Mechanical response is conceived as being exhaustively causally determined. In an interpretative response there must be some agential freedom; you could respond in any of some variety of ways. — Janus

So we have degrees of freedom. Can you provide an example and then connect this with internalness?

No, it just doesn't make sense how behavior can have an internalness. Calling it "interpretive" is suspiciously pulling a pan-experiential move, as I told @Janus.

Isn't that the kind of definition which makes sense of the difference between human and computer responses? — Janus

Okay, so explain what the difference is then? What is interpretation vs. mechanical?

Well an interpretation would be a response which is not merely mechanical, wouldn't it? — Janus

I don't know. What does that mean?

Defeatist. — apokrisis

O contrare, I like studying these concepts.. I just don't delude myself that this will get me closer to the problem.. Even you have to bring it from mere facts about neurochemistry/biology to a broader semiosis. Sure, we need the biochemistry to anchor us in the substrates, but we need more for what is the case- that is how the processes lead to experiential processes.

Sure I do. You keep running from the question of why all that umwelt-style modelling wouldn't feel like something. — apokrisis

Piggy-backing off of Janus, I'd like to know more on how interpretation works. How organisms interacting with the world is experience. In other words, what is the metaphysics of interpretation?

interpretative rather than as experiential — Janus

Great, what does that mean?

sign relation just is the experience, the 'feeling-like-something' — Janus

Is he saying that? That would be pan-experientialism, something he vehemetly denies. But anyways, can you explain to me what you think the sign relation is, that is this "feels-like-something"?

I've explained these things 1000 times. Look up umwelt. Look up proprioception. Look up enactive perception. If you want to discuss these issues, you need to educate yourself on them. — apokrisis

I have and nothing about it tells me that it reveals anything that sheds light on the problem. If anything, it is just a noisier version of the idea that "organisms interact with the world and evolve in order to fit into their environment". This adds nothing to the mind debate. It may add something to evolutionary biology/sociology, etc. but not to this particular problem. If you think it does, I'd like to hear it. But you will just claim that I am ignorant, and thus slip away unscathed from any of the hard work you claim I don't do.

You are just deflecting. If you were serious about wanting to know, you would have learnt enough about how the brain works not to be wasting my time with your Cartesianism. — apokrisis

Sure we can wade through literature on all sorts of neurobiological concepts.. doesn't get me closer to what experiential process is. The problem is, you don't even know the problem. How behaviors are experiences are not explained, and that is enough for me to discount what you have to say regarding this particular problem. That is not to say I discount your knowledge of technical biochemical reactions and evolutionary biology, but so far, I have not seen it used to answer this particular question. You will refute the question itself, thus again, going unscathed.

An umwelt is a model of the world with a self in it. — apokrisis

What does that mean? "Self in it"? That makes no sense outside of already experiencing selfhood.

So it is a way to understand why experience appears to be imbued with selfhood and thus avoid the usual dualistic and homuncular regress of a self that witnesses its own perceptions in some Cartesian theatre. Selfhood is built into the "picture" from the beginning. — apokrisis

And this I really don't understand, as you have selfhood baked into your umwelt. How does that work?

Again, can you now answer my question instead of continuously deflecting. Why wouldn’t the kind of unwelt modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing? — apokrisis

Because of precisely what I am inquiring above.. How is selfhood baked into this schema? How is that not falling right into the Cartesian theater fallacy you are trying to avoid?

And why wouldn’t the kind of world and self modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing?

You’ve never said despite being asked many times now. — apokrisis

What are you defining as self-modelling then (without falling into the "just a synonym" trap. This time self-modelling= experiential process. Again that wouldn't be an explanation, just a synonym, an infinite regress)?

But what to do stats on? What counts as significant? What about necessity as opposed to contingency? What do the results mean? Why does it matter? And some things are not amenable or appropriate for statistics. It is subsumed in philosophical meta-analysis and theories of value, significance, and what is the case.

