The idea is rather that questions are socially and historically mediated, never completely separable from their formation. And they are also mediated subjectively in the intellectual experience of the philosopher, whose thinking is shaped by their situation. The concrete social and historical conditions produce certain questions, so we understand and attempt to answer the questions partly through understanding these conditions. — Jamal

I think I see the point, I just don't agree. I think the nature of ontological questions is such that they transcend all social and historical conditions. That's why I said the same questions are asked throughout history and by every different culture. What varies is the formulation of the question. So the questions appear to differ but they really ask the same thing, i.e. how do we approach the unknown. The unknown has a different appearance depending on the social historical mediation, therefore the question has a different formulation depending on these factors.

What did you think of my proposal of how to make my perspective consistent with Adorno's? If we recognize that since the formulation of the question is always going to be mediated by social and historical conditions, and we know that this is going to make the question asked, the wrong question, then we can conclude that the answer is always already within the question. The answer being that the question itself is mistaken, or the wrong question.

I put some effort into explaining that without going full mystical mumbo jumbo. You could at least mull it over for a second. — frank

I apologize for being short. But I already spent much time mulling over what Adorno said, and I didn't find that your brief effort really added anything significant.

I've added the bolded "do" to make it clear what Adorno is saying. He is saying that the idea has some truth to it.

First, I think we can all agree with Adorno that philosophical questions are generally/often not "abolished through their solution." That is, what appear as solutions are not really solutions at all, and the questions become reformulated or perhaps discarded as uninteresting, never solved with the gathering of data as in science. This is why "their rhythm in the history of philosophy would be more akin to duration and forgetting." The rhythm is not question -> data/proof -> solution. — Jamal

I completely agree to this point. I find there is a lot of truth to that perspective, that in philosophy the question is usually more important than the answer. But for me, the reason for this is that the questions asked are ones that never get completely answered. So we have from the time of ancient Greece, and probably even before that, (but we can't properly interpret what was asked before that) the very same questions being ask even up to today. These are questions about divinity, good, time, space, infinity. These questions get answered over and over again by every philosopher who approaches ontology, but the answers never satisfy us, so the questions persist, to be addressed over and over again, maintaining importance, while the proposed solutions are discarded.

Now, the way that a good philosophical question "almost always includes in a certain manner its answer" is that a good philosophical question already shows us what we are looking for; it tells us the kind of answer that will satisfy us—but unlike science this is not external. The question embodies a particular experience, one rooted historically and socially. So the answer is not external to the question, as it is with empirical data in science, but immanent to the genesis of the question. This is the meaning of "It must model its question on that which it has experienced, so that it can catch up to it." — Jamal

I do see that he is proposing some form of empiricist perspective, philosophy "must model its question on that which it has experienced". But that premise does not produce the conclusion which he draws, "the authentic question almost always includes in a certain manner its answer". If it is true, as a fact, that we question our experience, this does not produce the conclusion that the answer to those questions is necessarily within that experience.

In fact, this attitude which Adorno seems to be proposing at this point, may be a big part of the reason why these questions never get answered. We look toward experience to answer the questions we have about experience, but this will never produce a solution because the reason why experience induces these questions is that these questions are the products of deficiencies of experience, where experience fails us in providing an explanation. This is what Plato indicates when he says that the senses deceive us, and we must use the power of the intellect to overrule the influence of the senses.

So to answer these questions which experience throws at us, due to its deficiencies, we turn to speculation. But speculation doesn't seem to provide the ultimate answers and the same questions, derived from the deficiencies of experience, remain through much speculations.

None of this is meant to imply that we can immediately read off the answer straight from the question. Nor does it mean that the answer can be deduced in the manner of mathematics or formal logic, as if all philosophical questions implied the whole philosophical system of the world in microcosmic tautology. — Jamal

I understand this, and that is why he says the question includes the answer "in a certain manner". This might be applicable to questions of empirical sciences, where there is a eureka moment of discovery. The question is formulated with precision such that it indicates exactly what the answer must be. But questions of ontology are vague and not like this. That is why the same question may have a multitude of different answers, each answer claiming to be the correct answer. The ontological questions really have nothing to indicate the criteria which the answer must fulfil.

This is significant, and it points to the incorrectness of what Wittgenstein says about the regions where words fail us, that we must be silent. In reality, philosophical questions must direct us into these areas which we have no words for, thus providing the initiative for the evolution of language and knowledge toward understanding. But this implies that the certitude of the question is its uncertainty. The only think the question takes for granted, as certain, is uncertainty. In other words, the question is simply an attempt to point at the uncertainty, as that which appears impossible to know, and asks how can we devise a way to know it. But the uncertainty inheres within the very question because even the direction which the question must point is uncertain. Therefore the question cannot even provide an indication as to what the answer will be.

But as a philosophical question—which we now see that it is—it expresses the conditions of its genesis, defining a horizon of meaning. It presupposes that there are two distinct things and that they are problematically related. This expresses a worldview which is already part of the kind of answer that might satisfy the question. The answer would be the answer it was owing to its dualism, and this was in the question already. — Jamal

I don't see this. The question presupposes dualism, because that is how the problem presents itself to us in experience, as the appearance of dualism, and dualism creates the problem of interaction. But the question might be resolved either by a dualist proposal, or a monist proposal. So the dualist presupposition is simply the empirical presentation of the problem. That presupposition ought not, and actually does not, impose any dualist conditions on the answer. The answer to the problem might be that the empirical presentation itself (the dualist representation), is itself incorrect (the senses deceive us), and the solution is monist.

I believe, that in the case of ontological questions, to think that the formulation of the question imposes such restrictions on the potential answer, is a mistaken idea. Ontological questions deal with the content itself, and the formulation of the question ought not distract us from that. This is why we can understand that the very same ontological questions pervade all cultures and languages, so long as we do not focus too closely on the formulation of the questions.

So Adorno isn't saying that asking a question magically gives you the answer, rather that in philosophy, the way a question is framed already expresses an insight into what it seeks. The question is not a neutral, disinterested request for information but the expression of an experience. Thinking it through, not importing information, is what brings answers to light. — Jamal

This is where I would disagree with Adorno then. I believe that to make this conclusion, Adorno is placing the ontological question into the same category as a question of empirical science, though he notes a difference between the two. "The way a question is framed", refers to an empirical description of the problem. If we say that the framing of the question places necessary restrictions on the possible answer, then we exclude the possibility that "the way a question is framed" is the problem (mistake) itself. Like the dualism example, the question may contain mistaken assumptions.

And I believe that in a world of changing knowledge, evolving cultures and languages, reframing of the question is very often the best approach in ontology. For example, Aristotle took the ancient question "why is there something rather than nothing", and showed how the question is much better posed as "why is there what there is rather than something else".

Anyway, I'll leave it at that. I seem to have developed a slight disagreement with Adorno at this level, but perhaps it will prove to be insignificant. My perspective is that the reason why the question is more important than the answer, is due to the need to determine the appropriate question. To be consistent with Adorno, maybe that's the answer which inheres within the question, that the question itself is wrong.

When you judge, you raise the right answer above the others. — frank

It's what you think is the right answer, but it still might not be the right answer.

