Assuming I understand your point correctly, I would argue that the way people should distribute property is through voluntary means. — Tzeentch

I agree, but I'm quibbling over what 'voluntary' means in the light of other individuals manipulating the environment within which that decision is made.

So, we can draw a line at someone literally extracting your possessions from you by force. that's clearly not voluntary. But what about them taking your possessions when you're out? Is that voluntary (you left them insufficiently guarded)? If not, then we have any possession taken without consent being 'involuntary'. So If I think I own the river from which some company is extracting water, they're taking that possession of mine without my consent, yes?

Simply put, the state maintains a monopoly on violence, which means any act of resistance will be further cause for violence. Resistance is forbidden.

The thief holds no monopoly on cunning, and I can (fairly easily, I would argue) use my own wits to protect myself against it. Without a monopoly on violence the thief can't stop me from resisting their efforts.

The company holds no monopoly on manipulation, and I can use my mental capacity however I wish to resist the company's influence. — Tzeentch

I don't understand this use you're making of 'monopoly' here. As far as I can tell, I can do violence right now. The government doesn't appear to have a monopoly on it. I own a rifle. I could go out right now and start threatening people with it, getting them to give me their stuff, and I'd probably get quite a bit of stuff that way. The government would then, of course, threaten me with their much bigger guns and take all that stuff off me. We've both used violence to get stuff, the government has no monopoly on it, it's just the biggest.

But someone (or something) is always the biggest. Line up people (or entities) in order of capacity to harm, and something will be the top of that list, that something will then be able to treat those way down the list in exactly the way the government treats us now. I understand you're merely saying that's wrong, and I agree. But there's no distinction, for me, between the government being at the top of the 'violence' list, and a corporation being at the top of the 'manipulation' list. Someone/thing is always at the top of whatever power list and those at the top can use that power to extract stuff from those much lower down the list.

I don't see any justification for calling the fact that the government tops the 'violence' list a 'monopoly', but saying that the fact that a small cabal of corporations top the 'manipulation' list as not a monopoly.

I therefore also don't see how removing one form of power has any relation to property. It will simply be distributed according the the remaining forms of power.

I distinguish between actions against one's body and action's against one's belongings. The body is the one belonging that irrevocably belongs to the individual, while there can be a debate about the rest. — Tzeentch

Yes. that's rather the point I'm making. Tax comes under 'the rest' since it can be extracted by means other than violence (theft, deception, market manipulation, psychological manipulation...)

Depriving people of their basic life needs, for instance, is in my view on par with actual physical violence, and I would judge it just as harshly. — Tzeentch

That's a good foundation for agreement. Can we agree, further, on what constitutes "basic life needs?"

I'm not a particularly materialistic person. — Tzeentch

Sure, but you have a car, yes? A house? Else you've certainly no concern about taxation if you're so frugal.

The point I'm making here is that what we can rightfully possess (what it would be 'theft' for the government to take) is a separate issue from the means by which government takes it.

Using violence (or threat of it) might be wrong in all cases, but it doesn't in any way preclude the current distribution of property - including your tax burden - it just changes the means by which it can be collected.

Are we in a better state if the most violent entity has all the property, or the most cunning thief? I can't see how one is much better than the other. The weak still suffer the same abuse whether they are weak physically or weak mentally.

I consider all of that to be unethical as well. But I view physical violence a degree worse than the coercive power of powerful corporations (if only by a little), which is why the physical violence of states is, in my view, not an actual alternative. — Tzeentch

As above, I'm not unsympathetic to this view but I'm struggling to see an argument as to why violence (as opposed to cunning) creates a somehow less tolerable inequality.

I don't personally see how I'd care if my land was taken from me by threat of violence or by cunning. I'm no less landless either way. So for example...

big pharma is problematic, but it becomes inescapable when states start mandating their product. — Tzeentch

The state might make someone take a product by threat of violence, the physically weak would comply.

The company might do so by clever advertising and psychological manipulation, the mentally weak comply.

What's the difference? The resultant inequality is the same, the resultant abuse of power is the same. I'm not seeing how having one's stuff taken from one by threat of violence is worse than having one's stuff taken from one by cunning. One is equally left without one's stuff in both cases.

If physical violence was off the table completely, protecting one's belongings would be easy enough. I could chain myself to my belongings so that any attempt to seperate me from them would result in an act of physical violence and voilá. — Tzeentch

What about your money? Any land you think you own? Possessions like boats, cars, buildings...?

I can protect myself from a hacker or a thief easily enough. — Tzeentch

Only if you're better than them. As I said, the best hacker/thief/conman gets all the money. That might still be the state. No violence is needed.

While I agree that ever more powerful corporations are a problem on the same line as states, I view states as being equally responsible for that problem, and not as a viable alternative. They're two sides of the same rotten coin. — Tzeentch

Yes, absolutely.