I think the commonly recorded "just world hypothesis" and "fundamental attribution error" found in psychology are a partly based on a denial of biology/psychological findings. — Andrew4Handel

True, a lot of psychological bias' play a role in this. One point of the thread though is how "doing it right" is distributed unequally. Some people have to "hone" while others "get it" right away. If that is the case, why are we putting people through the "honing" in the first place? Do we like giving deficits to people so they can overcome them? But why?

…from an age when we didn’t know what was going on, with elder guardians (family & school) with questionable qualification and motivation, presenting and imposing their versions of that “task”. But the situation, at its worst, was largely imposed on us by those elders, and later by a societal-order in general, not by intrinsic aspects of life.
. — Michael Ossipoff

But what is the reason for the imposition? Its the givens of life (survival, regulate comfort, regulate boredom..with emphasis on survival), through cultural means of social institutions. Its how humans function- from tribal to post-industrial societies. There is no way to avoid the impositions.

That leaves the matter of your instrumentality and forced-entertainment. In that matter, you’re asserting a doctrine that you evidently got from Arthur Schopenhauer. But the feelings that you describe are common. Most people didn’t learn them from Arthur Schopenhauer. He just officially articulated a common feeling. — Michael Ossipoff

I agree.. I didn't learn this from Schop, I had the same sense, and he articulated it more clearly in words.

You and your respondents could, and do, go on forever arguing the matter, but no one can pry you free from your chosen doctrine. Can we agree on that too? I still say it’s serving a purpose for you, as a posturing-niche, a chosen schtick.
.
For whatever reason (about which we can disagree), we find ourselves in this life, and then there’s the matter of what that life-situation is like, and how we can, should or have-to deal with it. — Michael Ossipoff

I mean, you can characterize anyone's worldview as a schtick, but that's just irrelevant rhetorical maneuvering. Taking the high ground, without saying anything of significance.

You list that as two “goals”, but that all seems to fit in “Artha”, the Purushartha of getting-by. Yes, that’s undeniably a requirement that life imposes on us. We can complain that we didn’t choose to be in this situation that has that requirement. I often feel that way myself, but it doesn’t philosophically hold up….as I’ve argued in previous posts here.
. — Michael Ossipoff

I mean that is precisely the argument in question. Why give people the tasks imposed on them by birthing them? You are going to say something about reincarnation so...I'll reply to that.

Kama, things we like, is of course the basis of that life-inclination, or will-to-life that we’ve both referred to, and thereby is the reason why you’re in a life.
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When the Purusharthas are listed, Artha, not Kama, is usually listed first. That can be justified by the fact that, though Kama is really the original basis of life, it isn’t something that has to be goal-orientedly pursued. (…said with apologies to you and Arthur Schopenhauer.) — Michael Ossipoff

I just don't see it. What evidence do you provide for reincarnation? Why is that a necessary part of a world-metaphysics? Yes, I am a materialist in the idea that everything is matter/energy inhering in time/space. I don't see room for spiritual reasonings, when perfectly good explanations are had through empirical evidence. Two gametes come together and this is the efficient cause of the new child. Nothing more is needed in that narrative.

Next in your post, you speak of everything being “absurdity”. It’s impossible to evaluate those claims, without disclosure of your secret definition of “absurdity”.
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Some would say that what’s absurd (as defined by Merriam-Webster) is your attitude toward life. …even if you did get it from one of the philosophical classic-writers (Schopenhauer). — Michael Ossipoff

By absurdity, I specifically stated that it was about the repetition of things, and by this I don't mean specific events (like if I just climbed Mount Everest, traveled more, and skydived I'd really see things things for what they are. As I've said before, By "absurdly repetitious" we don't mean that we are "literally" doing the same thing over and over- it is one step removed from the actual acts themselves. It is as if we know we must conjure the moves to occupy us before we make them. But this conjuring is old hat..