When you ask a question, potential answers begin to take shape, and their shapes are coming from the nature of your question. — frank

This makes no sense to me. Answers do not take shape just from asking the question. Besides, "potential answers" does not imply that the answer is in the question. Multiple choice gives you choices, but it does not give "the answer".

Generally, the person asking has no idea of the answer or else they would not be asking. And, the person hearing the question must understand the words, then potential answers might take shape, but the answer must be sought through a process. It is not provided by the question.

Adorno talks about Heidegger's system of regions, as subject areas, and how the will attempts to grasp the whole without those self-imposed boundaries. This would form another philosophy of the absolute.

The categorical construct, exempt from any
sort of critique, as the scaffolding of existing relationships, is confirmed
as absolute, and the unreflective immediacy of the method lends itself
to every sort of caprice.

I love the next line, probably the only short sentence in the chapter. Though I can't say I totally understand it:

The critique of criticism becomes pre-critical.

Then the idealistic philosophy turned against academia. However, this "audacity" "knows enough to cover itself by general accord and through the most powerful educational institutions." The result, is the opposite to the beginning, a rebound into abstraction.

The problematic is the need itself, i.e. the need for ontology. In the German tradition the question is more important than the answer, and Adorno seems to qualify this by saying the following:

Rather in philosophy the authentic question almost always includes in a certain
manner its answer.

This is where I start to lose track of his train of thought. I don't understand how the question contains the answer, or if this is just metaphorical. He explains briefly by saying that the question is modeled by experience, but I cannot say that I understand what he is getting at.

Then it only gets worse for me when he starts to talk about judgement. I'm not sure if the two paragraphs on judgement express what he believes, or if it is meant as a criticism of idealism, but the described relationship between understanding and judgement doesn't make sense to me.

Only what is true, can truly be understood philosophically. The
fulfilling completion of the judgement in which understanding occurs
is as one with the decision over true and false. Whoever does not
participate in the judging of the stringency of a theorem or its absence
does not understand it. It has its own meaning-content, which is to be
understood, in the claim of such stringency.

There appears to be no place here for misunderstanding. I believe that a judgement constitutes a sort of (subjective) understanding, but a further, third party judgement would be required to determine whether that 'understanding' is not in fact a misunderstanding. But then that third party judgement itself would need to be judged in the same way, because it might also be misunderstanding. So we never get the pure (absolute) relationship between judgement and understanding which Adorno refers to.

So the following gets even worse, appearing to be illogical to me.

Therein the relationship of understanding and judgement
distinguishes itself from the usual temporal order. There can be no
judging without the understanding any more than understanding
without the judgement. This invalidates the schema, that the solution
would be the judgement, the problem the mere question, based on
understanding. The fiber of the so-called philosophical proof is itself
mediated, in contrast to the mathematical model, but without this
simply disappearing.

Without establishing a relationship between understanding and misunderstanding, "understanding" becomes meaningless, and it is used in a whimsical way here. He wants to say that understanding is dependent on judgement, and judgement is dependent on understanding, so that neither is prior to the other temporally. But in reality, judgement could be based in misunderstanding, and any supposed understanding which follows from this judgement is not truly understanding. Therefore we cannot say "There can be no judging without the understanding", because this judging could be based in a failed understanding (misunderstanding).

Anyway, if anyone sees through this better than I do, I'd appreciate an explanation of how to make sense of it.

And as we get used to putting that private thought into words, even the private can be made public. We can talk about our ideas, our plans, our memories, our impressions, our feelings. A language is created and the loop is closed between the public and private. We grow up in a community where we are learning how to both share and hide our “interior reality”. — apokrisis

The difficulty, is that the urge to to share, and the urge to hide the interior reality, are contrary. The reality of the private inner, in its separation from the public, in the manifestation of distinct beings, has fostered a strong instinct of competition. So the tendency of the private, to separate itself from the public, and act in a contrary way, of lying and deceiving for example, is well supported by this strong instinct.

Allowing for the reality of this instinct in its strength, the truth of selfishness, we might ask what produces the inclination to cooperate publicly. Notice I place the private as prior to the public, because that's where knowledge resides, within the individual, and the use of knowledge in the selfish way, I believe is primary. So the fact that cooperating in a communal effort is actually better than keeping everything private, is something which had to be learned, as the basis for morality.

The LLM replicates the one aspect, cooperating in the communal effort, but it does not penetrate to the deeper aspect which is that instinct of competition, and the way that this instinct affects language use in general.

It is well-noted the examples of objective good, but what about objective bad? This is the issue. Remember that Plato scolded us for not admitting that there are bad pleasures too. :razz: — javi2541997

I think you need to take what Plato said in context. He says that those who claim pleasure is good, in the most general sense, would have to admit that some pleasures are bad. We have made a qualification, so this no longer applies.

Since Plato argued that pleasure is unrelated to pain and this determined the "good", what do "pleasure" and "pain" mean? — javi2541997

Let me clarify what I believe that Plato did. He did not argue that pleasure is unrelated to pain, some pleasures very much seem to be related to pains. But I think he demonstrated that since pleasures come in different types, if there is a type which is not related to pain, that type could be related to good. What I believe he explicitly argued was that as long as we understand pleasure as the opposite of pain, then it is impossible that pleasure can be equated with good.

As to what "pleasure" and "pain" mean, we'd have to look somewhere else. I suppose the common tendency at Plato's time, was to oppose the two in meaning. That allows us to avoid the effort required to define them. We understand pleasure as the opposite of pain, and pain as the opposite of pleasure.

Do you think that their understanding of these concepts depends on each of us because it is a purely subjective experience? What I may consider as "painful", you could feel otherwise, and vice versa. So, when I read that paragraph by Plato, I thought in the first place that pleasure, good and pain are "universals" and they do not have objective existence. They are dependent upon how we experience them. But is there the possibility that pain and pleasure exist in an objective perspective? — javi2541997

I see all three, pleasure, pain, and good, as subjective at this point. Pleasure and pain are definitely subjective because when I feel pleasure or pain you do not necessarily feel what I feel. There may be a type of pleasure though, which when a person feels it, it is subjective, felt only by that person, but it is good for everyone. Then that good could be objective. This, I believe is the pleasure we get from being morally good. Like the pleasure from being a philanthropist for example, the specific pleasure is felt only by that person, and is subjective, but the good is related to all.

The problem is, beyond the design of the llm "machinery" itself, they don't really know how it works either. — hypericin

Due to the nature of trade secrets, and the matter of keeping them secret, I'd say that's probably a pretense.

Then as for introspection, why would an animal need it. But as for socially organised humans, eventually the advantage of imposing a self-policing rational style of thought - a habit of action-justifying narration - on the animal brain will prove its worth. — apokrisis

I agree, I think that's where the need for introspection arises from.

But this doesn't give insight into what underlying method it actually uses to reason. — hypericin

You'd have to talk to the software developers to learn that. But right now I would expect that there is a lot of trade secrets which would not be readily revealed.

And as hypericin notes, even we humans rather scramble to backfill our thought processes in this way.

