Would it be considered a panpaychism to theorize that what we consider unique about consciousness, its 'aboutness' and 'feeling of what it is like' , is not something inside a mind but the pre-condition for understanding any notion of existing things? — Joshs

I don't believe in materialism. In fact I used exclamation to show the irony in the statement. How consciousness which arises from material process can possibly affect the material process which created the consciousness. I don't believe in panpaychism too. I don't think a collective experience can have causal effect. There should be at least a mind.

You'll find this kind of thinking in its embryonic form in James and Dewey, and in Husserl.
It's been developed in many directions by enactive embodied cognitive scientists and philosophers who are incorporating the ideas of phenomenology. I particularly recommend the work of Shaun Gallagher. Also Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson. — Joshs

Thanks for the references.

I should have written "No, an indeterminate state could not lead into many determinate things since it is indifferent.". I don't know why I made such a mistake. Sorry for that.

Double post. Deleted.

Now you're contradicting yourself. — Janus

No. Why?

Do you have an argument for why something determinate cannot proceed from something indeterminate? — Janus

Yes, an indeterminate state could lead into many determinate things since it is indifferent.

Continuing your example, say there is a determinable state A followed by a determinable state B, and we call the transition from the first to the second states 'C'. You claim that C must be "nothing". I say that it must be an indeterminable state because "nothing" is impossible. C is something but it is not a determinable something. — Janus

C cannot be an indeterminate state. How could you get something determinate, B, from something indeterminate, C? You need nothing to allow changes and mind to know, and perform changes.

Provocative. But meaningful? — tim wood

Meaningful?

What is a "tendency"? What does it mean to say that "everything has a tendency to reach an end"? What is an "end"? — tim wood

Sorry, I should have gave some examples: (1) A stone which is rolling down a hill. Tendency means that it is under a force to move in a given direction. The end is the bottom of hill, (2) A person who is looking to reach to a purpose or fulfill a feeling. Tendency is clear in this case clear. The end is the purpose or state of pleasure due to fulfilling a feeling. (3) The capacity that material turns into intellectual beings. Etc.

Are perfection and end the same, in different words? — tim wood

Perfection is the end, no further or lower is allowed.

Or are they different? — tim wood

The end is one instance of an end.

What is the difference? — tim wood

There is a difference. You cannot go further than the end but you can go further than an end. Perfection is the end. The state of pleasure due to fulfilling a feeling is an end. There exist not an further point for the end but there exist another feeling to fulfill for example.

What is motion, in your usage? — tim wood

Change in a stuff, matter for example.

Who judges what is imperfect? — tim wood

Everyone with a simple judgment who can experience change.

If imperfection exists and God didn't create it, then where did it come from? — tim wood

That is a very good question? God's act should be perfect since He is perfect so He cannot create something less than God.

And, finally, what do you mean by God? — tim wood

The creator. The one who is perfect.

Philosophy, if that is what you're about, is not about being clever. It is about being - trying to be - thoughtful, and engaging others in thoughtful discussion — tim wood

I hope that thing is more clear now. I had no intention to look clever. These are questions which come to my mind and I would like to share them to others for solutions. Thanks for you patience. :)

We have of course no reason to assume that our discrete representations are literally representative of a discrete reality undergoing state transitions, for we never observe precise and static states undergoing transition, rather we just see a fuzzy dynamic procession that we carve up into neat pieces for sake of approximate analysis. — sime

I don't know whether the reality is discrete or continuous. Regardless you can develop a same model for continuous case.

So perhaps you argument should be interpreted as a modus-tollens that leads to a rejection this assumption, rather than an argument for a separate mental substance. — sime

You are left with mere experience, if we accept that experience is by product of physical activity, which does not have any causal power. To be honest I believe on mind but I don't understand what is the use of brain when it comes to experience and act.

I'm not even sure how introducing an overseer solves the problem without introducing it at another level. — sime

What is another problem?

I'm not saying that identity theory doesn't have any problems. I'm saying that materialism doesn't entail epiphenomenalism, and so to attack materialism by attacking epiphenomenalism doesn't make sense. — Michael

Do you agree with the definition of materialism in OP? If yes, there is no room left for consciousness since physical process determine everything. We also know that identity theory is not right therefore consciousness and physical process cannot be same.

