Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”. — Joshs

I was thinking about that while reading the essay offered upthread by Fooloso4: The Battle of the Gods and the Giants by Joe Sachs. Nietzsche's objection to laws of nature was not a rejection of natural causes but a protest against how they are imagined. It is interesting to hear Sachs make a parallel observation regarding Aristotle's understanding of nature:

When Aristotle says that nature acts for ends, he explains this by saying that the end is the form. Things have natures because they are formed into wholes. The claim is not that these natural wholes have purposes but that they are purposes. Every being is an end in itself, and the word telos, that we translate as end, means completion. When we try to judge Aristotle's claim that nature acts for ends, we tend to confuse ourselves in two ways. First, we imagine that it must mean something deliberates and has
purposes. Second and worse, we begin with our mathematically conceived universe, and can't find anything in it that looks like a directedness toward ends. But Aristotle indicates that it is just because ends are present in nature that a physicist cannot be a mathematician. We have seen that even change of place becomes impossible in mathematical space. But there are three other kinds of motion, from which the mathematician is even more hopelessly cut off, without which activity for the sake of ends would be impossible. Things in the world are born, develop, and grow. Genuine wholes, which are not random heaps, must be able to come into being, take on the qualities appropriate to their natures, and
achieve a size at which they are complete. But mathematical objects can at most be combined, separated, and rearranged. If we have first committed ourselves to a view of the world as being extended lumps in a void, there is no way to get wholes or ends back into the world. That means in turn that the question of ends has to come first, before one permits any choice to be made that empties the world of possibilities. — Joe Sachs

This is not what Nietzsche is saying exactly in his objection to metaphysics nor is he rejecting modern methods, but it is another way to ask what laws of nature refer to in our picture of a caused world.

One year into a war instigated and prolonged by the United States. — Mikie

Sounds pretty certain.

I think it shows how reading a lot of philosophy books is probably a complete waste of time for most people. — Mikie

Is very contemptuous.

It can be taken away from you at a moment's notice.

Preparation for death makes sense if you believe what you do now will change a future outcome. But that cannot be a certainty but only a belief. If you do not believe that is the case, there is nothing to prepare for.

We do not prepare for what is certain, we prepare for what we anticipate, a meal this evening, a hot date tomorrow, the stone wall I will build next week, the writing I hope to understand in a year's time. Etcetera.

To accept it will happen is to stop being preoccupied with it. The clock is ticking. This is the part of the show where you are alive. Don't waste it on fear.

Anyway— how disappointing it is that the majority in this thread refuse to question the Western narrative, even if it appears to them 99.9% obvious and certain. Given this is a philosophy forum and all. — Mikie

The issue is 99.9% obvious and certain for you. Any disagreement could only be ventured upon by complete morons.

It is rare to see a point of view so convincingly presented.

Skinner certainly "underplayed the role of inner experience." He denied that it caused any outcomes. But it is not a 'determinism' because it is possible to change the environment that produces behavior.

Vygotsky saw the development of the individual as dialogical process. The capability is a cause that is interwoven with experience but not an agent that exists independently as a Cartesian ego before experience occurs.

It is interesting how there are no Europeans in your summary.

Pardon me. I was contrasting the minimum of what was acknowledged as you described it with the grand scope of possibilities discussed afterwards by Descartes.

I read Descartes' "Cogito" as demonstrating nothing more than this: 'when doubting, one cannot doubt that one is doubting' (i.e. I thnk, therefore thinking exists.) :chin: — 180 Proof

So, more of a closet one is stuck within than a theater with a show.

When considering Behaviorism, I think it is helpful to decouple what Descartes claims from how he proceeds. The mind/body distinction he develops happens because of the conversation he is having with himself. Developmental Psychology diverged in many different directions because of different ideas about personal agency and whether this talking to oneself was central to the events or a byproduct of some kind. That is a different starting point than wondering whether a given self can 'introspect'.