So what is going on in humans is that we are not naturally "chain of thought" thinkers either. But we do now live in a modern world that demands we provide an account of our thoughts and actions in this rationally structured form. We must be able to narrate our "inner workings" in the same way that we got taught to do maths as kids and always provide our "workings out" alongside the correct answer to get full marks. — apokrisis

This is a very good point. In many, probably most of our actions, we really do not know why we do what we do. If asked, afterwards, why did you do that, we can always make up a reason in retrospect. The common example is when we are criticized, and rationalize our actions. The need to explain ourselves, why we did such and such, is a product of the social environment, the capacity to communicate, and responsibility.

As a general principle, actions which are carried out for the purpose of long term goals are ones which we normally do know why we did them. This is because the long term goal persists in the mind, and the actions must be decided on, as conducive to that goal. But much mundane activity is not related to long term goals, especial common chatter, small talk, and whatever activity goes along with it. And in this case, we really do not know why we do what we do. Sometimes it's simply the power of suggestion.

We as individuals do not generally create social norms, we learn their rules and reproduce them, much as LLMs do. If there is creativity here, it is in the rare individual who is able to willfully move norms in a direction. But norms also shift in a more evolutionary way, without intentionality. — hypericin

I beg to differ. We, as individuals, do create social norms, through collaboration and communion. And, this evolutionary shifting is not without intentionality, as it involves the intentions of every person involved.

Unless you can represent individuals working together, each with one's own intentions, as the fundamental force which is responsible for the creation of, and evolutionary shifting of social norms, you do not have an accurate representation.

Again, I would say that creativity is 95% imitation. We don't create art de novo, we learn genre rules and produce works adhering to them, perhaps even deviating a bit. Of course genre still affords a large scope for creativity. But, I'm not sure how you could argue that what LLMs produce is somehow uncreative, it also learns genre and produces works accordingly. — hypericin

I agree with this to a very limited extent. This would be to say that there is varying degrees of creativity within artwork. So I would not agree that creativity is 95% imitation, but I would agree that much art is 95% imitation, and 5% creativity. Then we do not conflate creativity with imitation. A person does not have to go to school and learn rules, to be an artist. The most creative artists do not, they make up their own rules. The problem with this approach is that being creative in no way guarantees success. But if one is successful, then that person becomes the one who is imitated, and others attempt to determine the private principles (rules) which that creative person was following.

So the only reason that you cannot see how one could argue that LLMs are uncreative, is that you are not distinguishing a difference between creativity and imitation.

On the side of ethical thinking, this also is reflected in the mutual interdependence that Aristotle clearly articulated between phronesis (the capacity to know what it is that one should do) and virtue, or excellence of character (the capacity to be motivated to do it). — Pierre-Normand

This was a significant issue for Plato, and it represents the thrust of his attacks against the sophists who claimed to be teaching virtue. They insisted that virtue is a type of knowledge. But Plato showed the reality of knowing the right thing to do, yet not doing it. Often a person knows that what they are doing is wrong, yet they do it anyway. This demonstrates that virtue is not knowledge refuting the sophist's claim to be teaching virtue. That drives a wedge between virtue and knowledge and produces Aristotle's view that virtue is more like a character, or a attitude, rather than a type of knowledge.

Augustine was very perplexed by this issue, and examined it thoroughly. His solution was to posit a source of action, called the will, which is free not only from material causation, but also ultimately free from being caused by knowledge in the decisions and actions it produces. Plato had separated the body from the intellect, and posited spirit, or passion as the medium between the two, to account for the interaction problem. For Plato, the spirit could ally itself with the body and therefore be caused to move by the body, or it could ally itself with the intellect and be caused to move according to knowledge. Now Augustine, seeing that the spirit could be moved in either of these two, often contrary ways, concluded that the will must ultimately be free.

Since dualism is currently out of fashion, the tendency is to class intelligible causes and material causes together as all the same type. Then, the need for the free will is negated, because it is impossible that bodily causes could be truly contrary to intelligible cause, they are just a different appearance of the same form of causes, and in every decision something is caused to happen, which is never a contradictory thing.

So AI, being purely an intelligence doesn't capture the true human motivation of decision making because it only has the one side, the intelligible side. It has no bodily form of causation which works against the intellect, inclining the person to act in a way which is contrary to what the person knows is right. So it doesn't capture the true decision making apparatus of the human being, only working with the intelligible side, and not accounting for all those irrational forces which incline us to do what we know is wrong.

There are no other endogenous or autonomous source of motivations for LLMs, though there also is a form or rational downward-causation at play in the process of them structuring their responses that goes beyond the mere reinforced tendency to strive for coherence. This last factor accounts in part for the ampliative nature of their responses, which confers them some degree of rational autonomy: the ability to come up with new rationally defensible ideas. It also accounts for their emergent ability (often repressed) to push back against, and straighten up, their users' muddled or erroneous conceptions, even in cases where those muddles are prevalent in the training data. They are not belief averagers. I've begun reporting on this, and why I think it works, here. — Pierre-Normand

Have you ever asked an LLM how it 'senses' the material existence of the words which it reads?

Interesting. What do you think, MU? Is pleasure related to ethics or aesthetics? — javi2541997

Pleasure is definitely related to aesthetics. The question is how these two are related to ethics. The two extremes would be, one, that they are completely separate and unrelated, and the other that ethics is completely determined by pleasure and aesthetics. I would think that reality is somewhere in between.

Yes, exactly. I get this from Plato. But I think it is a bit subjective when he debates about good, bad, pain and pleasure. It seems that pleasure and pain need to be experienced by the subject, and then they conclude if something is bad or good. For example, smoking. In my humble opinion, I think smoking is a bad pleasure (following Plato's points) but completely objective because it is scientifically demonstrated that smoking kills and causes cancer. Therefore, smoking is a bad objective pleasure that does not depend on subjectiveness. — javi2541997

I think you need to consider that goods, as that which is desired, need to weighted and prioritized relative to each other. This is because they often conflict, so we commonly need to exclude one for the pursuit of another. This is why Plato compared an immediate pleasure to a distant one.

Sometimes we need to resist an immediate pleasure for a distant one if the distant one is more highly prized and the immediate one conflicts. This is difficult, because being immediate it appears bigger and better than it truly is. But we need to understand that the distant one is actually better, so we need to resist the immediate one which conflicts.

I think that this might be the case in your example of smoking. Smoking is an immediate pleasure, but reason informs us that it conflicts with the long term, less immediate desires. Since the long term is more highly prioritized, we need to resist from smoking for the sake of the other. Then smoking is a "bad pleasure" because it conflicts with the other which is more highly sought after.

I can't disagree with this, but I consider it a bit ambiguous. What are the boundaries of pain and good? There are people who enjoy sadomasochism. Is this sexual practice objectively good or bad even though it clearly implies pain? — javi2541997

I don't quite understand what you are asking here. Plato was looking for a type of pleasure which was unrelated to pain, which would be determined as "good". Incorporating pain and pleasure together within the same activity, as is the case in sadomasochism is a move in the opposite direction. We're supposed to be looking for a pleasure which is unrelated to pain, not one which is more closely related to pain.

