reply to Tom Storm Thanks for mentioning Gerson. Based on online reviews (not Amazon), his From Plato to Platonism interests me – seems to challenge my 'anti-platonic naturalism' – the most. :cool:

Reply to 180 Proof Yes, that was my angle. I always want to hear the best possible defence of a position different to my own if I can find it (and if I can understand it :gasp:).

Quoting Raymond

This leaves reality out of reach forever. The interpretation, the theory is the reality.

You contradict yourself here, it seems to me.

My original point was that it is an error to consider science as anti-dualist. Individual scientists might be monist, if they care enough about confused metaphysics, but science itself requires no such monism. In fact, science AS A METHOD, is structurally dualist in that it combines facts and theories. No science without theory, and theory is thought. Science cannot devalue human thought without devaluing itself. And science cannot deny the existence of a thought-independent world out there. Otherwise all sciences would be but branches of psychology.

Quoting Olivier5

You contradict yourself here, it seems to me.

I like to contradict, be it myself or others. Keeps things going. What's wrong with that? I just don't like to contradict.

What do I seem to contradict? I use two approaches to reality. One that sets it apart of the human mind, implying the dualism you seem to have in mind, and the notion that such a form of dualism doesn't exist. Reality is what we think. A physicist sees fields of particles, a pantheist sees conscious entities everywhere, and a dualist like myself sees both approaches (not to an independent reality, in case you might think I contradict myself covertly...) combined., i.e, the basic ingredients of reality possess mental charge, as well as material properties. That's a different kind of dualism, I guess.

Is the dualism spoken about here the dualism you have in mind? The duality between what we think about reality and reality itself? Between knowledge about the world we see and the world itself? If that's the kind of dualism the thread is about, then there seems to be no problem. What we think about the world is the world.

Quoting Raymond

Reality is what we think. A physicist sees fields of particles, a pantheist sees conscious entities everywhere, and a dualist like myself sees both approaches (not to an independent reality, in case you might think I contradict myself covertly...) combined., i.e, the basic ingredients of reality possess mental charge, as well as material properties. That's a different kind of dualism, I guess.

Isn't it simply a displacement (or universalisation) of the classical Cartesian human mind vs matter 'divide', in direction of panpsychism?

Reply to Wayfarer

Quoting Wayfarer

Oxford introductory bibilography to contemporary hylomorphism.

Good resource. I note with interest:

"Jaworski, William. Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind: How Hylomorphism Solves the Mind-Body Problem. Oxford University Press, 2016" - "Argues that structure or form is a first-order explanatory principle [and] that endorsing this position provides the necessary metaphysical tools to solve various versions of the mind/body problem ...."

Seems close to my own intuitions.

Quoting TiredThinker

Is it implying that assuming dualism is a possibility that all science must be false in order for that to be the case?

Yes, it's implying that. But that implication as knowledge is also knowledge, which science is; so it says that its own claim is false.

You find yourself in a situation equivalent to Zero's paradox. "I am lying." If it's true, it's false; if it's false, it's true.

The article writer was, in my opinion, a total nincompoop who could not see beyond his nose. Or else he was a total genius and his claim proves the absurdity of our existence.

Quoting Olivier5

Isn't it simply a displacement (or universalisation) of the classical Cartesian human mind vs matter 'divide', in direction of panpsychism?

I don't think so. It's just a convenient way to solve the problem of how mind can emerge from material processes. If you consider material processes the only thing to exist, that problem can never be solved. You can involve whatever material processes, strange self referential loops, structured processes in the brain interacting with the material world, but that still leaves out a necessary ingredient: the mental. One can say it's an illusion coming into existence as a by-product of the processes, but that denies the reality of the mental.

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it. It is a necessary ingredient for interaction. Like mental charge is. Without this charge no interaction with the world around us would be possible. Materialists call it an illusion, while it's a reality. We couldn't even be mindless zombies because they can't exist in the first place, as matter without charge can't develop.

So there is no divide but a strict unity. Mind and matter can't be pulled apart, like charge and particle can't or brain, body, and the world can't.

Quoting Raymond

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it.

That's panpsychism, too iffy for my taste.

Point:
Quoting Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular

Counterpoint:
“....No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere....”
(CPR, A141/B180)

These two guys cannot both be right. Or....under what conditions could they both be right. Granting the validity of mental seeing in both cases, is seeing the form in the first the same or not, as imaging in the second?

Inquiring minds......

The mind exists only as a part of language, not as part of the world

The gist of the comments are about how the mind and brain interact, inferring that the mind and brain are two different things, whether different substances or made up from the same physical stuff.

Taking intentionality as an example, where intentionality is the quality of mental states (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) which consists in their being directed towards some object or state of affairs.

For example, I intend to raise my arm and my arm raises.

Rather than treat intentionality as a mental state of the brain that causes a new state of affairs, "intentionality" should be treated as a linguistic term that describes the state of the brain prior to its causing a new state of affairs.

IE, the mind is not a cause of a new state of affairs, the "mind" is no more than a word used in language to describe the state of the brain that causes a new state of affairs.

Language allows us to talk about unicorns, Sherlock Holmes, Martians, dragons, as well as minds.

Quoting Olivier5

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it.
— Raymond

That's panpsychism, too iffy for my taste.

Panpsychism:

"Panpsychism is the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. The view has a long and venerable history in philosophical traditions of both East and West, and has recently enjoyed a revival in analytic philosophy. For its proponents panpsychism offers an attractive middle way between physicalism on the one hand and dualism on the other. The worry with dualism—the view that mind and matter are fundamentally different kinds of thing—is that it leaves us with a radically disunified picture of nature, and the deep difficulty of understanding how mind and brain interact. And whilst physicalism offers a simple and unified vision of the world, this is arguably at the cost of being unable to give a satisfactory account of the emergence of human and animal consciousness. Panpsychism, strange as it may sound on first hearing, promises a satisfying account of the human mind within a unified conception of nature."

It's both matter and mental that's fundamental. I think it's the matter only view that is iffy. It is even contradicted by physics as physics projects a charge on matter too. Both quarks and leptons contain two kinds of color charges an electric charge. Mass is a different kind of charge. Physics doesn't call that mental charges but nevertheless charges nature with something panpsychism does too. Particles have no minds though, and it's therefore that panpsychists are not taken seriously. The Sun is no conscious viotile star as Sheldrake maintains. He even links this greedy star behavior to dark matter. Stars looking for other stars to eat by propelling themselves with cosmic rays, thereby creating the appearance that the laws of gravity look different over big distances. The guy has imagination but is crazy at the same time. A simple calculation shows he can't be right. He merely uses science as a cover for his weird idea. Dead matter has no mind. That's where the misunderstanding originates. Panpsychists claim everything has a mind. Though the quote doesn't say this. Remains the question what physicists mean by charge. It's a property, yes. But what is it? What's is nature? God knows, but you can use it to explain consciousness. Matter alone doesn’t suffice. If charge is a property of matter though, and it is, but with unknown nature, then consciousness is a logical property of complex structures of matter interacting with the world. It's even a necessary ingredient, like charge is for interaction with other particles. The charge of a particle makes it react to other particles, like it can influence other charged particles at the same time.
It's impossible to explain the feeling of pain, or seeing red (or even hearing it) and hearing sound (or seeing it), by reference to an uncharged material process. But as matter has charge, the problem dissappears. Hearing music is the charge of the material process in the brain it corresponds to. By hearing it we are even aware of these charges, mysterious as they might be. Why should the materialist call them illusions if they are there? Because they deny the dual aspect of nature, leading to unsolvable problems like the "hard problem", which actually is no problem at all.

Brain and mind are just two aspects of the same thing. The owner of the mind feels the content, the person looking from a safe distant will look at it from the outside, noting the material aspect only.

Quoting RussellA

IE, the mind is not a cause of a new state of affairs, the "mind" is no more than a word used in language to describe the state of the brain that causes a new state of affairs.

The brain and the mind are two sides of the same medal. You could just as well keep up that it's the mind that causes new states of the brain. Does the mind runs behind the brain state? Maybe it's the mind pulling the brain state. A charged particle is pulled by another charged particle. You can say with a just as happy face that charge pulls the particles. Like mind can pull the brain. If I'm angry, my ferocious mood can cause my thoughts to stagger in a blind alley.

Reply to Raymond What I can relate to, is the idea that forms exist universally and have causal efficacy. There is no matter without form (and vice versa). By "form" I mean the actual shapes that things take, not abstract forms.

Life appears to build on this, to be about form management, so to speak. Life uses codes, including hormones and DNA and all that jazz. And many species can collect and analyse information through neuronal networks. In this sense life -- even primitive life -- is already a language, a logos, and also a game. Almost a philosophy?

Quoting RussellA

the mind is not a cause of a new state of affairs

Finally.

As if an abstract non-entity can be a force.

Quoting RussellA

The mind exists only as a part of language, not as part of the world

How would your analysis differ if its object was (what is usually thought of as) a physical entity or process?

Quoting Mww

As if an abstract non-entity can be a force

The mind an abstract non-entity? It is as real an entity as the material processes you take for the real non-abstract entity. You can even say that the mind is the cause of the force that propagates material processes. Like charge inside matter is the cause for material processes to evolve. If you look at the brain materialistically it are the mental charges, the thoughts, or the (un)consciousness that cause the material processes to move their ass, like the charge inside particles is the cause for other charges inside matter to move. So you can consider the brain a materialistic process but the combined electric charges form a part of it. If you look at an object it triggers dellicately tuned electrictrically charged patterns with such a property that you see a colored object. The color is then explained not by a material process but by the charge that's in them. As these charges reside in you you are aware of them. You perceive the color red. Someone else looking at your brain from the outside will only see the outside of the material process, while the charged load of the process is color for you. So the explanation of color is that it's a structured form of electric charges on your neural network. Which can be called a materialistic explanation, which it's not in fact, as electric charge is not understood. It's manifestation as mental processes can be understood though, as we all know what the mental is. We all know what a dream is. From the outside it is seen as structured processes in the brain, lasting five minutes, but from the inside you experience an entire world lasting a lot longer (neurons fire faster, cortex neurons in the waking state fire about 0.16 times per second while in the dream state they do this up to 70 times, condensing hours in minutes).

Quoting Raymond

The mind an abstract non-entity?

What's 'an entity'? The definition is 'a thing with distinct and independent existence.' But the mind is not a thing, not an entity, not an object of any kind. Nevertheless, its reality is indubitable, as it is the pre-condition for speaking, writing and thinking or any kind of conscious activity.

Furthermore, your analytic metaphor of 'electrical charge' treats only of movement. By invoking the mechanism of 'electrical charges' and the firing of neurons, you're essentially treating the human subject as a kind of meccano set or model railway driven by electro-chemical reactions. But the mental faculty that this explanatory metaphor can't begin to explain is the faculty which grasps meaning and makes judgements. I don't think you can plausibly explain the elements of judgement in terms of physical interactions. But this doesn't entail the existence of 'spooky mind-stuff', which is a remnant of Cartesian dualism. Its analysis requires a change in perspective, an acknowledgement of the nature of mind as the ground of experience (hence the 'hard problem of consciousness'). And you can't seek to explain that ground in terms of higher-level abstractions, such as physics, as they themselves are inevitably dependent on the foundational activities of reason which are epistemically prior to any such observations (which I argue is the import of 'the observer problem' in physics.) In other words, all such explanations are inevitably question-begging, as they are always assuming what they're setting out to explain.

This is where the embodied cognition/enactivism framework has been particularly useful. I recommend becoming familiar with The Embodied Mind, Varela et al, revised edition 2015.

Quoting Raymond

You can even say that the mind is the cause of the force that propagates material processes.

Nahhhh....I can’t. Reeks of reification. Misplaced concreteness.

But you can if you like. I’ll wait for the peer review.

In our modern age, the idea of a soul as a conscious entity that can incarnate in a physical body and survive the physical body's death faces this dilemma: How can the soul interact with the physical body without being detected by scientists? In other words, if the soul interacted with the body via a very weak force, it might elude the observation of scientists but its influence on the body would seem insignificant; if on the other hand the soul interacted with the body via a relatively strong force, this force should be detectable by scientists.

How to resolve this dilemma? Well, there seems to be the possibility that the soul would interact significantly with the brain but it would elude detection because scientists would be unable to tell whether changes in brain activity that are measurable with contemporary brain scanning technology (fMRI, EEG) are or are not entirely caused by known particles or fields inside or outside the brain.

Still, if the soul was constituted by unknown particles or fields, why would such particles or fields not be detected in particle accelerators where they can be measured much more accurately than with brain scanning devices? For some reason, the soul would interact strongly with known particles in the brain (where it would be undetectable because of the complex brain processes and the limited resolution of our brain scanners) but it would interact only weakly with known particles in accelerators (where it would be undetectable because of the weakness of the interaction).

I don't know if this idea is viable but maybe the unknown particles that would constitute the soul normally interact only weakly with known particles (which makes them undetectable in accelerators) but their interaction with known particles in the brain is significantly amplified by resonance that can only occur between certain complex systems such as a soul and a brain (neural networks).

Quoting Wayfarer

What's 'an entity'? The definition is 'a thing with distinct and independent existence.' But the mind is not a thing, not an entity, not an object of any kind. Nevertheless, its reality is indubitable, as it is the pre-condition for speaking, writing and thinking or any kind of conscious activity.

Why can't the mind be a non-material thing contained in matter? Things don't have to be material. It can relate to the brain the same way charge relates to particles. It's mysterious in the sense that nobody knows what a particle is. You can call it an excitation of a particle field but just an outside description we project onto it. An excitation of a quantum field is just a way to describe the various states states a point particle is in at the same time. The very concept of a point particle is problematic. It's an abstraction from everyday life, where objects move around through space. A thing like charge is projected in it to account for it's interaction with other charged particles. But nobody knows exactly what it is. It is something contained in matter which enables matter with other chunks of matter. That same load of matter we eat and it gets transformed into brain matter where these charges are bundled on the neuron structures to holistically give rise to a consciousness. No mystery involved. A purely materialisic vision of the brain ignores the nature of this side of the dual medal. Which is non-explainable by science as it can't be known what charge is from the inside of a particle. But we do know it from the inside of our brain as we experience these charged structures directly. All of our consciousness, be it a thought, a vision, a sound, or a feeling can be directly linked to charged structures.

Quoting Raymond

Why can't the mind be a non-material thing contained in matter?

Got an example of a non-material thing?

I don't disagree with your depiction of neural changes as being 'thinking seen from the outside', but I don't know how much of an explanation that amounts to.

The realisation of the problematical nature of 'point-particles' (i.e. atoms) is one of the fundamental shifts that occured due to quantum physics, where previously it was believed by some that atoms were the fundamental constituents of nature. Their ambiguous nature as 'wave-particles' is one of the profound shifts that has occured in 20th century thinking, isn't it?

Reply to litewave Take a look at this post.

Also this.

Quoting Wayfarer

Got an example of a non-material thing?

Like I said, the charge in particles. Two color charges, giving rise to colored quarks, and colorless electrons and neutrinos, and electric charges loading both quarks and electrons. Neutrinos posses only two colorless combinations of color charge, no electric charge. Charge structures carried by matter can cause (holistically) consciousness. But what charges are? That can't be explained materialisticaly. But we can feel it.

Quoting Wayfarer

I don't think you can plausibly explain the elements of judgement in terms of physical interactions.

Why not? We already have electronic devices that can recognize faces or other objects and act on that recognition. Or perform complicated logical operations and defeat humans in games like chess and go.

Quoting litewave

We already have electronic devices that can recognize faces or other objects and act on that recognition. Or perform complicated logical operations and defeat humans in games like chess and go

both of which are extensions of human sensibility, artifacts manufactured and programmed for just this purpose. But because modern man 'forgets being' then she forgets that these are her own invention and begins to regard them as substitutes for herself.

Quoting Raymond

the charge in particles.

That can be measured. As for the fact that we don't know what it really is, maybe we don't know what anything 'really is'.

Reply to Wayfarer

In quantum field theory they are still considered point particles. As the wavefunction is a cross section of all the histories, also for QM they are considered so. This gives rise to infinities, as might be expected. Neatly wiped under the carpet.

Reply to Raymond through 'renormalisation', as I understand it.

Reply to Wayfarer

Just wanted to add that!

Quoting Wayfarer

both of which are extensions of human sensibility, artifacts manufactured and programmed for just this purpose.

But they have intelligent behavior like object recognition and logical operations which is realized by physical interactions. The intelligent behavior of humans may have been programmed too - by natural evolution or by other intelligent beings.

Quoting litewave

The intelligent behavior of humans may have been programmed too - by natural evolution or by other intelligent beings.

Can you imagine? Evolution sweating buckets while programming our behavior? Human behavior is not programmed, though it certainly can look so.

Quoting Raymond

Can you imagine? Evolution sweating buckets while programming our behavior? Human behavior is not programmed, though it certainly can look so.

Programmed but not necessarily consciously, just blindly smashing simple things into aggregates and those that happen to have the properties needed to sustain themselves in complex environment will sustain themselves and maybe randomly mutate and take on additional structure and replicate themselves and so on.

Reply to litewave

I don't think if we are constructed by the blind watchmaker of evolution. Genetic evolution might just as well be structured by the organisms themselves. The higher level behavior of organisms is far removed from genes that produce proteins. The dynamics of complicated structured of of proteins, the whole organism, is bound, for sure, but within the limits of their possibilities the behavior is not programmed. It depends on what you call programmed. If you mean a program like a program you can write or describe the moves then no. Every animal shows similar behavior as their fellow species, sure. All gazelles will flee for a lion, but that can hardly be called programmed. If lion then run...

Reply to Raymond
I mean programmed like learning machines. But initially the wouldbe organism has no goals (blind nature doesn't program any particular goal in it), it just exists and if it happens to have what it takes to survive, it will survive. If it doesn't have what it takes to survive, it will not survive. Those that are left will appear to have a "goal" of survival. But even those will decay over time. Some of them might happen to get the property to produce new copies of themselves and so they will continue to survive in their copies and will appear to have another goal: replication. As time passes they may change and get more properties and more goals, some of which may be subgoals to aid survival or replication, other goals may be irrelevant to survival or replication, and some goals may even be against survival or replication but if not too much they may not die out.

Reply to litewave

Survival and replication are contingent on life. Life itself is not programmed and uses survival and replication as a means to an end.

Quoting Wayfarer

That can be measured. As for the fact that we don't know what it really is, maybe we don't know what anything 'really is'.

We can measure distance and we see what it is. A charge can be measures by looking at the effects it has on the distance between particles. But the nature of charge is not known. It's something that causes matter particles to interact with other particles. Mind is sometimes referred as necessary for the interaction with the physical world. Both involve interaction. Mental charge as well as particle charge.

Quoting Wayfarer

When we watch the sunset we're aware of the colours, the sounds, the wildlife, the trees, the clouds in the sky, our feelings, the thoughts in our mind, all as elements of a subjective whole, of watching the sunset. It's indubitable that I am a subject of that experience and that the experience is unified; I don't receive signals from my sensory organs in the third person and then work on integrating them. I see, hear, smell, feel, and reflect. The mind is integrating the data into a sense of aesthetic appreciation.

As I see it, the issue is a difference of conceptual models.

On a representationalist view, there is a separation of (subjective) experience from the (objective) world. The subjective experience has to be synthesized from the signals coming from the environment. Hence the binding problem.

Whereas on a non-representationalist view, what we perceive just is the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about). The signals coming from the environment enable us to perceive what is there.

To fill that out a bit, consider the following mathematical function that has a fixed-point:

[math]f(x) = x^2 - 2[/math]

The number [math]2[/math] is a fixed point of function [math]f[/math] because [math]f(2) = 2[/math]. That is, the output of the function in that case just is the input.

Note that what is output is not a representation or synthesis of the input (or its properties). It's just the input itself (despite the function applying transformations to that input).

A human being in a normally-lit environment can be analogized to that function. There's a tree in its environment (the input), then a causal process occurs (the function) culminating in one's perception of the tree in its environment (the output). It's the same tree - the output just is the input (with the additional effect that the person is now aware of it).

Why is it the same tree? Because that's how we've set up the language game (or conceptual model). We point at a tree and define that as the input to the function - that's what we mean when we say "tree". When we get the same thing out that we put in, then we say that we have seen a tree. Whereas if we find out that we got something different, we use different language to describe the situation (e.g., "No, I didn't see a tree, it was a rock that just looked like a tree from that location.").

