So, I affirm what you quoted. I only deny their logical relevance to the arguments in my article. — Dfpolis

When you talk about "laws of nature", "biological species", and "logical principles essential to science", despite your denial, there is an obvious logical relevance to your paper.


Central to your argument is Aristotle's "active intellect", whatever that might be, and what it might be is not at all clear or agreed upon. But this much is clear, about the active intellect Aristotle says:

this alone is deathless and everlasting — De Anima Book 3, Chapter 5

Yet nowhere in your paper do you mention this important point. If, as you say, consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect, then consciousness is deathless and everlasting; a conclusion you fail to draw. Instead you say:

Like electron-electron repulsion, consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that
between a rational subject and present intelligibility.

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled. As Joe Sachs points out:

... in Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10. Aristotle again distinguishes between the active and passive intellects, but this time he equates the active intellect with the "unmoved mover" and God. — Wikipedia, Active Intellect

In defense of your claims about the laws of nature you say:

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. In other words, there would be no difference between what was metaphysically possible (involving no contradiction) and what is physically possible (consistent with the laws of nature). It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird, as there is no contradiction in being a at one time and b at another. — Dfpolis

Your appeal is to a notion of logic that abstracts from physical reality, as if it is perfectly logical to think that rocks can become hummingbirds. Of course you are free to use Aristotle when doing so supports your argument and abandoning him when he doesn't, but for all your talk of inadequate conceptual space, you have carved out your own. Your a priori metaphysical abstraction leads to a dream world in which there is a need for laws of nature to constrain whatever does not entail a logical contradiction from happening.

So, where Aristotle would say it is not in a hummingbird's nature to come to be from a rock, you abandon his phusis and teleology. You fault the SM for its failure to account for Aristotle’s final cause, but that is exactly what you do.

My argument is based on the premises laid down -- none of which are theological. — Dfpolis

Have you forgotten your own claims? I posted some above and here:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God. — Fooloso4

While none of these claims were made in the paper but not because there is no connection.

This confirms that many atheists are not open to rational discourse -- even when the subject is not theological. — Dfpolis

This may be difficult for you to understand because you are convinced of the truth of your own arguments, but not everyone is persuaded. Being open to rational discourse does not mean accepting the agency of a God.

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God. — bert1

A conclusion aimed at supporting his assumptions.

In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread. — bert1

What is not particularly relevant, whether he chooses to call it an conclusion or whether God is relevant? As to the former he make the distinction. As to the latter, God is fundamental to his ontology, his claims about the laws of nature, agent intellect, and his criticism of science in favor of theology.

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle. — Wayfarer

I don't want to turn this into another theism vs atheism debate, but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle.

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right! — bert1

And maybe the rejection is also right.

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition. — Dfpolis

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God.

I just did a bit of poking around:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/dennis-polis

A few points, none of which he made in this article but inform his work:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

Dualism does not mean that there is more than one way of thinking about reality. — Dfpolis

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities and beings that are distinct beings because these laws are causal and act on them. What acts on and what is acted on are two different things.

Whether the laws of nature are descriptions of regularities or are regulative is not something we are going to resolve. So let me ask you another question: what is the source of the laws of nature? They cannot be inherent in beings if:

... they [physical beings] have no intrinsic necessity and so need to be sustained in being by something that has such necessity. — Dfpolis

Do the laws of nature have such necessity?

Elsewhere you say:

... the laws of nature are contingent and need to be discovered empirically.

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent.

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God

Added:

Rather than the "fundamental abstraction" you give us the fundamental addition. Although you say that "agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)" is human rather than divine, you appeal to the idea of:

... an agent intellect to understand intelligible contents

The idea of intelligible content has a double sense. Things are intelligible both in the sense that they are intelligible to us and that they are the work of Intelligence or Mind. They are the former because of the latter.





.

I would say that "otherness" depends on how you conceptualize things. — Dfpolis

If you claim, as you do, that living things and the laws of nature are not the same then they are other to each other, but can form a unity in their duality. It is something other than the rock that keeps in on the ground. As you say, they are distinct. Hence, dualism.

So, if there are regularities, they must have a cause. — Dfpolis

I think you have it backwards. It is only when there is change, not when something remains the same, that there is a cause.