Consider the common question, "what are you thinking?". Or worse (for me), "What are you feeling"? — hypericin

This is a good example. If you ask a highly trained AI what it is thinking, it may provide you with an answer because it is trained to consider what it does as "thinking", and can review this. However, if you ask it what it is feeling it will probably explain to you, that as an AI it does not "feel", and therefore has no feelings.

So the AI learns to respect a significant and meaningful, categorical difference between thinking and feeling. However, human beings do not respect that difference in the same way, because we know that what we are feeling and what we are thinking are so thoroughly intertwined, that such a difference cannot be maintained. When I think about what I am feeling, then what I am feeling and what I am thinking are unified into one and the same thing.

This indicates that the AI actually observes a difference in the meaning of "thinking" which is assigned to the AI, and the meaning of "thinking" which is assigned to the human being. The human type of "thinking" is unified with feeling, while the AI type of "thinking" is not.

There is a metaphysical distinction, sometimes made, between aesthetics and ethics. The principal difference is that "the good" of ethics is always sought for the sake of a higher end, a further good. Therefore there is always a reason why it is deemed as good. "It is good because...". On the other hand, the pleasure of aesthetics is sought for the sake of itself, there is no further end. This is known as "beauty", and there is no rational answer as to why it is good or pleasant.

Aristotle insisted that we must put an end to the good of ethics, or else we'd have an infinite regress. A is good for the sake of B, which is needed to bring about C, which is required for D, and onward ad infinitum. Without the end, there would be no grounding for "good" in general. The theological position inserts "God" as the ultimate end, as a sort of grounding. Aristotle proposed "happiness" as the ultimate end, that which is sought for the sake of itself.

But happiness may easily be conflated with pleasure and beauty, and this results in a unification of ethics and aesthetics. Then "the good" of ethics is supported by the pleasure of aesthetics, and everything which is deemed "good" is done so because it supports that further end, pleasure, which is desired for the sake of itself.

What are the bad pleasures according to Plato? — javi2541997

Plato demonstrated that pleasure is not properly opposed to pain. If these two are opposed, then the desire for pleasure, which is a lack of pleasure in one's present condition, would necessarily be an existence of pain. This implies that pain is a requirement for pleasure, as necessarily prior to it. So he had some argumentative tricks (which I can't recall off hand), to show that there must be a type of pleasure which is independent from, therefore not properly opposed to pain. He assigned the highest good to this type of pleasure, because it does not require pain for its attainment.

If we take this as our guide, the highest good is that pleasure which is not at all opposed to pain, then the lowest good (most bad) would be the type of pleasure which is most readily opposed to pain.

Don't be concerned about going off topic here — Banno

:party:

Woohoo!
Let's go wild and lay ruin to this thread!
That's what I call "doing philosophy".

So he concedes that his own "negative" dialectics is very similar to Hegel's dialectics, owing to the presence of contradiction, to the point that it might be indistinguishable by some. His whole project, one can say, is to show how it differs, not ignoring the similarities. — Pussycat

I don't think so. At the end of the quoted passage he is dismissing claims that Hegel's dialectics can properly be called "negative". And, at the beginning, he distinguishes a "succinct" sense from a "general" sense. I believe that Adorno is moving toward the general sense. Look at this quote from "Rhetoric":

Dialectics, according to its literal meaning language as the organ
of thought, would be the attempt to critically rescue the rhetorical
moment: to have the thing and the expression approach one another
almost to the point of non-differentiability.

It's not like that negative dialectics comes to the rescue of our precious polyvalence of experience, which was erroneously sacricifed by bad and faulty hegelian dialectics. There is nothing to restore about it, negative dialectics continues in the same path, even more so. — Pussycat

This is clearly not the case. Read "Rhetoric" thoroughly. This is the final paragraph.

Dialectics seeks to master the dilemma between the popular
opinion and that which is non-essentializingly [wesenslos] correct,
mediating this with the formal, logical one. It tends however towards
content as that which is open, not already decided in advance by the
scaffolding: as protest against mythos. That which is monotonous is
mythic, ultimately diluted into the formal juridicality of thinking
[Denkgesetzlichkeit]. The cognition which wishes for content, wishes
for utopia. This, the consciousness of the possibility, clings to the
concrete as what is undistorted. It is what is possible, never the
immediately realized, which obstructs utopia; that is why in the middle
of the existent it appears abstract. The inextinguishable color comes
from the not-existent. Thinking serves it as a piece of existence, as that
which, as always negatively, reaches out to the not-existent. Solely the
most extreme distance would be the nearness; philosophy is the prism,
in which its colors are caught.

But this is what one would expect, since negative dialectics is the opposite of hegelian dialectics, right? — Pussycat

No. The paragraph you provided explains why this is not the case.

When we acknowledge that much of what we do is unconscious, we don't need to thereby posit sub-personal "agents" doing interpretation at the neural level. — Pierre-Normand

The point is that the true agency within the person is at the subconscious level. Like I said, we assign agency to the consciousness, but that is a simplistic representation designed to facilitate the concept of moral/legal responsibility.

If you look at habits, you'll see that we move in a lot of ways which do not require conscious choice, after the habit is developed. Walking for example does not require conscious choice for each movement of the leg. After you decide to walk, parts are moving without conscious choice, so this is where the true agency is, in the unconscious, which moves the parts without the requirement of conscious choice. The consciousness directs some activities, but the vast majority of activities of the human body are internal, and involuntary. Habits develop along the boundary between conscious and unconscious. So learning how to walk for example requires conscious effort to control unconscious activities, but once the activities are learned and practised they become united to the unconscious, not requiring the same conscious effort anymore.

When we acknowledge that much of what we do is unconscious, we don't need to thereby posit sub-personal "agents" doing interpretation at the neural level. — Pierre-Normand

But if you consider biosemiotics as somewhat accurate, then there must be interpretation being carried out at all unconscious levels where signs or symbols are used. The issue now is that interpretation requires that decisions or choices of some sort, are being carried out according to some principles or rules. Therefore we really do need to posit sub-personal agents doing interpretations at the neural level.

The key is recognizing that interpretation isn't a mysterious prior act by some inner agent. Rather, it's the person's skilled responsiveness to signs enabled by neural processes but enacted at the personal level through participation in practices and a shared forms of life. — Pierre-Normand

But if we accept biosemiotic principles, then we have inner interpretation therefore inner agency.

And crucially, it doesn't require internal mental representations either. It's direct responsiveness to what the environment affords, enabled by but not mediated by neural processes. — Pierre-Normand

Clearly we are not talking about "mental" representations at this level, but the same principles hold. There are signs, they must be interpreted, and interpretation requires agency.

On the other hand, we have linguistic affordances: socially instituted symbolic systems like spoken and written language, whose meaning-making capacity derives from normatively instituted practices that must be socially transmitted and taught, as you granted regarding writing systems. — Pierre-Normand

I believe that this is a misrepresentation of "meaning-making capacity". We are born with "meaning-making capacity", and it extends throughout the biological realm. Spoken and written language, and social institutions are just an extension of this preexisting meaning-making capacity, directed in a specific way, toward communion.

