Why can't this happen in the dark:

The brain models a self~world relation. That is why consciousness feels like something - the something that is finding yourself as a self in its world. — apokrisis

But this can:

The computational paradigm boils down to a simple argument. Data input gets crunched into data output. Somehow information enters the nervous system, gets processed via a collection of specialised cognitive modules, and then all that results – hands starting to wave furiously at this point - in a consciously experienced display. — apokrisis

If everything is X, then we might as well say nothing is, for nothing is picked out. — Pie

Yeah, it's just he's so sure about that.

No, he won't. — Banno

Oh, what will he say?

EDIT: Perhaps it's this one:

"The same logic that leads to skepticism about objects existing independently of my mind can be applied also to other minds. So if we have no reason to believe in mind-independent objects, we also have no reason to believe in other minds, therefore solipsism. "

Is that it?

Go on... — Isaac

It's Banno's turn. He'll say realism is much better for explaining object permanence than idealism. Then I'll say the next bit.

I think Saussure is basically right — Pie

I'm not so sure he is

The OP asks us to consider the relation between idealism and solipsism. So it is worth considering how an idealist reaches the conclusion that other minds exist. — Banno

Let's get it over with. Object permanence. Your turn.

Take a lump of clay. This lump is currently a sphere. That is a property it has. Now change it so that it is a cube. Well, it has changed shape, but nothing has been added or taken away from it. That is, the clay has not been divided. — Bartricks

Sure, but it changes its shape because of the particles in it moving around. Its ability to change shape depends on the fact that it is composed of many small parts. That doesn't disprove you of course, it may be that indivisible minds are just not like clay in the relevant respects. I was just trying to understand how something indivisible can change. You could say "Well it must do, because minds change and minds are indivisible, exactly how they do it is not my concern." I've heard people say that kind of thing on this forum about other matters (i.e. such and such must be the case somehow, and it's not the job of me as a philosopher to work out the details of how).

EDIT: maybe it's a kind of stretchiness that isn't like the stretchiness caused by chemical bonds in, say, rubber? But I'm thinking of spatially extended analogues, whereas you don't think minds are spatially extended at all (unlike me).

Minds 'have' states - they're called mental states for that very reason. A mental state is a 'state of mind'. That is, a state a mind can be in. — Bartricks

You said earlier that minds are indivisible, not made of parts. But they can be in states that are different from one another. Typically, objects change their states by rearranging their parts in some way. But for a partless immaterial soul, I'm struggling to understand how such a thing could support different states. How can it change?

Sancta trinitas unus deus. — Agent Smith

Frater domi dormit

Pater non domi scribit et studet

People keep trying to attach some kind of importance or magic to consciousness when it's nothing more than just taking in information. — Darkneos

It is more than that though.

Okay. I misunderstood. You already had the answer before you asked. — 180 Proof

Nay, I wasn't sufficiently clear. We do have to specify a reference point, but one of the entropic states will do as a reference. I guess the question then becomes, if everything after that state is the future, and everything before it is the past, then is not the entropic state itself the present state?

You're asking for a "reference point" other than the relative reference points (entropic states). — 180 Proof

No I'm not

Entropy doesn't care about the direction of time. That's a misconception. See here: — Tate

Oh, no doubt. I have no idea. 180 was the one saying that future is more entropy and past is less entropy.

Nope. Unlike abstract objects "6 & 7", lower entropy is relative to higher entropy. There is no "absolute reference point". Thus, relativity of simultaneity. — 180 Proof

I never said nor implied there was an absolute reference point

Entropy-states are relative to one another (re: before / after). A lower degree of disorder relative to a higher degree of disorder. — 180 Proof

So we have to specify a reference point, then, no? Without that there is no past or future as 6 is in the past of 7 but the future of 5. So we need to set a reference point of 5 or 7 before we can tell what 6 is. We need a now before the concept of past and future make sense, even thermodynamically, no?

Entropy states from low to high:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Which ones are in the past and which ones are in the future?

Is the present real or imaginary, psychologically?

What, thermodynamically, separates the past from the future?

Now is a point and points are imaginary. — 180 Proof

Oh, OK, so there is no now. Are the past and future imaginary?

I don't even know what your ramble means. — 180 Proof

Oh, that's a shame. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? Or is it too opaque for everyone?

EDIT: Whenever you are conscious, it's now isn't it? Is that how it is for you? That's how it is for me.

Incoherent (re: relativity of simultaneity). — 180 Proof

It's not about having an absolute now. A relative now would do. Consciousness is sufficient for a now - I am never conscious in the past or the future. But is there being a now sufficient for consciousness? I don't know. I'm not sure what that would mean. And is there being a now necessary for something to happen? Can an event happen at a time that is never now?

I don't know the answers to these questions. No doubt you do, of course.

Are you a sociopath then? — hypericin

Oh, I don't know. Maybe, but I was joking I think. I started off not joking thinking it would be fun, then realised it might not be fun at all, then further realised that what fun was to be had would likely be in the suffering of another, and then I decided to stop thinking about it.

a misinterpretation. — 180 Proof

For which you bear partial responsibility

Would a universe without consciousness have any states-of-affairs? Would there ever be a now, a present moment in such a universe, in which a state-of-affairs could exist?

I neither claimed nor implied that color-signedness "serves no function". — 180 Proof

It was a natural interpretation of your words.

I would thoroughly enjoy abusing them, although I'm not sure I would enjoy it actually, knowing that they aren't actually suffering.

For those who may not known physicalism is a philosophy in which there is nothing beyond that which is strictly physical/material. — Benj96

The difficulty with it is its circular definition. Is it any more than monism? What have you said about something when you say it is physical?

I think 24 is enough for most things.

