I remember reading one of bishop Berkleys Q&A type platonic style dialogues and that was very clear. — Swanty

Yes, I think Berkeley and Wilde are great writers. Hume is famous for his prose (e.g. On the Standard of Taste) although I find it a bit overblown myself. Philosophers are a bit hit and miss in terms of writing styles.

EDIT: While a bit dull, ChatGPT does a fab job of making up nonsense but setting it out in a clear, transparent and readable style.

I like brevity and clarity, but not all writers want to be brief and clear, and that is their prerogative. It does not necessarily mean they are confused or uncertain. And uncertainty is perhaps a virtue rather than a vice in speculative investigations. Even a pretence of uncertainty helps engender productive dialogue. Sometimes brevity can go too far, ending up where there is simply not enough information to discern meaning unambiguously - many of @180 Proof's unfortunately end up like that, but maybe that is his intention. Occasionally 180 writes in a longer more conversational style and when he does so he is a superb writer. There are lots of economical and clear writers on the forum who get the balance right (or at least to my taste).

He took on both parties, destroyed them both, and ended many despicable political dynasties. But most of all the behavior of his opposition pushed me to support him. One has to oppose an evil movement like that. Some of the policies were an added bonus. — NOS4A2

That's really interesting thanks. I can understand that appeal. Do you see both major parties as a kind of pro status-quo, pro establishment interest, and Trump as a figure who can smash it up (to an extent)?

Are you strongly distinguishing Trump from the Republican party, or at least how the republican party was before Trump?

The majority respond to populist, easy answers. They're not going to understand or want to hear complicated proposals that aren't going to give them everything they want. So the side that gives them what they want is the side that is going to win.

A bit of pragmatism over principle shouldn't be ignored. — Michael

Oh, you got there first. Yes I suspect this is exactly right.

Hah! No, just the simple vague stuff. "I'll make you better off, we'll stop giving away American money to foreign counties, you can keep driving you cars and not feel guilty or judged, I'll keep foreigners away, all the things you are scared of I'll protect you from, all the things you want I'll give you."

That kind of policy. And it is policy, even if it is of the vaguest kind. The democrats didn't say any of that, they didn't compete on those grounds, nor did they effectively undermine Trump's simplistic message.

I think Trump may have won on policy. I'd be interested in what persuaded you.

Ar-Pharazon the Golden

Understood, thanks

explosive in the sense you have to disregard things you already accept — Cheshire

What sense of 'explosion' is being used here? Destruction or multiplication...?

What is LNC? Sorry, probably should know. Oh, Law of Non-Contradiction?

Oh, you mean anything follows from a contradiction! So explosion in that sense. Sorry, I think I've just caught up.

EDIT: So, what's that got to do with monism? The LNC isn't usually claimed to be a substance, even if it is foundational in some sense.

Alcohol affects my mind, but that doesn't imply that my mind is alcohol. My brain affects my mind. That doesn't imply my mind is my brain. — Clearbury

But it is one explanation. If we want to answer the question "How is it that when I drink alcohol (a physical thing) a mental thing results (feeling drunk)?" One answer is to say that the mental just is the physical, so there is no mystery, no interaction problem. Its a simple and obvious explanation. I agree with you that it is wrong (or perhaps partly wrong) but you asked for arguments, and this is one.

Why, without assuming that materialism is true, is that the best explanation? — Clearbury

It's monistic. Consider that we know there are physical things. Also consider that two fundamentally different kinds of thing cannot interact. Our minds are affected by physical things, therefore our minds must be physical too. So let's look around for physical objects (or functions thereof) that could be minds. A rock? Presumably not, because when a rock is struck I feel nothing, so the rock isn't my mind. A body? Well, not all of it, fingernails and some internal processes are not felt. But whenever we feel something there is always some correlation with brain activity. The simplest way to explain a correlation is identity, as one thing always occurs with itself. So it's a monistic and simple theory which fits the data, which are traditional hallmarks of a good theory.

I don't agree with it, but that's perhaps one main prima facie case for it.

