Dualism is normally contrasted with monism rather than materialism. Materialism is only one form of monism. The other main monisms are idealism (one substance and it is primarily mental), and neutral monism (one substance which is in itself neither mental nor physical but gives rise to these two). There is also property dualism which could be construed as a substance monism, namely that there is one substance which has both mental and physical properties which are not reducible to one another. I guess I am a panpsychist property dualist monist. Spread that on your toast. :)
papamuratteOctober 17, 2018 at 17:22#2209470 likes
my belief is that mind is result of body and we are self-aware beings capable of reasoning
and yeah if god exists can somebody answer why he create the universe?
Michael OssipoffOctober 17, 2018 at 20:30#2209680 likes
I would have preferred that the options stated "lean towards" but I voted that way anyway: I lean towards materialist/atheist. However, materialist theories of mind are not quite complete - there remains the hard problem of consciousness (although I have a vague idea about how this might be solved).
The mind body problem is inherent within the problem of measurement itself as it leads to an inherent opposition of elements.
Where the mind and body may be respectively viewed as having inherent thetical, or positive, and antithetical, negative, properties relative to eachother this dualism observes a necessary monism and triadic from which they extend.
This monadism stems from the fact the mind and body, while observed as separate, are inherently connected because of this separation. This may seem paradoxical at first, but considering the opposition of mind and body are dependent upon a movement between and through the other and inherent connection is formed. The mind, as existing, is defined through the absence of mind by the body. The body as existing is defined by the absence of body by the mind.
This interplay between the two necessitates a form of synthesis where the inherent tension between the two becomes a medial element that defines them. To argue a mind body dualism leads to a synthesis of spirit as a medial point from which both extend. The same occurs with mind/spirit resulting in body and spirit/body resulting in mind.
A third degree of the human constitution is always necessitated as a center of balance, where the spirit is this case acts as the synthetic element.
In a separate respect the interplay between the mind body dualism always results in a progressive definition of the two. The mind is x and is not y, relative to the measuring point of the body, and the definition continues. This applies dually with the body.
In these respects the mind body dualism causes an continual expansion of definition between the two while necessitating a dual point of origin from which they exist (spirit).
So the spirit exists dually as what the mind and body are not, while existing as both. As both it maintains a connection but as a negative of both it maintains its own positive degree of definition.
For example the body may be composed of organs, which the mind may be one, but the body is not the foundation of abstract thought which the mind is. However the mind as an extension of the body neccitates the body as responsible for abstract thought. So what we understand of the body as absent of thought necessitates the mind as the connector of this thought. The mind acts as a connector to the body and abstract thought.
Under these terms the mind as positive in thought, while the body is absent of thought except through the mind, observes the body as negative of thought except through the mind where the mind as positive in one thing observes the body as negative, hence observing the mind as a negative dimension.
This negative dimension observes the mind as a connector where the body is directed towards abstract thought and abstract thought is directed towards the body, with both existing through each other as each other and are inherently connected. This connection observes the mind as strictly a negative limit where is strictly exists as a connection between the two and not a thing in itself.
In a separate respect the mind may be composed of thought, with the body in itself being a thought of the mind, but the mind is not the foundation of empirical senses organs which the body is. However the body as an extension of the mind necessitates the mind as responsible for empirical organs. So what we understand of the mind as absent of empirical sense organs necessitates the body as a connector of these empirical organs and the mind. The body acts as a connector to the mind and the empirical sense organs.
So the body is positive in empirical sense organs, while the mind is absent of empirical sense organs except through the body. This observes the body as a negative limit which connects the mind and empirical senses organs. As a connector of the mind and empirical sense organs the body is not a thing in and of itself but rather and interplay of the mind and sense organs existing through each other as eachother.
This inherent connectimg of the three necessitates them acting as various grades of the other and a problem of definition ensues, while the continual interplay causes a self defining unity where one always acts as a mediator between the interplaying opposition of the other two.
Under these terms we can observe that body/mind/spirit exist through growth of one through the other.
So where
A. the mind as positive in abstract thought results in the body as negative in abstract thought through the mind, the body is positive in abstract thought through the mind.
B. And the body as positive in empirical sense organs results in the mind as negative in empirical sense organs, the mind is positive as a sense organ through the body.
C. The body is both abstract thought and mind, and the mind is both empirical sense organ and abstract thought. However the mind and body are nothing but connectors in themselves between facets of the other, hence as connectors are separate as absent of quality in themselves.
The question occurs as to what this negative dimension of connection between body and mind are, as a positive. This connective median would be spirit where the spirit is absent of both body and mind as it is a connector between the two while simultaneously being both.
Considering the mind manifests abstract throught and is the connector of the body and thought, the spirit is mind.
Considering the body manifests empirical senses and is the connector of the mind and empirical sense, the spirit is body.
So where the mind as negative connects body and abstract thought, and the body as negative connects the empirical sense organs and mind, the spirit is both body and mind through empirical sense and abstract thought as the connective median through both.
However considering the body manifests through empirical sense, and the mind manifests through abstract thought, the spirit manifests as neither.
So where empiral sense and abstract thought are separate, except through the manifestation of the spirit, this connection can be observed as intuition where intuition is the connection of empirical sense and abstract thought. In these respects intuition is a connector through the spirit where the spirit through intuition is a connector of the two.
So
A. the mind and body existing as spirit necessitates the spirit as being a positive existence of both.
B. the mind as existing through abstract thought and the body as existing through empirical sense necessitates the spirit as existing through intuition as a connection between abstract thought and empirical sense, hence negative.
C. The spirit as body and mind observes the spirit as positive in regards to being both, but negative in the respect it acts as a connector through intuition between abstract thought and empirical sense.
So while abstract thought may be connected to the body through the mind,
and the empirical senses are connected to the mind through the body,
the abstract thought and empirical senses are connected to body and mind through the spirit as intuition where intuition exists as the connector of the abstract thought and empirical senses. the body and mind are respectively absent of on there own terms.
Hence the spirit as both body and mind, is the absence of body and mind through intuition which connects abstract thought and empirical sense.
We therefore observe the body and mind as intuitively connected through the spirit as body and mind (heart, emotion)
while the body and thought as empirically connected through the mind as body (brain)
and the mind and empirical senses as abstractly connected through the body as mind (form).
These definitions continue to expand in a circular progression that is simultaneously self referential.
There is no mind-body problem. The body (including the CNS) produces "the mind". "The mind" is the noise the brain makes. No brain: silence.
Here is a pristine mind untouched by philosophy. Bitter Crank has spent years frequenting this forum and the previous one and yet retains his philosophical virginity.
If there is no mind body problem, and they are effectively unified, the problem occurs as a result of any act of division where unity is distorted through measurement.
The problem occurs in the respect this distortion of the self (considering the mind body problem is an extension of the self) occurs through the self where the self instills a degree of separation or polarity within its nature by forming opposition.
This opposition of the self through the self as the self gives premise to an absence of structure as fundamentally being void. In simpler terms the question of the self, through the mind body dualism, is an expression of void as constituting the self.
Under these terms it is simultaneously problematic to expect a solution to the mind body problem considering this nature of "void" within the self that gives rise to the problem.
At most the mind/body dualism can be encapsulated through circular reasoning to maintain the problem considering the opposition of the mind and body are premised in void. A progressive linear approach to the problem will give an increase in definitive parts which form the mind and body, but this in itself leads to contradiction as the increase in definition leads to an increase in philosophical problems.
Effectively the mind body dualism necessitates a fracturing of the human condition, under standard logic geared towards the prevention of fallacies where the self that composes the problem is the very same self effectively being atomized so to speak.
The question of mind body dualism, under the terms of a dualistic approach, necessitates a form of atomism where the base limits of the self are reduced in many respects to continually dissolvable atoms of various definitions and sorts.
In a separate respect it reduces the mind and body effectively to point space considering the point is the only atomic definition that if continually divided maintains its same nature. Under this premise, we are left with basic geometric limits that composes the human condition of mind and body, with these foundations being the foundation of measurement, further implying that in this dualism the mind wins as all is mind and we cycle back to a form of unity under point space.
From a separate respect if the dualism is to continue with the prior premise of continual atomization where the mind and body are continually broken down to through further abstract and empirical definitions of what constitutes what, this progressive nature necessitates an element of time within the responses as all current answered become means to further answers and a continual probabilism occurs.
Under these terms this probabilistic nature to the mind body dualism, as evidenced by its continual dependence on time to redefine the answer, elevates the dualism to literally being a qualitative fraction where the abstract thought of the mind divides the potential unity of the empirical senses into relative parts and vice versa. This continual alternation of one as the premise which divides the other (considering the mind is some times determines to give definition to the body while the materialistic nature of the body gives rise to the mind) leaves an inherent cycling to the answer leading to the munchaussen dilemma considering the answers is literally one based in relativism.
Under these terms it can be argued that relativism is an extension of the very same "self" which addresses the problem of the "self". In these respects it may be argued that relativism, as a constant through this problem, is an inherent psychological law not limited to the realm of physics stemming from a problem of void within the psyche as void is where the "problem of problems" seems to arise as it gives foundation to opposition as absent of structure.
The mind/body dualism can be necessitated as an element of void within the psyche as an inherent element of continuous inversion. In these respects the self maintains an inversive element conducive to a problem of irrationality where a stable state of being effectively is divided and multiplied into further parts.
The mind body problem is strictly premised in the presocratic atomist schools where any perceivable unity would neccessitate a question of unity of the self and the environment around the self leading to a viewpoint similar to Parmenides.
The problem is structured according to how chooses to quantify the human condition, where this nature of quantity being inherent with the self and lending further questions to the nature of quantification and free will.
Deleted UserOctober 19, 2018 at 19:18#2214100 likes
This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
That is actually a good question as to whether he discovered or invented it.
I would argue both at the same time in different respects.
He discovered it in the respect he observed the philosophical implications of dividing phenomenon into duals. In these respects there are certain qualitative problems with mathematics as the act of division results in a distortion of the previously unified phenomenon.
In a seperate respect he invented it by applying a dualism to a specific phenomena (the self). However considering this phenomena of the self, which applies to him as well, observes his argument as a creation of the self.
And the above is really just a cheap explanation.
The question really breaks down to the nature of creation/discovery and can be a whole thread in itself.
papamuratteOctober 28, 2018 at 07:01#2229900 likes
Reply to Michael Ossipoff
well Theism is compatible with self generating universe,
in Hinduism there is such belief and things like parallel universes also comes up
[the nature of god ]is what i want to know
Michael OssipoffOctober 28, 2018 at 12:20#2230070 likes
well Theism is compatible with self generating universe,
in Hinduism there is such belief and things like parallel universes also comes up
[the nature of god ]is what i want to know
Benevolence.
That's all that can be known or said about God.
God is Benevolence.
If the Atheists don't like that, then it can be said as: Reality is Benevolence itself.
Of course that is what is meant by God.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffOctober 28, 2018 at 12:30#2230090 likes
Answer to the question in the original post: Idealist and Theist.
The "Mind-Body Problem", aka the "Hard-Problem of Consciousness" is an artifact of Western academic philosophers' insistence on believing in Materialism.
(Not that it's a necessary consequence of Materialism.)
Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. But Western academic philosophers, and those who adopt their views, are a conservative lot.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffOctober 28, 2018 at 13:57#2230190 likes
It seems to me that my metaphysics is consistent with what the 3 main branches of Vedanta (describable) metaphysics have in common.
Vedantists often say things that go farther than what I'd say, because I like to only say uncontroversial easily-supported obvious things.
But I feel that there's something to what Vedanta says, though it goes beyond the metaphysics of describable things.
For example:
At the end of lives, as the body is shutting down and the person is fading out, of course eventually there's no more such thing as individuality or identity. Then, there's no meaningful distinction between different individuals.
And that end-of-lives state-of-affairs, arriving as the final state-of-affairs of a sequence of lives, and being timeless, is arguably the natural, normal and usual state-of-affairs, from which our sequence of lives is a temporary anomaly, a blip in timelessness.
Nisargadatta said that what's temporary isn't real, and that's consistent with something that I've been emphasizing, in metaphysical debates--that I don't claim that anything in the describable realm is real or existent.
Additionally, surely you've sometimes gotten the impression that there isn't really a significant difference between people. For example, maybe you notice a beautiful house on a good-size well-planted lawn piece of land, and maybe your first impression is that it's good that there's that beautiful place...without regard to who it is who gets to live there.
Sometimes such impressions are right, in a way more fundamental than the world of describable matters and practical affairs. After all, words don't describe Reality, or even reality.
I don't think there's a mind-body problem and why should I? Why should the mind (or any other abstract aspect) or the body be anything other than what it is? We don't know everything about what it means to be human, not even the full monty about our physical bodies, so why assign conclusions based on ignorance. In the first place, why conclude anything?
When we refer to mind or body, we mean a field of activity, influence, interactive associations, etc, all of which play a significant part of every human being. So where's the problem? Is it because we don't see it? Do we see everything? Is it because it's not material in character? Not everything we acknowledge is material, consider gravity.
The idea that the abstract and physical are antagonists is a product of esoteric spiritual teachings which filtered through religious teachings and now almost everybody wants to see them that way. What most people miss is that, originally, the teachings were symbolic. What they meant was that if focus is limited to any of the two paradigms, then the other gets undervalued. We should not forget that life unfolds through both. There's no external without internal and vice versa. Abstract just implies internal.
Pattern-chaserOctober 28, 2018 at 14:42#2230260 likes
Are the mind and body are separate substances or elements of the same substance (dualism or materialism)?
There are things that exist. Some of them exhibit mental (non-physical?) qualities, and some exhibit physical qualities. Some exhibit both. I would not distinguish between them because they exhibit one or other of these properties. Existence is existence. Attributes are just that, not more.
Just my two pennyworth. :smile:
Pattern-chaserOctober 28, 2018 at 14:43#2230270 likes
I guess I am a panpsychist property dualist monist.
Nice! I had to look this up.
1.Panpsychist claims there is mental element present in everything.
2.Property Dualism says while there is only one kind of substance (physical kind), it has two properties (physical properties and mental properties)
3. Monoism is the view that all is one and there are no fundamental divisions.
This is contradictory, 1 makes the claim that everything has mental element while 2 says everything is fundamentally physical.
Further I think property dualism and monoism cannot be congruent either; property dualism takes qualia to be a unique feature of reality.
Can you please elaborate on this belief? Also, am I right in assuming you are a theist given this belief?
Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore.
By Quantum Mechanics I assume you mean Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle aka the observer effect.
I want to clarify how the observer affect or anything in Quantum Mechanics isn't in contradiction with materialism. For instance take any object you wish to observe from your eyes. For this to happen there needs to be some information that has to come from that object tow you i.e. you will need some light to reflect of the object and reach your eyes.
Now if say we reduce this object to the size of the atom and again you wish to observe this object. Given the size of the object, the photons will now come in, hit the atoms and pop it to another location. Therefore, the very act of trying to measure the position will prevent you from measuring it's position.
It is nothing to do with consciousness, mind or any of that. The fact is, the smaller the object is the more susceptible it will be to the energy of the light changing it's position in space
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 16:23#2242500 likes
Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. — Michael Ossipoff
By Quantum Mechanics I assume you mean Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle aka the observer effect.
I don't claim to be qualified in or have the answers about quantum-mechanics, but, from what I've heard, the uncertainty-principle is a consequence of QM. But I claim no authority on QM.
I want to clarify how the observer affect or anything in Quantum Mechanics isn't in contradiction with materialism.
I don't claim any authority or qualification about QM. I was just quoting something that has been said by some physicists who specialize in QM.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 16:31#2242550 likes
I'd be curious re the source of the data re whether most physicists are materialists . . . And curious, for that matter, how they'd attempt to even describe what a nonphysical existent is supposed to be, how we're supposed to know about it, etc.
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 16:34#2242570 likes
This is contradictory, 1 makes the claim that everything has mental element while 2 says everything is fundamentally physical.
If you're an identity theorist as I am, those two are not contradictory. Not that I share the view. I think that only some physical "stuff" is mental stuff, I'm not a property dualist, etc.
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 20:43#2242970 likes
I'd be curious re the source of the data re whether most physicists are materialists
I'm not aware of a census or survey that tells what percentage of physicists are Materialists. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else, if you think that I made that claim.
What I said was that some physicists who specialize in quantum-mechanics, and who are recognized authorities on the subject, have said that QM lays to rest the notion of an objectively-existent physical world.
. . . And curious, for that matter, how they'd attempt to even describe what a nonphysical existent is supposed to be
Are you referring to religion? It's common knowledge that, not only are not all physicists Materialists, but also that some are religious. As for what they'd attempt to describe, you'd have to ask them, wouldn't you.
But I certainly didn't say that physicists describe God, if that's what you're asking. Some things, a subset of Reality, are describable. Metaphysics is about those things. Reality isn't describable. You say it might be describable? But, even if it merely might not be describable, then it certainly isn't reliably describable.
(...as I define metaphysics. Some use "metaphysics" with a much broader and unrealistically-ambitious meaning, expecting metaphysical discussion and debate to cover all of Reality.)
But if you think that physicists will describe God for you, then go for it, and ask them.
..., how we're supposed to know about it, etc.
Metaphysics, as I define the term, is about the knowable and describable subset of Reality. Did I say that you were supposed to know about a nonphysical existent.
But, by the way, as I said before, the word "which" and the square-root of two are nonphysical.
As for "existent", the use of the silly and meaningless words "existent" and "real" is responsible for millennia of philosophical befudlement and confusion.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 20:51#2243000 likes
Yajur quoted you saying this: "Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. — Michael Ossipoff"
That's what I was referring to re the first part.
Re the other part, if they're not materialists, they must think that some things that exist are nonphysical. So I was wondering what the heck those things would be, just how they'd figure that nonphsyical things even make sense, etc.
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 21:38#2243120 likes
Yajur quoted you saying this: "Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. — Michael Ossipoff"
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That's what I was referring to re the first part.
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Yes, it seems fair to say that someone who says that the notion of an objectively-existent physical world has been laid to rest, doesn’t believe in Materialism.
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I admit that I don’t know how many physicists don’t believe in Materialism. I’ve read of, &/or from, two who said that QM contradicts, or lays-to-rest, the notion of an objectively-existent physical world. Of course two isn’t most. But I didn’t claim “most”. I said, “…many or most…”. A few who say it in popular writing suggest that there may well be a fair number like them, but who don’t write popular books and articles.
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But we needn’t quibble about how many “many” is, or about whether it’s really “many” or just “some”.
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Re the other part, if they're not materialists, they must think that some things that exist are nonphysical.
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I’m not a Materialist, but I don’t make any claim about anything describable (and describability is part of my definition of “thing”) existing.
Existence other than that of describable things? Not only do I not use "exist" or "existent", but, if I did use them, I'd only apply them to describable things.
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“Exist” and “real” are your nonsense-words, not mine.
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But, again, if you want to attribute beliefs to physicists, then you’d need to ask them.
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So I was wondering what the heck those things [“some things that exist [and] are nonphysical”] would be
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Don’t ask me—I don’t claim that anything describable (which includes any thing) exists.
