I am curious why you frame the idea as a possibility rather than as something you know about directly.

Did you not introduce transcendence as what the 'physical' could not provide?

You have introduced a 'non-vital' substance to surprise us with what it is not. Aristotle took a different approach.

I agree there is a dynamic between public and private that is difficult to understand.
Aiming for excellence depends upon how that is conceived. If it is always beyond what can be achieved, then it is a monkey on your back. If it is something you get close to now and then, the picture changes.

I grew up in a parallel set of expectations regarding performance. My mother was a performer of song for a good while. My father was deeply engaged with Mathematics. While I had good and bad experiences in the Theater, I tend to view the matter mostly through the lens of my work life in construction.
When I accepted the work as performance, it stopped being something I did to just to get along. It became my own, to lose and win.

The spontaneous popping into existence of elementary particles is propagation from a physicalist ground; it exemplifies serial holism. Life propagating spontaneously from a physical ground is transcendent holism. Existence is peer to peer. Existence never propagates from non-existence. — ucarr

How do you know that a 'physical ground' is bereft of life? It seems like you excluded the possibility as an assumption in order to introduce it as a necessity.

I, too, was greatly impressed by the influence of indigenous voices, both as a competing vision of social order and how the thinking in Europe was changed through the encounters.

What I find most interesting is the challenge to the 'stages of development' framework often used to link human capacity to particular levels of organization. The presentation reveals a bias that I did not realize that I was keeping alive.

In regard to the experience of heading up or down, I have been long influenced by the perspective of Stanislavski given in his work An Actor Prepares. The work of maintaining and developing the instrument is not the same as what emerges through performance. Finding a balance between the two is, perhaps, what the "unforced" quality of the Dao is about. It is more sustainable as a form of life than burning oneself up at the bonfire of Dionysus.

Wow.
I read several of those articles and found the talking points of boethius and Tzeentch in bold relief. In some cases, they have been transcribing the text verbatim.

I have learned a lot from people who have read the same works I did. I have been encouraged to read new works as a result.

Sometimes the arguments involve matters I am concerned about. Continuing in a dialogue is better than seeking a judgement that would end it for all time. Unless the question was stupid.

The shape of every TPF discussion, ever.

Edit to add: I don't mean to say something stupid happens all the time. Only that dismissal of arguments is not an argument very often.

I think there is a Yin/Yang relationship in design. The imitation of symmetry and patterns we encounter in nature are transformed into the formal element that emerges in what we make. What is beautiful is not, however, the artificial replacing the natural. Too much structure is oppressive. Leaving everything to chance is a kind of submission. Repetition of some things is ugly, even if not oppressive by themselves as rare events. The inability to repeat other events is a source of much torment.

So, the one who makes, lives in a complex web. The balance depicted in the symbol of Yin and Yang is usually envisioned as a gift. The speaker in Homer asked for the Muses to sing.

By saying, 'mapping the body', I meant to distinguish Chalmer's issue from the question asked by many as to whether 'consciousness is purely physical activity'. In his essay, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Chalmer says:

When it comes to conscious experience, this sort of explanation fails. What makes the
hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? A simple explanation of the functions leaves this question open.

Chalmer goes on to say that the 'simple explanation' of functions is reductive, as a rule, because it develops models to show what generates what we encounter through experience. That kind of reduction is an important part of much of the 'scientific' method:

Throughout the higher-level sciences, reductive explanation works in just this way. To
explain the gene, for instance, we needed to specify the mechanism that stores and transmits
hereditary information from one generation to the next. It turns out that DNA performs this
function: once we explain how the function is performed, we have explained the gene. To
explain life, we ultimately need to explain how a system can reproduce, adapt to its environment, metabolize, and so on. All of these are questions about the performance of functions, and so are well-suited to reductive explanation. The same holds for most problems in cognitive science. To explain learning, we need to explain the way in which a system’s behavioral capacities are modified in light of environmental information, and the way in which new information can be brought to bear in adapting a system’s actions to its environment. If we show how a neural or computational mechanism does the job, we have explained learning. We can say the same for other cognitive phenomena, such as perception,
memory, and language. Sometimes the relevant functions need to be characterized quite subtly, but it is clear that insofar as cognitive science explains these phenomena at all, it does so by explaining the performance of functions.