Where's the evidence that the mind is the body? Without assuming that the mind is the body - which is question begging - what evidence is there that the mind is part of the body? — Clearbury

Things that affect the body affect the mind. For example, drinking alcohol changes what we feel. Construct a long list of such examples. Inference to the best explanation suggests that therefore the body is the mind, or perhaps the functions of the body is the mind.

Yes, doing what is good is doing what someone else wants

Yes I looked. It's not a single concept. Clearer concepts are submission and respect.

It's not a very clear concept.

Yes, I'm generally not a fan of the 'can do anything' version of omnipotence that just leads to paradoxes.

I'm not sure what worship is.

But why wouldn't an all powerful/knowing god not be able to take on the perspective of a (or any given) human and see suffering from that perspective? — schopenhauer1

I don't know, but maybe because in doing so it would cease to be God. If God isn't made of parts (as dogma has it) it has to do things wholly. So maybe God can take on the perspective of a human, but in doings so becomes human. I don't know. Theology is a bit guessy.

Yes. Let 'God' refer to the red cup in @Banno's cupboard. If there is a red cup in Banno's cupboard, then God exists.

Yes, I'm aware of the dilemma. But human suffering is only evil for humans, not God. No skin off his nose.

I'm not sure God is in a position to like or dislike anything, because it is omnipotent. God can love, or annihilate. Perhaps only finite powers can like and dislike, We can only like and dislike things that come to us from outside that are not under our control, or that we have only partial control over. Not sure though.

For an omnipotent God, there can be no evil, because nothing can be against God's will. And evil just is that which is against will.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." — 180 Proof

That's presumably not the definition operative the OP..

Perhaps the OP could clear this up.

Emotional bonding with animals.

Such as what?

I don't actually think it's a stereotype any more than saying all human beings like food, or something. I don't know any autistic person who who doesn't get frustrated with unreliability, unpredictability, and unclear or dishonest communication. And a heck of a lot really do like steam trains.

I suppose the after life for an autistic person would be a world in which perfect steam engines ran exactly to time according to a really clear timetable and everyone said exactly what they meant and meant exactly what they said.

If the only evil is suffering, as some might feel, then antinatalism is a perfectly coherent position. For me, there are other evils than suffering, so I am not an antinatalist on those grounds. (For me there may be an ecological argument for antinatalism.) To show @schopenhauer1 incoherent you would need to demonstrate that he thinks that there are sometimes worse evils than suffering. Is that right?

Okay. So what's your point? — 180 Proof

That you made a mistake

To prevent life =/= to prevent suffering — 180 Proof

I'm not an antinatalist, but x has to exist before it can suffer.

apple-an-sich — jorndoe

I think that's an oxymoron, no?

>>Consciousness is the capacity for experience<<

What do we think? — Wayfarer

I think that's a pretty good definition. It leaves open the conceptual possibility of consciousness with no content, which some find absurd, but I'm OK with.

I think my criticism of your criticism is that you assume that consciousness is like a discrete thing that just pops up and then disappears under certain circumstances. — Apustimelogist

That's not my view, but that is exactly the view of emergentists. Emergentism just is the view that consciousness arises in some circumstances and not others. Emergentists also typically endorse the vagueness of the concept of consciousness to allow for gradual emergence, they don't generally think of consciousness as all-or-nothing.

I don't think there's any evidence for this.

I think there is evidence of this on other senses of the word 'consciousness', but not in the sense we mean here. For example, waking up from sleep happens gradually under some circumstances. But we're talking about any phenomenal state at all, not the difference between waking and sleeping.

What differs non-conscious from conscious things is how they behave as dynamical system...

I disagree. How do we derive, conceptually, consciousness from behaviour?

...and it doesn't seem to make sense to say that consciousness is some additional thing that pops up on top of that, under pains of a kind of epiphenomenal redundancy (see sections 4.4, 5.3, 7 of Chalmer's Conscious mind for details, full pdf available on internet).

