Again, I'm not so interested in interpreting Kant as taking about trees. The thing-in-itself strikes me as nonsense on stilts. — Banno

Again, going back to first part here, I was commenting that Kantian is seen as idealist (transcendental idealist), and it is an example of idealism that does not deny an external reality. That is all I was saying. I moved past this and just accepted you meant a certain variety of idealism, and am now just going with that so that this language game can continue.

I take idealism to be pretty much defined by this transformation of facts about trees to facts about minds.

Not at all sure what you are saying at — Banno

Just that Kantian Idealists wouldn't say this and other kinds that acknowledge an external reality that is outside the framework of mind. That is all. Nothing more.

Further, tying it to my previous statement, the idealist might be making the same error:

"My experience IS the tree" rather than,
"My experience is CAUSED by the tree".

(Error of the Idealist)

And as I think about it more, this error of the idealist is akin to the error by the realist/materialist as to consciousness. It is misplaced ontology, or something like this.

"Consciousness IS the physical system"
"Consciousness is CAUSED by the physical system"

(Error of the realist)

"The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. — Banno

Yes, agreed.

One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno

Some might be doing this, but not all. Certainly, if you don't assent to something like, "All is mind, and can only be mind", then this would be seen as muddling the two, as the idealist would be accused of denying any reality outside their perception, and this is seen as incredulously absurd, based on notion that inputs (outside the person's mind) seem to be causing the experiences we are having of a tree.

Or an arborist, or a child; the practical and the innocent. It takes doing philosophy to muddle such simple language games. — Banno

I mean, I agree to an extent sure. Here is a language game people often conflate:

1) Consciousness is CAUSED by X [place any physical system here].
2) Consciousness IS X [place any physical system here].

Folk hereabout can't even agree that Kant was or wasn't an idealist. I don't see how making use of such historical quibbling is helpful. Better to address the actual argument. — Banno

I was addressing a point you made, and declaring it not accurate. But if we are strictly saying Berekley's version of Idealism = idealism, then that would only be accurate. I am refuting that this is the only form though.

"The tree has three branches" is very different from "I perceive the tree to have three branches". — Banno

Correct. And would be very close to what an indirect realist would say, perhaps, or a Kantian.

The tree has three branches" is very different from "I perceive the tree to have three branches". Idealism is the conflation of the two. — Banno

That is conflating various forms of Idealism. Kantian Idealism is not going to conflate that. Perhaps Berkeleyianism. In fact, Kantianism would insist on that division.

Philosophy vs Pseudo philosophy. — Nickolasgaspar

Right, and but that is smuggling in value statements as if they were objective fact about what comprises what.

-Classifying different types of emergence doesn't change the nature of an observable phenomenon like human conscious states.
We can talk about Emergence if you want but your starting point needs to be anchored on our current epistemology and go from there. You shouldn't start from the actual metaphysical claim you have the burden to prove! — Nickolasgaspar

Not getting where you are coming from here. Rather I am saying science can certainly tell me the empirical findings of said phenomenon. It does not (at least now, possibly never because the answer might never be empirical) tell us how it is that emergent phenomena supervene on its constituents.

Facts of reality render that claim wrong. — Nickolasgaspar

Which are based observationally. Convenient.

-"There has to be "something" for which emerging happens in."
_Correct. We observe physical systems producing emergent phenomena ,either Synchronic or Diachronic. (Taxonomy of emergence). — Nickolasgaspar

Right observing. Already in the equation.

No the analogy of a container is wrong since Diachronic Emergence wouldn't be possible. (persistence after the causal mechanism ceasing to exist). — Nickolasgaspar

Still doesn't bypass it. You are assuming the consequent again.

The new emergent phenomena are observable, measurable and most of the times quantifiable. We can affect them and manipulate them by changing the setup of the responsible process. Ghosts do not share the same qualities. — Nickolasgaspar

Yep they are observable indeed. And I did not say "ghosts" but "ghostly" big difference in what I am conveying.

"Answering it"? I am not sure your statement is on topic. We identify the Necessary and Sufficient mechanisms responsible for the emergence of the phenomenon.
We do it so well, that we can even make predictions when specific aspects of a mechanism is damaged (brain injury, pathology, intoxication) ,we can make diagnosis and design surgical and medical protocols to treat and improve the quality of the emergent property.
THERE is nothing circular in this approach.
The suggested magical idealistic ontology of the phenomenon has nothing to contribute to the discussion other than stating "wow its so different so a magical source should be hiding behind it".
Sorry this is not Philosophy! — Nickolasgaspar

It's the same problem as other posters are making. Being incredulous isn't philosophy, rather. However, even the way you are phrasing is distorting the questions at hand. Rather, what is the nature of this emergence from its constituent parts?