Some of us discuss structure, answering arguments about it…instead of just reciting a doctrine about it.
. — Michael Ossipoff

I am discussing it with you now, and I'm sorry if I take a position on something that is not yours. This is just rhetorical posturing.

Sure, in truth, I often have feelings that are similar to your doctrinal beliefs. Some anxiety and insecurity, it seems to me, is natural and normal in life (…particularly in our societal-world, but in general too.)
.
I admit that I often want to say, “I didn’t choose this!” Feeling it and making it into an unquestioned philosophical belief aren’t the same thing.
. — Michael Ossipoff

If I didn't want it questioned, I wouldn't constantly post in a philosophy forum for discussion to be dissected and countered over and over.. I'd just write it in a blog and not engage with anyone. Again, just because I keep defending a position and not moving on it, doesn't mean I am not opening it up for critical commentary. Just don't be shocked if I also have critical commentary on those commentaries. A philosophical position based on an understanding, a "feeling" about life as you say, is not bad to me. Even you admit there are structural suffering to life, and there are contingent harms. I'm am trying to tease this out and define it. You also admit that it is good to question the big picture of life, the bigger significance. Having a child is literally evaluating life as worth having someone to bring it into. Therefore it becomes a main jumping off point to ponder these questions.

When this life began, you didn’t have conceptual waking-consciousness, and your subconscious will-to-life prevailed. You didn’t have an opportunity to make a conscious choice about it.
.
As for the origin of this sequence of lives, you, metaphysically-prior to conception and birth, were someone who wanted, needed life. Why was that? Because, there are timelessly an infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, and yours is one of them. You can say that that will-to-life was a mistake for that prior-to-conception “you”, but, as I said, that’s moot now. The sequence of lives is started and underway. No choice now but to live with it. There’s no way back. Through is the only way out. As I said, once started, the sequence of lives will eventually resolve itself. So stop worrying about it, and allow yourself to enjoy it. No, it isn’t necessary or advisable to try to force yourself to achieve enjoyment. If it’s a bother, then don’t bother. Just concentrate your efforts on Artha and Dharma. Why not? Do you have something else to do? As I said, things that you like are there when you aren’t goal-orientedly pursuing “entertainment”. — Michael Ossipoff

I agree there is no way back. The task has to be completed (to whenever it ends). But again, I don't see your need for the metaphysics. What about this story you provide about having an identity metaphysically prior to conception that convinces you that it is true. What evidence do you have that this is the case? We already know the physical cause of birth, why this added metaphysical story?

We don't actually need philosophy for that, as that is not unique to philosophy. I would even argue that there are other academic areas that do a better job at setting one for systematic thinking and comprehension. — Jeremiah

I agree, fields like history, the hard sciences, the social sciences, etc. have similar system analysis. However, philosophy taught well teaches how to analyze and synthesize any information- this tool can be useful in any given field. That's just the pragmatic use. The more holistic reason is that though these fields have their own systems to study, philosophical thinking can see where the pieces fit together, to understand a worldview, then question this for any contradictions, fallacies, and assumptions, and rework it, etc. So it has the specific function of rigorous critical thinking applied across any field (including its specialties in metaphysics, logic, ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, and philosophy of...fields). It also has the general function of synthesizing information and seeing how the sub-systems fit together in a more general worldview. It is understanding the significance of the systems and how they fit together as a whole.

Life and mind are levels of the same trick. One level involves the machinery of genes. The other, neurons and even words. — apokrisis

Neurons > Words? The functional aspect (in this case of the internal process) you are trying to explain is already a given. Your story is incomplete. Neurons and sensory tissues that react to stimuli are behaviors the "what it feels like" are the experiences. Sure you can throw around words like "language" into the equation, but then you are putting the cart before the horse. What is this language-experience machine ontologically and how does this just "appear" from behaviors. Sure, you can try to talk over me by saying I just don't "get" it because I'm a dualist-thinker, but then you are just shrugging off the onus of explanation that I am asking for and not really answering anything. Saying, "Wouldn't processes feel like something" also does not answer the question, as that is not really an explanation. We already know the given that processes "feel" like something. Saying it is an umwelt doesn't say much either. What is this umwelt (without using the very terms that you are defining) as compared to other processes? It is equivalent to a synonym (umwelt = experiential process) rather than an explanation.