When it comes to conscious experience, this sort of explanation fails. What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? A simple explanation of the functions leaves this question open.

There is no analogous further question in the explanation of genes, or of life, or of learning. If someone says “I can see that you have explained how DNA stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next, but you have not explained how it is a gene”, then they are making a conceptual mistake. All it means to be a gene is to be an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function. But if someone says “I can see that you have explained how information is discriminated, integrated, and reported, but you have not explained how it is experienced”, they are not making a conceptual mistake. This is a nontrivial further question.

This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn’t all this information-processing go on “in the dark”, free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere.

This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role. But for any role it might play, there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function. Perhaps it will even turn out that in the course of explaining a function, we will be led to the key insight that allows an explanation of experience. If this happens, though, the discovery will be an extra explanatory reward. There is no cognitive function such that we can say in advance that explanation of that function will automatically explain experience.

To explain experience, we need a new approach. The usual explanatory methods of
cognitive science and neuroscience do not suffice. These methods have been developed
precisely to explain the performance of cognitive functions, and they do a good job of it. But
as these methods stand, they are only equipped to explain the performance of functions. When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say.

By seeking a 'bridge over the explanatory gap', Chalmers says science can still go forward even if the problem of reduction is acknowledged. We don't know enough to say where the limits are. The approach does bring into question the way we use terms like 'virtual' over against 'actual' and the inner over against the outer. I haven't read much of Chalmers regarding Metametaphysics as it relates to the "ontology room." In terms of establishing a language for science, I did notice AW Carus making the following observation:

For Carnap, a framework was a candidate language of unified science (i.e. for all knowledge), while Chalmers’s “domains” determined by furnishing functions result merely from various gradations of ontological assertion, unconnected to any larger bodies of knowledge (pp. 114-16). The point of classifying a question as “internal” to a framework, for Carnap, was to regard it as, in principle, answerable, with the resources specified by that framework — i.e. to distinguish what we can in principle know from what we in principle can’t.  In Chalmers’s terms, the Carnapian constraints on admissibility are explicitly supplied by the framework itself, and have no need of any supplementation by ontological fiat. So from a Carnapian point of view, the best sense one can make of Chalmers’s supposed “replacement” for the internal-external distinction is that he is attempting to create a space for a “third realm” of statements that are neither answerable in the cut-and-dried, scientific or mathematical sort of way (i.e. internal), nor are fully indeterminate (i.e. external), but, let us say, possibly-answerable by looser constraints in a not-quite-scientific, ontological dialect of ordinary language (and the intuitions it supports) that is somewhat regimented but whose boundaries are unclear (Chalmers refers to Cian Dorr and Ted Sider in this context, p. 100). Between properly behaved frameworks and the outer space of indeterminateness, that is, Chalmers wants to introduce a space for quasi-frameworks.

Carus is critical of Chalmers' approach (i didn't quote the whole thing) but I presume there is a connection between the “third realm” of statements" and the search for an 'explanatory bridge' sought for in the first essay. If I understand correctly, the Metametaphysics is not, by itself, the explanatory bridge.

Sorry for the long post.

You won't find a credible source portraying Russia as a "hostile militant aggressor" before 2014. — Tzeentch

Medvedev agrees with your view of Georgia incursion.

Which text from Occam do you derive the proposition that "Occam says properties are lies?"

When Occam admonishes those who 'multiply causes beyond necessity", is he not repeating Aristotle's demand for a crucial difference versus a classification like "featherless biped?" Which, by the way, was a criticism directed toward Aristotle.

You seemed to be on the verge of recognizing those aforementioned crises are real ones and then you say: "European stake in this conflict is mostly the ego of its deluded leaders." It sounds like you are saying that the leaders could solve those problems if Russia wins or not. You will have to explain what the former scenario would look like. The latter has already been established as the basis for policy decisions.


