That was long. Just noting here real quick I think we also probably are closer than what may have seemed to be the case at first. I am generally skeptical of metaphysical justification, and usually don't think that it leads to knowledge (though being simultaneously unescapable). I'm sort of trying to challenge my own beliefs here, too, in looking at what might be exceptions to that general feeling.

Naw, I don't know Ramsay, so no worries there.

I think there's a difference between "They can both be right" and "They are both right" -- so when I say that it is wrong to say that consciousness is awareness, I'm talking about in the context of the hard problem of consciousness. And by wrong I don't mean false, only that if one were to mean what "awareness" means then they'd be talking about something else. I'd call this phenomena talking past one another, sometimes just because of the locutions involved are the same but also sometimes because there are some unstated beliefs that haven't be explicated yet causing confusion.

This would hold true further down the tree you describe. So supervenience is easily explained in a single sentence, but takes a long time to develop exactly what that sentence means (just like consciousness) because it is complicated. So we can make a distinction between weak and strong supervenience, and clarify what each means then ask, "What are you committed to?" -- this is just laying the groundwork for understanding someone.

Now I would agree that you can't criticize another branch of the tree merely be asserting your own branch of the tree. That would be thoroughly uninteresting, and amount to about the same thing as saying "P" "~P". But I would say that there's more to critique than simply taking a route down a tree of possible decisions -- and that we can be right or wrong in using a word in such and such a way only because of the context of the conversation, but that this does not mean the same thing as being true or false. We're just hammering down terms to begin to understand each other.

I can completely sympathise with your finding some value in 'testing' your beliefs against those of others, you might find another position more satisfying, or more robust, and we do seem to like our beliefs to be robust (well, some of us anyway) but that's a one way passive event. The philosopher only needs to 'present' you with their proposition, for you to do with what you will. But then there's no sfnsd in which you're "studying" anything, there's no body of knowledge to learn (other than the entirely historical facts of who said what). No one is 'better' than anyone else, there's no sense in which some grammatically correct interpretation could be 'wrong' (again, other than in a purely historical sense that such an interpretation is unlikely to be what the author intended to say. Because what the author intended to say is a fact of history, not metaphysics). — Pseudonym

Here again I don't think we can see eye to eye. :D Though I'll try and state why. (After all, it's disagreement that I think is valuable, at least at times)

What is a one way passive event? What is a two-way active event that makes it more valuable?

Is philosophy really just a collection of propositions? It seems to me that philosophy is bound up with reasoning and reflection, and not mere assertion. There are also traditions within which philosophy takes place. So, for instance, physics is a body of knowledge, and physics is just another tradition of metaphysics. It was born out of wholly metaphysical speculations about the nature of the cosmos. I would caution, here, to say that metaphysics is not a wholly a priori discipline -- like all of philosophy it's more like by hook and by crook (to steal something from Searle). There is an art to it, and sometimes you use examples, sometimes you use empirical methods, sometimes you use thought experiments, and sometimes you use arguments.



Science is a lot like this. The only difference is that science is institutionalized to be a certain way, whereas philosophy is broader and able to change traditional assumptions -- to make new traditions, if it happens to bear fruit.

And if metaphysics is the study of what exists, then it seems to me that science is either metaphysics in that sense, or just something which doesn't deal in existence, contrary to what it appears to do. While I'm not a scientific realist, in the sense that I think science spells out all of that which exists, or all knowledge, I do think that it deals in existence -- it makes claims about what exists and why such and such exists by using reasons, broadly construed. The only reason it's more decidable than all of philosophy is because it is a tradition, which holds certain things as true, wherein many people believe such and such and so are able to appeal to that bed of agreement to decide upon what is being disagreed with.

It is philosophy, and it is metaphysics.

So I'm uncertain I'd say there is no knowledge in philosophy, either, beyond historical facts. Maybe so. I just wouldn't state it so strongly as that. (Because surely there is a kind of difference between philosophy and science, I just don't find it to be all that strong -- the difference is just in what is being held T, what is the space of reasoning that's allowable, the traditions that are important to thinking)

As I say, I have a lot of sympathy for the value in the more mystical metaphysical propositions. I think I would even go as far as to say it would be virtually impossible for a person to go through life without taking a position on some of the most important metaphysical questions,and I'd love to be involved in discussing them as such, but that, sadly, is just not how it's done. — Pseudonym

Often times I think you're right. But I'd still insist that within the context of a tradition that a metaphysical belief can be decidable based upon what is being held T -- such as the belief that the universe is coherent, or the belief that we live in the best possible world, or something. Also, I think I'd maintain the distinction between wrong/false, or the distinction between avoiding talking past one another, and making an argument for something being false. I think we both value not talking past one another.

I think perhaps where we are in disagreement is in how metaphysics can be done, as well as in how open "falsity" might be -- like, I can hear the reasons from someone I disagree with for why they think I'm false, and I'd like to hear it, but even if I don't find the reasons persuasive I still find the reasoning valuable.

Funnily enough I don't think I'm very sympathetic to mystical metaphysical propositions. :D But that's OK. I'm open to them being discussed meaningfully all the same -- though perhaps those sorts of statements really do need a high degree of agreement before discussions can feel like they were worthwhile.

We could go on like this forever, but I'm fairly certain that the meaning of the term consciousness is not agreed on, that's the point. Nagel thinks there's something it's "like" to be us and calls this consciousness, others disagree that there is something it is 'like' to experience being us and equate consciousness directly with awareness. In what way could one of these definitions possibly be wrong? Yet they can't both be right. — Pseudonym

Well, they can both be right, insofar that we are clear on what we're saying. So if we're talking about "what it is like", then it does no service to a discussion to argue over what consciousness means -- it is, in that context, wrong to say that consciousness is something else.