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But people speak of and refer to nonphysical things all the time, such as numbers, logical facts, abstract words, etc. I re-emphasize that I don’t claim existence for anything physical.
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In fact, I don’t use “exist” or “existent”. So you’d need to ask someone else about what they claim exists.
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…, just how they'd figure that nonphsyical things even make sense, etc.
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Then maybe you should ask them.
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“Things”, as I use that term, are what can (at least in principle) be defined, referred to and described.
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The word “maybe” is a thing. Is it physical?
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Of course if you define “things” as “What are physical”, then it would be nonsense to speak of a nonphysical thing.
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(I define and describe “maybe” as an adverb indicating uncertainty regarding the veracity of the statement made by the verb that it modifies.)
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Of course, among all the abstract logical implications, there are many hypothetical things that they’re about-- things that no one claims are other than hypotheticalhose. Those hypothetical things include hypothetical propositions—propositions that aren’t claimed true--and the hypothetical things that those hypothetical propositions are about.
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And of course it goes without saying that abstract-implications, and all abstract-facts, are things too, as I define “things”.
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The metaphysics that I propose is about complex systems of inter-referring abstract-implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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Especially in metaphysics, it’s essential to answer about when requested, and to be consistent about, what we mean by the words that we use.
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Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 21:41#2243150 likes
Not necessarily. I’m not a Materialist, but I don’t make any claim about anything describable (and describability is part of my definition of “thing”) existing.
You believe things exist that you can't describe?
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 21:45#2243170 likes
Write down a complete description of the smell of mint, or of what it's like to step on a tack.
Additionally, the notion of words describing everything is shown to be silly, by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.
Anyway, as I said, even if you claim that Reality might be desribable, then the fact that you admit that it might not means that it isn't reliably describable, and any attempt at such description is speculative at best.
MIchael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 21:49#2243180 likes
Potentially yes. And I don't know how I'd believe that there are things that I can't describe. I don't know how to make any sense of that. What would I believe, after all?.Some vague I don't-know-what?
I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions." I don't know what that would be referring to. What makes a description "complete" versus "incomplete"?
So how about the question I asked. Do you believe things exist that you can't describe?
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 22:04#2243230 likes
Potentially yes. And I don't know how I'd believe that there are things that I can't describe. I don't know how to make any sense of that. What would I believe, after all?.Some vague I don't-know-what?
...such as, to use my example, the smell of mint.
And what I said about dictionaries shows that description is a questionable thing anyway.
I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions." I don't know what that would be referring to. What makes a description "comploete" versus "incomplete"?
How about this: "A description is complete if it describes every aspect of what it describes."
You can't even describe every perceived aspect of the smell of mint.(...but I guess all of a smell consists of some thing or things perceived.)
So how about the question I asked. Do you believe things exist that you can't describe?
Of course. I'm not qualified to describe the things of all subjects.
But if you mean are there things that are indescribable in principle, then of course not, because describability in principle is part of my definition of "things".
Is there what's not (even partly) describable and unknowable even in principle? How would I know? I don't claim to know about such things.
Must mail this before the Internet-connection freezes-up. More later if Ii missed replying to anything. (Usually I write replies in Word instead of directly in this reply-space.)
Michael Ossipoff.
Terrapin StationNovember 02, 2018 at 22:14#2243240 likes
Vacuous because there's no way to quantify "aspects."
If so, then there are no reliably, meaningfully, complete descriptions. Okay.
Why aren't you answering the question I asked you, by the way?
...about whether there's what can't be even partly known and described by humans, about which absolutely nothing can be said or known by humans, even in principle? I admitted that I don't know.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 22:25#2243290 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station
But there could also be what one can only minimally speak of. ...can only say one or a few things about, with those statements being necessarily incomplete. But I don't claim to speak authoritatively about that either..
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 02, 2018 at 22:29#2243310 likes
Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions").
I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)
What I was asking you wasn't as broad as what you paraphrased. I asked if you personally believe in anything you can't describe.
Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.
Additionally I don't claim to be able to describe Reality itself (which of course isn't a thing).
So that would suggest the answer to my question is "no."
I wouldn't say that. See above.
[quote]
Would you say there is a describable metaphysics of nonphysicals?
Just as there are the abstract facts of your hypothetical life-exerience-story,in a physical world, there are likewise other abstract facts that aren't part of anyone's life-experience possibility-story, but which are nonetheless abstract facts not unlike those comprising your experience-story.
Their relevance is admittedly questionable, but I feel that it would be animal-chauvinist to deny that there are such.
But, my metaphysics, Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism is only about the experience-stories, of which the experiencer, the protagonist, is central and primary.
As I say, you're in a life because you're a protagonist in such a story. First it was the Will-To-Life, and the fact that there'd be the experiences you needed or wanted, if... and away it went, a story of "If" set in a world of "If".
That's the meaningful subset of the abstract facts.
I don't usually talk about abstract facts that aren't part of such experience-stories, but, now that you bring it up, of course there are such.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 03, 2018 at 02:19#2243630 likes
Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions").
What's completely describable is what doesn't have anything about it that can't, in principle, be known and described by humans.
As for the smell of mint, it's obvious that any description you could give wouldn't just be "partial". It would be completely inadequate, and, other than crudely and roughly likening it to something else that's really quite different, wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.
You leave out what to me is the most plausible response, which is that the question itself is flawed. It lives back in the time of pre-critical metaphysics, where just because we had word always meant that we had some kind of entity referred to by that word.
And then we can act as if we are launching super-scientific hypotheses about the relationship between these entities. But what do we really mean by 'mind' and 'body' in the first place? Of course we have some rough sense of what we mean, but the problem is that this sense is way too coarse to do any real work with. As others have said, the LCD of 20th century philosophy is an attention paid to language and how that changes philosophy's conception of itself.
If you're an identity theorist as I am, those two are not contradictory. Not that I share the view. I think that only some physical "stuff" is mental stuff, I'm not a property dualist, etc.
I'm curious, would an identity theorist have to reject Chalmers p-zombie world as being conceivable?
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 09:02#2243910 likes
I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)
I wouldn't say that it ever makes sense to talk about "all aspects" of anything.
Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.
But you just described "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar," so that would be something you believe in that you can describe.
The only "abstract facts" there are are things like "Joe has formulated an abstraction (in other words, he's done something mentally, his brain has been in process in particular ways) re a concept of 'love'."
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 09:11#2243940 likes
I'm curious, would an identity theorist have to reject Chalmers p-zombie world as being conceivable?
Well, it depends on what someone would mean by "conceivable."
Basically, the p-zombie idea involves pretending that the physical properties of some substance aren't actually the physical properties of that substance. So, for example, take slippery ice, frozen water that under certain conditions is slippery --it has a top layer that's melting, etc. (I don't know what all of the temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. requirements are, but whatever they are). We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that.
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 09:22#2243960 likes
wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.
It's a truism about descriptions that they never convey what anything is like, experientially, to someone who hasn't experienced the thing in question. That's not a flaw of descriptions, it's a property of them. After all, they're just sets of words that people assign whatever personal meanings and concepts etc to. That's not going to amount to what any experience is like to anyone. Experiences aren't like words, or meanings, or concepts (especially not those formulated on other experiences) or other, different experiences that someone has had in general.
SophistiCatNovember 03, 2018 at 12:10#2244100 likes
We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that.
I don't think that's a fair analogy. Perhaps Chalmers would suggest this as a better analogy: It is conceivable that something looks and feels exactly like slippery ice, and yet it is not ice. (Which, of course, is easily conceivable and even plausible.) But I am not sure that this is a fair analogy either.
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 12:17#2244110 likes
I don't think that's a fair analogy. Perhaps Chalmers would suggest this as a better analogy: It is conceivable that something looks and feels exactly like slippery ice, and yet it is not ice. (Which, of course, is easily conceivable and even plausible.) But I am not sure that this is a fair analogy either.
The reason it's a fair analogy is that we're saying that:
(a) The physical make-up of x is exactly the same
and yet
(b) The properties of physical stuff x are different
Of course, Chalmers wouldn't agree with (b), but the reason the thought experiment doesn't work is that to physicalists, (b) is exactly what's being proposed. So to physicalists, (a) and (b) are only conceivable in the sense of us being able to pretend for any physical stuff that it's identical in two instances, yet it has different properties in those different instances. (And we might just as well add in the ice analogy that "it's some mysterious 'nonphysical' stuff that makes ice slippery" (and we could say that some mysterious "nonphysical" stuff is the source of all properties for that matter--that makes just as much sense as what's being proposed in the p-zombie argument)).
The p-zombie argument doesn't propose that the properties are identical yet the physical stuff behind it is different (as you're suggesting). It instead proposes that the physical stuff is identical, yet the properties that obtain are different ("is conscious" in one case versus "is not conscious" in the p-zombie case).
Michael OssipoffNovember 03, 2018 at 18:33#2244820 likes
”I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)” — Michael Ossipoff
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I wouldn't say that it ever makes sense to talk about "all aspects" of anything.
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…and, to avoid that objection, I later said:
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What's completely describable is what doesn't have anything about it that can't, in principle, be known and described by humans.
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[quote] ”Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.” — Michael Ossipoff
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But you just described "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar,"
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I named a topic. I only said one thing about "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascars”. I said only I don’t know anything about it.
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If you call that a description, that certainly expands the number of things you can “describe”. :D
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…so that would be something you believe in that you can describe.
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So, according to you, even by saying that you can’t describe something, you’re saying something about it, and thereby describing it. You know that that makes nonsense out of the word “describe”.
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”Just as there are the abstract facts” — Michael Ossipoff
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The only "abstract facts" there are are things like "Joe has formulated an abstraction (in other words, he's done something mentally, his brain has been in process in particular ways) re a concept of 'love'."
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Say it how you want. You seem to just be saying what I said. (…when I said that there are abstract facts at least in the limited sense that they can be mentioned and referred to).
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But I also said that I make no claim for “existence” or “reality” (whatever that would mean) of abstract facts, or for anything else describable. (…unless you call what I referred to in the paragraph before this one “existence”.)
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Reply to your next posting:
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”…wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.” — Michael Ossipoff
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It's a truism about descriptions that they never convey what anything is like, experientially, to someone who hasn't experienced the thing in question. That's not a flaw of descriptions, it's a property of them. After all, they're just sets of words that people assign whatever personal meanings and concepts etc to. That's not going to amount to what any experience is like to anyone. Experiences aren't like words, or meanings, or concepts (especially not those formulated on other experiences) or other, different experiences that someone has had in general.
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Yes, a wordier way of saying what I said.
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Yes, you can say something about the smell of mint. For example, you can “describe” it by saying that you like it, or that it’s present in a mint-leaf, or that you notice it in the air. …or even by saying that you can’t describe it.
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You can’t fully describe it, for the reason that you talk about in the paragraph of yours that I quoted above.
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Because you can’t fully tell someone else what an experience, such as the smell of mint, is like, it’s fair to say that you can’t fully describe it. That’s a fair meaning for “fully describe”: To fully describe something is to tell about it without leaving out anything about it.
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There are things that can, in principle, be fully described, as defined immediately above. I call them describable things. (Of course they don’t include experiences, but they include aspects of one’s surroundings, the logic-governed consistent physical world that we experience.)
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All this reminds us of the limitations of definitions. As I said, no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. …making nonsense of any claim that words can describe Reality, or even everyday local experiential reality. (…as you agreed in the above-quoted paragraph.) Things can be said, but it’s questionable to put faith in the completely objective validity or meaning of what’s said.
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…all the more reason why it’s better to not claim “objective existence” or “objective reality” for describable” things.
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Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 18:38#2244840 likes
So, according to you, even by saying that you can’t describe something, you’re saying something about it, and thereby describing it. You know that that makes nonsense out of the word “describe”.
"Gardening practices" isn't a description of something?
Michael OssipoffNovember 03, 2018 at 18:47#2244850 likes
The reason it's a fair analogy is that we're saying that:
(a) The physical make-up of x is exactly the same
and yet
(b) The properties of physical stuff x are different
I was wrong, and your (a) is right. But your (b) is not quite right: Chalmers (following Kripke) stipulates that zombies are identical to humans in all physical respects. But since slipperiness is a physical property, just as being made up of water molecules is, your analogy does not work either. It would be hard to come up with an analogy of the zombie argument for something like ice, because after you take away everything that is physical about it, it seems that nothing is left over. Chalmers wants you to believe that it is at least conceivable that phenomenal consciousness is an optional extra to all the physical stuff. I don't buy his argument, but I think it's not so obvious that you can just shrug it off.
Terrapin StationNovember 03, 2018 at 20:46#2245350 likes
I was wrong, and your (a) is right. But your (b) is not quite right: Chalmers (following Kripke) stipulates that zombies are identical to humans in all physical respects. But since slipperiness is a physical property, just as being made up of water molecules is, your analogy does not work either. It would be hard to come up with an analogy of the zombie argument for something like ice, because after you take away everything that is physical about it, it seems that nothing is left over. Chalmers wants you to believe that it is at least conceivable that phenomenal consciousness is an optional extra to all the physical stuff. I don't buy his argument, but I think it's not so obvious that you can just shrug it off.
As I said, Chalmers wouldn't agree with my (b). The problem is that to physicalists, mentality is a physical property, as obvious to us as the slipperiness of ice is a physical property.
So again, saying to a physicalist that it is conceivable that the physical aspects are identical, but that mentality doesn't obtain, is just like saying that the physical aspects of ice are identical, but that slipperiness doesn't obtain.
And again, we could just as well vaguely pretend that the slipperiness of ice isn't physical in some mysterious way. We could say the same thing about any properties--pretend that any given properties of anything aren't physical, but are some mysterious nonphysical whatever. To physicalists, that's what the p-zombie argument is doing.
SophistiCatNovember 03, 2018 at 20:59#2245450 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station I think it was T. H. Huxley (though I cannot find the quote), while critiquing vitalism, compared it to the belief that there is some essential "traininess" in a steam locomotive, which comes in addition to all of its manifest physical features - its gleaming steel body, the steam, the whistle... He also mockingly compared it to "aquosity" - a hypothetical property or mechanism that is responsible for the essence of water, quite apart from its chemical composition.
However, I think that "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualia" is a harder nut to crack than vitalism. Again, I am not agreeing with Chalmers et al., I just don't think that it is as obvious, as you say. There is something odd about consciousness that calls for a careful conceptual analysis.
However, I think that "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualia" is a harder nut to crack than vitalism. Again, I am not agreeing with Chalmers et al., I just don't think that it is as obvious, as you say. There is something odd about consciousness that calls for a careful conceptual analysis.
That's for sure. And Chalmers does discuss the difference between vitalism and consciousness. Vitalism was tenable before biology could fully explain the behavior of life. But there is something odd about consciousness in a different way that requires us to think carefully about it. Knowing the science of how our bodies or the world works doesn't resolve the riddle.
We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that.
Problem here is that the slipperiness of ice is logically entailed by knowing the physics and chemistry. to imagine a physically identical world without the slipperiness is to fail to imagine an identical world. Nobody has succeeded so far in showing how this is the case for consciousness.
Identity theorists say that consciousness is identical to certain mental states. But for sake of argument, I can image a physically identical world lacking that identity. It's called all the other theories of consciousness.
I'm not sure exactly what an identity is supposed to be. Is it the neurons firing a certain way? Is it their function? Is it the information they compute? Chalmers himself proposes a theory based on informationally rich processes, but it's a property dualism, not an identity.
If physicists and computer scientists developed a consciousness chip that computed conscious states, would we say the electrons moving through the silicon are identical to having a conscious experience? I don't know how to make sense of that.
SophistiCatNovember 04, 2018 at 06:27#2246410 likes
Identity theorists say that consciousness is identical to certain mental states. But for sake of argument, I can image a physically identical world lacking that identity. It's called all the other theories of consciousness.
One problem with that line of argument is that we can easily imagine states of affairs that are nomologically and even logically impossible. Being able to imagine something doesn't really tell us much.
ForgottenticketNovember 04, 2018 at 09:29#2246490 likes
I think it was T. H. Huxley (though I cannot find the quote), while critiquing vitalism, compared it to the belief that there is some essential "traininess" in a steam locomotive
I'm fairly sure you're talking about his "on the hypothesis that animals are automata" essay, and it's comparing it to a steam whistle having no effect on its machinery. While it's talking specifically about animals the steam whistle comparison grew traction beyond it. A curious thing about "steam whistles" though is that they are seen as part of the appeal of the steam train and is part of the reason many of them are still in service. So using them to show that consciousness is epiphenomenal is problematic.
The problem with identity theory (other than classical type physicalism - mental state corresponding to specific brain states- was left in the dust years ago and even Churchland's eliminativism gets more hits) is that consciousness does not appear as a series of neurons firing. There is a holistic phenomenal story that seems like a series of things "binded together" which is unlike the description of anything in nature.
This is why Dennett tends to use eliminativist explanations for consciousness. And tries to show the "bindedness" is an illusion through change blindness ect.
SophistiCatNovember 04, 2018 at 10:38#2246560 likes
I'm fairly sure you're talking about his "on the hypothesis that animals are automata" essay, and it's comparing it to a steam whistle having no effect on its machinery.
I looked that up, and no, I was thinking of something else. Not Huxley then. Too bad, it was a lovely passage, but I can no longer locate it.
As for epiphenomenalism, I think it's a misguided idea.
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 12:58#2246670 likes
Yes, and, if "describing" something merely means saying at least one thing about it, that's why I said that, by "describable things", I mean "things that humans can, in principle, describe without leaving out anything about them."
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 13:19#2246680 likes
Maybe I should call that "completely describable" and "completely describable thing". Something is completely describable if, at least in principle, humans could describe it without leaving out anything about it.
The smell of mint isn't completely describable, and, in fact, no experience is.
But there are limitedly-defined completely describable aspects of our surroundings and experiences.
It would be presumptuous in the extreme to say that Reality itself is or might be completely describable, when even everyday experiential reality isn't completely describable.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 13:42#2246700 likes
I mean "things that humans can, in principle, describe without leaving out anything about them."
Which is the "complete" idea, but that idea is nonsense in my view.
We don't even have to get into the fact that the idea of "everything about x" is nonsense.
The mere fact that descriptions are sets of words, where what's described (unless it's a self-referential case of descriptions of words) is not (the same) words, makes nonsense of the idea re leaving versus not leaving something out.
Descriptions are sets of words that individuals take to tell something about, charactize in some way, etc. various things about something else. That's all they are.
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 13:45#2246710 likes
Problem here is that the slipperiness of ice is logically entailed by knowing the physics and chemistry.
The problem with that is that there isn't actually any such logical entailment. That's only the case if you assume that the physical make-up is identical to the properties. It's absurd to say that it's logic that makes the physical make-up identical to the properties. Logic has no such empirical implications. (And this isn't even getting into the fact that logic is something we construct in any event--we can ignore that part.)
Of course, you could attempt to explain how you believe it's actually a logical implication.
I'm not suggesting this because I think we shouldn't assume that the physical make-up of ice is identical to the properties of the stuff in question, of course. In fact, I think that trying to think about it any other way is rather incoherent, simply because the entire notion of nonphysical existents is incoherent, but nevertheless, that the properties are identical to the physical stuff isn't at all a logical entailment. That's just nonsense that you're suggesting as some sort of arbitrary stipulation.