Scientists can investigate the causal process to understand how it works. Analogous to a mathematician investigating a function to understand how it works. But, under the non-representationalist model, science can't show us that what we see is different to what is there any more than mathematics can show us that [math]2^2 - 2 \neq 2[/math].

The benefit of the non-representationalist model is that we get to identify things in the world with what we perceive. And so a binding problem doesn't arise under that model. If what is there is a unity (e.g., B&H's example of a 'square purple box'), then so is what is perceived, since they're just the same thing.

Quoting Mww

I only used the compounded terminology because that was how it was originally presented. All experience is subjective, in that any experience belongs only to the rational agent that reasons to it, therefore “subjective experience” is superfluous.

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous as well, insofar as the given senses of them are already accounted for in established metaphysics. That is not to say they are false, or don’t have their own predication, but only that such predication has earlier, and better, representation.

Thanks! You omit those words (as superfluous) but, as I understand it, retain the underlying representationalist model.

Quoting Andrew M

On a representationalist view, there is a separation of (subjective) experience from the (objective) world. The subjective experience has to be synthesized from the signals coming from the environment. Hence the binding problem.

Whereas on a non-representationalist view, what we perceive just is the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about). The signals coming from the environment enable us to perceive what is there.

I don't think I hold to either of those views. Representationalism I associate with Locke, that ideas represent things. Then you have the whole problem of how they're related. And I think the non-representationalist view is basically naive realism. It is simply indubitale that subjective experience is in part constituted by sensory data, I can't see how that can plausibly be denied. But that doesn't necessarily entail representative realism.

Quoting Wayfarer

It is simply indubitale that subjective experience is in part constituted by sensory data, I can't see how that can plausibly be denied.

Maybe that's because you think in representationalist terms. ;-)

Reply to Andrew M I can assure you that I don’t. I just don’t think Hacker and Bennett can explain away the issues of the neural binding problem with a brief bit of philosophical jargon.

I mentioned Andrew Brook above, a scholar who says that Kant is ‘the godfather of cognitive science’. I wonder what H&B would make of that?

//ps// Is Bennett a neuroscientist or a cognitive scientist?

Quoting Wayfarer

I can assure you that I don’t. I just don’t think Hacker and Bennett can explain away the issues of the neural binding problem with a brief bit of philosophical jargon.

They wrote the influential book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" so they've given these issues serious consideration. To make an analogy to another scientific field, perceived problems for some quantum interpretations (say, non-locality, or many worlds) do not necessarily arise for others. The conceptual model makes a difference.

Quoting Wayfarer

I mentioned Andrew Brook above, a scholar who says that Kant is ‘the godfather of cognitive science’. I wonder what H&B would make of that?

I don't know. They don't mention Kant in PFN.

Quoting Wayfarer

//ps// Is Bennett a neuroscientist or a cognitive scientist?

Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience and University Chair at the University of Sydney.

Quoting Andrew M

They wrote the influential book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" so they've given these issues serious consideration

Of course, well aware of that. I've only read some excepts and reviews, but overall I'm positive about them, I note they're generally opposed to neural reductionism. I read some of Peter Hacker's essays on his website, he's plainly a very eminent philosopher, although I'm not sure I follow his critique of Descartes.

But the point is, the conscious state really is a synthesis of numerous types of sensory and sensorimotor data combined with judgement which manifests as the conscious unity of being. I'm simply at a loss how this can be denied. It's got nothing to do with representative realism. So I'm puzzled by statements like this:

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:One cannot combine colour, form and dimensions into perceptions, just as one cannot put events into holes (sic) - this form of words makes no sense.

Of course, 'one' doesn't do this as a deliberate act. It is the combined action of millions of cellular systems a lot of it done by automatic responses and the parasympathetic nervous system, the unconscious, subconscious, and so on. I have read studies that analyse this in detail, showing that the neural systems that capture sound, shape, size and colour information are discrete, most of which have been identified. What has not been identified, is the neural function which combines those disparate elements into a unified form.

I'm not going to press the point, as I really don't have a lot of interest in deliving into all of the literature about a very complex problem in cognitive science. Suffice to say though I'm not at all persuaded by their dismissal of it, and nothing you've said conveys any sense that you've really gotten the point of the argument. It has nothing directly to do with 'qualia'.

Quoting Andrew M

They don't mention Kant in PFN.

It's an oversight, I would think.

Quoting Andrew M

On a representationalist view, there is a separation of (subjective) experience from the (objective) world. The subjective experience has to be synthesized from the signals coming from the environment. Hence the binding problem.

Whereas on a non-representationalist view, what we perceive just is the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about). The signals coming from the environment enable us to perceive what is there.

But even in the non-representationalist view we don't perceive a tree (an external object) directly but only as "marks" left by incoming photons in our nervous system and these "marks" are a representation of the tree, not the tree itself, so I don't understand why such a view would be called non-representationalist.

When an OCR machine recognizes an alphabet character or a self-driving vehicle recognizes a pedestrian crossing the street, does it do so via a representationalist method or a non-representationalist method?

Quoting Raymond

The brain and the mind are two sides of the same medal.

Quoting Mww

As if an abstract non-entity can be a force.

Quoting SophistiCat

How would your analysis differ if its object was (what is usually thought of as) a physical entity or process?

Trying to pull these ideas together.

Our understanding of the mind-brain relationship is ultimately limited by language
Using language, I can say "I feel a pain" or I perceive blueness"
But when I use language to talk about the relationship between the mind and the brain, what I can say about the relationship is necessarily limited not by the truth but by the nature of the language.

The difference between "I am conscious" and "My mind is conscious"
When I say "I am conscious", I am speaking in the first person as an inside observer of my consciousness.
When I say "my car is in the garage", I am speaking in the third person as an outside observer of my car. I would not say that "I am my car.
When I say "My mind is conscious", I am speaking in the third person as an outside observer of my mind.

The "mind" exists in language and the mind may or may not exist in the world
In any discussion about the mind, there are two aspects: the "mind" as a word being part of the language game and the mind existing as a real thing in the world.

Either minds exist or they don't

If minds don't exist
If minds don't exist, then minds can still be discussed, as unicorns can be discussed.

If minds do exist
If I say that "my mind exists", then I am speaking as an outside observer, and as an outside observer I may be mistaken.

If I say that "I am my mind", then I am speaking as an inside observer of my mind. But this leads to the problem that the mind is discussing itself, leading to a circularity, in that the statement becomes either "I am I" or "my mind is my mind".
The statement "A is A" may be logically true, but it gives no information as to what "A" empirically is.

We can discuss the mind without ever knowing whether it exists or not
If minds don't exist, we can still discuss them as we can discuss unicorns
If minds do exist, then the mind would be discussing itself, leading to the problem of circularity, meaning that the mind would be unable to determine the truth of its own existence.

IE, even though "minds " exist in language, it is logically impossible for us to determine whether they exist in the world.

Reply to RussellA Only minds can discuss, though.

Quoting javra

If the mind is physical, then thoughts are physical. If a thought is physical, it consists of physical energy. If physical energy can be validly quantified as e = mc^2, then our physical thoughts, which consist of structured physical energy, then consist of physical mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Ergo, our physical thoughts have physical mass.

Where's the logical fallacy in this?

In "If a thought is physical, it consists of physical energy." There is no justification given, and it simply does not follow. Many things appear to exist, that do not consist of "physical energy". For instance: space, time, the surface area of a cube, the direction of a movement, a hole in the ground, an angle, 1 million dollars, the law of excluded middle, a novel, or the formula "e = mc^2".

People can speak of substance dualism, property dualism or monism untill they are blue in the face, but the truth is that nobody knows what constitutes a mind, yet. So let's not jump to conclusions.

Quoting RussellA

When I say "My mind is conscious", I am speaking in the third person as an outside observer of my mind.

I think this is a crucial point. You perceive the mental content, while someone else (or you looking in the mirror) sees looks at it from the outside, the material part. Though to look at a working brain is very difficult! You can only see tiny parts of its inside and to look at a working brain truly set apart from a body is just impossible. You can never see the working inside of the brain, except maybe by images given by scanning techniques.

Quoting Olivier5

Only minds can discuss, though

Would not disagree.

If dualism is true, then the mind is a different substance to the brain. If monism is true, then the mind is a synonym for the brain.

In both cases, the mind is doing the discussing.

Reply to RussellA By and large yes, and thus the existence of minds cannot be denied. That's the cogito.

Quoting RussellA

If I say that "I am my mind", then I am speaking as an inside observer of my mind. But this leads to the problem that the mind is discussing itself, leading to a circularity, in that the statement becomes either "I am I" or "my mind is my mind".
The statement "A is A" may be logically true, but it gives no information as to what "A" empirically is.

I would understand "I am my mind" as saying something about your concept of personal identity, i.e. "'I' (my self) is nothing other than my mind (whatever that is)".

Quoting RussellA

We can discuss the mind without ever knowing whether it exists or not
If minds don't exist, we can still discuss them as we can discuss unicorns
If minds do exist, then the mind would be discussing itself, leading to the problem of circularity, meaning that the mind would be unable to determine the truth of its own existence.

I don't see a logical problem here.

Also, we should clarify what it might mean to deny the existence of minds. One can intelligibly argue that most traditional philosophical concepts of "mind" are defective, or that simpleminded (heh) folk concepts of "mind" are inadequate. What else?

Quoting Raymond

mental content

The problem with words.

Yes, if I perceive mental content, I would say "I am conscious of the mental content", rather than "my mind is conscious of the mental content".

Quoting RussellA

Yes, if I perceive mental content, I would say "I am conscious of the mental content", rather than "my mind is conscious of the mental content".

Yes. The mind is there like the world is there. You are not your mind or the world, but you can't live without them. It's not you who does the thinking, it's you experiencing the thoughts. You can try to influence them like you can try to influence the world. Thoughts just happen like the world just happens.

Quoting Olivier5

Many things appear to exist, that do not consist of "physical energy". For instance: space, time, the surface area of a cube, the direction of a movement, a hole in the ground, an angle, 1 million dollars, the law of excluded middle, a novel, or the formula "e = mc^2".

Thinking about these examples of things that appear to exist but are not made of energy or matter, some of them (the surface area of a cube, the direction of a movement, a hole in the ground, an angle) can be defined as "morphological or "topological". They are shapes, i.e. forms. They are about how material things are configured. There's something objective in them. E.g. you can fall in a hole and die; the exposed surface of a rock does gets eroded faster than the inside, an inertial object does maintain its direction of movement, etc. They belong to what Popper called World 1: the set of material things and the shapes they take.

Other items in the list could be labelled "cultural": money, a scientific or logical law, a novel. Cultural objects exist in human societies, as beliefs, ideas, works of art, conventions and norms that are enforced, eg by police and tribunals, through scientific peer review, or by some other social mechanism. They belong what Popper called World 3: cultural objects, such as novels (not the paper and ink objects that are part of world 1, but the text, the novel itself).

In between World 1 and World 3, Popper placed the world of human thoughts, World 2. World 1 underpins World 2, which underpins World 3.

(In my own version of this pluralist view, the world of biology (living organisms) deserves a 'World', and Popper's Worlds 2 and 3 are rather similar so I lump them together and personally count the following 3 'worlds': 1) unanimated matter, 2) biology / life, 3) private thoughts and cultural/socially shared thoughts and objects.)

Evidently, life is a prerequisite for thoughts and societies, so thus defined, world 2 still underpins world 3.

These 'Worlds' are just categories of things in existence, not 'substances' nor 'properties' (whatever those words mean, which isn't clear to me). And there are obvious relationships and connections between 'worlds'. The point of postulating three 'worlds' is simply to assert the existence of non material things, such as the novel Pride and Prejudice. But even in the material world, things have shapes, and shapes have no weight, although they can be measured otherwise, eg they might have a volume.

Quoting SophistiCat

"'I' (my self) is nothing other than my mind (whatever that is)".

I agree that "I am my mind".

If I want to understand the nature of the mind, I cannot look at the minds of others, which will forever be closed to me, in that I could never discover what beetles others have in their individual boxes.

My only recourse is to try to understand my own mind, which is accessible to me, but with the consequence that my mind has to think about itself.

I have no problem with the concept that my mind can think about something outside itself, such as the range of the Cybertruck, but I have a problem with the concept of my mind thinking about itself. Does it mean that my mind is thinking about my mind thinking about my mind thinking about my mind, etc. As Schopenhauer wrote: “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of”

IE, if I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at the minds of other, and I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at my own, then I will never be able to understand the nature of the mind.

Quoting Andrew M

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous....
— Mww

Thanks! You omit those words (as superfluous) but, as I understand it, retain the underlying representationalist model.

Remember the times. Pierce, 1866, inflicted “quale” on the metaphysical world for one reason only: Kant didn’t elaborate on his infliction of “pure aesthetic judgement” on the metaphysical world. Or, I suppose....his elaboration was so complex its validity escaped everyone, so they speculated on their own. Given that Pierce was a Kantian, at least he was in 1866, and given that it is the case that he defined “qualia” as “the character of phenomenal experience”, it is clear he speculated his way far from the original, insofar as all experience has phenomenal ground, hence the notion of “superfluous”, and, experience doesn't even have “character” in the Enlightenment transcendental sense, hence the notion of speculative advancement of a standing theory.

Subsequent elaborations removed qualia from the phenomenal character of experience, per se, to manifestations of the “feeling of what it is like to have a phenomenal experience”, which predicated the concept on the affect of sense data has, that is, sensation, as elaboration over phenomena, on the subject’s feelings. This elaboration in effect twice removed qualia from Kantian metaphysics, in the first because, re: Pierce, experience doesn’t have character, and second, because, re: Lewis, 1929, while experience is certainly predicated on sense data given from objects of perception, feelings just as certainly are not. Continuing these conceptual monstrosities through time just made it easier to counter them, as they got further and further removed from the inception of them.

But back to the beginning......representations are all and only given from sensibility as intuitions, or understanding as conceptions. A representational model of cognitive metaphysics leaves room for qualia, obviously, because they can be thought, and furthermore they stand as valid conceptions insofar as they do not carry an intrinsic contradiction.
————-

Which gets us to......

The theorem:
One can hold with such representational model, while abstaining from incorporating qualia in it.

....which in turn dialectically mandates....

The proof:
Major:
It is really quite irrelevant that there is a quale representing a “feeling of what it is like”, if there is no aesthetic judgement made in relation to it. If we have the feeling and make no judgement, the feeling, and by association its cause, doesn’t matter. If we have a feeling and make a judgement on it, we have cognized that which belongs to the judgement as it relates to its cause but not always with a sufficient determination of it.

Minor:
We know this to be true, given we are sometimes presented with an occasion where we do like (instances of the beautiful which is always a pleasure) or do not like (instances of the sublime which is always a pain), the feeling we get from some thing or other of our experience, but can’t say why. And if we can’t say why, if we cannot judge a sufficient cause of the feeling, there’s no reason, under these beginning conditions, to say qualia are anywhere involved. It follows logically that if we cannot attribute qualia to some feelings, we loose justification for attributing them to any feelings, given that all feelings are, in and of themselves alone, regardless of degree or kind, all exactly equal as merely a human condition.

All that to posit this conclusion:
Qualia do nothing but give feelings an unwarranted cognizable object, and thereby make it so there is no need for aesthetic judgements to which cognizable objects actually belong, which is anathema to every single transcendentally conditioned human that ever lived. In other words.....all of us.

So there, dammit!!! How come everybody doesn’t know this already???? Obvious to even the most casual observer, right??? ‘Course it is.

Quoting Mww

It is really quite irrelevant that there is a quale representing a “feeling of what it is like”, if there is no aesthetic judgement made in relation to it.

Qualia have been posited as qualities of consciousness, as opposed to relations. They stand in relations and thus ground a structure of relations but qualia themselves are not relations and have no internal structure. They seem to fit the qualitative, unstructured character of basic elements of consciousness, for example the experience of red color, which is a homogenous, monadic redness. Qualia fit into a fundamental metaphysics of qualities and relations where both qualities and relations are seen as inseparable from each other: if there are qualities there must also be relations between them, and if there are relations there must also be non-relations (i.e. qualities) between which the relations hold. While relations can also hold between other relations, they must ultimately be grounded in non-relations, otherwise relations would be undefined.

Quoting RussellA

If I want to understand the nature of the mind, I cannot look at the minds of others, which will forever be closed to me, in that I could never discover what beetles others have in their individual boxes.

I don't see why not, unless you have very specific methodological requirements for such understanding. Taking "mind" in its ordinary sense, we certainly can have insight into other minds. Without that we would not have been able to relate to and interact with other people. Psychologists even have a term for this commonsense understanding of other minds: Theory of Mind.

Quoting RussellA

I have no problem with the concept that my mind can think about something outside itself, such as the range of the Cybertruck, but I have a problem with the concept of my mind thinking about itself. Does it mean that my mind is thinking about my mind thinking about my mind thinking about my mind, etc. As Schopenhauer wrote: “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of”

I really don't understand this problem with "mind thinking about itself." Isn't this what self-consciousness is? Perhaps you have some unrealistic expectations of what thinking should be like? To think about something is to have some idea, a few reflections about the object of your thought - not an instant and complete knowledge of the thing "as it really is" at that moment.

Quoting litewave

They stand in relations and thus ground a structure of relations but qualia themselves are not relations and have no internal structure.

Be that as it may, it only goes to sustain my opinion for the superfluousness of qualia, in that the Kantian categories adhere to that very same criteria and serve the same general purpose.

Quoting Olivier5

Many things appear to exist, that do not consist of "physical energy".

I'm in agreement with this, and is what I basically maintained in the context of this thread in regard to the mind and its contents. That it's absurd to maintain that "the idea that a unicorn, being an existent thought, is a mass / physical energy endowed physical thing that is not real" is one of the (acknowledgedly minor) points I somewhere hereabouts previously made. The point wasn't addressed.

Quoting RussellA

if I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at the minds of other, and I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at my own, then I will never be able to understand the nature of the mind.

Agreed, which means this.....

Quoting RussellA

I agree that "I am my mind".

....is wrong, and is only corrected by shortening it to “I am”, which immediately reconciles the contradiction stated here......

Quoting RussellA

Schopenhauer wrote: “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of”

.....and has the added benefit of being apodeitically certain.

Quoting Olivier5

Many things appear to exist, that do not consist of "physical energy". For instance: space, time, the surface area of a cube, the direction of a movement, a hole in the ground, an angle, 1 million dollars, the law of excluded middle, a novel, or the formula "e = mc^2".

:clap:

Quoting SophistiCat

I really don't understand this problem with "mind thinking about itself."

The difference between the self or subject and any object of knowledge whatever is precisely that the self or subject is never an object of cognition as a matter of definition.

The classical statement of this problem comes not from Western philosophy but from the Upani?ads. The 'sage, Y?jñavalkya' is asked to provide an account of ?tman, the purported 'inner controller' or 'ultimate subject'. Y?jñavalkya says

You tell me that I have to point out the Self as if it is a cow or a horse. Not possible! It is not an object like a horse or a cow. I cannot say, 'here is the ?tman; here is the Self'. It is not possible because you cannot see the seer of seeing. The seer can see that which is other than the Seer, or the act of seeing. An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot see the seer of seeing. You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding. That is the ?tman. [sup]1 [/sup]

This idea is the subject of an interesting lecture by Michel Bitbol, philosopher of science, It is never known, but it is the knower.

Quoting Wayfarer

The difference between the self or subject and any object of knowledge whatever is precisely that the self or subject is never an object of cognition as a matter of definition.

Ah well, that's that sorted out then :roll:

Bertrand Russell:The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

Reply to SophistiCat Didn’t think you’d like it, but I did try.

Quoting javra

I'm in agreement with this, and is what I basically maintained in the context of this thread in regard to the mind and its contents. That it's absurd to maintain that "the idea that a unicorn, being an existent thought, is a mass / physical energy endowed physical thing that is not real" is one of the (acknowledgedly minor) points I somewhere hereabouts previously made. The point wasn't addressed.

Okay then, sorry if I misunderstood your argument. Unicorns don't exist on planet earth other than as a human fantasy -- though we can't rule out that they might 'exist for real' elsewhere in this vast universe -- so the question seems to be: how many Joules for a dream?

That strikes me as the wrong scale. Fantasies are not measurable this way, but they do exist on a different 'plane' or 'world' than that of matter and energy. That's where dualism (or pluralism) is "truer" or better than monism: it helps depict our reality in a more efficient and useful manner. Unlike any type of monism, pluralist philosophies try to recognise the diversity and complexity of our experience. They don't try to put square pegs into round holes. I suppose their disadvantage is that they don't offer a fully coherent view of the world.