These are not interpretations of propositions, these are historical facts about the positions broadly held. As I said, I'm not suggesting that nothing outside of hard science has any vague truth value, I'm saying there is a gradation at one end of which is empirical science and at the other some of the more obscure metaphysics and religion. At some point on this gradation it becomes meaningless to debate the matters (and by debate, I mean attempt to show your interlocutor is wrong). I cannot even pinpoint exactly where that line is, but then I cannot pinpoint exactly how many grains of sand are required for it to be a 'pile'. So, the fact that saying "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" would be wrong, does not undermine the assertion that any individual propositions of Plato's could be interpreted in any grammatically correct way and no-one could say which interpretation was more 'right', by any measure. — Pseudonym

Is the assertion I provided not grammatically correct?

I can agree with the notion that there are multiple interpretations. But I can't agree that there's no point, or that all one needs is grammar to make an assertion. Interpretative arguments are full of examples from some author -- usually you have to look at the corpus as a whole.

I think maybe this is where we keep talking past one another. In part I think I agree with you, but I don't agree with your conclusions. But more on that in the next paragraph.

Again, you seem to be missing the point, perhaps my writing is not as clear as I'd like to think, but I did write it in a single bolded sentence so I'm not sure why the message isn't getting home - I'm not saying that the beliefs themselves are meaningless, I'm saying that debating them is.. A non-verifiable statement could be packed with meaning, it could be the most meaningful thing ever said, but if it is non-verifiable, then to say it is right or wrong is meaningless, to say it is better or worse is meaningless, without first agreeing what 'better' would consist of. Using a word in a sentence your meaning of which is not the same as the meaning for the person to whom you are communicating is almost literally meaningless. It's practically the definition of the word. — Pseudonym

I disagree. :D

I think where I'm becoming confused is from the first part of your paragraph to your second part. Where we agree is with your bolded sentence. But where we disagree is on verifiability, worth, and agreement.

Let's say consciousness is not verifiable. There is nothing we could point to to decide whether or not consciousness is an illusion or whether it is as real as anything else. In fact we might even be able to say that the debate on conciousness is really like this -- that there is no agreement on, at least, what view is better. (I think that the reductive materlialist understands what Nagel means well enough, they just deny that the existence of consciousness is true -- in a similar manner that someone might say of any entity, like a hole, or a God, or whatever).

Yet, in spite of this, the debate is interesting to myself. It provides a challenge to certain of my views, and forces me to reconcile -- one way or another, though it doesn't have to be the same as those who publish -- my beliefs with the arguments put forth. I think through them and wonder if they are right or wrong, and try to provide reasons for that.

Without the debate then my thoughts would have continued along another trajectory. But I value a challenge to my beliefs, and consciousness was one of those arguments that did challenge my beliefs at one point.

It was the disagreement that was valuable. Not the agreement. And insofar that we at least understand what we mean by terms then we can actually disagree with one another without talking past one another. Of course we can use the same locution to mean different things -- that's true of any word, and why we specify exactly what we mean within the context of a conversation .

So basically if we agree on the one -- that metaphysical statements have meaning, in the sense that they are both syntactical and semantic, and it also seems we agree that two speakers need to be clear about what they mean about a term (to change meanings mid-conversation would be wrong, given what's already set up) -- then where we really disagree is on the value of metaphysical debate. I'd say that the value is relative to whatever beliefs, arguments, attitudes, or whtaever a reader or thinker or interlocutor or whatever currently holds -- call this philosophical preference.

Basically I take a kind of Ramsey-Quine synthesis, which I think answers this point. All scientific theories are in the form of Ramsey sentences. "There are things called electrons which...[the rest of particle physics]", or "There is a relation between humans and their environment which...[the rest of human ecology" etc. Quine then goes on to say that metaphysics is like a science, in that it uses the same techniques on less empirical problems, but to a gradually decreasing degree until it starts becoming meaningless. The sentences become more and more fantastical and relate less and less to the real world, until they are nothing but stories. again, just to drive this point home, that doesn't make them meaningless. In fact I think stories to explain how we exist in the world are of absolutely vital importance and meaning. But it does make trying to argue that one story is better than another meaningless, it does mean that slavishly following someone else's story on the presumption that you can't develop your own meaningless. In short it makes most of the activity of modern metaphysics meaningless. — Pseudonym

Cool. I don't think of metaphysics quite like that. I think of it as the study of what exists, how we come to have beliefs about the nature of things, as well as the study of synthesizing all that comes before -- not that these are all the same, but that's how I group it together in my mind and try to figure out what someone is doing specifically when they say they are doing metaphysics. I think there comes a time when reason no longer can justify beliefs (I have in mind here something like proving that I have a hand, or whatnot), but I'd say even this is fluid and changing with person, time, and place.

So from my perspective, at least, I don't see science as somehow better than metaphysics in its decidability. It's just one tradition of metaphysics in which people are able to disagree and have a measure of decidability -- but I don't think that makes it more purposeful or meaningful in terms of deciding what is the case.

I can't speak for speak for Pseudonym, but the point I have been emphasizing is the undecidability, as opposed to the meaninglessness, of metaphysical disagreements. If we disagree over some empirical claim, the issue as to who is correct can be decided, by checking; by observation in some cases, referencing documented information in others, asking the experts and so on. Of course, no scientific hypothesis is ever proven, either, but there are at least accepted ways to corroborate opinion. I think this kind of corroboration just does not exist when it comes to metaphysical views.

So, I said I have not been emphasizing the meaninglessness of metaphysical disagreements, but actually because of the undecidability of the truth of competing views (which are themselves not meaningless, obviously, or else they could not qualify as views at all) and the presupposed premises upon which they rest, disagreement would seem to be, if not meaningless, then at least pointless. — Janus

I'm more amenable to this view -- especially because you're explicitly stating that there is a difference between meaning and decidability.