Ok, then replace state with experience or process. The question still stands.

So the earliest biological structure would have been merely a switch pointing a way in indexical fashion. The interpretive context would be of the most minimal possible kind.

But then what else would you expect right at the beginning? — apokrisis

Okay, so the I'm assuming the mind then is like an analogy with the proteins. I'd like to see where you go with that though without making category errors. In this case, the function of the protein was to create hydrogen for energy (or that's the hypothesis) and so the protein was fully functional and then eventually was coopted into DNA/RNA/amino acid semiosis later. How is this story analogous to the first internal state (i.e mental state)?

So what was the interpretive context the protein was already situated in?

Edit: I guess this article has something to do with it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/lifes-first-molecule-was-protein-not-rna-new-model-suggests-20171102/

So some constraints are global. And other constraints can then be local. Where's the problem?

The Cosmos has its universal constraints on action or uncertainty. Physical systems, like stars or rocks or waterfalls, then express more local or particular constraints. And then organisms can even construct their own local and particular constraints via the symbol~matter deal of biosemiosis. — apokrisis

He seems to make a stark dichotomy between "physical laws" and "local constraints". So were local constraints always in the picture in his view or were they created by the physical laws?

Your question doesn't make sense. — apokrisis

I meant to say that proteins seem to be the emergent form that is a "description" of the encoded genetic sequences. Where does the emergent property that was not there previously come into play? Presumably, emergent theories claim that new properties are created from the processes of a lower order and cannot be reduced. I don't really see that problem with proteins per se.

Edit: I guess i should add that the analogy to emergent properties of mental states seems tenuous in just that analogy alone.

So I have some questions about the Pattee paper:

1. What is the main point between the physical laws and control constraints? When do the local constraints get in the ontological ecosystem? He mentions them as if they are already existent along with the physical laws (or at least how I interpreted it). How do the local constraints come into the picture if all were originally physical laws?

2. What is the emergent property of protein (what he calls enzyme) folding? I know he talks about strong and weak bonds, but that didn't seem to answer the question.

3. I guess what is the main point regarding biosemiotics in regards to experience?

I believe this may have something to do with what is being measured and what is doing the measuring, but I am not sure if that's where you are going.

Well if applied to antinatalism..you’ve said it’s not tenable because the majority will simply stampede over it with their preferences and thus can’t be a true ethical theory. But an ethical theory may not matter how much it is followed. When it comes to values, it is not cut and dry. We discussed chimp tendencies and then I disputed how much that is a comparison being that we are preference based.

Ok because in the past I’ve seen you defend a sort of ethics whereby the majority’s preferences as they are justified as right simply because it is what the majority prefers.

I’m not even really referring to that in this case. I actually find the concepts in the paper very interesting and gives me a lot to think about in regards to symbols and physical laws. I read the tail end of this discussion here and thought just your pragmatism is harder to apply to value theory. I mean this in terms of physical processes versus value theory.

I’m still digesting your biosemiotics paper. I’ll make some comments soon. I just thought I’d add my two cents that I find it harder to apply this principle to the psychological principles without inserting your bias. Appeals to majority can also be suspect as justifications as people can be conditioned to do several routed that are the current norm. Taking what is as what should be is a fallacy, especially when that is is exactly what is the condition at this point of time. I know you think change is possible, but that can go in many variations. Anyways, it may be considered a category error to use the mechanisms that control more physical processes to value.

