Janus

I remember reading years ago that statistical studies have shown that two highly intelligent parents tend to have less intelligent offspring, too very...

If there are many minds and many mental states, and they are not connected with one another, then how to explain the unarguable fact that we experienc...

"Reductive models" are models constructed in terms of causal relations as I understand it. It is not a matter of "knowing" what is physical but of sti...

:100:

It seems to me from having observed your interactions over a few years that it is more the case that others think your ideas are under-determined by e...

If it is true that physicalism (physics, chemistry, biology since all testable explanations are physical explanations) can't explain consciousness the...

OK, it seemed that you were offering passing the Turing test as a criterion for believing that AIs are conscious, but apparently you were not. So, if ...

As I see it we are able to think about 'past' or 'future' or 'everything' or 'nothing' or 'the unknowable' and so on because we possess symbolic langu...

:up: As 180 says you seem now to be speaking about the imaginary when you refer to the "immaterial". So, if consciousness. or mental states, to return...

:up: I enjoy these forums too; I see them as being the modern equivalent of the agora.

Marx said that he stood Hegel on his feet, since Hegel saw everything upside-down. But then Hegel agreed with Marx that everything humans do is a prod...

I think it's also worthwhile reading available works on the questions that interest you. I read as much as I can find time for.

No special occupation or training other than undergraduate level philosophy. I also took a hell of a lot of psychedelics and practiced meditation dail...

You're entitled to that view, but I can see no reason to hold it. That said, all of us hold groundless views, so it's no biggie...

Since there seem to be only two kinds of proof or evidence: the logical and the empirical, I think it's going to be a very long..........................

The issue is that I see no reason to think that the things you refer to as immaterial are not physical phenomena. They may not be observably material,...

The past and future are ideas; are ideas immaterial? Ideas are abstractions, generalizations but they are not necessarily immaterial, except in the se...

BTW, there is another angle on this: if some AI passes the Turing test, meaning that it can convince anyone that it is conscious, would it necessarily...

You say we can "contain" the immaterial, but what does this mean? I take it that you mean we can grasp abstractions or generalizations. So, if I under...

That's probably true, although it's not an aspect of everyday life. So, the only in principle private element is how I feel when I am conscious, or no...

Sometimes I may be looking at something; I may not be conscious of what I am noticing, but if you asked, I could tell you what I've seen. At other tim...

Our "rational grasp of things" as enacted or even as imagined, are neuronal processes as far as we know. What else could they be? It is true that what...

I don't know what it could mean to say that logic and maths transcend physical reality. Would it mean that they would still exist, even if nothing els...

Good question! Not to my knowledge.

That all makes sense to me. So, on those definitions if consciousness is observable via brain-scanning then it would qualify as physical. On the other...

So, if brain function is necessary for consciousness, what reason do we have for thinking consciousness could be something non-physical? Assuming, for...

I was saying the latter. I don't find his definitions convincing. Also, I don't think his conflation of affective states with thinking helps to clarif...

Math, logic, ideas in general are not obviously physical, but doing math or logic or thinking in general is a physical process, in the sense that they...

Does reason give us a clear and distinct idea of the "I"? It seems to me that it does not, but that it yields various possible understandings of the "...

We understand the physical in causal/ mechanical ways. If there are things we cannot understand in these ways, then we can either accept that we simpl...

It's more that I am suggesting that there are aspects of the physical that we cannot understand in the customary mechanical ways that we understand th...

This is an answer I just posted in another thread to basically the same question: From the fact that abstractions are not material objects it does not...

Maybe the feeling, the seeing and the thinking are just physical processes, but not physical processes that we can understand in the "mechanical" way ...

I believe they think it is a physical process, just like anything else. Of course, that begs the question as to what exactly "physical" denotes.

The camera records the illusion we call a mirage, which means the illusion is a real phenomenon. The idea that self and consciousness are illusions is...

Mental states, if they are equivalent to brain states, may be material. Abstractions generally are not material (IE they are not objects of the senses...

Voidism= Nirvana gives rise to Nevermind (also an album reference). Now your "never mind" has disappeared into the eternal ether....never mind. :wink:...

Nirvana?

Materialism is a metaphysical standpoint. Metaphysics is not restricted to "concepts or principles that transcend the physical or empirical realm and ...

The argument that consciousness and the self are illusory does not entail that we don't exist. As I understand it, it is more saying that we imagine c...

Interesting questions! If qualia are constituted by our awareness of experience, which we would have, presumably, even without language, are thoughts,...

We seem to be in agreement, which is not the best for furthering discussion... :smile:

Right, the idea that we are constituted by our experiences makes sense to me. And I agree that our sensations are located in the world, because I tend...

If you were cold and focusing on something else to the point of being unaware at all of being cold, then it would not seem appropriate to say that you...

Even if all events were of finite duration, and the Universe were infinitely old, that all events that could occur would already have occurred would r...

That would only seem to hold if the Universe was of finite extent, that is contained a finite number of microphysical constituents. If we consider Nie...

Either that, or the idea is groundless and/ or incoherent. I don't know what to think about it.

This seems self-refuting: if we were disembodied brains with false memories there would seem to be no rational justification for believing that we cou...

You may well be right, but I, in my limited reading of Dennett, had got the impression that he thinks that experiencing something is kind of like a mi...

I think we can see that some animals have preferences, and so display intentional behavior. This might not be obvious in simple 'one-off' acts, but ex...