Then there's the added dimension that states are actively trying to make me complicit in their misdeeds by forcing me to contribute to their purse. — Tzeentch

This is the argument I'm challenging. You said...

I would not judge a person who takes things from others by putting them in situations where they are completely unable to resist any more favorably than a person who takes things by force. — Tzeentch

...that describes most of the world's larger corporations. In Indonesia, for example, it is impossible to get insurance without using a company majority owned by Black Rock. They've simply bought out (quite legally) all competition.

Google, Black Rock, Vanguard, Microsoft...
All do exactly that to an extent that is larger than most governments. The US government might still come out as public enemy number one, but we'd come to Black Rock way before the majority of the rest if the world in terms of "tak[ing] things from others by putting them in situations where they are completely unable to resist"

What you are describing is the state using its extraordinary power to put the individual in a position where they are unable to resist. — Tzeentch

Not at all. Many individuals are capable of the sort of hacking, or deception needed to extract money from a bank account. It happens all the time, it doesn't require extraordinary state power, an ordinary thief could do it.

That in itself could be seen as an act of violence (or at the very least belonging in the same category), however it's probably useful to understand that the state's violence is a direct reaction to this act of resistance. — Tzeentch

Yes, I agree. That's my point. If merely putting someone in a position where it is difficult to resist their will is 'violence' then all corporate activity counts as violence too. All activity by any person or entity that is more powerful than another in any way counts as 'violence'. We have way bigger fish to fry than the state.

That the state has means to put the individual in a position where resistance is impossible, is not a redeeming factor to the way states operate. — Tzeentch

I didn't say anything about resistance. I just said the state could take your money non-violently. You could try and take it back non-violently too. We could oppose violence entirely. It wouldn't stop people taking the property they thought was theirs. The best hacker/thief/con-man would have all the money. No violence needed.

I would not judge a person who takes things from others by putting them in situations where they are completely unable to resist any more favorably than a person who takes things by force. — Tzeentch

Again, I'm not denying anyone the ability to resist. By all means do exactly the same to get your property back. Sneak into the government's vaults, hack their bank accounts... The best thief keeps everything.

There are ways other than physical violence against persons with which one could resist, and they would be met swiftly with actual violence against your person by the state. — Tzeentch

Yes. I'm agreeing with you about violence. I'm going on to say that it's got little to do with taxation, which is about property. If we banned violence, if the state no longer had the monopoly on it, there would still be exactly the same issue about who owned what only it would be resolved by non-violent means (theft) instead of violent means. It doesn't lessen, or increase the tax burden to change how it's collected. Deception, or threat of violence. Both equally viable means of collecting taxes owed.

You seem to be arguing against the result (property distribution), but using the method (violence).

The problem with the argument @Tzeentch and @NOS4A2 are putting forward (as I believe we've discussed before) is that property rights are not intrinsically connected to violence.

The government could, quite easily, simply take what it believes is its property without any violence at all. I could just remove the money from you bank account. It could rock up to your house whilst you're out, break in, and take your stuff. Or, it could do so whilst you're in (since the same proscription applies to you - you can't use violence against them to make the stop).

It sounds like you can base it on non-violence, but it still revolves around property rights, when it comes to taxes.

If what you said were true we could find the whole of science or mathematics to be flawed. — Janus

Yes, that's right, but only if a sound argument were given finding flaw in every single premise. That seems incredibly unlikely. Not so with a philosophical tradition.

Traditions tend to have their own premises, so to reject the entire tradition would be to reject the premises. But if you reject the premises of a tradition then there would no point entering into discussion with those who hold to the premises; you would just wind up talking past one another. — Janus

Again, this just seems to rule out disagreement. How is this any different from saying that that it's pointless to talk to someone who disagrees?

We could both be talking about some aspect within the post-analytic tradition and I hold to Quine's indeterminacy and you argue for Davidson's elimination of content-scheme dualism. Instead of talking, you just say "well, this is a discussion from the point of view of Davidson, so your Quinean response is off topic"

Then some more minor disagreement occurs about the exegesis of Davidson's attack on the 'third dogma' where someone points out the conflict with the Quinean indeterminacy-underdetermination distinction. You say "No, this is a discussion assuming there is no such conflict, pointing out the conflict is off topic"

...etc.

You know how many people are going to be left in that conversation?

To reject a tradition is to reject its founding principles. Such a rejection is inevitably dogmatic, since premises are not supported by reason — Janus

Firstly, not all premises of all traditions are unsupported by reason. German Idealists didn't believe they'd drawn together rationalist and empirical as an unargued-for leap of faith. It's quite carefully and rationally argued out. Likewise, in fact, the argument between rationalist and empiricist traditions in the first place. I can perhaps think of a few traditions with foundational principles that they don't argue for, but they're the minority and usually religious.

Secondly, even when traditions are based on faith-based principles, there are more angles of discussion than reason. One can talk about aesthetics, simplicity, elegance... All valid forms of discussion about differing ideas.

