Have you even bothered reading my posts here? — boethius

Nice one. Do you even want an answer? That is not criticism, harsh or generous; its a feeble rhetorical trick to undermine your opponent without actually saying anything. I am simply flattered that you have nothing better to say.

So I'm not bothering to read the rest of your post, as you begin, so I can happily assume you continue. And so we reach the denouement of your harshness. You win, because I can't be bothered with you. Enjoy.

So where do the CEOs live? Martha's Vineyard? Beverley Hills? Twin towers?

I am curious, however, would you say Kant's criticism I cited wasn't harsh? But that he puts on the kitten gloves; please point out where? If he is harsh, and right, why not emulate him? If he's wrong, where is he wrong?

Please, teach me. — boethius

Harsh, if you will, though it's not the word I would choose. But as he describes the subject of his criticism, such a person would not be interested in his efforts, assuming it is not indeed an entirely straw- subject.

"To all the people ignoring me, you are wrong to ignore me." It is close to a performative contradiction to address 'the worthy gentleman' who is not interested. And Kant avoids that. One is left therefore with the backhanded compliment that flatters the actual reader who is 'not like them'.

Have some physics, chaps.

https://aeon.co/essays/can-retrocausality-solve-the-puzzle-of-action-at-a-distance

The problem with p-s is that they conflate consciousness and thought. Zombies do not have problems.

The characteristic of consciousness is not a good line in bullshit, but giving a fuck.

So anyone not blinded by their own bull, has no difficulty recognising the consciousness of someone with Downs, or a cat or a bird. Philosophers and world leaders are the difficult borderline cases.

Also, the p-zombie thought experiment — Marchesk

For some reason or none, it never meant anything much to me. Kind of like the trolley, you can make it go which way you want.

A trolley operated by a p zombie is like a self-driving car, passengers or pedestrians? But the zombie has no morality by definition, we have to program it with our morals.

A couple of thought experiments we like.

What is it like to be a bat? Nagel.

What is it like to be a a light ray? Einstein.

Is it something about ethics that makes them objectionable?

I would say that ethics suffers from the usual problem of social sciences, that the object of the experiment is altered, not only by the experiment but by the theory which is applied.

For example, protecting one's family is usually considered a strong justification for almost any action. However, in a time of plague, there is a more over-riding priority to stop the spread of disease, even at the cost of one's own or one's family's life. Obligations change, societies change, people change, and the morality of this or that action changes. There is no stable condition equivalent to the speed of light, or the use of echo-location, that can transfer to and from the thought experiment, and allow for universalising.

So your "suspicious white man" invalidates the uprising and what communities of color and communities of conscience are struggling for? — 180 Proof

I'm asking, because for the moment I have the luxury. Of course it doesn't invalidate anyone's action. But protests get infiltrated and manipulated in this country and I doubt the US authorities have been slow to learn from the experts. I'm asking, because the original murder looks set to be lost in the media frenzy and state troopers and looting and burning hysteria. I'm asking because there are so many calls on my righteous indignation these days, I think I'm not seeing the genocide for the murders.

Well paranoia suggests that the 'agent' in the video is provoking a riot and that people with nothing to lose are pawns in a game of 'look how dangerous black folks are - better buy some more guns' or some such. James Baldwin was the man, and I hesitate to contradict, but all round the world there are people with nothing to lose, and no one is afraid of them because they die really easily.

Or is the most dangerous creation possibly an agent of the man who has a lot to gain? I'm just looking from afar, what say you?

Following the complete collapse of the UK government into fantasy, the committee of the ungodly have instituted a new national anthem. You don't have to stand, but joining in the chorus is extremely cathartic.

But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears. — Bob Dylan

But we most strongly suspect from the most bitter experience that even with published video, even with clear identification, even with a public and international outcry, justice will not be done. And then it will be time for your tears, because without justice there is no nation and no law and no civilisation, and not to hate injustice is to hate the whole of mankind.

There's an uncapitalised "i" in the paragraph after your 3 points. — Benkei

I resign. They're hard to spot with my wonky covid19 eyes.

You'd think that an auto-correct smart enough to automatically change covid to civic, would be able to capitalise an i, but it doesn't even bother to flag it.