I'd say that decidability is still a possible feature of metaphhysical debate, though -- but only under certain conditions. And I'd also say that metaphysical debate can still have a point, even if it is not decidable.

On conditions of decidability: If two persons have a shared tradition, then metaphysical debate is (possibly) decidable. There are a set of propositions held T, and the arguments for or against some view from those propositions gives a kind of ground upon which disagreement can take place. (Propositions don't have to be what is shared -- it can be attitudes, goals, or whatever else might serve as the bed of agreement upon which disagreement rests)

On "the point of it all": Even if there is not a bed of agreement upon which disagreement can take place in order that some disagreement may be decidable, then debate can take place to clarify and elucidate. Sometimes I'd rather debate with my polar opposite for this purpose, because I know that they, at least, will be motivated to pick apart what I'm saying in order that I may further refine my own thinking.

Not very different, no, but that's the point. They think they understand the 'meaning' of the word, but others disagree. — Pseudonym

I would say that they understand the meaning of the word just fine. What other's disagree with is not the meaning of "consciousness" -- it's well explicated -- but on whether or not what is being said is true. And that this is the sort of thing which debates consist in anyways. It's possible to misunderstand, but with enough time we come to understand exactly what we mean and the disagreement hinges on something other than what a word means.

Whether their use of words communicates the message they intended. The words have a purpose, they must communicate some message to other language users otherwise they fail. This is not the case with the interpretation of philosophical propositions. One cannot say that my interpretation of some proposition is wrong, because the interpreting a proposition never had a stated purpose by which mine could be measured. — Pseudonym

I would say that you can say an interpretation is wrong. There are multiple interpretations of philosophers, but there are also incorrect interpretations. To say "Nietzsche believed that the height of humanity was achieved through socialism" is just plainly false. Or to say, "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" is also plainly false.

I don't think you need metrics to understand these things. And I'd argue that a language-user still uses meaningful words regardless of whether their message they intended is communicated. Plus I'm not sure that's really a metric anyways -- intent seems an odd sort of thing to provide as a metric.

That's the point. Philosophy is constantly trying to have its cake and eat it. It wants to be as vague and aesthetic as possible when people like Carnap try to attack it for lacking verification, but then when it comes down to preserving the hierarchy of the 'big' philosophers, the professors and the students, it clams up again into pretending that there's definitely something solid and verifiable, something one can definitely be 'wrong' about.

I'd just say there's a difference between verification and meaning, as well as verification and falsehood -- so there is no conflict in saying that certain statements are not verifiable yet are either meaningful, or true, or false.

And that it's actually quite common for people to believe more than what they can verify, and to do so because of [various reasons] -- so engaging in what people believe, and for what reasons, makes sense. How many people do you think are strict verificationists, both in terms of meaning and in terms of what they believe?

Why is verification important?

In what way? If I made the claim that conciousness was awareness, maybe on the basis that I'm claiming that an awareness of awareness is indistinguishable in neurological terms from an awareness of anything else and I'm an eliminative materialist about the mind, then how could I be using the term 'incorrectly' — Pseudonym

Because consciousness is the feeliness of the world -- that it feels like something. Awareness is another aspect of the mind people tend to use "conscious" for, but it's not what's being talked about.

Yes, but if one were to refute the fifth postulate just by saying "no it doesn't", everyone would disagree with them. That's the difference. The fifth postulate has consequences, claiming it to be false simply by restating it with the word 'doesn't' instead of 'does' would mean that all of geometry would have to change because I can draw two straight lines crossing another and they will meet on the side with the smaller angles. I've no doubt there are clever mathematical constructs and ways out of this (perhaps non-eucledean geometry?) but there is sufficient widespread agreement to make the terms meaningful. This is not the case with most metaphysical propositions. — Pseudonym

In order for agreement to take place we must understand what we mean by some statement. Else, prior to there being agreement, we'd be talking nonsense until we all finally decided to say "I agree!" -- and does the statement somehow magically gain meaning at that point, due to this intonation?

So as you note there is non-Euclidean geometry. I chose the 5th postulate for this reason. There was a point in time when the 5th postulate was widely agreed upon as simply true, or derivable from the other postulates -- until it was demonstrated that appending that "not" could actually hold, we'd just be dealing with another sort of geometry that behaves differently.

Before people agreed with them what they said still meant something. It wasn't because the mathematical community at large said "I agree!" that the terms used in their papers suddenly gained meaning -- the meaning was well understood, and what was argued over was the truth or falsity of said meaning.

The debate really was only a meaningful debate insofar that there was disagreement -- if, today, you were to try to rehash the debate, claiming that the 5th postulate was true simpliciter, no one would take you very seriously.


Now, as to most metaphysical propositions -- on that I think we'd need a heartier notion of metaphysics in order to begin counting what counts. My suspicion is that the words will mean -- they are not nonsense -- and that the meaningfulness of the debate will be similar to the 5th postulate: It will be relative to a philosophical attitude, a community, a set of beliefs, or some such. So what is important to some is not important to others, and vice versa, primarily because of other beliefs that are being held as true or at least viewed as desirable to retain.

Which seems to indicate, as far as I can tell, that it would depend upon preference. So a verificationist, for instance, probably cares about verification and what that means. I, on the other hand, don't see much value in verification as a principle of meaning, so it really doesn't interest me all that much.

It is true that accusations of "meaninglessness" (as well as some others, such as "incoherency") are often thrown around rather loosely. But, returning to the topic of the thread, you need to remember that Carnap was a positivist, and so he had stringent and, perhaps to our ear, rather idiosyncratic criteria of meaningfulness.