In that regard, the antithesis of Skinner is not given by the likes of William James but from LS Vygotsky. Vygotsky looked at how children talking to themselves changed in relation to being able to talk with others. Vygotsky did call for methods other than introspection to investigate the phenomena. But the limits of 'self-reporting' was a discovery made during the investigation, not information as Skinner assumed was the case before making his claims.

Me too.

I was responding to your summary of the article.

You said:

His article argues that functionality can't be explained by examining the physiology of the CNS. Whether or not this is true has no bearing in whether a theory of consciousness is possible. — frank

You assert this as a self evident fact. It is not self evident to me. Chalmers went to some effort to argue otherwise. Thus my quote from his initial essay.

You are dodging the challenge to your challenge in relation to reduction in regard to you saying, "whether a theory of consciousness is possible."

Why does it have no bearing when the question of what can be reduced to a function is the center of both enquiries?

Yes. How do you see that against the background of the essay presented by DF Polis?

Both, I guess. He has not presented a theory to explain consciousness, but he is saying there could be one.

Isn't that what is being sought after or abandoned as a hopeless cause?

I understand that and have participated in that practice too. Better an ostensive gesture than complete silence. But maybe only a little better.

At this point some are tempted to give up, holding that we will never have a theory of conscious experience. McGinn (1989), for example, argues that the problem is too hard for our limited minds; we are "cognitively closed" with respect to the phenomenon. Others have argued that conscious experience lies outside the domain of scientific theory altogether.

I think this pessimism is premature. This is not the place to give up; it is the place where things get interesting. When simple methods of explanation are ruled out, we need to investigate the alternatives. Given that reductive explanation fails, nonreductive explanation is the natural choice.

Although a remarkable number of phenomena have turned out to be explicable wholly in terms of entities simpler than themselves, this is not universal. In physics, it occasionally happens that an entity has to be taken as fundamental. Fundamental entities are not explained in terms of anything simpler. Instead, one takes them as basic, and gives a theory of how they relate to everything else in the world. For example, in the nineteenth century it turned out that electromagnetic processes could not be explained in terms of the wholly mechanical processes that previous physical theories appealed to, so Maxwell and others introduced electromagnetic charge and electromagnetic forces as new fundamental components of a physical theory. To explain electromagnetism, the ontology of physics had to be expanded. New basic properties and basic laws were needed to give a satisfactory account of the phenomena. — Chalmers, Facing Up to The Problems of Consciousness

The survey is amusing. It is like trying on different shoes at a Target store.

The criteria presume all the different possible opinions can be mapped out in relation to each other. But is that the case? The method may be helpful toward generating encyclopedias but runs the risk of turning everything into a Cliff note version of themselves on the way.

An excellent essay. The contrasts made between Aristotelian and Cartesian points of view are particularly appreciated. I will try responding after mulling it over.

Thank you.
Maybe I will bring it up in another context someday. I withdrew it because I realized that I was not participating in the OP because I did not try to connect the account to my thinking or what I believe.

Edited:Too much information.

That is the method.

In Plato, It is interesting to see how the results vary according to who is being interrogated.

Shrouded in the exhalations from his Gauloise, he is difficult to see. He was not arrogant, however. Ever elusive but not mean spirited. He will be unique amongst the banned, hopefully guided by a friendly Virgil.

I was asking you that since you seemed to suggest the discussion was missing the mark.

So, more of a silence? Talking about logos won't help?

Anyway, what I'm worried about is that we could be mistaken as to what the word "logos" means. Perhaps it doesn't have a meaning and is more like ... a reminder, a knot in the handkerchief. — Agent Smith

I guess this explains why you are disengaged from the various attempts made in this discussion to distinguish between different possible meanings. But I don't understand what you mean by likening it to a "reminder."

I feel like I am standing at the boundary of a private language.

I hope Heraclitus does not find this out. That would make the Oedipus story look like an ice cream headache.

The alpha of the beginning is tied to the omega of the risen Christ. John says the only way to salvation is through the Son. The First Word becomes the Last.