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 13:57#2246740 likes
Yes, and that's why I said that even ordinary everyday experiential reality isn't completely describable.
But there can be limited discussions in which there indeed is a word for everything that that discussion is about--everything that figures in that discussion--and a correspondence between those words and those elements of that limited discussion. The topic of such a discussion is completely describable.
Which is the "complete" idea, but that idea is nonsense in my view.
We don't even have to get into the fact that the idea of "everything about x" is nonsense.
The mere fact that descriptions are sets of words, where what's described (unless it's a self-referential case of descriptions of words) is not (the same) words, makes nonsense of the idea re leaving versus not leaving something out.
Descriptions are sets of words that individuals take to tell something about, charactize in some way, etc. various things about something else. That's all they are.
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 14:02#2246760 likes
As for epiphenomenalism, I think it's a misguided idea.
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Yes, it’s nonsense.
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…as is the notion of a “philosophical zombie”.
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…as is the whole “Hard Problem Of Consciousness” or "Mind-Body Problem" that this thread is about.
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Humans are animals. Animals are biologically-originated purposefully-responsive devices. Which part of that don’t people understand?
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Consciousness is the property of being a purposefully-responsive device sufficiently closely-related or similar to the speaker for hir (him/her) to feel kinship. (A chauvinistic definition to fit our arbitrary and chauvinistic feeling about what’s conscious.)
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We were all taught that in pre-secondary school (which has also been called junior-high, or middle-school). What we were taught about that was correct. Academic philosophers seem to have forgotten what they knew in pre-secondary school.
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Our experience is the experience of being an animal. It’s “what it’s like” to be an animal. Of course there’s that experience. …purposes, surroundings in the context of those purposes, and choices to make, based on purposes and surroundings. Of course each animal or other purposefully-responsive device has purposes and choices to make, whether it be a Roomba or you.
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Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 14:36#2246820 likes
And what that's about is not determined by how people think of it, in your view?
Yes, I'd say that. Some discussions like that are just about the relations among named propositions--in particular, the relations among their truths and falsities that are needed if a true-and-false proposition isn't permitted.
I've discussed why it's tautological that there can't be a true-and-false proposition. ..implying that there are no two mutually-contradictory facts.
Human impressions and feelings aren't involved in those starkly-simplified abstract discussions.
Someone here said that proving the truth of a logical proposition comes down to showing that it's a tautology. So, from what that person said, for example, showing the truth of proposition about an implication (an implication-proposition) amounts to showing that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 15:30#2246920 likes
”Human impressions and feelings aren't involved in those starkly-simplified abstract discussions.” — Michael Ossipoff
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What the heck would non-human aboutness be?
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Good point. That’s why my metaphysics is Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism (as opposed to OSR).
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(I’m not saying that there aren’t hypothetical objective world-stories, in addition to hypothetical subjective experience-stories. But it’s the subjective experience-stories that are (tautologically) about our experience. The hypothetical objective world-stories have no relevance to us. Admittedly, someone could question the reality of those objective world-stories, except that even their abstract implications can, in principle, be evident to us and aren’t different in kind from the abstract-implications comprising our subjective stories.)
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Each of us is central and primary to our experience-story. …a hypothetical story about our experience, a story for, and centered on, each of us.
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“There are” the abstract facts of logic, in the limited sense that they can be mentioned and referred-to. What they’re about is abstract in the sense that you’ve referred to as non-human aboutness, independent of human feelings and impressions.
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You could say that even the abstract-facts are things in our experience and dependent on our experience. Of course, there’s a complementarity between the abstract-implications, the complex system of inter-referring abstract implications that is your experience-story, and you the experiencer and protagonist of that story.
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It’s all one big inter-referring mutually-complementary system that needn’t have any reality or existence in any context other than in its own inter-referring context.
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“Reality” and “Existence” are very misunderstood and misused words. Like “speed”, they’re only meaningful with-respect-to a frame-of-reference, a context.
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Something can be said to be real or existent (only) in and with-respect-to a context.
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There’s no need to say that this physical universe is real or existent in any in-principle-fully-describable context other than its own, and that of our lives. When you realize that, you realize that the Materialist is needlessly insisting on believing that this physical universe exists in some unspecified other, larger, context that’s part of the in-principle-fully-describable realm (…as it must be, because he also is convinced that there isn’t what’s not in-principle-fully-describable).
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(I use that awkward wording starting with “what’s…”, because I don’t want to say “something” or “anything” in reference to what’s not in-principle-fully-describable, because my definition of ‘thing’ includes in-principle-fully-describableness.)
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That unsupported belief in that unspecified larger context sounds to me like a religion believed in by the Materialist.
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When I say that, I should clarify that I consider myself religious too. I don’t disagree about a larger context, and I don’t specify it either. But I don’t say that it’s in-principle-fully-describable.
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And, differing with most other Theists (but not so much with the Gnostics), I suggest that this abstract-implications-comprised physical world of our experience, as the setting of our experience-story, wasn’t created from a higher level. As the protagonist of our experience-story, and the "Will-To-Life", we’re the reason for our life and therefore of our world. That complementarity is self-generated. As the Atheists argue (They’re right about that much), Benevolence wouldn’t and didn’t make there be this physical-world. (the World, but not this physical-world.)
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This reply has been a bit far-ranging, but one topic brings in another.
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Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 17:12#2247120 likes
I've made some edits to the last paragraph of my post before this one.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 17:45#2247170 likes
Of course, you could attempt to explain how you believe it's actually a logical implication.
If you know all the physical and chemical properties of water, then there's no way for ice not to be slippery under the right environmental conditions. Therefore, conceiving of ice lacking slipperiness is to fail to fully take into account it's makeup.
If you know all the physical and chemical properties of water, then there's no way for ice not to be slippery under the right environmental conditions.
What does that have to do with logical entailment? You're making a metaphysical statement there. You're not saying anything about logic.
Did any of that tell me what non-human aboutness is supposed to be?
It's your phrase. So, if I haven't answered your question, it's because I don't know exactly what you mean by it. Tell me what you mean by it, and I'll tell you what it is (or is supposed to be), if I can.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 04, 2018 at 20:38#2247660 likes
What does that have to do with logical entailment?
There's no way for H20 not to have the properties of water when you take into account all of the physics and chemistry. Of course you can imagine a world where it's different by ignoring the physics and chemistry, just like we can imagine super heroes.
But that's not what Chalmers meant by conceivability.
Terrapin StationNovember 04, 2018 at 21:43#2247800 likes
Yes, I'd say that . . . Human impressions and feelings aren't involved in those starkly-simplified abstract discussions.
So, we have your claim that there can be logic discussions where there is "indeed a word for everything that the discussion is about" AND your claim that "Human impressions and feelings aren't involved" in the above.
This implies that the words for everything that the discussion is about are determined by something other than how people think about it.
So, I asked you what the non-human source for what those discussions are about is.
Physics and logic are two different things. So, the properties of ice aren't actually logically entailed by physical facts. Rather, the properties of ice are identical to (not entailed by) physical facts ontologically.
In just the same way, the properties of mentality are identical to physical facts (re a subset of brain facts) ontologically.
"Physical facts" there isn't a reference to the science of physics, especially not as the contingent set of theories, laws, etc. as presented in physics textbooks, classrooms, etc. It's rather a reference to the type of ontological stuff we're talking about.
"Physical facts" there isn't a reference to the science of physics, especially not as the contingent set of theories, laws, etc. as presented in physics textbooks, classrooms, etc. It's rather a reference to the type of ontological stuff we're talking about.
So this ontological stuff is the world, or reality. And you wish to call it "physical". But it could have things not described or predicted by physics in it. Panpsychism, neutral monism, strong emergentism, non-supernatural dualism and epiphenomenalism are all consistent with this ontological stuff.
It's like Thales saying everything is water, someone pointing out that space isn't entailed by water, and Thales saying that he doesn't mean the study of water, but the actual ontological stuff, therefore it's not a problem to say space is made up of water.
Which is just word play. We could say the world is ontologically watery instead of physical, and it accomplishes the same thing.
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 10:57#2249210 likes
Water and the study of water are different, right? But that doesn't imply that just any old thing is water. It's just that what water is isn't determined by the study of water. The study of water has to be able to focus on water to be the study of that particular "item" in the first place. If the study of it were what we were referring to by "water," then what we're referring to by "water" would be whatever we've decided to study and name "the study of water," which in that case could be just any old arbitrary thing.
Michael OssipoffNovember 05, 2018 at 14:51#2249660 likes
So, I asked you what the non-human source for what those discussions are about is.
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How about my Slitheytoves example:
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If there were Slitheytoves and Jaberwockeys, and an attribute called “brillig-ness”, and if all Slithetytoves were brillig, and all Jaberwockeys were Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys would be brillig.
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I don’t have any emotional reaction to Jaberwockeys, Slitheytoves or brillig-ness. But the above paragraph states a fact, whether or not you, I or anyone cares about it. …even without there being such things as Slitheytoves, Jaberwockeys or brillig-ness.
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That discussion, in that Slithetytoves paragraph isn’t about anything that exists in the context of our physical world, and it doesn’t need to be.
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Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 14:56#2249690 likes
I don’t have any emotional reaction to Jaberwockeys, Slitheytoves or brillig-ness. But the above paragraph states a fact, whether or not you, I or anyone cares about it. …even without there being such things as Slitheytoves, Jaberwockeys or brillig-ness.
And in your view the source of those facts is?
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 15:01#2249720 likes
It's been said in these forums, and (though I'm not an authority) it seems right to me, that abstract logical facts are demonstrated by showing that they're tautologies. Certainly an implication-proposition could be proved by showing that its antecedent and consequent are just two wordings of the same proposition.
For example, the proposition:
"There isn't a true-and-false proposition."
...can be shown to be a tautology.
Tautologies don't need any proof. For example, the source of the truth of a tautological implication is the fact that it consists of two ways of wording the same proposition. (The above-stated proposition in quotes can be worded as an implication.)
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 05, 2018 at 15:35#2249800 likes
Also, by the way, what would you say that has to do with aboutness? X is about y?
First, let me suggest an abbreviation:
I'd like to abbreviate "in-principle-completely-describable" as "ipcd".
Facts needn't be about anything that exists in some preferred context. Abstract implications can be about propositions that are about hypothetical things. ....things that are only in "if" clauses.
...and none of a system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things needs to exist in (or be about anything in) any context other than its own inter-referring context.
That's what my metaphysics discusses. I propose that there's no reason to believe that your experience of the ipcd aspects of your surroundings, the logical relations among the things and events of your surroundings, are other than a complex system of inter-referring abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things.
I suggest that experience is primary to all that, but the ipcd aspects of your experience have to be consistent, because there are no mutualiy-contradictory facts, because there are no true-and-false propositions.
That consistency-requirement is what brings logic into your experience. But I suggest that experience comes first. Inevitably, among all the abstract-implications and systems of them, there's one about the ipcd experience of someone who is you.
As I said, experience, and a complex system of inter-referring abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things, together comprise a complementary system, which is a logical system to the extent that experience of ipcd things must be consistent, for the reasons that I mentioned.
Existing only in their own contexts, such logical systems (with their built-in observer) are inevitable.
It needn't be a question of which came first, experience or the logical system of the ipcd aspects of experience-of-surroundings. They're complementary, part of a whole complementary inter-referring system that needn't be real or existent in any context other than its own.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 16:33#2250040 likes
No, not how you'd say they're demonstrated. What you think the ontological source of them is
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None. None needed. I’m not saying that any of it is real or existent in any context other than in their own inter-referring context.
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I assert that existence and reality, in the ipcd realm, only have meaning with respect to and in a specified context.
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--basiscally, where do you think it comes from?
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No need for reality or existence in any context external to it
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”Abstract implications can be about propositions that are about hypothetical things.” .... — Michael Ossipoff
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So you're thinking that aboutness is in . . . some person-independent abstract realm or something?
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I don’t claim that any of it is about anything real or existent.
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It could be argued that even abstract-implications are a meaningless notion without someone to be aware of them, and that there’s no such thing as person-independence. …but what if that person is complementarily built-in to the system? That satisfies the need for an observer. Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark have said that too. …have said something to the effect that the observer whom the logical system is about, gives it whatever apparent (to that observer) existence it needs (if it needs any). (…even though Tippler and Tegamark were Realists.)
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It seems to me that Nisargadatta, too, said something to the effect that you didn’t make this universe, but you give it its “reality” (…such "reality" as it has, or seems to).
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I’m saying that the person, the experiencer, the protagonist of the experience-story, is complementary with the abstract-implications. It’s a whole complementary system that’s independent of anything external to it, and doesn’t need any reality or existence.
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In what external context does any Materialist believe that this physical universe (including any physically-inter-related multiverse that it’s part of) exist or have reality?
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What we know is that our physical world is real and existent in its own context, and that of our lives. What other reality or existence does it need? In what other ipcd context could it have existence and reality?
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Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 18:21#2250370 likes
If you mean spatially, this universe (...which I mean to include the entirety of any physically-inter-related multiverse of which our Big-Bang-Universe is part) isn't in any space external to it. For it, the only space is the space that's an attribute of it (including, of course its overall spatial system, and the particular spatial-systems of its sub-universes such as out Big-Bang-Universe).
In other words, our universe isn't in external space.
If you don't mean spatially:
For the complex system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things, that is your life-experience-story, "[its] own inter-referring context" is (only) among those abstract-implications, propositions and hypothetical things.
Where with respect to anything else? No relation to anything else. Each such system is entirely separate, isolated and independent from others (...which, by definition, aren't inter-referring with it) and from any putative (but nonexistent) continuum or medium in the ipcd realm.
By "the ipcd realm", I mean "The totality of all the systems in which there is ipcd logical structure* ".
*not that there's any other kind of logical structure.
...including, for example, your experience-story and the physical world in which it's set...even though of course your experience isn't ipcd, except in specific respects regarding certain aspects of your surroundings....like the logical relations among its events and things, and the sorts of physically-perceived "facts" that can be written down.
After I posted my most recent reply, I felt that I should clarify that there's a big ontological/metaphysical error among academic philosophers if they think there's such a thing as "objective existence" or "objective real-ness" in the ipcd realm. There isn't.
It's meaningless to speak of "objective existence" or "objective real-ness" in that realm.
Existence and real-ness there are only meaningful in and with respect to a specific context.
Other than in that realm? How would I know.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 05, 2018 at 23:21#2252220 likes
I haven't the faintest idea what you're saying in most of that, unforunately.
Fair enough.
If you don't ask what I mean by at least one passage, word, phrase, sentence, etc., that's your choice, and none of my business.
But, saying that you don't understand what I said, without specifying a particular passage, word, phrase, sentence, or meaning--obviously isn't an answerable objection or a convincing objection.
But, (Rhetorical question only--Don't feel obligated to reply.) which part of this don't you understand?:
It's meaningless to speak of objective existence or objective real-ness.
Existence or real-ness means something only in and with respect to a specified context.
Believing in such a thing as objective existence and real-ness is a common error of academic philosophers and people at this forum.
This physical world, the setting for our experience, is undeniably real and existent in its own context and in the context of our lives, and it would be meaningless to say that it's objectively existent.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 06, 2018 at 16:51#2253670 likes
It's meaningless to speak of objective existence or objective real-ness.
Existence or real-ness means something only in and with respect to a specified context.
Believing in such a thing as objective existence and real-ness is a common error of academic philosophers and people at this forum.
This physical world, the setting for our experience, is undeniably real and existent in its own context and in the context of our lives, and it would be meaningless to say that it's objectively existent.
Most of that I understand at least as presented . . . I just don't agree with most of it.
I agree with this: ". . . means something only in and with respect to a specified context," simply because meaning is something that individuals do, so for anything to mean anything, an individual has to think about it in the relevant associative manner.
And I agree with this: "This physical world, the setting for our experience, is undeniably real and existent in its own context and in the context of our lives," although the curious thing there is that the physical world in question is the objective world, so that doesn't really make sense to me with respect to the rest of your comment.
Also, that's not really addressing what I was trying to get you to address, but maybe that wasn't the idea, and what I was trying to get you to address wasn't very important anyway.
Michael OssipoffNovember 06, 2018 at 17:59#2253850 likes
I agree with this: ". . . [Existence or real-ness] means something only in and with respect to a specified context,"
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…and then:
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the physical world in question is the objective world
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Objective existence is the opposite of only-contextual existence. So the 2nd statement of yours that I quoted above contradicts the 1st one.
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Our physical world is what we observe, experience and are part of. That doesn’t make it objectively-existent.
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Also, that's not really addressing what I was trying to get you to address.
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I answered your questions as best I could interpret them. If, by your questions, you meant something other than what I answered, then feel free to re-word your questions. I don’t evade questions or refuse to answer them.
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Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 06, 2018 at 18:04#2253880 likes
Reply to papamuratte A mind in isolation is hardly alive. Life is a discourse between minds, between what is self and not self. Life is union.
In the "beginning" God was alone, in the void. 'Then' creation came into being and God emerged from mere existence - the void - into life and being. Through creation God becomes the living God.
The materialist implicitly asserts that a person is no more than a collection of molecules. How can a bunch of molecules produce a person? The person and the psyche are far too sublime and evolved to be merely a property of molecules. So I believe in dualism but not that Trump is a critter...
Terrapin StationNovember 06, 2018 at 22:09#2255480 likes
Objective existence is the opposite of only-contextual existence.
The first statement you quoted, the first thing I agreed with was about meaning. It wasn't about context re anything else.
The phrase "only-contextual existence" is something I can't really make sense of. So it's difficult for me to agree or not agree with you about that part.
Maybe you're conflating two different meanings for "objective":
1. More than contextual
2. Unbiased or based on observation
I'm definitely not using a "more than contextual" phrase, because I don't know what the heck that would amount to. The idea of context being a quantificational property, so that we could have "more than it," makes no sense to me.
I also wouldn't used "unbiased or based on observation" for "objective," for a couple reasons. One, I don't believe it's possible to be unbiased. Two, it seems confused to me to refer to something that people are doing re thinking/reasoning/etc. as "objective." I rather use "mind-independent" or "external to mind(s)" as the definition of "objective."
Michael OssipoffNovember 07, 2018 at 15:54#2257050 likes
Materialists claim that this physical universe has (in some unspecified sense, by some unspecified meaning) existence and realness other than in its own context (or that of our lives). Is their claim about that meaningless?
Fine. If "more than contextual existence or real-ness" doesn't mean anything to you, then you won't claim that this physical world has existence or real-ness other than in its own context. ...since, according to you, such a claim would be meaningless.
Then any previously-perceived disagreement was just a misunderstanding.
Then it isn't clear how you think this physical universe is other than or more than the setting of a hypothetical experience story consisting of the uncontroversially-inevitable logical system that I've described, a system of inter-referring abstract-facts about propositions about hypothetical things.
By the way, at a different thread, you agreed that there are no things, just facts. How does that reconcile with a claim that this physical universe consists of more than the setting in an experience-story consisting of a system of inter-referring abstract-implications?