No, I'm saying that if people are trying to have what to them would be a productive discussion in, for example, theology you barge in with what amounts to "theology is bullshit" that you will not be contributing to a productive discussion and you will be off-topic. — Janus

Yes, I get what you're saying, but I'm trying to draw out an actual argument for saying it.

This is a public discussion forum, so people ought to expect the full range of public opinions on a matter. One of them is that theology is bullshit. If the person who thinks 'theology is bullshit' progresses the discussion in a direction they think is valid and useful, then the fact that the pro-theology participants don't agree is just an inevitable part of public debate.

If you start closing off debates into their own little echo-chambers then all you get is stagnation.

in any case even if the uselessness of a whole tradition could be established, that is not going to advance that discipline but rather will demolish it — Janus

As I've said. Demolition is one of the possible stages of any enquiry. To rule it out is dogma.

Questioning some ideas within a tradition involves accepting the tradition overall and questioning it from within. — Janus

Not at all. If one can question some of the ideas in a tradition (and find them flawed) it follows that one can question all ideas in a tradition (and find them flawed). There's no logical reason why every tradition must contain at least one non-flawed idea.

Since a tradition made up entirely of flawed ideas has nothing left to 'accept', it follows logically from being able to question ideas in a tradition that one can reject the entire thing.

The reason I made the distinction is that rejecting a tradition as a result of questioning its ideas is different to merely rejecting it dogmatically.

if you think a tradition is wrongheaded then there is no point attempting to discuss its ideas with those who think it is a good tradition because you will be off topic from the start. — Janus

What? You seem to be saying that disagreeing is off topic. That If I think something is bad, I'm off-topic when discussing it with people who think it's good.

So you think that, for example, you could advance QM by arguing that the whole discipline is useless? — Janus

Yes, absolutely - assuming that argument had any merit (which I can't see how it would with QM), but it seems unarguable that if a discipline is useless, then arguing that case will advance that discipline. Finding out that it is useless is one of the possible end points of a field of enquiry. Phrenology, for example.

What do you think is the biggest barrier to such a solution that we (the Western electorate) could actually do anything about?

In other words, if you wanted to bring about your preferred solution, what would personally do to help (whom would you petition, what political or social action would you take)?

Or do you consider the electorate just as helpless pawns who can do more than watch as the powers play it all out?

Well, I don't see how you would get a better insight into the relation between two traditions by rejecting one of them. — Janus

I didn't say 'rejects', I said 'questions'.

Rejecting a whole tradition as being wrong-headed seems itself to be wrong-headed, in any case. A balanced view sees all traditions as forms of life. I understand that AP is a form of life, that must yield some insight within a certain field of enquiry. — Janus

Except, it seems the tradition that holds that some traditions are wrongheaded. That, apparently is the exception to your rule, which you proceed here to reject as wrongheaded.

You won't get far in any field if you call into question the "usefulness" of the entire discipline. — Janus

I don't see why not. Ruling out the possibility that the discipline is useless seems an entirely unnecessary shackle.

Yes. Semantic norms. Appropriate and inappropriate use of a flag or siren. — plaque flag

Yes, indeed. What distinguishes, I think, a 'good' definition from a 'bad' one as a precursor to a discussion, is that the good definition is encouraging of debate. It says "we ought use the term this way and here's why". That can be disputed.

A bad definition, by contrast closes debate, it says "we will be using the definition this way, so don't point out any flaws in doing so"

In a discussion of phenomenology's relationship with post-structuralism, for example, would there be any value contributed by a participant who only wanted to argue that neither phenomenology nor post-structuralism can contribute anything of philosophical value? — Janus

It's hard to see what you could be meaning by 'value' here. Even if you wanted to gain a 'better' insight into phenomenology, or post-structuralism by your question, deciding in advance that 'better' only consists of answers which accept both traditions rather than question them indicates that you've already decided others are not as capable as you of determining what is and isn't the case, as such the enquiry seems disingenuous.

Had you said - "I only want to hear from qualified philosophy professors", you might be accused of being slightly elitist, but at least the restriction would make some kind of sense given an enquiring mind. But saying "I only want to hear from people who agree with me thus far" just assumes that you have the measure of what's right already, which renders further enquiry pointless. Just use whatever measure you've already used on your definitions, you seem happy with that.

Apparently the development of children is outside your field of knowledge. — BC

My wife's a child psychologist. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so certain of what they think they know that they simply cannot conceive how anyone could disagree other than through ignorance.

How many children do you know who have self-taught themselves from pre-literacy and innumeracy, on up to being able to read a newspaper and balance a checkbook? — BC

Two, intimately. My own.

Hundreds in studies of self-directed learning.

Thousands in ethnographies of tribal hunter-gatherer communities.

