If you want to argue that this account is problematic then you need to speak to the authors, not to me. — Michael

The account is not problematic. It merely identifies the subjective certainty about qualia with some meta-theoretical models.

Other papers have identified feelings of 'speaking to god' with certain neural clusters very active in a few people.

Other papers have identified out-of-body experiences with modeling activity in the parietal and premotor cortices.

Other papers have identified the schizophrenic's 'demon voices' with failures of backwards acting suppressive models in the autidory system.

None of these papers are saying that the phenomena is actually happening as it reported. We don't actually talk to god, we don't actually have out-of-body experiences, we don't actually hear demons, and we don't actually see qualia. The authors of each paper have merely identified the.modeling processes associated with those reports.

It quite clearly says "qualia [are] distinctive mid-level sensory states known with high systemic ... certainty". — Michael

The fact that you've had to change the wording of the quote to make it match your conclusion says it all.

It's quite clearly accepting that we have qualia, it's just arguing that qualia is something other than the "raw data" that some think it to be. — Michael

So the papers identifying out-of-body experiences with certain activity in the parietal and premotor cortices, is saying that we do actually have out-of-body experiences?

Or, is it saying that we feel like we have out of body experiences (but don't really) because of the modeling assumptions of those regions?

We could say the same about the 'god' neurons. I suppose they prove we actually do speak to god?

And schizophrenia? Identifying the models which give the impression of external voices proves schizophrenics really do hear external voices?

Our perception of an apple doesn't explain how outside objects can scan and analyze the apple arriving at repeatable conclusions. — Christoffer

Can you give an example of an outside object (without just being programmed to detect what humans already think of as apples) detect apples. I can't think of a single example.

you and I have different qualia — Michael

meta-theory — Isaac

The claim is not that we actually have qualia, it is explaining why we might think we have qualia when thinking about perception.

It's in the first sentence. Is there something you're not understanding about the subject matter of the paper because I keep repeating this and you keep ignoring it.

the problem of explaining the behaviors and verbal reports that we associate with the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. These may include reports of puzzlement, of the attractiveness of dualism, of explanatory gaps, and the like. We present and defend a solution to the meta-problem.

The entire paper is about why we might report our experiences that way, not what our experiences actually are. If you want to translate it into what 'red' refers to it would be the trivially true statement that, for some, 'red' refers to the quale 'red' when they are verbally reporting their meta-theory of perception.

We can see that quite clearly here, as that's exactly the way you're using 'red' throughout this whole thread.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual process of perception. It has nothing whatsoever to do with normal everyday use of the word 'red'. It is to do with exactly what they specify in the very first sentence of the paper.

nothing like that happens when I see red, — Michael

How would you know. Do you have privileged and unfettered access to everything that happens in your brain?

There are several experiments which show that the mental processing of sensory inputs is, at least, extremely similar to Bayesian modelling, as subjects update expectations with almost exactly the same function as would a computer carrying out Bayesian modelling.

Not only that, but once you define a self-perpetuating system, then it's state, by definition can be defined by the Fokker-Plank equation (a probability function of the state of any system which has an attractor - a shape, or state it tries to maintain against random decay). When you write this equation from the position of the system's inferences about the external world (which it must have in order to resits random decay) they come out exactly identical to Bayesian model evidence functions.

So it's not only evidentially demonstrated that you carry out these functions, but it is mathematically demonstrated too.

they’re the ones saying that redness is a Bayesian model, not me. — Michael

They're not. They're saying that our experience of certainty during the modelling of red objects about the the colour is itself a meta-theory about perception which (like all our models) can be expressed in Bayesian terms.

My point is only that by their own account of perception redness isn’t a property of some external stimulus, contrary to your claims. — Michael

That's not anywhere in the text. I've already explained what the purpose of the paper is, it's written in the introduction to it. It is explaining the prevalence of certainty in our meta-theory about perception. It makes no reference whatsoever to what 'red' is actually a property of. The whole paper is about the role that the idea of qualia plays in our meta-theory of perception. It's not even about actual qualia as a part of the brain's process of perception.

As usual, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Markov boundary is a statistical feature of a network. It's not an object. It is at the membrane, not the membrane itself.

you can see one of his papers here and also various entries on the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy. — Wayfarer

Thanks. I'll stick it on the reading list. Have you mentioned it to @Mww?