I don't get it. I once heard Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist, science educator, author) say that the total amount of energy in the universe is [math]0[/math]. Supposing included in that calculation is all matter (mass energy equivalene: [math]E = mc^2[/math]). 0 Joules of energy is like saying "I have 0 pets." The "pets" is meaningless or something like that. Lawrence Krauss wrote a book called A universe from nothing.

Physicalism has no leg to stand on, right?

Quoting Wayfarer

This idea is the subject of an interesting lecture by Michel Bitbol, philosopher of science, It is never known, but it is the knower.

That Bitbol lecture is a blast, but it does not argue for the impossibility of self-knowledge. Rather, it argues that one must recognize the knower as a condition for knowledge, that it is necessary to put back the human mind at the heart of any human knowledge, rather than try and abstract of it.

Against Schophehauer apparently, I would think that self-awareness is a key feature of the mind. There's a mise en abîme somewhere there, and one of my favorite hypotheses is that our two brains produce such an effect by perceiving one another.

That's not to say that it is easy to know oneself. It is in fact very hard, due to the issues that Bitbol and your Buddhist text raise. But not impossible.

Quoting Wayfarer

So I'm puzzled by statements like this:

"One cannot combine colour, form and dimensions into perceptions, just as one cannot put events into holes (sic) - this form of words makes no sense." — History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.

Maybe because you conceive of perception differently to B&H (and, I might suggest, ordinary language users). Color, form and dimensions are characteristics that objects have. Perception is the process by which we become aware of an object with such characteristics. It's not a process of purple, squareness and boxhood being synthesized in our minds or, alternatively, brains.

BTW, I'm not sure why you added "(sic)" to the quote. B&H were pointing out that it's a category mistake.

Quoting Wayfarer

I'm not going to press the point, as I really don't have a lot of interest in deliving into all of the literature about a very complex problem in cognitive science. Suffice to say though I'm not at all persuaded by their dismissal of it, and nothing you've said conveys any sense that you've really gotten the point of the argument. It has nothing directly to do with 'qualia'.

Qualia is central to the argument in the paper you originally quoted:

Quoting The neural binding problem(s) - Jerome Feldman

The subjective unity of perception

We will now address the deepest and most interesting variant of the NBP, the phenomenal unity of perception. There are intractable problems in all branches of science; for Neuroscience a major one is the mystery of subjective personal experience. This is one instance of the famous mind–body problem (Chalmers 1996) concerning the relation of our subjective experience (aka qualia) to neural function. Different visual features (color, size, shape, motion, etc.) are computed by largely distinct neural circuits, but we experience an integrated whole."

Quoting litewave

But even in the non-representationalist view we don't perceive a tree (an external object) directly but only as "marks" left by incoming photons in our nervous system and these "marks" are a representation of the tree, not the tree itself, so I don't understand why such a view would be called non-representationalist.

Because we're not perceiving either a neural or a mental representation of the tree, we're perceiving the tree itself. Further, the 'binding problem' assumes there must be a unified representation or image, which the non-representationalist view rejects.

Quoting litewave

When an OCR machine recognizes an alphabet character or a self-driving vehicle recognizes a pedestrian crossing the street, does it do so via a representationalist method or a non-representationalist method?

Non-representationalist for the self-driving vehicle - it's recognizing objects in the environment, not "perceiving" an image. Could go either way for the OCR machine, i.e., whether one would say it's recognizing the alphabetic character on the paper, or on the captured image.

Quoting Mww

This elaboration in effect twice removed qualia from Kantian metaphysics,

:up:

Quoting Mww

insofar as all experience has phenomenal ground, hence the notion of “superfluous”, and, experience doesn't even have “character” in the Enlightenment transcendental sense

So I'm curious whether you think that statement is compatible with the view that experience is grounded in the world, understood as that which we can point to around us (and which do have characteristics, e.g., the red flower in the vase).

Quoting Mww

while experience is certainly predicated on sense data given from objects of perception, feelings just as certainly are not.

And also whether that statement is compatible with saying that what we perceive are objects in the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about).

(I note that you mention "sense data", but also that it is not "sense data" that is perceived, since it is not an object of perception).

Quoting Mww

One can hold with such representational model, while abstaining from incorporating qualia in it.

Thanks, I think I'm clearer on your view now. I might come back to this later.

Quoting SophistiCat

Taking "mind" in its ordinary sense, we certainly can have insight into other minds

If I touched a hot stove with my bare hand, I would know my subjective experience.

If I see someone touch a hot stove with their bare hand and instantly jump back exclaiming, I can understand what I have objectively observed, but I can never know what subjective experience that person may or may not have had.

Quoting SophistiCat

I really don't understand this problem with "mind thinking about itself."

I agree that to think is to think about something, and to be conscious is to be conscious of something, such as trees and pains.

There are different types of self-consciousness.

1) If the object of my consciousness is a pain in my arm, then I am being conscious of my self, and in a sense self-conscious.

2) If the object of my consciousness is my consciousness itself, then this can also be called self-consciousness.

In order for me to understand the nature of the mind, my object of consciousness cannot be the minds of others, which I can never know, but rather my object of consciousness must be itself.

The question is, is consciousness of itself possible ?

Quoting Andrew M

all experience has phenomenal ground.....
— Mww

So I'm curious whether you think that statement is compatible with the view that experience is grounded in the world, understood as that which we can point to around us.....

Hmmmm. “In the world” implies spatial location, and because experience is not in the world, I would go with “grounded by the world”. This removes the ambiguity of location but leaves the necessary implication of time, insofar as experience always presupposes its objects.

A common rejoinder is the notion that phenomena are themselves in the world, but this is not the case. Phenomena are “the undetermined objects of intuition”, most easily grasped by comparing phenomena to the information transferred along the nerves. This separates the external object from the impression it makes on our senses, and because we are never aware of such physical transfer, it fits with the “undetermined” in the metaphysical definition. Convention puts phenomena in the world; critical reason does not.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

.....that which we can point to around us (and which do have characteristics, e.g., the red flower in the vase).

Ever wonder how it became “red flower in a vase”? How does something....anything.....get its characteristics?
————-

Quoting Andrew M

while experience is certainly predicated on sense data given from objects of perception.....
— Mww

And also whether that statement is compatible with saying that what we perceive are objects in the world.....

Yes, what we perceive are objects in the world, that which impresses, or affects, our senses.

Quoting Andrew M

....objects in the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about).

No, we have thoughts and feelings about representations of perceived objects in the world. It behooves the purely physicalist-minded, to remember 100% efficiency of energy transformation is absolutely impossible for human sensory apparatus. Because there is necessarily energy loss, that which is upstream from sensation can never be the same as what is downstream from it. If the latter is different in some way, it can no more than merely represent the former to some arbitrary degree.

That relieves us of invoking the tautological nonsense of saying things like, “there are no basketballs, ‘57 DeSoto’s.....and no “red flowers in a vase”.....in my head”.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

(I note that you mention "sense data", but also that it is not "sense data" that is perceived, since it is not an object of perception).

Correct. Which gets us back to how objects get their characteristics. Sense data is quite general, yet characteristics are particulars. That the particulars are derivable from the generals doesn’t say how the one is separated from the other, if that is the case, or annexed to the other, if that is the case.

All that reduces to.....is it a red flower in a vase because it just is that, or, is it a red flower in a vase because we say it is just that. Personal preference?

Quoting Andrew M

Color, form and dimensions are characteristics that objects have. Perception is the process by which we become aware of an object with such characteristics. It's not a process of purple, squareness and boxhood being synthesized in our minds or, alternatively, brains.

Apparently so.

I don't think science would collapse. It would be like the beginning of the last century when they thought the subject of science was this 4 dimensional universe of macroscopic objects. Then the quantum cowboys came along and discovered weird things and it turned out that the ordinary physical universe is only a simple thing compared to the weird thing.

Likewise with mind-brain. If they discover non physical mind, brain stuff will seem relatively simple.

Quoting Andrew M

BTW, I'm not sure why you added "(sic)" to the quote.

Because it was written as 'hole' not 'whole'.

Quoting Andrew M

Qualia is central to the argument in the paper you originally quoted:

Fair enough, the paper does refer to it qualia in that particular reference to Chalmers. But note that the section of the subjective unity of experience is one of four sections.

Quoting Andrew M

Perception is the process by which we become aware of an object with such characteristics. It's not a process of purple, squareness and boxhood being synthesized in our minds or, alternatively, brains.

Well, those processes can be identified and analysed according to the source. There are identifiable neural systems associated with color, number, shape and movement. Perception must require the synthesis of those elements of experience, despite saying 'no it doesn't'.

Quoting Andrew M

the 'binding problem' assumes there must be a unified representation or image, which the non-representationalist view rejects.

[quote=Chalmers and Bayne]At any given time, a subject has a multiplicity of conscious experiences. A subject might simultaneously have visual experiences of a red book and a green tree, auditory experiences of birds singing, bodily sensations of a faint hunger and a sharp pain in the shoulder, the emotional experience of a certain melancholy, while having a stream of conscious thoughts about the nature of reality. These experiences are distinct from each other: a subject could experience the red book without the singing birds, and could experience the singing birds without the red book. But at the same time, the experiences seem to be tied together in a deep way. They seem to be unified, by being aspects of of a single encompassing state of consciousness.[/quote]

This is not dependent on representative realism.

Quoting Olivier5

That Bitbol lecture is a blast, but it does not argue for the impossibility of self-knowledge. Rather, it argues that one must recognize the knower as a condition for knowledge, that it is necessary to put back the human mind at the heart of any human knowledge, rather than try and abstract of it.

Quite right. This was also central to Husserl's whole project. The whole problem of 'scientism' can be seen as treating human being as an object while simultaneously overlooking or denying the centrality of the subjective nature of perception.

Quoting Olivier5

Against Schophehauer apparently, I would think that self-awareness is a key feature of the mind. There's a mise en abîme somewhere there, and one of my favorite hypotheses is that our two brains produce such an effect by perceiving one another.

I think the kind of awareness that the subject has of its own existence is different in kind to awareness of objects and the environment. My knowledge of my own existence is internal to consciousness, were I deprived of all sensory stimulus I still know that I am. There is the subjective pole of experience, which is the condition of consciousness, in other words, it must be conscious before any experience. Knowing-being, you could call it. I'm sure it is real even in primitive organisms but only the subject of rational analysis in man (also something Schopenhauer says). That is what I regard as the nature of 'being'. Notice the word - be-ing. It's a verb, denoting an act. (Somehow this strikes me as significant.)

Quoting Olivier5

Unicorns don't exist on planet earth other than as a human fantasy -- though we can't rule out that they might 'exist for real' elsewhere in this vast universe -- so the question seems to be: how many Joules for a dream?

I guess my main point with that example of unicorns as existent thoughts was the absurdity of stipulating that there can be "existent physical things that are not physically real". I'll stand by the absurdity of this till evidenced wrong.

Quoting Olivier5

Unlike any type of monism, pluralist philosophies try to recognise the diversity and complexity of our experience. They don't try to put square pegs into round holes. I suppose their disadvantage is that they don't offer a fully coherent view of the world.

I like that, though the last sentence might imply to some that physicalism does offer a fully coherent view of the world. It doesn't. Otherwise there wouldn't be logically substantiated debates about it.

Quoting Agent Smith

[...] Physicalism has no leg to stand on, right?

Some, such as myself, would agree with this statement. :smile:

Quoting Wayfarer

At any given time, a subject has a multiplicity of conscious experiences. A subject might simultaneously have visual experiences of a red book and a green tree, auditory experiences of birds singing, bodily sensations of a faint hunger and a sharp pain in the shoulder, the emotional experience of a certain melancholy, while having a stream of conscious thoughts about the nature of reality. These experiences are distinct from each other: a subject could experience the red book without the singing birds, and could experience the singing birds without the red book. But at the same time, the experiences seem to be tied together in a deep way. They seem to be unified, by being aspects of of a single encompassing state of consciousness. — Chalmers and Bayne


This is not dependent on representative realism.

:100:

Reply to Wayfarer
I have listened to the Gerson lecture a couple of times. Do you know of a link to a printed copy? Each of his statements are proposals to discuss very specific topics.

I agree with Gerson's argument that Aristotle is not stepping outside of what 'urPlatonism' militates against. On the other hand, it seems that Aristotle worked hard to have the empirical inquiry of the natural world be worthy and capable of going forward, even if upon a problematical basis.

Is that a compromise, as Gerson would describe it? It seems to me that Aristotle's efforts to separate inquiries reflect an interest in avoiding putting matters in those terms of opposition.

Quoting javra

[...] Physicalism has no leg to stand on, right?
— Agent Smith

Some, such as myself, would agree with this statement. :smile:

:up:

Quoting javra

I guess my main point with that example of unicorns as existent thoughts was the absurdity of stipulating that there can be "existent physical things that are not physically real".

My take on the reality of universals (and numbers, laws, principles and the like) is that they are only perceptible to reason, but they're the same for all who think. I suppose you can say mythological animals, like unicorns, and fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes, are real in the sense that they're part of a shared culture, but they're fictional nonetheless. The Pythagoeran theorem is real in a way that they aren't, although spelling out why is obviously going to be tricky.

Quoting Paine

I have listened to the Gerson lecture a couple of times. Do you know of a link to a printed copy?

You'll find it here.

Quoting Paine

Is that a compromise, as Gerson would describe it? It seems to me that Aristotle's efforts to separate inquiries reflect an interest in avoiding putting matters in those terms of opposition.

Big question. My understanding is that Aristotle is seen as practical, empirical and scientific, and Plato the mystical dreamer. In the famous Raphael frieze Plato is pointing towards the heavens, Aristotle has his hand out in front, palm-down.

I think the fundamental disagreement is around the reality of ideas. The traditional story is that Plato believes that ideas are real and dwell in an actual Platonic realm, while Aristotle believes they are real only in the form in which they are embodied. To drill down to the intricacies of that debate, which has occupied generations of scholars, takes a lot of reading, but I think Lloyd Gerson is well regarded as a guide to that subject - one of his books is called Aristotle and Other Platonists which goes into it in depth. He points out that there are periods when the division is seen as fundamental, but also long periods in which the Platonist tradition believed that they were in basic agreement. But it's a deep and difficult argument.

Quoting RussellA

If I touched a hot stove with my bare hand, I would know my subjective experience.

If I see someone touch a hot stove with their bare hand and instantly jump back exclaiming, I can understand what I have objectively observed, but I can never know what subjective experience that person may or may not have had.

It is trivially true that you can only experience what you can experience, but your thoughts and attitudes can be directed at either yourself or at others - and that includes your own and other people's state of mind.

Quoting SophistiCat

your thoughts and attitudes can be directed at either yourself or at others

I agree that my thoughts can be directed at another person's mind, as my thoughts can be directed at the table in front of, but this is not the same as being able to subjectively experience another person's mind.

Quoting Wayfarer

The whole problem of 'scientism' can be seen as treating human being as an object while simultaneously overlooking or denying the centrality of the subjective nature of perception.

A point Husserl made well, and a great contribution to philosophy IMO.

Quoting Wayfarer

There is the subjective pole of experience, which is the condition of consciousness, in other words, it must be conscious before any experience. Knowing-being, you could call it. I'm sure it is real even in primitive organisms but only the subject of rational analysis in man (also something Schopenhauer says).

Yes to this. When I speak of other animal species' potential conscious experience and subjectivity, I am not saying it is equal to ours, obviously it's not. I am just saying biology gives us no reason to believe that other animals than Homo sapiens totally lack self-awareness. On the contrary, evolution theory tells us that changes come very gradually, that new species recycle much of what older species have or do, that true radical novelty is extremely rare in evolution.

So it is quite improbable biologically speaking that dogs, cats or chimpanzees be p-zombies. They are not that far from us, you can bet they have feelings too.

Quoting Wayfarer

That is what I regard as the nature of 'being'. Notice the word - be-ing. It's a verb, denoting an act. (Somehow this strikes me as significant.)

I am a big fan of Aristotle on this: being is an all-encompassing category and therefore, there can be no science of being. For any science needs to focus on a type of object to study. Granted that in phenomenology, being is not meant as the being of everything and nothing, but precisely focused on us, human beings. On how it feels to be a human at the world.

To study being in this sense is to study the human fate so to speak, aka our human existence and toil here on earth, phenomenologically.

That is still a very broad scope. The project of all philosophy I suppose.

Quoting Wayfarer

My take on the reality of universals (and numbers, laws, principles and the like) is that they are only perceptible to reason, but they're the same for all who think. I suppose you can say mythological animals, like unicorns, and fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes, are real in the sense that they're part of a shared culture, but they're fictional nonetheless. The Pythagoeran theorem is real in a way that they aren't, although spelling out why is obviously going to be tricky.

I’ve mentioned this before … some long time ago. I’m myself operating with the notion of there being distinct forms of reality within the metaphysics I’ve been working on: intra-subjective reality in the plural (realities strictly located within an individual subject: e.g., the reality of one’s dreams: “that was a real dream I had an not a lie”); inter-subjective reality, also in the plural (e.g. languages and cultures, as well as religions, etc.); [now termed] equi-subjective reality, which is singular [poetically, “the uni-verse” where “verse” is taken to be equivalent to logos] (very much including physical objectivity, as well as at least some universals such as that of a circle: basically that set of actualities which affect and effect all subjects equally with or without their awareness … and, hence, this regardless of their intra-realities and inter-realties); and last but not least, ultra-subjective reality (a lot more cumbersome to succinctly express, but, in short, that which is considered to be ultimate reality … by all means in no way necessitating an Omnipotent Deity, it could just as well be Nirvana, or Brahman, or “the One” (or, for fairness, even absolute nonbeing … long spiel to clarify this last one … but, point being, there are conceivable alternatives to choose amongst)).

So, within this stipulated frame of mind, Sherlock Holmes will be an inter-real entity, but not an equi-real one. Pi and the Pythagorean theorem will be non-physical equi-real givens. I know all this is kind’a worthless without a full account of the philosophy. I’m working on it … but it’ll be years before I’m anywhere close to completion.

At any rate, my current terse thoughts on the matter. In short, I’m in agreement.

Quoting javra

my main point with that example of unicorns as existent thoughts was the absurdity of stipulating that there can be "existent physical things that are not physically real". I'll stand by the absurdity of this till evidenced wrong.

I agree that to try and categorize thoughts as 'physical' leads to seeming absurdities. This form of monism is simply a category error.

Logically speaking, if some things are deemed physical, then it follows that some other things are not to be deemed physical, or the terms 'physical' means everything and nothing...

If one says: "Everything is red" or "Everything is a triangle", or "Everything sucks", then the question arises: what do "red", "triangle" or "sucks" mean in these sentences? What work do they do?

Quoting javra

the last sentence might imply to some that physicalism does offer a fully coherent view of the world. It doesn't.

Good point.

Taking the thread to be about substance dualism (the idea that the mind is a different substance to the brain), the question is what can we ever know about the mind.

Perhaps Descartes should have said "I am my thoughts, therefore I am"

Descartes said "I think, therefore I am", prompting the question "what is the link between "I" and my thoughts ?"

There are two possibilities:

1) Either, there is an "I" that thinks, where the "I" has an existence independent of its thoughts, as computer hardware has an existence independent of its software
2) Or, the "I" is its thoughts, in that if there were no thoughts, then there would be no "I", where the word "is" means an identity, in the same way that "A is A"

Solution A) - There is an "I" that thinks
To be conscious is to be conscious of something, and that something must be external to whatever is being conscious, that something cannot be itself.
Similarly, a thought must be of something, and that thought must be external to whatever is having the thought, that thought cannot be itself.
The inevitable consequence is that, as I can never know the nature of another person's mind, and as my mind can never know itself, the nature of the mind will be forever unknown, meaning that we can never say whether dualism is true or not.

Solution B) - The "I" is its thoughts

I cannot be conscious of my own consciousness, and my thoughts cannot be about themselves. However, I can be conscious of some of my thoughts, where such thoughts are about something.

Suppose that "I" am the set of my thoughts. Then my mind also is the set of my thoughts. Therefore "I am my mind". The words "am" and "is" mean identity, in the same way that "A" is "A"

If I am the set of my thoughts, and thoughts must be about things, then it follows that "I" am the set of things that is being thought about.

In order to know the nature of the mind, where the mind is a set of thoughts about things, then I need to know the nature of the set of things being thought about.