I agree epiphenomenalism is wrong. I think consciousness is likely causal, possibly even uniquely so. And then the causal closure of the physical is an idea we have to tackle. If panpsychism is the case, we might be able to replace the concept of law with that of will, perhaps, honouring both phychological causation AND the causal closure of the physical.

Indeed, the commitment to a principled distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive systems, or living and non-living ones, commits to a sort of élan vital, wherein the substance and laws of learning, perception, and action should not be grounded in the same laws of physics as a stone, as though they provide a different, more implacable sort of organization or coherence of states [108]. — the author you mentioned

It's emergentists who are implicitly dualistic, in my view, and create the hard problem by saying that consciousness was a late arrival in the universe. Ironically I think this is what @apokrisis does. Panpsychism is one way of undermining the physical/phenomenal divide. There must still be conceptual distinctions of course, having the capacity to feel is not the same thing as having physical extension in space, but both these properties can be in everything, perhaps, so there is no need to derive one from the other.

I don't think we can have a theory of consciousness in the way you want, not only because there is no fine line between conscious and non-conscious, but we are simply limited to describing what living things do (or what things we deem as being alive do) and nothing more.

I don't especially want a theory of consciousness, I don't think consciousness needs explaining. But when people disagree with me and say consciousness emerged, I'm interested. How exactly? The emergence of consciousness is very much in need of an explanation.

On the question of the difference between consciousness and non-consciousness being sharp or fuzzy, I think it's clearly sharp. I'm with Goff, Antony and Schwitzgebel (and not doubt many others)on that.

And it is certainly correct that the neural correlates approach flounders to the degree it represents Cartesian representationalism – the story that the brain is somehow generating a "display" of reality.

That way of thinking about the problem of consciousness just bakes in the Hard Problem. It begins with the unbridgeable divide as its premise. A display needs someone looking at it. Experiencing it. Homuncular regress is the only option once you trap yourself into a neuroscience of "mental display". — apokrisis

It's not at all clear who you are arguing with here, either on this forum or elsewhere. It's very generic. Names?

And yet in practice, there are procedures developed by neurologists to determine brain death in hospital situations. — apokrisis

While of considerable practical utility, this does not help us with developing a theory of consciousness.

Brain scans can tell if you are thinking about tools or animals. Whether you are day dreaming or focused. Happy or in pain. Not yet an exact science and may never be, but further along than you seem to suggest. — apokrisis

I have actually heard of that. But these are observations of correlations. There's no theory that explains the relationship in a principled way as far as I am aware.

So you are coming at what science can be expected to do in a simple-minded fashion. — apokrisis

I'm not expecting anything of a disembodied 'science'. I'm expecting an explanation of consciousness from people who claim to have one, like you for instance!

There is no one answer to the question you have - give me a theory that tells me both what consciousness is and also why I am experiencing exactly what I am experiencing right now. A theory that collapses the general and the particular, and which is somehow then useful to anyone. — apokrisis

I don't especially require a single theory for both these questions.

As I noted, this is not a theory, it's a standard you apply to an existing phenomenon to decide if it is living. — T Clark

I don't think @apokrisis meant it as a definition or criterion of demarcation, but of he did then it's of little relevance as an explanation of consciousness.

This isn't a theory, it's a definition. — T Clark

You won't find @apokrisis theory in a dictionary. It's not what we mean by 'consciousness'.

What does it mean for a theory to specify what conditions necessitate consciousness or any other phenomenon? What does it mean that a theory has force or is robust? Why must a theory specify what conditions are necessary for a phenomenon rather than just sufficient? — T Clark

I'll see if I can explain with a simple example (it has to be simple because I don't know much science):

To what temperature do I have to heat this water to get it to boil? Prediction: it will boil at 100 degrees provided the following necessary conditions are met:
- sea level atmospheric pressure
- and all the obvious ones like having a heat source and a container that conducts heat etc
...when all these necessary conditions are met they will be jointly sufficient for the water to boil at 100 degrees. That is to say that even if one of the necessary conditions are not met then the water will not boil, and if all the necessary condition are met, they are jointly sufficient, which means the water MUST boil at 100 degrees. It can't not.
Further, a theory which tells a story about pressure and temperature of different materials and states of matter and so on will then explain why we get the result we do, and will be flexibly able to predict the phase changes of different materials under different circumstances, and that's how we test it: we make a bunch of predictions and then do the experiments. The theory will spit out the necessary and sufficient conditions for each phase change.