When we are born, we are tasked with life. That is our job. Life. It is a mix between the individual and given- genetics, epigenetics, and inputs of the outside world shape the character/personality of a person who also shapes the society in some way, which feeds back on itself, etc. This individual's drive to live (what Schopenhauer often called will-to-live), I have (not arbitrarily) split up this restless striving into three main categories (for at least the average human condition), and that is to say that we survive, find comfort/maintain our environment, and find ways to entertain our restless minds. These are essentially the drives for which our goals (formed by cultural/social/internal preferences) are grouped. Sometimes all three are intertwined intractably in a certain goal-task.

The absurdity comes in when we form habits of goal tasks repetitively (not out of choice, but out of how we usually need to live our lives to execute survival, comfort, boredom-fleeing activities). The absurd tasks of maintaining the social landscape through work and tasks. The absurdity of getting up every morning and doing our routines. The absurdity of do to do to do to do. Even just the absurdity of an earth rotating and revolving around a sun day in and day out. It doesn't stop, unless perhaps in sleep, a temporary reprieve from the tasks and the will.

Now, maybe some people don't see it that way- a majority doesn't even. I recognize that. It doesn't make this aesthetic understanding less true, just less known. People may not reflect much on the structure, may not see it. I don't necessarily believe in Plato's ideas of forms but it is akin to seeing the forms of reality, versus living in its shadows perhaps. It may be real, but most people are living in shadowland rather than seeing it for what it is. Also, as I've said before, there are well-known psychological mechanisms that allow for people to repress any notions of these kind of structural questionings. Ask a lot of people if they think of life in a general sense, I bet that doesn't come up a lot except in the context of religion or perhaps something they saw in popular media that made them have a feel good moment. What people say in a social context, what they say in the moment, what they say in their head, what they say to their therapist, what they say to a friend.. all of different context. Right now, you are playing the (unnecessarily) aggressive opponent to schopenhauer1 on this philosophy forum. Who knows what you really think out in the "real world" in the context of other various situations of life. So no, I don't think an appeal to the majority on the structural suffering is necessarily the way to prove anything, especially if you asked people in a simple "yes" or "no" kind of way as to whether life is "good" or "worth it".

Questioning birth, gives us a chance to step back and say, "Hold on, what exactly am I trying to do here by having this new person?. What does it mean to live life? Am I giving opportunities, or a burden?
Does the person need to experience the deficits in order to overcome them that inevitably are part of life's experiences? What is it that I'm trying to do here? What is it that they are trying to do here? These get at the heart of the existential questions about why go through living in the first place."

Certainly, by having a new person, you are creating more work, more tasks, more deficits, more laborers. Why is that important to impose on someone? This thread was about "not getting it right". It brings up issues like inequality. Some people "get it right" better than others (due to whatever personal/circumstantial reasons). It also brings up issues like, why should we bring more people into a world where "getting it right" is something that needs to be honed in on in the first place? Why give people (sometimes great) deficits to overcome so they have to "get it right' in the first place? It also brings up notions of what "getting it right" really means. Is that even desirable? It can mean many things and can be discussed many ways. You seemed to have taken it in some aggressive rant against me personally.

You mentioned sleep perchance to dream. Sleep seems the only reprieve. I don't know why you would discount it.

Tell me this, why are you so aggressively attacking this thread? Why is this so personal to you? These attacks on me, especially the contemptuous tone, and ad homiems thrown at me in general, seem tell me more about you. Why does this topic matter to you? You can easily just ignore it if you find it not worthy of discussion.

And what absurdity would that be?
.
1. Exactly how do you define “absurdity”?
.
2. What, specifically, do you think is absurd?
.
3. In what way does it fit your definition of “absurdity”?
. — Michael Ossipoff

I've said it too many times for me to repeat it. We've even discussed this I think. Read some of my threads.

No, you prefer to survive. So you survive as long as it’s possible with acceptable quality-of-life, because there are things that you’d like to do. — Michael Ossipoff

No, fear of pain, death, and pain of death, is pretty ingrained. It's default, not preference. Also, hope is pretty powerful.

If you’re a miserable bundle of needs, that’s your choice. — Michael Ossipoff

Nope, that's the given of being a particular human with preferences, with a character, in a physical world, in a real society.