But let's not nitpick vocabulary. I think the idea in this particular instance is that some debates just lack substance and worth. Some - in fact, probably many - questions that have been mainstays of philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, are pseudo-questions.

My own approach when it comes to questions of ontology, debates over realism vs. nominalism, etc. is to ask, What is at stake? Why is this important? What difference in our worldview would one position make vs. the other? If it seems to me that nothing substantial is at stake, except perhaps minor differences in language, then I judge such questions to be - let's say "worthless," if you don't like "meaningless." — SophistiCat

I prefer that way of saying things, though I'd still insist on saying that it is only worthless to someone -- that this is a matter of preference more than a matter of the value of the philosophical debate.

Usually philosophical puzzles are things found after having developed a worldview -- so given such and such beliefs, attitudes, arguments, and so forth that form a worldview we come across some element that is paradoxical, puzzling, difficult to reconcile, self-defeating, or simply problematic to everything that came before. So if we are Platonists, for instance, the problem of universals has more at stake than if we are nominalists. If we are scientific realists then the problem of demarcation has more at stake than if we are spiritualists, who have some view of the world that incorporates religion into its ontology. If we are apatheists, as I really am anymore, the question of the existence of God doesn't hold much interest to me because of my commitments, but if I were a Christian then there would be something at stake.

That is, what's at stake is relative to a point of view. And if that's the case I suppose I really prefer people to just say, "I am not interested in that" to "That problem is worthless" or "That problem is nonsensical" (Which, yes, I believe do get thrown about all too often)

Except for those who don't agree, like Churchland, Dennett, Rosenburg for whom conciousness is not that and we a re deluded into thinking that the world feels like something. — Pseudonym

Is that somehow different from saying that consciousness is an illusion? And don't they understand the meaning of the word in responding like this?

Again, I'd ask what measure you're using to determine that the two people actually understand each other. Presumably, there has to be some metric, otherwise it would not be possible to misunderstand. The whole system of university education in philosophy would be pointless (a conclusion I'm inclined to agree with), there would be no sense to the term "you haven't understood X's position", and yet these are the mainstay of philosophical debate. — Pseudonym

What metric do you use to determine that a child has learned how to speak? Is there really some set of criteria you apply, or do you just understand the words being said?

Surely it's possible to be misunderstood. If you said consciousness was awareness, for instance, then in the debate on conscioussness you'd be using the term incorrectly.

I'm not getting from this what you think 'wrong' is. You've just given a synonym 'false'. What actually is 'wrong/false'? — Pseudonym

"Consciousness is an illusion" is true

Then the eliminative materialist is right.

"Consciousness is real" is true

Then the eliminative materialist is wrong.

I can disagree with your statement that "Unicorns have pink tails" by simply stating that "Unicorns have blue tails". At no point does my ability to do this indicate anything about my understanding of you use of the term 'Unicorn', all I did was construct a grammatically correct sentence with the term in it. All I needed to do that was to understand if the term was a noun or a verb, I don't need to understand anything of what you actually meant by it. — Pseudonym

So what?

This seems to be asking for some kind of apodeictic certainty in communication. Just because there is the possibility that someone doesn't understand a term, but only the grammar, doesn't mean that everyone using said term is in the same situation.

Consider the 5th postulate of geometry. The same would hold there. All that one would have to do is append a "not" in the appropriate place, and yet could get by without understanding the 5th postulate of geometry.

But surely the possibility of petulant students doesn't invalidate a field.

And some mental states have no content - I suppose that's like "I'm happy". — Banno

Yeah, moods were what I mostly had in mind when saying that the mental state isn't about anything in particular -- since moods are global upon experience.

That's another decent point. Cheers. — Banno

Always a pleasure. :)

I guess I'd just shrug and say, "You can't please everyone!" :D

So what is the basis then. What makes a debate about the colour of unicorn's tails meaningless, but a debate about universals meaningful? — Pseudonym

I'd say as long as both sides can articulate the other's then the propositions that two people are using to debate have meaning. So in the case of consciousness I can say what it would mean to believe in property dualism, eliminative materialism, epiphenomenalism, and panpsychism -- I know what the propositions are, and I know why I would argue for or against each of these.

Not having an interest in the problem of universals I couldn't tell you -- it's not something I've read much about other than the occasional SEP article. But if two people can understand one another then I don't see why I'd call it meaningless.

Also, I wouldn't say that a debate about the unicorn's tails is meaningless. I understand those words well enough. Worth my time? Not so much. It's not something I'm interested in.

Again, I'm not talking about preferences, people can debate whatever they want, but in order to follow through your argument about preferences you'd have to sacrifice the use of the term meaningful altogether, after all, what could possibly qualify as meaningless if it's all just preference about decidability. Are you saying there's no such thing as a meaningless debate? — Pseudonym

A meaningless debate might go something like this

"of shcrik in the water too"

"gavagai"

I have no idea what those terms mean. It is purely nonsense.

So given that standard I'd likely say there isn't such a thing, insofar that the words have meaning. I'm not attached to trying to sort out debates that are good from debates that are bad. There are things that interest me, and things that don't. All the same if I understand the words -- if two people arguing understand one another, and can articulate eachother's position -- then it's just true that the debate is not nonsense.

Really, so what is it to be wrong in such a debate and what is the definition of conciousness which is universally agreed on? — Pseudonym

Universal agreement? I'm sure you can find someone out there who will say "But that's not what it is!" -- but within the debate on consciousness it's very well defined, and takes some time to define -- but in shorthand consciousness is the fact that the world feels like something. Pizza tastes like pizza, and not nothing, or carrots. Brahms has a certain quality of sound. We experience the world and experiences feels like something.