It is difficult to imagine a country further from the domicile of Heraclitus who says:

106. To God all things are beautiful, good, and right; men, on the other hand, deem some things right and others wrong. — ibid

I fail to see the John connection — Agent Smith

The connection to what? To Heraclitus? To your reluctant theism?

More cryptic than asking: "Like what?"

Are you asking me to present possible candidates for an argument I am not making? I was not asking a rhetorical question of Ludwig V. I don't know the answer. I am genuinely interested in any reply.

I am not the one who expressed dissatisfaction with the dialogue. Do you have an opinion on the matter?

I think Plato frequently used myths to paint pictures of our capacities and environment rather than completely explain matters. This is why I challenged Cornford's interpretation in the Socrates and Platonic Forms OP. The focus on immortality misses the role recollection plays in the dialogues.

In the Meno, for example, recollection is a myth being used in another myth:

Soc. I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves; but when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions: while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain. — Meno, Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett

By saying "as you and I have agreed to call it", it becomes a dialectical X that can be treated as a known for the purpose of separating elements of our experience. It assumes the difference between knowledge and true opinion rather than arguing for that difference.

In Theaetetus, however, we find Socrates demonstrating that knowledge is not true opinion (as I summarize here and here).

But the example he presents in the Theaetetus is as I describe it. My point is precisely that the model of account is not helpful for the problem he is considering. He was quite capable of presenting a different kind of logos which would have been less obviously unhelpful. — Ludwig V

Do you think Socrates playing a mid-wife is withholding something from us?

I see. Is it disappointment I detect or is it elation? Perhaps that's irrelevant to a non-Christian or, contrariwise, even more so to one. — Agent Smith

I have many conflicting thoughts and feelings regarding these matters. Perhaps I should stay within an area of agreement we have reached when you said, "chronos is the X factor." John placed a significance in a moment in time that would be utter nonsense to Heraclitus.

What's important though, in me humble opinion, is what's implied by ॐ. Agree/disagree/don't give a damn? — Agent Smith

Whatever is implied, the meditation gives voice to a desire. Something like that is happening in this prayer:




Asking as a form of receiving some portion of the request.

Perhaps that element played a part in those early churches; We will never know.

But it does not reflect the expectation that the world was going to change because of their arrival upon the scene. Being a Christian is a job.

It is a case of arguing on the basis of authority and then changing what the authority said afterwards.

Please pardon my sulk of yesterday.

What I was trying to say about the use of a beginning in John is that it is different from how arche is used in the narratives about the primary elements. The latter attempts to see the order that brings about the changes we observe. The primacy of one or the other is presented against the backdrop of cycles that continue from the past and will continue in the future. In Heraclitus, for example:

34. Fire lives in the death of earth, air in the death of fire, water in the death of air, and earth in the death of water. — Heraclitus, Philip Wheelwright collection

Heraclitus is interesting for actively cancelling a creation story where arche is understood as the beginning:

29. The universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any man or god, but it always has been, is, and will be---an everlasting fire, kindling itself by regular measure and going out by regular measures. — ibid.

Xenophanes used the language of wholes and preceded Parmenides in speaking of the One:

1. God is one, supreme among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or in mind.

2. It is the whole of [of God] that sees, the whole that thinks, the whole that hears.

3. Without effort he sets everything in motion by the thought of his mind.

4. He always abides in the selfsame place, not moving at all, it is not appropriate to his nature to be in different places at different times.

5. But mortals suppose that the gods have been born, that they have voices and bodies and wear clothing like men.

6. If oxen or lions had hands which enabled them to draw and paint pictures as men do, they would portray their gods as having bodies like their own: horses would portray them as horses, and oxen as oxen. — Xenophanes, the collection of Philip Wheelwright.

I think the use of Kosmos in relation to ornament and decorum plays a part in how a Logos of Kosmos came to be discussed. There is this from Heraclitus:

78. When defiled they purify themselves with blood, as though one who had stepped into filth were to wash himself with filth. If any of his fellowmen should perceive him acting in such a way, they would regard him as mad. — ibid

Yes. That is what I am trying to say.