Only rational argument, which apparently doesn't cut it. — Wayfarer

You made claims about what philosophy is able to do. I asked if it actually did. there's no rational argument can be brought to bear on that question. It's answered with examples.

You missed the point of the ontological consideration — creativesoul

Could you perhaps repeat it for me?

Between you and ↪Wayfarer
I get all kinds of nifty stuff to rock my epistemic water vessel, so sincere thanks for it. — Mww

Happy to help.

Dunno about changing the world to fit our models; seems sorta backwards to me. — Mww

It's just about direction of fit. If I have a model of my lounge and the chair's not actually in the place I was expecting it to be, I don't have to update my model, I can move the chair.

The active state would be cognition. The process of inference would be the tripartite logical syllogistic functionality between understanding (major), judgement (minor(s)), and reason (conclusion). Now, as you’ve said, albeit in a different way, re: the talking is not the doing, this is how we talk about it, how we represent to ourselves a speculative methodology, but the internal operation in itself, functions under the condition of time alone, such that cognition is possible from that methodology.

Not sure that’s a very good answer, but best I can do with what I’m given, and considering my scant experience with Markov blankets. — Mww

About as extensive as my understanding of Kant, so it's a wonder either of us can understand a word the other says. I'll give this some thought though. First impression is that cognition can't be an active state because it doesn't interact with the external states, but...

Most studies in human psychology are done on college students — baker

Yes, but these were not.

psychology studies tend to assume that all people are essentially the same; that nurture, acculturation are only skin deep. And that there is only one normal way for humans to respond to a certain external stimulus. — baker

I'm not sure what psychology studies you've been reading, but I'd be extremely surprised to find a single modern study assume that all people are essentially the same.

More of the antinatalist goalpost shifting.

When the talk is of procreation it is the outcome that matters...

Except, of course, if the child is of the wrong skin color/ethnicity/socioeconomic class, has a disability, is one too many.

You keep ignoring this. — baker

When the talk is of antinatalism, it's now the intention that matters, not the outcome...

Why would we eliminate harm with no-one around to enjoy their harm-free life? — Isaac


It's about the quality of one's intention. — baker

How are we to judge what matters morally - intention or outcome? Pick one and then we can have a discussion about how it relates to antinatalism. Keep shifting which depending on the argument and discussion become impossible.

the point still stands that colour terms like "red" (can) refer to this qualia, which according to them is a Bayesian model, — Michael

Here's a Bayesian model

P(S1,…,Sn)=∏i=1np(Si|parents(Si))

What colour is it?

It seems apparent to me that not acting in a particular situation can be one of the causes of a state of affairs continuing in a certain way, since doing something could have stopped/changed the situation. Of course, there can be multiple sources and ignoring intentions and practical limitations whilst ascribing responsibility for something is not right, in my view. — DA671

Yes, which is why the antinatalist must constantly shift the goalposts. When it's pointed out that parents rarely actually cause harm to their children, the rhetoric shifts to merely being instrumental in brining about conditions where they might come to harm. When it's pointed out that the lack of a next generation can also bring about conditions where people might come to harm, the rhetoric shifts back to "well, the antinatalist isn't actually causing that harm". And so we go round and round.

The thing is, you presuppose the individual to be a part of something. A circle, a group of people available to build a house, etc. — Tzeentch

No, my analogy only requires that it is an option. By choosing not to be a part of something you are creating the conditions where that something has one fewer participants. If, by having one fewer participant, those conditions cause harm, then you are creating condition of harm. This is exactly the same situation you're claiming to be immoral with procreation.

when that opinion turns out to be false, the person who wasn't involved in the first place hasn't suddenly started to cause harm. — Tzeentch

More goalpost shifting. With procreation you weren't talking about 'causing harm', you were talking about 'creating the conditions for harm'.

However assuming one hasn't caused the people to freeze and isn't involved with them in some other way, it is neutral. One may very well choose to help out, however if one has reasons not to do so, non-interference is acceptable. — Tzeentch

As I said, weird premises in, weird conclusions out. Standard fare for antinatalism.

Sitting and watching people die who you could easily save is sociopathic. Imagine every film, book, or play you've ever encountered. Where in any of them, does the hero sit an watch someone die because he can't be bothered to help? It's absolutely universal that such behaviour is considered immoral. But then you know this already.

No moral system that holds non-interference as unacceptable will make sense, because there are people proverbially drowning everywhere at every moment, and if non-interference is not acceptable, well you get where that is going. — Tzeentch

No-one said anything about not weighing other factors. One cannot be everywhere at once, one has limited mental and physical capacities, we have a justifiable expectation, that's all.