To be wrong in the debate would be to take a false position. So an eliminative materialist will commonly say that such feeling is an illusion of the mind, or some such. If consciousness is an illusion of the mind, has no reality outside of this, then we'd say that all the sorts of beliefs that attempt to explain consciousness are false.

No, but if you want to reserve the ability to define some conversations as meaningless (gobbledegook), then you need some measure of meaningfulness, so what is your measure if it's not shared agreement on terms? — Pseudonym

This is a different standard than the one you previously proposed. You said there needed to be a metric for deciding correctness. Agreement on terms is exactly what I'm saying is needed. If two people can disagree while being able to explicate the position of who they disagree with then that's a good indicator that the terms are being used the same.

Are you saying that you do find the debate meaningful for some reason that does not require a shared metric, or that my conclusion that there's no shared metric is mistaken? — Pseudonym

I don't think that a shared metric for deciding what answer is superior is required for a meaningful debate. That would make a debate end, but many debates do not end and yet are still meaningful. Agreement is not the basis of meaning, nor does there need to be some metric for statements to be meaningful.

So with science, you may say that there's no definitive shared metric, and you'd be right, but the correlation of some theoretical proposition with empirical measurements is sufficiently shared and just specific enough to allow meaningful debate. It's not so shared that people like Kuhn can't highlight its reliance on paradigm, but they're shared enough. — Pseudonym

I'd say this notion of "shared enough" is mostly just a matter of taste. Some people like vanilla ice cream, and some people like chocolate -- and some people like a higher degree of decidability, and some people don't care either way.

I think both definitions share the same features. There is meaning to a proposition of the type "phenomenon X is caused by/explained by Y for reasons a, b and c". The meaning is the story such a proposition tells for one looking for just such a story. But propositions of the sort "proposition X is wrong because a, b and c" is meaningless because there is no accompanying definition of wrong which the reader is bound to agree with. I might as well say proposition X is 'vgarstenfad' because a, b and c". That would also be nonsense because you'd have no idea what 'vgarstenfad' means nor any reason to accept any definition of the word I might give.

So in that sense I do think there's an argument for saying that such propositions are meaningless in your first sense, but it is in the second sense that my interest lies. — Pseudonym

In the debate on consciousness it is understood what it means to be wrong. Further, "consciousness" is clearly defined.

But if the latter sense is what interests you it is the former sense that I've been arguing against. "The point of it all" is something that either makes sense or it doesn't. We all have different interests, after all. So the problem of universals, for instance, is something I just don't care too much about -- though it seems to make sense when I read an SEP article referring to the relationship between universals and particulars, I don't really care about the point of it all. I'd say "the point of it all" is something which is a function of taste and interests, and sometimes a topic will interest someone and sometimes it won't.

But just because I'm not interested in some debate that does not then mean that everyone over there interested in it is speaking gobbledeegoop.

I'll tackle this first. This falls into the same error I've tried to explain to Marchesk, but it just gets ignored. Proving that people can make coherent sense, and derive meaning from, the question, or an answer offered is not sufficient to make the debate meaningful. To make the debate meaningful it is also necessary that some methods can demonstrably determine which of the competing answers has the greater merit by some metric agreed on by the contributors. — Pseudonym

Sounds good. Looks like this is where we disagree anyways, so there is no need to read it at this point (unless you just feel like it, of course). I fully expect Chalmer's interlocutor's to not change their position based upon his arguments -- and in fact that is often the case, though not always -- but I don't think that makes his statements nonsense -- though it's worth noting that you're not making that claim as much as you are saying that the debate itself is not meaningful, which I take to be very different from claiming that a statement is nonsense.

I don't think you'll find your standard of meaningful debate outside of philosophy, though. It's just how human beings are -- they become attached to certain positions and argue for them. Scientific theory changes not so much because of pure rational debate, though that is a part of science, but also because stubborn old codgers who love their ideas die, and the young aren't attached to them. That doesn't mean that the old codger was senseless or speaking nonsense though -- we can come to understand what he meant by, say, phlogiston even if we don't believe as he does.

So what is it to have a meaningful debate, then? And by "meaning" are you talking about linguistic meaning (which the use of "nonsense" or "senseless", two terms that I think are different, seems to imply) or are you talking about meaning in the sense of the point of it all, the reason why a debate would take place?

Yes, and I'm drawing from the history of philosophy in making said statement. But I believe I have said that an understanding of the [subject matter] is important to have a well grounded philosophy. Yes? Otherwise you'll just be drawing opinions out of nowhere.

So I managed to find a text-only version of the Pinker book you mentioned, and could find the names listed underneath your graph but specific publications were different from the topic, though very much related. Azar Gat is a military historian, Lawrence Keeley looked to do research on prehistoric war -- but the search "White 2011" didn't turn up anything at all, and White is such a generic name I just couldn't figure it out.

So I turn to the Human Security Project. Here's the PDF I found. -- but it cites Pinker.

So I'm guessing this all comes from Pinker. In which case I'd say that he made a pretty graph but it's a little strange to say that the rate of death is superior in measuring violence. Violence isn't just warfare, it's also homicide, incarceration, assault, threats, as well as verbal violence directed at people to hurt them.

Further, I don't see how statehood vs. statelessness is the independent variable in the data given. I mean, we're comparing prehistoric socieities to the Allied War Machine that continues to dominate the world today? How in the world are those even close to one another? Might not the death rate of the total population have something to do more with medical knowledge, the numbers of people that were around, and the closeness of community? (I'd kill for my brother, but I'm less inclined to kill for the jackass in Wyoming who cut me off in traffic)

To be honest it just looks like Pinker picked some convenient looking numbers and arranged them graph-wise to prove his point. I wanted to see the actual research to see if I was in the wrong about that. But that's how it looks to me. It's not like this is a sampling of all stateless nations and all states -- it's just a couple of each to make it look like violence is declining, when violence is measured by the rate of total population death in warfare alone.

