Hume is known for making two important distinctions; the fact-value distinction, and the fact-prediction distinction. Yet no one seems to have much of a problem with the problem that reason alone, which is to say logical argument, cannot derive a will be from a has been. Will be's are predictions not facts.

It is significant that the ten commandments are couched as future tensed - 'thou shalt...'.

'Thou shalt bring thy wife a coffee in bed in the morning' is a predictive commandment that becomes a fact if and when it is done, in the same way that 'the sun will rise tomorrow' becomes a fact if and when it does rise.

All of which is also closely connected to his claim that reason is the slave of passion, because what he is attacking is not morality or prediction as such, but the attempt to rationalise everything, to derive the world from argumentation alone.

One might say that the world of mathematics is just such a world of pure argumentation, and Hume has no problem with that either; but he points out that one has to add the real world to the mathematical world to arrive at a fact. Thus given the facts that I have £2 in my pocket, and £2 in my piggy bank, pure reason tells me that I have £4.

Yes.

...solve the underlying problem. — Benkei

This is a really good idea. Except the underlying problem is humanity, and problems don't generally solve themselves. I rage against the inhumanity of humanity, and the frustration I feel is the same frustration, the disgust is the same disgust, that is vented in this destruction.

It would be nice if it was that kind of cancer that one could cut out by removing a few key figures, but I think it is more the kind that spreads everywhere, so that assassins and their paymasters are part of the problem and not the solution.

But I think even your vote can help; if you vote for honesty, gentleness, and care for others in your politicians, it has an effect, but if you vote for strong decisive leaders, who will do something, that has an effect too.

The only "manipulation" is about the thread, he ask you to don't delete. But nobody has to answer. — TSBU

No. the whole thing is a manipulation whereby it becomes the reader's fault if they fail to obey or fail to give 'good reasons'. If you want to kill people, I will stop you if I can, but not by playing your game of making me responsible for your folly.

Yes, I would not respond. There is no 'reason' not to kill people that isn't obvious unless one is oblivious.

Another forum? Complain to the moderators and leave the forum if they don't respond.

I'd delete the thread. It's not like the chap's going to not kill if I don't; it's not like my relationship with them is going to persuade him of anything; why would I want to play his manipulative game?

There seems to be a slide in the meaning of tolerance. As if to tolerate your objectionable views means not to even try to disabuse you of them, on the one hand, and not to tolerate them on the other hand means to hang you over a cliff by the ankles until you change your mind or I get tired and let go. Which is to say I am extremely intolerant in the first sense, and extremely tolerant in the second.

Your approach would appear to require some faith in humanity. MLK came by his faith in a Christian church. Where'd you get yours? — Mongrel

My faith is not of the dogmatic kind, but more of a decision. To believe in justice is not to fondly imagine it prevails already, but to commit oneself to making it somewhat more prevalent. My faith in humanity is of this order.

I find this notion mingling with Chomsky's fundamental outlook: that knowledge of the way we should live is innate. This is a rejection of relativism. It follows from this that politics in general is just folly. What the world needs is more people who have authoritarian personalities. — Mongrel

It doesn't follow at all. Being authoritarian does not entail being right. Every politico from left to right thinks they are right, and they can't all be.

I will agree with Chomsky that we all know what it takes to live together - taking care of those in need, justice, tolerance, and so on. But this being the case, it should be possible to persuade people to agree to take the right decisions to the extent that they are not governed by fear, rigid tradition, propaganda etc, which divide the individual against themselves. And these are the tools of the authoritarian par excellence.

So politics is folly to just that extent that it allows, nay demands, authoritarianism. The notion of serving in government is due for revival as more than a rhetorical fiction; as an antidote to just that righteous certainty that justifies the commander in being a bully.

My laptop has foresight. It tells me it will shut down unless I plug in the charger, and then if I don't, it shuts down.

But I suspect the intention lies with the programmer.

That is, something deeper than the genes, which actually interprets the genes, like a mind is necessary to interpret words. And it is due to this factor, the necessity of something which "interprets", that words, nor genes, have a fixed meaning. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or it might be something shallower. My story is that there are a number of genes that 'mean' amongst other things 'more pepper'. And also possibly some that 'mean' 'less pepper'. So as the industrial revolution changes the environment first one way and then the other, the population, i.e. the gene pool, quickly adjusts the average amount of pepper in the peppered moth, by preferentially eliminating first those with not enough pepper, and then later reverses to eliminate those with too much pepper.
Such changes in distribution of genes in a population cannot conceivably be the result of intention at the cellular, or phenotypical level. I fail to see how one can intend without foresight which is based on memory and projection to a future. I see no reason to impute such things without evidence at the intra-cellular level at which genetic interpretation occurs.

You're getting a bit too recursive for my wine-addled brain. I am suggesting that in order to have an unconscious one needs a consciousness. What are you saying?

One can surely only have unconscious intentions if one is conscious?

Interesting stuff. I might point out, because it is not clear in the thread, that selection, in the short term of plant breeders and so on does not rely on novel mutations but variability within the gene pool of populations. There is a nice sloppiness about a gene pool that allows the peppered moth to adapt to the industrial revolution and then adapt back without having recourse to happy accidents of mutation and then of re-mutation. And all the intention required is that of water to run downhill.

I wasn't talking about child care. Simply because I oppose abortion doesn't mean... — Thorongil

Well if opposing abortion isn't about child care, I fail to see what it is about at all, apart from arbitrary control of women's bodies.

I think it should be mandatory.

