Are they any good?

"Like public, social cases of representation such as writing or mapmaking, intentional states such as beliefs have truth-value; they entail or imply other beliefs; they are (it seems) composed of concepts and depend for their truth on a match between their internal structures and the way the world is; and so it is natural to regard their aboutness as a matter of mental referring or designation. Sellars (1956, 1967) and Fodor (1975) argue that intentional states are states of a subject that have semantical properties, and the existent-or-nonexistent states of affairs that are their objects are just representational contents." SEP

So some philosophers will say that intentionality is essentially a kind of representation, semantic in character like the hard copy of a novel represents a story. If we focus on the "mention" part of use-mention, we're focusing on the form of our representing activity. If we focus on the "use" part, we mean the thing being represented.

The article goes on to discuss whether qualitative states (like redness) are representations in this sense or not. If you're interested, we could do a reading of this article.

When you think of the Big Bang, you just mean inflation, right? You're not adding a singularity to it, are you?

The guys at Nuremburg made the mistake of identifying with their jobs. "I am a soldier. Soldiers do what they're told."

Humans can decide what and who they're going to be, how they're going to be useful. You're human first. The job is a choice.

Sorry Frank, it is easy to misinterpret in this medium. My apology, if I offended. — boagie

Not at all. It's very easy to get defensive around these parts. Some of the participants are not here to discuss. They just want to dominate and be done with it. :yikes:

Actually, that is the essential point, energy is not an object/thing, and indeed without energy being processed through biological processes there would be no thing/object. I shall watch your video; will this show me the error of my ways? — boagie

I'm not attacking you. Just discussing stuff. I'm open to your point of view, truly. I think the video just explains that energy is not an object, so you probably already know that. :smile:

Modern science, however, tells us that matter is not made of matter and that all is energy — boagie

I don't know about that. Energy isn't actually a thing, per se. Awesome video on that:

Well, to start with I guess some basics must be accepted as fact, there are two concepts of reality, apparent reality which is our everyday reality, and that of ultimate reality; — boagie

I do agree with this. I wonder if it's a built in concept, stemming from understanding what it means to be wrong or mistaken.

Good. So we can conclude that mental activity requires additional glucose.

Now where is your example of additional glucose requiring features of physiology which provide no survival advantage yet persist over available alternatives? — Isaac

So now your argument is that anything that uses glucose must have a survival advantage? Why do you think that?

Your argument was as follows:

1. The brain is a high energy organ.
2. High energy organs are likely to have survival advantage.
3. The brain produces thinking.
4. Thinking must have a survival advantage. (from 2 and 3)
Conclusion: Since thinking must have a survival advantage, experience, if it exists, must have a survival advantage.

1 and 2 are true. And the brain most definitely provides a survival advantage since it regulates every life preserving function in the body.

3. Is probably true. We don't know all the details to how mental activity works.

4 doesn't follow, though. Thinking is only one of the things the CNS contributes to, but you're pinning all of the energy used by the brain on thinking.

The research you offered shows that some kinds of thinking are associated with glucose consumption. I don't doubt that.

If 'experiences' are some kind of mental activity, and evolution has not yet produced features which are energy intensive but also useless, then we can, quite rightly conclude that it is unlikely to do so here. — Isaac

Do you know of research that picks mental activity out from the rest of the CNS's activity an evaluates it for calorie usage? I don't even know how someone would do that.

I explained that. Thinking is one of the most calorie intensive actions we do. The brain is a very expensive organ. There are no examples in the natural world of traits evolved which are calorie intensive (or otherwise costly) which nonetheless survive in the face of competition.

If you are arguing that features can be costly and still evolve, and that evolved features have no correlation to survival (or sexual selection), then you are literally arguing against the theory of evolution by natural selection. — Isaac

The brain is an obligate glucose consumer, yes. The brain does more than think, though. It directs the neuro-endocrine system, which controls blood pressure, metabolism, digestion, pretty much the whole enchilada.

I thought your argument was that there's no clear survival advantage to having experiences. My point was that if that is so, it doesn't rule out experiences. Evolution doesn't dictate that every feature of an organism provides survival advantage.

or evolutionary benefit, if you're working within the same framework as me) — Isaac

Organisms may have features that have no evolutionary benefit.

:up:

That seems tantamount to accepting the ghost as ghost? Which could turn out to be appropriate, of course. I'm just pointing out an alternative. — bongo fury

Newton was accused of introducing mysticism into physics with the idea of gravity. He protested that he didn't know what it was, but was just pointing out that it is. If someone accepted Newton's answer to the charge of mysticism, would that be tantamount to accepting that gravity is mystical?

Semantic direct realism doesn't work on a number of fronts. One is because of multiple realizability, which, as the SEP article explains, is the reason non-reductionism is the prevailing view in philosophy of mind. Pain doesn't reduce to particular actions for the same reason it can't be reduced to mental states.

Having red or blue mental images in the brain, to meet that purpose, is kind of having a ghost in the machine.

