Intentional vs. Material Reality and the Hard Problem

I made a similar point in the previous thread ("Fallacies of Strawson's Argument vs. Free Will"). Physical desires begin with a natural deficit signaled, neurally and/or endocrinologically, to the brain. There the response can be purely physical (not involving awareness and so not rising to the level of intentionality), or we can be aware of the signaled state, in which case intentionality enters.

Naturalism is a vaguely defined and, in my considered and elaborated view, irrational movement motivated by an a priori prejudice against what its proponents call "spooky" realities. — Dfpolis

A theist would say that. But scientific naturalism accepts the empirical evidence that life and mind evolved and so there are good grounds to expect nothing spooky or transcendent going on. That then leads to an appreciation of a systems approach anchored in the immanence of Aristotelian four cause thinking.

It seems to me that the meaning of a sign is information it evokes in the mind of the recipient. — Dfpolis

This is a passive/substantive notion of "mind". And it might fit a dyadic Saussurian notion of semiotics. But I prefer a triadic Peircean approach that fits the modern neurocognitive understanding of "mind" as an active process - an embodied modelling relation.

I prefer a triadic Peircean approach that fits the modern neurocognitive understanding of "mind" as an active process - an embodied modelling relation.

So there is no passive "recipient" - the Cartesian ghost in the machine.

Meaning is not evoked. It is meaningful action which is evoked.

Actually I don’t see how anything could be ‘neurologically encoded’. DNA is a code but I can’t see how neurons could encode anything.

The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness loses its power when "physical" things are simply described as things that have causal power, and both "matter" and "ideas" have causal power.

My question to you is how would you understand meaning, without some implicit or explicit dependence on mind? It seems to me that the meaning of a sign is information it evokes in the mind of the recipient. — Dfpolis

...

Signs are beings here. What we usually divide into concepts and objects are both understood as signs (intelligible unities of sensation and emotion).

The sign is the unity of signifier and signified.

The 'mental' and the 'non-mental' are 'gone' here.

And note that the end of this sentence determines the meaning of its beginning.

Still, since words express thoughts, thoughts are logically and temporally prior to the words that express them. — Dfpolis

I understand this view, but I have the sense of thinking in words.

The theory I'm presenting as a though-experiment needs the signs to refer to one another in order to generate a sense of the subject.

Putting this theory aside, I think even in ordinary experience that the 'I' is not perfectly present to itself. The meaning of 'I' is elusive, although we use it successfully in everyday life.

What is the relationship between phenomenology and mysticism? Are mystics non-conceptual or just precisely aware of the movement of concepts?

By the way, great response. And thanks for taking the time.

Why would you not call this prior state an intentional state as well?

Under your preferred definition, "aboutness", the "natural deficit" which develops into hunger is intentional, as it surely points to something beyond itself, the well-being of the animal.

Intelligibility can only be known by experiencing cases where it's actually understood -- implying the existence of a mind that understands it.

Still, I see myself often searching for the right word(s) to express what I think, and occasionally fail. Thus, my thoughts have priority over even my internal monologue.

We check the truth of what we believe, the adequacy of our semiotic structures, by comparing them to experience. And, to have experience, we need experiencing subjects.

This is how I think of mystical awareness:
God maintaining our existence is identically our existence being maintained by God. Because of this identity, we are inseparable from God, and the divine intelligibility, which is unlimited, and so uninformative (unconceptualizable), is always present. Recall that information, which delimits and defines concepts, is the reduction of possibility, while God is unlimited being.
Normally, we turn our our attention, our awareness, to the world of limited being. If, for some reason, we break the fixation on limited being, our intellect, always in search of intelligibility, can turn to the divine intelligibility that is always dynamically present because of the above identity. So it is that we have direct experiences of God, who being unlimited, is not reducible to concepts.
I also think that, even while our awareness is thoroughly engaged in the world of limited being, we are vaguely aware of the presence of Unlimited Being. As I mentioned above, in connection with the inner monologue and the search for articulation, this awareness can be, with difficulty, articulated. The best articulations are sound proofs of the existence of God -- structures that articulate our awareness of the sustaining presence of God.
Again, the same awareness, a vague awareness of the intentionality behind our being, is what the Scholastics called synteresis -- the inner spark driving conscience.

Actually I don’t see how anything could be ‘neurologically encoded’. DNA is a code but I can’t see how neurons could encode anything.
— Wayfarer

Neurons encode data in their firing rates. Neural nets are systems of connections that develop to favor or inhibit successful responses, allowing them to be "learned."

I am not a dualist. I hold that human beings are fully natural unities, but that we can, via abstraction, separate various notes of intelligibility found in unified substances.

Wayfarer:When you consider what a 'code' really is, there aren't that many instances of them. I mean, science has been scanning the Universe for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) for decades, and found no evidence of anything like a code. (If they had, it would be big news.) You can say that the spectral footprints of atoms and stars are 'a code' but they are only so to a scientist who can interpret them; in themselves they don't convey information; nothing like a string of transmitted information has been found. I think the only examples of codes that science knows of, are human languages and symbolic systems (including maths and computer languages), and DNA, which transmits biological information.

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano.

What I an asserting is that the concept of matter is orthogonal to the concept of intentionality and so intentional operations cannot be reduced to material operations. Just to be clear, in physics, we distinguish material states from the laws under which they evolve.