This is my UDI and declaration of the state of anarchy. All copyrights waived.

Dear ***** I have never written to my MP before, But I thought I ought to let you know my position.

All the senior members of the government have united in trying to persuade the country that :

1. Driving 200 miles is staying at home.
2. Driving around with wonky eyes and a child is safeguarding.
3. Sitting on a bench in Barnard Castle is medical treatment, whereas sitting on a bench in a London park is a breach of lockdown.

I have concluded therefore that no one in the current government has the least scrap of credibility. This means, that I cannot believe any government announcements, and means in practice that i do not have a government at all.

Accordingly, I will not be recognising any advice or policy or law or regulation put forth by this administration, but will rely on other sources for advice and rely on my own instincts and intelligence to guide me in supporting my fellow citizens in the current emergency.

Thank you for serving as my MP, but as long as you support this government, you do not represent me any more and I do not anymore owe you any respect .

I live in ****************** but my partner and I believe we have covid19, and my advice to you is that you do not visit at this time. I will be putting this letter on facebook, to make my position public.

Yours very sincerely *****.

However, if your path includes belief in determinism then it can affect significantly the path you must take in the future. For example, a true story... I used to feel angry at someone who did me a grave disservice. But when I started applying hard determinism I realized that person could not help doing what they did. I try to feel now, no anger, but a desire to act as to avoid any future problems like that. From anger to no anger so there are practical implications. — Brook Norton

One's beliefs obviously have practical implications and no doubt yours are as you say; the same belief in another might cause them to make no effort to be moral or self-improve. So it goes. But it is interesting that positive or negative, these effects are effects of the belief, whether it is true or false.

My understanding of choice under determinism is that though the choice is determined in advance, it still has to be made. And to make the choice involves not knowing in advance and choosing as if one is free to choose. So how one lives is exactly the same as one would live under indeterminism, one weighs up possibilities and makes choices, because that process is part of the predetermined mechanism that determines the choices one makes. The truth or falsity of determinism, nor one's belief or unbelief actually makes no difference to how one lives. As indeed, how could it, if determinism is true.

at least some of the time, that is exactly the argument; that we cannot tell the difference between a dream and reality.
— unenlightened

Schizophrenics cannot tell the difference. Unless you're excluding them from 'we' then there is such a case. Which means examining how we make such distinctions is a worthwhile endeavour. — Isaac

So now you're making the argument you just told me was a straw man.

Pass.

If someone took up the kerb and replaced it with a pile of books of similar size and shape, the blind man's conception of the object he detected would be indistinguishable from the concrete kerb. — Isaac

As it happens, I think you underestimate the subtly of what a stick user can detect, and the vibration of stick on book, stick on concrete, and stick on stone are very different. But I am short sighted and cannot read signs in the distance, but that doesn't mean that I am seeing a badly drawn picture, just seeing badly. Obviously even a shortsighted person detects at a distance beyond the reach of a stick, but not as far as the edge of the universe.

I make the same claim of the world I detect through the more extensive and complex vibrations that my eyes are sensitive to. And that that world is the same world a bat navigates by the vibrations of echo-location.

If "the world he detects is the world, and not a representation of the world" what would the counterfactual be. Take your claim to be false, what would be the case to show that it was false? — Isaac

Well if the blind man or the bat could pass through barriers that I could not or vice versa, that would be evidence that we were detecting different worlds, possibly.

No one is saying that perception is not initiated by signals from the outside world. — Isaac

Then what is the argument? Because at least some of the time, that is exactly the argument; that we cannot tell the difference between a dream and reality. Look back and see that discussion at some length.

Is the blind man's perception direct or not? Is it direct if he uses his hands with no stick? This is where I want an answer. Is touch direct perception? At what length of stick or fingernail does it become indirect?

What in general intervenes between world and experiencer to make experience indirect? The usual answer, so far, is that it is a model, image or representation. And the question then is how that representation is perceived. If I do not directly perceive the world, do I directly perceive the representation, or do I merely perceive a representation of the representation? Why is it less problematic to perceive a representation of the world than to perceive the world?