You are making an odd antagonism. Most philosophers are not denying empirical claims. Functionally, the science carries on, no matter what the argument behind the metaphysics and epistemology is, so not sure what has got you so annoyed besides just general incredulity over and over.

Exactly. Well said. And this is quite defining of humanity. Albeit a sullen/sombre distinction. But we have a say in our existence that I'm not sure other animals have as much autonomy in. And that is quite remarkable. — Benj96

I think my point was that other animals don't even have that in their way of life. They are much more present, immediate, and specific in their intentionality. They don't have the burden of "Why or what should I do with my life" at each and every moment. Or the possibility of that. Of course it is hard for humans to stay truly "authentic" as Existentialists would say. Many times we really do live out our lives in habits and roles we "fall into" rather than "take on" which would indeed be as they would say, "bad faith". But it would be exhausting I am sure to always be "authentically" living as each moment could have been counterfactually lived another way.

I agree that we really have transfigured to a nature that is based more on symbolic value (accompanying our highly sophisticated and nuanced languages) than innate biologic values - like sex, food and competition.
We can be asexual, anorexic, and passive. And importantly we have the choice to do these things. Instinct does not grip us as it does the rest of the animal kingdom. — Benj96

Agreed.

As humans, we are conceptualisers. We differ from animals in our ability to not only develop sophisticated enquiries (philosophy), but also in being swayed by them - adjusting our behaviour with them.

In essence, we think beyond. And sometimes that's our greatest merit, in other cases its our greatest flaw. — Benj96

As I said, I think it is quite a burden above and on top of simply surviving that other animals only have to deal with. The fact that I know that I don't like working but that I have to do it anyways to survive, is not just the thorn in the side, but the dagger in the flesh (to take a phrase from Cioran).

What we don't do in Natural Philosophy is to accept pseudo philosophical worldviews like idealism, occasionalism,solipsism as frameworks of our epistemology.
There are many reasons why some questions can't be answered, but not all sentences with a question-mark at the end qualify as real philosophical questions.(look Chalmers's fallacious teleological questions).
The problem we are dealing with here is not between Science and Philosophy, but Philosophy and Pseudo Philosophy. — Nickolasgaspar

Glad it's not science we are discussing. In Fight Club we don't talk about Fight Club. But I'm not in Fight Club, so I'll talk about it and not limit myself in such a way.

Also about emergence, there are whole sections of philosophy that discuss the trickiness of emergence and reduction- how it is that the whole reduces to its parts. Weak and strong emergence, which I think you were alluding to. We know that new entities supervene on their constituents, but we aren't clear on how.

An Idealist, for example, could make the claim that emergence could never take place without an observational standpoint. There has to be "something" for which emerging happens in. Sort of a container. Otherwise, we get ghostly new entities from fiat, which itself has to be explained. In other words, answering it by giving its constituents would simply be circular reasoning and not a sufficient answer.

Humans stand out in three particularly striking ways. We can commit suicide, we can sacrifice ourselves/risk life and limb for the "greater good" and we can choose to be celibate. — Benj96

Interesting. I can think of many others, but existentially speaking, these are good

I think that is more significant than it is given credit for. We are indeed free, we have broken away from natural imperative - the continuity of life. — Benj96

Yep, I called it an error loop. We are thus stuck with giving reasons for anything. We cannot just "be". Even "deciding" to "just be" (some Buddhist sounding stuff) is a deliberate decision we still grapple and internalize. Also, at the end of the day, we got to deal with things we do not like, Buddhist claims aside.

Why? Why would nature ever allow for a level of conscious awareness, of complexity, to undermine its sole drive like that? — Benj96

Exaptation. It was not adapted for, but a byproduct of a general processing directionality in evolutionary trajectory. We veered away from innate models of being and adapted for general processes of learning. Again probably due to tool-use, social complexity interplaying with the exaptations and then adaptations for symbolic thought.

In that way we could almost consider ourselves supernatural. No other living thing demonstrates such abilities to such degrees. Perhaps hives/colonies can be considered as disoensibke units in that for example ants can sacrifice themselves for the safety of the colony. But we differ in that we can commit suicide for purely personal reasons rather than to further society. — Benj96

We commit suicide for personal and even existential reasons. What's the point? I don't like this game anymore. That sort of thing.

Instinct seems to predominate for them to a degree that these abilities have not been documented. — Benj96

Yes.





.