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. Our awareness of the state, on the other hand, is both and act in itself and points to the state it is aware of. So, it is intentional, while the original state is not.

Yes, natural processes have ends, and as a result an intrinsic intentionality. That is the basis for Aquinas' Fifth Way to prove the existence of God and the reason I hold that the laws of nature are intentional realities. So, physicality is partly intentional. I am not denying that.

The physicalist assumes that these activities could be described by physical description if the sciences advanced to that point. But the fact is that the physical descriptions of these activities remain incomplete.

Still, I see myself often searching for the right word(s) to express what I think, and occasionally fail. Thus, my thoughts have priority over even my internal monologue. — Dfpolis

I relate to an experience like that, but I tend to interpret it in terms of condensation. I'm reluctant to classify this 'cloud' as an actual thought.

I'm sorry but I doubt that; or rather I believe that the idea of 'encoding' must be mistaken here.

I have an interesting book, 'Why Us?' by James Le Fanu.

one point is that all of the neural studies which attempted to understand the areas of the brain, or brain processes, involved in learning new words, via fMRI scans, were hopelessly inconclusive.

But the correspondence between the brain and the elements of meaning is nothing like that at all. What about people who suffer brain damage, and whose brains re-configure themselves to compensate?

But they do cast doubt on the idea of a kind of 1:1 relationship between brain function and content.

I think the idea of 'encoding' is what I call a 'rogue metaphor'

What does 'fully natural' mean here? The whole point about theistic philosophies, which I had the impression you accept, is that there is an element in the human, namely, the soul, which transcends the (merely) natural.

Something with which any scholastic philosopher would concur, I would have thought.

Things all share being, but they differ in how they share being. As matter and ideas have non-overlapping definitions, they are different.

Yes. I am what has changed. One intent ended. Another came to be. I remained. The point in contention was whether there was continuity in the intent rather than in the intending subject.

How is any of this an argument against my claim that matter has parts outside of parts?

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought.

Information surely has causes, many of which are material. In my message example, the transmission process is described by physics, but the apprehension of information is not. Nothing described by physics involves awareness per se.

I did not notice this. There is no reason to think that everything with causal power is material in any commonly accepted sense. The laws of nature are unextended and appear to be unchanging, so they have none of the characteristics thought to define material objects. Still they cause physical phenomena to operate as they do.

The common word for anything that can act is "being."

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. — Dfpolis

It isn't fully exhausted by the physical description though, that's the point. Survival of a living being, and the activities of living beings are not fully described by physical descriptions.

I want to know what you mean by "orthogonal" here.

I assume that it means one thing is at a right angle to another.

Do you mean that "matter" and "intention" are two distinct ways of explaining the same thing (the point where they meet)?

Perhaps you mean "parallel", but then how would they interact? In any case, your use of "orthogonal" doesn't make sense to me, can you explain?

Things all share being, but they differ in how they share being. As matter and ideas have non-overlapping definitions, they are different. — Dfpolis

They do have overlapping definitions. They both have causal power. I said that and you agreed, right?

You still have yet to make a clear, coherent distinction between what is "matter" and what is "intent".

I don't understand your use of "intent" anyway. Most people use terms like, "ideas" and "mind" as opposite notions of "matter". In my mind, "intent" is "goal". Goal-oriented behavior is intentional behavior. Intent is your goal in mind that caused the action.

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought. — Dfpolis

If this were the case, then for what reason does the mind bend a straw that isn't bent, or create a pool of water where there isn't one?

It seems to me that the apprehension would be just a continuation of the causal sequence. Tree rings still carry information about the age of the tree independent of any mind coming along and being affected by their existence (like becoming aware of their existence). If awareness isn't a form of knowledge about the world, then what is it and why still call it "awareness" if it doesn't fit the definition of "awareness" we already have?

The "laws of nature" is a human invention. There is just how things are, and then our explanations of how things are (laws of nature).

Everything interacts causally, so I don't understand the distinction being made between "matter" and "intent"/"ideas".

In physics we abstract physical processes into states conceived as static time slices (matter) and tendencies by which these states evolve into other states over time (laws of nature). The states are fully specified by the values of their dynamic variables (classically, by their energy, momentum, etc., or, quantum mechanically, by their wave functions). So, all physics has to tell us about what reality is at any given time is its intrinsic state specification -- and that is what I am calling the material state.

The standard Thomistic view is that humans are fully and completely natural.

Denigrating what I say because I am a theist is an instance of the genetic fallacy, verging on ad hominem.

I simply do not see the abstract and limited consideration of data on which natural science is (rightly) based as rational grounds for the a priori of logical possibilities -- which is what metaphysical naturalists do. Their blindness with respect to their to the fundamental assumptions, their preference for the a priori over the a posteriori, and their unwillingness to consider fully what is logically possible run counter to the entire scientific mindset.

While I agree that the mind does a great deal of modelling, I think it is an error to think of mind primarily as a modelling process.

There are integral human beings which have material and intentional operations -- operations describable by physics and operations that are not. I have given my reasons for holding that there are human operations not describable by physics. You have chosen not to rebut any of them. Instead, you are making dogmatic and unsupported claims as though I had not made my case.

No, meaning need not result in action. Meaning is found in theoretical reflection as well as in practical reasoning. What action results from being able to distinguish essence and existence, or knowing that we cannot prove the consistency of arithmetic?