People who have time to learn and think along their own lines, may very well conclude that there is something defective and oppressive about the ruling class. The ruling class has found that it's nicer to keep us proles busy than having to suppress riots all the time. — BC

Exactly. And now, instead of actually address the issues which lead to populism, it's just more blame and suppression. Teach the stupid proles how to think properly so they vote Democrat.

most children need help in acquiring the most basic information, like the sounds associated with the alphabet, the manual ability to generate writing, counting, basic arithmetic, and the like. — BC

Why do you think that?

If you think that self-directed learning won't occur in a typical school, you are probably right. — BC

Yes, that's basically my point. If we want children to develop critical thinking skills then absolutely the worst thing we can do to bring that about is further impose on their freedom by force-feeding them lessons on it before making regurgitate it for grades like show ponies doing tricks..

In other words, the final destruction of our children's critical thinking skills will be pedagogical lesson in critical thinking skills.

Fact-check those claims. — Vera Mont

I did. No citation has been offered.

People, of course, do this extensively. — BC

That people do is not an argument that they ought, nor that they must.

One could think of them as reciprocal rather than as opposed. — BC

One could. I was asking about why one would.

I've given you explanations, newspaper articles, quotes, references and further clarifications. — Vera Mont

You've not provided a single citation in support of your contention that we ought teach critical thinking skills.

I've questioned the necessity of 'teaching' as opposed to self-directed learning. You've not provided a single citation countering that position.

That some newspapers agree with you is not a citation. A fable about a wolf cub is not a citation. A story from your childhood is not a citation. "Watch a documentary" is not a citation.

It doesn't matter what you or anyone cited — Vera Mont

Cited? Do you what a citation looks like? It isn't "watch a documentary".

No one has 'cited' anything, just repeated tired clichés as if they were fact.

so the quote was bullshit. — jorndoe

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I try not to have too low a limit, but sometimes your responses are so lacking in any kind of rational structure that you might as well post a picture of your dinner.

he says it is it. — bert1

Yes. I addressed that. Are you having trouble understanding what I've written?

Yes he is, actually. He says consciousness is integrated information. — bert1

I said he's no more declaring them...

Saying one thing is another does not deny meanings in the way you're implying. If I say a hat is my favourite item of clothing, I'm not thereby saying it's not also an item of headwear, or a fan to enliven a sluggish campfire, or a cover for creeping baldness...

The claim that consciousness is integrated information does not entail that it isn't phenomenological.

But don't let simple logic get in the way.

Thanks, I'll take a look. — T Clark

It will reward you, I think.

I tend to just plow ahead and then go back and try to fill in the blanks. — T Clark

Good policy. Remarkable how far that can can get one in life...

might want to save the rhetoric/rambling for ehh "less critical audiences"? — jorndoe

Yes, the critical response here has been searing. I'm overloaded with quality evidence-based arguments like "watch a documentary" and "That this can happen to you is evidence in favour of the explicit teaching of critical thinking", and the devastating revelation that one of my interlocutors can speak to a chat engine.

I'm undone.

After all, it's not as if people were incapable of even making a basic distinction between teaching and learning and thereby assume the value of one was a proxy for the value of the other, and criticism of one stood as criticism of the other.

That sort of attitude is just not going to get your thread past eight pages. — Banno

I could say that meaning is pointing if that would help? — Jamal

Have you tried obviously polemic political diatribes? Works for me.

Language builds on itself, so that saying it is so makes it so, or counts as its being so. — Banno

I'll have a quibble that might yield an extra page...

Merely saying it is so is not enough, we have to agree (at least some sub-community do), so a definition can be read as an argument that we ought to agree. There are at least some reasons that can be brought to bear. If I say "we ought not use 'jabberwocky' to describe both vases and cups, it's confusing" I have at least made a rational argument using some reasonable principle.

Language is a behaviour like any other and so I think no less amenable to arguments about proper comportment.

you tried to back him up with more handwaving. One can't fairly accuse others of "vacuous handwaving" while indulging on his own vacuous handwaving. That was the whole point of the two previous posts and I clearly stated so. — neomac

Yes. And I'm clearly stating that your claim of 'handwaiving' is not a "sharply formed, evidence-accompanied type of claim" and so fails your own requirements. You simply declared it to be so. You require of others what you fail to supply yourself.

Suggesting a vague relation between what I’m asking now and what you reported in the past, doesn’t prove that you already offered evidences to answer my question. — neomac

No. You actually taking the bare minimum of effort to look back (or even remember) what has been offered already is what would prove that. The evidence has been given. I'm not going to re-supply it every time it's asked for because the asking is itself just a rhetorical trick to make your opponent's positions sound un-evidenced. If you genuinely have just forgotten or didn't noticed you would be making a polite request for a repeat. You're not.

I claimed “I abundantly argued” and that’s a fact. I didn’t claim you agreed or you found my arguments persuasive or that the magical expected effect was changing your mind. — neomac

Then why "apart from the fact..."? If 'the fact' consists of nothing but your having written what you consider to be an argument, then my response doesn't stand "apart from" that fact, it stands alongside it. I've not disputed the mere fact that you've written copious words. I've, in fact commented several times on the inordinate length of your posts.