Michael Ossipoff
Pattern-chaserNovember 07, 2018 at 16:00#2257060 likes
Interesting question! :up: :smile: Do I think existing-things are constrained by my ability to describe them? No. Do I therefore think that there could be things out there, real things, that I am incapable of describing? Yes.
Michael OssipoffNovember 07, 2018 at 16:00#2257070 likes
Maybe you mean that it's meaningless to speak of something's existence and real-ness in its own context, because anything is real and existent in its own context.
Of course. But I was talking about a claim that this physical universe is real &/or existent in some context other than its own. ...a claim that Materialists, but not I, make about this physical universe.
Michael Ossipoff
Pattern-chaserNovember 07, 2018 at 16:06#2257090 likes
Can something - anything - exist outside its own context? I can't parse that, I'm afraid. — Pattern-chaser
Of course it can. The country of France exists in the larger context of Europe, to give a spatio-geographical and cultural and historical example.
That looks to me like you're simply observing that contexts can be nested. France exists in its own context, and within Europe (...the world, solar system, galaxy, etc :wink: ). I don't think anything can exist outside its own context. :chin:
Reply to Michael Ossipoff why not? Can´t a person deduce that, if a universe can form for no good reason, anything else can happen too? Including entities capable of producing new universes.
Michael OssipoffNovember 07, 2018 at 18:11#2257410 likes
The country of France exists in the larger context of Europe, to give a spatio-geographical and cultural and historical example. — Michael Ossipoff
That looks to me like you're simply observing that contexts can be nested. France exists in its own context, and within Europe (...the world, solar system, galaxy, etc :wink: ). I don't think anything can exist outside its own context.
But you agreed that France exists within Europe. France's history and culture can meaningfully discussed in the context of overall European history and culture. So doesn't France exist in the European context, in addition to its own context?
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 07, 2018 at 18:22#2257420 likes
why not? Can´t a person deduce that, if a universe can form for no good reason, anything else can happen too? Including entities capable of producing new universes.
Sure. But I didn't say that this universe formed for no good reason. I said, instead, that this universe consists of the setting in your life-experience-story, which is an uncontroversially-inevitable complex system of abstract-implications about propositions about hypothetical things.
Abstract-implications don't need an explanation. I didn't even say that an inter-referring system of them "exists" in any context other than its own.
Someone suggested that it's meaningless to speak of something existing in its own context, because....what doesn't exist in its own context??? Good point. Of course.
But the existence of this physical universe in any other context is unsupported.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 07, 2018 at 22:09#2257770 likes
Interesting question! :up: :smile: Do I think existing-things are constrained by my ability to describe them? No. Do I therefore think that there could be things out there, real things, that I am incapable of describing? Yes.
That's a different idea, though--it's more agnostic or neutral. I mean "positively" or "actively" believing in something that one can't describe.
bloodninjaNovember 08, 2018 at 05:29#2258300 likes
Reply to Yajur Why are either the mind or the body substances? Im no genius but to me "substance" seems to belong to scientific language games. Surely substance has no place in a properly philosophical language game.
Pattern-chaserNovember 08, 2018 at 13:12#2258700 likes
That looks to me like you're simply observing that contexts can be nested. France exists in its own context, and within Europe (...the world, solar system, galaxy, etc :wink: ). I don't think anything can exist outside its own context. :chin:
ETA: I.e. France exists in a European context, but this does not exchange the One and Only Context that France can occupy. [ Irony. :wink: The One and Only Context of anything is a nonsense, I think. ] In this case, France exists simultaneously in its own context, and that of Europe, the world, the Solar System, etc. I don't think anything can exist outside its own context.
If we imagine something truly outside of any context, how do we define that thing? We define and understand things in their context(s), not in isolation. In the case of the universe, where there is no outside, nothing external to it, we might say it is its own context. But that isn't true of anything else, is it? :chin:
Pattern-chaserNovember 08, 2018 at 13:16#2258720 likes
Interesting question! :up: :smile: Do I think existing-things are constrained by my ability to describe them? No. Do I therefore think that there could be things out there, real things, that I am incapable of describing? Yes.
So, not really "positively or actively believing", more acknowledging possibilities. :up: :smile: As you say, more agnostic/neutral. :up:
Terrapin StationNovember 08, 2018 at 13:30#2258760 likes
Reply to bloodninjaReply to Relativist I think philosophers use substance as a reference to the foundational level of reality in a given context. Like, the substance of oral speech are vibrations of air molecules. Sub-stance, what under-lies (the whole of Reality or a system within it)
Right, the idea of "I believe that P" or "I believe 'in' x," where one cannot describe P or x, is incoherent.
Yes, I'd love to agree with this ... but I believe in God, Someone I cannot adequately describe or define.... I'm human; sometimes we're "incoherent". :smile:
Terrapin StationNovember 08, 2018 at 14:08#2258920 likes
You're throwing the word "adequately" in there. I didn't say anything about that.
You'd believe in God to the extent that you have some concept/understanding of God, and you'd be able to describe the concept/understanding that you believe.
Pattern-chaserNovember 08, 2018 at 15:35#2259260 likes
You'd believe in God to the extent that you have some concept/understanding of God, and you'd be able to describe the concept/understanding that you believe.
You have more confidence in my descriptive abilities than I have! :wink:
Terrapin StationNovember 08, 2018 at 15:41#2259290 likes
Well, to the extent that you couldn't describe what you believe (in), it wouldn't .And much sense to say that you believe (in) it? "I believe in plabbetyblax." "What's that?" "I don't know. I can't even describe it to myself." We'd understandably think that person is maybe a bit nutty.
Pattern-chaserNovember 08, 2018 at 15:54#2259310 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station And yet we have many words - and "God" is a good example, but far from the only one - whose definition is general, at best, or downright vague. Why do you think this is? I'm not sure, but I think it is that we want such vague terms, because we find them convenient and useful. Often we want to conduct a discussion in general (i.e. somewhat vague) terms. For such discussions, vague and poorly-defined terms are the order of the day. :smile:
So no, I don't think I could give you a definition of God, as I understand Her, that you would find useful or adequate. Do I feel inadequate about this? No, I'm afraid not. Precision is more common in theory than it is in practice.
Terrapin StationNovember 08, 2018 at 16:04#2259320 likes
Describing things to other people in a manner that they're satisfied with is another issue entirely.
Pattern-chaserNovember 08, 2018 at 16:26#2259450 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station Is there ever a need to describe something to yourself? I don't think so. We only describe things "to other people" because we only need to describe them to others.
Terrapin StationNovember 08, 2018 at 16:27#2259460 likes
Whether there's a need to do it is irrelevant I think. The fact is that you could do this for whatever you believe (in), insofar as you believe it. That's all that I was saying. I wasn't making any claims about anyone else finding a description satisfactory, etc. That would depend on a whole host of psychological and social factors.
You'd believe in God to the extent that you have some concept/understanding of God, and you'd be able to describe the concept/understanding that you believe.
It's nice to be able to agree with you on something. This is actually related to what I was saying about how things exist. To say only that God exists without giving any content to God is to say nothing, really. Whether something exists is trivial apart from how it is supposed to exist (what it is.)
Some might object that God is beyond conception. I can only make sense of this if they mean their experience of God is emotional, sensual, or generally akin to the experience of music, art, and that aspect of communication with other human beings which is not conceptual (a smile exchanged,a hug.)
The only thing that troubles me with this approach is that often 'beyond conceptual' is still insisted upon in an essentially conceptual way, as something that is and isn't concept, mostly to escape the threat of their experience being subjective, since they often want to prove things about God. Not all such theists will grant that 'well, it just felt like a universally accessible and relevant experience.'
Michael OssipoffNovember 09, 2018 at 20:08#2263590 likes
What I mean to say on this matter can be said briefly:
1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
2)...because, if not, then this physical world doesn't exist in any sense or context other than that in which exists the setting of your life-experience-story, a hypothetical system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things. ...which, too, exists and is real in its own context (if "exist" and "real" mean anything).
3)...in which case, what reason would there be to believe that this physical world is other than the setting in that hypothetical experience-story, which is an inevitable logical system. ...which needs no existence or reality other than in its own context?
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 10, 2018 at 00:26#2264200 likes
1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real,
Which is essentially asking whether it's possible to persuade someone of something when the person in question has psychological issues, where either they're delusional or they're stuck in an early stage of development, or they're so self-centered, completely incapable of empathy, etc., that to them it's as if only they exist, or for some reason they're just trying to be difficult. In most cases, probably not. That only tells us something about those folks' psychologies, however. It's certainly not the case that ontology somehow hinges on persuading difficult or troubled people of something.
Michael OssipoffNovember 10, 2018 at 15:05#2265180 likes
I've flagged Terrapin Station's most recent post for two reasons:
Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real,
2. After that, the message consists only of negative characterization of another poster...for having allegedly said what Terrapin falsely quoted.
Terrapin Station is a habitual repeat-offender who didn't learn anything from his recent message-deletion, and didn't wait long before doing the same thing again.
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 10, 2018 at 18:54#2265390 likes
Michael OssipoffNovember 14, 2018 at 02:56#2274730 likes
Let me clarify something that I said, and post a better reply to Terrapin Station:
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I’d said:
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What I mean to say on this matter can be said briefly:
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1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
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2)...because, if not, then this physical world doesn't exist in any sense or context other than that in which exists the setting of your life-experience-story, a hypothetical system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things. ...which, too, exists and is real in its own context (if "exist" and "real" mean anything).
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3)...in which case, what reason would there be to believe that this physical world is other than the setting in that hypothetical experience-story, which is an inevitable logical system. ...which needs no existence or reality other than in its own context?
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I’d like to clarify that a bit:
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Any meaning for “real” or “existent” is contextual only.
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To say that something in principle describable by humans has reality or existence other than that, is nonsense.
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The notion of non-contextual (absolute in some sense) reality or existence for describable things has resulted in much confusion and befuddlement in philosophy, over millennia, and up to the present.
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Someone questioned the meaning of a thing’s “reality or existence in its own context”.
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Fair enough. Neither “Real” nor “Existent” has a consensus metaphysical definition, and anyone would be hard-put to suggest usable definitions for them.
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That’s why I don’t claim “reality” or “existence” for anything describable. And, anyway, I agree with those who wouldn’t apply “exist” to anything else either.
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But (only) if you don’t have a quarrel with something being real and existent in its own context, then I won’t deny that this physical world is real and existent in its own context, and that of our lives.
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Sankara has been quoted as saying that the physical world is real, in the sense that, whatever reality or existence it does or doesn’t have, it’s part of Reality, which could be defined as “all that there is” …which of course includes such things as abstract-facts and other hypotheticals. I wouldn’t disagree with that.
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The bottom line is, then, that it depends on what you mean by “real” and “existent”. I make no claims, in that regard, for describable things.
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As, ourselves, part of this physical world, of course our perception of it is within its context, and that of our lives in it. If it had other existence or reality, how would we know it anyway?
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When Terrapin Station replied, he quoted me, but left out a meaning-determining part of the sentence, thereby dishonestly changing the sentence’s meaning—quoting me as saying:
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1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, — Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin Station then continued:
Which is essentially asking whether it's possible to persuade someone of something when the person in question has psychological issues
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Well, which one of us is habitually on the attack, and posting messages consisting only of attack, only about another poster, instead of about the topic. Aggression results from having issues.
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, where either they're delusional
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…like someone who thinks that the quote of me that Terrapin Station posted, above, means the same thing as the sentence that I’d actually posted? Or someone who thinks that a question (in a recent other thread) about the experiences of a dying person is answered by referring to the time after death, when that person has no experiences? :D
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or they're stuck in an early stage of development
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…such as an infantile aggressive stage?
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…troubled people…
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Aggression is a symptom of a troubled person.
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But have people noticed that the most erroneous people on the Internet always seem to also be the most loudly assertive, and, behaviorally, the most troubled, the most disturbed, and the most aggressive people, with the most (seemingly) angry behavior? I didn’t make that up, and, in fact psychologists have found that same correlation in general. It’s called the “Dunning-Kruger effect.
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Why are the most mistaken people also the most assertive, loud and arrogant? Dunning & Kruger, and others have offered some good explanations.
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First, here’s a link to the Wikipedia article about it. Below the link, I’ve quoted some highlights from the article.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
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In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.[1]
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As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability
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The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".[1] The identification derived from the cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks with his face covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink.[2]
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Other investigations of the phenomenon, such as "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence" (2003), indicate that much incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standards of performance.[3] Dunning and Kruger's research also indicates that training in a task, such as solving a logic puzzle, increases people's ability to accurately evaluate how good they are at it.[4]
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In Self-insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (2005), Dunning described the Dunning–Kruger effect as "the anosognosia of everyday life", referring to a neurological condition in which a disabled person either denies or seems unaware of his or her disability. He stated: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."
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In testing alternative explanations for the cognitive bias of illusory superiority, the study Why the Unskilled are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-insight Among the Incompetent (2008) reached the same conclusions as previous studies of the Dunning–Kruger effect: that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve
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the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who said, "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
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Maybe these people can help someone who is suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect:
Terrapin StationNovember 14, 2018 at 12:45#2276420 likes
1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
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2)...because, if not, then this physical world doesn't exist in any sense or context other than that in which exists the setting of your life-experience-story . . .
For one, this seems to amount to a belief that "If P can not be demonstrated, then not-P."
But why wouldn't you require that just as much for P="The physical world is not real"?
Michael OssipoffNovember 14, 2018 at 16:29#2276850 likes
[i]”1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
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2)...because, if not, then this physical world doesn't exist in any sense or context other than that in which exists the setting of your life-experience-story . . .”—Michael Ossipoff[/i]
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For one, this seems to amount to a belief that "If P can not be demonstrated, then not-P."
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But why wouldn't you require that just as much for P="The physical world is not real"?
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Yes, my wording didn’t express my meaning well. By “If not…”, I meant, “If this physical world doesn’t have reality or existence other than in in its own context”.
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I meant that the alternative to “This physical world exists and is real other than in its own context” is:
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“This physical world doesn’t have any kind of reality or existence other than, or more than, that of the hypothetical life-experience story that I’ve described, which consists of a complex system of relations and inter-reference among abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things.”
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So let me repeat your questions:
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For one, this seems to amount to a belief that "If P can not be demonstrated, then not-P."
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But why wouldn't you require that just as much for P="The physical world is not real"?
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Contrary to the poor wording of mine that you quoted, which implied an unintended meaning, I’ve always emphasized that I can’t prove that this physical world doesn’t have the objective, fundamental, absolute, noncontextual existence that Materialists believe in. I’ve always emphasized that, because, by definition, unfalsifiable-propositions can’t be disproved, it’s impossible to prove any metaphysics, including mine.
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So what do I assert?
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That Materialism depends on an assumption and posits a brute fact. My metaphysics, Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism, doesn’t.
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More than that, I also claim that Materialists can’t even say what they mean by the objective, absolute, noncontextual existence and reality that they claim for this physical world, and which would distinguish it from the physical world described by my metaphysics.
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I emphasize that I don’t claim any existence or reality (whatever that would mean) for abstract-implications and other hypotheticals, or anything else in principle describable* by humans. But an inter-referring system of them has that inter-reference and inter-relation, and my metaphysics doesn’t posit more than that.
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…as described by Michael Faraday in 1844 when he said that there’s no reason to believe that this physical world is other than the system of logical and mathematical relational-structure that is experimentally-observed.
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*(As I mean “describable”, something is describable iff there’s nothing about it that can’t, in principle, be described by humans. I express that distinction because it can’t be shown that all of Reality is describable by that definition.)
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Michael Ossipoff
Reply to Yajur We won't know what the mind is compared with the body until we die and our bodies dissolve or vaporize back into their basic chemical elements and compounds. In the meantime such speculation is rather inaccurate.
Terrapin StationNovember 15, 2018 at 12:05#2278810 likes
We won't know what the mind is compared with the body until we die and our bodies dissolve or vaporize back into their basic chemical elements and compounds. In the meantime such speculation is rather inaccurate.
We don't know with logical certainty, but I don't agree that that amounts to not knowing. Why would we worry about logical certainty (especially when logic is something we've constructed in the first place and we've come up with a number of different constructions for it)?
Michael OssipoffNovember 15, 2018 at 15:51#2279150 likes
We won't know what the mind is compared with the body...
If we don't know that, it's because we've forgotten what was taught to us in pre-secondary school (also formerly called junior-high school, and, more recently, middle-school).
...until we die and our bodies dissolve or vaporize back into their basic chemical elements and compounds.
Of course, at that time we won't be at all, and so it's meaningless to speak of our knowing anything then.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 15, 2018 at 16:22#2279180 likes
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*(As I mean “describable”, something is describable iff there’s nothing about it that can’t, in principle, be described by humans. I express that distinction because it can’t be shown that all of Reality is describable by that definition.)
That wording is problematic, and doesn't say what I meant. I have to admit that it isn't easy to word the distinction that I've been trying to refer to.
Reality is unknowable. If someone says, "You can't be sure of that", then I answer, "If you can't be sure that Reality is knowable, then you don't know it, and you've admitted that Reality isn't reliably knowable. Speculation isn't knowledge.
In fact, it's obvious that, even everyday life, many experiences are indescribable. I've spoken of the example of the smell of mint, or the experience of stepping on a tack.
In metaphysics, I've meant to avoid speculative statements. ...to only say uncontroversial, obvious things that won't be disagreed-with. Facts and logic are things that are completely describable by humans, at least in principle.
That's why I preface many metaphysical statements with "...in the describable realm".
But defining "the describable realm", has been difficult. I can't just call it "Matters about which something be said", because I've said (suggested, not asserted) that Reality is benevolent. ...thereby saying something about Reality.
Maybe "Matters about which provable things can be said" would be a better way to say what I've meant by "the describable realm".
Or maybe "Matters of logic or the system of facts that relate experiences of the physical world."
Or maybe just "Matters of fact".
Those definitions of "the describable realm" are just tentative. Maybe it could be better worded.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 15, 2018 at 16:44#2279190 likes
Maybe "Matters of fact" should be replaced by "Matters of provable fact",
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 16, 2018 at 16:30#2284270 likes
We disagree on a lot of that (and a !ot of stuff in general).
For one, I don't agree that knowledge requires any sort of certainty.
Re descriotions, in my view a description is any set of words that an individual takes as sufficient to bring to mind some features and/or relations of whatever is being described, so that the individual can picture the thing in question from some perspective, whether that's memory-based or purely imagination-based.
Pattern-chaserNovember 17, 2018 at 15:50#2287000 likes
Maybe "Matters of fact" should be replaced by "Matters of provable fact"
[My highlighting.]
That introduces the thorny matter of proof. What constitutes proof? It can range from Objective proof, requiring conformance with that which actually is, to a much softer and less demanding 'proof'. I don't mean to derail or distract, but once you introduce the concept of proof, these things need to be considered....
I don't agree that knowledge requires any sort of certainty.
Well, uncertainty is a real and significant part of reality, as we humans perceive and understand it. So I suppose it follows that much (nearly all?) of what we consider 'knowledge' must be somewhat uncertain. But it can't usefully be uncertain to the extent that it can't be defined at all, even in a general sense. There is a spectrum here, from absolute certainty to no certainty at all, and the latter end of the spectrum isn't very useful to us.... But we do need to address the former end of the spectrum, where things are not known with absolute certainty, but where there is enough evidence to be convinced, if not certain. ... Don't we? :chin:
Michael OssipoffNovember 17, 2018 at 16:18#2287150 likes
I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it amounts to a tautology. In particular, a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.