Yes, I was insufficiently careful. I should have said "fully specified." Obviously, we have no exhaustive understanding of reality. The possibility of surprise is always present. What I meant was that once we give a material state its intrinsic specifications, it is fully defined.

A similar empirical revolution is now unfolding in the biophysics of life and mind. In just the past 10 years, we have learnt how the quasi-classical nanoscale is a special convergence zone - analogous to the Planck scale - where the kind of semiotics that underpins biology can get its foothold.

Many physicalists argue that reality can be explained by physics, and if physics cannot explain the totality of reality at the present time, it will in the future, as the science of physics advances. Here at TPF, that is often cited as the premise of physicalism, when supporters define "physical" as that which is studied by physics.

Things do not have overlapping definitions because they both exist. The basis of definition is not existence, for we can define things with no existence, like unicorns, but what they are (essences).

Following Brentano, intentions are characterized by aboutness and matter is not.

Intent is to you as color is to the apple

What I am contrasting is materiality, as characterized by physics, and intentionality, which is characterized by "aboutness" -- by referring to something beyond itself, as a referent, target of action or desire and so on.

Of course it is a continuation of the causal chain. The question is: is the final step, the received, encoded intelligibility becoming actually known describable by physics? Clearly, it is not because physics lacks a concept of awareness (because of the Fundamental Abstraction). So, no physics-based argument can conclude: "And so Harry is aware of the tree."

We need to distinguish between what I call "the laws of physics," which are approximate human descriptions and the "laws of nature" which operate in nature and are what the laws of physics attempt to describe. If their we no reality described by the laws of physics, physics would be a work of fiction. It is not. Instead, we discover the laws in nature and do our best to describe them accurately. If they did not exist in nature, we would have no reason to observe nature to discover them. So, there are laws in nature, that instantiate Brentano's aboutness criterion (being about determinate outcomes), and so are properly called "intentional."

Denigrating what I say because I am a theist is an instance of the genetic fallacy, verging on ad hominem. — Dfpolis

But you called naturalism vague and irrational without good justification. And as a theist, you have yet to show that you are willing to deal with the metaphysical problems of theism rather than just cherry-pick naturalistic science that you can bend towards the support of a theistic conclusion.

So maybe you are just unfamiliar with that distinction? Systems thinkers are holistic naturalists and not reductionist naturalists. Hence the semiotic twist which recognises that things like finality and meaning are part of nature too. The goal becomes to give a fully scientific account of that.

My claim is that a systems naturalism is what modern science now clearly supports. Whereas religious belief still makes bad metaphysics.

While I agree that the mind does a great deal of modelling, I think it is an error to think of mind primarily as a modelling process. — Dfpolis

If you have thought about it so deeply, you could then quickly explain why.

The Peircean position would be that mindfulness does reduce to the absolute generality of a sign relation. Even the Cosmos is built of regulative habit. So the active interaction is the primary one. A contemplative or self-reflecting consciousness would be a secondary "luxury" that emerges with systems complexity. And psychological science says the self-aware human mind, with its inner world of thoughts and plans, is still primarily an active rather than a passive modelling relation.

As my approach to naturalism is semiotic, it fits my metaphysics that our abstract accounts of reality must arrive at this essential duality of matter and information

It all starts with the complementarity of information and entropy built in at the Planck scale. Context and event become indistinguishable at the microlevel. So the basis of a semiotic division - one that can develop thermally with Cosmic cooling and expansion - is a modern empirical discovery. You can't now do metaphysics and ignore that fundamental finding.

No, meaning need not result in action. Meaning is found in theoretical reflection as well as in practical reasoning. What action results from being able to distinguish essence and existence, or knowing that we cannot prove the consistency of arithmetic? — Dfpolis

You are talking about minds at the top of the food chain. As a philosophical naturalist, my argument is developmental and evolutionary.

So I am saying, sure, we have a modern cultural tradition - an attitude that arose in the philosophy of Ancient Greece - where the human mind is understood as essentially contemplative. As Plato said, look inwards and the enlightened mind will simply remember the realm of ideas. We celebrate this rather mystic and passive notion of mindfulness, putting it above the pragmatic kind of thought that is in fact the basis for our everyday, rather habitual and uncontemplative, being in the world.

So meaning remains founded in the ideas or theories that we would be willing to act on - stake our lives on if necessary.

Sure, philosophy, maths, poetry, and all other kinds of "contemplative" thought are good habits to cultivate. They are socially supported because historically they generate pragmatic social value. We pay folk to reflect in theoretical fashion ... because we get stuff like new technology and better ways of organising society as a practical outcome.

The angle of your argument is always to take the complex extreme of mindfulness and present it as the monistically simple starting point. As with Socrates, the philosopher becomes then top of the tree. The end of a journey is made the beginning.

I - as a naturalist - prefer to travel back to the root. And biosemiotically, that would be the nano-scale machinery that regulates the thermal blizzard we call the chemical basis of life. I can see the "mind" at work there - the active downward causation of organismic purpose and plan.

I had thought that all forms of Christianity accepted the immortality of the soul, and that ‘the rational soul’ was fundamental to pre-modern theology.

But in saying that there is no exhaustive understanding of reality, aren't you also saying that there is no such thing as a material state which is fully defined?

If we did not try to describe the intrinsic complexity of microscopic states simply, with a few macroscopic variables (e.g. temperature and pressure), the concept of entropy would not arise.