Of course no living being has complete control over its environment. Life isn’t like that. Living beings merely respond to their surroundings as they prefer or like to. Evidently you (think that you) have need for something quite different from what life is. — Michael Ossipoff

That we have needs and wants is part of the instrumentality. The repetitive actions of survival (in a society), comfort levels, and entertainment-seeking (this need not be frivolous but anything that comes out of the restlessness).

In my early-life background-conditions, there’s plenty that I can complain about. Societal wrong, sure. But you want to make it into a belief in a broad philosophically universal badness, without giving any kind of support or justification for your position. — Michael Ossipoff

That's right, structural suffering. Look up about any thread that I've written. I've discussed this before, even with you I believe. Go back and read all of them. I wrote about it extensively. If its not enough justification for you, I can't help you with any more words than I've already used. Michael Ossipoff is unconvinced, and I can live with that.

Pfft :roll:

Whether you subscribe to Materialism, or to my metaphysics of Eliminative Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism (Any suggestion of a shorter name?), if there were never “you” conceived, then there is/was no “you” who was better off and who had something better than birth, had that conception and birth not happened. — Michael Ossipoff

That is the only quote I find I want to comment on. I agree that there is a paradox of being whereby you cannot know non-being unless being- one implies the other. I had a thread a while ago called "Ever Vigilant Existence" that discusses this somewhat. As far as my pessimism and antinatalism, and instrumentality, etc. there is no escape from the absurdity. You need to survive, you need society, etc. But this need creates its own prisons of sorts- absurd repetitions of habits. The restlessness does not go away by enlightened fiat (some Buddhist mind-game). The misery is also not self-created. If anything, the world discloses how much you don't have much control. The thrownness of ourselves into the given is real, not manifested through pessimistic prose. Indeed, your idea of reincarnation is the ultra-version of the givenness if it be true. The eternal return, over and over of the given world, and our absurd habits within it.

Park your ego at the door. — apokrisis

Just showing a willingness to exchange ideas, that's all. How can you, of all the posters say that, when you posture almost all the time! Ironic. Pot calling kettle black and all that.

I'll be very charitable and try to digest this behemoth and get back to you. I know this is a primary source for some of your Peircean ideas, so I guess I'll learn to speak better apokrisis- learning more about the ideas does not mean consenting with it or at least everything about it, obviously.

When we talk of nothing existing, we may say that there are zero entities. Yet zero is still a description, an entity. So paradoxically, one comes before zero. There is before there is not. — darthbarracuda

Yes, parallel with the antinatalism- non-being is only seen through being. The paradox. I also wrote about the "ever vigilant existence" (not literally of course), which gets at some of what you say here:

I agree that the individuated would seem to need to come from the unindividuated. Plurality, diversity, individuality, all come from a breakage of uniformity. The basic, fundamental "theater" is a single unity. Lately, I prefer to simply call this the posteriority. There is the puppet theater, and while the illusion is that the puppets are operating on their own, we understand that there is something "behind", pulling the strings. There is the anterior appearance, and the posterior ... "whatever". — darthbarracuda

Besides the point "Wouldn't modeling 'feel' like something". That isn't answering what "feels like something is, other than referencing a synonym or causation rather than identity.

So again, what is modeling in the physical world?

Pfft. — apokrisis

Your signs and interpretation takes place in the physical world. What is the physical interpreting?

Pfft. I can't even be bothered with an arrogant retort. — apokrisis

I can then always say, that is because you have no good answer for it. That has been the main problem the whole time and why others keep on throwing Whitehead your way, as at least if its silly gobblygook poetry, it makes more sense then stones coming to life via the fiat of using words like "modeling" and "umwelt".

We do agree more than we disagree..
umwelts (check),
neurobiological processes and environmental interactions involved in experience (check)
experiential-ness = triadic modeling.. I can get on board with, but it just seems like there's a lot of modeling with no there there in regards to what the modeling IS. Just saying its "emergent" is almost as Woo as saying everything is experience.