(Direct realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards..
(Indirect Realism) The properties of perceptual content of a perceptual event are not-identical with those of what the perceptual event is directed towards. — fdrake

I think, I hope, i don't have to be claiming that the blind man's world is made of stick vibrations. Merely that the world he detects is the world, and not a representation of the world.

I was hoping you could provide a few problems which arise from speaking the way you recommend against. — Isaac

This whole thread does that. And a deal of it happens in question form - "where is experience?" and so on. But I don't want to go all through it again. It might be instructive to make a list, but I think I've annoyed myself and everyone else enough already.

It's not about being 'strict' with language, it's about using it in a particular way. You're trying to enforce a use of 'see' where it is not normally so restricted — Isaac

Yes it is very common. One talks of seeing 'with the minds eye', and you can feel free to talk like that, but do try to remember that the mind does not have a literal eye, and there are not images in heads. You can talk however you like, but if you make category errors you will fall into folly and indirect realism is a very venerable folly, that has deluded philosophers for a long time, so I recommend folks to pay close attention to it so as to see where their thoughts are going astray. If you want to carry on though, then carry on.

Earlier i was accused of focussing on the word 'experience', and now it is the word' seeing'. People are heavily invested and don't want to 'see' things differently. "See" what I did there?

But you have an experience of seeing a tree in your dream. That experience is like the experience of perceiving a tree. — Marchesk

No. bite my bullet first. Dreams do not happen anywhere; they are not real. If I dream of a tree I have not seen or experienced a tree; there is no tree, it was just a dream. Start being strict with your language, and everything indirect will disappear, because it is all a series of category errors, and literalised metaphors.

just as would be arguing over whether we read words or read about the battle of Trafalgar. — Michael

Yes. That would be a category error. You don't have to explain that to me.

Where do you suppose the dream is taking place? — Marchesk

And that question is another category error. It's a dream; it doesn't take place at all. It happens in the magical land of unicorns.

The same way you see a tree in a dream. It's a mental image. — Marchesk

I have never, ever to my knowledge dreamed of a tree in my head, or any other object in my head. As I never experience anything being in my head, it doesn't feature in my dreams. I do not have images in my head because I cannot see in my head, even in my dreams.And anyway it is foolish to base a theory of vision on fantasies. Try again.

That's not what people mean when they say that the object of perception is in the head, and I'm sure you know that, so this is an obvious strawman. — Michael

If the object of perception is in my head, how do I see it? simple question How do I see what is in my head? If you don't mean that what do you mean that isn't an abuse of language?

There is even a picture that literally shows a head with an image in it that purports extraordinarily to be a direct realists idea of what is happening. And it is as you realise completely ridiculous to suppose that anything whatsoever in the head can be seen. So what's the indirect theory?

I don't understand how this relates to the distinction between direct and indirect realism and the epistemological problem of perception. You seem to be discussing the notion of identity. — Michael

Then I think I'll give up trying to explain. I think I've made it as clear as I can, over many posts.

I'll just say that a person does not see an image of an object in their brain, because it is dark in there and their eyes point the other way. This not to say that there may not be all sorts of magic going on in there, but what one sees is what is in front of one's eyes, not what is behind them. Shall I make a pantomime of it?

I don't think there's a category error, just different people using the word "experience" in different ways. — Michael

It's not just a one word problem.

Simply saying that "experiences are things happening to people" doesn't address this epistemological problem at all, not even as an attempt to explain the problem away. — Michael

It's not intended to explain anything except the category of the term. Thus one talks of people having experiences of various sorts, but one does not generally talk of fingers having experiences. For example I might say "I experienced a painful splinter in my finger", whereas I would not say "my finger experienced a painful splinter", or "my brain experienced a painful splinter". Similarly "I thought I saw a pussy cat" not "My neurones thought they saw a pussy cat, or my eyes thought they saw a pussy cat.

What this means is that once you use terms that fragment the person into parts, such as that the blindman's fingers detect the pressure changes of the stick as it encounters the kerb stone and the sensor nerves transmit the information to the brain... you cannot then add back in the experience as another part of this process.