If you were arguing that all of us should abandon realism and avoid the tendency to use terms that suggest we believe there is an unshackled truth beyond our models I’m all for that. By all means challenge me whenever I let such vocabulary slip in. — Joshs

Well then we are on the same page it seems.

if I understand you correctly,
you believe such realist terms SHOULD be part of our scientific and philosophical claims — Joshs

Not so much 'should' as unproblematically are.

anything we say about such a cultural-independent realm is contingent on and relative to our practices, which are always changing. — Joshs

Agreed.

Any claim of an asymptotic movement of scientific knowledge toward representation of something independent of that movement itself is a claim within a practice that is itself changing — Joshs

Also agreed.

It is an invitation to see for yourself if what appears to be an internally generated representational model of an outside doesn’t qualtiatively alter the sense of that outside in the act of representing it. — Joshs

Absolutely, but there's consistency too, we couldn't think two straight thoughts in a row if every time we thought something it changed the model of the thing we're thinking.

Yes, but it seems that to you this is a bug, a contextual imposition of cultural bias and distortion on an autonomous scientific enter­prise from the “outside”. — Joshs

I'm not sure what I've said to give you that impression, but I don't feel that way. My beef, such as it is, is only with the equally culturally embedded philosophies claiming to be anything beyond optional. Optional narratives, I'm all for.

you did say neither one nor the other of the two possible explanatory methodologies — Mww

I don't agree there are only two possible explanatory methodologies.

If it be agreeable that the domain of philosophy is rational thought in accordance with logical law, and the domain of science is empirical experiment in accordance with natural law, and furthermore that no human ever performed an experiment without first thinking how it should be done in order to facilitate an expected outcome.....we arrive at both a clear chronological succession and a clear methodological distinction — Mww

Ah, I see. Yes, fair enough. Philosophy, thus defined does come first. But...(you knew there was going to be one)...what is true of philosophy the practice is not true of any actual philosophy. Rational though comes first. Kant's theory of rational thought doesn't (necessarily).

If that were true, there would never be such a thing as a paradigm shift, whether in science, ethics, metaphysics or anything else. If there ever was that which is sufficient reason to cause the collapse of an antecedent condition, then that thing could not be contained in that which collapsed. — Mww

No, but cultural changes can occur for all sorts of reason (my favourite involves Lorenz attractors, it's really cool), which can then lead to changes in culturally mediated paradigms. The change needn't be rational.

Is it a far-fetched personal cognitive prejudice, or is it a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same? — Mww

Not all that far fetched...

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00079/full

..but there are significant differences when it comes to active inference (which has elements of predictive processing, but is not restricted to it) to do with that troublesome second crossing of the Markov boundary which is so often forgotten. The active state. We move, interact with the world, harvest data, even change the world to fit our models better... and all this is part of the process of inference. Does Kant have an equivalent?

What is at question is the truth or falsity of the models, in the sense of correspondence, and that is whether the models are a fair representation of what is supposed to be being modeled. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh. Well in that case I couldn't care less.

That is exactly the evidence I have been giving you — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't provided a scrap of 'evidence' yet, you've just been asserting things so far.

I clearly indicated that overlapping does not prevent a system from being defined. I said it prevents a system from being defined as "discrete" — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't. A discrete system can still be defined despite being open. I gave the example of a cell.

do you see that the "cell membrane" in your example is a third thing? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. It's part of the cell, so part of the system.

the definitions employed by systems theorists are false premises — Metaphysician Undercover

Definitions are not premises. It just declares how the word will be used.

when the system acts in a way such that it is influenced (caused) to behave in a way which is neither the result of observable external causes, nor the system itself (2nd law), then we ought to conclude internal causes which are not part of the system itself. To conclude "hidden" external causes is a false conclusion, because properly designed experiments have the capacity to exclude the possibility of unobservable external causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

What experiments? I've never read of any experiments which reveal a system acting in a way which is neither the result of internal nor external states. Could you cite a paper?

by your description, it is not inside the system, it is the boundary. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The boundary is part of the system.

Jokes aside, this label of "availability" is a subjective one. — Tzeentch

Ditch it then. Just a circle with five people in it (one you). You walk away. You have brought about a condition where there's a circle with only four people in it. No availability involved.