Michael Ossipoff
Pattern-chaserNovember 17, 2018 at 16:30#2287170 likes
I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it amounts to a tautology.
According to my dictionary (I checked :wink:), this means:
"I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it is necessarily true."
This looks like the other definition of "tautology" in my dictionary: "useless repetition". Something is true if it's true. Hmm. :chin:
ETA: You are right to combine "proof" and "true"; they belong together in our thoughts. So I'm not being pedantic here, but only trying to understand what you have written, and what you might have meant by it. :chin: :chin: :chin:
a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.
This confuses me more. I read this as saying that "a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that what results from it is the same as what came before it." I can't make sense of this, I'm afraid.
Michael OssipoffNovember 17, 2018 at 17:15#2287250 likes
For one, I don't agree that knowledge requires any sort of certainty.
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Of course it goes without saying that there can be knowledge of what might be so, and of likelihoods or probabilities (objectively-calculated; or as felt by someone, maybe judged by known or felt outcome-values and hypothetical lotteries).
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Anyway, I’ve been saying all-along that it isn’t meaningful to assert, much less claim to prove, about the character or nature of the whole of Reality itself. When it comes to that, it isn’t knowledge—It’s impressions. And no one should say that your impression should be the same as theirs.
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A lot of people here agree with me on that.
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Re descriptions, in my view a description is any set of words that an individual takes as sufficient to bring to mind some features and/or relations of whatever is being described, so that the individual can picture the thing in question from some perspective, whether that's memory-based or purely imagination-based.
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You can’t tell someone what the smell of mint is like. For some experiences, you could make some rough comparisons only, to an experience they’ve had. Rough comparisons don’t tell someone what it’s like. They only tell someone some little bit about what it’s like.
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Anyway, because “description” can obviously be defined in various diverse ways, that’s why I specified a definition, to say what I meant by that word.
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But the word “describable” is problematic for expressing the distinction that I’ve been trying to express. I’m not satisfied with the definitions in my most recent post before this one, and it seems that the approach using the word “describable” isn’t helping.
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Other approaches that would be better:
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What I’ve been referring to as “the describable realm” means:
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The realm of contingent, interdependent, dependently-originated, things interdependently defined and related by logic and facts.
Or:
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The separate things, as opposed to the whole of Reality itself.
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(Buddhist writers sometimes use the term “dependent origination”. I don’t know how they mean it or use it in their metaphysics (s). I don’t know anything about Buddhist metaphysics(s), but that term is useful to make the distinction that I’ve been trying to express. Though I don’t know anything about Buddhist metaphysics, Buddhist writers have said nonmetaphysical things that are interesting, useful and helpful.)
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Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 17, 2018 at 17:56#2287290 likes
According to my dictionary (I checked :wink:), this means:
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"I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it is necessarily true."
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You didn’t say what dictionary you were using. Merriam-Webster is the premier dictionary in the U.S. It defines “tautology” as “needless repetition of an idea, statement or word”.
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Of course a repetition of an idea, statement or word might not really be unnecessary if it isn’t immediately obvious that it’s a repetition, and its repetition-nature needs to be shown.
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That isn’t different from how I meant “tautology”.
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But yes, if it can be shown that a proposition is necessarily true, that could be called proof.
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This looks like the other definition of "tautology" in my dictionary: "useless repetition".
[quote]
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Something is true if it's true. Hmm.
…and is proved if shown to be necessarily true.
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Say it that way if you want.
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ETA: You are right to combine "proof" and "true"
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Thank you.
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I won’t claim to know what “ETA” means. Estimated time of arrival?
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; they belong together in our thoughts. So I'm not being pedantic here, but only trying to understand what you have written, and what you might have meant by it.
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I meant only what I said. But I never refuse to answer questions about the meaning of particular specified words, sentences, phrases and terms.
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”a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.” — Michael Ossipoff
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This confuses me more. I read this as saying that "a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that what results from it is the same as what came before it." I can't make sense of this, I'm afraid.
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That’s okay. We can agree to disagree about whether it means anything.
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As before, you can say it how you want to. But you seem to be saying that you’re re-wording it in a way that doesn’t mean anything to you.
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Speaking of re-wording, you could say that a proposed implication is an implication if its consequent can be shown to be a re-wording of its antecedent.
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I’m not quite sure which part of that you don’t understand.
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But, in general, regarding the inadequacy of words, of course words are inadequate--for example, given that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. ...and the fact that it's impossible to tell someone what an experience is really like. (The example I've been using is the smell of mint.}
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Michael Ossipoff
Pattern-chaserNovember 17, 2018 at 18:01#2287320 likes
As before, you can say it how you want to. But you seem to be saying that you’re re-wording it in a way that doesn’t mean anything to you.
Speaking of re-wording, you could say that a proposed implication is an implication if its consequent can be shown to be a re-wording of its antecedent.
I was having difficulty understanding your words, so I offered rewordings that demonstrated my understanding of them, for you to confirm or correct. Sadly, you just repeated the terms I found difficult, so neither of us gained anything.
Terrapin StationNovember 18, 2018 at 13:04#2289580 likes
It also dismantles a criticism about any description that the description doesn't convey an experience of the thing it's describing, doesn't resemble the thing it's describing qualitatively. Those criticisms suggest that some descriptions can do such things, but no description can.
Michael OssipoffNovember 18, 2018 at 14:07#2289700 likes
It also dismantles a criticism about any description that the description doesn't convey an experience of the thing it's describing, doesn't resemble the thing it's describing qualitatively. Those criticisms suggest that some descriptions can do such things, but no description can.
Those statements that I made about attempts to describe experiences weren't intended to compare them to other descriptions. and weren't intended to imply anything regarding the matter of whether there are other kinds of descriptions that can do such things. It's enough to say that it isn't possible to convey to someone else what an experience
But, of course "Describe that triangle in regards to the lengths of its sides in centimeters, to 3 significant figures", and "Describe what the smell of mint is like.", have different orders of difficulty.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael Ossipoff
Terrapin StationNovember 18, 2018 at 14:12#2289730 likes
I was saying something about descriptions period--that's why I didn't qualify it further than just saying "descriptions.". NO description is like what it's describing. No description conveys an experience of what it's describing, conveys its qualities, etc. Descriptions are just sets of words, after all, and what they're describing isn't a set of words, or at least isn't the same set of words.
Queen CleopatraNovember 18, 2018 at 14:28#2289750 likes
"Are the mind and body are separate substances or elements of the same substance (dualism or materialism)? What is your reasoning for either?"
I'm a bit old-fashioned and religious, which as I have come to realize, is not a good combination in philosophy. Anyway, I believe the ways of the mind and body are not always aligned (much of this view is borrowed from spiritual teachings). Since the mind is abstract compared to the body, it gets less attention. We use it frequently but we don't apply the same maintenance as with the body because while we have been clear for a very long time what it means to have a healthy functioning body, it is only recently that we have began paying attention to what it means to have a healthy functioning mind.
I don't know the source of the duality but I see it in day-to-day relations.
Michael OssipoffNovember 18, 2018 at 14:29#2289770 likes
I was saying something about descriptions period. NO description is like what it's describing. No description conveys an experience of what it's describing, conveys its qualities, etc.
Quite so. No disagreement there.
And that's largely why I stopped trying to use describability to distinguish the many separate logically-interdependent things from Reality as a whole, and substituted better wordings for the distinction that I meant to express.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael OssipoffNovember 18, 2018 at 14:38#2289800 likes
I was having difficulty understanding your words, so I offered rewordings that demonstrated my understanding of them, for you to confirm or correct. Sadly, you just repeated the terms I found difficult, so neither of us gained anything.
An objection would have to be more specific. I'd be glad to answer a specific objection.
Maybe it's about the fact that saying that a proposition of an implication is true, saying that the proposition is a fact, saying that there is that implication, and saying that the proposed implication's antecedent and consequent are rewordings of eachother are all really, themselves, different ways of saying same thing--and so, instead of saying what it means to prove something, I've just said it in different ways.
But maybe we shouldn't expect complete non-circular definitions. As i often point out, no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.
Alright, I give up. What would you say it means to prove something?
Comments (155)
and yeah if god exists can somebody answer why he create the universe?
The notion of creation is anthropmorphic.
Theism isn't incompatible with inevitably spontaneous self-generating universes.
Michael Ossipoff
Where the mind and body may be respectively viewed as having inherent thetical, or positive, and antithetical, negative, properties relative to eachother this dualism observes a necessary monism and triadic from which they extend.
This monadism stems from the fact the mind and body, while observed as separate, are inherently connected because of this separation. This may seem paradoxical at first, but considering the opposition of mind and body are dependent upon a movement between and through the other and inherent connection is formed. The mind, as existing, is defined through the absence of mind by the body. The body as existing is defined by the absence of body by the mind.
This interplay between the two necessitates a form of synthesis where the inherent tension between the two becomes a medial element that defines them. To argue a mind body dualism leads to a synthesis of spirit as a medial point from which both extend. The same occurs with mind/spirit resulting in body and spirit/body resulting in mind.
A third degree of the human constitution is always necessitated as a center of balance, where the spirit is this case acts as the synthetic element.
In a separate respect the interplay between the mind body dualism always results in a progressive definition of the two. The mind is x and is not y, relative to the measuring point of the body, and the definition continues. This applies dually with the body.
In these respects the mind body dualism causes an continual expansion of definition between the two while necessitating a dual point of origin from which they exist (spirit).
So the spirit exists dually as what the mind and body are not, while existing as both. As both it maintains a connection but as a negative of both it maintains its own positive degree of definition.
For example the body may be composed of organs, which the mind may be one, but the body is not the foundation of abstract thought which the mind is. However the mind as an extension of the body neccitates the body as responsible for abstract thought. So what we understand of the body as absent of thought necessitates the mind as the connector of this thought. The mind acts as a connector to the body and abstract thought.
Under these terms the mind as positive in thought, while the body is absent of thought except through the mind, observes the body as negative of thought except through the mind where the mind as positive in one thing observes the body as negative, hence observing the mind as a negative dimension.
This negative dimension observes the mind as a connector where the body is directed towards abstract thought and abstract thought is directed towards the body, with both existing through each other as each other and are inherently connected. This connection observes the mind as strictly a negative limit where is strictly exists as a connection between the two and not a thing in itself.
In a separate respect the mind may be composed of thought, with the body in itself being a thought of the mind, but the mind is not the foundation of empirical senses organs which the body is. However the body as an extension of the mind necessitates the mind as responsible for empirical organs. So what we understand of the mind as absent of empirical sense organs necessitates the body as a connector of these empirical organs and the mind. The body acts as a connector to the mind and the empirical sense organs.
So the body is positive in empirical sense organs, while the mind is absent of empirical sense organs except through the body. This observes the body as a negative limit which connects the mind and empirical senses organs. As a connector of the mind and empirical sense organs the body is not a thing in and of itself but rather and interplay of the mind and sense organs existing through each other as eachother.
This inherent connectimg of the three necessitates them acting as various grades of the other and a problem of definition ensues, while the continual interplay causes a self defining unity where one always acts as a mediator between the interplaying opposition of the other two.
Under these terms we can observe that body/mind/spirit exist through growth of one through the other.
So where
A. the mind as positive in abstract thought results in the body as negative in abstract thought through the mind, the body is positive in abstract thought through the mind.
B. And the body as positive in empirical sense organs results in the mind as negative in empirical sense organs, the mind is positive as a sense organ through the body.
C. The body is both abstract thought and mind, and the mind is both empirical sense organ and abstract thought. However the mind and body are nothing but connectors in themselves between facets of the other, hence as connectors are separate as absent of quality in themselves.
The question occurs as to what this negative dimension of connection between body and mind are, as a positive. This connective median would be spirit where the spirit is absent of both body and mind as it is a connector between the two while simultaneously being both.
Considering the mind manifests abstract throught and is the connector of the body and thought, the spirit is mind.
Considering the body manifests empirical senses and is the connector of the mind and empirical sense, the spirit is body.
So where the mind as negative connects body and abstract thought, and the body as negative connects the empirical sense organs and mind, the spirit is both body and mind through empirical sense and abstract thought as the connective median through both.
However considering the body manifests through empirical sense, and the mind manifests through abstract thought, the spirit manifests as neither.
So where empiral sense and abstract thought are separate, except through the manifestation of the spirit, this connection can be observed as intuition where intuition is the connection of empirical sense and abstract thought. In these respects intuition is a connector through the spirit where the spirit through intuition is a connector of the two.
So
A. the mind and body existing as spirit necessitates the spirit as being a positive existence of both.
B. the mind as existing through abstract thought and the body as existing through empirical sense necessitates the spirit as existing through intuition as a connection between abstract thought and empirical sense, hence negative.
C. The spirit as body and mind observes the spirit as positive in regards to being both, but negative in the respect it acts as a connector through intuition between abstract thought and empirical sense.
So while abstract thought may be connected to the body through the mind,
and the empirical senses are connected to the mind through the body,
the abstract thought and empirical senses are connected to body and mind through the spirit as intuition where intuition exists as the connector of the abstract thought and empirical senses. the body and mind are respectively absent of on there own terms.
Hence the spirit as both body and mind, is the absence of body and mind through intuition which connects abstract thought and empirical sense.
We therefore observe the body and mind as intuitively connected through the spirit as body and mind (heart, emotion)
while the body and thought as empirically connected through the mind as body (brain)
and the mind and empirical senses as abstractly connected through the body as mind (form).
These definitions continue to expand in a circular progression that is simultaneously self referential.
There is no mind-body problem. The body (including the CNS) produces "the mind". "The mind" is the noise the brain makes. No brain: silence.
Here is a pristine mind untouched by philosophy. Bitter Crank has spent years frequenting this forum and the previous one and yet retains his philosophical virginity.
If there is no mind body problem, and they are effectively unified, the problem occurs as a result of any act of division where unity is distorted through measurement.
The problem occurs in the respect this distortion of the self (considering the mind body problem is an extension of the self) occurs through the self where the self instills a degree of separation or polarity within its nature by forming opposition.
This opposition of the self through the self as the self gives premise to an absence of structure as fundamentally being void. In simpler terms the question of the self, through the mind body dualism, is an expression of void as constituting the self.
Under these terms it is simultaneously problematic to expect a solution to the mind body problem considering this nature of "void" within the self that gives rise to the problem.
At most the mind/body dualism can be encapsulated through circular reasoning to maintain the problem considering the opposition of the mind and body are premised in void. A progressive linear approach to the problem will give an increase in definitive parts which form the mind and body, but this in itself leads to contradiction as the increase in definition leads to an increase in philosophical problems.
Effectively the mind body dualism necessitates a fracturing of the human condition, under standard logic geared towards the prevention of fallacies where the self that composes the problem is the very same self effectively being atomized so to speak.
The question of mind body dualism, under the terms of a dualistic approach, necessitates a form of atomism where the base limits of the self are reduced in many respects to continually dissolvable atoms of various definitions and sorts.
In a separate respect it reduces the mind and body effectively to point space considering the point is the only atomic definition that if continually divided maintains its same nature. Under this premise, we are left with basic geometric limits that composes the human condition of mind and body, with these foundations being the foundation of measurement, further implying that in this dualism the mind wins as all is mind and we cycle back to a form of unity under point space.
From a separate respect if the dualism is to continue with the prior premise of continual atomization where the mind and body are continually broken down to through further abstract and empirical definitions of what constitutes what, this progressive nature necessitates an element of time within the responses as all current answered become means to further answers and a continual probabilism occurs.
Under these terms this probabilistic nature to the mind body dualism, as evidenced by its continual dependence on time to redefine the answer, elevates the dualism to literally being a qualitative fraction where the abstract thought of the mind divides the potential unity of the empirical senses into relative parts and vice versa. This continual alternation of one as the premise which divides the other (considering the mind is some times determines to give definition to the body while the materialistic nature of the body gives rise to the mind) leaves an inherent cycling to the answer leading to the munchaussen dilemma considering the answers is literally one based in relativism.
Under these terms it can be argued that relativism is an extension of the very same "self" which addresses the problem of the "self". In these respects it may be argued that relativism, as a constant through this problem, is an inherent psychological law not limited to the realm of physics stemming from a problem of void within the psyche as void is where the "problem of problems" seems to arise as it gives foundation to opposition as absent of structure.
The mind/body dualism can be necessitated as an element of void within the psyche as an inherent element of continuous inversion. In these respects the self maintains an inversive element conducive to a problem of irrationality where a stable state of being effectively is divided and multiplied into further parts.
The mind body problem is strictly premised in the presocratic atomist schools where any perceivable unity would neccessitate a question of unity of the self and the environment around the self leading to a viewpoint similar to Parmenides.
The problem is structured according to how chooses to quantify the human condition, where this nature of quantity being inherent with the self and lending further questions to the nature of quantification and free will.
That is actually a good question as to whether he discovered or invented it.
I would argue both at the same time in different respects.
He discovered it in the respect he observed the philosophical implications of dividing phenomenon into duals. In these respects there are certain qualitative problems with mathematics as the act of division results in a distortion of the previously unified phenomenon.
In a seperate respect he invented it by applying a dualism to a specific phenomena (the self). However considering this phenomena of the self, which applies to him as well, observes his argument as a creation of the self.
And the above is really just a cheap explanation.
The question really breaks down to the nature of creation/discovery and can be a whole thread in itself.
well Theism is compatible with self generating universe,
in Hinduism there is such belief and things like parallel universes also comes up
[the nature of god ]is what i want to know
Benevolence.
That's all that can be known or said about God.
God is Benevolence.
If the Atheists don't like that, then it can be said as: Reality is Benevolence itself.
Of course that is what is meant by God.
Michael Ossipoff
The "Mind-Body Problem", aka the "Hard-Problem of Consciousness" is an artifact of Western academic philosophers' insistence on believing in Materialism.
(Not that it's a necessary consequence of Materialism.)
Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. But Western academic philosophers, and those who adopt their views, are a conservative lot.
Michael Ossipoff
Are you a Vedantist?
It seems to me that my metaphysics is consistent with what the 3 main branches of Vedanta (describable) metaphysics have in common.
Vedantists often say things that go farther than what I'd say, because I like to only say uncontroversial easily-supported obvious things.
But I feel that there's something to what Vedanta says, though it goes beyond the metaphysics of describable things.
For example:
At the end of lives, as the body is shutting down and the person is fading out, of course eventually there's no more such thing as individuality or identity. Then, there's no meaningful distinction between different individuals.
And that end-of-lives state-of-affairs, arriving as the final state-of-affairs of a sequence of lives, and being timeless, is arguably the natural, normal and usual state-of-affairs, from which our sequence of lives is a temporary anomaly, a blip in timelessness.
Nisargadatta said that what's temporary isn't real, and that's consistent with something that I've been emphasizing, in metaphysical debates--that I don't claim that anything in the describable realm is real or existent.