But whatever the case, we are very unique in many ways - our behaviours, values, interactions and awareness/relationship with the natural world. And I do wonder where that all comes from? — Benj96

I'm sure some evolutionary reasons. Our evolutionary path was that of flexibility over specific modules to handle situations. These in turn, were probably a kind of Red Queen scenario where each new advantage created its own problems which needed more ratcheting. So for example, it may have started out simply with walking upright continually, which freed up hands for tools. As with other primates, tool-use is not new. But the complete freedom from using hands for mobility and bipedalism created the opportunity for more exploration. This in turn favored higher rates of pre-frontal cortex formations for abstract and long-term planning. This created the situation where social pressures needed even more ratcheting for there to be awareness of intent and understanding social relations. The shift to some language-based thinking that could have been due to various mutations (FOXp2 gene for example), along with exaptations like the the mirror-neuron system (that is just one idea), might have helped in developing dedicated regions like Wernicke and Broca's region of the brain. This in turn ratcheted up things exponentially as symbolic thought combined with a general processing brain (not specified to certain tasks and responses), created the goal-directed, reason-producing, narrative creating human being we saw appear 500,000-150,000 years ago.

But though interesting, I am trying to showcase the burden that this kind of cognition carries. We are an animal that knows it does not have to, but does it anyways. A chimp forages and hunts in its environment but it almost certainly doesn't have to motivate itself. Sure depression is something that can be seen in animals, but it is not necessarily the same as a daily struggle for providing reasons. We know there are nasty, shitty, crappy, negative aspects that we don't want to encounter, and we must grapple with that and overcome that. If we didn't, we would literally die.

You don't know and have no way to prove the existence of an underlying ontology so it is irrational to keep pushing this ideology on the excuse "conscious experience appear to be magical"! — Nickolasgaspar

This is your whole argument repeated. Philosophy and science are doing two different things. The assumption you’re making is the value statement that philosophy is to only be subordinate to science to have any value. Rather, it is a never ending dialogue that poses questions and proposes avenues to explore to answer them. It considers science as a methodology but is not bound to not ask questions science cannot be able to answer. You are asking philosophy to do something it’s not bound to do and say why isn’t it so bound. Sounds like a you problem.

Rather, getting to the edge of nowhere. Big difference. — jgill

I rather see it like this:

Abstract
This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frustration of the needs not to suffer and not to have one’s autonomy dwarfed should, prima facie, be decreased. When decreasing the need frustration of some would increase the need frustration of others, the case is deferred and a fuller ethical analysis is conducted. The author’s perceptions on murder, extinction, the right to die, antinatalism, veganism, and abortion are used to reach a reflective equilibrium. The new theory is then applied to consumerism, material growth, and power relations. The main finding is that the burden of proof should be on those who promote the status quo. — Oldphan

Thanks Oldphan! I've seen this around. I'll check it out. You should check out my Profile description. I write a decent amount on antinatalism and pessimism. One of the last arguments I made was of the deontological variety here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/781495

And yet he lived the ripe old age of 90. Also, he was a noted climber, so his existential search was not unfruitful. — jgill

But isn't mountain climbing the perfect metaphor for getting nowhere? :grin:

Yeah, P.W. Zapffe is one of my favorites listed on my TPF profile. — 180 Proof

He does have some good points for sure about the human condition and seems to fit nicely with the ideas I was playing around with about the burden of having and needing reasons.

You don't have to be here. Nor are you obliged to read, let alone reply to my posts. — Banno

It is frustrating to give an answer and then instead of engaging with it, you simply cry "incredulity". It's not just that it is smug and condescending, but it's a bit unfair. Someone (and it's not just me) puts in time to answer you in earnestness, and you give a snarky quip as a response. I'd go as far to say it's a kind of trolling.

I think it should be noted that Whitehead did not identify as a panpsychist, but as a panexperientialist. — Janus

Yeah that's fine.

From what I remember reading in Whitehead (many years ago) his notion of experience does not equate to sentience. He saw relationality and process as fundamental; things only are what they are in relation to other things and the processes that evolve out of their relations. So, an example would be that a rock experiences erosion on account of the wind, temperature differentials and the rain. — Janus

Yeah his writing is dense so definitely room for interpretation, however the basic atoms of his ontology were called "actual occasions" which I've seen described as "drops of experience", but as you are implying, nothing like the human kind. I don't know what an "actual occasion" "feels like", but there is I guess something of a point of view I guess of that "actual occasion" as it prehends.

The rock has no identity apart from its dynamic ever-changing relationship with its environment. We are infinitely more complex and of course both sentient and sapient, but are we really any different, since we are really nothing apart from relations and processes within our bodies, and interacting with the environment, with culture and language? — Janus

Yes and no. While I agree with your relational framing of Whitehead, I do indeed think he thought there was a "there" there for the rock. There is a sort of experiential quality going on in the event of the rock. If there wasn't, then why even have a metaphysics? That would simply be describing the physics and chemistry of the rock. But that's not quite what Whitehead is saying. The event has a sort of experiential aspect to it in some sense I guess. The rock is experiencing as a rock, and not as the rock is measured by a human. The localized event is "event-ing" if you will. It's like if all physical processes had a first person point of view. At least that's how I'm interpreting it.

