Solaris (2002, which I think is a very good remake of the Soviet original). It could be the plot for a philosophical thought experiment (e.g. like Twin-Earth, or something on identity, ethics etc.), for what would you do if you wake up next to a real copy of the person you just dreamed of? Say, a dead wife but who is then alive again, or what if you dream of yourself and wake up with a copy of yourself being there next to you?

the purpose of emotional feelings is to reflect the meaning of the event that triggered it. If the feeling is positive, then the event must have been positive. — Samuel Lacrampe

So, for example, the positive feeling that a junky might have when s/he finds some drugs would reflect the positive meaning of what? Why must it be positive? And whence the assumption that emotions would have a purpose?

If the feeling is negative, then the emotion must have been negative. — Samuel Lacrampe

The emotion is the feeling.

The conundrum is how we know if something is appropriate if we rely on emotions for motivation but they do not lawfully link with events. — Andrew4Handel

Emotions are effects on the organism caused by one's environment, actions, or thoughts. I suppose some emotions can be evaluated as "inappropriate" in case they cause unnecessary trouble, or are very painful, for instance. That's how we would know.

Some life beings don't have the notion of ,,seeing" because they don't possess this sense. Intelligent animals like dogs or dolphins cannot understand what philosophy is no matter what. — Eugen

Being blind or lack the capacity to see shapes, for instance, does not mean that shapes would somehow become inaccessible, unimaginable, or impossible to understand. Being deprived of sensory stimulation or imagination does not imply that the world or the future civilization would suddenly disappear. Dolphins don't use the word 'philosophy', but they might still do what the word refers to, say, have a notion of a life worth living; some of them commit suicide, recall.

It's a matter of evolution and no matter how ugly may sounds, the reality is that in many aspects we're superior to animals. In the same time, we can think that evolution has no limits and life beings can take superior forms that possess traits that we can't understand - not just 5 senses, but billions; beings that can easily understand notions like ,,infinite"; etc.. — Eugen

Let's say you had 100 more sense organs, or that your body had been the result of another 100.000 years of evolution, or have some artificial enhancements etc.. Would that make you somehow better at understanding the world, and imagining future civilizations? How? What would you be able to know that you can't already know?

So my question would be: is it possible that life beings evolve so much that the current human would be inferior to them as a worm is inferior to us in the sense of the capacity of understanding? — Eugen

A worm encounters shapes and behaves accordingly, a blind man can feel or imagine shapes by touch or hearing descriptions from those who can see them. Astronomers deduce the presence of dark matter, a sea urchin does not have a brain even, yet it can identify the presence of predators, scoop up gravel to camouflage itself and so on. We are in many ways part of our environment; its past, present, and future.

There is a Wittgensteinian private language confusion at work here. — sime

Where? Are we confused when we speak about our experiences in a public language? All talk is public, one does not assume a private language by talking about one's private experiences.

Experiences are ontologically subjective, but talk about them ontologically objective and possibly epistemically objective.

Confusion arises from talk of the subjective and the objective which does not clearly distinguish the ontological from the epistemological (hence the many "philosophical" metaphors in this thread instead of arguments).

I see many metaphors here used against psychology, but I think they are misleading.

The fact that experiences are ontologically subjective does not make them epistemically inaccessible. It is possible to talk meaningfully about experiences, recall, and some of that talk can be epistemically objective, supported by knowledge of physiology, chemistry and so on.

Does "everything" include potential entities that could and could not happen, exist in our world or not exist, and are abstract, fictitious, or imaginary?
Do we include "everything" in addition to material things, non-material things, spiritual things, etc.? — wax1232

Alexius Meinong thought that abstract, fictitious, imaginary things really exist, and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that facts in logical space are the world and that they determine both what is and what is not the case.

A club for cats on mats.

..disagreements are mostly over how we see the evidence or facts — Sam26

If seeing something is the evidence, then the disagreements are not over how we see it but how we interpret it. The question "How we see it?" is already answered: "By seeing it", referring to how anything is seen.

A civilization hundreds of millions of years in front of us would be something that we simply cannot understand it? — Eugen

I don't think the mere passing of time would prevent us from understanding what a civilization is like in the future. Do you know of something that would prevent it?

A civilization is

..any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems) and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. ... — Wikipedia

If an animal doesn’t have the notion of consciousness, that civilization would have a ,,super-consciousness” that we simply cannot literally comprehend or even imagine its functions and purposes? — Eugen

It seems fairly clear that most animals can identify whether others are conscious or unconscious (e.g. asleep or dead). In this sense animals are both conscious and have the notion of consciousness.