Having the brain reach for suitable words or pictures, isn't. — bongo fury

And I appreciate this. You don't have to think of experience as a collection of ghosts, though. You can just note that you do see red, and leave it unexplained exactly how.

Semantic direct realism is afflicted with multiple realizability issues on steroids.

His teachings become like someone’s great-grandmother’s bone china dinner set, entirely too rare, valuable, and historic to actually be used at a dinner. — Art48

Nice. :grin:

Exactly that. I take aspirin because I'm in pain. It's not that me being in pain just is me taking aspirin. — Michael

:up:

What if we cut out the middle man ? 'Seeing red' is acting accordingly, etc. We wise others decide that you saw red because you stopped at the light. (Stopping at the light is part of seeing red.) — green flag

If you stopped at the light because you saw that it was red, seeing was the cause and stopping was the effect. How can the effect be part of the cause? That appears to be an abuse of language.

Perhaps you could tell me what is certain. Philosophy is wonder, mine is just reasonable conjecture. If you find the reasoning faulty, by all means, enlighten me. — boagie

I'm just asking what the justification would be for "for us, there is no direct knowledge of reality." What prompts you to say that? What's the grounding for it? If you were arguing for it, what would your argument be?

What did Russia think would happen? — RogueAI

Probably not that they would become a satellite of China, but that's the reality.

For us, it is our only subjective reality and for us, there is no direct knowledge of reality. — boagie

I guess the question then, is: how do you know this?

Finland joins NATO

The Penguin is very treacherous.

Trump has landed in the viper's den, New York, — NOS4A2

... where he was met at JFK by Cat Woman and the Penguin. They drove to Trump Tower where they met the Joker

That looks just like Bray-fart from Scotchland, London. — unenlightened

Could be the same guy?

My house has become a den of red, black, and white.
— frank

White Stripes fan? — Isaac

:lol: I used to listen to "Ball and a Biscuit" on the way to work.

None of which rules out the experience of redness.
— frank

No. The experience of 'redness' is ruled out by there being no evidence, nor need, for any such thing. — Isaac

I need it. My house has become a den of red, black, and white. I don't want curtains that cause me to reach for the word "red." I need red curtains.

Furthermore, I don't need red curtains that represent something I do. I just need the red curtains.

Let's dispense with the unnecessary abuse of language going on in this thread. :razz:

Fascism is a pretty general term these days, but it's exact meaning isn't the point. — Isaac

It shouldn't be. It had a specific meaning that we do well to keep in mind because it was associated with a disaster we don't want to repeat. Using it as an all purpose insult is a dishonor to all the victims of real fascism.

I can’t blame someone for getting on the tax-payer gravy chain — NOS4A2

Or gravy train. It's excellent gravy.

Secession from reality. — Michael

Could be.

And who is credibly accused of fomenting the January 6th secession — Wayfarer

There was no secession. Secession is when a state leaves the union.

Taking what we currently have, for example, and just ditching government regulation is fascism (it would be a fascism of corporate rule). — Isaac

Fascism is specifically about nationalism and an aggressive military. The ills of corporate rule are not correctly called "fascism ". It's just the dark side of liberalism.

I've given an account of the need to reduce external surprise from both an evolutionary perspective and from a purely systems theory perspective. any self identifying system has to combat entropy gradients (in terms of information) and those gradients are Gaussian. so we minimise surprise, we treat things consistently, and (to the best of our ability) in ways which give predictable results based on their actual external-world states. — Isaac

None of which rules out the experience of redness. In fact, your view is more consistent with first person data than opposed to it.

can't think of a single reason why would just go about asking each other what our private thoughts are called? — Isaac

I can't either. We ask things like: what's that red thing over there?

The question is... "in what way are we treating the post box?" — Isaac

It could have been: "what's that red thing over there?"

When we say "the post box is red" we don't mean that there's some thing 'redness' which the post box possesses, we're instead declaring and reconfirming our joint commitment to treating the post box a certain way. — Isaac

I don't think so. "The post box is red" is the answer to some question. Understand the question, and you'll understand the answer.

Ultimately all theories of meaning come down to: what was the question?

Eh, at this point it’s like whack-a-mole. Almost random snippets, but no consistency and no logic. Perhaps leave the man and his fascist agenda to his dreamworld and let him be happy with that. — Mikie

There's nothing random about his posts. They're very consistent and logical. If you familiarize yourself with fascism, you'll see that his view is exactly the opposite of it.

So you’re fine with restricting the rights of others if it suits your fascist agenda. — Mikie

There's absolutely nothing fascist about his agenda.

The point is, governments do not build roads. — NOS4A2

They could if they wanted to.

I meant construction companies do not collect taxes. — NOS4A2

It's not their job to collect taxes. They do receive public funds for public works, though.

Private companies build the vast majority of roads and infrastructure, and they don’t collect taxes. — NOS4A2

Those are toll roads. They do collect funds, they just don't call it taxes.