Things are real for Whitehead insofar as they can experience being affected by other things, but this idea of experience does not entail consciousness or awareness of any kind. Even Whitehead's God is constantly evolving in response to the dynamic actuality of existence. If I am wrong about that, I am happy to be corrected by anyone more familiar with Whitehead's philosophy. — Janus

I think I agree with this interpretation, based on your first sentence.

Well the end of Philosophy came with that "why" question. There is nowhere to go from there. If we embrace the right "how/what" question there is plenty of philosophy to be done on available scientific data.
Philosophy's goal is to produce wise claims on available facts and expand our understanding of the world. Fallacious questions don't really serve that purpose. — Nickolasgaspar

You are missing his point. Rotating a cube in your mind is a phenomenon. Physiological/biological processes are a phenomenon. They are correlated. Yet that correlation, while no one is doubting its correlation through observation, has it such that a completely new kind of phenomena takes place that is different from all the other physical phenomena. That is, it is the fundamental phenomena of qualitative-ness/ experiential-ness. That such a unique thing exists that is so different than all the physical phenomena is the question. Why should neural networks be correlated with qualatitiveness? A purely physical description would simply be some sort of behaviorism. It would be like AI that has no qualitative experience but has inputs and outputs. But that's not the case, we have experience. You can play ignorant hobbit, and say we don't need to explain that, but then you are just pouting that it is such a hard question and then delegitimizing it because of its difficulty. Well, poo poo, it is a quite difficult question, and thus will remain a thorn in the side of your sour grapes that it cannot be explained. But to make the problem go away by simple fiat that philosophical inquiry just sucks is not going to do anything other than show your feeling about it.


You

Even if that was true...How can you ever make claim that? BUt it isn't . For 35 years we have managed to get closer and closer to a descriptive framework about the Necessary and Sufficient role of a biological mechanism in our ability to experience ourself and surroundings.
Denying it is just scientifically wrong. The data are overwhelming.
As Laplace replied to Napoleon's question "where God fits in your model" we can say with certainty " We have no need for that hypothesis, the model works without it".(not only Describes accurate, it Predicts and it offer us Technical Applications)
Necessity and Sufficiency are met...and Chalmer's "why" questions aren't enough to justify any unnecessary entity/process/substance/force (unparsimonious). — Nickolasgaspar

I don't know the answer to the hard question obviously. But what I do know is that there is a hidden dualism in materialist assumptions. Emergence/integration/binding it doesn't matter your phrasing, it is all stand ins for "magical experience takes place". You are always thus jumping from category physical to category mental activity. The assumption is simply just put there because we know indeed we experience. Nothing is explained otherwise as to the nature of this "experience" other than it is correlated with these physiological correlations.

-For that question you will need to visit Neurosciencenews.org , put the search key phrase "How the brain does" and you will learn the "hows" and "whats" for many mental functions. — Nickolasgaspar

No, again, that is not ontologically how they are one and the same, just that these physical processes correlate to these experiential ones. Those are indeed the easy problems Chalmers mentions.

-Please do, but I think the problem here is that you ignore the latest science what fallacies are. — Nickolasgaspar

Experience the very thing which observes the other phenomena. How is it this is the biological/physical substrate, and if it "arises" from the physical substrates, "what" is this "arising"?

No doubt we're counterfactual (talking) animals. — 180 Proof

Yes agreed. The going to work example:

I don't want to work, but I will continue because of X. You know you can do otherwise, but you continue with the thing you'd rather not do. I consider this a burden. A bear eats its berries or it starves, but it (as far as I know) can't think "Well, why do I have to keep on foraging for berries everyday. I really rather just sit and stare at the stars, but here I go, continuing perpetually until I die or gather enough berries to retire". Obviously I'm being absurd here, but in a way, the error loop we find ourselves in is absurd. The other animals seem more content not having to deal with this it seems. The self-reflective is the evolutionary error (to the individual) even though it was a (emergent over time) solution (for the species).

The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.

After placing the source of anguish in human intellect, Zapffe then sought as to why humanity simply didn't just perish. He concluded humanity "performs, to extend a settled phrase, a more or less self-conscious repression of its damaging surplus of consciousness" and that this was "a requirement of social adaptability and of everything commonly referred to as healthy and normal living."[1] He provided four defined mechanisms of defense that allowed an individual to overcome their burden of intellect.