What this means is that entropy, instead of being a pure physical property, is one that depends on how knowing subjects conceptualize physical systems.

The idea is that physicalism isn't "latched on" to physics, and basically subservient to it, so that it's something like the "marketing team for physics" or "the ideological cheerleading team for physics."

Physics is studying the same stuff (as we posit as physicalists), as is chemistry, geology, meteorology, etc.--all the sciences are studying the same stuff.

There is a conflict between the requirements of scientific and philosophical definition. As I am addressing a naturalistic or physicalistic position, it is reasonable to use the criteria of physics in speaking of material state definitions.

As my whole point is that physics does not give us an exhaustive understanding of reality, I obviously think that a specification sufficient to do physics is not exhaustive.

Theologically, this is seen as an argument for the need of a resurrection.

First, I never said that the overlapping definition was that they both exist. I said the overlapping definition was that they both have causal power.

Second, unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is.

What do those scribbles refer to? What do they mean?

How could there be pictures of unicorns if the idea of unicorns didn't have any causal power?

Both things (pictures of unicorns and tree rings) are effects that carry information, or mean, their causes. So there is an aboutness to matter as much as to minds.

And effects refer to something beyond itself - the cause. Causes refer to their effects. Your "aboutness" is the same thing as a causal relationship.

What do you mean "final" step?

For what reason would you be aware in the first place? Isn't it to react (the effect), which then becomes another cause for another effect, which can refer all the way back to your "encoded intelligibility becoming"?

"Becoming" is another one of those philosophical buzz-words that have no meaning.

Well, being that you have yet to make that clear distinction between "intent" and "matter", (they both have an "aboutness" (causal relationship)) determinate outcomes could just as well be material and intentional.

The problem is that information cannot be a primary concept. Since it is the reduction of logical possibility, it presupposes the existence of logical possibilities to be reduced.

Let us not equivocate. Unicorns as such do not exist. The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn.

unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is.

Unicorns as such do not exist.

The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn.

As for animals and ideas, they have different essences because they can do different things. A goat can eat grass, but the idea of a goat can't.

But this doesn't really answer the question. How would you define "physicalism" such that the entirety of reality would not be subject to being understood by physics?

There is a conflict between the requirements of scientific and philosophical definition. As I am addressing a naturalistic or physicalistic position, it is reasonable to use the criteria of physics in speaking of material state definitions. — Dfpolis

This is no different than the position which apokrisis supports, that there are differences which don't make a difference.

if you believe that physics does not give us an exhaustive understanding of reality, then why choose an ontology which contradicts this? In your ontology you have stated that you believe there is no difference between a material state as represented by physics, and the material state as it is in reality.

One, I was disagreeing with the idea of supporters defining physicalism as "that which is studied by physics." That makes physicalism basically a "parasite" on the discipline of physics per se. I think it's ridiculous to define physicalism that way. To physicalist ontologists the discipline of physics is NOT king and it doesn't get to define what counts as "physical."

To determine this, we need not consider all reality, which includes intentional subjects as well as physical objects, but at the representation of reality physics actually employs. It represents reality in terms of material states specified by dynamic variables and laws transforming these states over time.

But the other way around makes no sense. If we allow that the physicalist defines what counts as "physical" then everything is physical, because that's the assumption of physicalism.

If there is something which is not physical, then physicalism is denied, so it is not a physicalist making this claim.

And if everything is physical, as physicalism claims, then why shouldn't physics, which is the study of that which is physical, study everything?

So it doesn't make any sense at all to allow a physicalist ontology to define what counts as physical.

you must allow for the possibility of something which is non-physica

this would contradict physicalism, which denies the possibility of anything non-physical.

Shannon defined information as communicated code (which can apply to physical, biological, and semantic processing), not as "the reduction of logical possibility" (which can only apply to semantic processing).

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages (Italics added).

Dfpolis:Where we disagree is how logical possibility relates to this. You have brought in semantics, pointing out that not all codes communicate meaning to minds. However, that is not what I meant in saying that the the possibility in Shannon's definition is logical. I am considering the message materially, as Shannon did -- not formally (as meaning something) as you are.

The problem is that information cannot be a primary concept. Since it is the reduction of logical possibility, it presupposes the existence of logical possibilities to be reduced. Logical possibilities are possibilities in the realm of knowledge, and knowledge presupposes a knowing subject. So, we need knowing subjects (minds) to ground the concept of information -- as well as that of intentionality.

It's not that everything is physical because it's an assumption of physicalism. Physicalists are physicalists because everything seems to be physical empirically, where that's not defined by the field of physics, because it's in no way parasitic to the field of physics.

"So it is not a physicalist making this claim" doesn't seem to fit there.

It's not a matter of making sense or not. It's a matter of what we're doing, or at least what some of us are doing. We're not a cheerleading squad for field of physics, period. That's not at all what we're doing. And figuring that that's what we're doing is just going to amount to not understanding us. That's up to you, though. Do you want to understand what we're doing or not?

It's like you're dedicated to not getting anything right. We're not denying the possibility. We're saying there are no non-physical things, because there's no good reason to believe that there are, including that to some of us, the idea of non-physical things doesn't even make much sense. That doesn't mean that someone couldn't make sense of it, but let's find that person and then examine what they have to say.

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages (Italics added).

If we allow that the physicalist defines what counts as "physical" then everything is physical, because that's the assumption of physicalism.