It is not an assumption, but a conclusion. Possibility, per se, is only limited by the impossibility of instantiating contradictions. — Dfpolis

You are adding one assumption on top of another.

But, a rock can become sand or lava or a plasma. So, being a rock is not sufficient to preclude change, and it alone cannot prevent it from becoming a humming bird. — Dfpolis

Again, you have it backwards. It is not that the laws of nature preclude a rock from becoming a hummingbird but rather there would have to be some cause in order for a rock to become a hummingbird.

Aristotle is well aware of the possibility of death due to external causes, and of the need for nutrients. So, living things are not self-maintaining — Dfpolis

Self-maintenance, or entelecheia, does not mean immortality or self-sufficiency. The point again is that Aristotle's conceptual space is unburdened by dualism, yours is not.

So as not to lose sight of the forest for the trees, skip to the end.

How can what is intrinsic not be co-extensive with what it is intrinsic to? — Dfpolis

What is intrinsic is basic to something. What is "co-extensive" is other than what it is coextensive with.

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.
— Fooloso4
On the contrary, they are discovered via or experience of nature, and they could not be if they did not exist as an aspect of nature. — Dfpolis

What is and how it is discovered are not the same. The ontological question, whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive, is not determined by experience. All that experience tells us is that there are regularities.

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. — Dfpolis

That is a questionable assumption without evidence.

It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird — Dfpolis

A rock does not become a hummingbird because it's a fucking rock.

quote="Dfpolis;783589"]Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature.
— Fooloso4
You should not be. I look in many places for insight.[/quote]

Here is the problem. You say:

Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism.

This is true, but in borrowing from Aristotle and appending laws of nature you end up with your own dualism. On the one hand living beings that are, according to Aristotle, self-maintaining, and on the other something other than these living beings, the laws of nature, that you claim are necessary for living beings to be as they are.

consciousness ist no physical but a philosophical category. — Wolfgang

You claimed:

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one. — Wolfgang

Saying that consciousness is not physical avoids the question of how physiology creates consciousness.

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one. — Wolfgang

What is it about physiology that is not physical?

quote="Dfpolis;783488"]First, the laws of nature are not "outside." They are intrinsic -- coextensive with what they control.[/quote]

If they are coextensive with then they are not intrinsic to what they control.

The question is what is required to explain the facts of experience. — Dfpolis

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.

Third, the question is: why do "things behave in an orderly way"? Surely, it is neither a coincidence nor because we describe them as doing so. Rather, it is because something makes them do so. The name given to that something is "the laws of nature." — Dfpolis

It is not as if things are chaotic and require something else that makes sure they do not misbehave. A rock does not become a hummingbird and fly away because "something" makes sure it doesn't happen.

Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature. Joe Sachs translator and interpreter of Aristotle explains it this way:

Being is, first and last, living being. That is the meaning of Aristotle's claim that being is energeia, being-at-work, and always has the character of entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. Everything that exists at all is or is part of some self-maintaining whole. (13)

But being-at-work is what Aristotle says the form is, and the potency, or straining toward being-at-work is the way he characterizes material. Finally, the end, or telos, of a natural thing is so inseparable from its being-at-work that Aristotle fuses the two names into one: entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. (19) — The Battle of the Gods and the Giants

The Battle of the Gods and the Giants

A natural being, according to Aristotle, is not as it is because something else acts on it to hold it together and make it behave as it does.

Still, if there were not some reality (the laws of nature) making matter behave that way — Dfpolis

Well, that is one opinion. Law of nature are not some outside force that acts on nature. Surely you are aware that not all physicists hold to your concept of laws. It is because things behave in an orderly way that formulating laws is possible.

Yet, that is saying what is, not why it is. — Dfpolis

Why do you think it is?

So, there is no reason to think that they transcend the bounds of physics. — Dfpolis

Perhaps consciousness does not transcend the bounds of physics either, only our current understanding of physics.