As these things are external to the mind, then this allows the possibility that the mind could be understood by reference to that which is external to the mind, avoiding the problem of self-reference laid out in Solution A.

Summary
There is a possibility of understanding the mind if the "I" is its thoughts rather than there is an "I" that thinks.

Perhaps Descartes should have said: "I am my thoughts, therefore I am"

Reply to RussellA

Not bad.

Except I am more than my thoughts. I am not only my thoughts.

Quoting Mww

Except I am more than my thoughts. I am not only my thoughts.

In contrast to such stance, it at least seems valid that I don't necessarily change whenever my thoughts change. As one example: I'm the same being I was any number of years ago, despite many of my thoughts having drastically changed over the years. To not mention changes in my body.

Which in a roundabout way brings to mind Descartes: if he knew he was because he thought and knew he thought because he doubted (per common interpretations of his philosophy, doubt proves thought proving the "I" as thinker), then: did he not know he was (i.e., existed - but not in the "stands out" sense) whenever he didn't doubt his own existence?

Else, assuming that the "I" is equivalent to its own thoughts + other attributes, was Descartes not the same person when he didn't try to doubt his own being?

(personal identity is quite the headache, at least for me)

Quoting javra

In contrast to such stance......

Which stance are we talking about here? His, or mine? You quoted me, so supposing my stance, that we are not only our thoughts, your comment that we don’t necessarily change along with our thoughts, seems to support it, which isn’t in contrast to it.

So...I shall assume his, in which case, I agree, but only in the lesser sense, that we do not change along with our thoughts. But, as soon as we bring in time, we leave the lesser sense, and get down to the technical, greater, sense.
—————

Quoting javra

Descartes: if he knew he was because he thought

Gotta be careful here. Rene never said he knew anything; all he ever said was he doubts, and that necessarily. Makes no sense to say I know I doubt, while I am actually engaged in doubting.

“....I wasn’t meaning to deny that one must first know what thought, existence and certainty are, and know that it’s impossible for something to think while it doesn’t exist, and the like. But these are utterly simple notions, which don’t on their own give us knowledge of anything that exists...”
(P. P., 2. 10., 1647)

From that, we can say he never claimed knowledge of “I”, or mind as subject, even after having proved “I am” because his thoughts are indubitable. That a thing is necessary doesn’t tell us anything about what it is. Or, ontology claims are not epistemological claims. Descartes never said he knew he was merely because he couldn’t doubt his thoughts; his successors foisted that on him, without proper warrant.

On the other hand, one could fall back on “knowledge that”, in order to escape “knowledge of”. Like I said....gotta be careful.
————-

Quoting javra

personal identity is quite the headache, at least for me

Personal identity invokes conceptions of virtue, which involves reason, as do any conceptions. But reason is fallible, so.....there ya go.

Quoting RussellA

Perhaps Descartes should have said: "I am my thoughts, therefore I am"

As has been pointed out many times, Augustine anticipated Descartes:

[quote=Augustine, On the Trinity 10.10.14 quoted in Richard Sorabji Self, 2006, p.219]But who will doubt that he lives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? For even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts where his doubts come from, he remembers. If he doubts, he understands that he doubts. If he doubts, he wants to be certain. If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows that he does not know. If he doubts, he judges that he ougth not rashly to give assent. So whoever acquires a doubt from any source ought not to doubt any of these things whose non-existence would mean that he could not entertain doubt about anything.[/quote]

Quoting RussellA

To be conscious is to be conscious of something, and that something must be external to whatever is being conscious, that something cannot be itself.

In Aristotelian philosophy the mind is united with the object of knowledge insofar as that object is intelligible. 'The mind, according to him, is potentially all things, in that it actually is the same as the object of thought when it thinks (402b15-16).2 The mind, by receiving form without its matter, can become that thing when it thinks. If the mind receives the form with matter, it would be all things in the literal sense. However, since it receives the form without matter, the way in which the thing exists in the mind is different from the way in which it exists outside the mind. Thus the mind is not all things in the literal sense.'

'In addition to sense knowledge, man has intellectual knowledge of boundless scope. He understands not merely this or that in the particular case, but being in general, and also nonbeing, one and many in general, whole, and part in general. He understands not merely this or that natural body, but matter and body in general, plant or animal in general, man or human nature in general. The proper object of the human intellect is indeed something in the material world, but this man knows by intellect as universal, that is, as abstracted from particulars. Thus the human being enjoys a higher degree of immateriality, by which s/he becomes and is, in an immaterial way, not merely a particular thing but a being universal and transcendent. Hence the human knower as intellective is immaterial, and the intellective power is anorganic or spiritual.'

This doesn't make science wrong but it surely challenges materialism.

Quoting Mww

That a thing is necessary doesn’t tell us anything about what it is. Or ontology claims are not epistemological claims

Perhaps the two kinds of claims are not only not similar but inversely proportional to some extent.

Descartes campaigned for a particular method of epistemology to be the benefactor of his establishment of the cogito. It seems safe to say that the responses to his claim go well beyond what he imagined.

Quoting Mww

Which stance are we talking about here? His, or mine? You quoted me, so supposing my stance, that we are not only our thoughts, your comment that we don’t necessarily change along with our thoughts, seems to support it, which isn’t in contrast to it.

My bad, I should have made myself more explicit: If my thoughts and other attributes can change without me changing along with them, then it seems reasonable to conclude that I am neither my thoughts nor my other attributes. But that - just as our language coincidentally has it - my thoughts and other attributes are things that belong, or else pertain, to me (rather than equating to me).

That I am not my thoughts and other attributes is a different perspective than the one you mentioned ... a perspective that to me holds at least some justification.

Quoting Mww

On the other hand, one could fall back on “knowledge that”, in order to escape “knowledge of”. Like I said....gotta be careful.

I was going more for knowledge by acquaintance ... as in, "I know what I saw". Still, point taken.

Quoting Mww

Hmmmm. “In the world” implies spatial location, and because experience is not in the world, I would go with “grounded by the world”. This removes the ambiguity of location ...

That doesn't seem right to me. I experienced the excitement of New York in New York. I had a memorable experience at the restaurant. I gained experience in my job at the supermarket. Getting stung by a wasp in the garden was a painful experience.

Are you using the term "experience" differently to all of those?

Quoting Mww

Ever wonder how it became “red flower in a vase”? How does something....anything.....get its characteristics?

Yes. Why is the sky blue? Why does the glass window have no color? We seek to understand by investigating the things we observe (which can also include the creatures doing the observing).

I can also think about the conceptual schemes within which those questions can be posed.

Quoting Mww

No, we have thoughts and feelings about representations of perceived objects in the world. It behooves the purely physicalist-minded, to remember 100% efficiency of energy transformation is absolutely impossible for human sensory apparatus. Because there is necessarily energy loss, that which is upstream from sensation can never be the same as what is downstream from it. If the latter is different in some way, it can no more than merely represent the former to some arbitrary degree.

That relieves us of invoking the tautological nonsense of saying things like, “there are no basketballs, ‘57 DeSoto’s.....and no “red flowers in a vase”.....in my head”.

But that assumes the process involves making "copies" of the objects (however imperfectly), as opposed to providing information about them. On a non-representationalist view, no copy is being made. Instead we are perceiving the original object (e.g., clearly in well-lit conditions, or unclearly if there's a fog about).

This is a conceptual, not an empirical point. We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak. It's not a representation of some further removed imperceptible and indeterminate object.

Quoting Mww

All that reduces to.....is it a red flower in a vase because it just is that, or, is it a red flower in a vase because we say it is just that. Personal preference?

Yes we have a say in what conceptual scheme we use. On a non-representationalist model, objects have natural characteristics that we can discover. Within that model, depending on the environmental conditions, we can be correct or mistaken about what those objects and characteristics are.

Quoting Wayfarer

This is not dependent on representative realism.

It's dependent on a representationalist conceptual scheme, for reasons I've given (I haven't been using the word "realism", which brings its own baggage to these discussions). But I'm curious whether you would agree with Mww's comment here:

Quoting Mww

No, we have thoughts and feelings about representations of perceived objects in the world.

Quoting Andrew M

Whereas B&H's position is that we experience the world (say, watching a sunset). The inclusion of "subjectively" and "representation" just is the homunculus looking at a theater screen. Remove those terms (and the conceptual scheme they represent) and no binding problem arises, since there's nothing to bind or synthesize. There's no binding of a sunset, it's already of one piece, so to speak.[*]

It’s the ‘oneness’ that is at issue. It is well established that there are different neural areas engaged in sensory experience; different parts or aspects of the brain deal with different streams of experience. That is not conjecture but fact, as I understand it. What can’t be accounted for is the neural system that unifies them. So you’re actually begging the question, you’re assuming the very point at issue.

Quoting Andrew M

We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak.

That is naive realism, is it not? Doesn’t that simply bypass the requirement for critical reflection on the nature of experience?

Quoting Andrew M

I'm curious whether you would agree with Mww's comment here:

As I think we’ve discussed already, if you say that an idea represents a thing, then there’s the question of how you compare the idea with the thing. On the other hand, words signify things - that is the whole point of speech isn’t it? ‘The sunset’ signifies a particular time of day, saying it I can quite easily mentally picture a sunset. I don’t think that is problematical. But there’s a lot of issues involved.

Quoting javra

my thoughts and other attributes are things that belong, or else pertain, to me (rather than equating to me)

I think that closer to the case, yes. I am the unity of all my representations. Something along those lines.

Quoting javra

I was going more for knowledge by acquaintance

Yes, another iteration of a Platonic dualism. His: knowledge of, knowledge that; Russell, knowledge by acquaintance, knowledge by description. Kant somewhere in between with knowledge a priori and knowledge a posteriori. It’s all good.

Quoting Mww

I am not only my thoughts

True. I may think about the apple on the table, and I may have feelings of hope, despair and sadness.

Replacing "I am my thoughts" by "I am my subjective experiences"
When I think, I have a subjective experience, and when I have a feeling, I also have a subjective experience. As a high temperature and a low temperature are not two different kinds of things but two instances of the same thing, ie temperature, perhaps thoughts and feelings are not two different kinds of things but both instances of the same thing, ie subjective experiences.

One problem with qualia is in its forcing a division between thoughts and feelings
Qualia have been described as individual instances of subjective conscious experience, the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, etc. Qualia, the feeling of an experience, is contrasted with a propositional attitude, the thought about an experience. Therefore, one characteristic of qualia is the separation of feeling from thought. If qualia exist, then the feelings of qualia stand in contrast to the thoughts of propositional attitudes, then feelings and thoughts are of different kinds. However, the existence of qualia is not universally accepted, in that it has been argued that the qualia is a superfluous concept, for example, @Banno, Daniel Dennett. Why say "I am experiencing the qualia of pain" rather than "I am experiencing pain". What does the word "qualia" add to my subjective experience.

Thoughts and feelings may be two aspects of the same thing - the subjective experience
Some argue that thought and feeling are two aspects of the same thing. For example, Galen Strawson wrote in 1994 in Mental Reality “Each sensory modality is an experiential modality, and thought experience (in which understanding-experience may be included) is an experiential modality to be reckoned alongside the other experiential modalities”

Summary
Perhaps I should improve my previous conclusion and replace "thought" by "subjective experience". Rather than say "I am my thoughts", I should perhaps say "I am my subjective experiences", where the word "am" means identity, in that "A is A"

As Descartes might have said "I am my subjective experiences, therefore I am"

Quoting Andrew M

and because experience is not in the world......
— Mww

That doesn't seem right to me.

Yet you’ve preface every one of those examples with “I”, the feeling of excitement, fond memory of the restaurant, more knowledge on the job. All of those belong to you alone, you said it yourself. So how can any of them be in the world if they are in you. If you’re right, I should go to that restaurant and experience your fondness for it. But it happened to be Thai and I hate Thai. So.....sorry, doesn’t work that way; when you get right down to critical examination there arise too many inconsistencies.

Quoting Andrew M

Are you using the term "experience" differently to all of those?

You betcha I am. Experience is an end in itself, a result, the finished product, in this case, of the employment of an individual, private, subjective human cognitive system, which is its means. That every single human that ever lives experiences things in the world is hardly sufficient reason to claim experiences are things in the world.

Still.....benefit of the doubt. When we both experience clouds, but I imagine a lion and you imagine a seagull in the same cloud formation......how do you explain those different experiences given from the exact same object? Rather than mandating a contradiction in the form of the same experience of the same cloud as both lion and seagull simultaneously, it is much more logical to say our simultaneously imagined experiences contradict each other, the cloud being merely its own single thing.
———-

Quoting Andrew M

On a non-representationalist view, no copy is being made. Instead we are perceiving the original object

The representationalist also perceives the object directly. All sensation is a direct affect of a particular object, or an assemblage of them. The impressions on sensibility are all direct perceptions. How could it be otherwise, and still make legitimate claims as to what the object is? How could a thing perceived as round legitimately be experienced as square? Or anything other than round? Can’t get it right in the end, by beginning with a wrong.

So we both perceive the original object directly. We both can say the impressions on our senses are given from a very real, very distinct, very “right there” object. If the representationalist makes copies of the object to pass on to the remainder of the system, what does the non-representationalist pass on to the same system? Even if he passes on mere information, doesn’t that still represent the perception? Otherwise he must pass on the red itself flower itself in itself a vase itself, which is quite absurd.

Put some instrument on a nerve bundle, say, for mere tactile reception. Wait for a mosquito bite. Do you really think a mosquito is going to show up on the instrument display? Nahhhh....you’ll see a graph, or a voltage reading, or some.....wait foooorr itttt.....representation of whatever object is affecting the skin. I suppose you could make the instrument such that it takes that information and makes a picture, but then, why bother when you’ve got a brain doing just that.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

This is a conceptual, not an empirical point. We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak.

Yes, we’re investigating what we perceive. Yes, what we perceive is the object. That is the empirical point.

No, not as it is in itself. If it were as it is in itself, why are we involved? That is the conceptual point. “In-itself” means not in us. And by extension, not in any intelligence whatsoever. How else to explain the logically necessary objective reality of things before there were ever any intelligences to perceive them?

And herein lay the real problem. These days, there are so very many objects for which we are the empirical causality. For these we are wont to say we perceive them as they are in themselves, because we made them as they are in themselves. But this is an aberration, insofar as we still do not perceive the material constituency of the object, but only the final form the constituency is given.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

On a non-representationalist model, objects have natural characteristics that we can discover.

I get your point. Nevertheless, I would invite you to explain what you mean when you say “we discover”? What are we really doing when we discover? That objects display tendencies, or are imbued with qualities, is given, else we wouldn’t be able to perceive them, or know them as a particular thing, but that does nothing to address discovery, but only makes discovery possible because of those antecedent conditions. It follows that, with respect to that vase for instance, didn’t we already have to know, rather than discover, what form the vase must have, in order for it to be a water-holder?

The point being.....information or representation....you still gotta do something with it. Just calling it something doesn’t get us what we want.

Quoting RussellA

Perhaps Descartes should have said: "I am my thoughts, therefore I am"

Quoting Mww

Not bad.

———-

Quoting RussellA

As Descartes might have said "I am my subjective experiences, therefore I am"

Better.

You still have to prove that thoughts and feelings are equally experienced, in order to affirm that I am only my subjective experiences. The principle of identity cannot justify that which is comprised of two unequal things. Strawson gave the clue.

Quoting Wayfarer

Descartes

Descartes "cogito, ergo sum" uses thought to prove his existence.

I observe an apple, and think about it. I doubt the reality of the apple. I doubt the existence of the apple. Because I doubt the existence of the apple, there must be an "I" doing the doubting, proving the existence of an "I"

But also, I feel a pain. There is no doubt that I feel a pain. I don't doubt the reality of the pain. I don't doubt the existence of the pain. Because I feel a pain, there must be an "I" doing the feeling, proving the existence of an "I"

Descartes was obviously aware not only of thoughts but also of feelings, as he wrote "Nature also teaches me, by the sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on, that I am not merely present in my body as a pilot in his ship, but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit. If this were not so, I, who am nothing but a thinking thing, would not feel pain when the body was hurt, but would perceive the damage purely by the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if anything in his ship is broken."

I am curious why Descartes only used thought to prove existence, and not feeling, which would seem to be a more obvious route.

Quoting Wayfarer

This doesn't make science wrong but it surely challenges materialism

Materialism is the view that all facts about the human mind are causally dependent upon physical processes, and reducible to them.

Even if Aristotle's Direct Realism was true - the claim that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world - the causal path from object in the world to thought in the mind can still be explained within materialism.

Even if Aristotle's Theory of Universals was true - whereby universals are understood by the intellect as only existing where they are instantiated in objects or things - the intellectual processing of information into concepts, such as tables and governments, can still be explained within materialism.

I don't see how Aristotle's Direct Realism or Aristotle's Theory of Universals challenge materialism.

Quoting Mww

You still have to prove that thoughts and feelings are equally experienced, in order to affirm that I am only my subjective experiences.

I can have the subjective experience of thought, and can have the subjective experience of feeling. My subjective experiences can include both thoughts and feelings. To say "I am my subjective experiences" means that "I am my subjective experiences of thoughts and feelings".

There doesn't need to be identity between "my subjective thoughts" and "my subjective feelings". But there does need to an identity between "I" and "my subjective experiences"

As a hot temperature is not identical to a cold temperature but have something in common, ie, temperature, thought is not identical to feeling, but have something in common, ie, in that they are both subjective experiences.

The crucial aspect is that "I am my subjective experiences" rather than "I have subjective experiences". That is what I need to prove.

Reply to RussellA

It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.

Until it is asked what those two different things are, what makes these two things different. Then it is not enough to say they are those which are common in me, for no two things can be distinguished by something common to each.

Quoting RussellA

Because I doubt the existence of the apple, there must be an "I" doing the doubting, proving the existence of an "I"

That is a particular way of paraphrasing his argument. He never says 'there is an I', he says that in order to doubt, then a doubter must be. I think that is an apodictic certainty.

Quoting RussellA

I don't see how Aristotle's Direct Realism or Aristotle's Theory of Universals challenge materialism.

There's no analogy for universals in the physical world. A universal is an intelligible object, it exists only for a rational mind, but it is the same for any rational mind.

//actually D M Armstrong, a staunch materialist, did argue for the acceptance of universals, I must look into how he understood them.//

//answered my own question - the wiki entry has it thus 'In metaphysics, Armstrong defends the view that universals exist (although Platonic uninstantiated universals do not exist). Those universals match up with the fundamental particles that science tells us about. Armstrong describes his philosophy as a form of scientific realism.

....The ultimate ontology of universals would only be realised with the completion of physical science.'

Good luck with that :rofl:

Wu.

Quoting RussellA

Even if Aristotle's Direct Realism was true - the claim that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world - the causal path from object in the world to thought in the mind can still be explained within materialism.

The model was physical in so far as the beings being perceived acted upon sense organs capable of being acted upon. To that extent, it is similar to the 'letting the tree be a tree' model suggested by Andrew M. But why such a condition developed is yet to be explained by any of the models. Dualism is a way to separate elements. Its use sort of advertises its limitations.

Aristotle expounded hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism. ‘Realism’ in relation to that means something completely different to ‘direct realism’. Understanding the distinction between Aristotelian/scholastic realism and modern realism is important.

Quoting Wayfarer

Armstrong describes his philosophy as a form of scientific realism.

....The ultimate ontology of universals would only be realised with the completion of physical science.'

Good luck with that :rofl:

That made me laugh, as I wondered: will the guy who completes physical science get all the Nobel prizes thereafter, year after year, or will they cancel the Nobel prizes once science is finished? ;-)

Nevertheless, and his naïve view of science as "finishable" notwithstanding, Amstrong here recognises the fundamental dualism of science: one does need to use universal laws and universal concepts to do science.

As I was trying to say upthread, geology is not a stone. It's not even a stone collection. It's a set of theories about stones.

Quoting Olivier5

one does need to use universal laws and universal concepts to do science.

Of course! You see it, and I see it, but so few people see it! This is one of the reasons that the Western tradition gave birth to science, which has unfortunately rejected its own heritage.

David Mamet Armstrong was the prof of the Department where I studied philosophy as an undergrad. He was a peculiar-looking fellow with a very large head. His magnum opus was called A Materialist Theory of Mind which I knew a priori was a crock so I never bothered to read it. He was one of a brace of aggressive materialist Australian philosophers from the 1960’s. Eventually I defected to the comparative religion department.