Here's how I interpret what you say here. Empirically, everything seems to be physical, therefore everything is physical. This is what you are stating as the premise of physicalism.

However, thanks for your clarification. From that, it appears we agree on the nature of Shannon information. Where we disagree, is that your original comment was "considering the message materially, as Shannon did".

I assert that this is the case, though it doesn't seem to be the case. If this is what you mean, then logic often convinces us that what seems to be the case is not actually the case.

As I already pointed out, it is you that is equivocating - using terms like, "matter", "ideas", "being" and "essences" without any clear explanation of what those things are.

So when you use the string of scribbles, "unicorn", what do those scribbles refer to? If it refers to your idea of a unicorn, then "unicorn" is an idea of a unicorn.

Logic convinces us that p.

Therefore, p seems to be the case, no?

"Seems to be the case" is simply another way of saying, "I believe this to be the case."

Now you say that we ought to distinguish intentional from non-intentional, using the method of physics, which has no capacity to even recognize the intentional.

Now you say that we ought to distinguish intentional from non-intentional, using the method of physics, which has no capacity to even recognize the intentional.

How are you going to convince a physicalist, who believes that there is no aspect of reality outside this physical part of reality, without referring to this part of reality which is outside.

You cannot assume that the physicalist will accept your assumption that there is something outside the purview of physics, because this contradicts the physicalist premise, fundamentally.

Sort of like how one has to select from a set of possible options. But there is only one meaning to the message - the source's intent. What did the sender intend when they wrote the message? How you interpret the message depends upon your experiences. Try to understand a message in a different language. How could you ever hope to come up with even a set of possible messages when looking at a different language? You'd have to learn the language, just as you have to learn the language of your sensory impressions.

So you recognize no difference between "I am convinced that p is the case" and "p seems to be the case"? No wonder I do not agree with your ontology.

Both are expressions of belief, aren't they?

Being convinced does not mean you think there could not possibly be any reason to doubt.

Convictions, unless they are untreatable faith-based convictions or based on tautology, are always open to possible future doubt even if no present reasons to doubt seem to exist. Think of science, and you will understand.

However, even if I were unclear, that is not equivocation, which requires the same term to to be used with different meanings in different instances

The string, "unicorn" expresses, but does not refer to, the idea . Except when we're considering ideas, universals do not refer to ideas, but to potential instances -- to potential realities that could evoke the idea when and if we experience them. Because of ideas' potential and contingent nature, the existence of an idea has no implications for extramental reality.

Nonetheless, I was not entirely satisfied with my reply, as it did not close the loop bake to a mental foundation in the case of non-semantic "messages" such as DNA sequences. I left them with the reduction of ontological rather than logical possibility. That left open the possibility of understanding information without reference to a knowing subject.

Why do you want to lock down the use of “convinced” in this way? What purpose does that serve?

Would you tell me that you were convinced of X even though you knew of reasons to doubt X?

Okay, the string, "unicorn" represents, or symbolizes (both are synonyms of "express") the idea . You seemed to contradict yourself by saying that universals refer to potential instances.

So, I consider the related general definitions of information, message, communication, code, and data to constitute a foundational concept which applies to both material (physical) and intentional (mental) domains.

Data being asymmetries, are you referring to anything other than symmetry?

I am not a dualist. I hold that human beings are fully natural unities, but that we can, via abstraction, separate various notes of intelligibility found in unified substances. Such separation is mental, not based on ontological separation. As a result, we can maintain a two-subsystem theory of mind without resort to ontological dualism.

1. Neurophysiological data processing cannot be the explanatory invariant of our awareness of contents. If A => B, then every case of A entails a case of B. So, if there is any case of neurophysiological data processing which does not result in awareness of the processed data (consciousness) then neurophysiological data processing alone cannot explain awareness. Clearly, we are not aware of all the data we process.

2. All knowledge is a subject-object relation. There is always a knowing subject and a known object. At the beginning of natural science, we abstract the object from the subject -- we choose to attend to physical objects to the exclusion of the mental acts by which the subject knows those objects. In natural science care what Ptolemy, Brahe, Galileo, and Hubble saw, not the act by which the intelligibility of what they saw became actually known. Thus, natural science is, by design, bereft of data and concepts relating to the knowing subject and her acts of awareness. Lacking these data and concepts, it has no way of connecting what it does know of the physical world, including neurophysiology, to the act of awareness. Thus it is logically impossible for natural science, as limited by its Fundamental Abstraction, to explain the act of awareness. Forgetting this is a prime example of Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness (thinking what exists only in abstraction is the concrete reality in its fullness).

3. The material and intentional aspects of reality are logically orthogonal. That is to say, that, though they co-occur and interact, they do not share essential, defining notes. Matter is essentially extended and changeable. It is what it is because of intrinsic characteristics. As extended, matter has parts outside of parts, and so is measurable. As changeable, the same matter can take on different forms. As defined by intrinsic characteristics, we need not look beyond a sample to understand its nature.

Intentions do not have these characteristics. They are unextended, having no parts outside of parts. Instead they are indivisible unities. Further, there is no objective means of measuring them. They are not changeable. If you change your intent, you no longer have the same intention, but a different intention. As Franz Brentano noted, an essential characteristic of intentionality is its aboutness, which is to to say that they involve some target that they are about. We do not just know, will or hope, we know, will and hope something. Thus, to fully understand/specify an intention we have to go beyond its intrinsic nature, and say what it is about. (To specify a desire, we have to say what is desired.) This is clearly different from what is needed to specify a sample of matter.