I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make. — frank

The point is

the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense. — Fooloso4

From the abstract:

Recent years have seen a blossoming of theories about the biological and physical basis of consciousness. Good theories guide empirical research, allowing us to interpret data, develop new experimental techniques and expand our capacity to manipulate the phenomenon of interest. Indeed, it is only when couched in terms of a theory that empirical discoveries can ultimately deliver a satisfying understanding of a phenomenon. However, in the case of consciousness, it is unclear how current theories relate to each other, or whether they can be empirically distinguished. To clarify this complicated landscape, we review four prominent theoretical approaches to consciousness: higher-order theories, global workspace theories, re-entry and predictive processing theories and integrated information theory.

This use of theory does not conform to the restrictive sense you want to reserve it for. Unless you clarify what sense of 'theory' you mean your denial is misleading.

But the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense. See for example Theories of Consciousness in Nature.com

Doesn't this imply that matter is capable of intentional action? — Wayfarer

At a sufficient level of organization, yes.

Right, he does not have a scientific theory, that is, one that has stood the test of time.

In his own words:

I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious

.

If there were no laws of nature in reality to describe, then the descriptions of physics (call them "the laws of physics") would be fictions. — Dfpolis

Surely you know that some physicists hold that the laws are the descriptions of the behavior of matter.

In other words, when you say "physical" do you mean to include intentional realities such as knowing, willing, hoping, etc.? As "physical" is used in the context of physics, intentional realities are excluded. — Dfpolis

When I say physical I mean that consciousness is not given to or added on to beings that are conscious. They are physical beings that have developed the capacities of knowing, willing, hoping, etc.

So, to say that a purely "physical" system can preform intentional operations, you have to redefine "physical." — Dfpolis

I have but you rejected it. The theory is that matter is self-organizing. At higher levels of organization capacities that were not present at lower levels emerge.

Chalmers doesn't endorse any particular theory of consciousness. — frank

If you mean he declares it true then you are right, but he does endorse it in the sense of give support to it.

From his article The Puzzle of Conscious Experience:

Toward this end, I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic.

And from the paper cited above:

For present purposes, the relevant sorts of mental states are conscious experiences. I will
understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical entities are conscious: that
is, that there is something it is like to be a quark or a photon or a member of some other
fundamental physical type.(1)

In this article I will present an argument for panpsychism. Like most philosophical
arguments, this argument is not entirely conclusive, but I think it gives reason to take the view
seriously. Speaking for myself, I am by no means confident that panpsychism is true, but I am
also not confident that it is not true. This article presents what I take to be perhaps the best
reason for believing panpsychism. A companion article, “The Combination Problem for
Panpsychism”, presents what I take to be the best reason for disbelieving panpsychism.

It is organized by laws of nature — Dfpolis

Are you claiming that those laws are not simply descriptive? That matter is somehow made to conform to laws that exist prior to and independent of it?

... knowing what matter can become is insufficient to say what it will or does become. — Dfpolis

I agree, but it does not become whatever it becomes haphazardly and randomly. The insufficiency is on our part. That does not mean that we will never know. No doubt AI will help make up for our deficiencies.

Finally, even if we could predict which atoms of the primordial soup will come to compose my brain, that does not reduce consciousness to a physical basis — Dfpolis

Neither does it rule out the possibility that the physical system has the capability for consciousness. It does not mean that something is missing and must be added on.

See his paper Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism

...a return to Aristotelian concepts of the mind. — Banno

The intelligible order, the order of Mind, intelligible to the mind of man.

One question that guides my admittedly ignorant thoughts on these matters is what is to be accepted as basic. Chalmers accepts consciousness as fundamental and universal.

It strikes me as "consciousness of the gaps". Perhaps inspired by a misunderstanding of the London Underground's message "mind the gaps".

It seems as if you are a platonist. Is that fair? — Ludwig V

No. I make a distinction between Plato and Platonism. By Plato I mean the dialogues. As I think you pointed out, Plato never speaks in the dialogues.In the Seventh Letter he says:

There is no treatise (suggramma) by me on these subjects, nor will there ever be. (341c)

I feel I want to ask you where you are going with this? — Ludwig V

I'm not going anywhere. I can't find my car. I thought I knew where it was but I was wrong!

Seriously, I'm just trying to put some things together from the dialogues around the question of the difference between knowledge and opinion or belief.