A part from the fact that you were talking about calculations not me and that your defence of Baden’s accusations of “handwaving” against me is handwaving in all sorts of directions, but the point is that there is no way to get rid of the speculative and approximative dimension of geopolitical and moral considerations. That’s why a pretentious accusation of “vacuous handwaving” (or “give me the metrics“ or “no shred of evidence”) which you tried so clumsily to defend, is doomed to be self-defeating. — neomac

Bollocks. It's an absurd argument to say that if one cannot provide the actual mathematical calculations we are therefore in some hyper-relativistic world of speculation and hand-waiving. A bomb is more destructive than a stick. I don't need to do the maths, but nor is it mere speculation.

In this thread, we have abundantly seen how problematic is to talk about “demonstrable effect” depending on the nature of the facts (e.g. an accounting of the victims of an ongoing war), the reliability of the source of information (e.g. if it’s mainstream or not mainstream, if it comes from Russia or Western sources of information etc.), the time range in which one wants to see the effects (the chain of effects is in principle endless which can cumulate and clash in unpredictable ways), the relevance of such effects (there might be all sorts of effects not all equally relevant for all interested parties, e.g. not all Ukrainians and Russians think that nationalities are just flags), the explanatory power presupposed by “effects” and “policies” (depending on the estimated counterfactuals, and implied responsibilities), and so on. — neomac

I don't know why you keep thinking this is a remotely interesting line of argument. Yes, different ways of working things out yield different answers. The same is true of your arguments (despite your pretence to some AI-like hyper-rationalism). So what? That just means that the matter is underdetermined - which is the argument I've been making all along. we choose which argument to believe.

“Diplomacy” requires leverage namely exploiting or exploitable dependencies over often unfairly distributed scarce resources (related to market opportunities, commodities at a cheaper price, or economic retaliation, military deterrence/escalation, territorial concessions, etc.) — neomac

Not at all. It can appeal to humanity, to popular opinion. It can appeal to public image, future stakes, the willingness to avoid mutual destruction. there's all sorts of levers for diplomacy that are not traditional forms of power.

“Sustainable development” and “fair trade“ presuppose public infrastructures, compliance to contracts, a financing flow efficiently allocated to say the least which all require a massive concentration of economic and coercive power. — neomac

No they don't. Things can be fairly traded on trust. and there's absolutely no requirement for "massive coercive power" to simply grow sustainably. what's more, the largest and most powerful force is, as history has repeated shown us, the populace. People strive for their well-being and will strive against authorities which seek to suppress it. It's people who represent the greatest coercive force. Mobilising those people is what drives progress.

“International law” and “human rights courts” presuppose the monopoly of a coercive power (the opposite of disarmement) to be enforced or powerful economic leverage (whose effectiveness depends on how unfairly economic resources are distributed) — neomac

again, it does no such thing. Human rights laws were instigated against the will of those in power by force of will from those subject to that power. they are a restraint on power that was opposed at every step. People in power are (or should be) afraid of those over whom they have power. Governments are afraid of revolution. Company boards are afraid of strikes. Leaders are afraid of non-compliance. The moment they're not we get no progress at all. Human Rights are the result of that fear, not the exercise of their power.

“Democratic reforms” can happen only if there is democracy (and assumed we share the notion of “democracy”), so how can democratic reforms happen when one has to deal with non-democratic regimes in building institutions like “International law” and “human rights courts” that should support and protect democratic institutions? — neomac

People. It was the people who brought down the Ceaușescu regime, not armies or international law. Workers.

“Dis-coupling of politics from industrial influence (share holdings and lobbying)” like in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran you mean? Like in the Roman, Mongol, Islamic, Carolingian Empire you mean? Like in some Taliban village or in some aboriginal tribe in the Amazon forest? — neomac

The latter. If something's not having been done in recent history is your only argument against it being possible then I can see why our politics are at such odds. Had homosexuals ever been allowed to marry in law before this millennia? Good job you weren't involved in that campaign. Had slavery ever been outlawed before the eighteenth century? Did women previously have the vote and merely had it returned to them in 1928?

The idea that if a thing doesn't have precedent it can't happen is utterly absurd.

to ensure policies over time one advocates one needs to rely on massive, stable and unequal concentration of power in the hands of few with all related risks in terms of lack of transparency, lack of accountability, exploitation or abuses — neomac

No one doesn't. Progress has been a matter of resisting that power with an equal and opposite power afforded to the masses.

Have you read it? Is it worth it? — T Clark

Yes, yes. But to understand it you'll need to have done a lot of preliminary reading on Free Energy principles and understand a little of basic neuroscience and Bayesian probability. Nothing super in-depth, but the arguments simply won't be persuasive without that grounding.