Please link the document you are quoting Merkel from. Whatever were the concerns about Russia's intentions before 2014, 300 days of preemptive war has given us a chance to learn more about them.

Alas, rounds of hypocrisy abound. Machiavelli lives.

I was not, however, addressing the purity of their hearts but your claim that only the U.S. (and some peasants living in the wrong place) have something to lose if Ukraine goes tits up.

Other nations have more than a rhetorical interest in the outcome. The security crisis in Europe is real. The economic crisis is real. The refugee crisis is real. It is all very well to analyze what all parties did to get us to this place. But to depict Russia as merely defending itself is to turn a blind eye to what they have been doing and what they are capable of.

Being only capable of thinking in terms of absolute hierarchies leave only orders of rank to be perceived. Everything else fades into the mist.

Other NATO/EU nations have no such interests. Whether they win or lose in Ukraine, it doesn't matter. Only to the United States it matters, and the Ukrainians of course. — Tzeentch

By only framing it as a matter of a U.S. agenda, you fail to see or hear how much other nations want Russia to lose. They have all said as much and have put their money and resources where their mouth is. Many of the refugees will have no home to return to if Russia keeps all the annexations made so far. The rest will have no place to return to if the country is made uninhabitable. If Russia partitions Ukraine as you propose being all they want, the benefits of aggressive invasion will be established, especially if it leads to the withdrawal of sanctions and the return of business as usual.

While you and Mearsheimer fuss with the pieces at your game of Risk, others have a lot to lose should Russia succeed.

The only country in NATO that is invested in Ukraine is the United States — Tzeentch

That is not the case:

Bilateral Aid as percentage of GDP from nations

The above combined with shared forms of support and totals allotted

Ukrainian refugees in the EU.

The red line has been drawn. Only crossing it will show the answer. Mearsheimer's point about reluctance to escalate because of MAD applies to Russia too.

Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons, and it is unclear whether the Americans would be prepared to enter a nuclear conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Most likely not. — Tzeentch

What the NATO countries have said is that if Russia hits Ukraine with nukes, the previous efforts to stay out of the conflict will come to an end. The source of firing platforms and air bases would likely become targets of conventional weapons. If Russian escalates to using nukes on western targets in response, that is when MAD would kick in. Maybe that is what Putin was thinking about in his recent musing over the dynamics of striking first in order to suppress the retaliation.

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

A great challenge to many past and current views of human prehistory. In addition to the scientific research, the book specifically discusses elements of 'Enlightenment' political thinkers that made me glad I had accidentally read them in the past.

It's unlikely he will meet his strategic goals for Europe if he doesn't address Eastern Europeans' security concerns in a persuasive way (especially if predictable national interests lurk behind his behavior). — neomac

Agreed. Beyond the question of Macron's agenda, France and Poland have much to repair in their relations. At the very least, recognizing and compensating for the heavy lifting on the refugee front by the Eastern nations would itself be addressing a security concern.

Do you look at those experiences as opening a view that otherwise would have not been shown?

Very interesting OP.

I hope to respond in other ways but will start with this. My take on what Chalmers is presenting is something like: "can the world we touch through our awareness be caused entirely by agents outside of that experience?" The call for a completely objective account is a kind of mapping more than a finding about the 'body.' The scientific method is an exclusion of certain experiences in order to pin down facts. Can this process, which is designed to avoid the vagaries of consciousness, also completely explain it?

It seems that some other posters are of the view that will is tied/linked to choice. — Agent Smith

Why else talk about it? If the topic is not germane to situations where the desire to make a difference between possibilities is what is being discussed, what is being discussed?

Aristotle posited the idea as the best initiation of the activity he could come up with. Was there an alternative explanation at the time?

I think you misrepresent the role of the 'demon' in Descartes's arguments. He does not conclude that the environment was set up to fool us. In fact, his confidence that such was not the case troubled many who read him afterwards.