But violence is much larger than that, and focusing on the rate is just strange to me. The only reason the rate is lower is because war is won by numbers and supplies -- economies -- and you need people to be pumping your GDP to drop the bombs.


EDIT: Sorry if I'm being harsh. I was feeling frustrated the more I was digging into it all -- I tend to find Pinker irritating just because he wields so much influence, but seems to do so sloppily.

Sections 3 through 7 of chapter two details the positions of others that Chalmer's disagrees with. This is after having spent some time arguing that consciousness does not supervene on the physical, first by explaining exactly what that means, and then providing a series of 5 arguments for his position.

Google books actually has the relevant section open for viewing! Shwew. I was hoping I wouldn't have to type it all out.

Now I take it that if we can detail not just our own beliefs but the beliefs of others, and others can do the same for us, then that demonstrates that what people are saying is meaningful -- it's not just a nonsense that an individual has come up with.

One thing I'm not being clear enough on is that there is certainly a difference between doing something and doing philosophy. The distinction isn't useful to me not because there is no difference between the two, but rather because there are philosophical beliefs that are at play in the doing. We can do such and such without doing philosophy, but I believe that in doing such and such we have philosophical beliefs in play.

Take your example, for instance -- that someone likes you. Already we have to have some kind of theory of mind at work for that to make sense, which is the sort of thing philosophers investigate. We probably also have some kind of thought, though at this point it's pre-theoretic, about what it means to like someone or be liked.

I see philosophy as being defined, to a large extent, by the philosopher themself. What counts as philosophy and what counts as good philosophy are oftentimes bounded by the philosophy which someone is proposing. So there is something of an existential element to defining philosophy, where we choose the path we walk down -- but upon choosing, the other paths are lost and while we can recognize that other paths were available we have to develop what we decided and continue on.

I really love The Last Temptation of Christ -- I was reading Hegel at the time, and that in conjunction with Hegel was the closest thing I came to a conversion experience.

It was dispelled the moment I asked myself, "But who believes this?"

Okay, how do we live in peace if I want X, and you also want X, and we both can't have it? Must there not be some means or manner for the two of us to negotiate, or at least for the two of us to determine who gets X and who doesn't? If there is such a means, then that means itself is violent, under the definition we are using. — Agustino

I'm not understanding what is meant by violence if conflict resolution through negotiations is violent.

The threat of violence is violent. Saying I want X, and you saying you want X, and us coming to some agreed upon method to share isn't.

And how to live in peace is one of those simultaneously very simple and very complex things -- it's simple because we all understand what peace means. It's complex because of the historical circumstances we find ourselves in.

But it certainly won't happen if we believe it's impossible. I'd say that a little faith is a first step.

That's not true. Violence does not always produce resentment. — Agustino

Violence begets violence. Resentment is only one possible motivation to violence. As I said before violence is addictive -- it is a rush, it is exciting. There is a sadistic pleasure in enacting violence. That doesn't mean everyone is inclined like that, but there are some and it is also capable of being developed by either environment or intentionally.

What makes you believe this?

What I most hear to this question is that there would be warlords and gangsters in a world without a state, just as there was and is in parts of the world without states that function.

Warlords and gangsters are a serious problem. States, though, organize violence to levels incredible. Is there something besides the above thought experiment that leads you to believe that states decrease violence?

Agreed. But do you agree with the need for this kind of communication in order for society to be at all possible? — Agustino

Need? No. I think need is too strong a word. I think it is possible for us to live in peace. I don't think it is easy to attain, given our circumstances, but possible.

Violence begets violence. We live in a cycle of violence.

I am inclined to think there are cases of necessary violence, though, just not related to the order of society. A society of violence is an unstable thing which can only continue with more sophisticated forms of violence to keep the reaction of violence under check.

However, I don't think our attitude towards violence are right. I think violence is a temptation, something that gratifies a darker part of our humanity. I don't think we need institutional glorifications of violence to amplify what is already a possible natural inclination, ala the many holidays dedicated to military glory.

The better attitude to necessary violence is somber and sober. In the moment, in the thick of a social context of violence we are drunk on excitement. It can become a kind of drug, in a way. But in stepping back and seeing what violence does is destroy, on scales hard to fathom, the individual life of so many people - including those who survive the initial high. Having just read the Tao, I think this verse puts it well:

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.

Now, we are not all decent men. And violence is indeed something which can excite and we can become addicted to. But I'm of the opinion that if we're going to institute some kind of celebration of something that it shouldn't be violence and war and all these things which are already tempting and addicting, and which cause much sorrow and evil.

I think this is an overgeneralization. Every communication of how you will react is not violence, though perhaps it is a threat.

But if your communication of consequences are "If you take my ball, I'm going to punch you" then that is a threat, and said threat is violent.

Another way to look at it --

consider you are invaded by some fighting force, and are forced to defend your homes. Because it is justified and defensive do the missiles and bullets lobbed at the enemy somehow become non-violent?

No, of course not.

There is nothing violent about me saying that if you steal my property, I will defend it. — Agustino

Sure there is. There is the threat -- threatening others is still violence. Calling it "defense" doesn't change that.

If you raise a weapon and tell me to hand over the cash in the register and then don't pull the trigger -- you're threatening me in order to motivate a certain course of action.

Defensive violence is just the sort of violence we view as being justified, usually because of the presence of some other violence. But the threat is no less violence just because it's the kind of violence we think is a necessary evil.

Is it close?