A circle (community/village) with only four people in it causes harms in a way that a circle with five people in it doesn't (house building cannot take place and so people suffer from exposure).

You have brought about a situation where harms are going to occur. Just the same as procreation.

You could say "I was never going to help with the houses anyway, I was just going to watch everyone die of exposure without lifting a finger". That would indeed change the logic.

And thereby we'd end up where every single discussion of antinatalism always ends up...

If you have weird premises, you'll end up with weird conclusions.

If you seriously think that sitting by watching others die of exposure but refusing to lift a finger to help is 'moral' then you're obviously going to end up with some seriously fucked up conclusions arising from that principle.

In philosophy there is space for 'the unconditioned' — Wayfarer

There is also the fundamental philosophical maxim, 'know thyself' with the concommitant emphasis on self-awareness — Wayfarer

in this discipline 'we are that which we seek to know'. — Wayfarer

I very much doubt scientists would happily admit that they have a blind spot. Do you find they do? I'll assume not.

So you merely claiming that philosophy doesn't isn't going to cut it. Science will claim it doesn't too. What can you give me by way of evidence?

what we perceive is experienced as being perceived immediately, or do you experience some time lag between turning to look at, say, a tree and seeing it? — Janus

I wasn't talking about the time lag, I was talking about the sense of directness. I don't get a sense that I see things 'directly'. Sometimes the form of something is unclear, but I don't believe the actual thing is unclear, I believe that my vision is not delivering me a clear image (in my naive everyday belief). I don't recognise this idea of directness that you're talking about. Vision seems quite clearly indirect to me, I imagine a world made of solid, clear object and yet many of the I can't see clearly. That's my day-to-day experience. Not a direct one at all.

As to how it "informs my art" it's the difference between accepting what you perceive just as it immediately appears to you, giving yourself over to it and becoming absorbed in it — Janus

I've heard artists talk this way. It's not something I really 'get' but it sounds almost integral to the artistic process. I suppose that's probably why all my drawings are shite.

Whenever a terminological framework has the purpose of explaining human consciousness(meaningful human experience) and/or other kinds of consciousness(such as non-human meaningful experience), and it is based upon either internal/external, or physical/non-physical, or even perhaps both, then those practices are doomed to fail as a result of not having the explanatory power to be able to take proper account of that which consists of both internal and external things, physical and non-physical things. — creativesoul

I can see how that might be the case, but I don't think dividing states into internal and external suffers from that problem as it still retains the possibility of modelling something which is both (a person in their environment for example). The division doesn't prevent both sides from being in the model.

Meaningful experience exists in its entirety, in simpler forms, prior to our knowledge. <-------That's the pivotal ontological consideration which ought inform the selection/creation of our terminological framework. — creativesoul

I think you're making a mistake in assuming that because something exists prior to our accounting for it, it must be that our accounting is wrong if it doesn't represent it fully. You're making tow unwarranted assumptions. Firstly that {that which exists in its entirety prior to our accounting practices} can be represented with only one 'true' model, that there's only one 'true' way to account. There may be many, hundreds. Secondly that our accounting practices must capture the entirety of the thing they're accounting for. I see no reason why they should.

1) the science of Markov blankets doesn't directly address the philosophical issue of subjective experience (as explained in the first paper) — Michael

Agreed. The idea of there being no coherent thing called a subjective experience is a different matter. As I said, we can discuss qualia.

2) colour terms like "red" don't (only) refer to some property held by some external world cause but (also) by something that happens "in the head" (even if you want to reduce qualia/first-person experiences to be something of the sort described in the second paper). — Michael

No. You've misunderstood what the second paper is about. The key is in the introduction, which you quoted from but didn't seem to take account of. It's quite clear...

We need to understand the meta-problem in a way that is (broadly speaking) behavioral rather than making essential reference to phenomenal experience itself. In practice, this means the goal is to explain the things we say and do, while bracketing the question of whether or not they reflect phenomenal experience.

They're asking the question why we think there's a hard problem at all, not whether there is one. Nothing in the paper is about perception, it's about the meta-model we have of perception in folk psychology and why we have it.

They even quite specifically repeat the point I've been making...

seeing red and feeling pain (just like seeing dogs, cats, vicars, and even (Letheby and Gerrans (2017)) having a sense of self) are themselves inferred causes.

...and...

Instead, our brains construct qualia as ‘latent variables’ – inferred causes in our best ‘generative model’ (more on that later) of embodied interactions with the world.