Whenever there is an experience, necessarily, someone has the experience. So if neurones produce experience, someone has to be experiencing the experience that the neurones produce. And there is no such homunculus. It cannot either be the person the neurones are part of, because that person has no knowledge experience or awareness of their neurones. This is the tangle that results from the category error.

There's the stimulus and the body responding to it, but there's something missing; the conscious awareness. It's this conscious awareness aspect of the experience that we're discussing here. What is the relationship between this aspect of experience and the object of perception? — Michael

This is such a mashup of confusion I don't know where to begin to try and disentangle it. What is a conscious awareness aspect of experience? What is an object of perception? We haven't even managed to discover how a blind man detects the curb with a stick, never mind all this complexity. The curb is the object of perception of the blind man's stick????, and it is the same curb that I see, and that we don't trip on. What are we both responding to? the curb. And yet our experiences are very different. Are we aware of our experiences?

Am I aware that I am seeing the curb or having a visual perception as of curb or however you want to put it? Maybe, maybe not. I'm pretty sure I often adapt to curbs without being aware of seeing them; we walking professionals can do stuff like that on auto-pilot. Doe this have implications for the nature of seeing? I doubt it.

Now will you maybe address the issue of category error?

In case anyone is having difficulty understanding what a category error is, here is a an example.

I am sitting on a chair. The chair is made of 4 legs, some cross-pieces, a seat, a back, and wood.

The chair is indeed made of wood.

The chair is indeed made of all those pieces.

Pieces of wood - fine; pieces and wood - no, because it leads to the notion that wood is another piece.

Experience is not another process that is the result of brain activity, and wood is not another piece of the chair..

Simply saying that the external world object is the object of perception or that experience just is the stimulus-response event (one or both of which you and unenlightened seem to be saying) doesn't address this question at all. — Michael

I don't say it. Any of it. So my not addressing the question takes another form.

So neuroscience should just give up. — Isaac

You may think so, I disagree.


I said this:

Experiences are things happening to people. They are not 'the result of neural activity'. No one is experiencing neural activity or the results of neural activity. There is no one in anyone's brain. People have experiences and do things, brains are neurally active. But you cannot add one to the other, and have neural activity that results in an experience because they are different categories of thought. You end up, if neural activity results in experience, having to posit an experiencer of the experience - a homunculus in the brain, reading the neurones.

Respond to what I say, or not, but please don't invent my saying things. In particular I don't talk about 'perception'. It is too wooly.

Even granting this over singling out the neural activity, the end result of the entire process is still an experience. — Marchesk

No. Category error. Experiences are things happening to people. They are not 'the result of neural activity'. No one is experiencing neural activity or the results of neural activity. There is no one in anyone's brain. People have experiences and do things, brains are neurally active. But you cannot add one to the other, and have neural activity that results in an experience because they are different categories of thought. You end up, if neural activity results in experience, having to posit an experiencer of the experience - a homunculus in the brain, reading the neurones. Don't do it.

You see as a result of a process leading to neural activity in your brain. Call it what you like, but that result is not the object. How could it be? — Marchesk

I'd really like people to see how untrue this is.

I am not in my brain, looking at neural activity.
I do not see as a result of a process leading to neural activity.

The result of neural activity can only be more neural activity or output as muscle stimulation. The result of neural activity is, say, not tripping over the curb.

There is a category error of mixing person talk and mechanism talk. How a person sees can be explained in terms of optics and electrochemical processes, but these processes do not result in seeing they are what seeing is.

What you are doing is breaking down the process of seeing into its constituent processes, and then adding back seeing as an extra process at the end. This creates the illusion of distance and indirectness, but it is an invalid move. Seeing is the whole process, not the result of the process. You do the same thing at the other end, adding back the 'look' as a property of the thing that bears no relation to the 'sight' at the other end. I think I'll leave it at that; there is no end to the objections that can be raised, but they all function the same way, and I don't think I can put it much more clearly than this.

The color is probably also a property of perception, since it's really photons of certain wavelength bouncing off molecular surfaces. — Marchesk

Being tasty is something animals with taste buds perceive. It's not a property of the apple. The color is probably also a property of perception, since it's really photons of certain wavelength bouncing off molecular surfaces. — Marchesk

I hear you. But I don't believe you. Present me with these perceptions you have that there are perceptions. Personally, i don't have perceptions, I see things.