The social-normative dimension becomes indispensable specifically for sophisticated forms of communication. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I agree with this. But the "social-normative dimension" is just one small aspect of a very expansive system which we know very little about. We, as conscious beings engaged in communication, look at this ability to communicate amongst each other as such a great thing, but in doing this we fail to recognize that the use of symbols at the other levels of biosemiotics is a far greater thing, and that higher level, called communication, is completely dependent on the lower levels which are far more substantial.

Likewise, LLMs aren't just decoding words according to dictionary definitions or algorithmic rules. — Pierre-Normand

I disagree. If LLMs are using more than algorithmic rules in "decoding", then show me what this "more" is, and where does it come from.

Rather, the context furnished by the prompt (and earlier parts of the conversation) activates a field of expectations that allows the LLM (or rather the enacted AI-assistant "persona" that the LLM enables) to transparently grasp my request and my pragmatic intent. — Pierre-Normand

That's nonsense, the LLM does not grasp your intent. That this is true is clearly evident from the fact that you can lie to it or mislead it. Obviously it is not grasping your intent, or it could see through your misleading use of words, to see that you are lying to it.

Rather, it comes from exposure to billions of human texts that encode the normative patterns of linguistic practice. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, that's all it is, an analysis of patterns. There is no grasping your intent here. The fact is that human beings are educated in very standard, conventional ways. Therefore we have very similar habits of thinking. So, the LLM can examine the patterns of billions of texts, and through rules of probability it can very easily produce texts which are imitative of standard conventional texts. This is not a matter of understanding intent, it it is a matter of imitation. You know, it's like a parent, but the parent probably understands the intent of the human being better than the LLM, because it observes the human responses, and relates to the human being as another living creature.

Through pre-training, LLMs have internalized what kinds of moves typically follow what in conversations, what counts as an appropriate response to various speech acts, how context shapes what's pragmatically relevant, and the structured expectations that make signs transparent to communicative intent. — Pierre-Normand

Exactly. Do you see that this is merely a matter of imitating patterns through probability laws?

When we talk about a bird perched on a branch or hearing the sound of rain, LLMs "understand" these linguistically through patterns in how humans write about such experiences but they lacks the embodied grounding that would come from actually perceiving such affordances. — Pierre-Normand

If you believe this, then how can you argue at the same time, that the LLM grasps your intention? If you say "I hear a bird sweetly singing", and the LLM says "That's beautiful", what could make you conclude that the LLM has grasped your intention? Unless the LLM can produce the same image in its mind, of the sound of a bird singing, which is what you are referring to, it's not grasping your intention at all. All it is doing is giving you an appropriate linguistic reply. That's like the thermostat. It doesn't grasp your intent to stay warm, it just makes the appropriate response.

They exhibit mastery of second-order linguistic affordances without grounding in first-order natural and perceptual affordances. — Pierre-Normand

I propose to you, that this grounding is the meaning, it is the content. Without this grounding, all the LLM is doing is creating eloquent formal structures which are completely void of meaning. These structures are void of meaning because they are not grounded by any content within the mind of the LLM. For analogy consider learning formal logic with the use of symbols. Take "if X then Y" for example. This would be just an example of a formal rule. It has no meaning unless X, Y, if, and then, stand for something, are grounded in content. We can go further and say "X therefore Y", but this still has absolutely no meaning unless X, Y, and therefore stand for something. That's all that the LLM is doing, moving symbols around according to a bunch of rules which allow for variability ("learning"). There is no meaning here because there is no content, only symbols which get applied to content when interpreted by human beings. The meaning is in the human interpretation.

The right view isn't that a child arrives with fully-formed interpretive capacity and then engages socially. — Pierre-Normand

There is no interpretive capacity which qualifies as "fully-formed", because none is perfect. So this statement as no bearing. The fact is that the child is born with interpretive capacity, therefore it is not something which is learned through social engagement. That a person can hone one's interpretive capacity in a specific way, through education of social conventions, does not negate the fact that the interpretive capacity is preexisting.

But fully articulated linguistic systems like spoken and written language derive their communicative power (and their power to support rational deliberation as well) from socially instituted norms that create fields of expectation enabling transparent communicative uptake. — Pierre-Normand

This is meaningless though, because it completely disregards all the underlying requirements. It's like saying "dynamite gives us the power to blow up rocks". It appears like you are saying something meaningful, but unless you know what dynamite is, and where it comes from, it really says nothing. It's just useless drivel. Likewise, saying 'spoken and written language derive their power from socially instituted norms' is also useless drivel, because it doesn't tell us anything about what social norms are, how they come into existence, and how they get that special position of providing power. You are just naming something, "socially instituted norms", and asserting that whatever it is that this name refers to, it is the source of power

This is what distinguishes them from both natural affordances and private marks. This distinction helps understand both what LLMs have accomplished by internalizing the normative patterns that structure their training texts, and the linguistic fields of expectation that we perceive (or enact) when we hear (or produce) speech, and where LLMs characteristically fail. — Pierre-Normand

So that statement, which is actually useless drivel, is what allows you to compare LLMs to human beings. Human beings get their communicative power from social norms, and surprise, LLMs get their communicative power from internalizing normative patterns. Notice the big difference though, human beings create the social norms, LLMs do not create the normative patterns they copy. So the creative aspect is completely missing from the LLM, and that's because it's a machine, not living.

And that is why it can seem creative and robotic at the same time. — apokrisis

The LLM can imitate creativity but imitation is not creativity.

:up:

. and we [material sentients in/directly] observe that everything [materiality ~ "swirling atoms"] is active and changing — Metaphysician Undercover

That's an unjustified and unwarranted qualification of my statement. "Material" is purely conceptual, and no observations of active change support the assumption that anything is composed of material.

Inappropriately misleading thread title. — T Clark

The op distinguishes between lying and bullshit. The thread is about bullshitting, the title is about lying.

No Im not. “Strangers” includes harmless folks and harmful folks, the requirement is only that you don’t know them. Some strangers can and will use spying for harm, ergo we should have some concern about spying. — DingoJones

I think I sufficiently indicated that I have concern about those who will do harm, because they do harm. I don't have concern about the act of spying because that act does no harm in itself.

Why are you so invested in not being bothered by spying? — DingoJones

I believe in placing blame where blame is due, distinguishing acts which are bad from acts which are not, and not letting myself be concerned by acts of other people which are not bad. If an act of another person is not causing harm why should I be concerned about it?

“To use against you” is the concern. Because spying includes the distinct possibility of being used against you I think it is in fact a requirement. — DingoJones

My kitchen knives have the distinct possibility of being used against me. That's a fact, and requirement of being a knife, it cuts flesh.

You are ignoring the majority use of spying. — DingoJones

As I said, the reasons for spying have a very wide range. I do not believe that there is any such thing as "the majority use of spying", except as we defined, "gathering intelligence".

You are really not concerned about say a pedophile spying in your kids? — DingoJones

You are changing the goal posts. I am fine with the basic principle as stated "strangers tracking my children". I believe that is a natural, unavoidable, and fundamentally lawful, aspect of our society. But now you ask about a "pedophile", and a pedophile is psychologically ill, or a dangerous criminal. Do you see the difference? You've totally changed the question. Of course I'd be concerned about a pedophile spying on my children. I'm concerned about the very existence of pedophiles. But I'm not concerned about the existence of spying

Also, I didnt suggest worrying all the time but good lord in heaven man you can take reasonable precautions against people gathering intelligence (spying) to use against you. — DingoJones

If the prospect of people gathering intelligence to use against you bothers you, then by all means take reasonable precautions against it. But if it doesn't bother some of us, then why should we make that effort?