...and...

Qualia – just like dogs and cats – are part of the inferred suite of hidden causes

.

When they say...

in perception, we seem to become highly confident of something, where that something does not quite mandate high-level beliefs about the state of the distal world itself

...what they're getting at is a meta-model of how perception works (our own internal model of what's going on) which includes this high-certainty, low clarity 'feeling' of experience which works alongside our knowledge that what we see might not be what it seems.

They're arguing that qualia are a Bayesian model of the high certainty policy on any perception which acts as a base on which to build models of less probable possibilities. It's a model space in which possibilities can be explored. It's...

not some kind of raw datum on which to predicate inferences about the state of body and world.

In other words. We do not 'see' qualia. They are (in the paper) an inferred part of our internal model of how perception works.

the claim is that qualitative contents reflect mid-level sensory encodings apt for the selection of local action, and/or steeped in interoceptive information. These strikingly certain, sensorially-rich content states are then mistaken for something else (something ‘beyond content’) when we engage in certain kinds of imaginative exercise that hold them fixed while varying the distal realm

Clearly there had been only four people available all along. — Tzeentch

No you're just talking nonsense. A circle with five people in it does not have only four people in it.

Clearly there had been four people available all along. — Tzeentch

I said "only four".

in the case of non-interference, I am not creating any conditions that are relevant to the incident, in this example the building of the house. — Tzeentch

Just declaring it to be the case doesn't make it so.

How are you not creating the conditions where there are only four people available, by going for a walk?

Five people (one you) are standing in a circle. You leave. How have you not now created the condition where there are only four people in the circle?

My absence did not cause the house to not be built. — Tzeentch

My procreation did not cause the harm to my children. You keep moving the goalposts.

Procreation - it's all about incidentally creating conditions.

Community welfare - it suddenly becomes about direct causality.

Which is it. Direct causality, or incidentally creating conditions?

by default people are not entitled to each other's action — Tzeentch

No one said anything about entitled. We were talking about creating conditions. You undoubtedly create condition 1 by going away.

Creating children is likewise an act, which contributes to their harm. — Tzeentch

How? I don't harm my kids.

Again, having children is an act, and when one acts, one must take into the harm one causes. — Tzeentch

So's moving away from rather than toward a person. So's playing a computer game instead of helping them.

There's a fundamental difference between creating conditions, acting, and choosing not to create them, non-interference. — Tzeentch

If a house needs building, it takes five people to build it, you're one of only five people in the community. If, instead of helping to build the house, you decide to go for a walk, how are you not, by your action (going for a walk at the time the house needs building) 'creating the conditions' whereby that house will not be built and all the associated harms.

Condition 1 - there are four people available. The house doesn't get built. People suffer.

Condition 2 - there are five people available. The house gets built. No one suffers

By going for a walk instead of helping you are, without a shadow of a doubt, creating condition 1. The condition in which harms come about.

The drowning man does not drown because I did not help him, but because he ended up in the water and could not swim. — Tzeentch

Right. But the bomb causes the school to explode in your other analogy. You didn't cause it. You merely created a situation in which is was more likely to happen. It's exactly the same with procreation. By having children I don't actually cause the harm they might experience do I? I merely allow for it by bringing them into being. You can't have it both ways - direct causality on one side, but 'creating conditions' on the other.

The same could be said for "depriving individuals of one's company" - one's choice of not getting involved isn't the cause, it's the person's desire for things outside himself that is the cause of his deprivation. — Tzeentch

Right. So we're declaring some harms to be the result of desires which conflict with reality and others not. So I can simply declare that by procreating, I've caused no harm at all. Any 'harm' my children might experience in life is simply the result of their unrealistic expectations, not my fault. Again, you can't have it both ways.

That's only a problem for accounting practices(notions of mind/consciousness/meaningful experience) when and if they are based upon one of the aforementioned dichotomies. — creativesoul

I'm not really sure what you mean here?

as an elemental part of all meaningful experience(consciousness; thought; belief; etc.). — creativesoul

Are you perhaps suggesting that some parts of meaningful experience are not mediated by how the underlying biological machinery works?

But if in reality, there is an overlapping of the things which you are applying the theory to, then these things cannot be adequately understood as discrete systems. — Metaphysician Undercover

So? They only need to be defined systems for the model to work, not closed ones.