I see that gap. And maybe it will get bigger. I am not trying to shake pom-poms for him.

On the other hand, he is basing his view on not returning to the previous status quo. He wants to talk about that instead of postponing the topic until after some presently inconceivable terminus. That approach may become useful someday.

The Freiheit article points to an important dynamic between France and Germany regarding common defense beyond the structure of NATO. The last paragraph:

This wake-up call should serve for Germany to step up efforts to meet at least halfway with French impulses for further defence initiatives. In fact, as a new report of the European Defence Agency just revealed, only 18% of defence investments are jointly run between Member States. Besides the rhetorical agreement, the EU, in particular France and Germany have to mature their relationship in order to seriously and jointly invest in military capabilities instead of losing money and capacity to act through isolated moves. Ideally, Germany considers France in its preparations for its first National Security Strategy.

Such an observation is made in the context of Germany being very vulnerable now because of their past dealings with the Putin regime. It seems like Macron wants to become the sort of pivot Merkel used to be but with less dependency on non-European resources.

Yes. Since Macron also says Ukraine must take the lead on what terms they would accept, this matter of 'security guarantees' provided directly by the West is an alternative to acceding to Russia's demand that Ukraine write "never joining NATO" into their constitution.

For Russia to accept such an approach would undermine the pretext for the invasion whereby Ukraine is merely the foreskin of NATO.

If I think about an apple or any unchanging object and gather all details of its attributes can't I then at the same time examine the thinking process as it is being used to consider the apple? — TiredThinker

Your question is close to what Krishnamurti is asking from a different direction. When accepting that one is a bundle of thoughts and perceptions, is that an observation of the actual process? That question is asked here.

The TTC verse points to a way to avoid the risky nature of 'going up and down the ladder'. Love of persons takes that risk. A lover will always be a day late and a dollar short, wanting to tell the future in a country bereft of oracles or instructions. Taking the risk does not accept the uncertainty with resigned patience. We would go past the boundaries if we could.

The desire to trespass shapes the discovery of what the boundaries are. The utility of strictly psychological maps benefits from the TTC perspective of: "When you stand with your two feet on the ground." There is a tension between the views that will never be resolved. But one can see that Auden is less absolute about the difference than, say, John Donne, for example. Donne says:

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. — A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

In Auden's country, that is a claim we cannot make.

I like W.H. Auden because he approaches the question through our incapacity. The poem Villanelle:

Time can say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you, I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time can say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you, I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time can say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you, I would let you know.
Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away?
Time can say nothing but I told you so.
If I could tell you, I would let you know.

This is different from the confidence of the Tao Te Ching passage or accepting a ground based upon psychological factors. Wanting to talk about it is alive and uncertain. A final word is a kind of despair.

Got it.

In the spirit of adding stuff, the latest Kremlin speak regarding the annexations and talks:

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier that Mr Putin remained open to talks aimed "to ensure our interests". But Moscow was certainly not ready to accept US conditions: "What did President Biden say in fact? He said that negotiations are possible only after Putin leaves Ukraine."

It complicated the search for a mutual basis for talks, he said, that the US did not recognise "new territories" in Ukraine. At the end of September, President Putin declared four Ukrainian regions as part of Russia, but while Russian forces in eastern Ukraine occupy most of Luhansk, their invasion of Donetsk has stalled and they are on the back foot in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. — https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63832151

I didn't mean to suggest Crimea is now militarily secure for Russia. On the contrary, it is more vulnerable than Donetsk. I was trying to frame the idea of talks based upon each side giving up something significant enough to satisfy the other. I agree with ssu that negotiation of that kind usually only happens when both sides reach the end of their tether. That does not seem to be the case at the moment.

I see what you mean by the annexations being theater, but they do shape any negotiation regarding borders because Russia now holds them directly instead of maintaining the mask of 'independent' republics. Losing them militarily will weaken Putin more than before the annexations.

He becomes trapped by verbs that have lapsed into the indicative mood when he wasn't looking.” — Joshs

Yes, I have seen that.
Speaking for a friend.