Remedies against panic
Isolation is the first method Zapffe noted. It is defined as "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling". He cites "One should not think, it is just confusing" as an example.[1]
Anchoring, according to Zapffe, is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". The anchoring mechanism provides individuals a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe compared this mechanism to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's concept of the life-lie from the play The Wild Duck, where the family has achieved a tolerable modus vivendi by ignoring the skeletons and by permitting each member to live in a dreamworld of his own. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments. He noted flaws in the principle's ability to properly address the human condition, and warned against the despair provoked resulting from discovering one's anchoring mechanism was false. Another shortcoming of anchoring is conflict between contradicting anchoring mechanisms, which Zapffe posits will bring one to destructive nihilism.[1]
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions."[1] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. — Peter Wessel Zapffe, The Last Messiah

Lucky Cow! Was that productive for you? — Vera Mont

Yes, very.

Its like asking "why previously exited electrons produce a particle out of thin air"....the answer to all this type of questions is "because they do". — Nickolasgaspar

Cool. End of philosophy.

You are confusing the ability to be conscious with the quality of a conscious experience. — Nickolasgaspar

No not it. Rather, how is it that experience is at all, along with biochemical processes. Just the piling on of more biochemical (or any physical) processes is not going to get you closer to that answer. It simply answers the easier problems of what events we can observe correlating with subjectivity/experientialness.

-That is a mental state. Your Central Later Thalamus has the ability to connect different areas of your brain, specialized in Memory/past experience, logic, Abstract thinking, Symbolic language, Critical thinking, Imagination etc and introduce content in that specific mental state....and all this is enabled by your Ascending Reticular Activating System. — Nickolasgaspar

Yeah now you are just making categorical errors all over the place.. You went from "mental state" (the thing in question), to its physical correlates, but no closer to how the correlates ARE the mental state (ontologically). Homunculus here and there and everywhere. You do not seem to be getting the hard problem or are obstinately ignoring it.

-Of course it answers a huge part of that answer and not only that!!!! We can use this knowledge either to force a brain to recreate that specific state, we can read brain scans and based on the brain patter we can accurately (up to 85%) decode the conscious thought of the subject, we have designed Surgery and Medical protocols that can reestablish or improve specific mental states in patients and we can make Accurate diagnoses by looking at the physiology and function of brains and by analyzing the symptoms of a patient's mental states. We can predict mental malfunctions by studying the pathology of brains...and the list goes on. — Nickolasgaspar

So now it really does show you do not know the difference between easy and hard problem and are repeating this error over and over. I can try to explain it better if you want, but I feel that I have in my last post so not sure what else to say but you are not getting it.

-Why gravity has the quality it has...why it pulls but never pushes. Why conductivity manifest solely in metals. Why electricity passing through silicon ICs can produce images on a TFT or LED panel.
Why molecules act differently in different temperatures.
The answer is always "because they do". — Nickolasgaspar

That's not scientific at all. The very thing that is most well known to us (our own subjective experience) you are just saying "It is". Not very scientific. The other stuff you mentioned, ironically can go straight into the realist versus idealist debate for if those phenomena (scientific or otherwise) are anything beyond our empirical observation of it.

Now you know how it feels every time I hit reply to you :wink:

Humble and helpful is not your MO. How you can posture as looking "more superior than thou" is though.

It's everything wrong with philosophy (academically) done out of bad faith and philosophy forums done generally. Just egos clashing and trying to posture themselves :roll:

You need more? I tend to get stuck at the Incredulous Stare. — Banno

First off, I didn't say I myself am panpsychist, though I can sympathize with it.

Secondly, I said in my post about panpsychism that it is a "bullet" you would have to bite. So you see, it is something I am deeming as pretty out there.

Yes I notice you make arguments from fiat based on incredulity, but I'd like to remind you that incredulity is simply an emotional response and not an argument.

But moving past that there is the problem of how little minds come together to make bigger minds, and of how seperate small minds come together to make the unified mind had by you and I. — Banno

Most importantly here, to Whitehead, actual entities have a degree of sentience – of awareness, feeling and purpose – as do systems, or ‘societies’ as he names them, that are organically constructed from actual entities. Consciousness as we humans have it is therefore a complex nested system of subordinate sentiences: the redefined ‘organisms’ we traced in the path from Homo sapiens to subatomic particles, each of them being self-organising systems, are also sentient to degrees, according to the integrated complexity involved. Each cell in our body is such an instrument of sentience – instruments which focus their effects in the hall of the skull. Such consciousness requires a human brain because the brain channels together the awarenesses of the subordinate entities. Where actual entities have formed into non-self-organising aggregates – such as doors and windows – there is no unified sentience associated with the aggregate itself – only the myriad lesser sentiences of which the aggregate is composed: the sentiences of the molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Note the implication that although a brain is required for high-level animal-type consciousness, a brain is not required for mere sentience. Analogously, although an orchestra is required for a symphony, an orchestra is not required for a violin solo. Sentience, or experience, already exists as part of reality. — The Philosophy of Organism

No — Banno

Way!!!