You can "define" anything, anyway you want, but if that definition is not represented in reality — Metaphysician Undercover

Who says the definition is not represented in reality?

you define systems as being distinct or discrete, but the things which you apply the theory to are not really that way, they overlap, and share, etc — Metaphysician Undercover

Overlapping and sharing in no way prevents a system for being defined, and it only need be defined to have internal and external states, to have probability functions performing gradient climbing equations against entropy.

You insist on "discrete systems", but now you deny "isolated systems". How could there be a discrete system which is not isolated from other systems? — Metaphysician Undercover

Easily thus. "Everything within the cell membrane is the system, everything outside of it is not". Nothing about the fact that my newly defined 'system' exchanges molecules with the system outside of it, prevents it from being defined as a system and therefore being modelled as performing this gradient climbing function. If you can't explain how you think the openness of systems prevents this model then simply repeating that it does doesn't get us anywhere.

it is quite obvious that we need to assume internal hidden states as well — Metaphysician Undercover

Internal states are literally defined as those which are not hidden. It's just the definition of the terminology.

The composition, or constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from it — Metaphysician Undercover

Then it is an external state as far as the system is concerned.

I'll have a go at that. — Wayfarer

Good attempt. But, like @Joshs, you've given an excellent account of the unexamined preconceptions of scientists. What you've not answered is why we shouldn't assume that the philosophers providing these alternative accounts have any fewer (if different) unexamined preconceptions.

The philosopher doesn't have a different brain, they're brought up in the same culture they're only trained (when they are trained) by other philosophers using their previous ideas. So whence this magical shakle-breaking? Why no unexamined preconceptions behind Heidegger, behind Pinter, behind Bernstein, behind the idea of a 'blind spot' in science?

I'm totally on board with this idea that science has unexamined preconceptions which, if you question them, undermine some of its oft claim to 'truth'. I really don't have any complaint about that at all.

But then by the same token, so do the replacement philosophies. They too are culturally embedded. They too assume things. They no more have a claim to being an account of 'the way things 'really' are'.

what we are immediately aware of, we are immediately aware of; that's just what we experience — Janus

Then isn't that somewhat trivially tautologous? What is it you draw from this conclusion that you found novel?

As I said before it's just two different ways of looking at it. — Janus

Again, I'm not clear on what the first 'way' really is. It doesn't seem so much a 'way of looking at things' as just a reiteration of what the words mean. That which it seems to me is the case seems to me to be the case. What am I missing that is concluded from that approach? How does it, for example, inform your art?

he begins from the actual contextual discursive engagements from which such grand ideas are generated. — Joshs

Interesting, but I don't buy it. You frequently seem to have this dichotomy on how you express these ideas which makes them unconvincing. You'll talk a lot about unexamined preconceptions, culturally embedded narratives, the ephemeral nature of what is real... (all ideas I'm very sympathetic to). Until....

Until it comes to your personal favorites. Then the rhetoric suddenly changes. Now it's all 'actual', 'must', 'is', 'are'... You begin by saying that ideas are shackled by unexamined presuppositions, culturally embedded narratives, etc, then proceed to announce replacement concepts as if they were the unshackled 'Truths' of the way things are.

All ideas are culturally embedded narratives. All of them. That includes Heidegger, that includes Rouse, that includes Zahavi, that includes the idea that all ideas are culturally embedded narratives... All of them.

it appears to me that you responded with logically consistent intelligibility. I have no choice but to seriously admire that response, arising as it apparently does from one human, and directed toward another, constructed from neither consideration of brain machinations nor philosophical predications as a product of them. — Mww

I didn't mean to say nothing was going on. My point was your wording, your description of it, was a foreign to me as mine is (perhaps) to you. It's not about the process, it's about our descriptions of them, our rendering of them into words and concepts. That something is going on is undeniable. Whether your description of it rings true for me or mine for you has little to do with that fact.

While it is certain that each form of necessity belongs to its own domain, holding sway only within it, it still remains to be acknowledged which came first. — Mww

I think that the scientific and the philosophical domains are not so very different from one another, and so the question of which came first is not answerable by declaring 'philosophy!' or 'science!'. We each have different narratives, which we would use different language to explain, about how we think. The only proper answer to which came first would be that of the first thinking human, or (in an individual's case) the one they had as a baby.

Every single other narrative has no better claim to primacy than any other.

your hidden states are an interesting concept. I might find a place for them. — Mww

Glad you liked it. Fertile ground for both scientific and metaphysical speculation, I think.