..a civilization hundreds of millions of years more advanced than a civilization hundreds of millions of years more advanced than us would be incomprehensible for the second one and so on? — Eugen

Would a large number of years make things incomprehensible or unimaginable? How?

Or there might be a ultimate state from which things are understandable and could be imagined even if technology is much more advanced? I would like arguments please.
Thank you! — Eugen

The "ultimate state" from which things are possible to understand and imagine is, obviously, the state of having the capacity, which is biological. Human as well as non-human animals have it; it enables us to identify what our current environment is like, and what it might be like in the near future. That's how we can adapt to our environment, improve it even, build homes, buildings, cities, organize our knowledge, use symbols, predict things, imagine alternative things, or fiction, and construct a civilization which is sustainable enough for future generations.

I find it relatively easy to imagine possible civilizations in a distant future, there is a literary genre for it, science fiction, in which some are more or less convincingly described.

..it's worthwhile to arm oneself with as many anti-Randian tropes as time and nausea allow. — ZzzoneiroCosm

What's the threat? Does Rand's statement make sense even?

It might be worthwhile to note, however, that by pretending to take Rand seriously Ryan & Co appear to understand something that their opponents don't, and thus cannot criticise, or their criticisms can be arbitrarily dismissed as "misunderstandings".

it's more than likely the last chance of that kind to come along. — Wayfarer

Better luck next time when other kinds of chances come along.

Whenever a major project gets cancelled or the economic cycle stagnates we sometimes invent our own projects in hope to attract investors. In case we fail, or don't get paid, we can at least recycle some of the results and knowledge in future projects.

..so you think a skeptic would say there are forbidden things? — Kai Rodewald

Lots of things are forbidden, that's why we have laws against them, deterrent penalties, shared as well as personal morals.

Forbidden by whom? — Kai Rodewald

I forbid my cat to steal the chocolate because of the consequences. My duty forbids me to poke her in the eye. It is often easy to find out whether something is right or wrong by research, or hypothetical deduction, for example, in relation to its consequences or our duties.

Right and wrong are found, they don't suddenly appear out of nowhere for no reason inside the head of some authority (disregarding the trigger happy moderator who deleted our first exchange of posts).

I don't think I suggested that intelligent life in the cosmos was going to get wiped out -- just here. — Bitter Crank

The phrase "end of the world" seemed to refer to something more fundamental than the end of intelligent life here.

The assumption of a perpetually life-sustaining local environment seems improbable anyway. But organisms adapt, and by the time our sun burns out we might have already moved to an artificial planet, or space ships heading towards other habitable planets. Likewise, it does not seem improbable that intelligent life on other planets have already found ways to adapt to a universe in which suns burn out.

That doesn't mean anything alive, or once alive, will survive along with it.

I think it's safe to say that, oh, maybe 20,000 air bursts would generate enough widely distributed radiation and dust to cause some pretty seriously problems for the biosphere. — Bitter Crank

So if 'the world' doesn't refer to the world but biological life in the world, then the idea of a decisive end to it is still dubious, because if life is possible here, then it is possible elsewhere in millions or billions of planets that orbit suns under the same or similar conditions. It is improbable that all of their biospheres would get polluted at the same time and forever.

I heard someone mention that if all of today's nuclear bombs would explode now on the same place the explosion might correspond to an earthquake of a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale. That's a big earthquake, but the world wouldn't end. The atmosphere might get polluted for a while, and parts of the oceans, but the world wouldn't end.

If the world ever ends, it might require the converse of the Big Bang, say, a cosmological implosion, a Big Slurp.

..a more clear way of expressing the rule I think you are referring to is that metaphors must be 'apt'. rather than 'true'. — unenlightened

At least they ought to be apt, but some metaphors are less apt than others. I think they can be metaphorically false even.

For example, a rose is thorny, beautiful and fragile, and so is love; hence a rose seems apt as a metaphor for love, or at least a certain kind of love. But other kinds of love are neither thorny nor fragile, but smooth, big, strong, or burning, in which case solid rocks, burning flames, or fire might be more apt as metaphors.

This reassignment of words relative to what the metaphor refers to is, I think, ultimately set by the features of the kind of love that one refers to. In this way the reassignment of words can be more or less apt, or metaphorically false. For example, it might be metaphorically false, or at least misleading, to use a thorny, fragile, old-fashioned rose as the means to refer to a burning modern love.

Truth is one of the rules of some of the games. ... It's not a rule of "Story-telling" or "Poetry". Thus one does not ask if the ring of power was really destroyed in Mt Doom, or in what way my love is like a red red rose. — unenlightened

Is not metaphorical truth another rule?