I assumed all this time that other people also think these actions have obvious reasons that do not require explanation. — Vera Mont

Reasons. You said it. I’ll walk you through it. Someone decides to keep working even though they don’t want to. Why?

You can stupidly debate me on this point but a cow let’s say doesn’t say that it hates to chew it’s grass and cud but knows it must to survive. It doesn’t have the burdens of reasons, that is.

Huh? Extra beyond what basic standard of burden? — Vera Mont

There is no burden like this for other animals, for example. They have burdens, but not this burden.

We're a narrating species. Our entire memory-bank is an archive of stories we told ourselves about ourselves and what we saw, heard, felt and thought about. — Vera Mont

Ok, I agree here.

Yes. And? — Vera Mont

The burden of continuing, stopping or justifying any action we take. Go to work, whatever. We make stories up that is it.

No, we don't. We don't justify our routine actions, and don't feel any compulsion to justify them. Only when we decided to do something unexpected, contrary to routine, or counterproductive, do we feel any need for justification, and the one we give may not be the real reason. — Vera Mont

This is bullshit because you smuggled in the value of "counterproductive" there is no objective "productive" that means "this is what I should be doing". You are making a narrative a statement of obvious truth, which it isn't. I'm surprised you did that. We seem to agree these justifications are a narrative, not a hard fact. But we may say, "This leads to me not getting resources in the future". It is still a narrative that we are judging whether we want or not want. I can stop working at any time. I can stop living at any time, though both may be painful in the present or future and we do give ourselves a narrative that these decisions lead to things which we deem negative.

You brought up other animals, made a comparison. — Vera Mont

Because it is another way-of-being that is not ours and people automatically want to contest that. If people can't figure out how a dog is different than a human, then we have bigger problems and I don't want to discuss that meaningless exercise in contrarianism in this thread, because I think the differences are more obvious than people who are debating it are trying to earnestly appeal here.

I have been trying to discern a focus, and failing. You think "an existential animal" has some kind of burden by thinking about itself. I don't get why this needs discussing. — Vera Mont

Right, you aren't getting it.

First of the content of a metaphysical belief(accuracy) about the nature of the world does not really play any role in our survival.
Accuracy is needed when we experiencing the world around us (not its underlying ontology), for spatial navigation and temporal navigation, to avoid obstacles or predators, identify patterns, find resources or mates,decode social cues and behavior and in general to avoid suffering and increase our percentage of survival.
We are the decedents of those organisms who were able to experience the world in the best possible way. — Nickolasgaspar

You have conflated easier problems with the Hard Problem. Easier problems deal with mechanisms for brain function. This can be tested and is amenable to empirical verification. The Hard Problem is how it is that there is a point of view. The problem is that people who try to handwave the question by purporting the easier problems as the solution, aren't getting it. They are ALREADY assuming the consequent without explaining it. It is the Homunculus Fallacy. Simply listing off physical processes doesn't get at things like subjective qualia or imagination. What IS that thing that mind-thing that I am doing when I am imagining a blue cube being rotated in my mind? What is THAT. You can say it is "such-and-such neural networks" and that it developed because of "such-and-such evolutionary reasons", but that is not answering the question. How is it that there is this rotating of the blue cube that is happening with the firing of the neurons. It is superimposed, and forced into the picture but without explanation, only correlation with various obvious empirical stuff that isn't getting any closer to the answer to the question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument

@Tom Storm @Wayfarer @180 Proof @Metaphysician Undercover @Mww @Banno

This statement is quite incoherent, because the phrase "rational sentient creatures" presupposes – makes sense IFF there is – the universe that brings them "into being" so that they can conceive of "the universe". Mind – "comes into being" because of nonmind (processes) – is embodied. Thus, your disembodied (i.e. transcendental) speculation, Wayfarer, doesn't fit (or explain away) the facts. — 180 Proof

I have a sneaking suspicion that often "realists" and "idealists" of a certain variety, start to converge on some form of panpsychism. That is to say, some idea that experience is not confined to neural activity but to "events" or "processes" in general (sometimes objects for those more substance oriented).

Both sides are going to run into crazy errors they don't want to cop-to if they are not "mystical" oriented.

That is to say panpsychists have to bite the bullet and say that non-living things have some sort of experientialness, however minute.