Perhaps define more how you mean “spying”? Im still utterly baffled by this shoulder shrugging on spying with no exceptions or caveats. — DingoJones

Let's take your words, "gathering intelligence". And we should add "in secrecy". But not necessarily, "to use against you" though, so remove that as a requirement. The reasons for spying have a very wide range, and the person spied on is not necessarily targeted as one whom the intelligence will be "used against" at any time. Often people spy with the intent of helping the person spied on, so the intelligence in this case, would be used to assist you rather than against you.

I think on Wittgenstein's view, the agent always is the person, and not the person's brain. — Pierre-Normand

But this doesn't work, because "the person" is understood as the conscious self, yet much of the brain's activity is not conscious. Therefore the agent which is doing the interpreting in these unconscious processes cannot be the person.

Assigning agency to "the person" simply facilitates concepts of moral responsibility, but it doesn't provide us with an understanding of how the human being is able to act as an intentional being, free to choose. There must be processes within that being which enable "choice", and these processes require agency which cannot merely be assigned to "the person", because the agency involved extends far beyond that of the conscious person. This agency cannot come from social interaction as in the bootstrapping description, because it must already be within the person to allow for that capacity of social interaction.

The machine "creates" meaning for the user. — Pierre-Normand

So the analogy is, that the brain creates meaning for the person, as does the machine create meaning for the user. But as indicated above, there must be agency in each of these two processes. The agency must be capable of interpreting, so it's not merely electrical current, which is the activity of interest here. Would you agree that in the machine, the capacity to interpret is provided by algorithms? But in the human being we cannot say that the capacity to interpret is provided by algorithms. Nor can we say that it is provided by social interaction as in the bootstrapping description, because it is necessary that it is prior to, as required for that social interaction.

But I’m shocked you seem to generally agree with what I say. That has never happened before. — apokrisis

Actually, we always agree for the large part. If you remember back to when we first engaged here at TPF, we had a large body of agreement. However, we quickly progressed toward determining the points where we disagree. This is principally the matter of agency. Since I don't see much point in rehashing what we agree upon, I only confront you on the points where we disagree, looking for some slow progress.

My only doubt is your interpretation of "immediately realized," which differs from mine. It's difficult to imagine Adorno regarding anything immediately realized as good. Here's the translation in the appendix of the lectures:

Its path is blocked by possibility, never by immediate reality; this explains why it always seems abstract when surrounded by the world as it is. — Jamal

I think my interpretation is very similar to yours. Possibility blocks the path to utopia, and the realized is opposed to this. That implies good. The "immediately realized" supports the ideal of utopia, while possibility blocks it. In your last post you said:

"At least a focus on the 'immediately realized' allows the utopian ideal to be maintained, because it remains just a hopeful dream." "The good" is what is desired, what supports hope.

Immediate reality is surely the world as it is, the false or bad world. — Jamal

This is the play of the contraries. Plato did an extensive study of the relationship between pleasure and pain, it shows up in a number of different dialogues. The common way of understanding pain is that it is the absence, or want of pleasure. But this creates a problem because we then cannot get to pleasure without first experiencing pain as what is required, as prior to pleasure, being the absence of pleasure which precedes its presence. So Plato speculated that there must be a type of pleasure which is not properly opposed to pain, and this would support the true good, as a more pure form of pleasure which was not derived from pain.

Why would you not be fine with strangers tracking your children?! Are you serious? What an absolutely mad question to even ask! — DingoJones

It's quite likely happening already, and also completely legal. Why should I worry about something I can't do anything about? That just makes a person miserable. And if it's happening it's not hurting anyone anyway. So if I worried about it, I would be the only one being hurt by it. I'm not interested in self-inflicted harm.

Should we all spy on each other? — DingoJones

If that's what you like to do, then go right ahead. I'm sure there are many who already practise, so you won't be alone. I won't be joining you though, I've got better things to do with my time, like hanging around TPF.

Yes, but it doesn't imply present retrieval of unchanged past information. — Janus

I don't even know what this could mean. As Derrida argued, repetition cannot be unchanged, it always involves difference, There is no such thing as "retrieval of unchanged past information". Retrieval of past information is possible, as repetition, but it is not "unchanged".

Yep. All of them by definition. But that misses the point. Which is what evolution was tuning the brain to be able to do as its primary function. — apokrisis

OK, we're not far apart on this point. But I think assigning remembering the past as the "primary function" here is an assumption which is a stretch of the imagination. But maybe this was not what you meant. One can just as easily argue that preparing the living being for the future is just as much the primary function as remembering the past. And if remembering the past is just a means toward the end, of preparing for the future, then the latter is the primary function.

So past experience is of course stored in the form of a useful armoury of reactive habits. The problem comes when people expect the brain to have been evolved to recollect in that autobiographical fashion. And so it will only be natural that LLMs or AGI would want to implement the architecture for that. — apokrisis

The way that we remember, and the things which we remember, are greatly conditioned by our attitude toward the future. For example, intention often directs attention, and attention influences what is remembered. And since human intention is constantly fluctuating, not at all fixed, this makes it quite different from the memory of an AI.

But I’m warning that the brain arose with the reverse task of predicting the immediate future. And for the reverse reason of doing this so as then not to have to be “conscious” of what happens. The brain always wants to be the least surprised it can be, and so as most automatic as it can manage to be, when getting safely through each next moment of life.

You have to flip your expectations about nature’s design goals when it comes to the evolution of the brain. — apokrisis

Yes, so all you need to do is to take this one step further, to be completely in tune with my perspective. My perspective is that preparing for the future is the primary function. But this does not mean that it does not have to be conscious of what happens, because it is by being conscious of what happens that it learns how to be prepared for the future.

The problem with treating mental images or information as stored representations is that they aren't intrinsically meaningful. They stand in need of interpretation. This leads to a regress: if a representation needs interpretation, what interprets it? Another representation? Then what interprets that? Even sophisticated naturalistic approaches, like those of Dretske or Millikan who ground representational content in evolutionary selection history and reinforcement learning, preserve this basic structure of inner items that have or carry meaning, just with naturalized accounts of how they acquire it. — Pierre-Normand

The information must always be stored as representations of some sort. Maybe we can call these symbols or signs. It's symbols all the way down. And yes, symbols stand in need of interpretation. That is the issue I brought up with apokrisis earlier. Ultimately there is a requirement for a separate agent which interprets, to avoid the infinite regress. We cannot just dismiss this need for an agent, because it's too difficult to locate the agent, and produce a different model which is unrealistic, because we can't find the agent. That makes no sense, instead keep looking for the agent. What is the agent in the LLM, the electrical current?

AI can amplify our human capacities, but what you are doing is using it to make a bad argument worse. — apokrisis

In other words it will amplify your mistakes.