As I've tried to point out. Neuroscience, cognitive science, is - like any other science - fiendishly complicated. I find it truly bizarre that otherwise intelligent people could think it remotely meaningful that they pick up a few papers (plucked out of decades of accumulated research) and after glancing at them decide "there's been no coherent theory put forward" as if their failure to immediately understand the arguments made has any bearing on the matter at all. It's weird. Or, to quote your good self...

Albert Einstein couldn't conceive of the leading theories of quantum physics. As you said, that doesn't mean they are wrong. — T Clark

then he just declares that they are the same thing. Which they're not. Integrated information is integrated information. — bert1

He's no more 'declaring them to be the same thing' than I'm declaring light to be the same thing as switches. I'm explaining how/why the light comes on in terms of flicking switches.

You yourself understood this when it cam e to symphonies, yet to choose not to when it comes to consciousness. Symphonies are not orchestras, nor are they notes, nor are they sound waves. these are all component parts which, together, explain symphonies (together with other factors, I'm not claiming to have listed them all).

Explaining how/why a phenomena occurs does not require that the components someone 'are' the thing. Ironically, that's the flaw in reductionist thinking (the one type of thinking the 'hard-problem'ers usually rail against). If I explain the components of the human body, I haven't explained humanity, but there's not some element missing, it's just that the assumption that the sum is entirely subsumed by the component parts is flawed.

You're looking for an explanation of your feelings in terms of physics, but physics cannot explain your feelings in terms that would make any sense to you (or me or anyone) because physics and feelings don't share the same language.

It's like me mentally accepting, on faith, that there's a direct physical explanation of why it's raining in terms of energy levels in fundamental particles, but there isn't a hope in hell of anyone ever proving that. there's more interactions in the human brain than could be calculated by the world's fastest supercomputer even if it had all the time in the known universe to run the calculation, and even if it could, and could write one bit of information on each proton, there's not enough matter in the known universe to write the answer.

That's why reductionism fails. But we don't, observing that failure, start introducing some additional 'thing'. The problem of reductionism is not solved by inventing new entities and forces which are even less amenable to investigation that the ones we assume make up the holistic entities we're studying.

Consciousness is fiendishly complicated, and as a phenomena of human culture and language - the thing we talk about - it's not something that can be physically reconstructed from the component parts. Not because it's made of something else, or because there's some woo involved, but because the task is impossible, like predicting the rain from the position of the molecules two days ago. It physically cannot be done, but that doesn't mean we need invoke any other reason why rain fails than that of moving molecules, and it doesn't mean we have to invoke any other reason (or mystery where a reason should be) why phenomenal consciousness results from the interaction of billions of neurons. We've thoroughly investigated the links, and it definitely does.

Yes. — Vera Mont

Do you care to share it?

Education improves job prospects. — Isaac


Not necessarily. — Vera Mont

True. I didn't say it did so necessarily. It sometimes doesn't even do that.

No, that's not why. — Vera Mont

Again, care to share your reasons?

Many studies have shown conclusively, definitively, that lacking basic skills... — BC

I asked about teaching and you've responded with evidence about learning. Learning and teaching are two different things. Students learn, teachers teach.

I was wondering if you had any grounds for believing the value of education - teaching - not whether you had any grounds for believing in the value of learning.

But the notion of language is wider than English. It's sense-making. Perceptions of the world without words is thought to be a part of our overall meaningful experience -- so meaning, Big-L Language, is still a part of our cognitive apparatus just by the fact that we're able to discriminate at all. There are, after all, parts of the world we had to develop instruments to be able to discriminate. And those instruments get folded into Big-L Language and sense-making. — Moliere

This is too often ignored in place of thinking about actual words or the formation of speech.

The notion of identifiable concepts, objects with properties - this is an inherently social thing (not necessarily only human, but only social). There's an advantage to my reacting to the world in a similar way to you, it makes you more predictable to me, you're less of a surprise, and we can cooperate on joint enterprises, opening up niches which would be unavailable otherwise.

So it's important we have these public entities which we collectively agree on the properties of. the 'tree' cannot be 'my tree' and 'your tree' because we can't then cooperate in gathering it's fruit. It's instead 'the tree', the one we both share and considerable effort goes into the process of constant checking to make sure we're talking about the same tree (indeed most of that effort constitutes talking). Without this need, there's just no need for these firm bounded concepts. The chick doesn't need to have 'mummy bird' or even 'beak' It will peck at any blob of red in any format expecting food, it just needs to respond, not form a 'representation' of anything.

But social creatures have shared objectives, so they must respond to a shared world full of cups, and trees, and red-things, and blue/white/red/gold dresses...

I'm saying it's about conceptual possibility, not someone's actual ability to conceive it. — bert1

Yes, but the only measure anyone is giving for conceivability is their own ability to conceive it.

I haven't seen any evidence of people conceiving it anyway. — bert1

What would that evidence consist of?