Those who think that the brain/neural activity has to be where mental activities lie, then they have the burden of NOT making an unintentional Homunculus Fallacy whereby the consequent is ALREADY in the equation. In other words, "These neurons firing = MIND" (whoops, that's the very thing we are trying to understand how it is that it is mind and not just neurons firing). "These neural networks and INTEGRATION", same thing.

We can literally move to another location on the other side of the planet if we had the means to get there. Sure, that would cause other things, but then we have to judge and decide on that situation. We may have a tendency to do things, but at all times, we are judging based on standards, values, ideas of what we think is good or preferable. Other animals might prefer, but they don't base it on standards, values, future they fear if the do or don't do something, etc. It's more "in the moment", though it could be associative. That is not to say they don't fear or even project into the future to some extent, but it's not the same phenomenology that I am discussing for a language-based fully existential, self-reflective animal like a human. I am NOT positing that animals have no "reasoning" to some extent, so please don't red herring this again :roll:.

That being the case, I can let the plants die, but I decide not to. That being said, I can stop working and not work, but then the anxiety of leaving people without saying a word, the anxiety of looking for another thing, of not getting money, etc. You see, I just decided that these things were important, though I could decide otherwise. Perhaps freedom from work is most important to me at all costs to the point I'd rather live under an underpass than work for the Man. You see, we have a large degree of deliberative freedom, and this causes the burden of knowing we can do things which we didn't necessarily "have" to do, but do "anyways" because we decide things continually to do or not do. This, whilst praised in the main, is I see a burden of the human. This is the error loop where nothing is justified.

I drank the coffee because I wanted to. It's a routine sure, but it's a routine based on a heuristic whereby if someone asked "Why are you drinking coffee" I'd say, "Because I like coffee". Yeah but why have something you like? Then it would be something like, "I prefer to satisfy my preferences if I can". But these are all narratives. I could decide that I will not satisfy my preferences. I might decide that I don't like the other affects of coffee besides the caffeine or taste. I could decide any number of things and deliberate on it. In the end, I went with a decision and gave a narrative to it. Often we default to routine as a justification, but because we can decide otherwise, that too was simply a justification. It is still part of the error loop.

@Moliere @BC, @L'éléphant @Vera Mont @Tom Storm @Wayfarer

Well, maybe, sort of, sometimes, or not. — BC

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. We can stop at any time in any task's duration, but we carry on anyways. We can literally move to another location on the other side of the planet if we had the means to get there. Sure, that would cause other things, but then we have to judge and decide on that situation. We may have a tendency to do things, but at all times, we are judging based on standards, values, ideas of what we think is good or preferable. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

I used to wonder about the meaning of "instinct" - as in when people say, or experts say, "animals act on instinct, humans on reason". I thought, humans have instincts too. Don't we act on instinct, too? — L'éléphant

Funny you say that, I heard a segment from a scientist who conducted studies to show how what we often contribute to instinct in animals is actually a learned aspect. Thus "instinct" is really a placeholder not for true "innate" mechanisms, but a combination of innate and learned mechanisms which are associated with less deliberative, very specific behaviors to stimuli. But though interesting, still a digression, so I'll copy and paste my generic response:

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

No, it's something you do because otherwise you'd soil your nightclothes. Bodies have imperatives that cannot be denied. — Vera Mont

Yes it can, you can indeed soil your nightclothes. But that would be uncomfortable otherwise. You have a reason not to.

And because neglecting oral hygiene is both painful and expensive in the long run. — Vera Mont

And there is a reason.

Someone? Who's likely to call from the direction of your bedroom? Someone who matters to you. Of course you respond; it may be important. — Vera Mont

Sure, another reason.

People do have routines and habits, yes. Those routines were developed because they worked for that person. When they stop working, we change them. Addiction and external constraint may be factors, so that our autonomous choices are limited. And if we only have to make seven decisions in a hour instead of 49. So what? — Vera Mont

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

Please see my last reply. It will shortcut this.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/783929

I think this is nice line and it resonates with me. — Tom Storm

Glad it resonated.



So let me give some phenomenological aspects here:
1) You "wake up" and get out of bed. You decide to go to the bathroom. Perhaps this is habit/routine, though. It is just something you do because you have done it. You reflect and say "Nah, I'm going straight to coffee this morning. I'll worry about that other stuff in a minute". You broke the routine. You recognized it and did something else. You gave a reason for it, even if post-facto (you want a caffeeine fix before anything else, besides, it might help you um, do the other thing better :grimace:).

2) You brush your teeth out of habit/routine when someone calls your name from the bedroom. You instantly lookback as was more or less reflexive to react to a stimuli, especially one that seems to be addressing you. This perhaps is more in line with normal animal behavior.