Putin + team want Crimea, at least. A secured Donbas would sort of help with connecting Russia and Crimea (Kerch is a bit skimpy) — jorndoe

Now that Kherson and Zaporizhya have been formally annexed along with Luhansk and Donetsk, retaining Crimea has made the Sea of Azov into a Russian Lake. For Russia truly to own Crimea requires keeping enough of Kherson to secure the water supply from the Dnipro River. Perhaps having that much conceded to Russia through negotiations would make it worth for them to agree to an end to hostilities.

It is difficult to imagine that deal happening since it would amount to rewarding the invaders for their efforts so far. The destruction of civilian infrastructure to render the place uninhabitable is a demand for unconditional surrender.

Given how far away the sides are from something like mutual recognition, what else could be a starting place for more than a ceasefire based upon limited agendas?

For my part, I don't know who I am enough to give a report. It makes me nervous when others do so.

I understand indulgence of some desires are done in exchange for others. So, I stopped smoking and taking certain risks for the buzz they gave me. I loved sparring when I was younger but don't want the hurt it would bring me now. I still drink too much. I am not guru material. But I also enjoyed (and still do) more healthy pursuits before giving up the immediate attempts to die quickly. I am pretty sure the whole thing is beyond my understanding.

I do question the Zeno paradox framing of change you present. If we 'are' something at each location of time, then whatever may be good for us or not is at odds with our 'essence'. The tiny possibilities of altering course suggest that we don't exist in that way. Talking about it needs a better model.

It is in this sense that the will as applied both externally and internally is the crux. — Pantagruel

The view of what is 'internal and external' in willing suggests different domains that don't ever become the sole province of the other. One example of this can be found in Proverbs 16:1:

The plans of the mind belong to man,
    but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. — RSV

So, there are thoughts and deliberations toward ends that we choose to be acted or not acted upon and that gets expressed through something more than the planning preceding it. The instrument that permits the expression is not formed by the plans. Much of the ensuing verses exhort the need to not become uppity or conniving as a consequence. The wise combine understanding with the best use of the instrument. What I find most interesting about this section is how being aware of what is happening is revealed through this focus on what gets revealed beyond or despite our intentions:

There is a way which seems right to a man,
    but its end is the way to death.
26 
A worker’s appetite works for him;
    his mouth urges him on.
27 
A worthless man plots evil,
    and his speech is like a scorching fire.
28 
A perverse man spreads strife,
    and a whisperer separates close friends.
29 
A man of violence entices his neighbor
    and leads him in a way that is not good.
30 
He who winks his eyes plans perverse things,
    he who compresses his lips brings evil to past. — RSV

Your view expresses the logic of Augustine's claim that our free will is a chance to choose our better nature while surrounded by the temptations of sin and the consequences of evil. Spinoza explicitly disagrees with it:

I also want to say something here about the intellect and the will that we commonly attribute to God. If intellect and will do belong to the eternal essence of God, we must certainly mean something different by both these attributes than is commonly understood. For an intellect and a will that constituted the essence of God ​would have to be totally different from our intellect and will and would not agree with them in anything but name – no more in fact than the heavenly sign of the dog agrees with the barking animal which is a dog. I prove this thus. If intellect does belong to the divine nature, it will not be able, as our intellect is, to be posterior (as most believe) or simultaneous by nature with what is understood, since God is prior in causality to all things (by p16c1). To the contrary truth ​and the formal ​essence of things are ​such precisely because they exist as such objectively in the intellect of God. That is why God’s intellect, insofar as it is conceived as constituting God’s essence, is in truth the cause both of the essence of things and of their existence. ​This seems to have been noticed also by those who have maintained that the intellect, the will and the power of God are one and the same thing. — Spinoza, Ethic, Bk1, Prop17,Scholium, translated by Silverthorne and Kisnerby

Yes, Atlas is living the proletariat dream, gnashing his teeth at the pleasure of his masters. I read Spinoza to say that such a view of Providence conceals what actually has been given us.