Additionally, surely you've sometimes gotten the impression that there isn't really a significant difference between people. For example, maybe you notice a beautiful house on a good-size well-planted lawn piece of land, and maybe your first impression is that it's good that there's that beautiful place...without regard to who it is who gets to live there.
Sometimes such impressions are right, in a way more fundamental than the world of describable matters and practical affairs. After all, words don't describe Reality, or even reality.
Michael Ossipoff
When we refer to mind or body, we mean a field of activity, influence, interactive associations, etc, all of which play a significant part of every human being. So where's the problem? Is it because we don't see it? Do we see everything? Is it because it's not material in character? Not everything we acknowledge is material, consider gravity.
The idea that the abstract and physical are antagonists is a product of esoteric spiritual teachings which filtered through religious teachings and now almost everybody wants to see them that way. What most people miss is that, originally, the teachings were symbolic. What they meant was that if focus is limited to any of the two paradigms, then the other gets undervalued. We should not forget that life unfolds through both. There's no external without internal and vice versa. Abstract just implies internal.
There are things that exist. Some of them exhibit mental (non-physical?) qualities, and some exhibit physical qualities. Some exhibit both. I would not distinguish between them because they exhibit one or other of these properties. Existence is existence. Attributes are just that, not more.
Just my two pennyworth. :smile:
She didn't. Someone else (or no-one at all) did that. :chin:
I found this quite illuminating, check it out.
Nice! I had to look this up.
1.Panpsychist claims there is mental element present in everything.
2.Property Dualism says while there is only one kind of substance (physical kind), it has two properties (physical properties and mental properties)
3. Monoism is the view that all is one and there are no fundamental divisions.
This is contradictory, 1 makes the claim that everything has mental element while 2 says everything is fundamentally physical.
Further I think property dualism and monoism cannot be congruent either; property dualism takes qualia to be a unique feature of reality.
Can you please elaborate on this belief? Also, am I right in assuming you are a theist given this belief?
By Quantum Mechanics I assume you mean Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle aka the observer effect.
I want to clarify how the observer affect or anything in Quantum Mechanics isn't in contradiction with materialism. For instance take any object you wish to observe from your eyes. For this to happen there needs to be some information that has to come from that object tow you i.e. you will need some light to reflect of the object and reach your eyes.
Now if say we reduce this object to the size of the atom and again you wish to observe this object. Given the size of the object, the photons will now come in, hit the atoms and pop it to another location. Therefore, the very act of trying to measure the position will prevent you from measuring it's position.
It is nothing to do with consciousness, mind or any of that. The fact is, the smaller the object is the more susceptible it will be to the energy of the light changing it's position in space
I don't claim to be qualified in or have the answers about quantum-mechanics, but, from what I've heard, the uncertainty-principle is a consequence of QM. But I claim no authority on QM.
I don't claim any authority or qualification about QM. I was just quoting something that has been said by some physicists who specialize in QM.
Michael Ossipoff
I'd be curious re the source of the data re whether most physicists are materialists . . . And curious, for that matter, how they'd attempt to even describe what a nonphysical existent is supposed to be, how we're supposed to know about it, etc.
If you're an identity theorist as I am, those two are not contradictory. Not that I share the view. I think that only some physical "stuff" is mental stuff, I'm not a property dualist, etc.
I'm not aware of a census or survey that tells what percentage of physicists are Materialists. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else, if you think that I made that claim.
What I said was that some physicists who specialize in quantum-mechanics, and who are recognized authorities on the subject, have said that QM lays to rest the notion of an objectively-existent physical world.
Are you referring to religion? It's common knowledge that, not only are not all physicists Materialists, but also that some are religious. As for what they'd attempt to describe, you'd have to ask them, wouldn't you.
But I certainly didn't say that physicists describe God, if that's what you're asking. Some things, a subset of Reality, are describable. Metaphysics is about those things. Reality isn't describable. You say it might be describable? But, even if it merely might not be describable, then it certainly isn't reliably describable.
(...as I define metaphysics. Some use "metaphysics" with a much broader and unrealistically-ambitious meaning, expecting metaphysical discussion and debate to cover all of Reality.)
But if you think that physicists will describe God for you, then go for it, and ask them.
Metaphysics, as I define the term, is about the knowable and describable subset of Reality. Did I say that you were supposed to know about a nonphysical existent.
But, by the way, as I said before, the word "which" and the square-root of two are nonphysical.
As for "existent", the use of the silly and meaningless words "existent" and "real" is responsible for millennia of philosophical befudlement and confusion.
Michael Ossipoff
Yajur quoted you saying this: "Due to conclusions from Quantum-Mechanics, many or most physicists don't believe in Materialism anymore. — Michael Ossipoff"
That's what I was referring to re the first part.
Re the other part, if they're not materialists, they must think that some things that exist are nonphysical. So I was wondering what the heck those things would be, just how they'd figure that nonphsyical things even make sense, etc.
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Yes, it seems fair to say that someone who says that the notion of an objectively-existent physical world has been laid to rest, doesn’t believe in Materialism.
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I admit that I don’t know how many physicists don’t believe in Materialism. I’ve read of, &/or from, two who said that QM contradicts, or lays-to-rest, the notion of an objectively-existent physical world. Of course two isn’t most. But I didn’t claim “most”. I said, “…many or most…”. A few who say it in popular writing suggest that there may well be a fair number like them, but who don’t write popular books and articles.
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But we needn’t quibble about how many “many” is, or about whether it’s really “many” or just “some”.
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I’m not a Materialist, but I don’t make any claim about anything describable (and describability is part of my definition of “thing”) existing.
Existence other than that of describable things? Not only do I not use "exist" or "existent", but, if I did use them, I'd only apply them to describable things.
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“Exist” and “real” are your nonsense-words, not mine.
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But, again, if you want to attribute beliefs to physicists, then you’d need to ask them.
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Don’t ask me—I don’t claim that anything describable (which includes any thing) exists.
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But people speak of and refer to nonphysical things all the time, such as numbers, logical facts, abstract words, etc. I re-emphasize that I don’t claim existence for anything physical.
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In fact, I don’t use “exist” or “existent”. So you’d need to ask someone else about what they claim exists.
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Then maybe you should ask them.
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“Things”, as I use that term, are what can (at least in principle) be defined, referred to and described.
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The word “maybe” is a thing. Is it physical?
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Of course if you define “things” as “What are physical”, then it would be nonsense to speak of a nonphysical thing.
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(I define and describe “maybe” as an adverb indicating uncertainty regarding the veracity of the statement made by the verb that it modifies.)
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Of course, among all the abstract logical implications, there are many hypothetical things that they’re about-- things that no one claims are other than hypotheticalhose. Those hypothetical things include hypothetical propositions—propositions that aren’t claimed true--and the hypothetical things that those hypothetical propositions are about.
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And of course it goes without saying that abstract-implications, and all abstract-facts, are things too, as I define “things”.
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The metaphysics that I propose is about complex systems of inter-referring abstract-implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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Especially in metaphysics, it’s essential to answer about when requested, and to be consistent about, what we mean by the words that we use.
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Michael Ossipoff
You believe things exist that you can't describe?
You believe that words describe everything?
Write down a complete description of the smell of mint, or of what it's like to step on a tack.
Additionally, the notion of words describing everything is shown to be silly, by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.
Anyway, as I said, even if you claim that Reality might be desribable, then the fact that you admit that it might not means that it isn't reliably describable, and any attempt at such description is speculative at best.
MIchael Ossipoff
Potentially yes. And I don't know how I'd believe that there are things that I can't describe. I don't know how to make any sense of that. What would I believe, after all?.Some vague I don't-know-what?
I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions." I don't know what that would be referring to. What makes a description "complete" versus "incomplete"?
So how about the question I asked. Do you believe things exist that you can't describe?
...such as, to use my example, the smell of mint.
And what I said about dictionaries shows that description is a questionable thing anyway.
Quoting Terrapin Station
How about this: "A description is complete if it describes every aspect of what it describes."
You can't even describe every perceived aspect of the smell of mint.(...but I guess all of a smell consists of some thing or things perceived.)
Quoting Terrapin Station
Of course. I'm not qualified to describe the things of all subjects.
But if you mean are there things that are indescribable in principle, then of course not, because describability in principle is part of my definition of "things".
Is there what's not (even partly) describable and unknowable even in principle? How would I know? I don't claim to know about such things.
Must mail this before the Internet-connection freezes-up. More later if Ii missed replying to anything. (Usually I write replies in Word instead of directly in this reply-space.)
Michael Ossipoff.
Vacuous because there's no way to quantify "aspects."
Why aren't you answering the question I asked you, by the way?
If so, then there are no reliably, meaningfully, complete descriptions. Okay.
...about whether there's what can't be even partly known and described by humans, about which absolutely nothing can be said or known by humans, even in principle? I admitted that I don't know.
Michael Ossipoff
But there could also be what one can only minimally speak of. ...can only say one or a few things about, with those statements being necessarily incomplete. But I don't claim to speak authoritatively about that either..
Michael Ossipoff
...and I've said that I don't assert about the character or nature of Reality as a whole.
I don't claim that authority. I only assert about describable metaphysics.
Michael Ossipoff
Yeah, "complete description" just seems like a nonsensical phrase to me (hence why I didn't say anything about "complete descriptions").
What I was asking you wasn't as broad as what you paraphrased. I asked if you personally believe in anything you can't describe.
So that would suggest the answer to my question is "no."
Would you say there is a describable metaphysics of nonphysicals?
I don't think that it's unmeaningful to speak of what can defined, and referred to, and can be, in principle, described in all their aspects. (even if those aspects can't always be counted or enumerated.)
Quoting Terrapin Station
Of course. I'm modest enough to admit that there are all sorts of topics with things that I'm not qualified to describe. For example, I'm pretty much entirely ignorant of gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar.
Additionally I don't claim to be able to describe Reality itself (which of course isn't a thing).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Just as there are the abstract facts of your hypothetical life-exerience-story,in a physical world, there are likewise other abstract facts that aren't part of anyone's life-experience possibility-story, but which are nonetheless abstract facts not unlike those comprising your experience-story.
Their relevance is admittedly questionable, but I feel that it would be animal-chauvinist to deny that there are such.
But, my metaphysics, Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism is only about the experience-stories, of which the experiencer, the protagonist, is central and primary.
As I say, you're in a life because you're a protagonist in such a story. First it was the Will-To-Life, and the fact that there'd be the experiences you needed or wanted, if... and away it went, a story of "If" set in a world of "If".
That's the meaningful subset of the abstract facts.
I don't usually talk about abstract facts that aren't part of such experience-stories, but, now that you bring it up, of course there are such.
Michael Ossipoff
I'd like to answer this again:
Quoting Terrapin Station
What's completely describable is what doesn't have anything about it that can't, in principle, be known and described by humans.
As for the smell of mint, it's obvious that any description you could give wouldn't just be "partial". It would be completely inadequate, and, other than crudely and roughly likening it to something else that's really quite different, wouldn't convey what it's like, to someone who hadn't smelled mint.
Michael Ossipoff
You leave out what to me is the most plausible response, which is that the question itself is flawed. It lives back in the time of pre-critical metaphysics, where just because we had word always meant that we had some kind of entity referred to by that word.
And then we can act as if we are launching super-scientific hypotheses about the relationship between these entities. But what do we really mean by 'mind' and 'body' in the first place? Of course we have some rough sense of what we mean, but the problem is that this sense is way too coarse to do any real work with. As others have said, the LCD of 20th century philosophy is an attention paid to language and how that changes philosophy's conception of itself.
I'm curious, would an identity theorist have to reject Chalmers p-zombie world as being conceivable?
I wouldn't say that it ever makes sense to talk about "all aspects" of anything.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
But you just described "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascar," so that would be something you believe in that you can describe.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
The only "abstract facts" there are are things like "Joe has formulated an abstraction (in other words, he's done something mentally, his brain has been in process in particular ways) re a concept of 'love'."
Well, it depends on what someone would mean by "conceivable."
Basically, the p-zombie idea involves pretending that the physical properties of some substance aren't actually the physical properties of that substance. So, for example, take slippery ice, frozen water that under certain conditions is slippery --it has a top layer that's melting, etc. (I don't know what all of the temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. requirements are, but whatever they are). We could say, "It's conceivable that everything is identical re the ice, temperature, etc. yet the ice wouldn't be slippery." P-zombies are "conceivable" in the same way as that.
It's a truism about descriptions that they never convey what anything is like, experientially, to someone who hasn't experienced the thing in question. That's not a flaw of descriptions, it's a property of them. After all, they're just sets of words that people assign whatever personal meanings and concepts etc to. That's not going to amount to what any experience is like to anyone. Experiences aren't like words, or meanings, or concepts (especially not those formulated on other experiences) or other, different experiences that someone has had in general.
I don't think that's a fair analogy. Perhaps Chalmers would suggest this as a better analogy: It is conceivable that something looks and feels exactly like slippery ice, and yet it is not ice. (Which, of course, is easily conceivable and even plausible.) But I am not sure that this is a fair analogy either.
The reason it's a fair analogy is that we're saying that:
(a) The physical make-up of x is exactly the same
and yet
(b) The properties of physical stuff x are different
Of course, Chalmers wouldn't agree with (b), but the reason the thought experiment doesn't work is that to physicalists, (b) is exactly what's being proposed. So to physicalists, (a) and (b) are only conceivable in the sense of us being able to pretend for any physical stuff that it's identical in two instances, yet it has different properties in those different instances. (And we might just as well add in the ice analogy that "it's some mysterious 'nonphysical' stuff that makes ice slippery" (and we could say that some mysterious "nonphysical" stuff is the source of all properties for that matter--that makes just as much sense as what's being proposed in the p-zombie argument)).
The p-zombie argument doesn't propose that the properties are identical yet the physical stuff behind it is different (as you're suggesting). It instead proposes that the physical stuff is identical, yet the properties that obtain are different ("is conscious" in one case versus "is not conscious" in the p-zombie case).
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I named a topic. I only said one thing about "gardening practices and situations unique to Madagascars”. I said only I don’t know anything about it.
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If you call that a description, that certainly expands the number of things you can “describe”. :D
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So, according to you, even by saying that you can’t describe something, you’re saying something about it, and thereby describing it. You know that that makes nonsense out of the word “describe”.
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Say it how you want. You seem to just be saying what I said. (…when I said that there are abstract facts at least in the limited sense that they can be mentioned and referred to).
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But I also said that I make no claim for “existence” or “reality” (whatever that would mean) of abstract facts, or for anything else describable. (…unless you call what I referred to in the paragraph before this one “existence”.)
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Reply to your next posting:
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Yes, a wordier way of saying what I said.
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Yes, you can say something about the smell of mint. For example, you can “describe” it by saying that you like it, or that it’s present in a mint-leaf, or that you notice it in the air. …or even by saying that you can’t describe it.
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You can’t fully describe it, for the reason that you talk about in the paragraph of yours that I quoted above.
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Because you can’t fully tell someone else what an experience, such as the smell of mint, is like, it’s fair to say that you can’t fully describe it. That’s a fair meaning for “fully describe”: To fully describe something is to tell about it without leaving out anything about it.
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There are things that can, in principle, be fully described, as defined immediately above. I call them describable things. (Of course they don’t include experiences, but they include aspects of one’s surroundings, the logic-governed consistent physical world that we experience.)
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All this reminds us of the limitations of definitions. As I said, no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. …making nonsense of any claim that words can describe Reality, or even everyday local experiential reality. (…as you agreed in the above-quoted paragraph.) Things can be said, but it’s questionable to put faith in the completely objective validity or meaning of what’s said.
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…all the more reason why it’s better to not claim “objective existence” or “objective reality” for describable” things.
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Michael Ossipoff
"Gardening practices" isn't a description of something?
No. It's the name of a topic, not a description of one.
Michael Ossipoff
"Those folks are engaged in practices"
"What sort of practices?"
"Gardening practices"
--you just described something.
I was wrong, and your (a) is right. But your (b) is not quite right: Chalmers (following Kripke) stipulates that zombies are identical to humans in all physical respects. But since slipperiness is a physical property, just as being made up of water molecules is, your analogy does not work either. It would be hard to come up with an analogy of the zombie argument for something like ice, because after you take away everything that is physical about it, it seems that nothing is left over. Chalmers wants you to believe that it is at least conceivable that phenomenal consciousness is an optional extra to all the physical stuff. I don't buy his argument, but I think it's not so obvious that you can just shrug it off.
As I said, Chalmers wouldn't agree with my (b). The problem is that to physicalists, mentality is a physical property, as obvious to us as the slipperiness of ice is a physical property.
So again, saying to a physicalist that it is conceivable that the physical aspects are identical, but that mentality doesn't obtain, is just like saying that the physical aspects of ice are identical, but that slipperiness doesn't obtain.
And again, we could just as well vaguely pretend that the slipperiness of ice isn't physical in some mysterious way. We could say the same thing about any properties--pretend that any given properties of anything aren't physical, but are some mysterious nonphysical whatever. To physicalists, that's what the p-zombie argument is doing.
However, I think that "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualia" is a harder nut to crack than vitalism. Again, I am not agreeing with Chalmers et al., I just don't think that it is as obvious, as you say. There is something odd about consciousness that calls for a careful conceptual analysis.
That's for sure. And Chalmers does discuss the difference between vitalism and consciousness. Vitalism was tenable before biology could fully explain the behavior of life. But there is something odd about consciousness in a different way that requires us to think carefully about it. Knowing the science of how our bodies or the world works doesn't resolve the riddle.
Problem here is that the slipperiness of ice is logically entailed by knowing the physics and chemistry. to imagine a physically identical world without the slipperiness is to fail to imagine an identical world. Nobody has succeeded so far in showing how this is the case for consciousness.
Identity theorists say that consciousness is identical to certain mental states. But for sake of argument, I can image a physically identical world lacking that identity. It's called all the other theories of consciousness.
I'm not sure exactly what an identity is supposed to be. Is it the neurons firing a certain way? Is it their function? Is it the information they compute? Chalmers himself proposes a theory based on informationally rich processes, but it's a property dualism, not an identity.
If physicists and computer scientists developed a consciousness chip that computed conscious states, would we say the electrons moving through the silicon are identical to having a conscious experience? I don't know how to make sense of that.
One problem with that line of argument is that we can easily imagine states of affairs that are nomologically and even logically impossible. Being able to imagine something doesn't really tell us much.
I'm fairly sure you're talking about his "on the hypothesis that animals are automata" essay, and it's comparing it to a steam whistle having no effect on its machinery. While it's talking specifically about animals the steam whistle comparison grew traction beyond it. A curious thing about "steam whistles" though is that they are seen as part of the appeal of the steam train and is part of the reason many of them are still in service. So using them to show that consciousness is epiphenomenal is problematic.
The problem with identity theory (other than classical type physicalism - mental state corresponding to specific brain states- was left in the dust years ago and even Churchland's eliminativism gets more hits) is that consciousness does not appear as a series of neurons firing. There is a holistic phenomenal story that seems like a series of things "binded together" which is unlike the description of anything in nature.
This is why Dennett tends to use eliminativist explanations for consciousness. And tries to show the "bindedness" is an illusion through change blindness ect.