4. Intentional realities are information based. What we know, will, desire, etc. is specified by actual, not potential, information. By definition, information is the reduction of (logical) possibility. If a message is transmitted, but not yet fully received, then it is not physical possibility that is reduced in the course of its reception, but logical possibility. As each bit is received, the logical possibility that it could be other than it is, is reduced.
[b]
The explanatory invariant of information is not physical.[/b] The same information can be encoded in a panoply of physical forms that have only increased in number with the advance of technology. Thus, information is not physically invariant. So, we have to look beyond physicality to understand information, and so the intentional realities that are essentially dependent on information.

To express an idea is to instantiate a sign capable of evoking it. So, "unicorn" is an expression because can evoke . Still, it is not a symbol for the idea, because it is not the idea , but imagined/potential unicorns (animals) that both the word and the idea refer to.

Dfpolis, thank you for the excellent post!

You explicitly state in the previous sentence the separation is [by substance?] mental. How would you categorize 'mental separation' if not as an ontological separation?

First, the word, "unicorn" does not just evoke , the word itself is evoked by . As I have been saying, words and ideas are both causes and effects of each other, and each carries information about each other.

Second, I have no idea what you mean by "imagined/potential unicorns". There is the word, "unicorn", pictures of unicorns, and the idea (a mental image of a unicorn), and the causal relationship between them. That's it. An imagined unicorn is just another name for the mental image of a unicorn.

The word is indeed evoked by the idea in the author of a locution, but it must evoke the idea in the recipient if the locution is to communicate. If I look at the word "unicorn," and have no idea what a unicorn is, the string cannot signify unicorns to me. That is why unknown languages are meaningless to us -- because they are incapable of evoking the ideas their authors intended in us.

Ideas are not images. First, some ideas are to abstract to be imagined. What is the image of or of ? How could we have an image of indenumerable infinity using a finite number of neurons?

You are welcome. I thank you for your thoughtful consideration and wish you and yours a joyful Christmas.

The basis for logically distinct concepts need not be separate, or ontologically independent, objects. In looking at a ball, I might abstract and concepts without spheres existing separately from matter, or matter existing formlessly. Thus, by ontological separation, I mean existing independently or apart. By logical distinction, I mean having different notes of comprehension.

Further, while concepts may have, as their foundation in reality, the instances that can properly evoke them, they are not those instances. The concept is not made of the sap of Hevea brasiliensis. Natural rubber typically its. So, generally, in contrasting logical and ontological I am contrasting concepts with their foundation in reality.

Finally, concepts are not things, but reified activities. is just a subject thinking of rubber.

It is low resolution. My purpose was to convince the reader that we need more than mere "data processing" to explain awareness -- to open minds to the search for further factors.


In my book, I offer the following:
The missing-instruction argument shows that software cannot make a Turing machine conscious. If software-based con­­­scious is possible, there exists one or more programs complex enough to generate consciousness. Let’s take one with the fewest possible instructions, and remove an instruction that will not be used for, say, ten steps. Then the Turing machine will run the same as if the removed instruction were there for the first nine steps.

Start the machine and let it run five steps. Since the program is below minimum complexity, it is not conscious. Then stop the machine, put back the missing instruction, and let it continue. Even though it has not executed the instruction we replaced, the Turing machine is conscious for steps 6-9, because now it is complex enough. So, even though nothing the Turing machine actually does is any different with or without the instruction we removed and replaced, its mere presence makes the machine conscious.

This violates all ideas of causality. How can something that does nothing create consciousness by its mere presence? Not by any natural means – especially since its presence has no defined physical incarnation. The instruction could be on a disk, a punch card, or in semiconductor memory. So, the instruction can’t cause consciousness by a specific physical mech­anism. Its presence has to have an immaterial efficacy independent of its physical encoding.

One counterargument might be that the whole program needs to run before there is consciousness. That idea fails. Con­sciousness is continuous. What kind of consciousness is unaware the entire time contents are being proces­sed, but becomes aware when processing has terminated? None.

Perhaps the program has a loop that has to be run though a certain number of times for consciousness to occur. If that is the case, take the same program and load it with one change – set the machine to the state it will have after the requisite number of iterations. Now we need not run through the loop to get to the con­scious state. We then remove an instruction further into the loop just as we did in the original example. Once again, the presence of an inoperative instruction creates consciousness.
— Dennis F. Polis -- God, Sceince and Mind, p. 196

Thus, we can eliminate data processing, no matter how complex, as a cause of consciousness.

I have no problem with empiricism. I see the role of philosophy as providing a consistent framework for understanding of all human experience. My observation is directed specifically at natural science, which I think is rightly described as focused on physical objects, or if you prefer, physical phenomena.

Aristotle, who I think has made as much progress as anyone on understanding the nature of consciousness, based his work on experience, but treated our experience as subjects on an equally footing with our experience of physical objects.

I am sorry, I do not understand this, as it seems to me that symmetry is as much a datum as asymmetry. A priori, we could have either.

Those words still mean what the author intended even if no one ever reads what he wrote

Just because some effect isn't noticed, or part of some awareness, doesn't mean that the cause never happened.

You are basically saying that meaning only arises in the relationship between matter and ideas. I'm saying there is no distinction that you have been able to coherently show between them and that they are both causal and can establish the same kind of relationships - meaningful/causal. Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect.