The medical value of talking about the state someone's mental life is in, including my own, seems to indicate that there must be something to the matter, no? If we can set a leg after it's broken, then surely our thinking about bones and how they work helped us to do so.

So maybe mental states are the post hoc rationalizations, ala belief. But then what is it that makes us feel better, if it is not our mental state?

Are mental states propositional attitudes? Are propositional attitudes mental states? — Banno

I would think that a mental state would not be a propositional attitude, but a propositional attitude is a mental state. But not all mental states are about propositions, or are even necessarily about anything, so mental states are wider than propositional attitudes.

Are mental states individuals?

That is, can they be parsed by constants in first-order language... — Banno

I'm afraid that question eludes me.

Well, if we look at what philosophers actually do, then I'm inclined to say they talk, they write, they think, they reason, they ask questions, and they answer questions. I am not inclined to say that the Socratic method originated from a series of linguistic confusions. So clearly "just looking" is not enough.

So I'm hearing a few different claims from you then. At times you're saying that philosophers don't say anything interesting and at times you're saying that it is nonsensical and at times you're basing this off of not having heard what philosophers say from anyone other than philosophers.

I'm arguing against the claim that what philosophers say, in respect of metaphysics, is nonsense. My strategy is to use examples -- but thus far it seems to me that examples, for you, are either clearly philosophical and clearly nonsense, or clearly not-philosophical and clearly not interesting with respect to whatever it is that philosophers say.

Now, if philosophy is defined as that which is nonsensical of course that would follow just by definition. But it'd be a rather uninteresting theory of philosophy, given what you claim. So how do you sort what counts as philosophy?

Also, are you claiming simply that what philosophers say is uninteresting or not worth your time, or are you claiming that what philosophers say is strictly nonsense (with respect to metaphysics, of course)?

Independence day is coming up in the states. I often have similar feelings about it.

I think it's worth noting that your two examples are clearly medical. To go from them it would seem that a mental state is a belief about ourselves (in the Psychology today article) or to others (in the Royal Children's hospital article). I would say "concept", but I thought that might be more ambiguous than "belief"

So we go about thinking about mental states to either help ourselves feel better, or to assess whether others need help in feeling better.

Well it's nonsensical to talk about feeling like God. But for all intents and purposes you were tantamount to being a god, at least. That's what I meant. — Posty McPostface

What's the difference such that being a God is sensical, and feeling like God is nonsensical?

Is that important in some way? Dreams are self generated content, at least to the highest degree possible. — Posty McPostface

I suppose it depends on what one means by God. If we mean something akin to Zeus then maybe not. It just seems like everything depended on their being a world I have no control over -- that the real world is always first anyways, and the dreamworld is secondary to it.

Why not related? You have something tantamount to the power of a deity in a lucid dream. How is that not related? — Posty McPostface

I don't see it like that, I suppose. Just because experience changes doesn't mean I'm the creator of reality. I know it is a dream, after all, and not real. Or, the reality that it has is that of a dreamworld, in the way that my imagination has a kind of reality but it doesn't change the world I live in. Further, the dreamworld is bound to both my desires, which are part of the world, and even the experiences themselves are derivative of having the sort of experience that humans have, of a world where I have no control. I can change the scenery, so to speak, but it is always of the world I actually live in.

Have you ever read this book? It's very clear and lucid. Disagreements are spelled out. Reasons are given for why the author thinks this or that position is better or worse.

Seems convenient. :D

How about time? You have the A and B theories of time. This is metaphysics. I understand both. They are clear and easy to understand. We can meaningfully disagree on them.

Does the question of time also arise prior to metaphysics?

Am I alone in having a viscerally negative reaction to this sort of thinking? — Srap Tasmaner

Probably not :D

On the one hand, I think philosophy, much like science, begins in everyday efforts at reasoning in everyday situations. Do this more reflectively, more systematically, and you're doing something else, despite the origin, because you've changed the context, the goals, all sorts of things — Srap Tasmaner

I'd like to hear more from you on this argument. While I don't think there is a single point at which basic reasoning becomes philosophy, I would be interested in hearing what you believe philosophy to be as opposed to what the philosophy of is such that it seems ridiculous to claim that those engaged in some activity obviously do not have philosophical beliefs.

For me, as I said before, It's something that I'm open to saying I might be over-extending, but it's a belief that I can't unsee either.

I've also thought it ridiculous for philosophers to claim everyone is always taking philosophical positions, or that they're implied. It seems like an attempt at self aggrandizement, like the undergraduate who comes home for Christmas break and lectures his parents on their metaphysical assumptions.

(Are philosophers more prone than other sorts of scholars to worry that what they do is pointless? Do they feel more need than others to assert the importance of what they do?) — Srap Tasmaner

Well, I think there is a difference between doing philosophy and some activity. My thinking is more along the lines that if you have beliefs about whatever it is you are doing then you'll have beliefs which fall squarely within what counts as philosophical. And it seems to me that as people do things they also come to believe things about what they are doing -- so you'll have an engineer who believes that engineering is organized around such and such to such and such ends by such and such means. "Engineering" means something, and it is possible to count what is a part of engineering from what is not engineering or what is good engineering from what is bad engineering. Sometimes these are set up by the discipline itself -- there are collective rules which hold as a kind of grammar between engineers. They are widely agreed upon. And sometimes it's more a matter of taste.


But in either case we're dealing with the nature of the activity or what good it is for or how it should be done which are the sorts of questions that philosophers investigate.

The only way out of that is simply to not have beliefs about these things. But I don't know how you'd come to extirpate beliefs about what you're doing without engaging in some kind of philosophy. To me, at least, coming to believe such-and-such about what I am doing just comes naturally. So at one point, for instance, I had a certain set of beliefs about science, and as I came to do philosophy of science I changed those beliefs. But my starting beliefs were common sorts of answers to questions in the philosophy of science -- that science comes to approximate reality, that it is the best way to truth, that it is characterized by its methodology above all else.