I looked that up, and no, I was thinking of something else. Not Huxley then. Too bad, it was a lovely passage, but I can no longer locate it.
As for epiphenomenalism, I think it's a misguided idea.
Yes, and, if "describing" something merely means saying at least one thing about it, that's why I said that, by "describable things", I mean "things that humans can, in principle, describe without leaving out anything about them."
Michael Ossipoff
Maybe I should call that "completely describable" and "completely describable thing". Something is completely describable if, at least in principle, humans could describe it without leaving out anything about it.
The smell of mint isn't completely describable, and, in fact, no experience is.
But there are limitedly-defined completely describable aspects of our surroundings and experiences.
It would be presumptuous in the extreme to say that Reality itself is or might be completely describable, when even everyday experiential reality isn't completely describable.
Michael Ossipoff
Which is the "complete" idea, but that idea is nonsense in my view.
We don't even have to get into the fact that the idea of "everything about x" is nonsense.
The mere fact that descriptions are sets of words, where what's described (unless it's a self-referential case of descriptions of words) is not (the same) words, makes nonsense of the idea re leaving versus not leaving something out.
Descriptions are sets of words that individuals take to tell something about, charactize in some way, etc. various things about something else. That's all they are.
The problem with that is that there isn't actually any such logical entailment. That's only the case if you assume that the physical make-up is identical to the properties. It's absurd to say that it's logic that makes the physical make-up identical to the properties. Logic has no such empirical implications. (And this isn't even getting into the fact that logic is something we construct in any event--we can ignore that part.)
Of course, you could attempt to explain how you believe it's actually a logical implication.
I'm not suggesting this because I think we shouldn't assume that the physical make-up of ice is identical to the properties of the stuff in question, of course. In fact, I think that trying to think about it any other way is rather incoherent, simply because the entire notion of nonphysical existents is incoherent, but nevertheless, that the properties are identical to the physical stuff isn't at all a logical entailment. That's just nonsense that you're suggesting as some sort of arbitrary stipulation.
But there can be limited discussions in which there indeed is a word for everything that that discussion is about--everything that figures in that discussion--and a correspondence between those words and those elements of that limited discussion. The topic of such a discussion is completely describable.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Terrapin Station
What would be an example of that?
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Yes, it’s nonsense.
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…as is the notion of a “philosophical zombie”.
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…as is the whole “Hard Problem Of Consciousness” or "Mind-Body Problem" that this thread is about.
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Humans are animals. Animals are biologically-originated purposefully-responsive devices. Which part of that don’t people understand?
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Consciousness is the property of being a purposefully-responsive device sufficiently closely-related or similar to the speaker for hir (him/her) to feel kinship. (A chauvinistic definition to fit our arbitrary and chauvinistic feeling about what’s conscious.)
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We were all taught that in pre-secondary school (which has also been called junior-high, or middle-school). What we were taught about that was correct. Academic philosophers seem to have forgotten what they knew in pre-secondary school.
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Our experience is the experience of being an animal. It’s “what it’s like” to be an animal. Of course there’s that experience. …purposes, surroundings in the context of those purposes, and choices to make, based on purposes and surroundings. Of course each animal or other purposefully-responsive device has purposes and choices to make, whether it be a Roomba or you.
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Michael Ossipoff
Logic discussions.
MIchael Ossipoff
And what that's about is not determined by how people think of it, in your view?
Yes, I'd say that. Some discussions like that are just about the relations among named propositions--in particular, the relations among their truths and falsities that are needed if a true-and-false proposition isn't permitted.
I've discussed why it's tautological that there can't be a true-and-false proposition. ..implying that there are no two mutually-contradictory facts.
Human impressions and feelings aren't involved in those starkly-simplified abstract discussions.
Someone here said that proving the truth of a logical proposition comes down to showing that it's a tautology. So, from what that person said, for example, showing the truth of proposition about an implication (an implication-proposition) amounts to showing that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.
Michael Ossipoff
What the heck would non-human aboutness be?
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Good point. That’s why my metaphysics is Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism (as opposed to OSR).
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(I’m not saying that there aren’t hypothetical objective world-stories, in addition to hypothetical subjective experience-stories. But it’s the subjective experience-stories that are (tautologically) about our experience. The hypothetical objective world-stories have no relevance to us. Admittedly, someone could question the reality of those objective world-stories, except that even their abstract implications can, in principle, be evident to us and aren’t different in kind from the abstract-implications comprising our subjective stories.)
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Each of us is central and primary to our experience-story. …a hypothetical story about our experience, a story for, and centered on, each of us.
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“There are” the abstract facts of logic, in the limited sense that they can be mentioned and referred-to. What they’re about is abstract in the sense that you’ve referred to as non-human aboutness, independent of human feelings and impressions.
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You could say that even the abstract-facts are things in our experience and dependent on our experience. Of course, there’s a complementarity between the abstract-implications, the complex system of inter-referring abstract implications that is your experience-story, and you the experiencer and protagonist of that story.
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It’s all one big inter-referring mutually-complementary system that needn’t have any reality or existence in any context other than in its own inter-referring context.
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“Reality” and “Existence” are very misunderstood and misused words. Like “speed”, they’re only meaningful with-respect-to a frame-of-reference, a context.
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Something can be said to be real or existent (only) in and with-respect-to a context.
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There’s no need to say that this physical universe is real or existent in any in-principle-fully-describable context other than its own, and that of our lives. When you realize that, you realize that the Materialist is needlessly insisting on believing that this physical universe exists in some unspecified other, larger, context that’s part of the in-principle-fully-describable realm (…as it must be, because he also is convinced that there isn’t what’s not in-principle-fully-describable).
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(I use that awkward wording starting with “what’s…”, because I don’t want to say “something” or “anything” in reference to what’s not in-principle-fully-describable, because my definition of ‘thing’ includes in-principle-fully-describableness.)
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That unsupported belief in that unspecified larger context sounds to me like a religion believed in by the Materialist.
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When I say that, I should clarify that I consider myself religious too. I don’t disagree about a larger context, and I don’t specify it either. But I don’t say that it’s in-principle-fully-describable.
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And, differing with most other Theists (but not so much with the Gnostics), I suggest that this abstract-implications-comprised physical world of our experience, as the setting of our experience-story, wasn’t created from a higher level. As the protagonist of our experience-story, and the "Will-To-Life", we’re the reason for our life and therefore of our world. That complementarity is self-generated. As the Atheists argue (They’re right about that much), Benevolence wouldn’t and didn’t make there be this physical-world. (the World, but not this physical-world.)
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This reply has been a bit far-ranging, but one topic brings in another.
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Michael Ossipoff
Michael Ossipoff
Say what?
Did any of that tell me what non-human aboutness is supposed to be?
If you know all the physical and chemical properties of water, then there's no way for ice not to be slippery under the right environmental conditions. Therefore, conceiving of ice lacking slipperiness is to fail to fully take into account it's makeup.
We can't say the same thing for consciousness.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Nevertheless, we have all sorts of concepts which aren't part of physics, so figuring out how they can be understood as physical is the challenge.
You're making an assertion, but you have to be able to back it up.
The zombie argument only makes sense if you believe epiphenomenalism is possible.
What does that have to do with logical entailment? You're making a metaphysical statement there. You're not saying anything about logic.
That's not the only possibility. Dualism, panpsychism, occasionalism are other possibilities.
It's your phrase. So, if I haven't answered your question, it's because I don't know exactly what you mean by it. Tell me what you mean by it, and I'll tell you what it is (or is supposed to be), if I can.
Michael Ossipoff
In other words, tell me which phrase of mine you're asking about when you ask what it's supposed to be.
Michael Ossipoff
There's no way for H20 not to have the properties of water when you take into account all of the physics and chemistry. Of course you can imagine a world where it's different by ignoring the physics and chemistry, just like we can imagine super heroes.
But that's not what Chalmers meant by conceivability.
C'mon, man--am I not typing English? What does that have to do with logical entailment?
You had said:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Then you said that "logic discussions" would be an example.
I asked:
"And what that's about is not determined by how people think of it, in your view?"
To which you responded:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
So, we have your claim that there can be logic discussions where there is "indeed a word for everything that the discussion is about" AND your claim that "Human impressions and feelings aren't involved" in the above.
This implies that the words for everything that the discussion is about are determined by something other than how people think about it.
So, I asked you what the non-human source for what those discussions are about is.
A. Not logical
B. Incomplete
Physics and logic are two different things. So, the properties of ice aren't actually logically entailed by physical facts. Rather, the properties of ice are identical to (not entailed by) physical facts ontologically.
In just the same way, the properties of mentality are identical to physical facts (re a subset of brain facts) ontologically.
"Physical facts" there isn't a reference to the science of physics, especially not as the contingent set of theories, laws, etc. as presented in physics textbooks, classrooms, etc. It's rather a reference to the type of ontological stuff we're talking about.
So this ontological stuff is the world, or reality. And you wish to call it "physical". But it could have things not described or predicted by physics in it. Panpsychism, neutral monism, strong emergentism, non-supernatural dualism and epiphenomenalism are all consistent with this ontological stuff.
It's like Thales saying everything is water, someone pointing out that space isn't entailed by water, and Thales saying that he doesn't mean the study of water, but the actual ontological stuff, therefore it's not a problem to say space is made up of water.
Which is just word play. We could say the world is ontologically watery instead of physical, and it accomplishes the same thing.
Water and the study of water are different, right? But that doesn't imply that just any old thing is water. It's just that what water is isn't determined by the study of water. The study of water has to be able to focus on water to be the study of that particular "item" in the first place. If the study of it were what we were referring to by "water," then what we're referring to by "water" would be whatever we've decided to study and name "the study of water," which in that case could be just any old arbitrary thing.
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How about my Slitheytoves example:
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If there were Slitheytoves and Jaberwockeys, and an attribute called “brillig-ness”, and if all Slithetytoves were brillig, and all Jaberwockeys were Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys would be brillig.
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I don’t have any emotional reaction to Jaberwockeys, Slitheytoves or brillig-ness. But the above paragraph states a fact, whether or not you, I or anyone cares about it. …even without there being such things as Slitheytoves, Jaberwockeys or brillig-ness.
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That discussion, in that Slithetytoves paragraph isn’t about anything that exists in the context of our physical world, and it doesn’t need to be.
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Michael Ossipoff
And in your view the source of those facts is?
Also, by the way, what would you say that has to do with aboutness? X is about y?
It's been said in these forums, and (though I'm not an authority) it seems right to me, that abstract logical facts are demonstrated by showing that they're tautologies. Certainly an implication-proposition could be proved by showing that its antecedent and consequent are just two wordings of the same proposition.
For example, the proposition:
"There isn't a true-and-false proposition."
...can be shown to be a tautology.
Tautologies don't need any proof. For example, the source of the truth of a tautological implication is the fact that it consists of two ways of wording the same proposition. (The above-stated proposition in quotes can be worded as an implication.)
Michael Ossipoff
First, let me suggest an abbreviation:
I'd like to abbreviate "in-principle-completely-describable" as "ipcd".
Facts needn't be about anything that exists in some preferred context. Abstract implications can be about propositions that are about hypothetical things. ....things that are only in "if" clauses.
...and none of a system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things needs to exist in (or be about anything in) any context other than its own inter-referring context.
That's what my metaphysics discusses. I propose that there's no reason to believe that your experience of the ipcd aspects of your surroundings, the logical relations among the things and events of your surroundings, are other than a complex system of inter-referring abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things.
I suggest that experience is primary to all that, but the ipcd aspects of your experience have to be consistent, because there are no mutualiy-contradictory facts, because there are no true-and-false propositions.
That consistency-requirement is what brings logic into your experience. But I suggest that experience comes first. Inevitably, among all the abstract-implications and systems of them, there's one about the ipcd experience of someone who is you.
As I said, experience, and a complex system of inter-referring abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things, together comprise a complementary system, which is a logical system to the extent that experience of ipcd things must be consistent, for the reasons that I mentioned.
Existing only in their own contexts, such logical systems (with their built-in observer) are inevitable.
It needn't be a question of which came first, experience or the logical system of the ipcd aspects of experience-of-surroundings. They're complementary, part of a whole complementary inter-referring system that needn't be real or existent in any context other than its own.
Michael Ossipoff
No, not how you'd say they're demonstrated. What you think the ontological source of them is--basiscally, where do you think it comes from?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
So you're thinking that aboutness is in . . . some person-independent abstract realm or something?
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None. None needed. I’m not saying that any of it is real or existent in any context other than in their own inter-referring context.
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I assert that existence and reality, in the ipcd realm, only have meaning with respect to and in a specified context.
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No need for reality or existence in any context external to it
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I don’t claim that any of it is about anything real or existent.
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It could be argued that even abstract-implications are a meaningless notion without someone to be aware of them, and that there’s no such thing as person-independence. …but what if that person is complementarily built-in to the system? That satisfies the need for an observer. Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark have said that too. …have said something to the effect that the observer whom the logical system is about, gives it whatever apparent (to that observer) existence it needs (if it needs any). (…even though Tippler and Tegamark were Realists.)
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It seems to me that Nisargadatta, too, said something to the effect that you didn’t make this universe, but you give it its “reality” (…such "reality" as it has, or seems to).
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I’m saying that the person, the experiencer, the protagonist of the experience-story, is complementary with the abstract-implications. It’s a whole complementary system that’s independent of anything external to it, and doesn’t need any reality or existence.
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In what external context does any Materialist believe that this physical universe (including any physically-inter-related multiverse that it’s part of) exist or have reality?
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What we know is that our physical world is real and existent in its own context, and that of our lives. What other reality or existence does it need? In what other ipcd context could it have existence and reality?
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Michael Ossipoff
And where is "their own inter-referring context"?
If you mean spatially, this universe (...which I mean to include the entirety of any physically-inter-related multiverse of which our Big-Bang-Universe is part) isn't in any space external to it. For it, the only space is the space that's an attribute of it (including, of course its overall spatial system, and the particular spatial-systems of its sub-universes such as out Big-Bang-Universe).
In other words, our universe isn't in external space.
If you don't mean spatially:
For the complex system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things, that is your life-experience-story, "[its] own inter-referring context" is (only) among those abstract-implications, propositions and hypothetical things.
Where with respect to anything else? No relation to anything else. Each such system is entirely separate, isolated and independent from others (...which, by definition, aren't inter-referring with it) and from any putative (but nonexistent) continuum or medium in the ipcd realm.
By "the ipcd realm", I mean "The totality of all the systems in which there is ipcd logical structure* ".
*not that there's any other kind of logical structure.
...including, for example, your experience-story and the physical world in which it's set...even though of course your experience isn't ipcd, except in specific respects regarding certain aspects of your surroundings....like the logical relations among its events and things, and the sorts of physically-perceived "facts" that can be written down.
After I posted my most recent reply, I felt that I should clarify that there's a big ontological/metaphysical error among academic philosophers if they think there's such a thing as "objective existence" or "objective real-ness" in the ipcd realm. There isn't.
It's meaningless to speak of "objective existence" or "objective real-ness" in that realm.
Existence and real-ness there are only meaningful in and with respect to a specific context.
Other than in that realm? How would I know.
Michael Ossipoff
I haven't the faintest idea what you're saying in most of that, unforunately.
Fair enough.
If you don't ask what I mean by at least one passage, word, phrase, sentence, etc., that's your choice, and none of my business.
But, saying that you don't understand what I said, without specifying a particular passage, word, phrase, sentence, or meaning--obviously isn't an answerable objection or a convincing objection.
But, (Rhetorical question only--Don't feel obligated to reply.) which part of this don't you understand?:
It's meaningless to speak of objective existence or objective real-ness.
Existence or real-ness means something only in and with respect to a specified context.
Believing in such a thing as objective existence and real-ness is a common error of academic philosophers and people at this forum.
This physical world, the setting for our experience, is undeniably real and existent in its own context and in the context of our lives, and it would be meaningless to say that it's objectively existent.
Michael Ossipoff
Most of that I understand at least as presented . . . I just don't agree with most of it.
I agree with this: ". . . means something only in and with respect to a specified context," simply because meaning is something that individuals do, so for anything to mean anything, an individual has to think about it in the relevant associative manner.
And I agree with this: "This physical world, the setting for our experience, is undeniably real and existent in its own context and in the context of our lives," although the curious thing there is that the physical world in question is the objective world, so that doesn't really make sense to me with respect to the rest of your comment.
Also, that's not really addressing what I was trying to get you to address, but maybe that wasn't the idea, and what I was trying to get you to address wasn't very important anyway.
You said:
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…and then:
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Objective existence is the opposite of only-contextual existence. So the 2nd statement of yours that I quoted above contradicts the 1st one.
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Our physical world is what we observe, experience and are part of. That doesn’t make it objectively-existent.
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I answered your questions as best I could interpret them. If, by your questions, you meant something other than what I answered, then feel free to re-word your questions. I don’t evade questions or refuse to answer them.
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Michael Ossipoff
Maybe you're conflating two different meanings for "objective":
1. More than contextual
2. Unbiased or based on observation
Michael Ossipoff
In the "beginning" God was alone, in the void. 'Then' creation came into being and God emerged from mere existence - the void - into life and being. Through creation God becomes the living God.
The first statement you quoted, the first thing I agreed with was about meaning. It wasn't about context re anything else.
The phrase "only-contextual existence" is something I can't really make sense of. So it's difficult for me to agree or not agree with you about that part.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I'm definitely not using a "more than contextual" phrase, because I don't know what the heck that would amount to. The idea of context being a quantificational property, so that we could have "more than it," makes no sense to me.
I also wouldn't used "unbiased or based on observation" for "objective," for a couple reasons. One, I don't believe it's possible to be unbiased. Two, it seems confused to me to refer to something that people are doing re thinking/reasoning/etc. as "objective." I rather use "mind-independent" or "external to mind(s)" as the definition of "objective."
Materialists claim that this physical universe has (in some unspecified sense, by some unspecified meaning) existence and realness other than in its own context (or that of our lives). Is their claim about that meaningless?
Fine. If "more than contextual existence or real-ness" doesn't mean anything to you, then you won't claim that this physical world has existence or real-ness other than in its own context. ...since, according to you, such a claim would be meaningless.
Then any previously-perceived disagreement was just a misunderstanding.
Then it isn't clear how you think this physical universe is other than or more than the setting of a hypothetical experience story consisting of the uncontroversially-inevitable logical system that I've described, a system of inter-referring abstract-facts about propositions about hypothetical things.
By the way, at a different thread, you agreed that there are no things, just facts. How does that reconcile with a claim that this physical universe consists of more than the setting in an experience-story consisting of a system of inter-referring abstract-implications?
Michael Ossipoff
Interesting question! :up: :smile: Do I think existing-things are constrained by my ability to describe them? No. Do I therefore think that there could be things out there, real things, that I am incapable of describing? Yes.
Maybe you mean that it's meaningless to speak of something's existence and real-ness in its own context, because anything is real and existent in its own context.
Of course. But I was talking about a claim that this physical universe is real &/or existent in some context other than its own. ...a claim that Materialists, but not I, make about this physical universe.
Michael Ossipoff
Can something - anything - exist outside its own context? I can't parse that, I'm afraid.