But you didn't address the other things in the post.. specifically baby and animal experiences, Peirce not accepted as THE theory but is overlayed on top of other ones post-facto, and the big glaring one, how is the "interpretant" magically turned into experience without the interpretant being experiential.

So is Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or Toy Story. That is a requirement of poetic worlds too. That is what makes them realities which our imaginations can inhabit. — apokrisis

Peircean math is not utilized in a systematic way either. It's not taught as THE theory of everything that totalizes sciences. However, I can see your system and Whitehead's being used to overlay this and justified in just about the same way. I'm not Whiteheadian scholar, but I can imagine a counter-universe with there is bizarro-apokrisis advocating for Whitehead's system in much the same way as you do the Peirce system.

Huh? To the degree there is a constructed "self", there is a matching unwelt. So animals and newborns are clearly experiential due to their relevant degree of biologically constructed selfhood. But not in terms of a linguistically structured one to the degree that remains absent. — apokrisis

Oh, well I've seen you say in the past that newborns have no reference to distinctions (what is green if they don't know what not-green is? etc.) and I've seen you say various similar things about animals. I can try to copy and paste what you've said if you want. The linguistic- socially constructed brain seemed important to you for the "illusion" of experiential qualia and other internal states.

Feel free to fuck off anytime you like. — apokrisis

So I guess you agree, arrogant you are, but don't give a shit. Noted.

A very nice talk, but I'm puzzled by what you would see as its take home message. — apokrisis

Yes I didn't watch it all the way through until after I posted it. I still think he had some interesting ideas about language games.

This is why Platonism, Logicism and Computationalism seem to have something to them. They are only mathematical umwelts - the worlds disclosed in a language game. Yet they are a clear step up from the sociocultural boundedness, the subjectivity, of a poetical umwelt. — apokrisis

At least you admit it is a language game.

And metaphysics is about mathematical-strength umwelts. Peirce was playing that game. Whitehead did and then dropped out. — apokrisis

How is this not a bias for mathematical totalizing? Also, Whitehead's philosophy was very structured and internally coherent.

From this point of view - an umwelt contructed by a poetical use of language - you can actually wall yourself off from all that nasty mathematical metaphysics. That becomes scientistic baggage to be left at the door of belief. Welcome to the cosy world of pan-experientialism. Take off your work boots. You are home again. — apokrisis

You over-characterize my view to make your point. That isn't necessary. I am not a devote of Whitehead, but rather, I saw similarities with his philosophy to your Peircean semiotics, and thought that it included a kind of semiosis that had the ghost already in the machine and organic, rather than the ghost popping out of ex nihilo. And by ex nihilo, I don't mean that it has to come late in the game, but it is coming out later nonetheless (i.e. wherever you decide that it should on your emergent scale). It's less to do with my romantic longing for things to be human and more to do with the Problem of Mind itself. It's easy to beg the question as you are doing and have the answer waiting by handwaving the question at hand, but I first want to grapple with it, and see it for what it is without bypassing the very hard question I am trying to answer. You do have holes in your theory. You have newborns with no experiential qualities. You have animals with no experiential qualities. You have not convincingly connected matter with mind. Rather, you skipped a step from the physical to the mental by using a lot of word-games related to "modeling". Despite your arrogance, condescension, and general uncharitableness, I am still willing to engage with you and see if you have something to fill in the major gaps. Notice, I try not to do this back to you. Perhaps you think I should, but unless provoked, I see no need for it. Thus, my bias against some of your approach does not negate me from being open to the ideas you present, but with the obvious gaps closed more convincingly.

One of the big things philosophy can provide is systematic thinking AND understanding systems. These are things people are not prone to do on their own, or by society-at-large when left to its devices. Most people maneuver to goals without questioning, and to look at only what is right in front of their face rather than the broader picture. That's just my two cents though.

It might be good to learn about Whitehead through Rorty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iAWTYcwlEg