One thing I was trying to make clear is that the centrality of the question of the good is not about claims such as this is the best possible world. In the Phaedo Socrates "second sailing" (99d) is a shift from Anaxagoras' claim that Mind orders all things, to the way Socrates mind orders or make sense of things. A second sailing is when the ship cannot move because the wind fails and one must take to the oars. it is in line with this that the good comes into play. Concerns for knowledge is not separate from concerns for the knower.

But I have taken the ship off course.

On page 6 you ask:

Does the Hard Problem reflect a failure of the reductive paradigm?

and answer in the affirmative:

Reductionism assumes that to know the parts is, implicitly, to know the whole, but Aristotle showed in Topics IV, 13 that the whole is not the sum of its parts, for building materials are not a house.

How well do we know the parts? Although a heap of building materials is not self organizing, matter might be. If so then to have sufficient knowledge of the parts is know the ways in which they can form higher orders of organization, including organisms that are conscious.

While I agree with the importance of understanding things as natural wholes, this leaves open the question of how do these wholes come to be? It is one thing to argue that there has always been something, it is quite another to argue that there has always been wholes such as human beings.

Declaring the failure of reductionism seems premature. Explanations of why "you can't get there from here" are common and occur before it becomes clear how to get there from here.

Ok, but I'm not sure what we might conclude from that. — Banno

Perhaps that in philosophy there are fashion trends.

Again, this thread was simply to reinforce the point that the forums are not representative of present philosophical thought. — Banno

Okay, but I'm not sure what we might conclude from that.

We could do the survey on this forum again later, if you like. — Banno

I am referring to larger historical time frame, but we need not go back too far. To Bradley and McTaggart, for example.

folk seem to feel the need to address themselves to me, personally, — Banno

It is, admittedly, a bit unusual to address a potted plant.

As to

only 2% in the PhilPapers survey — Banno

Hard to avoid the ruts. I suspect the survey results differ over time.

Descartes did not prove he existed. He found something he concluded could not be doubted, that is, that he existed. He could not doubt it because he would have to exist in order to doubt. It does not follow that there is anything else that is indubitable.

But his real concern was to establish the foundations of knowledge, not to eliminate doubts that he did not have.

The idea that nature or God confers rights is untenable. Only men confer rights. — NOS4A2

Another option is to regard certain rights as inherent. No one confers on us the right to not be murdered or enslaved.

But rights are not boundary markers separating us off. We are bound together in the recognition and protection of our rights.

That it is something we cannot talk about is one of its properties — Isaac

That we cannot talk about something independent of us is not a property of that thing as it is independent of us. That is not a statement about the world, it is a statement about us.

That sounds an awful lot like someone talking about the way things are that is independent of us. — Isaac

If I understand you correctly you are claiming that by denying that we can talk about the way things are independent of us I am talking about the way things are independent of us?

that it differs from the way we experience things. — Isaac

No, I am saying that we experience it in accord with how we are. That is not to say that it is some way independent of us, but simply that we cannot experience in some way other than the way we experience it.

That's a surprisingly comprehensive description of something you apparently can't say anything meaningful about. — Isaac

In that case, you can congratulate yourself for your surprisingly comprehensive description. It is yours not mine.

I struggle with the words 'as it is'? — Tom Storm

Part of the problem is that a dog having four legs, for example, is independent of us. That is just the way it is. But I think we go too far if we draw the conclusion that there is a way things are that is independent of us that we can know or talk about in a meaningful way.

A follow up to my last post.

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good. — Stanley Rosen

For Plato philosophical inquiry is not value free. We do not seek to know for the sake of knowledge. We seek to know because it is good to know. The examined life is the life in pursuit of the good life. The pursuit of the good life is guided by the inquiry into the good itself.

It is Socrates interest in the human good that guides his inquiry into the good as the cause of what is.

You are making my point.

The underlying assumption is that things are and are known in light of the good, and to know something is to know why it is best that it be as it is.

The problem is, we lack knowledge of the good. We remain in the world of opinion. In the cave. Socratic skepticism is zetetic.

As opposed to what? — Isaac

As opposed to claims about how things are independent of us.

Things are for us as observed or conceived or experimented on by us.

... why is it important to review now rejected concepts? — Hanover

Rejected? This may be an accurate reflection of your opinion but does not reflect what is going on in political think tanks and academic research.