If they can't be imagined, then how do you know what they mean? How do you know that you're thinking of or of if they don't have any imagery that the words refer to? How do you distinguish between and in your mind (other than seeing the words on a screen)?

This sounds like nominalism, is that correct?

Why would the program not be conscious when running the first 5 steps of the algorithm?

Why not it simply loose consciousness when the program has reached the missing instruction in the same way a computer program freezes if there is an error in a line of the code and simply resume running once the code is fixed?

The way this scenario is construed makes an issue for any kind of binary descriptor of a continually running algorithm [e.g. any sort of game, any sort of artificial sensor, any sort of continually looping program] not just specifically for ascribing consciousness to an algorithm. Eg. Say you call this algorithm an 'atmospheric sampler'. Say you take one instruction out now it is no longer an atmospheric sampler algorithm because it cannot sample, let it run until after the instructional code, now repair the instruction and it has become an atmospheric sampler seemingly a-causally.

The implicit assumption is that the complexity of an algorithm is what generates consciousness and that complexity is reduced by reducing the number of instructions.

This assumes data processing can only happen in a turing machine like manner

Perhaps this is why say, a neuron, which is a single processing unit is not capable of consciousness whereas a conglomerate of neurons is.

Why make the dichotomy between "natural" and "psychological" objects?

even in the physical sciences we don't have access to 'things in themselves' anyway,

The point is that these fall within the range of natural objects albeit of a lesser degree as opposed to something wholly different so as to involve a completely different way of knowing or learning about them.

So a datum (asymmetry or symmetry) is epistemically and ontically foundational?

What is interesting is the ''hard'' in The Hard Problem of Consciousness. Why didn't Chamlers use ''impossible''?

Are you taking this a step further and claiming this is the IMPOSSIBLE problem of consciousness?

Please rethink this. Kant was bullheaded in his opposition to Hume's thesis that there is no intrinsic necessity to time ordered causality. As a result he sent philosophy off on a tangent from which it is yet to fully recover.

If I understand you correctly, you mean the observer by ''knowing subject'' and you consider it different from the observed - the ''known subject''.

Why?

What other concept makes you feel that way? If I understand you correctly you don't consider material (scientific) explanations adequate to explain the ''knowing subject''.

Why and how is the ''knowing subject'' different from the ''known subject''?

what is your idea of Hume’s thesis that Kant was bullheaded about, with respect to “time-ordered causality”?

I’d guess A.) you’re talking about the effect on our knowledge of a thing being antecedent to the causality of the thing’s impression given to us by sense, or, B.) you’re talking about the simultaneity of the external impression on sense and the internal knowledge of the object so impressing.

Lest one think that essential causality plays no role in modern thought, the laws of nature operate by essential or concurrent causality. Mass-energy being conserved by the law of conservation of mass-energy is identically the law of conservation of mass-energy conserving mass-energy. So essential causality is alive and well today. It is just not discussed by most contemporary philosophers.

But energy is not conserved by the Principle of energy conservation. It is conserved due to the dynamics undergone by a system obeying the laws of physics.

Kant seems to have felt that (....) Hume's analysis must be flawed.

To avoid any confusion, let us distinguish the laws of nature, which are operative in nature, and the laws of physics, which are approximate human descriptions of the laws operative in nature.

How is the builder building identically being the building built any different than the ball hitting identically being the hit ball?

all empirical relationships concerning cause and effect are contingent with respect to human knowledge, which implies if any absolute necessity, that is to say, the falsification of which is impossible, must arise from a priori conditions.

Fair enough, but since, as you point out, we do not know the laws of nature, how do we know they obey the Principle of conservation of energy? And is the Principle of conservation of energy, a Principle of physics or of nature?

And is the Principle of conservation of energy, a Principle of physics or of nature?

Also, I'm not sure the Principle of conservation of energy even tells you how to measure whether energy is conserved or not.

That is not what I explained that I mean by concepts being orthogonal. I explicitly said, "... logically orthogonal. That is to say, that, though they co-occur and interact, they do not share essential, defining notes." Having non-overlapping sets of defining notes makes concepts orthogonal -- not the consideration of interactions in their instances, which is a contingent matter to be resolved by reflecting on experience.

Concepts are abstractions and do not "interact." All that concepts do (their whole being) is refer to their actual and potential instances. Still, it is clear to all but the most obdurate ideologues, that intentionality can inform material states. Whenever we voice a concept, when we speak of our intentions, our speech acts are informed by intentional states. Conversely, in our awareness of sensory contents, material states inform the resulting intentional states. So, the fact that intentional and material abstractions are orthogonal does not prevnt material and intentional states from interacting.

This misses the fact that intentional states do inform material states. That we are writing about and discussing intentionality shows that intentional states can modify physical objects (texts, pressure waves, etc.)

if I am commited, I will find other means. I planned on a certain route, encoded in my initial state, but as I turn the corner, I find my way blocked by construction. I find an alternate route to effect my intended end. In all of this, the explanatory invariant (which can revealed by controlled experiments) is not my initial physical state, but my intended final state. Clearly, intentional states can produce physical events.

To say that intentions have "no parts outside of parts" does not mean that they are simple (unanalyzable). It means that they do not have one part here and another part there (outside of "here"). My intention to to go to the store is analyzable, say, into a commitment and a target of commitment (what if is about, viz. arriving at the store.) But, my commitment and the specification of my commitment are not in different places and so are not parts outside of other parts.