If...

Science , like philosophy , is a culturally constructed niche. — Joshs

... then it seems likely to me that when...

Postmodern sciences, along with postmodern philosophies, abandon realism — Joshs

...they merely replace it with another culturally constructed presupposition.

To assume otherwise requires us to believe that modern philosophy has miraculously broken free of ten thousand year old shackles.

When did I say systems have no definition? — Metaphysician Undercover

You said...

There is no such thing as a "discrete system" — Metaphysician Undercover

In response to...

So simply by the definition of a discrete system we've got, of necessity, an internal state, an external state, a Markov boundary, and two different probability functions on either side of that boundary. — Isaac

If sll you meant was that yhr boundaries overlap, then I don't see how that forms a criticism. Systems can be defined. They therefore had thst which is the system and thst which is not. If they don't have those two categories they are not defined.

Right, therefore contrary to your claim, these supposed "open systems" are not subject to the laws of physics. The second law of thermodynamics being a law of physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Christ! Is this going to be one of your stupidly arrogant "all maths is wrong" arguments all over again. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy increases during any spontaneous process in an isolated system. Living systems are not isolated systems. The only truly closed system is the universe so any part of it decreasing entropy is not defying the second law. This is physics basics I learnt in school.

The constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from that system. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it isn't.

Notice that it shows both internal and external "S", when you say "S" is a hidden state. — Metaphysician Undercover

Mathjax error, my apologies. I've corrected it, so thanks for pointing it out. The Mathjax 's' is the hidden state, not the normal type 's'.

[It] must instead engage in a reflective move that allows it to explore and assess the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions of the latter. — Joshs

It's this move that I'm questioning. It seems odd to say that scientists as a group are blinkered by some presupposition (that is nonetheless clear enough for Mr Zahavi to see without trouble), and yet assume that the mere mention of the problem is sufficient for phenomenologists to shed presuppositions like unwanted clothing in a heatwave.

What is it about the mind of a scientist that shackles them in chains so unbreakable, yet as gossamer in the hands of the philosopher?

Is it just wishful thinking? Or do we have some good reason to believe that Mr Zahavi and his ilk are not just labouring under exactly the same degree of presupposition as the scientist, just from a different source?

if one knowingly creates conditions by which individuals will befall harm in the future, one is morally responsible when that harm eventually befalls them — Tzeentch

Right.

As I said https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/720016, but you unfortunately ignored, both your position on inaction and your position on antinatalism create conditions by which individuals will befall harm in the future.

When you have your own dilemma pointed out you too, it seems, reach for avoidance.

As you can never know, I may in fact be experiencing the colour green — RussellA

I could ask.

he promotes, from the perspective of a particular kind of human, that which never occurs to him from the perspective of a human in general. — Mww

Indeed. It's an incorrigible habit.

are you immediately considering, upon reading this, what part of your brain is doing what, or, are you immediately considering only the relation between your reading and my writing? — Mww

I'd have to say neither. See, whilst I find the tenor of your critism on point with regards to cognitive science, I don't find the propositions of philosophy any more familiar. Not only could I not say that I'm "considering ... the relation between [my] reading and [your] writing", but I'd go as far as to say it would strike me as really odd if someone were to claim that's what was going through their mind whilst reading.

I don't have 'red' experiences either. I've no more idea what it's 'like' to be me than I have to be a bat. I've no idea what the question could even mean.

My personal beef? Since we're griping. I think philosopher types think they're reporting from introspection, but are actually repeating stories they've learnt from culture, books etc and merely satisfying themselves post hoc that this, in fact, describes how they think.

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity. — Mww

Again, on point, but is any philosophical text less attempting the same thing. To supplant what the reader subjectively thinks is going on with what the philosopher will claim is a 'better' notion of such?

It seems that the same unwillingness to give up the subjective impression is not extended to one's liver, one's spleen, where we are only too glad to accept exactly the way medical science tells us they work. Nor, it seems, is the whole brain off limits (we've had here much of the modern understanding of how eyes and cortices work, seamlessly blended with folk psychology). It seems only a certain aspect is off limits, and I find that quite curious.

even if your science is in fact the case, I shall never relinquish the metaphysical conditions for my purely rational intellect. And neither should anyone else, dammit!!!!! — Mww

You go for it! (But if you sustain a lesion to your frontal or parietal lobes, you may struggle, perhaps submission to the neurologist's model at that point may be advisable)