So... what is the first rule of Philosophy Club? — Banno

If a club is an association of people united by a common interest or goal, then Philosophy Club is a club whose members are not united by a common interest or goal, a club without members. Its first rule might, therefore, be that it's not a club.

Do you think that our species will be extinguished in the next 500 years? — Bitter Crank

We arose from a world without us, so if we all die, then chances are we'll arise again, on this planet, or other planets. Perhaps we already have cousins on other planets.

I think you have to elaborate as to how "right makes might", since in my experience might can take many forms — dclements

Sure, for example, when the explanatory power of an argument trumps someone's will power, then right makes might.

If might makes right, then even wrong is "right" if might makes it so: anything goes.

Unsurprisingly it can be in the interest of the mighty and their lackeys to make everyone believe that might makes right, as a means to maintain their might.

Another kind of might, however, is the might of being right: when right makes might.

Thanks, and nice mountain view (Y)

So then where is the color we experience? Is it identical with some biological process, or does color supervene on the entirety of visual perception? — Marchesk

Neither.

What constitutes your colour experience is located in your head: a firing of neurons. But the colour that you experience is located outside your head, in the physical processes that reflect, transmit, absorb or emit light.

So, the experience is not just a firing of neurons but reaches out to the external objects and state of affairs that set the content of the experience. The internal experience that you have is, in this sense, inseparable from the external object or state of affairs that you experience.

A physical pigment of what, though? I take it you don't think rocks have color experiences. That would be panpsychist. — Marchesk

A pigment

..is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. — Wikipedia

If in the future we fully simulate vision, would the software have color experiences? Is there a way of arranging the bits such that they are conscious? — Marchesk

Who knows? If we can make artificial hearts pump blood, then perhaps in the future we can make artificial brains that have colour experiences, and their experiences would then be just as intrinsic and ontologically subjective as for humans. So, in this sense you might as well redefine us humans as "biological machines", and our visual systems as "software" that "simulate" colour vision.

A rearrangement of the syntactically arranged bits in a computer, however, won't make it conscious. Computers have no semantics, and as long as their instructions are observer-relative (e.g. programmed to mimic the behaviour of a conscious human) then I don't see how they could have any experiences of their own.

How many violins can you build out of a pile of bricks? Does it depend on the size of the pile? The quality of the bricks? Brick technology? Some yet-to-be discovered brick? — Wayfarer

Bricks? :-}

Well it would have to be a problem in principle: that subjective reality in principle can't be reduced to objective reality, that this is a category error. — Cavacava

What is a "subjective reality", and who says anything about reducing it to an "objective reality"? In your use of the words 'subjective' and 'objective' dualism is assumed, so no wonder that there arises a "problem in principle" for you.

I don't think there are two realities, and the problem does not arise as I use the terms 'subjective' and objective' in the following way: an experience exists in a subjective domain in the objective reality, and as speakers we have the possibility to communicate our subjective experiences with the help of epistemologically objective descriptions.*

* On the distinction between ontologically subjective and objective, and epistemologically objective etc.. check out Searle, for example on YouTube.

The argument is really simple, actually. Physical concepts are objective. Conscious concepts are subjective. — Marchesk

Lol that's simply an assertion of dualism in which the distinction between the physical and subjective amounts to dualism.

It really goes back to Locke and his primary/secondary property distinction. If you use only the primary properties to describe the world, your explanation will leave out the secondary ones.

You don't get color, smell, etc from shape, number, etc. This isn't a problem until you need to explain the mind, since it's part of the world.

That's why it's a problem for physicalism. — Marchesk

Only under the assumption of property dualism: the dubious idea that the colour wouldn't be a physical pigment for instance but some mysterious entity lurking inside your consciousness. Hence the appearance of a "hard problem" of consciousness.

But it is simply false to say that it would be a problem for physicalism, for not all physicalists are property dualists.

he thinks every single version of physicalism fails, which is why he says he was led to endorse a form of property dualism. — Marchesk

Looks like he was "led" from assuming dualism to endorsing dualism.

Chalmers isn't like a theist arguing for God. — Marchesk

But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? He even looks like a christian rock musician O:)

On my first computer that I bought back in the 1990s I got to play with a fractal generator that would generate drawings of a type called "Drunken Architect".

Sure, and Chalmers discusses several versions of physicalism. Physicalism might be the case, but questions of consciousness and intentionality still remain puzzling. — Marchesk

:-} Chalmers is a dualist, recall, and the alleged puzzle arises from taking dualism for granted.