Of course my intention to go to the store has biophysical support. My claim is that its biophysical support alone is inadequate to fully explain it.

First, as explained in the scenario above, the invariance of the intended end in the face of physical obstacles shows that this is not a case covered by the usual paradigm of physical explanation -- one in which an initial state evolves deterministically under the laws of nature. Unlike a cannon ball, I do not stop when I encounter an obstacle. I find, or at least search for, other means. What remains constant is not the sum of my potential and kine

Second, you are assuming, without making a case, that many of the factors you mention are purely biophysical. How is the "valance component," as subjective value, grounded in biophysics? Especially when biophysics is solely concerned with objective phenomena? Again to have a "cognitive attitude" (as opposed to a neural data representation) requires that we actualize the intelligibility latent in the representation. What biophysical process is capable of making what was merely intelligible actually known -- especially given that knowledge is a subject-object relation and biophysics has no concept in its conceptual space?

Third, how is a circuit interaction, which is fully specified by the circuit's configuration and dynamics, "about" anything? Since it is not, it cannot be the explanation of an intentional state.

It suffices to think that, having once grasped it a posteriori, in an experienced example, we can see, that it applies in all future cases "a priori."

I mean to assert that concepts and intentions exist and are distinct from their material instances and yet to then say these things are somehow still of same ontological type [i.e. physical] as physical objects seems difficult to reconcile [what makes them physical if they're not composed of or caused by physical material?]. It just seems like an unsubstantiated assertion that they are ontologically the same.

Once you make the implicit assumption they are ontologically distinct then it becomes clear that any interaction between intentional states and physical substance serves as a counterargument to their being distinct from materiality [since material and nonmaterial have no common fundamental properties with which to interact with each other (charge; mass; etc)].

Intentional states inform physical states but I mentioned before [and I think this is important] that this is always by virtue of a physical-material mechanism.

Dean Radin and Roger Nelson (1989) reviewed 832 experiments by 68 investigators in which subjects were asked to control random number generators, typically driven by radioactive decay. They subjected the results to meta-analysis, a method for combining data from many experiments. While control runs showed no significant effect, the mean effect of subjects trying to influence the outcome was 3.2 x 10^-4 with Stouffer’s z = 4.1. In other words, subjects controlled an average of 32 of every 100,000 random numbers, and this effect is 4.1 standard deviations from pure chance. The odds against this are about 24,000 to 1.

Radin and Diane C. Ferrari (1991) analyzed 148 studies of dice throwing by 52 investigators involving 2,592,817 throws, found an effect size (weighted by methodological quality ) of 0.00723 ± 0.00071 with z = 18.2 (1.94 x 10^73 to 1). Radin and Nelson (2003) updated their 1989 work by adding 84 studies missed earlier and 92 studies published from 1987 to mid-2000. This gave 515 experiments by 91 different principal investigators with a total of 1.4 billion random numbers. They calculated an average effect size of 0.007 with z = 16.1 (3.92 x 10^57 to 1).

Bösch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006) did a meta-analysis of 380 studies in an article placing experiments in the context spoon bending and séances. They excluded two-thirds of the studies considered. Nonetheless, they found high methodological quality, and a small, but statistically significant effect.

The 'seeming' ontological jump from intentional state [not-physical] to physical change in muscle activity is what I argue never happens because there must ultimately be some physical nature to that intentional state in order for it to lead to a physical change.

Which is PRECISELY the error Kant points out regarding Hume’s characterization of the principle cause and effect.

a principle being grounded in pure reason, as are all principles whatsoever, absolutely **must** have it’s proof also given from pure reason.

Kant’s argument wasn’t that there IS a proof per se, but rather no empirical predicates at all can be attributed to a possible formulation of it.

Kant’s argument was that the thesis of which Hume was aware (a priori judgements do exist), having been considered, was summarily rejected (slave of the passions and all that happy crappy) because it wasn’t considered **as it ought to have been**. In other words, he didn’t consider it the right way.

I shall not insult your intelligence by informing you the human cognitive system is already in possession of a myriad of pure a priori principles of the kind Hume failed to address, first and foremost of which is, quite inarguably, mathematics.

And as a final contribution, I submit there is no logical reason to suppose cause and effect should lend itself to being differentiated between kinds, with all due respect to Aristotle.

Isn’t a proposition where the subject and predicate describe the same event and contain the same information a mere tautology?

It’s not that the relationships are contingent; it’s that instances that sustain a principle governing them are. If cause and effect is an intelligible relationship prior to our knowledge of it’s instances, doesn’t it’s very intelligibility mandate such relationship be necessarily a priori?

This misses the fact that intentional states do inform material states. That we are writing about and discussing intentionality shows that intentional states can modify physical objects (texts, pressure waves, etc.)

Again, I can't think of how this could happen without a physical mechanism.

A key position in the Age of Reason was the rejection of "occult" properties, but here you are positing "concept cells" as a cover for abject ignorance of how any purely material structure can explain the referential nature of intentional realities. Where are these concept cells? How do they work? They are as irrational and ungrounded as the assumption of homunculi.

If for every intentional state, there is a corresponding physical state and vice versa, then it could be said, as Spinoza does, that they are the same thing seen from two different perspectives. If this is right then to say either that physical states cause intentional states or that intentional states inform physical states would be to commit a category error.