To me the killer argument against materialism is simply that there is no physical equivalent for the fundamental terms of logic, such as ‘is’, ‘is not’ and so on. There’s no material or natural equivalent for ‘=‘, it’s a purely intellectual function, yet without it we’d have no maths, therefore no technology or anything related to it. That’s what makes a joke of the essay linked to the OP.

Quoting RussellA

I am curious why Descartes only used thought to prove existence, and not feeling, which would seem to be a more obvious route.

Because of the idea that even sense data (pain) could be deceiving, or doubted for the sake of the argument.

Quoting RussellA

Even if Aristotle's Theory of Universals was true - whereby universals are understood by the intellect as only existing where they are instantiated in objects or things - the intellectual processing of information into concepts, such as tables and governments, can still be explained within materialism.

It can be explained, but not explained away. It cannot be ignored, i e. a government or some multiplication table still matter within materialism. Or if you prefer, the only logical form of materialism is non-eliminative. Materialists have feelings too.

Quoting Wayfarer

That’s what makes a joke of the essay linked to the OP.

Yes. Greater exposure to the phenomenology tradition (beside Heidi) would help this place methinks. I mean, lets recognise pretheoretical human experience of being at the world (semi-)consciously as the primary condition and locus for science, as the source of all knowledge that one may tentatively built about the world, including scientific knowledge.

Quoting Mww

It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.

I would not say that "I am what thoughts and feelings have in common". I would say that "I am my subjective experiences. My subjective experiences include thoughts and feelings. What thoughts and feelings have in common is that they are part of my subjective experience"

For example, a car is an engine and wheels (simplifying). Engines and wheels have nothing in common. Therefore, cars are made up things that are not only different but have nothing in common. IE, we don't say that the essence of the car is what engines and wheels have in common.

Sorry for the delay. OK...fine. I totally missed this. My bad, because it was worth a response.

Quoting Paine

Descartes campaigned for a particular method of epistemology to be the benefactor of his establishment of the cogito.

Doubt is a negative truth claim, but is it a knowledge claim? Rather than a method of epistemology, I might go with a method of inference. This sorta fits, because establishment proper should follow from an ”ergo”, right? I mean.....”therefore” seems to indicate that which is established, as consequent, from some antecedent necessary truth.

How about this: Descartes campaigned for the establishment of “sum” as the benefactor of his particular method of inference.

Now, there is a particular method of epistemology that benefits from the establishment of “cogito”, but Descartes didn’t campaign, and wasn’t himself responsible, for it. Had to wait about 150 years for pure a priori cognitions to make the scene, which are the source of knowledge given from the thinking subject alone.

Minor technicality maybe, but still....should probably keep things in order.

Quoting Wayfarer

There's no analogy for universals in the physical world

Aristotle universals are incorporeal and exist only where they are instantiated in material things. If relations between objects have an ontological existence, then Aristotle's Universals have an ontological existence, and so are part of the material world.

FH Bradley used a regress argument against the ontological existence of external relations.
However Russell dismissed Bradley’s argument on the grounds that philosophers who disbelieve in the reality of external relations cannot possibly interpret those numerous parts of sciences which appear to be committed to external relations.

So whether Aristotle's Theory of Universals challenge materialism or not depends on one's opinion as to the ontological existence of relations.

Quoting Olivier5

Because of the idea that even sense data (pain) could be deceiving, or doubted for the sake of the argument.

I may be deceived by a splitting headache but I can never doubt that I have one.

Quoting RussellA

To say "I am my subjective experiences" means that "I am my subjective experiences of thoughts and feelings".

Quoting RussellA

My subjective experiences can include both thoughts and feelings.

—————

Quoting RussellA

It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.
— Mww

I would not say that "I am what thoughts and feelings have in common".

Sorry. I figured there was no loss of truth value in my configuration of the statements as opposed to yours. Didn’t intend to flagrantly misinterpret.

The reason I said “it is usually enough” is because conventionally, it is. But technical metaphysical reductionism in the continental tradition denies that thoughts and feelings are experiences in the first place, so all that remains.....currently in vogue.....is the facility of convention, re: analytic language games.

Quoting Mww

thoughts and feelings

:smile: Maybe what we need is a conjunction between the thoughts of analytic philosophers and the feelings of continental philosophers. :smile:

Quoting RussellA

conjunction between....analytic...and....continental philosophers.

Oil and water!!!! Fire and ice!!! Mom’s apple pie and Tabasco!!!!

Quoting RussellA

So whether Aristotle's Theory of Universals challenge materialism or not depends on one's opinion as to the ontological existence of relations.

Indeed. There's a considerable amount of ambiguity around the way in which universals are said to exist. You can argue that they are only realised (made real) when they're instantiated in physical form, but that they are potentially real, or a part of the realm of possibility, even when they're not. I concur with Russell's analysis in Problems of Philosophy:

[quote=Bertrand Russell, World of Universals]It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, butthe act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless. The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being.[/quote]

Insofar as universals are real - which is, as Russell says, not to say that they exist - then it challenges materialism, which says that only material entities are real. And I say that this holds for vast areas of thought, such as pure mathematics, which is real but which is not material - which is why mathematical Platonism is nearly always rejected by current philosophers, even though many mathematicians remain platonist in their views. That number cannot be literally real is one of the principles dogmas of empiricism, even when mathematical reasoning is the literal backbone of the spectacular successes of science over the last three centuries.

Quoting Wayfarer

... materialism, which says that only material entities are real.

This is only true of vulgar materialism which is a caricature. :roll:

... pure mathematics, which is real but which is not material - which is why mathematical Platonism is nearly always rejected by current philosophers, ...

"Platonism", in the main, is founded on a both category mistake (territory in terms of maps (i.e. the material in terms of the formal)) and reification errors (maps sans territory (i.e. the formal sans the material)). Aristotle papered this over with his 'hylomorphism' and Kant with 'noumena as negation (limit) of phenomena' (which, IIRC, Schopenhauer's critical reformulation of Kant's 'noumenon' did much more coherently), and yet the Platonic fallacy still persists with e.g. Husselian phenomenology, logicist / formalist / structuralist metamathematics, ... as well as countless virulent strains of unexorcizeable perennialist woo. :mask:

Quoting 180 Proof

This is only true of vulgar materialism which is a caricature.

What's a materialist account of real abstract objects, then?

Quoting Wayfarer

What's a materialist account of real abstract objects, then?

Real abstract objects... as opposed to fake abstract objects? Counterfeit abstract objects? Imaginary abstract objects?

Back again to Austin's critique of universals, found in his paper "Are there a priori concepts?".

We use "grey" in order to classify together various quite different things. The presumption - one it seems that you also make, Wayfarer - is that therefore there must be a something that this word - grey - stands for which is common to all these cases.

But this argument depends on a hidden premiss; that words like "grey" are proper names. But why, if one identical word is used, must there be one identical object present which the word denotes?

Further, it is plain that we do use the word "grey" for different things. The grey of the poppies out the front is quite different for each poppy, and even across each petal; and certainly a different colour to the gunmetal grey of my chair.

Universals are no more than a useful way of talking.

Quoting Wayfarer

What's a materialist account of real abstract objects, then?

My (sketchy) account is this: abstractions (i.e. idealizations) are second-order generalizations from (i.e. maps of) arrangements, or expanses, of first-order materials (i.e. the territory). This view is gleaned from both Greek & Indian atomists, for instance, who emphasize that atomic configurations are only illusory 'objects' (maya), or ideas (phenomena) by which we perceive and categorize entities (e.g. Humean 'customs & habits of mind') but not actual entities themselves (re: swirling-swerving-atoms-and-encompassing-void (NB: the material, not "matter")). No doubt you know all this, Wayf, and long ago incorrigibly came to different conclusions.

Quoting 180 Proof

No doubt you know all this, Wayf, and long ago incorrigibly came to different conclusions.

Well, I have, but I think we have established sufficient rapport to at least debate it.

I'm investigating the relationship between scholastic realism and the argument from reason.

Quoting Banno

Real abstract objects... as opposed to fake abstract objects? Counterfeit abstract objects? Imaginary abstract objects?

Real numbers, for instance.

Quoting Banno

Universals are no more than a useful way of talking.

An exact definition of nominalism.

Everyone on this forum is nominalist, by default. Nominalism won the intellectual battle so long ago that the culture has forgotten what it means not to be nominalist.

Quoting Banno

Universals are no more than a useful way of talking.

:up: (like "essences")

Quoting Wayfarer

Nominalism won the intellectual battle so long ago that the culture has forgotten what it means not to be nominalist.

:up:

[quote=Ed Feser]...the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

... I maintain that the problem for materialism just described is insuperable. It shows that a materialist explanation of the mind is impossible in principle, a conceptual impossibility. And the reason has in part to do with the concept of matter to which materialists themselves are at least implicitly committed.[/quote]

So my brief sketch is that materialism identifies ideas, thought, and reason with neurobiology - that 'mind is what brain does'. That belief is so widespread as to be simply assumed by most people, as if there's nothing else it could be.

My argument against that is that the fundamental constituents of reason - 'is', 'is not', 'because', 'the same as', 'different from' as a minimalist example - can't be understood in neurological terms at all. Obviously we have to have the intelligence to understand those relations, but this doesn't make them the product of the brain; the law of the excluded middle didn't come into existence when h. sapiens evolved to the point of being able to recognise it. Instead these elements of reason are internal to thought, not 'the product of the brain' - indeed were they not internal to thought, then we would not have the necessary conceptual resources to even develop any science, let alone neuroscience.

So, what of 'universals'? I'm re-interpreting universals to signify all manner of intellectual principles, such as numbers, scientific laws, logic, and so on. The hallmark of all of them is that they can only be grasped by a rational intelligence, but are common to all who think. That is what constitutes an 'intelligible object' in my view. And it's compatible with Augustine's definition of intelligible objects.

But because of the over-riding acceptance of empiricist dogma, these [s]intellectual constructs[/s] 'intelligible objects' (not actually 'objects' except analogically), which are the very ground of scientific thinking, are nevertheless subjectivised and relativised by modern philosophy, as 'the product of the brain'. As an excerpt from an essay last year on the nature of maths put it:

“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”

Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Why indeed! That's it, in a nutshell. Hence the conflict between Platonism and naturalism, as Lloyd Gerson points out in his series of books, culminating with the last.

Quoting Wayfarer

What can’t be accounted for is the neural system that unifies them. So you’re actually begging the question, you’re assuming the very point at issue.

Well, you're assuming there is a 'binding problem' to be solved, but this is an artefact of a representationalist scheme. See the photograph example below and also my last comment in this post to Mww.

Quoting Wayfarer

That is naive realism, is it not? Doesn’t that simply bypass the requirement for critical reflection on the nature of experience?

It's not naïve realism, which I think functions as one side of an artificial antithesis. The critical reflection is about whether what we are perceiving in a given instance is a representation of something else, or not.

Sometimes it is, such as when we see a portrait or a photograph. We can refer to a tree image in a photograph (e.g., the tree looks glossy) or the tree that the image is of (e.g., I used to climb that tree as a kid).

At other times it isn't, such as when we see a tree in the garden. So it's a natural distinction as opposed to an artificial antithesis where everything we perceive is representation, or nothing is.

Quoting Wayfarer

‘The sunset’ signifies a particular time of day, saying it I can quite easily mentally picture a sunset. I don’t think that is problematical.

Agreed. In this case, you're not perceiving a mental picture (cue the Cartesian theater), you're imagining a sunset. And that, in turn, is a different activity to perceiving a sunset.

--

Quoting Mww

Yet you’ve preface every one of those examples with “I”, the feeling of excitement, fond memory of the restaurant, more knowledge on the job. All of those belong to you alone, you said it yourself. So how can any of them be in the world if they are in you. If you’re right, I should go to that restaurant and experience your fondness for it. But it happened to be Thai and I hate Thai.

No accounting for taste I guess! Regardless, there are plenty of people out there who do share my fondness for Thai (and some that share your aversion).

Quoting Mww

When we both experience clouds, but I imagine a lion and you imagine a seagull in the same cloud formation......how do you explain those different experiences given from the exact same object?

Presumably if I looked just where you looked, I could pick out a lion shape too. If not, I'm sure there's a perfectly natural reason why not. Maybe you've just got a more vivid imagination than me.

But, yes, we are different people so we won't necessarily have the same experiences.

Quoting Mww

Even if he passes on mere information, doesn’t that still represent the perception? Otherwise he must pass on the red itself flower itself in itself a vase itself, which is quite absurd.

The red flower itself is not passed on, only information. That information allows us to perceive the object (in the world) in a particular form. That use of information and form can be compared to Aristotle's hylomorphism where the form is in the object, so to speak, which is why the object is perceptible.

This is just another way of saying that to perceive a red flower in a vase entails that there is a red flower in a vase (i.e., the logic of perception). So when we perceive the red flower, we're not perceiving a representation of the red flower (like a photograph), we're perceiving the object itself.

Thus there is no 'binding problem' that is not simply the problem of why things in the world (including the perceiving creatures themselves) have the relationships and character that they do.

Quoting Andrew M

Well, you're assuming there is a 'binding problem' to be solved, but this is an artefact of a representationalist scheme

It's really not. It's a well-established issue. It's a matter of empirical fact that the brain - for that matter, the entire human organism - comprises thousands of semi-autonomous sub-systems, all of which are subsidiary to the unified experience of being. You can't simply philosophise it out of existence.

Quoting Andrew M

That information allows us to perceive the object (in the world) in a particular form. That use of information and form can be compared to Aristotle's hylomorphism where the form is in the object, so to speak, which is why the object is perceptible.

I've been studying hylomorphism, and it's called a dualism. Why? Because it comprises two separate aspects of the intelligence - the sensory and the intelligible. According to Aristotelian dualism, the senses perceive the sensable form of the object, but the intellect perceives it's nature or essence. The form of the object is not its shape but the recognition of the type of thing that it is. Only a rational intellect is able to perceive the form, whereas non-rational intellect - animals - can percieve the sensable thing (I use 'sensable' to differentiate the meaning from 'sensible' which means something different.)

Quoting Andrew M

We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak.

This is what I'm saying is naive realism - the contention that we perceive objects as they are 'in themselves'. The distinction I'm making is not a distinction between seeing an image, and seeing a real thing. What I'm pointing out is that when you say that 'you see the tree as it is in itself' then you're speaking from a naive realist point of view.

Quoting Wayfarer

The form of the object is not its shape but the recognition of the type of thing that it is.

What reason is there to think that one of the basic criteria for counting various things as being of the same kind is not that they are of similar shape? Add to that size. colour, kind of surface (visual and tactile texture and pattern), density, opacity, and other perceptible and/ or measurable characteristics; and you have all the criteria you need for recognition of type.

Quoting Janus

Whta reason is there to think that one of the basic criteria for counting various things of being of the same kind is not that they are off similar shape?

Things can be of the same type but entirely different forms for example a collection of musical instruments. A human as a rational agent will recognize that they’re all musical instruments due to grasping the idea of music which an animal would not. (I think a lot of people think ‘form’ means ‘shape’ when in this context it’s nearer to ‘principle’.)

Quoting Wayfarer

universals

Limiting myself to Russell's quoted text. In our minds are concepts such as whiteness, trees, government, two, time, space, etc. In what sense are concepts universal ?

Russell's text ignores the crucial role of language in universals
Russell's analysis is incomplete in his ignoring the crucial role of language in the world of universals. Below is a simplified example to illustrate how language underlies the world of universals.

The importance of language in universals
On one particular day, Tuesday 5th March, a group of people gather.
Over several occasions during the day they observe several examples of whiteness, and to each example is attached the same nominated public word "whiteness", such that each individual learns to associate their concept of whiteness with "whiteness".
The mental concept of whiteness has now been created in the individual minds of a group of people on this particular Tuesday 5th March.
As days follow, this group can now sensibly discuss "whiteness" using a common language.

Comments on Russell's text
Russell is correct when he says - "We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist". Within this group, the concept whiteness came into existence on Tuesday 5th March

Russell is correct when he says - " The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being". Within this group, the concept whiteness subsists through time, not only as the concept whiteness within their individual minds, but also as the word "whiteness" within their common language.

Russell is also correct, but besides the point, when he says - "That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them". It may well be that when I observe an object in the world labelled "whiteness", within my mind I may subjectively experience it as blueness, and in the mind of another person they may subjectively experience it as orangeness, but this is irrelevant in preventing any sensible discussion amongst a group of people as to objects labelled "whiteness".

Summary
IE, whiteness and "whiteness" came into existence on Tuesday the 5th March, and subsist through time within the minds of a group of people having a common language. Whiteness will remain a universal as long as the group having a common language survives.

As regards materialism, both the object whiteness and the word "whiteness" are physical things in the world. In my mind is the concept whiteness, and in the neurons of my brain the idea of whiteness is somehow stored. The question as to whether the the mind is a separate substance to the brain or an expression of the brain remains unanswered. Therefore, the question as to whether concepts as universals challenges materialism remains unanswered.

Quoting RussellA

In what sense are concepts universal ?

In the sense that everybody can use them, value them, ignore them, or consider them part of an objective reality.

Greetings everyone,

I'll be honest, I am a monist, but not the same kind of monist as the article presupposes. I recall there was a thread about monism in this forum but I forgot most of the contents of that thread, only that it seems to describe that all monism is the same, which is certainly interesting. Okay sorry for not answering the question directly. It seems yes, the article is implying that science has to be false for dualism to be true.

I am not an expert in dualism or what it actually claims, though I have a bare understanding that dualism means there are 2 kinds of fundamentals in reality. This I "agree" with. It is clear from reflection and contemplation that there are at least 2 fundamentals in this reality, that which is finite and that which is infinite. The finite, most represented by matter are by definition, finite. They have form which represents a finite existence across a greater infinite existence. The Infinite, most represented by God are by definition, infinite. It has no form which represents an infinitely "large" existence.

The author of that article may have misunderstood science or dualism or just doesn't understand both, which is okay, everyone develops at different paces. I don't see how science must be wrong if dualism is true. Science and dualism can be both true at the same time. The author doesn't even argue about why science has to be false if dualism is true. So I really have nothing to argue against. It is true that science has been plagued and ruled by materialism since a long time. However, it is also important to remember that Christianity, a dualistic system, plays a great role in developing science. So science is birthed out of dualism or something holding that idea. And the author wishes to say that dualism and science is against each other? I pray for his enlightenment.

Quoting Andrew M

there are plenty of people out there who do share my fondness for Thai

Categorically false.

Sufficiently true: you and many people out there have similar experiences of Thai food because all of the individual qualitative judgements made on it, are congruent with each other.
———-

Quoting Andrew M

Presumably.....

Metaphysics concerns itself with that which is true, under a given set of conditions, thereby eliminating presumptions. We don’t care about the conditions under which you presumably might (think/experience/know) later, but rather, the reasons why you don’t (think/experience/know) now.
———-

Quoting Andrew M

The red flower itself is not passed on, only information. That information allows us to perceive the object (in the world) in a particular form.

Obviously then, if red flower itself is not passed on, but information is, then red flower itself is not contained in the information. (Sounds familiar, donnit)

How did the perceived object in its particular form get to be the red flower we know? If the information in a particular form is the red flower, how is it that we didn’t have the red flower itself passed on?

You do realize, don’t you? That the only way we can know the information contained in the perception of a particular smell is the particular object “bacon”, is from experience? So saying, your system only works for extant knowledge, but is hopelessly futile for that of which we have no experience. Yet, there are multiple instances of perceiving information to which we can relate no object at all.

Nobody cares about what is known. The natural human proclivity is to learn what we don’t. And for that, we need to think. Talking is necessary for rote instruction, but hardly necessary for assimilating such instruction, and not even present in a purely personal experience, into a subjective consciousness.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

This is just another way of saying that to perceive a red flower in a vase entails that there is a red flower in a vase (i.e., the logic of perception).

A “...mere worthless sophism...”, as The Highly Esteemed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Koenigsberg would exclaim. To perceive a red flower in a vase presupposes knowledge of what a red flower in a vase entails. One must already have the experience of red flowers in vases, before he can say an instance of perception, is that.

This dialectical back-and-forth is endless, but at least it is something to do.

Quoting Wayfarer

Things can be of the same type but entirely different forms for example a collection of musical instruments. A human as a rational agent will recognize that they’re all musical instruments due to grasping the idea of music which an animal would not.