Street frequently went a bit apoplectic. I didn't find him offensive but I support the ban. Rules and have to apply to everyone, including the relatively well informed. Not sure why I didn't find him offensive - his apoplexy was easy to ignore for me, but I can imagine many others being very put off by it. Part of it is that I broadly agreed with him politically and morally. I totally disagreed with him on metaphysics and ToM but even then I didn't find his views particularly challenging even when expressed at 10,000 kelvin.

A definition sets the essence of some thing in words. — Banno

I don't think that's what dictionaries intend. The definition of 'tree' on dictionary.com uses qualifiers such as 'usually' and 'ordinarily' to indicate central unproblematic cases without implying an essence.

Philosophers might insist on essences, but that doesn't reflect lexicography.

Stipulating an essence is sometimes useful in a discussion when an important point depends on extreme clarity to be made. But usually identifying a usage is good enough for accuracy.

I like dictionaries. They're fun. And they contain definitions, which are also fun. Don't spoil the fun by saying that lexicographers peddle essences, or that definitions always stipulate essences.

Definitions describe usage, which I would have though you approve of.

The one that is codified in its foundational religious texts, or the one espoused by the people who claim to be members of said religion? — baker

Christianity isn't really codified in the new testament is it? It's hardly an unambiguous watertight legal document.

We suffer, therefore I am. — 180 Proof

Is there any significance to your use of 'we' rather than 'I'? You may have just been careless, or it may have been deliberate.

I doubt Nagel was implying that there is nothing it is like to be a bat. — Harry Hindu

Oh indeed. I was just trying to bring out different usages of 'like', one as a way to compare, and one to indicate phenomenality.

2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. — William Blake - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I find this a very interesting one. I interpret this as "You only start to think when you meet an obstacle to your expansion."

It is perhaps the idea that we are primarily appetival, gratification-seeking, acquisitive of power and matter. We expand our circle of influence until we meet an obstacle of some kind, as we inevitably do - we meet another centre of appetite doing the same thing as us, or we encounter a paradox that must be solved, e.g. too many cakes reduces your ability to acquire more cakes, etc, we start to think "Oh! Something has gone wrong. What is it? What is the shape of this obstacle? Can I go around it? Can I destroy it? To do that I need to know its construction." etc. A philosopher/scientist is born from a hedonist. We are all frustrated hedonists on this forum, no?

Perhaps hedonist is the wrong word. Perhaps primary appetite does not distinguish pleasure from pain straight away.

Nice idea for a thread. I've always loved the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The proverbs are cool.

Means either: you must gratify your desires regardless of the harm you cause to other people.

Or: kill off your evil desires and do not encourage them, however attached you are to them. — Cuthbert

That's really interesting, I never though of that proverb meaning either of those, although I can see why you do. For me it's a statement of psychology, which might be translated as:

"Nursing unacted desires breeds a kind of pestilential soul that, long term, en masse, causes far more harm and creates the conditions whereby people kill babies in cradles. If we live simply and honestly, expressing openly our desires, even if it involves clashes and unpleasantness, it is fundamentally healthy way to live. When we keep our desires secret and nurture them without allowing their expression they can madden us, creating the conditions of abominable actions."

Something like that anyway. The way I've put it there is very consequentialist, but you could make a similar interpretation focusing on the health of a soul or moral virtue or something.

There is an ambiguity. Consider the conversation:

"What is it like to visit Vegas?"
"It's not like anything at all."

The reply is ambiguous, and that ambiguity brings out the disagreements in this thread I think. One thing the reply could mean is that there is nothing to compare it with, it's so unique there is nothing that is like it. Another thing it could mean is that if you go to Vegas you cease to feel anything at all. It is impossible to have an experience there. If that seems like an odd interpretation, consider:

"What is it like to be dead?"
"It's not like anything at all."

Again, this is ambiguous in the same way. It could mean that the experience of death is so unique there is no apt comparison. Or it could mean that when you are dead you can't experience anything.

In both examples the second interpretation is not about comparison. That's the sense that Nagel means.

Privacy is certainly an issue yes. When I burn my hand, you don't feel anything. There is something private about experience.

It's not important. Maybe the point to make is that the question:

"What is it like to be a bat?"

means the same thing as:

"How does it feel to be a bat?"

No comparison is invited.

Similarly "Is there something it is like to be a bacterium?" just means "Do bacteria have experiences?"

It's just another way of expressing a concept. If you have any sentences you find problematic I could try and translate them into equivalent ones that don't use the word 'like'. Would that be helpful?

Says Nagel. But what else does the word "like" mean? — Jackson

I'm not sure it has a meaning abstracted from the sentence. Consider the northern expression "Does it heck as like". You can't really abstract the meaning from how the individual words are normally used.

Not until six pages in does Nagel even define what "like" means. Footnote 6, "Therefore the analogical form of the English expression "what it is like" is misleading. It does not mean "what (in our experience) it resembles," but rather "how it is for the subject himself."

This always troubled me. It seems his whole idea of "like" is vague or inchoherent. — Jackson

The expression is just one way of approaching the concept. For some it works. For others it's confusing. It's not supposed to imply any comparison.

One way is perhaps to ask "Why can't the whole of evolution happen without anything feeling anything, without anything having an experience? Why doesn't it all go on in the dark?"

Another way is perhaps to focus on the how. Evolution might explain why consciousness evolved, presumably because it confers some functional benefit. Evolutionists about consciousness (emergentists) must start with something they think isn't conscious, say simple organic chemistry sloshing about in a puddle to something they think is conscious, say human beings, and get them to talk about how that transition is accomplished, is it sudden, gradual, exactly what physical systems are relevant, what do those systems have to do to be conscious. When they've answered those questions, ask, "OK, but why can't all that happen anyway without any experiences?"