I'm saying that that is what some materialists will claim. See The Mind/Brain Identity Theory. Contrary to your repeated claims, materialism doesn't entail epiphenomenalism. — Michael

But there are several objections to identity theory (quoted from Mind: A Brief Introduction by John R. Searle):
"There were a number of objections to the identity theory. I find it useful to distinguish between the technical objections and the common-sense objections. The first technical objection was that the theory seemed to violate a principle of logic called “Leibnitz’s Law.”11 The law says that if any two things are identical, then they must have all their properties in common. So if you could show that mental states had properties that could not be attributed to brain states, and brain states had properties that could not be attributed to mental states, it looks like you would refute the identity theory. And it did not seem difficult to provide such examples. So I can say, for example, that the brain state that corresponds to my thought that it is raining is 3 cm inside my left ear; but, according to the objectors, it does not make any sense to say that my thought that it is raining is 3 cm inside my left ear. Furthermore, even for conscious states that have a location, such as pain, the pain may be in my toe, but the brain state that corresponds to that pain is not in my toe, but in my brain. So the properties of the brain state are not the same as the properties of the mental state. Therefore, physicalism is false."

The point is that we have to know how to reach from A to B. That requires nothing between. It cannot be something, lets call it C, since we need to know how to reach from A to C.

What does it mean to be a physical process as opposed to a non-physical process?

Computers are excellent analogies of the mind-body relationship. What the software on the computer does is dependent on input (bottom-up). The computer then produces output based on the interaction of the software and the input (top-down).

The computer can be designed to learn - to change it's programming on the fly based on new input, which can be it's own output.

The physical vs. non-physical distinction is the illusion. When consciousness is caused and causes, in a relationship with the world, talking about different substances is ridiculous. It is neither physical nor non-physical. It is all information. — Harry Hindu

I don't know anything like non-physical process.

Thanks for the article.

Do causes even exist?

If causes do not exist, does any question about materialism even matter? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, cause exists. It explains how a piece of matter affects another piece.

What I think is important here is that my thought sets off a chain of physical processes that end up with my arm going up. — Cavacava

What is missing in his argument is that how a thought is created and can have a causal effect.

The brain state is the physical process. That brain state causally influences the world, most notably the central nervous system. All of this can be seen. — Michael

That is the process which does the job. The brain state is an simple index which we use to differentiate different state from each other. Are you suggesting that brain state is consciousness?

If consciousness is the result certain potential processes of matter which occurs only when matter is constructed in a certain manner this suggests a form of panpsychism. This is the only coherent answer I have found and to believe otherwise I think is to believe in some sort of magic. — Cavacava

I can buy that but the question is whether consciousness has any causal effect at all. We know it by fact that we learn things when we pay attention to them. This means that consciousness has a causal effect on physical process which created it!

I'm just saying that the present-day 'materialist' or physicalist argument is more sophisticated than this. Their argument is that there is a set of explanations that use 'mental' language, as yours does, and that this is a rational set of explanations, but that nevertheless there is ultimately an underlying physical explanation, but without a one-to-one correspondence between the 'mental' event and the 'physical' event. Instead the one supervenes on the other. That's their argument. As I say, I don't agree with it, but in my view you need a better argument than the one you've come up with so far to deny supervenience. — mcdoodle

That is the best materialist argument that I know. Do you have or know a better argument than that? Any reference?

The study referenced in the article doesn't actually show that. It shows that we're better at learning when we're conscious, not that we're better at learning because of consciousness.

It might be that consciousness emerges from brain state A but doesn't emerge from brain state B and that brain state A helps with learning. This explains the findings of the study without inferring that consciousness plays a causal role. — Michael

Could you learn the content of a book while unconsciously reading it and your consciousness is busy with somewhere else, listening to music for example?

This doesn't follow. Under materialism it can be that consciousness has a causal effect because consciousness is a physical process. Your starting assumption – that consciousness isn't a physical process – is anti-materialist. — Michael

So we have a physical process which cause a brain state which is a physical process, lets call it mental process, yet the mental process affects the physical process? So you won't see that my particles obey laws of nature if you look at them?

Personally I'm not a 'materialist'. But the article you quote can be easily accommodated within a materialist/physicalist account. Either 'conscious awareness' is itself physiologically based, or it supervenes on the physical here. — mcdoodle

Under materialism, consciousness cannot have any causal effect on the state of affair since the state of affair is defined in term of physical process. This leads to epiphenomena. What I am arguing is that consciousness has a causal effect on state of affair therefore materialism, given the definition in OP, is not correct.