Something might be conceivable even without anyone to conceive it. It's about possibility. It's more obvious to think of in terms of logical possibility. - (a & -a) was as true 13bn years ago as it is now, no? Same with conceivability. — bert1

Yes, but we're not talking here about the possibility, we're talking about the actuality. Chalmers' actual failure to conceive it. Not its impossibility of being conceived. Why does the one indicate the other? Is Chalmers the pinnacle of human mental ability such that if he can't conceive it, no one can?

I can't solve Navier-Stokes equations. They're not unsolvable, I'm just not that good at maths.

The conceivability of the p-zombie just shifts the burden to functionalists to explain why we talk about having experiences when we don't actually have them. — frank

Who says we don't have them. The argument is about the kind of thing they are, not whether they are. It's about whether 'experience' describes a set of mental events, an epiphenomena of human fancy, or a type of thing the relationship to which neurons have needs explaining.

No one is saying there's no subject matter there at all.

We 'talk about' life-force, luck, auras, God, unicorns, gut instinct, premonition... Doesn't mean they all default exist in any particular form.

Conceivablility isn't a subjective feat, it's a reasonably public property of propositions. — bert1

Do you have some argument in favour of that conclusion, or is it just a foundational principle for you?

To me it seems clearly about capability. I wouldn't expect a five year old to be able to conceive of a Bayesian predictive model. I can't conceive of any of the leading theories in quantum physics. I don't think that makes either wrong.

I'm saying I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how matter can give rise to consciousness. — Janus

Is that unusual?

I've never heard of any cogent explanation for how long chain polymers are made.

I don't find that at all odd, nor do I think it carries any implication for the field of organic chemistry. I haven't heard any such explanation because I'm not an organic chemist, why would I have?

I'm avoiding the presentation of any neuroscientific theory because I'm on a philosophy forum, it's not the place to discuss the merits of any such theories. What's of philosophical interest (I think) is that you (in common with @bert1 and Chalmers it seems) want to say that your ability to comprehend any given theory's model, to conceive of things the way it does, has some bearing on its veracity. It's that oddity I'm interested in.

The mere existence of a theory that someone thinks explains consciousness should be a given, which is all that's required to explore the philosophical question. But if you think it would be easier with an example, we could use https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057681/1/Friston_Paper.pdf

Beethoven symphony, however conceived (Is it the score? Or the playing? Or the sound waves?) are structure and function. — bert1

I don't think so. I could be conceived as a set like S={all the notes}. Is a set the same kind of thing as an orchestra?

It could be conceived, as some musicians do, as s kind of 'realisation' from the realm of musical possibilities. Are realisations the same kind of thing as orchestras?

It could be conceived as an expression of the universe realising itself...

...and so on.

You choose to see it in such a way as it is the same kind of thing as an orchestra. You choose not to with consciousness. That choice, whilst perfectly legitimate, is not a failing of neuroscience.

If you're happy with your definition and explanation, good for you. — bert1

Can you explain why you're not? What is it about that definition and/or explanation that you find unsatisfactory?

A similar pattern is emerging here of conflict between a person's individual mental capability and some metaphysical implication.

@Janus want his/her lack of being able to 'see' the state of some field to have implications for it's actual state.

Chalmers (if @fdrake's interpretation is correct) wants his inability to 'conceive' a bridge to have metaphysical implications.

But 'seeing' and 'conceiving' are both mental capacities. Why do the limits of mental capacity have these implications?

Promissory notes or wrigglin' and squirmin' won't cut it. Present an account or admit you cannot. — Janus

Why? There is an entire canon of neuroscience around consciousness. Papers and books by the truckload. Are you seriously saying that a reasonable burden of proof is that unless I summarise the entire field of neuroscience of consciousness you can justifiably suggest it doesn't exist.

If you want to engage in a philosophical discussion about the implications of our beliefs and meta-theories regarding consciousness, then I'm interested.

If you want to claim there's no neuroscientific theories of consciousness unless I reveal them to you, then we might as well leave it there. I'm not interested in that game.

There is a difference between...

...we have... — Janus

...and...

...I can't see... — Janus

The former is about the state of the field, the latter is about your personal knowledge/grasp of it.

We have a pretty clear physicalist understanding of how, for example, a material object can become hot; by agitation of the molecules. — Janus

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378437122009475

Quantum coherence associated with the superpositions of basis vectors in the two representations has been demonstrated to be essential in thermodynamics. The power is completely generated by the coherence work in the spin precession process, while the heat is mainly determined by the coherence heat in the spontaneous emission process.

According to quantum mechanics, all objects can have wave-like properties (see de Broglie waves). For instance, in Young's double-slit experiment electrons can be used in the place of light waves. Each electron's wave-function goes through both slits, and hence has two separate split-beams that contribute to the intensity pattern on a screen. According to standard wave theory[16] these two contributions give rise to an intensity pattern of bright bands due to constructive interference, interlaced with dark bands due to destructive interference, on a downstream screen. This ability to interfere and diffract is related to coherence (classical or quantum) of the waves produced at both slits. The association of an electron with a wave is unique to quantum theory.