That is simply typing according to function, nothing to do with one particular kind of form, Dogs can recognize different kinds of bones, balls and food bowls, and know what to do with them. All animals are "rational" agents (capable of recognition and comparison) to different degrees. It is symbolic language which enables humans to abstract and elaborate.

Reply to Wayfarer I like that quote of Ed Feser a lot.

Reply to RogueAI https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2008/09/some-brief-arguments-for-dualism-part-i.html

Reply to Janus I noticed the scare quotes around 'rational'.

Maritain analyses this in depth.

[quote=Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism; https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/jm0112.htm] As a philosophical conception, Empiricism means a theory according to which there is no distinction of nature, but only of degree, between the senses and the intellect. As a result, human knowledge is simply sense-knowledge (or animal knowledge) more evolved and elaborated than in other mammals. And not only is human knowledge entirely encompassed in, and limited to, sense-experience... but to produce its achievements in the sphere of sense-experience human knowledge uses no other specific forces and means than the forces and means which are at play in sense-knowledge.

Now if it is true that reason differs specifically from senses, the paradox with which we are confronted is that Empiricism, in actual fact, uses reason while denying the power of reason, on the basis of a theory that reduces reason's knowledge and life, which are characteristic of man, to sense knowledge and life, which are characteristic of animals.

Hence, first, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency between what an Empiricist does -- he thinks as a man, he uses reason, a power superior in nature to senses -- and what he says -- he denies this very specificity of reason.

And second, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency even in what he says: for what the Empiricist speaks of and describes as sense-knowledge is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously introduced intellective ingredients — sense-knowledge in which he has made room for reason without recognizing it. A confusion which comes about all the more easily as, on the one hand, the senses are, in actual fact, more or less permeated with reason in man, and, on the other, the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent.[/quote]

Reply to Wayfarer Thanks, I just bought his book: Philosophy of Mind, a Beginner's Guide.

Reply to RogueAI Hope you find it useful. I've followed his blog for a while.

Damn. This thing is still going?

Reply to TiredThinker
You only tapped into centuries of people talking past each other.
Settle in.

Reply to Wayfarer Rationality is nothing more than valid deduction and plausible (as we are wont to believe) induction. You might think that rationality can also create ad hoc conjectures, which cannot be tested, to explain the nature of things as it is understood, but no: it is imagination which creates such "theories" in its unfettered way.

Rationality holds no sway over our basic presuppositions, since any theoretical inductive support for presuppositions involves deploying other presuppositions, which in turn depend on further presuppositions, and so on. The only support for science, apart from its overall cohesiveness, is the fact that it works. Presuppositions cannot be tested for workability.

Quoting Wayfarer

To me the killer argument against materialism is simply that there is no physical equivalent for the fundamental terms of logic, such as ‘is’, ‘is not’ and so on.

A computer can deal with the logic of 'is', 'is not' and so on without the need of a mind.

A computer is an example of what a physical brain can achieve.

Quoting RussellA

A computer can deal with the logic of 'is', 'is not' and so on without the need of a mind.

Computers are instruments of the mind. Nothing they do is meaningful in the absence of a mind. But we don't see it, so fixated are we on our own creations.

Quoting Wayfarer

To me the killer argument against materialism is simply that there is no physical equivalent for the fundamental terms of logic, such as ‘is’, ‘is not’ and so on

Quoting Wayfarer

Computers are instruments of the mind. Nothing they do is meaningful in the absence of a mind

Logic is not an invention of the mind but a discovery in the world

Independent of the mind, logic exists in the world. The world is a logical place, in that we don't observe the world doing anything illogical.

In the world, an apple "is" an apple, an apple "is not" an orange, an apple falls from the tree "because" of gravity, an apple "is the same as" an apple, an apple "is different from" an orange, etc.

We use the logic we use because it corresponds with the logic we observe in the world. If we discovered that the logic we were using was different to the logic in the world then we would stop using it. For example, if an engineer designing a bridge decided in their calculations that one plus one equals three, they would quickly discover that their constructions would start to fall down.

The logic of the world is such that one apple plus one apple "equals" two apples. For example, if on the table was one apple, and I placed another apple alongside it, and discovered that I had ended up with three apples, I would either doubt my sanity or try the same thing with kruggerands.

IE, as logic exists in the physical world independently of any human mind, logic cannot be used as an argument to show that materialism is not true.

Quoting RogueAI

?Wayfarer I like that quote of Ed Feser a lot.

Yes. Reductive science takes things apart and studies the parts but in doing so it has broken all connections. But connections between parts are as important as the parts themselves. It is these connections that make the whole and meaning is in the whole, not the parts.

Reply to TiredThinker
The article subtitle - legend says "Either science is right or there is a spiritual realm. They can't both be true." This is so irrational that I needn't go on (although I had a glimpse).

Science is science and spirituality world is spirituality. One refers to the material world and the other to the spiritual world. Exploration in other is consequently done basically with difference means, although in spirituality some limited scientific means may be used. Not the other way around though.

Descartes and his Dualism moved us from the comfortable situation that the world around us can be explained and described in pencil and paper, which is a huge illusion. There are a lot things that science cannot explain, although it tries hard for centuries. And the worst thing is that it can't give up in matters that do not belong to its jurisdiction. For instance, they insist that consciousness is created and located in the brain, although they don't have a real evidence. It ridiculizes itself by claiming that spiritual and mental phenomena --awareness, thought, feelings, etc.,-- are created and processes in neurons! This happens, because they cannot admit that there is any other world that the material one.

So, I don't see how can dualism make science wrong. Except maybe if the latter tries to enter foreign territories.

Quoting RussellA

In the world, an apple "is" an apple, an apple "is not" an orange, an apple falls from the tree "because" of gravity, an apple "is the same as" an apple, an apple "is different from" an orange, etc.

You're simply repeating some basic logical relations, such as the law of identity and the rules of valid inference.

Quoting RussellA

as logic exists in the physical world independently of any human mind, logic cannot be used as an argument to show that materialism is not true.

That doesn't follow. For clarity: 'materialism in philosophy is the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or reducible to them.' But the fact that logic is effective doesn't validate that belief. You need to show how the principles of logic can be derived from materialist principles.

Quoting Wayfarer

In the world, an apple "is" an apple, an apple "is not" an orange, an apple falls from the tree "because" of gravity, an apple "is the same as" an apple, an apple "is different from" an orange, etc. — RussellA


You're simply repeating some basic logical relations, such as the law of identity and the rules of valid inference.

I take @RussellA to be talking about perceptible actualities like we don't see apples turning into oranges, we see differences between them on which identification, and hence the abstracted notion of identity, is based and so on; he's not merely "repeating basic logical relations".

He may correct me, but I think he is pointing out that logical relations are abstracted from, derived from perceptible actualities. This seems obvious to me, and it seems that you just refuse to believe what is obvious because it doesn't suit you.

Reply to Janus

If you were to have no conception of what a house is, and you where to see what others know to be a house, would you perceive a house when looking at the raw image(s)? Same can be asked of an apple or orange.

My inclination is to conclude that without holding acquaintance of the idea (eidos: form / concept / abstraction ... and also the (epistemic) essence of that addressed) of X, one cannot perceive the X in the raw percepts.

How we gain various concepts from percepts converged with thoughts together with cultural transmission (I’ll personally add, together with some degree of biological inheritance … far more applicable to lesser animals than to us) is a very complex thing regardless how it’s addressed. But it doesn’t seem to diminish what I’ve just proposed. We identify by forms, and this speaks to the law of identity in that it can only be a form that is self-identical relative to us - be the form an entity, a specific/identified process (the process of running), or something else. And without any identification of anything, we cannot establish any relations between ... well, again, forms/eidoi.

Reply to javra I agree that you need to have the general concept; house, apple or whatever in order to recognize something as a house, apple or whatever. Animals recognize steps as 'to go up or down', doors as 'to go through' and so on, but they presumably don't think; this is a door and so on, because that requires symbolic langaugae. So, I think you would need language and the reflexivity it enables to be able to recognize that you are seeing something as a house, apple, stairs, door or whatever, but you need familiarity with those things in order to develop the abstract concept.in the first place.

I think identity has nothing really to do with this. Identification, as in recognition, which animals also do, yes, but identity is an after-the-fact abstraction in my view. So, for me identification is not identity; it is more primordial than the abstracted concept of identity, the idea of something being itself. What is primordial, in my view, is difference.

The various forms, shapes or patterns, which I think must be presented to our senses "raw" is one of the, perhaps the main, characteristics of thongs which enable things to be recognized.

Quoting Janus

So, for me identification is not identity; it is more primordial than the abstracted concept of identity, the idea of something being itself.

Ok, but to me that's what the metaphysical law of identity, as with all other laws of thought, intends to capture: our inescapable, predetermined, "primordial" limitations / boundaries of thought.

Quoting Janus

What is primordial, in my view, is difference.

I don't get how there can be difference discerned without there being discerned difference between identified givens. Could you elaborate?

Quoting javra

Ok, but to me that's what the metaphysical law of identity, as with all other laws of thought, intends to capture: our inescapable, predetermined, "primordial" limitations / boundaries of thought.

I don't see identity as a metaphysical concept, but as a logical one.

Quoting javra

I don't get how there can be difference discerned without there being discerned difference between identified givens. Could you elaborate?

I'd say it is the similarities between the perceptible characteristics that kinds of things have in common with each other which enable us to recognize them as particular kinds of things. As I said, animals can recognize kinds of things. It is the differences between the perceptible characteristics of kinds of things that allow for different kinds.

OK, thanks for the reply.

Quoting Janus

As I said, animals can recognize kinds of things.

Again, my perspective accounts for this. But maybe this would be too far of topic.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's really not. It's a well-established issue. It's a matter of empirical fact that the brain - for that matter, the entire human organism - comprises thousands of semi-autonomous sub-systems, all of which are subsidiary to the unified experience of being. You can't simply philosophise it out of existence.

Well-established or not, the 'binding problem' has dualist premises (as with the 'hard problem of consciousness'). It's not just me pointing it out. See Bennett and Hacker:

History of Cognitive Neuroscience, p55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.:For the neural correlates, the various cells firing in the various locations of the 'visual' striate cortex, cannot be 'recombined', and do not need to be. The thought that the features a perceiver perceives must be correctly synthesized 'to form a separate object', the so-called 'binding problem', is confused. (For critical discussion see pp. 32-8.) To perceive is not to form an image of what is perceived, either in one's brain or in one's mind. What is perceived is the tree in the quad, not a representation of a tree in the quad. The brain does not have to synthesize a representation of the tree out of representations of its size, shape, colour and orientation - it has to enable the perceiver to see the tree and its features clearly.

Also Dennett:

Consciousness Explained, p257 - Daniel Dennett:[There is no single, definitive "stream of consciousness," because there is no central Headquarters, no Cartesian Theater where "it all comes together" for the perusal of a Central Meaner....]

While everyone agrees that there is no such single point in the brain, reminiscent of Descartes's pineal gland, the implications of this have not been recognized, and are occasionally egregiously overlooked. For instance, incautious formulations of "the binding problem" in current neuroscientific research often presuppose that there must be some single representational space in the brain (smaller than the whole brain) where the results of all the various discriminations are put into registration with each other — marrying the sound track to the film, coloring in the shapes, filling in the blank parts. There are some careful formulations of the binding problem(s) that avoid this error, but the niceties often get overlooked.

Quoting Wayfarer

I've been studying hylomorphism, and it's called a dualism. Why? Because it comprises two separate aspects of the intelligence - the sensory and the intelligible. According to Aristotelian dualism, the senses perceive the sensable form of the object, but the intellect perceives it's nature or essence.

Aristotle's hylomorphism is not dualist. See our previous discussion on this.

According to Aristotle, both humans and lower animals perceive things, but humans have the further ability to abstract and reason about those things (hence the rational animal). That's an identification of a living being's capabilities, not an expression of dualism. Also your phrasing above is what Bennett and Hacker term the "mereological fallacy":

Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language, pp131-2 - Bennett and Hacker:A form of this error was pointed out around 350 BC by Aristotle, who remarked that "to say that the soul [psuche] is angry is as if one were to say that the soul weaves or builds. For it is surely better not to say that the soul pities, learns or thinks, but that a man does these with his soul" (De Anima 408 12-15) - doing something with one's soul being like doing something with one's talents. It is mistaken to ascribe to the soul of an animal attributes that are properly ascribable only to the animal as a whole. We might call this "Aristotle's principle".

Quoting Wayfarer

We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak.
— Andrew M

This is what I'm saying is naive realism - the contention that we perceive objects as they are 'in themselves'. The distinction I'm making is not a distinction between seeing an image, and seeing a real thing. What I'm pointing out is that when you say that 'you see the tree as it is in itself' then you're speaking from a naive realist point of view.

However it is the distinction I am making. I reject that we see only images (of unknown things), hence the allusion to Kant:

Quoting Prolegomena, § 32

And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.

Quoting Mww

So saying, your system only works for extant knowledge, but is hopelessly futile for that of which we have no experience. Yet, there are multiple instances of perceiving information to which we can relate no object at all.

My view is that knowledge comes from experience. What instances did you have in mind?

Quoting Mww

One must already have the experience of red flowers in vases, before he can say an instance of perception, is that.

Indeed. A nice point of agreement to end with!

I should say, when dualism was seriously proposed - and taken seriously - it was done as a scientific move on Descartes part.

He thought he could account for res-extensa - matter - based on mechanistic materialism. However, materialism could not account for the creative properties of language use, nor for the mind more abstractly considered.

Out of other intelligible options, he did the sensible thing, he postulated a res cogitans, which would work with different principles than matter. But the goal was to provide a intelligible picture of the world, even if it was dualist in nature.

Now we know, due to Newton and others, than we do not know matter anywhere nearly as well as was thought, so (substance) dualism collapsed.

Which is only to say, that if dualism can coherently be re-articulated, in should be done so with the goal of explaining or providing a framework for phenomena which cannot be explained using the current methods we have.

But it shouldn't be done, in my opinion, as a move away from understanding, but as means of integrating knowledge.

Quoting Andrew M

I reject that we see only images (of unknown things),

It's easy to make that claim in respect of the hypothetical 'tree' or 'apple' which is the subject of a rhetorical exercise in philosophy. Everyone knows what a tree is, so the thought goes. But what about the nature of reality? Do we see the nature of reality, just as it is? I contend not, and I say that is more germane to the question at hand than the text-book parlance of 'trees' or 'apples'. I say that we humans do not see things 'as they truly are', and that philosophy from the outset was an examination of why we do not. But as 'philosophy' has now been brought down to the level of successful adaptation, then the original sense of that question has been generally lost.

So I dispute that as a general matter that we do see what 'things really are', even if we know enough to know a tree or an apple when we see one.

Quoting Andrew M

According to Aristotle, both humans and lower animals perceive things, but humans have the further ability to abstract and reason about those things (hence the rational animal). That's an identification of a living being's capabilities, not an expression of dualism

This has been the subject of discussion in various threads lately. There is the famous and contested passage in Aristotle which explains the role of the active intellect in a very terse formulation, culminating in the statement 'This does not mean that at one time it [i.e. the active intellect] thinks but at another time it does not think, but when separated it is just exactly what it is, and this alone is deathless and everlasting'.

This was then taken to be support for the soul's immortality by later Christians, but it doesn't detract from the fact that he wrote it.

Furthermore the rational faculty of the soul sees the essence, it understands what it sees in a way which a non-rational animal cannot, because it sees the why's and wherefores of what it is looking at. Recall that in Aristotle's aitia, there is an account of why things exist, and what their purpose is - the fourfold causal matrix that modernity has largely dispensed with (or forgotten about).

[quote=Joshua Hothschild, WHAT’S WRONG WITH OCKHAM? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West] Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.
In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom. [/quote]

Consciousness Explained, p257 - Daniel Dennett:There are some careful formulations of the binding problem(s) that avoid this error.

It's not an error. Dennett has to avoid anything that can't be accomodated in his Procrustean bed of eliminative materialism (such as being qua being).

Quoting Janus

logical relations are abstracted from, derived from perceptible actualities

:up: :up: :up:

Quoting Wayfarer

You need to show how the principles of logic can be derived from materialist principles.

Some scholars think that the passage "In the beginning was the word (logos) " is more accurately translated "In the beginning was logic"

Logic is intrinsic to reality
Logic is primordial, intrinsic to reality, requires no proof, is self-validating, requires no justification and needs no validation. Reality if the initiator of logic, reality produces the basic laws of logic and the nature of logic is reality itself. The basis law of logic exists independently of the mind. The fundamental laws of logic are intuitively obvious and self evident. The burden of proof will be on the sceptic to disprove them. The fundamental laws of logic are universal and have been discovered not invented. They applied when the Solar System formed and they apply today. They apply on Earth and they apply on Mars.

The fundamental laws of logic
As described by Aristotle, the foundation of logic is the proposition “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect”

There are three fundamental laws of logic:
1) The law of identity, where every entity has an identity, an entity cannot possess two identities and an entity without an identity cannot exist because it would be nothing. IE, an apple is an apple.
2) The law of non-contradiction, where a statement cannot be both true and false, such that A is B and A is not B are mutually exclusive. IE, The object is an apple and the object is not an apple are mutually exclusive.
3) The law of the excluded middle, where a statement is either true or false, and there can be no middle ground. IE, "the apple is on the table" is either true or false, in that the apple cannot be both on the table and not on the table.

Knowledge starts with logic
True knowledge starts with logic. We use logic to evaluate the truth, and we use our reason to manipulate the laws of logic in order to evaluate the truth using valid arguments.

Logic is more than a proposition
Confusion may arise because people think of the basic law of logic as a proposition, but the basic law is not a proposition in this sense, it is simply a reality. In discussing logic we have to use language, with the inevitable confusion between the statement "an apple is an apple" and the fact in the world - an apple is an apple. The situation is further confused by the nature of the "apple" itself, whether one's position is that of Direct Realist or Indirect Realist. For the present purposes of discussing the nature of logic, I am simplifying the true nature of "apples" by assuming that they exist as facts in the world as apples.

We have derived logic from materialistic principles, as logic is the nature of materialistic principles.
Consider an object having a physical existence independent of any observer, such as an apple. Logic, as primordial and intrinsic to reality, dictates that the apple is an apple is true, and the apple is not an apple is not true.

It is for those who don't believe that logic is intrinsic to reality to show a single instance whereby an object in the world exists at the same time as not existing.

IE, we have derived logic from materialistic principles, as logic is the nature of materialistic principles.

Quoting Andrew M

One must already have the experience of red flowers in vases, before he can say an instance of perception, is that.
— Mww

Indeed. A nice point of agreement to end with!

Apparently, we aren’t ending, and we certainly aren’t agreeing, insofar as your “indeed” here has missed the point, and is not supported by what you’ve already said. You’re treating red flowers in a vase as always given, when it isn’t. What is given is a thing containing things. I’ve already argued all this in the preceding pages, re: the mosquito bite, ‘57 DeSoto’s, and such. “Before he can say an instance of perception, is that” makes explicit time as a necessary condition for experience of objects, therefore empirical knowledge itself.

I think it of no intellectual consequence here, to follow the chronology back to the beginning, when the tree we all claim to know, was just this thing poking out of the dirt, and the only reason we know it as such now, is because it was recorded as such then. As it is for every single known object ever. The metaphysical implications are enormous, which is probably why they’re forfeited to the nonsense of mere language on the one hand, and the restrictions to pure physicalism on the other.
————-

Quoting Andrew M

I reject that we see only images (of unknown things), hence the allusion to Kant:

“...but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something....”

You should reject that we see only images of unknown things, insofar as Kant’s “appearance” is not your “see only images”. In Kant, the unknown things we see are not images (they are phenomena, “the undetermined objects of intuition”), and images we have are not unknown things (they are called schema, and represent “the synthesis of the understanding into a possible cognition”.

I’ve noticed you’ve never used that word....understanding. I suppose your thesis has no need of it, in that, in this discussion, we’ve never got past the transition from the physical external to the rational internal, and furthermore, that physicalist explanations for brain mechanics is both necessary and sufficient for human knowledge. Problem is, of course, that while physicalist predicates are certainly necessary, the sufficiency of them is not given by their mere necessity, and can never arise from it alone.

Also, without the use of understanding as a rational condition, you’ve entitled yourself to say stuff like.....

Quoting RussellA

the object whiteness and the word "whiteness" are physical things in the world.

....and, my personal favorite, so far anyway.....

Quoting RussellA

Independent of the mind, logic exists in the world.