I don't need to believe that red paint already has the property of being purple to believe that when I mix it with blue paint it will turn people, so why do you need to believe that the apple already has the property of being tasty to believe that when you put it in your mouth it will be tasty? — Michael

Nor do I. But I do need to believe that red paint has the property of turning purple when mixed with blue paint. It sounds like you think that too.

Yeah the problem is that this sentence doesn't even make sense to begin with. What would it mean to have a taste when not tasted?
— ChatteringMonkey

Ask the people who claim that things have a look even when not being seen. — Michael

People like me. I typically buy a pack of four apples that all look similar. And the one I have on Monday, also tastes similar to the one I have on Tuesday. So I tend to think that Tuesday's apple was tasty on Monday, even though I did not taste it. This idea that apples remain apples when the fridge door is shut seems to work for the shape, the colour and the taste. It's not that I have any evidence that the toys or the fruit don't come to life when the kids aren't looking, like in Toy Story, it just seems more parsimonious to assume not. It saves me worrying about which of the apples is going to be tasty today.

It's questioning whether or not 2 provides direct information about 1. — Michael

Ok. What work is 'direct' doing here? We agree that there is causal connection roughly as crudely indicated above whereby information is transformed and filtered such that I know where the curb is and do not trip over it. Information is provided, and the aboutness is guaranteed by the appropriateness of behaviour - not tripping. And what of the blind man? He gets equivalent verifiably reliable information about the curb. Is his sensing direct or indirect? What's the difference?

We've discussed this before, so I may not be saying anything new

what we know about how perception works? — Marchesk

I assume you mean something along these lines:

ambient light - object - reflected light - eye lens - retina - electrochemical reactions - nerve signals - brain activity.

Or in the case of a mirage:

ambient light - reflecting effect of heated air - eye lens - retina - electrochemical reactions - nerve signals - brain activity.

Or in the case of a BiV:

mad scientist - infernal equipment - electrochemical reactions - nerve signals - brain activity.

Def: "I" = electrochemical reactions - nerve signals - brain activity.
Def: "see" = reflected light - eye lens - retina.


{Interlude} I dream of the mad scientist giving the brain the sensation of rubbing its eyes with its hands in disbelief at the hallucination it is being made to see. {End}

What is the argument though? We agree that seeing is remote sensing. A blind man uses a stick for remote sensing. He feels the curb 'through' the unfeeling stick. I feel the same curb through the unfeeling ambient light. Do you want to say that the sense of touch is indirect? When I shake your hand, I do not directly feel your hand, I only feel sensations in my hand? Well I can sort of make sense of that, but really- why bother? And sure, I don't need actual pins and needles to feel pins and needles...

OK, so in what way did you think my choice of identifiers ('yours' and 'mine') meant that the clearest and most consistent interpretation of my view is that I don't care to listen to other people's opinions, or that discussions must result in victory or defeat. — Isaac

Well you are responding to me, so I tend to assume that you haven't (in the context of my talking about how victory and defeat are not resolutions,) accidentally immediately brought in those terms that personalise the positions. but to be sure, because it might have been just from habit, I said well I "wish" you had put it this way instead because, bla bla. At which point I think if you hadn't been quite so primed for me to be being contemptuous, you might well have said something like 'yeah that's petty much what I meant'.

But now, I'm feeling again like we're going to go round and round in a circle, whereby my attempts at explaining my thinking simply serve to reinforce the insult you already perceive.

I'll just mention that I wrote my own explanation of how I meant 'charity', and added the wiki definition as an afterthought, and I leave it to you to pick over which of us has the more conventionally correct interpretation. That my agreement with you that we were using the word differently has now become an attack on you means to me that I need just to stop saying anything at this point. This will be my last post on this thread.

In this context, it occurs to me to remind y'all, and myself ,of the tradition of advocatus diaboli, whereby one adopts in discussion the view one opposes, in order to avoid that echo chamber effect. Something to add to that list of techniques...