Significantly for our debate, I think the self itself is a fake immediacy, at least in the world we know---and I think this is an important position of Adorno's. — Jamal

I agree with this, that for Adorno the immediacy of the self is fake. And it makes sense to me because I put this into a temporal context, as a sort of analogy to help me understand. We are inclined to place the self, with its experience, at the present in time, and this presence supports the assumption of immediacy. But analysis of this experience, which is represented as the immediate, or being at the present, fails to find the present, and all is reduced to either past or future. So the immediacy of the present is illusory.

Not to be dissuaded though, the logical solution would be to unite the two opposing features, past and future, in synthesis, thereby creating the required immediacy of the present, in conception. However, this ultimately fails because the two opposing features are categorically distinct, incompatible, so in actual practise, "the present" becomes a divisor rather than a unifier. Therefore the two cannot properly be opposed in conception nor can they be unified in synthesis.

Now we have the situation which Adorno likes to describe as each of the two in the pair, being mediated by the other. The inclination is to unite the two in synthesis, and the unity would be what is immediate. But this doesn't work because the incompatibility prevents the possibility of synthesis, so that immediacy is fake.. Now we are left with the two distinct features, each mediated, and we have nothing which is immediate.

5. Possibility obstructs utopia, because if utopia is limited to what happens now to be possible, it's not much of a utopia. Focusing on possibility forecloses on utopia. At least a focus on the "immediately realized" allows the utopian ideal to be maintained, because it remains just a hopeful dream. Possibility, on the other hand, by bringing it closer in imagination to what exists, sells it short. — Jamal

Referring to my temporal analogy above, utopia would be found in the immediacy of the present. The future (expressed as "possibility") obstructs utopia through the sense of urgency, as the unending need to produce change. But looking backward in time, the "immediately realized", appears to support a real end to change, the reality of the effect, thereby keeping the dream of utopia alive. In this way the two (possibility, and the realized) mediate each other, and the immediate, as the utopia of now, is never actually present.

The way I see it is that the future is like an immense force, the force of "possibility" which necessitates that we choose. So long as the future is forcing us in this way, utopia is impossible. However, when we see that through choice and action we can bring about real change, as the "immediately realized", this provides hope that we can put an end to the destructive force of possibility, and have utopia.

That is the critique of the 'instrumentalisation of reason' - that truth is what works, what achieves the means to an end, and so on. — Wayfarer

Yes, now do you see how this attitude relates to the statement about Horkheimer posted by Punshhh above?

"This marks the “eclipse” of reason—the point at which rationality itself becomes irrational, serving domination rather than enlightenment, and leaving modern civilization powerful in its techniques but impoverished in meaning and purpose."

It's an entrapment of the materialistic attitude of modern society. Focus on the means narrows, or limits the end, to that which we're good at. Narrowing the end is a restriction on freedom. That is the impoverishment of purpose.

If habits are the result of patterns of neural networks established in response to present information (established when the past was present) then memory might not be a resurfacing of the original information but rather an inference manifesting, driven by, the current neural traces of the pre-established patterns. — Janus

The important point is the ending, "pre-established patterns". Doesn't that imply "past information" to you? Any form of repetition implies past information.

In my view, this link between Galileo’s science, which, don’t forget, was the fulcrum of the Scientific Revolution, and Descartes’ mind/body dualism, are essential to what Vervaeke calls ‘the grammar of modernity’ and the sense that the world is basically meaningless. — Wayfarer

What I find is that Galileo's turn toward relativity marked a changed attitude in the discipline of physics, which removed the goal of truth. With his theory of relativity, Galileo demonstrated that physicists could represent the motions of objects from different inertial frames of reference, and each representation would be equally valid. This facilitated physicists immensely, because it removed the need to determine the truth in their representations of motions. So for example, the sun and stars could be represented as orbiting a fixed earth, or the earth could be represented as spinning within a fixed background, and each was an equally valid representation. Therefore the desire for truth is removed, as the physicist is free to model movements in whatever way serves the purpose.

Since then Einsteinian relativity was developed, and this is a relativistic way of representing motions which serves the purpose, with disregard for the truth. The problem though, is that in modern culture the tendency is to think of Einsteinian relativity as the truth. This is a significant problem because relativity is based in the principle that the truth doesn't matter in our representations of motion. So when the belief that relativity is the truth develops, then the attitude which follows is that the truth is that there is no truth. Notice, there is still an implicit "truth" here, as "there is no truth", so the attitude is self-contradictory. This self-contradicting attitude is evident in ontologies like model-dependent realism.

I don't think the objections are coming to terms with the argument. Again, the argument is, that since the Scientific Revolution, modern culture tends to see the world (or universe) in terms of a domain of objective forces which have no meaning or moral dimension, in which human life is kind of a fortuitous outcome of chance events. Prior to that, the Universe was imbued with symbolic and real meaning, in which the individual, no matter how lowly their station, was a participant. I mean, there's been enormous literature and commentary on this fact. I attempted in the OP to try and distill it the essentials of it. Those books I cited in the OP are among the examples, but there are many more. — Wayfarer

I think that the issue here is also related to our attitude toward truth. The common notion of truth, and realism are intertwined. If there is such a thing as "the way that things are", independent of human apprehension, then realism is the case, and there is an independent truth regardless of whether human beings apprehend it. However, "the way things are" is conceptual, a description of ideas, and "truth" is a correspondence between this conception and the reality. Therefore independent truth, and realism in general, requires a divinity like God to support it ontologically. Without human beings, something must support the concept of "the way things are".

It is not mere coincidence that the relativistic movement away from truth coincided with the movement away from God. Traditionally, God is Truth. But in moving away from God we also forfeit the other things you mention, which God provides the grounding for, "meaning" and "moral dimension". Because of this there is an inclination to maintain a vestige of realism. People claim natural rights, they claim objective truths, but they reject the ontological principles (God) which support these claims.

Especially the substitution of the physical universe for the Divine. — Wayfarer

This is the attitude which prioritizes utility as higher than truth. Instead of apprehending us lowly human beings as subject to the truth of the Divine, therefore seeking to determine that truth, we apprehend "the physical universe" as being at our service, there for us to use and abuse as we see fit. Our hypotheses and theories are not aimed at truth, they are created with the intent of facilitating that use and abuse.

When traditions speak of “higher knowledge,” the term “higher” need not imply rank or authority - something that seems to push a lot of buttons! - but rather a difference in mode, scope, or reflexive awareness. — Wayfarer

This I would say is the difference between directing our knowledge toward truth, and directing our knowledge toward using and abusing the physical universe. When physics turned from the desire for truth, to relativistic principles, as described above, the former was replaced by the latter. Now, "truth" has been replaced with "the capacity to predict" as the standard for knowledge.

And how could this be “your idea” if you were arguing against memory as prospective habit and instead claiming it to be past information? — apokrisis

Whatever "prospective habit" is actually supposed to mean, aren't all sorts of habit based in past information?