Applied to consciousness, a well-fleshed out theory will tell us the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to arise at all, and perhaps even go further and tell us what particular experiences a conscious thing will feel under what circumstances. So to take @apokrisis preferred theory, the necessary conditions for x to be conscious are:
- models environment
- makes predictions based on that model
- for the purpose of building and maintaining itself as an organism (sorry if I got that wrong)
...and I presume these are taken to be jointly sufficient for consciousness. That is to say, if they are all met, x is most definitely conscious, it can't not be. (It wouldn't be much of a theory if they weren't jointly sufficient. That would be like saying "Water needs to be at atmospheric pressure at sea level before it will boil at 100 degree, but sometimes it just doesn't, even when those conditions are met. Water is weird like that." That's an incomplete theory, no? It fails to predict.")
So @apokrisis preferred theory makes a great reasonably clear prediction, because it specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions. The trouble it shares with all theories of consciousness is that we can't test it. We can use it to predict a human being is capable of being conscious, and predict a rock isn't. But we can't check, because we don't have a consciousness-o-meter. And if we use the theory to check, (i.e. we look to see if the organism models the world to make predictions in order to create and maintain itself as an organism) then we have just assumed the thing we are trying to show.

EDIT: this is why I keep asking variations of "So why can't that happen without consciousness?" The analogy with water is "Why can't water just stay unboiled at 100 degrees at sea level pressure?" And of course the theory answers that, it says why the jointly sufficient conditions necessitate that the water be boiling. It's not enough for a good theory to merely observe that water does in fact always boil at 100 degrees. There needs to be an explanation. And the situation with consciousness is even worse, we can't even agree on what to observe to detect the presence of consciousness - we don't even have an undisputed regularity of nature to explain. If we did have a consciousness-o-meter, that would give us a huge head start in developing a theory. We do have reports of human beings and the inference to other minds by abduction, that's a start, but it only tells us other humans are likely conscious, it tells us nothing about rocks (not without making a bunch of assumptions anyway).

According to Chalmers, at least as I understand him, the hard problem is how to get from a physical, biological, neurological explanation of cognitive functions to experience. — T Clark

Yes, either by a theory or by redefining these things as experiential.

I don't think physicalists deny the existence of experience nor do they say that experience must accompany cognitive functions. Or have I misunderstood you? — T Clark

I don't think you've misunderstood me, but you may have misunderstood physicalism. A theory of consciousness should ideally be able to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing to be conscious, and explain why those conditions result in/constitute/realise consciousness. A physicalist theory, if it is to have any force, must specify the sufficient conditions, that is, what conditions necessitate consciousness, and explain why. Otherwise it's more of a speculative possibility than a theory with persuasive force.

It's not. — T Clark

We agree!

Who says they can't? — T Clark

Physicalists, specifically functionalists

I'm not sure I know what that means, but I'll try this - can a robust theory of chemistry reliably predict which chemical systems are alive? Again, no. — T Clark

A robust theory of chemistry will predict which systems are chemical systems. A robust theory of life will predict which systems are alive. (Although there may be an issue about the difference between definition and theory here.) For example, @apokrisis theory is that a system is conscious if and only if it models its environment and makes predictions based on that model (I've probably oversimplified that, apologies apo). So this theory could in principle perhaps be used to create an artificial consciousness, and the theory would predict that the resultant creature would be conscious. It would be hard to test that prediction though, as notoriously no one has yet invented a consciousness-o-meter.

I don't see how that differs significantly from the previous question. — T Clark

The hard problem is how we get from no consciousness to some consciousness. This problem only exists for emergentists.

The other problem is the problem of explaining how one functional system is reliably correlated with one experience rather than another. This problem exists for every theory of mind.

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