When the incident beam is represented by a quantum pure state, the split beams downstream of the two slits are represented as a superposition of the pure states representing each split beam.[17] The quantum description of imperfectly coherent paths is called a mixed state. A perfectly coherent state has a density matrix (also called the "statistical operator") that is a projection onto the pure coherent state and is equivalent to a wave function, while a mixed state is described by a classical probability distribution for the pure states that make up the mixture.

Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (off-diagonal long-range order, ODLRO)[18][19] for superfluidity, and laser light, is related to first-order (1-body) coherence/ODLRO, while superconductivity is related to second-order coherence/ODLRO. (For fermions, such as electrons, only even orders of coherence/ODLRO are possible.) For bosons, a Bose–Einstein condensate is an example of a system exhibiting macroscopic quantum coherence through a multiple occupied single-particle state.

The classical electromagnetic field exhibits macroscopic quantum coherence. The most obvious example is the carrier signal for radio and TV. They satisfy Glauber's quantum description of coherence.

Recently M. B. Plenio and co-workers constructed an operational formulation of quantum coherence as a resource theory. They introduced coherence monotones analogous to the entanglement monotones.[20] Quantum coherence has been shown to be equivalent to quantum entanglement[21] in the sense that coherence can be faithfully described as entanglement, and conversely that each entanglement measure corresponds to a coherence measure. — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_(physics)

Does that sound like a remotely clear physical understanding to you? Are the understandings of quantum physics remotely settled?

No.

You accept the understanding of how an object can become hot simply because you stop asking '...but how?' You are satisfied with the answer.

There are clear answers to how matter becomes conscious. You are just not satisfied with them but prefer to continue to ask '...but how?'

There's nothing wrong with that, your own personal satisfaction is your own lookout. What's wrong would be implying your own personal dissatisfaction has any bearing on the relevance of a field of enquiry.

I want to float an idea -- What if both experiences of the dress are Directly real? The direct realist is willing to sacrifice the old pedagogical explanation of the law of non-contradiction "Nothing can be black and white all over". Here we have a reason to believe that the dress is black, blue, white, and gold. — Moliere

That's exactly it (though I've floated this exact idea with @Michael in a previous thread and it didn't have any impact then either).

On what grounds can we possibly say that the dress must either be Blue/Black or White/Gold as an external data point. Why cannot it be both? What fact do we know about the data points of the external world which we can use to say with certainty that they cannot be two colours at once?

Your personal incredulity doesn't constitute an argument.

The land grab of Crimea was relatively harmless (relative the Ukraine's governance of the region), and the US-aided countries across the world are mainly devastated.

Those are the facts. If you have an argument against them, then make it. Eye-rolling isn't one.

And when making it, explain how you morally justify such confidence in your argument that you think it worth the utter devastation of war with a nuclear armed and utterly ruthless opponent. Explain how you so readily dismiss the alternative despite the stakes.

I might have made progress by the time the topic comes around next. — Dawnstorm

Then I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the next one. There's usually one a month, they come along between the 'direct/indirect realism' one and the 'about this God chap...' one.

If the position is "consciousness is necessarily explainable by physical/functional accounts", the negation of that is "consciousness is possibly not explainable by physical/functional accounts". — fdrake

Indeed. Which is why I referred you to the title of the OP. The position is "Neuroscience cannot explain consciousness"

I don't see anyone arguing that consciousness is necessarily explainable by physical/functional accounts - not even Dennett, or Churchland, or the like. Only that such an explanation is sufficient. Hence my focus on the arguments about the (in)sufficiency of those explanations, because that's the only ground I see for disputing them.

If you buy that framing of the debate, anyway. — fdrake

I suppose this means I don't...

As far as I understand his view, he equates metaphysical possibility with conceivability - or at least takes conceivability as a sufficient condition for metaphysical possibility. Metaphysical necessity is the same as not possibly not true. If you take conception, or the other arguments like Mary's room/inverted qualia/ and all that, as sufficient for establishing metaphysical possibility, then that is actually a negation of the physicalist position. If you grant that it could be true that phenomenal consciousness isn't explainable by physical/functional processes, then if Chalmers is right, that suffices to show that physicalism is false. — fdrake

Yeah, that's definitely how I understand Chalmers' argument too. I think the link between conceivability and possibility is, as Churchland put it, incredibly weak, for the following reasons;

1. I think I can conceive it. On what grounds could Chalmers argue against that to maintain his claim that his personal failure to do so has some metaphysical implication? The argument becomes one of either mental capability, or a random accusation that I'm lying and I can't really conceive it.

2. The experience of quantum mechanics should be quite sufficient to give us very good grounds for discarding the idea the 'the way the world is' is at all readily conceivable by us. The way the world is seems to be, if anything, consistently fiendishly complicated and mind-blowing at every turn.