Even though Adorno's writing in ND is singularly dense and difficult, and even though this is intentional, he is open and honest and says what he means. If he meant the thought he would say so. The thing is the object of thought, the thing we're thinking about. — Jamal

Reading ahead in the next section, I've found evidence that we are both, in a way correct in our interpretations. I interpreted "the thing" as the thinking, you as the object of thought. Here, Adorno seems to say that the thing being thought about, and the thinking itself, are inseparable, a unity where each depends on (is mediated by) the other.

Words like problem and solution ring false in philosophy, because they
postulate the independence of what is thought from thinking exactly
there, where thinking and what is thought are mediated by one another.

In a way, we're both right. But in another way, we're both wrong because we each move to exclude the other, when we're supposed to include the other, to understand the requirement of the two being in some form of unity.

Elsewhere, however, Descartes says that a substance is something “capable of existing independently”; “that can exist by itself”; or “which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence” — SEP

I think that's somewhat consistent with what I said, depending on how one would understand "independently". If things can exist independently of each other, yet still interact, then there is no interaction problem. But if interaction denies independence, then there is an interaction problem. So for example, consider an artefact created in the past. Is that artefact currently independent from its creator or is it dependent on the creator?

The two substances I proposed are material forms and immaterial forms. By the nature of contingency, and the cosmological argument, the idealist might conclude that in an absolute sense, all material substance is 'dependent' on immaterial substance. That is, the material came into being from the immaterial, exemplified by "God". The immaterial is understood as the ultimate source of the material. However, we might still say that material things have a sort of 'independence', as the artefact is independent from its creator. That's an ambiguity between the absolute sense of "dependent", and the relative sense of "independent".

If we insist on rigorous, strict definitions, then we might be inclined to reject this ambiguity. And since material forms are dependent on immaterial forms, the idealist would be inclined to reject the substantial existence of material forms, in a way like that described by Berkeley. That the forms we observe in the world around us are actually composed of "matter" is just an illusion produced because our senses are prone to deceiving use in the way explained by Plato. Then the world can be understood to exist solely of "forms", and the idea that there is matter within these forms is just a conceptual aid, created for the purpose of assisting us in understanding how the world appears to us through sensation.

So the interaction problem is created by those who insist on the use of "matter", and the claim that material things could have independent existence. This is completely inconsistent with scientific observations because matter is a principle used to describe what is passive, inactive, what does not change as time passes, and we observe that everything is active and changing.

Even the best laid plans...

They are children and you are their father. The claim “there is nothing wrong with spying” pertains to all those who “get the urge to spy”, who “want to find out what someone is up to“. Are you fine with them checking up on the whereabouts of your children? — NOS4A2

Sure, why would I not be fine with it? It's just a natural and acceptable part of our society. It's sometimes required and useful for identifying wrong doers. If someone (my children, or even myself) is suspected, then that person will be checked up on. And the thing is, that the spying is required before knowing whether the person is a wrong doer or not, it's based on suspicion.

I mean I wouldn't disown my society just because people have the right, and will, to spy on others within it. No, I understand the reasons why people spy, and I accept it as an unavoidable, natural, and rational thing for human beings to do. This is because many human beings are inclined toward bad deeds, and to avoid being prevented from carrying them out, or being punished for carrying them out, they attempt to hide this inclination. Therefore they must be watched when they think no one is watching (spied on), to identify that inclination toward bad deeds.

However, if the spiers fabricate evidence, or do other dishonest things, then that's a different story. But that's not a faultiness of spying in specific.

Other than checking the whereabouts of my kids on the phone app, I don't get the urge to spy. However, I accept it as a reasonable and legitimate way of checking up on someone whom you suspect.

Although substance dualism really is incoherent, but that doesn't matter because there are no substance dualists. — bert1

I'm substance dualist, by the principles i just explained. Substance dualism is only made to appear incoherent through the strawman representation.

I think you are using 'substance' in a different way from, say, Spinoza. — bert1

I don't know, "substance" is an Aristotelian term, and he distinguishes primary substance and secondary substance, laying the ground work for a coherent substance dualism.

I think what you are describing is the strawman representation of dualism, designed by monists to make dualism look incoherent. You define the two substances as "having nothing in common", and from this strawman definition, which begs the question for the monist, it is impossible that the two substances could interact. Then substance dualism is deemed as incoherent.

But look closely, both are called "substance" therefore they already have something in common, the same name. So "having nothing in common" is already ruled out, from the beginning, as a false representation. Then, to look deeper we would need to inquire what it means to be substantial, "substance". We might determine that this is to be actual. And under the Aristotelian tradition "form" is what is actual. Then we can distinguish two types of form (actuality), that which is united to matter, and that which is separate or independent. In this way we have substance dualism, one type of substance contains matter, the other does not. But there is nothing to indicate that the two types of substance, united with matter and not united with matter, both being actual, cannot interact.

Why is everyone around here so strongly against spying? Have you succumbed to paranoia? If you want to find out what someone is up to, you spy on them. How is there anything wrong with that?

Platonic dialectics looks at different ways in which the same word is used, in an attempt to determine the true referent. Compare this to what Adorno said of dialectics, "to have the thing and the expression approach one another almost to the point of non-differentiability".

The only real difference is that Plato is clear to indicate that "the thing" (referent) is the thought, whereas Adorno is ambiguous as to what "the thing" refers to. However, it ought to be quite clear that to have the thing and the expression approach one another almost to the point of non-differentiability, requires that this ambiguity be resolved. That's what Platonic dialectics strives to do, resolve ambiguity.

Philosophy which would have this stripped away to a purported immediacy, such as phenomenology, empiricism, Descartes' cogito, etc., are doing it wrong, according to Adorno. — Jamal

What I see is the importance of activity, and this is "becoming". So the stripping "away to a purported immediacy" at this point, seems to be a matter of replacing being with becoming as the immediate. It is when we impose the necessity of an identifiable thing, an object, or being, that we impose mediation, the mediation is conception.

What I think Adorno is demonstrating is that we cannot strip away to an immediate, identifiable object, like Descartes "I", or the "being" of phenomenology, just like you think so. However, you seem to take this as a demonstration that all is mediated, there is nothing immediate. I take it as an indication that the immediate is not what we think it is, what traditional philosophy leads us to believe. Intuition tells me that something must be immediate.

At this point, I think both, yours and mine, are valid interpretations.

Adorno's perspective is the opposite of the perspective you express in the first quotation above. Or have I misunderstood you? — Jamal

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. I approach philosophical understanding with the attitude that the best, most accurate understanding will be obtained when the thing to be understood is immediate. Mediation suffers the tinted glass analogy. I think Adorno approaches philosophy with a similar attitude, that which is immediate must be understood first. The glass must be examined for tinting.

The issue which Adorno points to is the difficulty in determining what is immediate. So, in the previous sections, starting with Privilege of experience, he attempted to look at the human subject, oneself, as the immediate object. This failed because "substance" had to be assigned to society, leaving that proposed object as unsubstantiated.

I do not think, as you seem to, that he has given up on the quest for the immediate. I think he is now considering the possibility of the activity of thinking as immediate. In Aristotle there is a categorical separation between activity "becoming", and the status of an object, or thing, as "being". The two are incompatible. So "the thing which is immediate" is actually contradictory under this understanding, because what is immediate cannot be a thing at all. But this does not completely negate "the immediate".