So, yes, I could do science without questioning such beliefs. But I don't know what else I'd call those sorts of beliefs other than philosophical beliefs -- because there certainly isn't a science of science, for instance. And the debate on what is a good answer to various questions about science take on all the tools which philosophers develop.

They don't do it absent some kind of knowledge, mind. But it's not like in answering what the scope of scientific inquiry is means I'm doing either just science or just history.


For other activities I don't see why I'd not have beliefs of the same sort.

I hope this doesn't sound like a personal attack. It's not remotely. Just something I think about now and then. I'm hoping you can make such claims seem more reasonable than they seem to me now.

No worries. I hope I don't come across as having such thin skin that you worry about it too much just by expressing a philosophical belief or asking a question. Hopefully we'll both feel we have a better understanding of one another and ourselves by the end of it all.

Well, in the post I responded to you said there was no way to become versed in the discipline of metaphysics. But with the problem of consciousness, which is metaphysics, there is a way to become versed to a point where at least the disagreements can be understood. So you must hold that not all metaphysics is nonsense, when that seems to be what you were denying in the post I responded to -- you said you thought some questions were meaningful, but you haven't said that some of those that are meaningful are also metaphysical questions.

I'd say that this is inconsistent with your position that the question about consciousness is a meaningful question with an obvious answer. One can become versed in, say, the debate about consciousness. And the problem is clear enough that disagreement can take place. Yet, since this is a question about the nature of reality -- about what exists in reality -- it's also a case of metaphysics. So some philosophical questions either are not nonsense, or it does not count as a philosophical question.

But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question. When I exercise my powers as an English speaker, I don't know what's being asked. And since I know of no other criterion by which to make a question framed in English sensible, I conclude that it's nonsense. — Snakes Alive

Just because I cannot make sense of some question that does not then mean that the question is nonsense. There are many technical questions that I cannot make sense of. Or, perhaps I have been knocked across the head a few too many times and I just cannot grasp some questions anymore due to injury.

It could just be the case that I am ignorant. And however many times I may read a book on the topic I may remain ignorant because of an inability on my part. Such has been the case, many a time, with math for me. It's only through the patience of a mentor that I've been able to learn the math I have -- on my own? Forget it. It's not one of my natural talents.

Well, to be honest, I am at a disadvantage in that philosophy of law, specifically, isn't something I'm familiar with. I've been thinking mostly by analogy to the philosophy of science, which I am familiar with. I don't know to what extent those two overlap or could be treated as the same.

Scientists often express a lack of need for the philosophy of science. The problem there is that science involves reasoning, some of which has even changed over time in terms of what is acceptable or not, and it basically amounts to saying that the present philosophy of science as enshrined in the institutions of science are all you need. For a paycheck they are correct. But if one were to wonder something along the lines of "How does science work?" or "To what extent does scientific knowledge elucidate reality?" or "Does science prove that God does not exist?" or any number of questions which people do actually ask and feel they have answers to then you'd at least be pondering things which philosophy ponders, or answering philosophical questions without any philosophy.

Sure it's possible to do. But why settle for beliefs arrived at badly?


I'm not sure to what extent this would apply to the philosophy of law, though.

Good points. I was just using that as an example, but you're right to point out the very human concern with spelling out the nature of some practice, rather than just reaching for truisms that are unhelpfully circular.

I might be inclined to agree with the definition of law if it's no different from the mafia. :D But that's a thread too far astray to say more than that.

I agree with your method, though -- the distinction between something useful and something that appears useful is, itself, worth looking at, exploring, and attempting to define on purely pragmatic grounds.

So, does the fact that you can feel like god, in your dreamworld, and create, fly, or do pretty much anything you want some roundabout proof that the concept of 'God-hood' is actual? — Posty McPostface

I've had lucid dreams and I don't know if I'd say I felt like a God. In a lot of ways my lucid dreams were very much bound up with my desire and the play of my imagination. And, as remarkable as it may sound to be able to change the experience of the world I'm in, I could always tell it was a dream ,and the dream always mirrored things I'd already seen.

Nothing was ex nihilo.

Furthermore I'd say that there is something about dreaming which is deeply personal and semi-spiritual, as has been discussed already. But these are human needs.

The dreamworld, as I've experienced it at least, seems to be so thoroughly human that I don't think it proves the concept of "God-hood" as something which is actual, or even coherent. Not that this is a disproof, either -- I just don't think it's related.

Consider: a scientist may say that science is nothing more than what scientists do. But other scientists may disagree with that, on philosophical grounds. Because there is experience involved we can hope that there is some kind of knowledge to draw from, though it is quite possible that the scientists are philosophically naive and making some basic errors of judgment because of a lack of familiarity with philosophy.

And my neighbor may say the same thing, but without said experience or knowledge of either philosophy or science, in which case the answer may be right but there's no reason to follow along with their reasoning.

I'd pretty much go along with that. I tend to think that philosophy of [x] is neutered without experience with the [x]. So in philosophy of science you have an intense interest in the history of science. Many philosophers of science have also done science. But to say that the law is nothing more than

. . . what you must deal with, what you must comply with or evade (legally of course). It's the problem you want to resolve, the thing you want to take advantage of, something you'd like to see repealed, in the here and now. — Ciceronianus the White

is the philosophical position I'd say you've marked out. If someone were to define law without some knowledge of the law, be it in practice or in its history, then I'd probably not think their position was well founded. But that wouldn't invalidate their position, but rather their method -- they could have, after all, stumbled upon a good answer. They just don't have good reasons for it.