Can we agree on definition of materialism given in OP?

If consciousness is causally efficacious then epiphenomenalism isn't correct. Materialism doesn't depend on epiphenomenalism. In fact, materialism probably excludes epiphenomenalism. — Michael

No. Materialism leads to epiphenomalism. Consider physical process as vertical. Consciousness is the result of physical process but vertical, down-up. Consciousness cannot affect the state of affair, up-down, since the state of affair has already been defined by physical process. Therefore we are dealing with epiphenomena.

Therefore, even though during the transformation from A to B, neither A or B exist, by B being the only outcome of A's transformation, the transformation will take place by passing through a series of events whose sum will result in the formation of B. — Daniel

The problem is when neither B or A exist. This means that you have nothing so this question becomes relevant that how you could have B from nothing?

We are a collection of self-aware entities sharing different realities. Everything is conscious. To be honest I cannot understand anesthesia.

THERE ARE NO STATES in continuous movement. Zeno's paradoxes smartly demonstrate this. — Rich

I am not talking about continuous movement. In fact my argument is about a discrete movement.

How about it is no longer there, when experienced? Given the time involved in perceptual processing
or It is not as experienced? Given the limitations of perception and the filtering and organization of the perceptual process. — prothero

That is what I am trying to say: What we experience is no longer there. Experience is always comes after existence. This means that there is nothing exist when we experience. The delay due to process (which turns input to mental state) is one obstacle.

Does mind create and destroy "Reality"? — prothero

Yes, we do it all the times. We can create and destroy thoughts. Thoughts are in motion and we have the ability to make them static.

Does mind exist outside of "Reality"? — prothero

Mind to me are ambiguous things. They don't have any location since they are not like stuff out there, physical, yet they could somehow interact with the stuff.

Not as I understand the meaning of the terms but we likely have a language problem as well as a philosophical one. — prothero

Yes, I am not a philosopher and English is not my first language. Thanks for your patience.

Consider three movements:

1) S is hypothesized — Cavacava

Ok.

2) S becomes destabilized as it it is negated (-S) — Cavacava

What is -S? Could you give an example? In my case annihilation just destroys S and leaves us by noting whether S is the ironess of iron or thought for example.

3) S' the synthesis of S & -S

Determinate negation. — Cavacava

What is &? Do you wanted to write "S' is the synthesis of S & -S"?

How could you embed the mind between?

I don't understand what you are arguing against. Form is nothing than state.

You cannot deny that the stuff we experience has a form, meaning that it is in specific state.

There Mind is creating new forms by use of will and it is recognizing and conceiving forms by use of memory but it is not annihilating. — Rich

Memory of past is what is experienced, S and also those state before S.

I don't think you're paying enough attention to what you wrote. The experience of S is not S, and the experience of S occurs only in the mind that experiences it. — tim wood

Yes, that is correct. I never said that S and its experience are same.

There are then two sorts of changes to account for. First, the real change in the experience, and second, the presumed change in S itself. — tim wood

The change in experience is the result of perceiving S and later S'.

Both accounts are tedious to reproduce. — tim wood

Not really. Here I am arguing that having S, one agent can be conscious of S and then he annihilates S and then create S'.

Mainly, your argument is just a riff on Zeno: the arrow doesn't move, Achilleus never crosses the finish and never beats the tortoise, and so forth. The trick is usually in having a correct understanding of the sum of an infinite series. But it's all a twice-told story. Why bring it up (again) here? — tim wood

My argument has nothing to do with Zeno argument. What I am arguing is that you need a mind with ability to annihilate and create in order to have motion.

That is content of your mind which changes.

I have no idea what Laws you are experiencing. I am (my mind) is experiencing all kinds of things, but certainly not Laws. The Mind made up the Laws of Nature as it did God. It is a story. A myth. The Mind likes creating myths and stories. It's fun. — Rich

I think there is a reason, more than being fun, behind this, since this is not fun at all.

I followed you through the point where you argued that if State A changed to State B, there had to be some amount of time between those states where either A and B existed simultaneously or where neither existed, but I don't follow your solution that the mind is able to exist without being subject to the same problem. — Hanover

Mind does not change. What it experiences changes.

Of course there is the laws of nature. We experience it in any moment of our lives. Mind is however dominate to the laws of nature.