3) You decide to work in the garden. No, you don't want to do it today. You know the plants need attending, but the hot sun is annoying and you really just want to be lazy. But no, you feel a sense of duty to the plants. You must. You cannot watch them die. But of course, you can do anything you want.

Anyways, the variations are endless. But the point is there is a deliberative aspect whereby reasons are there (post-facto or not) with some degree of reflectivity and habitual routines, but these are much more malleable and in fact, they all kind of feed in and out of each other, with a heavy emphasis that there is a self-reflective element, even if not quite deliberative (we may KNOW we are addicted but still always decide against breaking it. In fact there seems to be almost no decision to be made, one is doing it).

So anyways, the point is, this is all recognized and understood by yours truly. I get it. We don't have to parse this understanding out and belabor this point. Rather, I want to re-adjust back to what the OP is really getting at and that is that we are existential animals. So, what I mean is more the self-reflective element. We KNOW we could do otherwise (even if comfort of habit makes us decide one way mostly). This is an exhaustive extra layer. It is a continual judgement that rides on top of things. I don't just survive by learning mechanisms and instincts combining. I DECIDE to do something, sometimes against what I would really like to do (I don't want to tend to the plants, but I don't want to see them die) and JUDGE things (I don't like seeing the plants die). I don't have to do any of that though (I can watch the plants die and live without a garden).This is more what I mean for it to be existential. I am not denying that we can do things by routine, but it is the fact that we know that we can fall into a routine, that it is quite iterative above and beyond simply routine.

Very interesting - and I think, true. But incomplete, because no intelligent animals lives entirely by instinct: they also think and learn and decide. Having undertaken a course of action, they sometimes either to fail to carry it through or abandon it for various reasons. Instinct, emotion, reason; need, reaction, strategy.

I don't have a developed thesis; I just got here. Definitely an interesting subject for thought. — Vera Mont

Thanks for comments. So I did predict that answers were going to focus on the idea that animals too have some sort of deliberation, and that may be true, but can you think of how this is different than human deliberation? I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general. An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent. But there is still something altogether different regarding this and what a language-bearing being such as a human does. It is this implication of this unique ability that I want to explore.

You'd think it was, the number of retired engineers who casually drop past to explain how the poor benighted philosophers went wrong.

Shame they don't agree with each other. — Banno

The survey doesn't matter to me.
— schopenhauer1

Your repeated posts here suggest otherwise. — Banno

Well, a software engineer might say thus in response:

while True:
response = input("Enter your response: ")

if response.lower() == "i don't care about the survey":
print("Your repeated posts here suggest otherwise")
continue

elif response.lower() == "your repeated posts here suggest otherwise":
print("The survey doesn't matter to me. Rather, the implication of using the survey does.")
continue

else:
print("Your response is:", response)
break

If eight out of ten aeronautics engineers say the plane is unsafe, — Banno

Yeah, engineering is NOT philosophy. And that was my point when I said sciences are not like philosophy (I include engineering in that), so yeah keep making my points... or ignoring them. Whatever tactic you wish to do.

Restrict the philpapers results to metaphysicians in the target group of academic philosophers - 372 respondents - and the number who advocate idealism goes up to almost 7%! The number advocating realism rises to 84%.

Make of this what you will. — Banno

Doesn't change anything to me. My points still stand. The survey doesn't matter to me. Rather, the implication of using the survey does. It literally means nothing other than bandwagon fallacy. Also, making comparisons with engineering is more than a stretch. I would say, art, history or (maybe) social science at best, and even that is a stretch. Even history has less interpretive elements to it than philosophy which is quite literally the most open you can get in terms of what is debatable.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. But prey, continue. — Banno

I'll wear all the hats I want, thank you very much. Baseball cap, sombrero, derby....I don't mind indulging in various metaphysical standpoints, some rooted heavily in Western canon, and by no means "not philosophy", especially on an online philosophy forum. How boring would it be to have just one view, and only the Banno view at that! :wink: Wittgenstein all over with a side of rote symbolic logic statements. I mine as well count numbers to infinity and call it a day.

You get no answers by ignoring the problem at hand. Most philosophers ignore the problem. Many probably don't even deal with it in their academic work, and thus default to it because that isn't their specialty. But honestly, I wouldn't care if they knew every theory out there regarding metaphysics/epistemology, and answered realism. It's just a person's opinion. Informed by other opinions. Arguments in philosophy are too open to measure "better" or worse. You can really only say "well-constructed" or not and then weigh the argument against other arguments. But guess who is doing the weighing? Not an objective god, but a person.

And yes, I protesteth so because you are trying to pull and tease an objective argument, by sneaking in the notion of "majority means right" which is the textbook definition of bandwagon fallacy.