.....which is fine, if that’s how you roll, but you’re gonna have a hellava job supporting either of those assertions, that eliminates the inconsistencies in them. I get it, honest, I do, I guess. You’re of the opinion that human thought is not anything to be taken seriously. You might grant that everybody thinks, but the how and why of it doesn’t matter. And if everything is in the world, from red flowers to logic to whiteness, and given to us as it is, we don’t need to think about the world becoming comprehensible to an intelligence such as humans possess.

But humans are wrong about so much, and distinct from each other in so many ways, it might be best to figure out humans, rather than just give us all a world to hide behind.
————-

Quoting RussellA

Consider an object having a physical existence independent of any observer.......

Duly considered. To consider is to think, and I can think an object having physical existence without observing it. Doesn’t mean I know there is such a thing that conforms to my thinking, but if I can think it without implicit contradiction, it must be a possible thing.

Quoting RussellA

.....such as an apple.

An apple is a determined object. A determined object cannot be independent of that which determines it. From a human point of view, the only one from which we are entitled to speak, apple is a human determination, which makes explicit a human observer of an object having physical existence.

Quoting Mww

stuff like.....the object whiteness and the word "whiteness" are physical things in the world.

Bertrand Russell wrote "That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them". Perhaps I should have written "the object white light", where white light is a physical object, having the wavelength between the ranges of 400 and 700 nm. Though I am sure endless debates could be had as to whether light is an object as much as is an apple an object.

The word "whiteness" exists as a physical object on the screen that you are currently reading.

Quoting Mww

You’re of the opinion that human thought is not anything to be taken seriously

I don't understand your logic in saying that because I believe that an object in the world cannot both exist and not exist at the same time then it follows that I also believe that human thought is not to be taken seriously.

Quoting Mww

A determined object cannot be independent of that which determines it.

I agree. That is why I wrote "for the present purposes of discussing the nature of logic, I am simplifying the true nature of "apples" by assuming that they exist as facts in the world as apples"

I could have based my post on "logical objects" rather than "physical objects", but this would have created more questions than it answered

Perhaps one should think of the apple as a metaphor rather than something literal.

Quoting Wayfarer

An exact definition of nominalism.

You gave it a name. Congratulations.

Quoting RussellA

The word "whiteness" exists as a physical object on the screen that you are currently reading.

If I speak to you, say, “what do you think of “whiteness”, in which case the word appears in the world as a sound to your ears just as it appears to your vision as a word on the screen, what object am I referring to, per Russell’s comment? You shouldn’t bring any worldly object to consciousness at all, because I didn’t ask what you thought about white things, but only the relative quality of white in general. That which many thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and the object of all thoughts of whiteness, is.....white. And white is not an object in the world.
————-

Quoting RussellA

......because I believe that an object in the world cannot both exist and not exist at the same time then it follows that I also believe that human thought is not to be taken seriously.

That’s not what I said. I said......I think you don’t assign enough importance to human thought, as a consequence of reading you say logic exists in the world, and is not a human invention. What you did with the existence thing, is merely provide a proof for the logic already thought by a human. The world is the existence of things, so the simultaneous thing and no-thing cannot be a condition of the world, but only a condition of some intelligence that thinks about it in a logically self-contradictory way. I’m only rather emphatically contending that a typical human intelligence should already know all that, and a decent cognitive philosopher certainly would.
————

Quoting RussellA

Perhaps one should think of the apple as a metaphor rather than something literal.

Metaphors are never sufficient for knowledge; only the literal will suffice. The irreducible, the unconditioned. The truth as far as we can tell.

Quoting RussellA

Some scholars think that the passage "In the beginning was the word (logos) "is more accurately translated "In the beginning was logic"

All well and good, but nothing you say has any bearing on the truth or falsehood of materialism. And that is a Biblical quotation.

Quoting RussellA

It is for those who don't believe that logic is intrinsic to reality to show a single instance whereby an object in the world exists at the same time as not existing.

Many of the discoveries of modern quantum physics defy logic, for instance the 'wave-particle' nature of subatomic bodies.

Quoting RussellA

The word "whiteness" exists as a physical object on the screen that you are currently reading.

The symbol is physical, but it can be represented by many different words or sounds, and still have the same meaning. Accordingly the meaning is separate from the physical form. That's a form of dualism which I am prepared to defend.

I appreciate the effort you're making, but it's wide of the mark. You're not actually 'defending materialism' nor can I see why you would think it's worth defending. Perhaps you feel that it's better than some putative alternative.

As to whether logic is 'intrinsic to reality', that is debatable. I would say it is intrinsic to the way the mind and language operate. Logic is after all often defined as 'the laws of thought'. Most of what you're saying refers to Aristotelian logic, not that there's anything the matter with that.

Quoting RussellA

Bertrand Russell wrote "That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them".

That is contained in Russell's chapter The World of Universals, which I referred to earlier.

I'm interested in Aristotelian/Thomistic realism. 'Realism' in this context is completely different to what we mean by 'realism' nowadays. Modern realism is the conviction that objects exist independently of any mind and that the world that science explores exists independently of any act of observation.

Scholastic realism believes that universals exist 'in the mind of God'. The way I would interpret that is to say that universals are what is real for any rational intelligence, but that they're only perceptible by the mind. In other words, they're not dependent on your mind or mine, but they can only be perceived by a rational mind. As such, they provide the superstructure of reason, so to speak - the framework within which judgements are made. That is the sense in which reason is transcendent - it transcends the distinction between self-and-world, and self-and-other.

I think when you say that logic is 'in the world', what you actually mean is that you look at the world through logic. That I would agree with. Logic is constitutive of the way we understand and navigate the world. Accordingly it's neither 'in' the mind, nor 'in' the world, but is a major part of the framework within which we navigate the world.

The problem with modern empiricism is that it won't see this, because its gaze is always directed outwards, towards objects, which it believes are alone real. That is what 'materialism' is. This is what is behind the blind spot of science:

Behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is). Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary.

Quoting Mww

“what do you think of “whiteness”

Abstract nouns are part of physicalism
If I hear the word "whiteness", in my mind I link the physical word "whiteness" with several physical objects in the world, such as snow, paper, milk, chalk, each of which has the physical property of being white.

It is interesting that the abstract noun "whiteness" can be explained as the product of a set of physical events - a physical link, a physical word, a physical object and a physical property.

IE, abstract nouns is an example of a universal that doesn't require dualism as an explanation.

Quoting Mww

white is not an object in the world.

White light is an object in the world
I agree that white is not an object in the world, as it is an adjective, though I would still argue, as I wrote before, "white light is a physical object"

An object is white if it emits electromagnetic radiation composed of a fairly even distribution of all of the frequencies in the visible range of the spectrum, ranging from 750 to 400nm

Consider red light. Red light is electromagnetic radiation of 750nm. Red light is a physical thing that is visible, tangible and relatively stable in form.

White light is the set of violet light, blue light, cyan light, green light, yellow light, orange light and red light. Such a set is visible, tangible and relatively stable in form.

The definition of an object is anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form.

IE, it follows that white light fulfils the definition of an object.

Quoting Mww

The world is the existence of things, so the simultaneous thing and no-thing cannot be a condition of the world

Humans may invent many logical systems, but only that logical system which corresponds to what has been discovered in the world is accepted and used

Humans are able to invent numerous logical systems. For example, I could invent a logical system whereby i) a single identity can exist and not exist at the same time, ii) a statement can be true and false at the same time, iii) one plus one equals three. Tomorrow, I could invent a totally new logical system.

The question is why is one invented logical system accepted and used rather than another.
The answer is that logical system which corresponds with what has been discovered in the world.

IE, Humans may invent many logical systems, but only that logical system which corresponds to what has been discovered in the world is accepted and used.

Quoting Mww

Metaphors are never sufficient for knowledge; only the literal will suffice.

I would say that to date we have no literal knowledge of anything, meaning that there is no alternative but for the metaphor to suffice.

As the saying goes "Getting knowledge about something is like making a map of a place or like travelling there. Teaching someone is like showing them how to reach a place".

Quoting RussellA

White light is an object in the world
I agree that white is not an object in the world, as it is an adjective, though I would still argue, as I wrote before, "white light is a physical object"

An object is white if it emits electromagnetic radiation composed of a fairly even distribution of all of the frequencies in the visible range of the spectrum, ranging from 750 to 400nm

Consider red light. Red light is electromagnetic radiation of 750nm. Red light is a physical thing that is visible, tangible and relatively stable in form.

White light is the set of violet light, blue light, cyan light, green light, yellow light, orange light and red light. Such a set is visible, tangible and relatively stable in form.

The definition of an object is anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form.

IE, it follows that white light fulfils the definition of an object.

I wonder how you would account for the occurrence of extra-spectral colors in the purple-magenta range, for - not being part of the (visible) electromagnetic light spectrum - they don't seem to satisfy your requirement for being "objects in the world".


Color circle (RGB)
Crossover1370, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Quoting Wayfarer

Many of the discoveries of modern quantum physics defy logic, for instance the 'wave-particle' nature of subatomic bodies.

It's not true that the wave/particle duality "defies logic" it merely defies our understanding of physicality.

Quoting Wayfarer

So I dispute that as a general matter that we do see what 'things really are', even if we know enough to know a tree or an apple when we see one.

What could it mean to "see things as they really are"? Are you not making an unwarranted assumption that things "really are some ultimate way". Why should that be necessary?

*

Quoting RussellA

“what do you think of “whiteness”
— Mww

If I hear the word "whiteness", in my mind I link the physical word "whiteness" with several physical objects in the world,

Which is not what the question asks, as pre-conditioned by what you shouldn’t do.
————-

Quoting RussellA

I could invent a logical system whereby a single identity can exist and not exist at the same time

You could invent a logic but couldn’t imagine whiteness?
————-

Quoting RussellA

The question is why is one invented logical system accepted and used rather than another. The answer is that logical system which corresponds with what has been discovered in the world.

Maybe, but probably much more likely that discoveries by humans correspond to the logical system intrinsic to humans. We don’t invent logic; we are logical. We merely invent the representations of its necessary systemic conditions.

So.....go ahead and try inventing a logic without using the logic with which you are naturally imbued.
————-

Quoting RussellA

I would say that to date we have no literal knowledge of anything, meaning that there is no alternative but for the metaphor to suffice.

We have no absolute knowledge, meaning there is no alternative but for contingent knowledge to suffice.

Knowledge is the highest degree of relative certainty, certainty literally is what is the case relative to the time of it. Exactly the opposite of metaphor.

I understand your literal/metaphorical dichotomy has purchase in a non-representational system, which is, oddly enough, self-defeating, in that literal and metaphor are each themselves representations. And even if they weren’t, it is far from established, that a non-representational system holds over a representational one as the whole of human intelligence qua rational thought.

Quoting RussellA

As the saying goes "Getting knowledge about something is like making a map of a place or like travelling there. Teaching someone is like showing them how to reach a place".

Whatever bonehead said that didn’t heed its weakness. Knowledge is literally making a map; teaching is metaphorically giving a map. The map made is pure experience; the map given is the opposite in the form of rote instruction.

But I get it, it’s how you claim knowledge of red flowers in vases.....because somebody told you so. Somebody showed you how to get from physical object in the world to what you should call it from then on. And you never bothered to ask yourself how that happened, and apparently, no one ever gave you a map that took you to a place you didn’t want to go.

Your system works well enough, as long as there’s no glitches. Just as soon as there is one.....for which there is ample historical precedent....that kind of system cannot sustain itself.

Quoting javra

I wonder how you would account for the occurrence of extra-spectral colors in the purple-magenta range, for - not being part of the (visible) electromagnetic light spectrum - they don't seem to satisfy your requirement for being "objects in the world".

Are extra-spectral colours "objects in the world" ?

Taking magenta as an example of an extra-spectral colour
To my understanding, in our eyes we have three kinds of cones configured to receive red, green and blue/violet light. We perceive magenta when both our red and blue/violet cones fire together. Magenta does not exist in the visible electromagnetic spectrum, it only exists in our conscious perception.

The are are two meanings to "object in the world"
The first meaning is from the viewpoint of an observer of the "object". For example, I observe a rock in front of me, and the rock is "an object in the world"
The second meaning is independent of any observer. For example, I am sure that on Mars there is a rock that has never been observed, yet is still an "object in the world".

Do relations ontologically exist in the world
An object is a whole comprising relationships between its parts.
A "rock" is a whole thing made up of parts, typically minerals, which are made up of atoms, which in their turn is made up of subatomic particles, such as bosons etc.
Whether relations have an ontological existence in the world is debated.
FH Bradley used a regress argument against the ontological existence of external relations.
However Russell dismissed Bradley’s argument on the grounds that philosophers who disbelieve in the reality of external relations cannot possibly interpret those numerous parts of sciences which appear to be committed to external relations.

Terminology of Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism
Idealism = the world only consists of ideas, ideas are the only reality, and there is no external reality.
Direct Realism = our senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world, and the world derived from our sense perception should be taken at face value.
Indirect Realism = our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation of the real world

In Idealism, there are no "objects in the world"
In Idealism, as there is no external world, there are no "objects in the world"

In Realism, whether one believes "objects in the world" exist or not depends on one's belief in the ontological existence of relations
If relations do have an ontological existence in the world, then a "rock" exists both as "an object in the world" and in the mind.
If relations don't have an ontological existence in the world, then a "rock", which is a relation between its parts, cannot have ontological existence in the world. As we are talking about rocks, they do exist in the mind.

Summary
Both red and blue/violet physically exist in the world as electromagnetic radiation.
Magenta is a relationship between red and blue/violet.
The question is, in what way does magenta exist as an "object in the world".
If Idealism is true, then magenta isn't an "object in the world"
If relations don't ontologically exist, then magenta isn't an "object in the world"
If relations do ontologically exist, then magenta is an "object in the world"

I personally don't believe relations have an ontological existence in the world for a couple of reasons, and therefore, for me, extra-spectral colours only exist in the mind and therefore are not "objects in the world"

It looks like [s]all[/s] science is wrong if dualism is true (physically unaccounted for energy, re conservation of energy). Science is, at the end of the day, about matter & energy and how they behave and interact. Laws exist and these will be broken/violated if nonphysical minds interact, causally, with physical systems. Reminds me of The Invisible Man, poltergeists, paranormal phenomena, etc. Science failing to explain...look there for the nonphysical.

Science is a practical means for relating and translating different perspectives, and isn't descriptive of perspectives per-se, due to the fact that perspectives are a meta-logical concept that are external to the inter-subjective concept called 'scientific investigation'. Science isn't troubled by the fact that our perspectival uses of language come into conflict with our shared linguistic conventions , because science's concerns are only inter-subjective.

Quoting Wayfarer

Modern realism is the conviction that objects exist independently of any mind............Scholastic realism believes that universals exist 'in the mind of God'. The way I would interpret that is to say that universals are what is real for any rational intelligence, but that they're only perceptible by the mind

What are objects
The whole is the relationship between its parts
An object such as an apple is the relationship between its parts
The parts of an an apple have a physical existence in the world.
The question is, does the whole, the object, the apple, have an ontological existence in the world.

Do relations ontologically exist in the world
As regards the world independent of any observer, if relations don't have an ontological existence, then objects such as apples, which are relations between its parts, cannot ontologically exist in the world.
If relations do have an ontological existence, then objects such as apples, which are relations between its parts, can ontologically exist in the world.

FH Bradley argued against the existence of external relations in his regress argument, whereby either a relation R is nothing to the things a and b it relates, in which case it cannot relate them, or, it is something to them, in which case R must be related to them.
I personally don't believe relations exist ontologically in the world for two reasons
Reason one. When looking at two parts A and B, there is no information within Part A as to the existence of Part B, there is no information within Part B as to the existence of Part A, and there is no information within the space between A and B as to the existence of either A and B located at its ends.
Reason two. If ontological relations exist in the world, then there must be ontological relations between all parts in the world, not just some of them. For example, there must be an ontological relation between my pen and the Eiffel Tower, between an apple in France and an orange in Spain, between a particular atom in the Empire State Building and a particular atom in the Taj Mahal - none of which makes sense.

Do relations ontologically exist in the mind
As regards the mind of the observer, I know that I am conscious. I know that I have a unity of consciousness, in that what I perceive is a a single experience
John Raymond Smythies described the binding problem as "How is the representation of information built up in the neural networks that there is one single object 'out there' and not a mere collection of separate shapes, colours and movements?
I can only conclude, from my personal experience, that relations do have an ontological existence in my mind, such that when I perceive an apple, I perceive the whole apple and not just a set of disparate parts

Modern Realism
I believe that parts in the world have a physical existence independent of any mind.
As I don't believe that relations have a physical existence in the world, then no object, such as an apple, a table, a chair, etc, can have a physical existence in the world.

Scholastic Realism
I can only believe that both parts and relations do have an ontological existence in the mind, meaning that objects, such as apples, tables, chairs, etc do have an ontological existence in my mind.

The word "object" has two distinct meanings
Confusion arises in language as the two distinct meanings of "object" are generally not differentiated.
There is the "object" in my mind and the "object" in the world
The consequence is that when I perceive an object such as an apple, the apple I am thinking about exists in my mind but not in the world.
It would be wrong to say that the "apple" is an illusion, as the "apple" does exist, but in my mind rather than the world.

Conclusion
Objects such as apples ontologically exist in my mind but not in the world.
When I perceive an apple, I am perceiving something that is real, just that it is in my mind rather than the world
That relations do exist in the mind, allowing me a unity of consciousness is an absolute mystery to me, although a fact.

However, even the fact that relations exist in my mind neither supports nor opposes the question of dualism. Relations may exist in the mind whether the mind is separate substance to the brain or the mind is an expression of the brain

Quoting RussellA

What are objects
The whole is the relationship between its parts
An object such as an apple is the relationship between its parts
The parts of an an apple have a physical existence in the world.
The question is, does the whole, the object, the apple, have an ontological existence in the world.

Note that the parts of an apple, eg its flesh, its seed or its skin, are themselves made of smaller parts (cells) themselves made of smaller parts (biochemical structures) etc. etc. It's the same dialectic of wholes and their parts all the way down. So if apples do not exist on account of being wholes, nothing exists.

Therefore, relations objectively exist in this world.

Quoting RussellA

For example, there must be an ontological relation between my pen and the Eiffel Tower, between an apple in France and an orange in Spain, between a particular atom in the Empire State Building and a particular atom in the Taj Mahal - none of which makes sense.

It makes perfect sense. In Newtonian physics, an atom in the Taj Mahal must by necessity attract an atom in the Empire State Building, though the resulting force is I guess extremely small. In General Relativity, everything is relative -- relative to everything else I would think.

Quoting Agent Smith

Laws exist and these will be broken/violated if nonphysical minds interact, causally, with physical systems.

What substance are your laws made of?

Quoting RussellA

Objects such as apples ontologically exist in my mind but not in the world.

You're using the term 'ontologically' to denote 'really existent', your implication being that physical things are truly existent whilst relations etc exist 'in the mind'. But the division between 'in my mind' and 'in the world' is not so clear cut, as the division is also in your mind! A being is aware of itself in the world, but that 'awareness of self in the world' is also the activity of consciousness.

Your posts are written from the perspective of uncritical realism, starting with the assumption that the sensory domain possesses inherent and unquestionable reality, when in fact that is what is at issue in philosophy.

Quoting Janus

What could it mean to "see things as they really are"? Are you not making an unwarranted assumption that things "really are some ultimate way". Why should that be necessary?

Because that is what the subject of philosophy is concerned with. That is the basis of the idea of 'appearance and reality' which is the fundamental preoccupation of philosophy since the subject began.

Quoting Wayfarer

Because that is what the subject of philosophy is concerned with. That is the basis of the idea of 'appearance and reality' which is the fundamental preoccupation of philosophy since the subject began.

Maybe so with ancient and medieval philosophy, but in today's terms a very narrow, anachronistic conception of philosophy, corrected by Kant 240 years ago. Phenomenology has nothing to do with ultimate concerns. Neither has continental or analytic philosophy or pragmatism. You're living in the past.

Quoting Olivier5

So if apples do not exist on account of being wholes, nothing exists

I agree that the parts of what we think of as an apple do physically exist in the world.
But the parts will still physically exist whether or not relations have an ontological existence in the world.
Therefore, the existence of the parts neither proves nor disproves the existence of relations.

Quoting Olivier5

In Newtonian physics, an atom in the Taj Mahal must by necessity attract an atom in the Empire State Building,

Considering atom A in the Empire State Building and atom B in the Taj Mahal
I agree atom A may experience a force from atom B, and vice versa.