Of course it can. The country of France exists in the larger context of Europe, to give a spatio-geographical and cultural and historical example.
MIchael Ossipoff
That looks to me like you're simply observing that contexts can be nested. France exists in its own context, and within Europe (...the world, solar system, galaxy, etc :wink: ). I don't think anything can exist outside its own context. :chin:
But you agreed that France exists within Europe. France's history and culture can meaningfully discussed in the context of overall European history and culture. So doesn't France exist in the European context, in addition to its own context?
Michael Ossipoff
Sure. But I didn't say that this universe formed for no good reason. I said, instead, that this universe consists of the setting in your life-experience-story, which is an uncontroversially-inevitable complex system of abstract-implications about propositions about hypothetical things.
Abstract-implications don't need an explanation. I didn't even say that an inter-referring system of them "exists" in any context other than its own.
Someone suggested that it's meaningless to speak of something existing in its own context, because....what doesn't exist in its own context??? Good point. Of course.
But the existence of this physical universe in any other context is unsupported.
Michael Ossipoff
That's a different idea, though--it's more agnostic or neutral. I mean "positively" or "actively" believing in something that one can't describe.
Isn't that what I said? :chin:
Quoting Pattern-chaser
ETA: I.e. France exists in a European context, but this does not exchange the One and Only Context that France can occupy. [ Irony. :wink: The One and Only Context of anything is a nonsense, I think. ] In this case, France exists simultaneously in its own context, and that of Europe, the world, the Solar System, etc. I don't think anything can exist outside its own context.
If we imagine something truly outside of any context, how do we define that thing? We define and understand things in their context(s), not in isolation. In the case of the universe, where there is no outside, nothing external to it, we might say it is its own context. But that isn't true of anything else, is it? :chin:
Quoting Pattern-chaser
So, not really "positively or actively believing", more acknowledging possibilities. :up: :smile: As you say, more agnostic/neutral. :up:
Right, the idea of "I believe that P" or "I believe 'in' x," where one cannot describe P or x, is incoherent.
Yes, I'd love to agree with this ... but I believe in God, Someone I cannot adequately describe or define.... I'm human; sometimes we're "incoherent". :smile:
You're throwing the word "adequately" in there. I didn't say anything about that.
You'd believe in God to the extent that you have some concept/understanding of God, and you'd be able to describe the concept/understanding that you believe.
You have more confidence in my descriptive abilities than I have! :wink:
Well, to the extent that you couldn't describe what you believe (in), it wouldn't .And much sense to say that you believe (in) it? "I believe in plabbetyblax." "What's that?" "I don't know. I can't even describe it to myself." We'd understandably think that person is maybe a bit nutty.
So no, I don't think I could give you a definition of God, as I understand Her, that you would find useful or adequate. Do I feel inadequate about this? No, I'm afraid not. Precision is more common in theory than it is in practice.
Describing things to other people in a manner that they're satisfied with is another issue entirely.
Whether there's a need to do it is irrelevant I think. The fact is that you could do this for whatever you believe (in), insofar as you believe it. That's all that I was saying. I wasn't making any claims about anyone else finding a description satisfactory, etc. That would depend on a whole host of psychological and social factors.
It's nice to be able to agree with you on something. This is actually related to what I was saying about how things exist. To say only that God exists without giving any content to God is to say nothing, really. Whether something exists is trivial apart from how it is supposed to exist (what it is.)
Some might object that God is beyond conception. I can only make sense of this if they mean their experience of God is emotional, sensual, or generally akin to the experience of music, art, and that aspect of communication with other human beings which is not conceptual (a smile exchanged,a hug.)
The only thing that troubles me with this approach is that often 'beyond conceptual' is still insisted upon in an essentially conceptual way, as something that is and isn't concept, mostly to escape the threat of their experience being subjective, since they often want to prove things about God. Not all such theists will grant that 'well, it just felt like a universally accessible and relevant experience.'
What I mean to say on this matter can be said briefly:
1) Can anyone show that this physical world exists or is real, other than in its own context (...in particular, in some absolute sense (whatever that would mean) as Materialists believe)?
2)...because, if not, then this physical world doesn't exist in any sense or context other than that in which exists the setting of your life-experience-story, a hypothetical system of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things. ...which, too, exists and is real in its own context (if "exist" and "real" mean anything).
3)...in which case, what reason would there be to believe that this physical world is other than the setting in that hypothetical experience-story, which is an inevitable logical system. ...which needs no existence or reality other than in its own context?
Michael Ossipoff
Which is essentially asking whether it's possible to persuade someone of something when the person in question has psychological issues, where either they're delusional or they're stuck in an early stage of development, or they're so self-centered, completely incapable of empathy, etc., that to them it's as if only they exist, or for some reason they're just trying to be difficult. In most cases, probably not. That only tells us something about those folks' psychologies, however. It's certainly not the case that ontology somehow hinges on persuading difficult or troubled people of something.
I've flagged Terrapin Station's most recent post for two reasons:
1, It uses a falsified quote:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
...becomes:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
2. After that, the message consists only of negative characterization of another poster...for having allegedly said what Terrapin falsely quoted.
Terrapin Station is a habitual repeat-offender who didn't learn anything from his recent message-deletion, and didn't wait long before doing the same thing again.
Michael Ossipoff
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/finding-help-when-get-it-and-where-go
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I’d said:
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I’d like to clarify that a bit:
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Any meaning for “real” or “existent” is contextual only.
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To say that something in principle describable by humans has reality or existence other than that, is nonsense.
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The notion of non-contextual (absolute in some sense) reality or existence for describable things has resulted in much confusion and befuddlement in philosophy, over millennia, and up to the present.
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Someone questioned the meaning of a thing’s “reality or existence in its own context”.
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Fair enough. Neither “Real” nor “Existent” has a consensus metaphysical definition, and anyone would be hard-put to suggest usable definitions for them.
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That’s why I don’t claim “reality” or “existence” for anything describable. And, anyway, I agree with those who wouldn’t apply “exist” to anything else either.
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But (only) if you don’t have a quarrel with something being real and existent in its own context, then I won’t deny that this physical world is real and existent in its own context, and that of our lives.
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Sankara has been quoted as saying that the physical world is real, in the sense that, whatever reality or existence it does or doesn’t have, it’s part of Reality, which could be defined as “all that there is” …which of course includes such things as abstract-facts and other hypotheticals. I wouldn’t disagree with that.
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The bottom line is, then, that it depends on what you mean by “real” and “existent”. I make no claims, in that regard, for describable things.
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As, ourselves, part of this physical world, of course our perception of it is within its context, and that of our lives in it. If it had other existence or reality, how would we know it anyway?
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When Terrapin Station replied, he quoted me, but left out a meaning-determining part of the sentence, thereby dishonestly changing the sentence’s meaning—quoting me as saying:
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Terrapin Station then continued:
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Well, which one of us is habitually on the attack, and posting messages consisting only of attack, only about another poster, instead of about the topic. Aggression results from having issues.
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…like someone who thinks that the quote of me that Terrapin Station posted, above, means the same thing as the sentence that I’d actually posted? Or someone who thinks that a question (in a recent other thread) about the experiences of a dying person is answered by referring to the time after death, when that person has no experiences? :D
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…such as an infantile aggressive stage?
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Aggression is a symptom of a troubled person.
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But have people noticed that the most erroneous people on the Internet always seem to also be the most loudly assertive, and, behaviorally, the most troubled, the most disturbed, and the most aggressive people, with the most (seemingly) angry behavior? I didn’t make that up, and, in fact psychologists have found that same correlation in general. It’s called the “Dunning-Kruger effect.
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Why are the most mistaken people also the most assertive, loud and arrogant? Dunning & Kruger, and others have offered some good explanations.
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First, here’s a link to the Wikipedia article about it. Below the link, I’ve quoted some highlights from the article.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
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In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.[1]
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As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability
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The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".[1] The identification derived from the cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks with his face covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink.[2]
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Other investigations of the phenomenon, such as "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence" (2003), indicate that much incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standards of performance.[3] Dunning and Kruger's research also indicates that training in a task, such as solving a logic puzzle, increases people's ability to accurately evaluate how good they are at it.[4]
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In Self-insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (2005), Dunning described the Dunning–Kruger effect as "the anosognosia of everyday life", referring to a neurological condition in which a disabled person either denies or seems unaware of his or her disability. He stated: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."
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In testing alternative explanations for the cognitive bias of illusory superiority, the study Why the Unskilled are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-insight Among the Incompetent (2008) reached the same conclusions as previous studies of the Dunning–Kruger effect: that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve
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the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who said, "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
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Maybe these people can help someone who is suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect:
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/finding-help-when-get-it-and-where-go[/quote]
Michael Ossipoff
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For one, this seems to amount to a belief that "If P can not be demonstrated, then not-P."
But why wouldn't you require that just as much for P="The physical world is not real"?
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Yes, my wording didn’t express my meaning well. By “If not…”, I meant, “If this physical world doesn’t have reality or existence other than in in its own context”.
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I meant that the alternative to “This physical world exists and is real other than in its own context” is:
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“This physical world doesn’t have any kind of reality or existence other than, or more than, that of the hypothetical life-experience story that I’ve described, which consists of a complex system of relations and inter-reference among abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things.”
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So let me repeat your questions:
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Contrary to the poor wording of mine that you quoted, which implied an unintended meaning, I’ve always emphasized that I can’t prove that this physical world doesn’t have the objective, fundamental, absolute, noncontextual existence that Materialists believe in. I’ve always emphasized that, because, by definition, unfalsifiable-propositions can’t be disproved, it’s impossible to prove any metaphysics, including mine.
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So what do I assert?
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That Materialism depends on an assumption and posits a brute fact. My metaphysics, Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism, doesn’t.
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More than that, I also claim that Materialists can’t even say what they mean by the objective, absolute, noncontextual existence and reality that they claim for this physical world, and which would distinguish it from the physical world described by my metaphysics.
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I emphasize that I don’t claim any existence or reality (whatever that would mean) for abstract-implications and other hypotheticals, or anything else in principle describable* by humans. But an inter-referring system of them has that inter-reference and inter-relation, and my metaphysics doesn’t posit more than that.
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…as described by Michael Faraday in 1844 when he said that there’s no reason to believe that this physical world is other than the system of logical and mathematical relational-structure that is experimentally-observed.
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*(As I mean “describable”, something is describable iff there’s nothing about it that can’t, in principle, be described by humans. I express that distinction because it can’t be shown that all of Reality is describable by that definition.)
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Michael Ossipoff
We don't know with logical certainty, but I don't agree that that amounts to not knowing. Why would we worry about logical certainty (especially when logic is something we've constructed in the first place and we've come up with a number of different constructions for it)?
If we don't know that, it's because we've forgotten what was taught to us in pre-secondary school (also formerly called junior-high school, and, more recently, middle-school).
Of course, at that time we won't be at all, and so it's meaningless to speak of our knowing anything then.
Michael Ossipoff
That wording is problematic, and doesn't say what I meant. I have to admit that it isn't easy to word the distinction that I've been trying to refer to.
Reality is unknowable. If someone says, "You can't be sure of that", then I answer, "If you can't be sure that Reality is knowable, then you don't know it, and you've admitted that Reality isn't reliably knowable. Speculation isn't knowledge.
In fact, it's obvious that, even everyday life, many experiences are indescribable. I've spoken of the example of the smell of mint, or the experience of stepping on a tack.
In metaphysics, I've meant to avoid speculative statements. ...to only say uncontroversial, obvious things that won't be disagreed-with. Facts and logic are things that are completely describable by humans, at least in principle.
That's why I preface many metaphysical statements with "...in the describable realm".
But defining "the describable realm", has been difficult. I can't just call it "Matters about which something be said", because I've said (suggested, not asserted) that Reality is benevolent. ...thereby saying something about Reality.
Maybe "Matters about which provable things can be said" would be a better way to say what I've meant by "the describable realm".
Or maybe "Matters of logic or the system of facts that relate experiences of the physical world."
Or maybe just "Matters of fact".
Those definitions of "the describable realm" are just tentative. Maybe it could be better worded.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael Ossipoff
We disagree on a lot of that (and a !ot of stuff in general).
For one, I don't agree that knowledge requires any sort of certainty.
Re descriotions, in my view a description is any set of words that an individual takes as sufficient to bring to mind some features and/or relations of whatever is being described, so that the individual can picture the thing in question from some perspective, whether that's memory-based or purely imagination-based.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
[My highlighting.]
That introduces the thorny matter of proof. What constitutes proof? It can range from Objective proof, requiring conformance with that which actually is, to a much softer and less demanding 'proof'. I don't mean to derail or distract, but once you introduce the concept of proof, these things need to be considered....
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, uncertainty is a real and significant part of reality, as we humans perceive and understand it. So I suppose it follows that much (nearly all?) of what we consider 'knowledge' must be somewhat uncertain. But it can't usefully be uncertain to the extent that it can't be defined at all, even in a general sense. There is a spectrum here, from absolute certainty to no certainty at all, and the latter end of the spectrum isn't very useful to us.... But we do need to address the former end of the spectrum, where things are not known with absolute certainty, but where there is enough evidence to be convinced, if not certain. ... Don't we? :chin:
I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it amounts to a tautology. In particular, a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that its consequent is just another way of saying its antecedent.
Michael Ossipoff
According to my dictionary (I checked :wink:), this means:
"I'd say that a proposition is proved if it has been shown that it is necessarily true."
This looks like the other definition of "tautology" in my dictionary: "useless repetition". Something is true if it's true. Hmm. :chin:
ETA: You are right to combine "proof" and "true"; they belong together in our thoughts. So I'm not being pedantic here, but only trying to understand what you have written, and what you might have meant by it. :chin: :chin: :chin:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
This confuses me more. I read this as saying that "a proposed implication is an implication if it can be shown that what results from it is the same as what came before it." I can't make sense of this, I'm afraid.
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Of course it goes without saying that there can be knowledge of what might be so, and of likelihoods or probabilities (objectively-calculated; or as felt by someone, maybe judged by known or felt outcome-values and hypothetical lotteries).
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Anyway, I’ve been saying all-along that it isn’t meaningful to assert, much less claim to prove, about the character or nature of the whole of Reality itself. When it comes to that, it isn’t knowledge—It’s impressions. And no one should say that your impression should be the same as theirs.
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A lot of people here agree with me on that.
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You can’t tell someone what the smell of mint is like. For some experiences, you could make some rough comparisons only, to an experience they’ve had. Rough comparisons don’t tell someone what it’s like. They only tell someone some little bit about what it’s like.
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Anyway, because “description” can obviously be defined in various diverse ways, that’s why I specified a definition, to say what I meant by that word.
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But the word “describable” is problematic for expressing the distinction that I’ve been trying to express. I’m not satisfied with the definitions in my most recent post before this one, and it seems that the approach using the word “describable” isn’t helping.
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Other approaches that would be better:
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What I’ve been referring to as “the describable realm” means:
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The realm of contingent, interdependent, dependently-originated, things interdependently defined and related by logic and facts.
Or:
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The separate things, as opposed to the whole of Reality itself.
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(Buddhist writers sometimes use the term “dependent origination”. I don’t know how they mean it or use it in their metaphysics (s). I don’t know anything about Buddhist metaphysics(s), but that term is useful to make the distinction that I’ve been trying to express. Though I don’t know anything about Buddhist metaphysics, Buddhist writers have said nonmetaphysical things that are interesting, useful and helpful.)
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Michael Ossipoff
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You didn’t say what dictionary you were using. Merriam-Webster is the premier dictionary in the U.S. It defines “tautology” as “needless repetition of an idea, statement or word”.
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Of course a repetition of an idea, statement or word might not really be unnecessary if it isn’t immediately obvious that it’s a repetition, and its repetition-nature needs to be shown.
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That isn’t different from how I meant “tautology”.
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But yes, if it can be shown that a proposition is necessarily true, that could be called proof.
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…and is proved if shown to be necessarily true.
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Say it that way if you want.
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Thank you.
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I won’t claim to know what “ETA” means. Estimated time of arrival?
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I meant only what I said. But I never refuse to answer questions about the meaning of particular specified words, sentences, phrases and terms.
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That’s okay. We can agree to disagree about whether it means anything.
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As before, you can say it how you want to. But you seem to be saying that you’re re-wording it in a way that doesn’t mean anything to you.
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Speaking of re-wording, you could say that a proposed implication is an implication if its consequent can be shown to be a re-wording of its antecedent.
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I’m not quite sure which part of that you don’t understand.
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But, in general, regarding the inadequacy of words, of course words are inadequate--for example, given that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. ...and the fact that it's impossible to tell someone what an experience is really like. (The example I've been using is the smell of mint.}
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Michael Ossipoff
Sorry: "Edited To Add" :blush:
No description is like what it's a description of.
Of course.
And maybe that's why it can't tell someone what an experience is really like.
Michael Ossipoff
I was having difficulty understanding your words, so I offered rewordings that demonstrated my understanding of them, for you to confirm or correct. Sadly, you just repeated the terms I found difficult, so neither of us gained anything.
Re descriptions, sure.
It also dismantles a criticism about any description that the description doesn't convey an experience of the thing it's describing, doesn't resemble the thing it's describing qualitatively. Those criticisms suggest that some descriptions can do such things, but no description can.
Those statements that I made about attempts to describe experiences weren't intended to compare them to other descriptions. and weren't intended to imply anything regarding the matter of whether there are other kinds of descriptions that can do such things. It's enough to say that it isn't possible to convey to someone else what an experience
But, of course "Describe that triangle in regards to the lengths of its sides in centimeters, to 3 significant figures", and "Describe what the smell of mint is like.", have different orders of difficulty.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael Ossipoff
I was saying something about descriptions period--that's why I didn't qualify it further than just saying "descriptions.". NO description is like what it's describing. No description conveys an experience of what it's describing, conveys its qualities, etc. Descriptions are just sets of words, after all, and what they're describing isn't a set of words, or at least isn't the same set of words.
I'm a bit old-fashioned and religious, which as I have come to realize, is not a good combination in philosophy. Anyway, I believe the ways of the mind and body are not always aligned (much of this view is borrowed from spiritual teachings). Since the mind is abstract compared to the body, it gets less attention. We use it frequently but we don't apply the same maintenance as with the body because while we have been clear for a very long time what it means to have a healthy functioning body, it is only recently that we have began paying attention to what it means to have a healthy functioning mind.
I don't know the source of the duality but I see it in day-to-day relations.
Quite so. No disagreement there.
And that's largely why I stopped trying to use describability to distinguish the many separate logically-interdependent things from Reality as a whole, and substituted better wordings for the distinction that I meant to express.
Michael Ossipoff
An objection would have to be more specific. I'd be glad to answer a specific objection.
Maybe it's about the fact that saying that a proposition of an implication is true, saying that the proposition is a fact, saying that there is that implication, and saying that the proposed implication's antecedent and consequent are rewordings of eachother are all really, themselves, different ways of saying same thing--and so, instead of saying what it means to prove something, I've just said it in different ways.
But maybe we shouldn't expect complete non-circular definitions. As i often point out, no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.
Alright, I give up. What would you say it means to prove something?
Michael Ossipoff