You don't get to talk about a hard problem of consciousness with people who don't take dualism for granted.

One more, an unfinished proposal for a market hall in Sweden. Lots of triangles in this one o.O

Here's another, a proposal for a chapel to an old church in Sweden.

Here's a photo of a project I did at architecture school some years ago, a theatre on a piazza in northern Italy.

..the term "qualia" can play no role in the "language game" (in this case, the language game that is philosophy) - it is irrelevant and can be cancelled out. — SophistiCat

Right, one might add that Dennett and his opponents are therefore not even wrong. :D

Experiences are, indeed, qualitative, they are what things are like under such and such conditions of observation. An experience exists 'here and now' for the observer, which amounts to an ontologically subjective domain of the objective reality. But little prevents the observer from making his/her experiences accessible via epistemologically objective descriptions.

Well let me ask you if... ..your experience of a red firetruck is a passive affair, that its givenness is the content of your experience of it... — Cavacava

It is hardly passive, nor is a 'red fire truck' given as its content.

What constitutes the visual experience is, as you probably know, a firing of neurons in your head when your eyes get exposed to the electromagnetic radiation that is reflected by the truck. The content of your experience, i.e. the coloured shape that you see, is set by the truck's design and pigments as they absorb and reflect certain wavelengths of the available electromagnetic radiation. Within an interval of 700–635 nm they are, under ordinary conditions of observation, experienced as red.

How we talk about the experience, however, is learned. For example, that the colour is called 'red', and the shape is recognized as a 'fire truck' and so on.

..the red firetruck is your representation of what is out there, and any statement such as 'it's a red firetruck' is the only content of that experience, that we are in fact responsible for how we take things? — Cavacava

It is typically in our interest to take things for what they are, and for what there is to see, and not explain it away as an illusory representation of something invisible out there.

To say things are separate/independent of the mind, I think is problematic, since a mind is needed to posit them. — Cavacava

What our statements refer to don't necessarily need minds. Likewise with experiences. From the fact that we perceive objects with our minds it does not follow that the objects would somehow depend on our minds. An overwhelming amount of the objects that we perceive are real, not hallucinated.

A reductive physicalist account of biology would mean that biological facts aren't fundamental. — Marchesk

What is an example of realist or physicalist / materialist literature in which the reality of biological facts would be rejected?

Which doesn't address the question of whether physics is the correct ontology of the world as physicalism claims. — Marchesk

What ontology would do that? I suspect you are talking about some ideology passed for "physicalism".

The hypothesis was that the ancients did not have blue pigment to color things, and blue is only rarely found in nature, with the exception of the sky or water on a clear day. So maybe they lacked the color discrimination for blue. — Marchesk

Lapis Lazuli was the blue of antiquity.The ancient Greek temples and statues were coloured in blue and red like so:

Matter is all there fundamentally is has been replaced by physics, which means that matter-energy, fields, spacetime is all there is. — Marchesk

Being complex and of no interest to fundamental physics isn't a failure to be "real" (Hilary Putnam).

Studies of people, born blind, who then suddenly become able to see (such as those who undergo cataract surgery), suggest they have to learn how to interpret what they see,.... — Cavacava

Interpretation is a use of language, recall, and unlike language you don't learn how you ought to see things. You see what there is to see, and retrieving a previously lost or reduced capacity to see is quite different from learning how to interpret what you see. Unlike different interpretations the object that you see is the same regardless of whether your capacity to see it is reduced or not.

A child has to learn that the toy truck is red, just as Mary has to learn that what she is experiencing is red, — Cavacava

What exactly do you expect them to learn? Would they be seeing a grey toy truck until they learn to use the word 'red'? :-} I don't think so.

Mary should already know that what she is experiencing is called 'red', and she would probably use her colour meter out of habit like we use our direct experience.

For example, I've never been on the moon, but I've learned indirectly to know what it's like to be on the moon by reading other people's descriptions, seeing pictures and so on. On the moon I would hardly need to learn how I ought to experience what it's like to be on the moon.

would any amount of indirect facts tell us what bat sonar experience is? — Marchesk

It is simply the experience of the location of objects that reflect sound. You don't have to be a bat to know what that is, and the experienced location of objects is the same for humans and bats. Some blind people navigate by echolocation, and they use sounds that are easier for humans to produce and hear.

If we don't perceive color as an objective property of light or objects, then there is a problem for physicalism, since all the physical facts leave out the color experiences. — Marchesk

Experiences are biological facts. Talk of physical facts tend to leave out things which are not so relevant in physics, such as biological facts. How is that a problem for "physicalism"?