Atom A may experience a force from atom B, but there is no information within the force that relates atom A to atom B.
Similarly, atom B may experience a force from atom A, but there is no information within the force that relates atom B to atom A.
There is also no information within the space between atoms A and B that relates atoms A to B

If an ontological relation does exist in the world between atom A and atom B, the question is, where is the information that there is such a relation.

Quoting Wayfarer

Your posts are written from the perspective of uncritical realism, starting with the assumption that the sensory domain possesses inherent and unquestionable reality, when in fact that is what is at issue in philosophy.

Don't think I agree.

A physical world exists independently of us
I agree with Critical Realism in a belief in Ontological Realism, that a physical reality exists and operates independently of our awareness, knowledge, or perception of it.

Our knowledge is both a priori and a posteriori
I believe that we have knowledge of the world both a priori and a posteriori.
A priori knowledge is innate knowledge - of space, time, causation, colour, etc - that has been genetically built into the brain after millions of years of evolution.
A posteriori knowledge we gain through our senses.

Indirect Realism explains more than Direct Realism
I agree with both Direct and Indirect Realism that there is a correspondence between events in the world and how we perceive these events in our minds, even though in Direct Realism the correspondence is direct whilst in Indirect Realism the correspondence is indirect.
Because I believe that relations don't ontologically exist in the world, but do exist in the mind, and as Direct Realism is the claim that our senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world, then I don't believe in Direct Realism.
As regards Indirect Realism, taking an example, because an object emits a wavelength of 700nm, and yet we perceive it as the colour red, our perception of the colour red can only be a representation of the wavelength of 700nm, pointing to Indirect Realism as the true explanation. Accepting Indirect Realism as a true explanation, we can never know what is on the other side of our senses, we can never know the true nature of reality.

Trying to understand what is on the other side of our senses
I agree that when we perceive, we are directly perceiving our senses and not what is on the other side of them. Yet, because I also believe in the Law of Causation. I believe that what I perceive in my senses is an effect of a prior cause, and that prior cause is a world independent of me as an observer.
Each moment in time is a different reality. What I perceive in my senses is real, what caused these sensations in the world is real, going back in time through successive cause and effect to some time in the beginning.

I agree with Critical Realism
I agree with empiricism that the the only way to gain knowledge is what we sense through the senses, making the note that our a priori knowledge originally came through the senses.
I agree with positivism that only knowledge supported by facts is valid.
But I also agree with Critical Realism that knowledge is not gained by a simplistic conjunction between cause and effect, but rather is an ongoing process whereby we gradually and incrementally improve our concepts in trying to make sense of a complex world that exists independently of us.

Make sense, not in the sense of understanding the nature of absolute reality, but make sense sufficiently for us to pragmatically survive in the environment that we find ourselves in.

Quoting RussellA

I agree that the parts of what we think of as an apple do physically exist in the world.

These parts are themselves wholes made of sub-parts.

Quoting Wayfarer

Your posts are written from the perspective of uncritical realism,

Quoting RussellA

Don't think I agree.

A physical world exists independently of us
I agree with Critical Realism in a belief in Ontological Realism, that a physical reality exists and operates independently of our awareness, knowledge, or perception of it.

Here is a definition of critical realism:

Critical Realism (CR) is a branch of philosophy that distinguishes between the real and the observable. The real can not be observed and exists independent from human perceptions, theories, and constructions. The world as we know and understand it is constructed from our perspectives and experiences, through what is observable. Thus, according to critical realists, unobservable structures cause observable events and the social world can be understood only if people understand the structures that generate events.

Notice that this doesn't declare that the real world is physical. What we understand as physical is a matter of definition and is constantly changing. There is no simple definition of matter and matter itself cannot be shown to possess intrinsic reality.

I agree that a priori knowledge is innate, but don't agree that it can be explained in terms of natural selection and genetics on the grounds that that is reductionist. Again that is a naturalist assumption.

Quoting RussellA

I believe that what I perceive in my senses is an effect of a prior cause, and that prior cause is a world independent of me as an observer.

That is 'transcendental realism', the commonsense pre-theoretic view that objects in space and time are things in themselves or possess an innate reality independently of the mind.

What you're not seeing is the mind's contribution to everything asserted about the mind-independent world.

I think you're describing a scientific realist attitude. Scientific realism assumes that the world explored by science exists independently of us and our knowledge of it. I think that is a sound methodological starting point. But it is *not* a metaphysic. It starts with the assumption that the 'external' world is real, not seeing that 'external' is itself a representation. Naturalism looks at the phenomenon of life from an external viewpoint, the fossil record, evolution, and so on, but life as it is lived occurs from a first-person perspective. Naturalism subordinates the first- to the third-person p.o.v., as if the third-person approach is privileged and the authoritative source of judgement. But again it fails to appreciate the sense in which even the sciences are human constructs - which is not to deprecate science, but to demote it from the assumed role as 'arbiter of reality'. As we're not ultimately apart from or outside of the world or reality as such, the naturalist assumption of our separateness and the presumed objective reality of natural phenomena has no ultimate validity. It's simply a working assumption, not an ultimate truth. This is the key insight of non-dualist philosophy.

Quoting Wayfarer

I believe that what I perceive in my senses is an effect of a prior cause, and that prior cause is a world independent of me as an observer. — RussellA


That is 'transcendental realism', the commonsense pre-theoretic view that objects in space and time are things in themselves or possess an innate reality independently of the mind.

So, you believe that if you as an observer ceased to exist, the world would go with you?

Quoting Janus

So, you believe that if you as an observer ceased to exist, the world would go with you?

Picking up on this: Its utterly reasonable to me to claim that when the unique self which I am will cease existing, all my personal loves and idiosyncratic perspectives will end with me - but not yours or those of the eight billion and counting, to not mention the far greater quantity of unique selves of lesser sentient beings.

What I find to be a more interesting question in respect to the thread: If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish - from that of the lowly bacteria to us, to that occurring in any other place in the universe irrespective of its degree of development; even that applicable to panpsychism if one so maintains the world to be - what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it?

While I take this to be an open-ended issue, I can’t fathom any type of envisioned world occurring in the absence of any awareness to envision it.

(As to the issue of life evolving out of nonlife, some as of yet nebulous system of panpsychism could potentially account for this just as well as, if not better then, the metaphysical stance of physicalism does. But, here, the world would be primordially constituted of awareness, thereby entailing that no world occurs if no awareness occurs.)

Reply to javra If we believe the science it tells us that the universe did indeed exist before any organisms appeared on the scene.

Quoting javra

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish - from that of the lowly bacteria to us, to that occurring in any other place in the universe irrespective of its degree of development; even that applicable to panpsychism if one so maintains the world to be - what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it?

I've addressed this a number of times with reference to a passage in Brian Magee's book on Schopenhauer, which can be read here, here, here and here.

The empiricist view is that the universe exists irrespective of whether it is observed or not. In one sense that is true, but the empiricist overlooks the role of the observing mind in the representation of the Universe and so what it means to say the universe exists.

There are two key passages in the Critique of Pure Reason that address this:

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposedtranscendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)

Having carefully distinguished between transcendental idealism and transcendental realism, Kant then goes on to introduce the concept of empirical realism:

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. (A370)

Quoting Wayfarer

Again, you're picturing 'a world in which there are no mind' - the early earth, drifting silently through the empty void. But that is still a concept, an idea, ordered according to the intuitions of space and time. The point about realism - whether scientific or naive - is that it supplies that human perspective, situates the concept in a temporal and spatial matrix - and then doesn't realise it is doing so. Whatever we say about 'reality' assumes a perspective, but then forgets that it is actually supplying the perspective. It is analogous to wearing a pair of spectacles, without which nothing can be seen, and then looking through them, and demanding 'show me where in this picture there are spectacles'.

Quoting Janus

If we believe the science it tells us that the universe did indeed exist before any organisms appeared on the scene.

I believe I've already accounted for this in my post via some, as of yet to be clarified, form of panpsychism.

Reply to Wayfarer

I do see where you're coming from. My own view has nowadays come to take the primacy of awareness nearly for granted. However, due to my own views - liken them maybe to those of a logos operated anima mundi when it comes to the physical world we all share - this does entail that what we discover of the anima mundi (else, what the anima mundi informs us of) is, for lack of a better wording, our closest proximity to an absolute objective truth. A view easily shunned in multiple ways, I'm sure, but in this view, fully granting the primacy of awareness, we are being informed by the world that we sapient beings evolved from beings of lesser sentience which themselves somehow evolved out of nonlife. My degree of understanding may not be good enough to understand how, yet due to the very premises I hold - including that of awareness's primacy - I cannot find myself denying the data that life evolved out of nonlife. If not on our planet then in the cosmos at large.

In parallel to the issue of whether the Sun rises or else the Earth's axis spins, I personally find that on one hand life's evolution form nonlife really doesn't much matter in the context of the lives we live. On the other hand, I do believe its were deeper truths about the world in large, together with those pertaining to our own being, are to be uncovered.

But yes, regardless of any differences we might have, at the end of the day I do agree with this: Quoting Wayfarer

The empiricist view is that the universe exists irrespective of whether it is observed or not. In one sense that is true, but the empiricist overlooks the role of the observing mind in the representation of the Universe and so what it means to say the universe exists.

Quoting javra

I believe I've already accounted for this in my post via some, as of yet to be clarified, form of panpsychism.

OK, but I can't see how pan-psychism would help. I see no reason to think it is impossible for physical things like planets and stars to exist absent humans or other percipients. I see the so-called "hard problem" as existing only on account of a presumptuous idea that we understand the nature of physical matter.

You say you agree with "the empiricist view is that the universe exists irrespective of whether it is observed or not. In one sense that is true, but the empiricist overlooks the role of the observing mind in the representation of the Universe and so what it means to say the universe exists".

It is. I think, trivially true that we and all percipients contribute to how things are perceived on account of different perceptual constitutions. That aside, what it means to say things exist independently of percipients, is that they are there to be perceived, and there regardless of whether or not they are perceived.

Quoting Janus

Regardless of that, what it means to say things exist independently of percipients, is that they are there to be perceived, and there regardless of whether or not they are perceived.

Right. Of course. Independently of me, or of you, or of any other individual sentience. But would they in any way occur in the complete absence of any and all awareness?

As an analogy, one single geometric point is indefinite, volumeless, and in this sense nonexistent. There must be two or more geometric points to establish any kind of space whatsoever - a space which the two or more geometric points inhabit with location. Now, given that space already is, this entails that a plurality of geometric points occurs. Take any one geometric point away and the given space yet remains due to there yet occurring two or more geometric points to define it. So, relative to individual geometric points, the space they occupy occurs independently of them. Yet, relative to all geometric points, the occurrence of the space they occupy will be dependent on the geometric points' primacy of being.

In like enough manner, the physical world (to not even mention individual objects in it) occurs fully independently of me, or you, of any other individual psyche. But in the absence of all awareness, including that pertaining to psyches, there would be no such thing as a world.

Like an ocean that is made up of water drops. The ocean is in one way fully independent of the individual water drops it consist of: taking a buck of water away makes no difference. Yet, there would be no ocean in the complete absence of all water drops.

This not with an intention to convince but to explain. I agree that the physical world is mind-independent (or indifferent) when addressing individual minds or individual mind cohorts. But I uphold that it is mind-dependent (or at least awareness-dependent) when addressing the occurrence of all coexisting instantiations of awareness.

Its an alternative view to yours - but it does account for why the moon is irrespective of whether I, or you, or some lesser animal somewhere, happens to be mindful of it or not. For one thing, the moon is thoroughly enmeshed in a cosmic causal matrix, the same we're all embedded in, and will thus remain long after we no longer are in this world.

Edit: Panpsychism of some form would then need to be to account for a life-devoid cosmos from which life evolved, this within such a system pivoting on a primacy of awareness.

Quoting javra

In like enough manner, the physical world (to not even mention individual object in it) occurs fully independently of me, or you, of any other individual psyche. But in the absence of all awareness, including that pertaining to psyches, there would be no such thing as a world.

If the physical world occurs independently of any and all individual psyches, then why would there be no such thing as a world in the absence of all awareness? Are you positing a collective psyche or something like that?

Quoting Janus

Are you positing a collective psyche or something like that?

As the "creator of the world" you mean? No. Tried to simplistically illustrate what I'm positing via the analogy to geometric points. More concretely, yet still simplistically, replace "geometric points" with "first-person points of view (conscious or otherwise)" and "geometric space" with "physical space". Lots of details to go through for which this forum isn't ideally suited. But the conclusion: physical space is a necessary correlate of there co-occuring two or more first-person points of view - and occurs independently of what these might individually or collectively desire in regard to space's existence. Just as there would be no geometric space in the absence of two or more geometric points, so too would there be no physical space in the absence of two or more instantiations of awareness. As physical space is contingent on there being two or more instantiations of awareness, so too will the physical world in totality of complexity be. But I really don't want to drag this into "my views". In short, though, the answer to the question you posed is "no": there is no creator psyche of the world from where I stand.

In fairness, though, you have so far not directly answered the question I've posed:

Quoting javra

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it?

Quoting javra

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it

As awareness corresponds to electric and color charge, the whole universe would collapse, Zip! Kaboom! Kaput!

Physicalism

Quoting Wayfarer

What we understand as physical is a matter of definition and is constantly changing

Yes. Physicalism is sometimes known as ‘materialism’. Materialists historically held that everything was matter. But physics itself has shown that not everything is matter in this sense. For example, forces such as gravity are physical but it is not clear that they are material in the traditional sense Physicalists don’t deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem physical, such as biological, psychological, moral, social or mathematical, but at the end of the day, such things either are or are founded on the physical.

The importance of the Law of Causation

Quoting Wayfarer

the mind's contribution to everything asserted about the mind-independent world.

I agree with the quote, as my position is that of Indirect Realism (our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation of the real world) rather than Direct Realism (our senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world, and the world derived from our sense perception should be taken at face value).

My immediate perception is of the sensations through my senses, not what caused these sensations. I perceive sensations through my senses - the colour red, a sharp pain, a bitter taste, an acrid smell, a screeching noise. The question is, how much can we discover about the reality of the external world just using these sensations through our senses

The only key we have to discover what is on the other side of our senses is the Law of Causation. As I believe in the Law of Causation intellectually and know the Law of Causation instinctively, being a priori innate, I both believe and know that there is an external world causing these sensations.

Critical Realism, RW Sellars and causation
Critical realism follows from RW Sellars and Critical Realism (1916). Sellars argued against Idealism, and proposed real substances (as opposed to ideas, universals, etc) as objects of perception. Sellars held that the normal objects of perception are real full-bodied independent substances, rejecting “the historical desiccation of the category of substance,” that is, the whittling down of the Ancient and Medieval robust notion of substance to Locke’s “I know not what”.

Critical Realism, Roy Bhaskar and causation
Roy Bhaskar is known as initiating Critical Realism, including A Realist Theory of Science (1975). He held the position that unobservable structures cause observable events, which supported the ontological reality of causal powers independent of their empirical effects. It follows that what scientists are learning about, therefore, cannot be causal laws, understood as invariant patterns of events, rather they are learning about causal mechanisms, tendencies that tend to bring about certain types of outcome, but do not always do so. Objects are able to exert causal powers, but only within a complex structure.

Summary
To say the world is physical within Physicalism encompasses many things, and includes both matter and forces.
We can only discover what is on the other side of our senses using the Law of Causation. If our sensations such as pain had no cause and happened spontaneously, the world we live in would be a very unpredictable place.
The earlier Sellars Critical Realism required a world of real, full-bodied independent substances.
The later Bhaskar Critical Realism argued for objects in the world having causal powers.

IE, the Law of Causation is key in being able to discover what is not directly observable.

Delete.

Quoting javra

In fairness, though, you have so far not directly answered the question I've posed:

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it?

I would say everything bar percipients and their perceptions.

Perhaps I'm thick, but I didn't understand what you were trying to convey in your first paragraph.

Quoting Mww

First were these two.....

This is just another way of saying that to perceive a red flower in a vase entails that there is a red flower in a vase (i.e., the logic of perception).
— Andrew M

We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak.
— Andrew M

....later was this.....

my position is that of Indirect Realism (...) rather than Direct Realism (our senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world, and the world derived from our sense perception should be taken at face value).
— RussellA

...which confuses me, because in our dialogue it seemed as if your position was just what you claimed it was not. Seems to me as if the first two statements support the direct realist doctrine.

I'm not sure whether your comment was intended for RussellA or myself. But my position is neither direct (naïve) or indirect realism - I reject the antithesis [*]. See my earlier post here.

I also reject the Kantian appearance/thing-in-itself distinction, which is what my second comment above was meant to convey.

Both are artificial philosophical distinctions, not natural distinctions, such as that between a tree and an image of a tree (e.g., a photograph).

--

[*]

Sense and Sensibilia - J.L. Austin:I am not, then - and this is a point to be clear about from the beginning - going to maintain that we ought to be 'realist', to embrace, that is, the doctrine that we do perceive material things (or objects). This doctrine would be no less scholastic and erroneous than its antithesis. The question, do we perceive material things or sense-data, no doubt looks very simple - too simple - but is entirely misleading (cp. 'Thales' similarly vast and over-simple question, what the world is made of). One of the most important points to grasp is that these two terms, 'sense-data' and 'material things', live by taking in each other's washing - what is spurious is not one term of the pair, but the antithesis itself.

Reply to Andrew M

No excuses. Rest assured I shall make the sincerest effort to release my head from its anal captivity.

Quoting Janus

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it? — javra

I would say everything bar percipients and their perceptions.

In other words, everything bar awareness and awareness-contingent givens. What would that be though?

One should minimally add to your reply conceptualizations - including those of the world past, present, or future; or even of possible worlds - for all conceptualizations are themselves contingent on some instantiation(s) of awareness. So it’s known, I find your answer in current form trivially true and hence uninformative. I can try to rephrase the question in this way: What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)?

Quoting Janus

Perhaps I'm thick, but I didn't understand what you were trying to convey in your first paragraph.

Or perhaps I haven't explained it well enough. If it's of help, to try to illustrate from a different angle; I’ll allude to what I find to be a parallel-enough metaphysics in this regard: Buddhism. It’s a non-physicalist ontology replete with its causal networks that affirms the lack of a creator psyche for the world. I uphold a like position in regard to the generalities just expressed. If this example is not of help, then it appears I'm currently not that capable of properly expressing myself. I'll work on it some for next time.

Quoting javra

In other words, everything bar awareness and awareness-contingent givens. What would that be though?

True without percipents there would be no conceptualization. But conceptualization requires perception and perception require percipients and something to perceive.

Quoting javra

What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)?

I would say that absent percipients only what would be perceived if there were percipients could be posited. So, stars planets, mountains, rivers and so on. A very long list if you include plants.

Quoting Janus

What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)? — javra

I would say that absent percipients only what would be perceived if there were percipients could be posited. So, stars planets, mountains, rivers and so on. A cry long list if you include plants.

My first thought is, could anyone accomplish this positing without the use of their awareness? Take away awareness in general and the very possibility of this supposition seems to me to existentially vanish. What then?

But I grant that you, as with many others, deem it necessary that givens occur in manners fully independent of awareness in general, this in order to justify givens occurring independently of individual instantiations of awareness - the latter being something we all agree upon. In contrast, I’m thinking more along the lines of C.S. Peirce’s notions of idealism wherein “matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming natural laws”. Here, the physical (being effete mind) is contingent on the occurrence of awareness in general - but is not contingent on any individual instantiation of awareness. The former view - wherein matter is fully independent of mind - would seem to create a dualism between mind and matter if not for the supposition of physicalism. In at least this respect, the latter view does not.

At any rate, though we disagree on this point of ontology, thank you for the answer.

You can't tell a person (science) whose motto is prove me wrong (falsifiability) that she's wrong! That's a compliment and not an insult! :grin:

Quoting javra

My first thought is, could anyone accomplish this positing without the use of their awareness? Take away awareness in general and the very possibility of this supposition seems to me to existentially vanish. What then?

You are assuming that the existence of things depends on our positing their existence; I don't make that assumption.

I also don't follow Peirce in assuming that matter is effete mind. But yes, disagreement is fine; I don't hold any position regarding idealism vs materialism, although I think it's fair to say I do lean towards thinking materialism is the more plausible assumption. I also acknowledge that we don't know what materiality is (or anything else for that matter) in any "ultimate" sense.

Quoting Mww

No excuses.

No problem. :up: