I prefer asking what it's like to be a bat, or whether a computer simulated world could have conscious inhabitants. — Marchesk

What is it like to be a bat? I suppose this line from Nagel, as much as any other in our tradition, directs us to the heart of the matter in these discourses, the thing I've been calling subjective experience with phenomenal character.

To answer in good faith the question, what is it like, the introspective phenomenologist must acknowledge the unity of experience, the integration of phenomena, the original synthesis of the manifold... and make room in his account for a whole phenomenology of nature. Empirical science is a most rigorous and complete phenomenology of nature, grounded in the ongoing investigation of appearances.


Could a computer simulation contain genuinely conscious characters? To me this seems an empirical question we're not currently in position to answer at this point in the history of our empirical culture. I tend to like Searle in these regions. Our conceptions of sentience, awareness, consciousness, cognition... seem informed by our own experience as sentient things, and by our recognition of other things that appear in the world along with us and seem likewise sentient. It seems reasonable to say that the only things in the world we have to date encountered that clearly count as sentient things are animals. It seems reasonable to expect investigation to reveal that there are biological bases to consciousness, and to direct empirical investigation accordingly.

Taking that much for granted, I suppose it is a distinct empirical question, whether consciousness may also be produced in other ways, by other biological or nonbiological means.

But it seems an error to suppose that consciousness can be produced merely by winding enough of the right sort of "information processing" into an AI program. To wit, Searle's Chinese room.

There is nothing it is like to be a simulated mind.

I am certain many of you here have thought about why you exist at one point in your life. Is it to pig out and resemble an animal than a human being? Is it to pretend this life is paradise and try to make it as enjoyable as possible? Is it to blur and dull your consciousness through drugs? We all have our personal beliefs. Contribute and tell us why you exist. — jorgealarcon

I see no reason to speak as if "existence" were purposive. A carbon molecule, a stone, a thunderbolt, a galaxy... may be said to "exist", but not by the same token to be purposive.

A sentient agent is purposive. It acts with purpose. Animals like us experience feelings of impulse, appetite, desire, emotion. Feelings of this sort provide us with motives to purposive action. If it's right to say a dog feels hunger, then I suppose it must be right to say a dog is aware of its own hunger, much as I am aware of my own hunger when I feel it. Of course it seems absurd to claim that a hungry dog sitting ready at its bowl in the face of reliable signs that food is about to be served, has no idea what it's doing or why. The dog's action has a purpose motivated, in this case, by a feeling of appetite. The dog understands its own actions and its own purposes in its own way.

Each of us has motives and purposes in action, like the dog. As human animals, our conceptual, cultural, and practical capacities are more powerful, refined, and adaptable than the dog's, so we have a wider range of potential purposes and actions, including deliberative techniques, and can learn to recognize a wider range of motives at work in ourselves and in others. We may even stumble into a conception, and aspire to the corresponding ideal, of uniting all our action "under a single purpose".

I see no reason to speak, however, as if any of us, dogs or human beings, is born into the world with a definite special purpose in action corresponding uniquely to the individual animal or to is kind.


I see no reason to suppose that each human being has the same single purpose in action as all the others, whether he knows it or not, whether he wants it or not. One might argue that this thought, the thought that individual agents or species of agent each has a unique or special purpose in action for all time, assigned to it by its nature, involves a conflation of multiple conceptions of "purpose". These three, at least, seem relevant:


i) In the first place, there is the conception of the distinct "purposes" (ends, objects) corresponding to distinct purposive actions undertaken purposively by motivated sentient agents.

I've already suggested there seems no reason to suppose that all agents or each agent must have a single basic or unifying purpose in this sense, a single reason for acting in each instance, by its nature.


ii) The agent's purposes in action are, so to speak, projected through the tools, and plans, and other means employed by the agent in an attempt to achieve purposive ends.

We design and build hammers for pounding and tapping. We use hammers when there are things we mean to pound and tap. Along these lines, we may say all good hammers have the same purpose; and we may distinguish various sorts of hammer according to various special functions that hammers may serve. We apply the same instrumental conception of purpose when we breed dogs to be good retrievers, guards, or affectionate companions, and when we breed horses to race, to carry heavy loads long distances, or to serve as warriors' mounts in battle.

I bestow an instrumental purpose to the horse when I yoke it to my own purposes in action. Would you ask me, what instrumental purpose does the horse serve, in itself, at all times, apart from any such connection to the specific practical concerns of other sentient agents? Of course the horse has no such single purpose, and the human being has no such single purpose, and no thing has any such purpose. There is no such thing as such a purpose. The thought of such a purpose seems ill-conceived.

Along these lines it would seem the claim that each of us has "a purpose" by nature, if this claim were not self-defeating, would entail that each of us is another's tool.


iii) It seems we may form a coherent conception of "purpose" according to which each thing that exists has the same sort of purpose-in-existence: to be exactly what it is.

From one point of view this is an empty tautological formula. From another point of view, compatible with the former, it is a marginally useful claim that may help the rational imagination guide the human agent by characterizing totality, by demonstrating the limits of reason, and by providing a rational basis for a sense of conceptual completeness and satisfaction. Behold, the harmony of all things.

Of course, apart from that generic instructive force, this conception of purpose has no definitive content. It doesn't tell us anything about the specific values and ends that guide our action as sentient animals.

Marx outlined two phases of progress that must be completed before communism can prevail. Essentially, he outlined the reason why we should move from capitalism to socialism, and finally from socialism to communism.

However, I don't believe we will ever be able to make the leap from socialism to communism. — Wallows

What's the difference between socialism and communism according to you and Marx?

Here's why... Socialism is the golden mean between the benefits of progress and prosperity that competition entails under capitalism, — Wallows

What, according to you, are "the benefits of progress and prosperity" entailed by capitalist competition?

What are the drawbacks, or socioeconomic costs, associated with those "benefits", and with the capitalist economic system that, by your account, entails these benefits?

whilst preserving the benefits of the proto-communist state through high taxation and redistributive policies. — Wallows

What are the "benefits" of the proto-communist state? Why proto- here, and not all the way?

Is taxation essential? Can't they just do away with money entirely, and distribute labor and other resources according to whatever reasonable consensus may be achieved in good faith by the community of human beings?

What are the constraints on this exercise in political imagination?

However, given my understanding of the issue, when no more progress can be instilled through capitalism, such as machines replacing the labor force (which will happen soon), then there is a shift in the balance towards the appeal of communism. — Wallows

I suppose that's one way things could go.

When does it happen that a capitalist socioeconomic organization loses the capacity "to make progress"?

Perhaps you've heard the same sort of rumors I've heard along these lines: The capitalist system tends to generate socioeconomic crises by periodically misallocating resources. But why should we expect that some period of crises will put a definitive end to the sort of economic system we call capitalist? Doesn't it seem about as likely that capitalism will continue to adapt itself to historical circumstances? I see no reason to suppose we can predict the outcome, as if according to some Gothic teleology.

What are you? A body made up of cells that is somehow able to 'think' ?
A mind that creates the illusion of a body, and everything around it, which raises a lot of questions of course.
Or a body with a mind?
The third one seems the most compelling to most people, but is it true? — Anirudh Sharma

I'm not sure these three items are mutually exclusive alternatives, at least the way you've framed them here.

To all appearances, I am a human animal, and a human animal is a sort of living thing, a sort of sentient thing, a sort of cultural thing, and a sort of discursive thing.

I have some idea what it means to say a sentient animal "has a mind". But I'm not sure what it might mean to say a sentient animal "is a mind", or in what discursive contexts I should be inclined to speak accordingly.

Likewise, I see no reason to suppose the thing we call "my mind" can exist apart from some physical system in which mental operations are instantiated, as they are grounded in the body of this animal here.

Neuroscience has been trying to work out the intricate mechanism of thinking, but we haven't quite grasped it, not to say that it won't be explained in the next few decades.This to many, is a scary thought. — Anirudh Sharma

What is the scary thought here? That it may take more than a few decades to explain some things?

I see no reason to expect there's a determinate end to explanation. Explanation will continue, as long as we continue.

I may find this thought hopeful, not frightening.

It means that I am just a collection of cells, and nothing more, which means I am insignificant! — Anirudh Sharma

How does a delay in pending empirical knowledge imply anything about what sort of thing you are? I suppose it implies you are thing complex enough to require more than a few decades to sort out.

Doesn't this strike you as another rosy outlook? And so much for your claims of insignificance -- you baffler of 21st century science!

This does not scare me though, because if we are a collection of cells, and nothing matters, then how does this matter? — Anirudh Sharma

I admire your courage. Nevertheless, I hope you'll agree, there's nothing here to fear.

To say that I am a collection of cells is not to say I am "merely" a collection of cells. Some biological organisms are sentient biological organisms.

It seems a great many things matter to sentient animals like us, whether we want them to or not. There is no escape from meaning and significance in this life.

None of us is a blank slate.

Another thing that pushes me towards thinking we are, indeed just a body is things like OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder), where one isn't in complete control of their thoughts, due to some difference in the structure of the brain. — Anirudh Sharma

Perhaps you anticipate that I see no problem here. For on the sort of account I favor, the mind of the animal is rooted in the body.

Hi, CurlyHairedCobbler here. I'm a member of an interfaith family containing Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, and Christians. Having been exposed to so many interesting and conflicting views, I've developed an interest in theology. I believe that reason is the best tool for answering questions about the being and the nature of the divine. I am a rationalist not only in the common language sense of believing in the power of reason to uncover truths, but also in the philosophical sense of believing that some truths can be known a priori, regardless of sense experience. — CurlyHairedCobbler

What do you mean by "the divine"? Does this phrase indicate anything different from the "theos" in "theology"?

On what grounds do you claim that "reason is the best tool for answering questions about the being and the nature of the divine"? Would you also say reason is the best tool for formulating questions about those same subjects, and for criticizing questions about those same subjects without answering the questions per se?

How can we tell when reason is the best tool for formulating, criticizing, and answering a range of questions on a given subject matter? When is reason not among the best tools for formulating, criticizing, and answering a range of questions on a given subject matter? Or is the point rather that in some cases we proceed in the light of reason as well as the senses, and in other cases we proceed in the light of reason alone, without any evidence whatsoever to inform our speeches?

By "questions about the being of the divine", do you mean questions about whether it makes sense to speak of something called "the deity" or "the divine" as a thing that "exists"? Do we likewise inquire about the being, which is to say the existence, of stones, and plants, and animals, and human animals, and the bombs and bread produced and consumed by human animals? And similarly we ask about number and magnitude, about justice and morality, about electrons and observable phenomena explainable in terms of electrons... asking ourselves and each other whether and in what sense it makes sense to say such things "exist" or "do not exist"?


What do you mean by "questions about the nature of the divine"? How do we inform our conceptions and resolve doubts and disputes concerning the "nature" of a thing? Would you agree the answer to this question may be approached at least in part by considering the "bases" on which we, who speak together here, are informed about the relevant objects?

It seems each of us, in acquiring knowledge of the empirical world, for instance, acquires conceptions of various sorts of object and conceptions of particular objects of various sorts; conceptions informed on the basis of sense-perception in various modes; and each of us refines these conceptions against the grindstone of his own experience as a participant in a cultural context inhabited and produced by human animals.

I would argue that some objective judgments -- for instance judgments of quantity, magnitude, and number, judgments of modality, judgments of existence, judgments of truth-value, judgments of similarity and difference; judgments of observational modality, judgments of phenomenal qualities such as color and pitch -- seem to entail generic conceptions that touch upon the very form of the experience of minds like ours, and likewise seem grounded in our being as animal organisms.

Are those fair examples of the sort of deep-rooted concept you call "a priori"? And would you claim that at least some of our conceptions of "the divine" and of "the deity" indicate deep-rooted concepts of this sort?

I haven't read every post and I didn't see people arguing with you about that, but yes. That's what a p-zombie is. — Terrapin Station

I don't recall anyone arguing about it, but on my read it's been tough to ferret what consensus there may be about the definition we're trying here; and occasionally an interlocutor's remark has led me to wonder if we have different conceptions in mind.

I normally prefer to clear up terms in philosophical conversation before proceeding to agreements and disagreements.


Now at least there are two of us signed on to the same formulation, a formulation which seems adequate for present purposes on my end.

I can't figure out if it's the end or beginning, Terrapin.

The receiver of said creative product comes to be blindsided by their social contract with the creator, who no longer has interest in upholding their part of the implicit social contract. The receiver is now coming to the table with the intention of paying to receive that media that the creator has only offered with an intention to subsist his/herself — kudos

I'm not sure I follow. What does it mean to say the receiver is blindsided?

How deep does this contract go? Isn't it only a contract for the seller to supply to the buyer a product for which there is some demand?

The contract itself does not specify the socioeconomic conditions in which this transaction takes place.

It could be one loves nothing better than the cottage manufacture of fine artisanal widgets. Now if I'm making them anyway, and people want to pay me for as many widgets as I see fit to part with, at prices I see fit to accept.... Doesn't this have the markings of a happy bargain?

So far as I can see, the problem is not with the generic logic of the transaction, but with the socioeconomic conditions in which the exchange is embedded.

Could be I'm sick of widgets, but don't see what other option I have, short of watching my family starve on the streets.

This has it backwards. Our color concepts come from experience prior to any scientific understanding of optics, and then they were mapped onto the science as a correlation with our color experiences. — Marchesk

It seems to me I have it the right way, and go a bit further than you allow. I trace the phenomena to the places they seem to appear, even when they appear outside heads.

Our color concepts are informed by a collective experience of color embedded in our language.

Our experience of color, in its turn, is informed by colored objects: light of various ranges of wavelengths, and other things that emit and reflect light of various wavelengths.

So it seems, to all appearances.

This is where the scientific explaining away of the phenomenal goes wrong. It assumes science is apriori and experience comes after. But it's the other way around. Science comes from experience. Its basis is empiricism. — Marchesk

I would reject the claim that the story I tell about color "explains away the phenomenal"; and I believe that story is in line with a contemporary scientific account of color.

I strongly agree, science is rooted in experience of the empirical world. I say science is nothing but a rigorous and systematic extension of ordinary empirical knowledge. Perhaps this indicates a range of common ground? On the other hand, I'm not sure what connection you're trying with this particular line of argument. I've never heard anyone speak in a way that suggested "science is a priori and experience comes after". What do you mean here?

@Marchesk @Janus @Harry Hindu

Maybe I should press this definitional issue:

The p-zombies about which I've heard rumors are not just

i) any AI that passes the Turing test; nor just

ii) any AI automaton that passes the Turing test and outwardly resembles a human and is normally mistaken for a human under a wide range of ordinary circmstances; but rather are

iii) biological creatures physically and behaviorally indistinguishable from human beings (which thus of course pass the Turing test), which creatures -- by definition in these discourses, if yet somehow inexplicably -- lack the thing we here agree to call "subjective experience with phenomenal character".


Isn't it, specifically, the third sort of hypothetical construct we consider in the zombie discourses?

P-zombies would use language in a way that would never refer to colors or sounds or feelings. They would use language in a way that refers to the causes of colors and sounds and feelings. They wouldn't use terms like, "red", "loud" or "painful". They would use terms like "680 nanometers" (the wavelength of EM energy that is registered as "red" in the mind), "amplitude", or "injury". In a sense they would use language as if they had a view from no where. They would never say that an apple is red. They could only say that the apple is ripe. — Harry Hindu

The two idioms you gesture at here, which I might distinguish as ordinary language and scientific language, are both cultural products of human animals, cumulatively informed by experience of the empirical world as it appears to us.

I see no reason to suppose that p-zombies -- which are by definition in these discourses, I take it, physically and behaviorally identical to human beings -- would prefer either one of these idioms any more than we do.

You seem to take for granted that the term "red" is primarily subjective. On what grounds would you support such a claim? Concepts like the concepts of red, loud, and painful all seem to have objective associations and criteria, so far as I can tell. They're less precise than the measurements made by those equipped to measure more precisely; but isn't that precision mainly a matter of the instrument employed, not of the distinction between subject and object? I mean, for instance in the first case, the naked eye, and in the second -- what do we use for that -- a spectrometer (the output of which is available to us via the naked eye or some other sense-receptor)?

The question I have is how does a 680 nanometer wavelength of EM energy convert into the color red? I can imagine wavelengths as black wavy lines and then I can imagine a blotch of the color red as two separate things. Are Graziano and Dennett both saying that there are no wavelengths of EM energy and that red exists out in the world which we access directly? — Harry Hindu

I haven't read enough Dennett to answer for him, and I don't believe I'm acquainted with Graziano.

I'm not sure I'd follow you in saying that "wavelengths convert into colors". To me it makes more sense to say that our color concepts range over physical objects. The word "red" is a name primarily for wavelengths of a certain frequency-range with fuzzy boundaries; and is a name derivatively for physical objects that emit or reflect light of the specified range "in ordinary circumstances". I would argue that much traditional puzzling over "secondary qualities" consists in pseudoproblems and misconceptions, and should be cleared up through a rehabilitation of our concept of perception.

What "converts" red light into an experience of red light and an experience of objects that emit or reflect red light? Cognitive systems like ours with sense receptors like ours.

It’s entirely possible for me as a creator to endow an artwork or software program with creativity and exhibit it to an audience without anyone’s assistance besides large web hosting middlemen. It could be a complete blast and it could stay within those pleasure constraints to maintain reason for continuing the project. In this sense I meant it is different from ‘work’ as selling my labour or time to a company in exchange for means of subsistence. Because then I would not have complete freedom only to enjoy the process. The idea is in agreeing to the power structure of essentially working for these companies we implicitly disallow work, or else become a sort of slave. That is, unless the act had some other significance like what we’ve been discussing. — kudos

This sounds about right to me.

Perhaps we can define a "free worker" in terms of freedom from the socioeconomic need to exchange one's own labor for other economic goods and services. I suppose one who may reasonably expect access to an adequate supply of economic goods for the remainder of his or her lifetime, without any formal obligation to exchange labor in return, is not subject to the same forces of coercion by economic means.

A p-zombie is missing the experience of color, sound, taste, smell, feels. Thus it has no subjectivity. The zombie is identical in every other way. — Marchesk

I'll say it has no "subjective experience with phenomenal character"; but allow that it does have simulated subjectivity. It has features we ordinarily associate with subjectivity: It seems to have a point of view; it seems to observe and report reliably; it seems to act rationally with respect to a priority of values and purposes; it acquires, organizes, reports on, and otherwise acts on "information" about its environment, including the part of its environment we identify with the thing in question.

There are some interesting consequences for this argument. An identical p-zombie universe would still have all the same stories we have. But many stories have first person points of view. So how do p-zombies understand reading or watching someone's thoughts or dreams? How do they make sense of a character undergoing intense emotion not apparent to other characters? — Marchesk

Arguably the p-zombies, as well as some sorts of advanced AI, would each have a sort of first-person point of view. I mean, we can say they make reliable introspective reports analogous to ours. For instance about states of appetite and emotion, about goals and plans and intentions, pains, sense-perceptions, memories, daydreams....

Their observations and reports about things outside them as mediated by sense-receptors will be as fine-grained and reliable as ours; and their observations and reports about things inside them as mediated by "introspective processes" will be as fine-grained and reliable as ours. I believe this comes by definition in these discourses; this is part of what it means to be a p-zombie, if there could be such a thing.

Can we posit any cogent distinctions between these "simulations" and reflexive awareness, cognitive equipment, knowledge of self and introspective bases of non-inferential knowledge acquisition? — Janus

Do you mean, what's the difference between the imitation and the genuine article? As I've noted, this seems to me a definitional question, at least in part.

The difference I have in mind is the one I've been chattering about here under the unhappy label "subjective experience with phenomenal character". If there is such a thing, then I suppose ultimately it's an empirical question, which sorts of things in the world have and which do not have subjective experience with phenomenal character.

Once we posit -- the way we do in these strange discourses -- such a difference, we might consider the application of the distinction in relevant fields, to see where there may be lines or fuzzy boundaries to draw among similar objects.


Some of us claim it's self-evident that human animals have subjective experience with phenomenal character. Perhaps the claim that "something exists" is self-evident in a similar way. Both claims seem supported by the fact of experience, of experience like this, the experience of minds like ours.

As I noted a moment ago in my previous post, the hard problem here is that when you try to abstract this putative "subjective experience" from all the objective states of affairs, you come up against the limits of expression and ineffability.


I would put the burden on those who deny there is such a thing as experience in the sense in question. For it seems evident that there are appearances, and that things like us are appeared to.

What motivates p-zombie Chalmers to make arguments for the hard problem, since the hard problem cannot exist by definition in the p-zombie universe? — Marchesk

I haven't read much Chalmers.

I take it the problem can exist in a p-zombie universe, as an object of discourse and figment of rational imagination.

That's correct, but it'd kind of a big deal to deny the phenomenal aspect, yes? — Marchesk

Evidently some of the professionals paid to philosophize and to instruct students in their art seem to think it's a pretty big deal. Me personally, I'm not sure there's any deal here at all. It may yet turn out to have been another of those pseudoproblems on which philosophers squander social resources, misleading and confusing each other along with the laity, leaving their own special mess in the literature for two or three generations until academic fashions shift professional attention to some new fantastic output of the rational imagination.

But here we are. I take it part of what's at issue in the zombie discourses is whether we should count cognition without subjective experience and phenomenal character as a form of genuine cognition, or whether we should insist that seeming-cognition without anything like subjective phenomenal character is not genuine cognition, but only, at best, a simulation.

Of course philosophers who deny that any of us have subjective experience with a phenomenal character do not thereby deny that any of us are conscious, in some sense of the term. Likewise, those of us who insist that human consciousness ordinarily involves subjective experience with a phenomenal character do not thereby deny that it is possible for a thing to be conscious in some sense of the term without resembling us in that one respect.

It seems the difficulties in this conversation are in part merely terminological. Perhaps we'd be better prepared for our conversation about zombies if we'd first clear up our use of relevant terms by considering differences and similarities among humans, nonhuman animals, and artificial intelligences, none of which (here by definition) are zombies. I mean terms like "consciousness", "self-consciousness", "sentience", "awareness", "experience", "cognizance", "cognition", "knowledge", "observation", "perception", "introspection", and so on.

Suppose we claim that any AI that passes the Turing test but does not have subjective experience with phenomenal character is not "conscious", but only an artificial simulation of a conscious thing; for, according to us, a thing only counts as "conscious" if it has subjective experience with phenomenal character. This claim doesn't inform us what kind of intelligence AI has, or what kind of consciousness we have; rather it informs us of a rule of use for the word "conscious" and its cognates.

I understand the argument to be a denial of experiencing pain, pleasure, heat, cold, music, bitter, sweet, joy, anger, indigo, pink.

Of course the objective correlation to those experiences remain for the illusionist. I kick a rock and and act as if I have a pain in my foot and my neural activity agrees with my behavior (I'm not faking it), then, that's all there is to the pain. With the addition of some mechanism that creates an illusion of feeling the pain. — Marchesk

Even in cases of pain, the subjective experience is correlated with and directs us to objective states of affairs inside and outside the sentient animal's body.

I expect the illusionist will argue that his sentient animals acquire, process, organize, and act on "information" just like ours do -- only without the subjective experience.


The hard problem here is that when you try to abstract the "subjective experience" from all the objective states of affairs, you come up against the limits of expression and ineffability.

Shift the burden: If the illusion of subjective experience with phenomenal character is the way it appears, then it appears to be a persistent illusion of reliable experience. But what, according to the illusionists, is the difference between a reliable subjective experience with phenomenal character, and the chronic illusion of a reliable subjective experience with phenomenal character?

I'd like to take the opportunity here to discuss the philosophy of creativity. No, I don't mean whether something classifies as art or not, but rather what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. The creativity of today is both against monetization, but also ascribes virulently to a lottery system of value. Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? Are we still driven to do it? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? Does this mean that creativity must be devoid of 'work'? I ask for your thoughts... — kudos

It seems we'll have clear up our terms before we make much progress in this conversation. What you've said so far confuses me. Here's a first pass:

For starters, what is your conception of "creativity"? What's the difference between "creative" labor and other sorts of labor, in your view? It sounds as though you have in mind the sort of thing that has often been called "art", the sort of practice and labor that culminates in products sometimes called "artworks".

I see no reason to suppose that "creative animals" are "constituted" any differently today than at other times.

How shall we distinguish "forms of creativity" from each other? Of course we design new sorts of technology; and corresponding modes of production, distribution, and consumption; and corresponding media, techniques, and outlets for "creative" work... Computer graphics provide novel means of visual (re-)presentation that were not available to da Vinci or Picasso, for instance. Nevertheless, at a generic level, works of visual art created by various techniques in various media may be said to have a common "form", the form of visual presentation. Arguably in this respect, if our classification becomes more specific, it matters more whether the object is in 2 or 3 or 4 dimensions, than what particular materials and techniques produced it. Considerations along these lines direct us to the origins of our word "aesthetic".

Aristotle claimed that artwork has no utility, and if he was right in his age, then it seems this is not a recent development. But I'd reject that Aristotelian claim, at least in the way it's typically characterized. If anyone uses or would use an artwork, then it has use-value; art in general has many uses in human society; and an artwork always has some utility to the art-worker who produces it, as the production of the work is an exercise in the practice of the craft that produces such works.


What do you mean when you say "[t]he creativity of today is both against monetization, but also ascribes virulently to a lottery system of value", and on what grounds do you make this claim? It seems to me an awful lot of stuff -- more than ever? -- that passes for "artwork" is monetized, and an awful lot of artists whose work is not monetized are scrambling to get it monetized. Moreover, it seems this has often been the case in the past, wherever perhaps distribution of surplus has been sufficient to keep starving artists from starving outright.

What has driven people to "make art" in all ages, regardless of whether they could exchange their works for money or for other strictly economic goods?


Somewhere in the course of a life, a craft-worker is drawn to a craft. How this comes to pass remains something of a mystery for us, like the formation of taste, though each of us who observes the transition may have a view on the matter. Surely the psychological incentives that seem to lure a craft-worker to a craft need not include any special concern for equipment, distribution, or economic compensation. For many craft-workers, the practice is the reward. If further incentive is required to offset some tolerable opportunity cost, there is the satisfaction in the works produced by the practice, and in the sharing of the craft and the craft-works in a community united by love of the craft, love of the works, love of the workers, and love of the whole community thus devoted.

There is no question we are drawn to it, by a sort of natural and fundamentally wholesome impulse as inherently cultural animals.


If we agree that exploitation of labor is a sort of "slavery", does it matter whether the labor is "creative" or not-creative, whatever that's said to mean? Consider: Is it worse to choose to exchange your "creative" labor for pay, to purchase another's "creative" labor, or to coerce billions of workers to work against their will without "creativity"?

What could it possibly mean for "creativity" to be "devoid of work"?

Nor am I. A p-zombie could not act exactly like a conscious human being because it is by definition not conscious. Even if consciousness were an illusion, we act in many of the ways we do, and say many of the things we do, because we think of ourselves as being conscious, and the p-zombie could not have such a self-reflexive self-understanding. — Janus

I'm still not clear whether there is a consensus view in this conversation with respect to what counts as a zombie, and what features of consciousness the zombie is said not to possess. So far I have the impression that many of us are speaking at cross-purposes, with different conceptions of p-zombie in mind. Is there perhaps an authoritative source in the literature we might turn to for a concise characterization we might use as a guide in this discussion?


I suppose the sincere zombie could rightly think of itself as having both sensory and nonsensory sources of information about objects in its environment, including information about the object it recognizes as itself. I suppose this means the zombie would have something like "concepts" of particulars in the environment that function so as to organize its behaviors, and that one of the things it has an informed concept of is itself.

In other words, I assume the zombie will have reflexive awareness (or reflexive simulated awareness) of some kind. The zombie acquires a sort of perceptual knowledge (or simulated perceptual knowledge), by receiving information about physical objects in the environment through sensory receptors. One of these physical objects is the thing we call the zombie. I see no reason to suppose the (simulated) cognitive equipment of the zombie can't be organized in such a way as to give the zombie noninferential (simulated) knowledge of itself, of states of affairs in the (simulated) cognitive system that function like our own perceptions, memories, intentions, and so on.

In short, it seems to me the "understanding" the zombie has of itself is rather like the "understanding" it has of other things it encounters in the world; except that its "view" of itself is provided by a broader range of informative sources, including not only sensory information, but also (simulated) introspective bases of noninferential (simulated) knowledge acquisition.

In other words, the philosophers imagine their zombies without using the sort of constraint Anscombe employs in depicting her "A"-sayers in "The First Person" (see p. 24 here).


Or else: On what grounds do you suggest the zombies cannot have reflexive awareness?

Yes, that's what saying consciousness is an illusion amounts to. — Marchesk

Is it consciousness they call an illusion? Or only the so-called phenomenal character, or qualia, or subjective experience... or some such putative feature contentiously associated with consciousness in philosophical discourses?

I mean, for instance, they do agree that there is such a thing as perception and perceptual knowledge? Such thing as observation, and observational reports? And introspection, and introspective reports? They agree there is something we may call awareness, or sentience, or cognizance, or consciousness -- I mean they agree that some animals are aware of some objective features of their environment by virtue of their sensory and perceptual systems, for instance, and have memories and intentions, and behave accordingly, so on?

If so, then it seems it's not consciousness per se that they call an illusion, but only some more subtle aspect that many of us insist belongs to consciousness, something like phenomenal character. Is that right, or am I off the mark in assessing their view?

Is it just an accident of evolution that ended up having no negative survival value? A fluke? — Unseen

Do you suggest that consciousness is bad for survival? Negative survival value is not the same as zero survival value.

Why do tetrapods have four limbs, why do we have two arms and two legs, instead of more? Is it the optimal number? Or maybe it's been just good enough to get by, given the rest of our selective advantages and good fortune.

The fact that artificial intelligence will one day imitate or surpass human intelligence without consciousness does not entail that, in the actual, concrete, historical course of animal evolution, there never has been any survival value for consciousness. It might just have happened that functions that could be satisfied without consciousness in another context got satisfied with consciousness instead.

As functions that could be satisfied by six limbs got satisfied by four instead.

Nor am I. A p-zombie could not act exactly like a conscious human being because it is by definition not conscious. Even if consciousness were an illusion, we act in many of the ways we do, and say many of the things we do, because we think of ourselves as being conscious, and the p-zombie could not have such a self-reflexive self-understanding. — Janus

I'm willing to grant, at least for the sake of argument, that the bogey in question does act exactly like a human, according to genuine human observers. Along these lines, my point is basically a rehearsal of the physicalist's maxim: No difference without a physical difference. If it acts just the same, and it's made just the same, then it is just the same, and would be conscious like the genuine article -- would be an instance of the genuine article, and no zombie at all. The fact that we -- with our poor knowledge of the relevant empirical facts -- can imagine things otherwise seems no help at all in this matter.

Kick away the assumption I've granted, and I'll agree with you. If the zombie is an honest reporter, then it will report that there is no phenomenal character to its experience, and that it can hardly fathom what such talk amounts to. In these regions of its discourse, the zombie's behavior will differ from ordinary human behavior.

Of course the extraordinary burdens of our tortuous philosophical tradition may lead otherwise ordinary human beings to speak like zombies in this regard. Yet another example of human discourse and belief led astray by rational imagination.

I agree and doubt that it can be stopped even though the right wing nationalists are putting up a good fight. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I wonder if that fight isn't just another circus sideshow, albeit an especially repugnant and dangerous one. It seems to me those nationalists are by and large just so many more unwitting pawns of the oligarchs. The trend of globalization continues as the powerful few marshal discord among the people of Earth, even promoting antiglobalist rhetoric as cover for their self-serving operations. The current rise of right-wing nationalism does not put that trend in check, but only helps ensure that wealth and power remain in the hands of the few.

Of course not, but that's what I think the logical conclusion is if you say colors, sounds, etc. are illusions, since that's how we know about apples and everything else. — Marchesk

I expect most eliminativists or illusionists about the phenomenal character of consciousness will insist the path from perception to perceptual object remains open. They won't deny the existence of intermediate perceptual objects like light, sound, and odor, but only aim to characterize such phenomena in maximally objective terms -- terms that typically embrace the perceptual object construed as a physical system, and the perceiving object, construed as a physical or information-processing system in touch with the perceptual object by way of sensory contacts, while denying that there is a genuine "phenomenal character" or "subjective character" to perception.

Maybe you can formulate the p-zombie argument for epistemology? — Marchesk

I take it by the phrase "philosophical zombie", you mean a creature exactly like a human being in every physical detail, that behaves exactly like a conscious human being, but that somehow lacks sentience, or the phenomenal character of conscious experience, or something along these lines. Is that about right?


I'm not convinced this is a coherent notion.

In a roundabout way, this has to do with pessimism. Pessimism posits that the world has an inherently negative value due to structural and contingent sufferings. There is an absurdity in our way of being that has evolved, whereby we have a whole variety of choices- what Sartre appropriately called "radical freedom", but we choose to put weight on various focuses to keep the absurdity constrained into discrete goals. — schopenhauer1

I've never quite understood romantic talk of "absurdity" along such lines. I might agree that each of us is more or less out of tune -- with the truth, with the facts, with his own good, with other sentient beings, and so on. Life is dukkha. Is there something more -- apart from this sort of generic conception of disharmony, misalignment, conflict, ignorance, and confusion -- to existentialist talk of "absurdity in our way of being"?

I'm even more at a loss to make sense of your talk of "values". I'm not aware of any natural science or objective standard of values; I take it axiological discourses are predominately philosophical, political, and anthropological discourses. Is it commonly maintained that philosophical pessimism "posits that the world has an inherently negative value"? I'm not aware of this formulation of pessimism. I expect philosophical pessimism may be compatible with the claim that there is no such thing as "inherent value"; that judgments or dispositions of value are relative to the priorities of those who make such judgments or have such dispositions. I see no reason to say that the world has "inherent value" in itself, or to say that any particular thing we may distinguish in the world has "inherent value" in itself. Things have value for creatures like us; a thing that is positively or negatively valuable to one creature need not be valuable to another creature; a thing that is valuable to many creatures need not be valuable in the same way for each of them. Pessimism needn't be pessimism about values, it can be pessimism about outcomes, starting points, historical tendencies, natures, conditions... relative to a set of values.

Some of those from the intelligentsia community (specifically mathematico-scientific-technological) would argue that they are a source of positive value. Why? Though not articulated in this manner expressly, the argument is that since they have the capacity/propensity to calculate advanced mathematical concepts, and since they are able to apply them to an empirically verifiable outcome in science and technology, that this is meaningful and counteracts a negative evaluation of the world, or its intendant absurdity. Rather, they might argue, the fact that we can "mine" consistently verifiable/falsifiable information about the world, that "cashes out" in the outcome of more accurate explanation and technology, that this is inherently something of value. — schopenhauer1

Again, I'm perplexed by this framework of "inherent value".

Surely no one disputes that mathematical, scientific, and technological developments can be applied to achieve both desirable and undesirable outcomes. It seems about as reasonable to expect catastrophe as to expect salvation from a global technological culture like ours. In that regard, an accumulation of scientific and technological culture is no more "inherently" good or bad than an accumulation of iron or carbon. Everything depends on how such socioeconomic "goods" are put to use.

On the other hand, I find it hard to shake the intuition that, all else equal, creatures like us tend to prefer knowledge to ignorance, and to prefer power to impotence. I suppose such intuitions give some weight to support the claim that, all else equal, creatures like us may tend to value knowledge and power positively, and to value ignorance and impotence negatively.

Shall we say knowledge and power are well used the more they tend to produce desirable outcomes, and are abused the more they tend to produce undesirable outcomes?

Perhaps we can split the difference this way: Knowledge is better than ignorance, and knowledge well used is better than knowledge abused. Power is better than impotence, and power well used is better than power abused. I expect even many of the giddiest optimists about the prospects for technological culture like ours would be disposed to agree with some such evaluation.

Beyond such ready common ground, I suspect the disputes here at issue consist primarily of conflicting expectations about the likelihood of and means toward various desirable and undesirable outcomes, and about which outcomes are desirable or undesirable. What else is at issue in these disputes, discounting the vain boasts and insults of diverse cults competing in misguided contests for esteem and self-esteem?

Further, people might feel that simply the sheer complexity of new technologies makes them meaningful. The fact that there is so much minutia to monger to understand a process, maintain it, and further its development into more areas of minutia, is somehow inherently good. In other words, somehow, complexity of subject-matter bestows it value. — schopenhauer1

A work of fiction, carpentry, or empirical investigation may be simple or complex in comparison to other works of its kind; I see no reason to suppose that in general the more complex work is the more valuable. One might argue the simplest work, achieving the greatest results in exchange for the least resources, is the most valuable.

The goal is to dissolve the hard problem without just handwaving it away or giving into some form of dualism. But taken illusionism to its logical conclusion has serious ramifications for knowledge. When I perceive an apple, I'm not just aware of the apple's color or its taste, I'm also aware of it's shape and weight. Some qualities of human experience are the basis for science. But if color and taste are illusions, what reason would we have for supposing that shape and weight are not? After-all, we know about apples by experiencing them via our sensations of color, taste, etc. — Marchesk

I'm not sure you have drawn a relevant "logical conclusion": I expect that being an "illusionist" about the putative phenomenon of conscious experience does not entail being an "illusionist" about apples, sensorimotor systems, and perception.

'Existence' is a human concept, and like all concepts requires context in which it is meaningful. The issue was perhaps highlighted my Niels Bohr's argument with Einstein about the existence of 'electrons'.
Bohr argued that there were no 'things in their own right' we call 'electrons', only consistent human 'interactions' with an aspect of the world it was convenient to explain by the word 'electron'. Einstein, perhaps in line with his role in establishing 'the reality of atoms', disagreed.
A current book by Rovelli (the Order of Time) underscores Bohr's view with the phrase 'things are just repetitive events.
This proposed 'relativity of existence' seems to me to render most philosophical discussion of 'ontology' to be what Wittgenstein called Geschwätz (idle chatter).
Any thoughts ? — fresco

The concept of number is a human concept, but human judgments of number have an objective character in matters of fact. The concept of existence is a human concept, but human judgments of existence -- for instance about what is said to exist and what is said not to exist -- have an objective character in matters of fact.

I'll agree, it seems far too much philosophical "ontology" amounts at best to idle chatter. I often repeat Rorty's slogan: There is no privileged ontology. We can and do construct various ontologies, or recognize various entities and sorts of entities, to suit various discursive purposes. I suppose we may say accordingly that particular judgments of existence vary along with ontological context and discursive purpose. I see no reason not to allow that this variability is a sort of "relativity" of judgments of existence. But this ontological relativity is a matter of conceptual flexibility, and does not support claims against the objective character of judgments of existence.

In the investigation of nature, we refine our terms against the grindstone of experience, and let the world speak for itself with our language.

Yes, I agree, but thread was about how mongering minutia about a subject matter doesn't make life more meaningful because we have "mined" this information and can use it. In other words, "Look at all this stuff we have figured out! Look how adept some of us are at building immense equations that translate to technological output! This is meaningful!". — schopenhauer1

Isn't it meaningful? Or how isn't it? I'm still unsure what tree you're barking up.

It seems perhaps you're aiming to correct an immoderate bias you believe you have detected among some other speakers. I happily agree, some people tend to exaggerate the value of quantitative, scientific, and technological work as compared to other sorts of work. What purpose would it serve, if our characterizations of their excesses should be disfigured by the opposite deficiency?

Isn't it the case that as soon as we assume there is such a thing as an objective reality, a mind-independent world we are a part of, then we are necessarily assuming the absence of free will already?

Because if we assume we belong to a mind-independent world, then that world doesn't depend on our minds, so our minds don't have an influence on it, and so we don't have free will.

Is there anything wrong in this reasoning? — leo

I'll agreethe assumption that there is a mind-independent objective reality arguably entails that there are objective limits to the freedom of individual sentient agents. But I see no reason to suppose that freedom must be somehow absolute or in every conceivable respect unlimited in order to count as freedom.


What does it mean to say the world is "mind-independent"? Surely not that this world of ours is a world without any minds in it.

Why should we expect that "a mind has no influence on the world" just because "the world doesn't depend on that mind"?

Should we say the world depends on this hammer? No it does not. But does the hammer have some influence in the world? So it seems.

The world cannot decide to do away with hammers, nor with minds, nor to ignore their efforts and their effects. Minds participate in the world, like everything that exists in the world.

To all appearances, the world does not decide anything. Only minds decide. Minds participate in the world by perceiving and acting in the world. I suppose the freedom of free agents is grounded in that participation.

Jim, Jeff, Jenny... that's three.

1 is the proper name for that number; 2 , for the next number. and on it goes. So there are at least countably infinite proper names.

Suppose I take the set of infinite lists of ones and zeros. I know from Cantor's diagonal that this is uncountable. So I give each its own name; are there then uncountably many proper names?

First-order predicate logic apparently assumes only a countable number of proper names: a,b,c...

How would it change if there were an uncountable number of proper names? — Banno

I suppose I'd prefer to distinguish the number of proper names in a given universe from the number of proper names indicated by, say, a formal notational system of predicate logic. I'm not sure which of these you're question is aimed at. I suspect it may be a question about the notational system.

If it is not, then I suppose the answer must vary along with the universe given, and that there is no satisfying answer to the question in general.


Each proper name, I recall vaguely, is a unique logical identifier for each particular entity recognized in a logical universe, so there is a one-to-one correspondence between entities and proper names in a universe. There may be many entities in the same universe called Tom Jones; accordingly, a name like "Tom Jones" is not the logically proper name of any entity. Each thing that exists as a logical object in a predicate system has its own proper name. Is that about right?

In that case it seems the proper name is a sort of logician's posit or fiction or theoretical construct. How many of these are there in a given logical universe? As many as the logician who constructs the universe pleases.

What is the total number of logical universes actually constructed by actual logicians in the course of the actual universe; and how many proper names did each of those logical universes in fact contain? I suppose that's a sort of empirical question.

The minutia is where the job gets done. Those who know how to monger minutia to get shit done, can claim they are doing the real work. Everyone else is just jabbering. Thus, the meaning of life for them is the ability to compute minutia to get shit done. This is de facto justified by our very use of the things that are the outcome from the minutia mongerers. — schopenhauer1

A good cook, painter, or martial artist might, but need not, use tools designed by engineers to facilitate the labor of these specialists. Their excellence in their respective arts does not tend to depend on a narrow range of tools, but rather transfers readily enough to any of a wide range of tools that may efficiently serve the same or similar ends, regardless of whether the tools were designed and produced by way of primitive or advanced technological practice. Moreover, these artists might, but generally do not, stoop to rigorous arithmetical calculation and rigorous experimental method in the practice of their craft. Nevertheless, they may be said to attend to minutiae, to get shit done, and to do real work, little or none of which work -- far less than the scientist's or the mathematician's -- comes down to jabbering.

True, but ours can be manipulated by the U.N., for instance, if the majority of other countries and their coalitions are powerful enough.

There is also the U.N. court that has teeth. Little one. yes, but they can still bite. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It seems reasonable to expect the trend toward multinational and global organization will continue, given the persistence of technological culture along something like its current trajectory.

I suppose the nation-state for now remains the primary political unit, at least in its role as primary administrative district; while the authority and power to administer these districts moves along supra- and super-national, as well as government and nongovernment, axes.

Are there people on this forum who believe they are participating in something "grander" by: — schopenhauer1

Of course each one of us is "participating in something grander" just by being alive. Each one of us is a member of multiple communities whether he wants to be or not. Each of us is a member of a family and lineage, a citizen of a nation-state, a resident in a municipality, for instance. Each of us is a member of the community of living things, of sentient animals, of human beings, of sentient beings wherever and whenever they may be.

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your question. It seems you're taking issue with an idea you attribute to others, something about math, science, and technology being "meaningful" or "important". It's not at all clear to me what you're driving at.

I'm not sure how to coordinate your use of "important" with your use of "meaningful" and "grand". Are you asking whether people think pure and applied math and empirical science are "more important" than other human pursuits? Don't you expect that there are many different ways to tally up what counts as "important"?

According to the logic of the so-called “skeptics,” spirituality and religion is craziness.

By that definition, the bulk of humanity is mentally ill, as the bulk of humanity has one or another form of spirituality. This leaves these people thinking that they are the only sane people out there.

If there is such a thing as narcissism, I can think of no more glaring narcissism than that. — Ilya B Shambat

I agree that it's going too far to say that any person who acknowledges spiritual experience, or claims to engage in spiritual practices, or is a member of a religious organization, must be "crazy".

I disagree that anyone who calls himself or is called by others a "skeptic" must affirm a claim like this unreasonable charge you've ascribed to the so-called skeptics here. I count myself as a sort of skeptic, and I certainly don't think it's insane to have spiritual experiences or to adopt spiritual practices. And I know many sane people who belong to religious organizations. (As far as sanity goes, I mean. We're all just human, and mad enough on that basis alone.)

Most “skeptics” are not even scientists. Real scientists are curious, and many are as curious about spirituality as they are about everything else. — Ilya B Shambat

Perhaps most skeptics are not scientists. But it may yet be that most scientists are skeptics. You may want to check the way the logic of these claims pans out into your argument.

In any case, I would argue that there is a skeptical tendency built-in to scientific method. So even if every scientist is not a "skeptic", every competent scientist has a skeptical tendency.

Being skeptical does not entail being antireligious, any more than being religious entails being antiscience. It seems your views on skepticism have been biased by a narrow range of encounters. Some of the early skeptics in the West were Christians who used skeptical arguments derived from Sextus Empiricus to defend their faith.

I am good friends with a distinguished scientist who openly talks about having had very real spiritual experiences. He has a vast body of academic knowledge, is very well-reasoned and uses scientific method to excellent standard. That has not prevented him from having a spiritual life. — Ilya B Shambat

Do such anecdotes help our conversation here? We all know all sorts of people.

I notice you say the scientist is "spiritual" but not that he is "religious". Is there some reason you have selected one term here and not the other?

Spiritual experiences happen all the time, at least they do in my life. I've had many experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening; and I am nowhere close to being the only one. Many people either forget the experiences that they have or deny them; but if you dig enough you will find in many cases that they have in fact had very real spiritual experiences. The problem is that they do not know how to make them parse with what they know about the world from science and mathematics. This results in many of them denying these experiences; and toward that effect any number of people have come up with any number of tricks. — Ilya B Shambat

To say nothing of the tricks performed by charlatans who pretend to have spiritual powers they don't have. Or even the tricks performed by well-meaning dupes who don't understand the ordinary powers they have, and assume that something supernatural must be the source of their skill. Shall we set about listing the devices of deceivers and fools on both sides of this controversy, to see who has more?

I think it preferable to address the real philosophical issues here in a spirit of goodwill.

I agree that there is something we may call spiritual experience, and something we may call spiritual practice. I agree that such experiences and practices can be a valuable feature of human life, and that to some extent they are an inevitable feature of human life. I agree that there are some advocates of scientific materialism who go too far in denying or neglecting the utility of such phenomena.

I don't think the reason they go too far is that they can't make sense of these experiences and practices. I think they make sense of these experiences and practices in their own terms, and members of fundamentalist religious sects make sense of the same experiences and practices in rather different terms.

What the materialist may deny is that the theist, for instance, has a correct understanding of a particular event. Just as the theist denies that the materialist has a correct understanding of the same event. The theist says, a god came to me in a dream.... The materialist doesn't deny that the theist had a dream, that is was powerful, that it changed his life... But he does deny that any god came to him.

That's not a denial that the experience occurred; and not even a denial that it was something we may rightly call a spiritual experience.

Some want to say that experience is “anecdotal” and does not count as valid evidence. Others want to ascribe it to being on drugs, or being depressed or anorexic, or being otherwise non compos mentis during the time of the experience. Others still start going into beliefs such as that truth itself is relative. In all cases we find dishonesty. It is dishonesty that comes from dischordance between the logical implications of the experience and the worldview. — Ilya B Shambat

I'm not sure I get your meaning here: Whose dishonesty and whose discordance? Do you mean the critic is dishonest to make his charge the way he does? Or do you mean the critic charges the believer with some form of dishonesty?

It seems here you may perhaps conflate dishonesty and error. It is not a lie to utter falsehood one mistakes for truth.

Each side in this controversy charges the other with error, with error in judgment concerning the interpretation of a particular sort of experience.

As I've said, I agree it's incorrect to attribute spiritual experience in general to the sort of factors you've indicated.

You may be aware, moreover, that some of the critics you take with issue here also argue that anyone who draws supernatural conclusions on the basis of this or that "spiritual experience" is necessarily "irrational". I reject that line of argument as well. I think sane, rational, reasonable people can and do draw very different conclusions on the basis of similar evidence, especially in such matters as politics, religion, and art.

The critics' attempt to characterize the believer's belief as grounded in various forms of mental instability is just another example of this very tactic, aimed at establishing that the believers are irrational, or have "lost their reason".

Is science wrong? No, it isn't. Materialist fundamentalism however is completely wrong. I seek an explanation that will be consistent with both scientific fact and the facts of my and other people's spiritual experiences; and I am continuing to look for this explanation in any number of paths. — Ilya B Shambat

Some of the critics you have argued against here would say the same of themselves: they also seek an explanation that does justice to facts of the experience without running afoul of scientific method.

But what are the facts of these experiences? How do we distinguish the facts from the interpretations? It seems to me that once you boil it all down, this is the crux of most such disagreements.

I had a moment of euphoria and lucidity on the mountaintop. About this we are all in agreement. Now explain how the moment came to be, and what was "really" happening at the time.... Disagreements will arise. On what basis shall they be resolved?



To be clear: I call myself a sort of skeptic and also a sort of naturalist. I do not call myself a materialist, for materialism, as I understand it, is a sort of metaphysical position, and my skepticism has led me to treat all metaphysics as a sort of fantasy, concerning which it seems unreasonable to expect any standard, any evidence or reasoning, by which we may definitively answer questions, test hypotheses, and resolve disputes.

The same skeptical discipline prevents me from counting myself an atheist. Faced with the question, does god exist, I declare myself agnostic. I confess I still possess residual atheist tendencies, though as a wholehearted skeptic I aspire to expunge those tendencies in the fullness of time. Of course, even when I used to call myself an atheist I still had residual religious tendencies, and I suppose those are still with me too!

Nowhere along the course of my philosophical transformations have I ever denied the existence or value of spiritual experiences and practices.

I agree. Neither of us will get our wish list until universal government becomes a reality. That applies to the whole world but u see no reason why individual countries could not target their own oligarch and super rich. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Of course it's an ideal that can and should be pursued at the national level. At every level, but I suppose at the national level first and foremost, since the nation-state is still the primary political unit.

If governments controlled disposable income of the .1 %, would poverty end? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I have no idea what the total cost would be, and what the total disposable income of the 0.1% comes out to nowadays.

Moreover, I'm not sure it's enough to go after disposable income. In addition to a progressive income tax, I'd recommend a robust wealth tax and strict limits on inheritance. Let's add to that a universal income and a core economy maintained or strictly regulated by a global government for the sake of the general welfare of the people of Earth.

Alas, I'm not sure that program's any less likely to be realized than the one you've proposed.

It seems to me you may be confusing the concept of truth with other concepts here.

If I say that I would never not tell the truth, would you believe me? Just because someone says they are telling the truth does not necessarily mean what they say is truth — OpinionsMatter

The fact that someone says "I am telling the truth" does not entail that they are telling the truth.

The fact that we believe (or don't believe) that someone is telling the truth does not entail that they are (or are not) telling the truth.

People can lie, and people can utter falsehoods without lying. What is that supposed to tell me about "truth"?

How do we know the difference between lying and telling the truth, or between erroneous judgment and correct judgment? Such distinctions take a reliable concept of truth for granted. We compare the false to the true.

"I never lie." is untrue, because there will always be someone who doesn't agree with you(Not to mention that white lie you told). — OpinionsMatter

The fact that someone agrees (or disagrees) with a statement does not entail that the statement is true (or false).

The truth of the assertion "I never lie" is not determined by the agreement or disagreement of other people. It is determined by the agreement or disagreement of the assertion with the facts involved in the assertion. It is determined by the fact of the matter: Does the speaker ever lie?

When you tell the 'truth' it is more of a percentage of truth, rather than the whole truth. An example would be: Plants need soil to survive. Is that true? No, not completely. Rather it is about 90% true, because some plants grow in amongst rocks or in the sand. This discourse in its self is only a percentage of truth. — OpinionsMatter

I'll assume that your botany is correct: In that case, I should say the statement "Plants need soil to survive" is inaccurate and incomplete. If it means "All plants need soil to survive", then it is false. If it means "Some plants need soil to survive" then it is true.

If it means neither, then I suppose it is not a complete assertion. This is one sort of ambiguity that is ruled out of the act of asserting when we learn to speak in conformity with the conventions of predicate logic.

If the world could all agree (on everything) there would be what I would call 'absolute truth'. This would be the climax of truth, a world that it based upon and is nothing, but truth. However, this is merely a fantasy. Disagreement leads to everything being only partially true, and over all I think that finding someone, or something that holds an absolute value of truth is impossible, unless you believe in the Christian God, who is supposedly 'perfect'. — OpinionsMatter

It seems to me as though you are absolutely conflating the concept of truth and the concept of agreement.

Why do you say that disagreement leads to a statement being only partly true? How does disagreement about the truth of a statement reduce or impinge or otherwise offset the "truth" of that statement, on your view?

Truth, in reality, is more of a concept. It's a way of trying to simplify the age old, what's wrong and what's right? Saying that something is truth, however, does not make it right, neither does it make it actual truth. — OpinionsMatter

I don't say that anything "is truth", only that well-formed assertions are true or false.

I agree there is a concept of truth, and perhaps that truth is essentially conceptual in nature -- like quantity and modality, for instance. Much as we use the concept of number to make correct or incorrect judgments about objective states of affairs concerning the number of objects that fall under a concept, so we use the concept of truth to make correct or incorrect judgments about the truth or falsity of statements. But to all appearances, numbers and truth don't exist or emerge in the world apart from their role in minds like ours and in the work of minds like ours.

It's not your pledge, it's not your belief, it's not the belief of others, that makes your assertion true or false. It's rather the facts that correspond or fail to correspond to your assertion. If you've even made an assertion: In some cases an utterance only seems to be an assertion, when on closer inspection it turns out to be nonsense or an incomplete idea.

Do you believe everyone has faith or am I just being ridiculous? — OpinionsMatter

I agree that it's reasonable to use the terms belief and faith as synonyms, and that in this sense everyone "has faith" in something or other.

I disagree that "faith" always means or entails "complete trust", despite the fact that this is one of several definitions in the dictionary. That particular sense seems especially ill-suited if we allow that faith can be a matter of degree: It seems nonsense to distinguish between having a little bit of complete trust and a whole lot of complete trust. Rather, a little faith is a little trust, and a lot of faith is a lot of trust. I'm not sure what "complete trust" is supposed to mean in this context, especially if trust is in principle revocable as events unfold.

I might not say that faith "is also a feeling". I prefer to say that the fact of faith -- of belief, of expectation, of trust -- is associated or from time to time may be associated with feelings. Hume suggests that belief is correlated with something like a "feeling" of belief. We might say there is "something it's like" to believe, to expect, to assert, to remember. Of course there is a difference between "having" a belief and "entertaining" or "affirming" a belief; and we needn't be aware of a belief as such in order to be said by others to have it. Beliefs are often ascribed in the third-person in light of an agent's behavior.

Preachers and theologians sometimes speak of "pure faith". One way to take this phrase is to suggest that pure faith is or entails belief without rational justification, or perhaps regardless of rational justification. That's been one traditional refuge for the faithful, whereby one may wave off embroilment in the interminable controversies that have churned through Western culture since the Enlightenment in the wake of philosophical anxieties about an alleged conflict between reason and science, on the one hand, and morality and religion, on the other.

Here too we recognize use of the same phrase in secular contexts. A stranger makes an extraordinary promise. I find myself believing he will come through -- or I decide to trust that he will come through -- though I know there's at least as much reason to expect the opposite outcome. I might say my belief in the promise is a matter of "pure faith".

Here's what I think. The whole notion of reincarnation is bogus because it's your childhood environment that shapes your identity as a person, and unless reincarnation can replicate your childhood experiences that shapes your personality as you grow up, the whole idea is hopeless. The personality that derives from the mold of childhood is part of your identity. So a different childhood equals a different personality, which in turn equals a different person. I don't think that reincarnation is impossible, I just think that it is severely limited by personal identity to the point that would make it impractical, even for a god.

What do you think? Does the idea of personal identity impose any problem on the concept of reincarnation? — Purple Pond

I don't believe in reincarnation. But I don't think the idea of personal identity that you've sketched poses any problem for the concept of reincarnation.

Would you say it's essential to the notion of reincarnation, that what's said to survive is "a person"?

Isn't there a traditional distinction between something like "the person" and something like "the soul"? The person dies along with the body; the soul is reincarnated. In being reincarnated, the soul gets a new animal body. If it's lucky, that animal body is a human body that becomes a new person. Rinse and repeat....

It seems to me that's a more faithful representation of traditional conceptions of reincarnation than the claim that "persons" are reincarnated. Each time around, the reincarnated entity gets a new body, a new life, a new personality -- a fresh pass at mortality.

1. It claims that to question logic is, itself, to be logical and therefore all criticisms of logic already subsume the principles of logic - we are looking for reasons to justify our doubts about logical authority.

2. Others claim that to justify logic is to, again, assume logic's authority. This, they allege, is a circularity and therefore logic has no justification.

So, it appears that we can neither justify nor critique logic. Both are circular. — TheMadFool

It's not clear in this story what sort of question is being asked, and what sort of justification is being provided.

What does it mean to "question logic"? Is the question whether logic is useful for some purpose, or perhaps for every purpose?

Is logical consistency essential for good cinema, for amusing rhymes, for effective persuasion of millions of voters? Clearly not. Must we say that trees or stones are in themselves "logical", or that they somehow "employ logic"? No. Are these logically valid claims? So it seems. Does this amount to "questioning [the role of, or the limits of] logic? I guess so.

As a sort of skeptic I have wondered whether all my experience, including my memory and current use of a set of practices I associate with the terms "logic" and "language", are just so many incoherent figments of a confused dream. This sort of thought lands arguably at the boundaries of coherence, but I suppose it involves a logically consistent "questioning" of, say, the ultimate validity of logic. I suppose so... but if in fact the answer to the question were affirmative, and this logic were just an illusion, then my supposition may be false, and the question may not have been logical to begin with....

Need every "questioning" be a questioning in explicit language? Imagine I protest my friend's or my employer's overestimation of the power, utility, or purview of logic by farting, or by making some other extralinguistic gesture. I suppose I could translate the protest into any of a range of utterances with the grammatical form of a question. Some of these questions might involve vague poetic allusions or logical contradictions or grammatical nonsense. I'll allow that such illogical questions may be employed to satisfy a logically coherent intention by "questioning [the power, utility, purview of] logic".


What does it mean to "justify logic"? Justify it in what regard, for what purpose, against what charge...

Regardless of whether or not there is a soul or whatever one wants to call the ego or the I, it seems that within our own sphere, our 'hyletic nucleus,' we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning. — Blue Lux

What is "our own sphere"? What is an "hyletic nucleus"?

What does it mean for one person to "express meaning" to another person?

What's the difference between "expressing meaning" and "expressing meaning specifically and superlatively"?

What do you mean here by the term "meaning"?

What's the difference between "expressing a meaning" and, for instance, expressing a thought, an opinion, a fact, a state of affairs, a perception, a feeling, an intention...

How shall we compare the act of "expressing" with the act of "describing"? Are they the same act, or how different? What about "characterizing", "reporting", "relating"...

It seems to me that each of us is perfectly capable of expressing, reporting, describing... any feature of his own experience to others, for instance in the medium of a common language on the basis of common experience.

If you can grasp it yourself, then you can relate what you've grasped to others. The fact that you've grasped it doesn't mean that you've understood it completely and correctly. The fact that you've described it to another doesn't mean you've communicated clearly and effectively. The fact that you've described it adequately according to your own lights doesn't mean everyone will understand your intention in so speaking. But ordinarily our communicative acts satisfy their purpose, and when we come up short there's always in principle room for revision.

Is this the case? — Blue Lux

I don't think so. To me it seems like a dubious claim motivated by inflated and ambiguous conceptions of "meaning" and of the individual's understanding of his own experience.

Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all? — Blue Lux

I see no reason to speak that way.

Is language a game of mere abstraction? Is knowledge too this? — Blue Lux

I see no reason to speak this way either. And I'm not sure how these questions are related to your initial comments.

Dummett made the argument that progress in metaphysics could be made by recognizing that the difference between realists and anti-realists on a subject was the kind of logic they preferred. A realist accepted the principles of bivalence in logic and verification transcendent statements, while an anti-realist rejected both. — Marchesk

I'm inclined to agree that disputes about ontology, especially in the academy, often seem to be mere disputes about logical preferences, about the way we ought to organize our grammar into things we agree to call "entities" and things we agree not to call "entities".

Often there are some criteria in play to motivate the preference, something like "explanatory power" and "elegance".

Can you say more about how the principles of bivalence and verification transcendent statements factor into the dispute between realists and antirealists in general?

In the case of realism versus idealism regarding physical objects, an idealist will reject bivalence and verification transcendent statements about physical objects. — Marchesk

Can you provide examples of the sorts of statements and arguments that your "idealist" rejects here?

They will instead have to present an alternative logic which determines what counts as sufficient evidence for making a statement about the physical true or false. — Marchesk

What kinds of "statement about the physical"?

One needn't play at metaphysics nor present logics in order to determine what counts as sufficient evidence for a statement like "Here is a cat". The materialist, idealist, and logician tend to agree with the rest of us along these lines.

Problems arise when we turn to questions like: Is the statement "Here is a cat" a statement about "the physical"? Do "physical objects" exist qua physical? And so on. I suppose such questions are "verification transcendent". But we don't need them in order to make sense of ordinary "statements about the physical". Much as we don't need any metaphysics at all to make sense of ordinary statements about the physical. We can dispense with materialism and idealism entirely, and so far as disputes about "realism" are concerned we can agree with Rorty that there is no privileged ontology.

Moreover, the idealist is something more than an anti-materialist. The idealist has his own idea about "what is" and "what is real", his own special brand of verification-transcendent statements. His position is no mere critique of the materialist's concept of "the physical".

The debate then turns into how justify either the realist or the anti-realist's logic for that domain. This means justifying the rules of inference used by one side or the other. If one can provide a justification proof for a logic, then the debate is resolved in it's favor, since the structure of the statements for the realist or the anti-realist have been proven to generate true statements, for that domain. — Marchesk

I'm not sure what to make of this conclusion.

What kind of justification is provided when bivalence and verification-dependence are rejected as criteria, both in general and in the special case you've focused on?

Isn't it likely that even after these justifications are provided, the two opposed parties will just remain opposed, each rejecting the other's preferred solution, while many of us in third parties will remain convinced there's no way to settle their dispute, or even convinced that there's nothing really at issue in such language games?

Being relatively new on this forum, it surprised me that many discussions start with a well formulated question, but without defining the words used in the question even when it's not clear wich definition applies. Wich could (and in many cases does) result in confusion about what is being discussed. — Tomseltje

I agree, it's important in philosophical conversation to clear up our terms.

There are many ways to go about this, however. One need not provide a glossary at the outset, or at any point in the exchange.

The very process of earnest philosophical discourse tends to provide definition for relevant terms as conversation proceeds. There's no reason to suppose that, in general, there is a beginning and an end to this process of definition, or that the tidy little definitions we may provide from time to time are sufficient for all purposes and immune to revision.

I make it a practice to sort out my own habits of speech, to listen closely to the way my interlocutors speak, to question them about their linguistic intentions when it seems relevant to do so, and to point out differences in my own habits of speech when it seems relevant to do so, in pursuit of mutual understanding and good common sense.

⊢∀y.∀x.p(y,x) ↔∀x.∀y.p(y,x) — andrewk

It seems the task indicated in the OP is to prove

∀y.∀x. p(y,x)

starting from the premise

∀x.∀y.p(x,y)

It's not just the order of the quantifiers that's reversed, but also the order of the relation -- from p(x, y) to p(y, x).

Is that covered in the proof you provided?


Such a curious form of relation!