Why do women terminate pregnancies? They do so because having a child is in some way an inconvenience for them. — Thorongil

I have a tooth extracted because it is an inconvenience to be be suffering pain.

I feel this language is loaded, and my comparison is also loaded. I think for most, but inevitably not all, women, an abortion is at least more serious and considered than a tooth extraction. I think most do consider the child as well as themselves. Indeed it is the relation that is weighed and rejected.

This is the challenge, that the individual, the human with or without this or that right begins in such intimacy that separation is unsurvivable. This is the fact upon which morality must rest.

I would claim that the society that creates such conflict that a woman wants to disfigure herself with surgery to conform to an image of femininity is also the same one that refuses to support the woman who finds herself supporting a new life within her. Two disfigurements that are related. My suggestion is that cosmetic surgery and abortion are not areas where prohibition will be effective while the social pressures pro are maintained. To put it baldly, society is pro abortion to the extent that it does not value motherhood, and when I say 'value', in a capitalist society, I mean put its money where its mouth is. Make child benefit equal to the living wage first, and then start to talk about the sanctity of life.

What is "a thing's identity"? There is the thing, and there is the way we talk, and then what else? It looks to me as if you want to reify the relation of name and thing in order to create a problem. Don't.

A thing is what it is and we call it what we call it.

My wife changed her name.

I don't see the problem; we agree that Pluto hasn't changed, so we - meaning they - have decided to talk differently to make talk more self-consistent. Sometimes one might have to go into how Pluto was considered a planet and now is not - which you have done quite clearly enough.

And then we are all clear about what a planet is and how many there are, until they tell us they have changed our minds again.

I can't even imagine what that could mean. How could we ever know that anything we are aware of is the totality of what it is possible to aware of? — John

Yes. It's one of those zen type questions that cannot be answered by the imagination or by a theory, or by knowledge, because these are the fragments, but only with your whole life.

I have to criticize Zapffe a bit when he says that consciousness is "not-natural". On the contrary, everything in the universe is natural (nature doesn't exist exist in the first place, it's an empty word). It's natural that people can feel unnatural. Kind of disturbing, like an instance of cosmic self-hate. — darthbarracuda

There is a real difference between natural and artificial stone which is reflected in the price of a slab at the builder's merchant. One can loosely define artifice as the product of the operation of mind on nature, and thus although such operations are as natural as mind is natural, yet there remains a useful distinction. Thus one can say consistently that the operation of mind on itself - by 'self-improvement', say - produces an artificial mind.

Well I agree, but if there is this 'more' I'd like to hear about it.

This chap is not an anti-natalist or a pessimist...

We are occupied with one little corner of consciousness which is most of our life; the rest, which we call the subconscious, with all its motives, its fears, its racial and inherited qualities, we do not even know how to get into. Now I am asking you, is there such a thing as the subconscious at all? We use that word very freely. We have accepted that there is such a thing and all the phrases and jargon of the analysts and psychologists have seeped into the language; but is there such a thing? And why is it that we give such extraordinary importance to it? It seems to me that it is as trivial and stupid as the conscious mind - as narrow, bigoted, conditioned, anxious and tawdry.

So is it possible to be totally aware of the whole field of consciousness and not merely a part, a fragment, of it?

If you are able to be aware of the totality, then you are functioning all the time with your total attention, not partial attention. This is important to understand because when you are being totally aware of the whole field of consciousness there no friction. it is only when you divide consciousness, which is all thought, feeling and action, into different levels that there is friction.

We live in fragments. You are one thing at the office, another at home; you talk about democracy and in your heart you are autocratic; you talk about loving your neighbours, yet kill him with competition; there is one part of you working, looking, independently of the other. Are you aware of this fragmentary existence in yourself? And is it possible for a brain that has broken up its own functioning, its own thinking, into fragments - is it possible for such a brain to be aware of the whole field? Is it possible to look at the whole of consciousness completely, totally, which means to be a total human being? — J. Krishnamurti

I'll admit I never heard of such a theory (that the brain acts as a repressive organ and not a storage and functional organ), but I don't really see how it could be true. — darthbarracuda

There is a sense in which it is an obvious truth, that has probably never been made explicit in quite that way. Not that it's an either or thing quite as you put it, but the process of abstraction is the removal of detail; to make sense of things is to simplify and classify. Instead of remembering every chicken image from every angle in every light, one abstracts the form of the generic chicken, along with along with some salient particularities of Gertrude and Florence perhaps. Instead of remembering every interaction with one's brother, one forms a kernel of character that is more powerfully predictive than the endless scenes in which he might have appeared.

But there is another sense in which repression is a response to fear and trauma. If one learns that one's own affective responses put one in danger - from a drunken parent perhaps - at an age when one cannot deal with the situation, then one learns to operate on oneself to repress one's responsiveness (other fuck ups are available). I would suggest that the major part of religion, the self-improvement industry, politics, philosophy and so on, are the insane attempts of the insane to cure or at least ameliorate our insanity.

There is precedent for maladaptive evolution in sexual selection. I think of the peacock's fan, an evolutionary pain in the butt, that happens, we are told, when mere survival is less of a problem than obtaining a mate. Extravagant antlers similarly.
So perhaps big brain is more about social competitiveness than dealing with the environment at large. But as a side effect, it allows the radical manipulation a 'conquest' of the environment.

Too much success, though, is also maladaptive. Consider the rampant success of Dutch Elm disease, spreads like wildfire, kills all the Elms, destroys its own niche. Unfortunately, our niche is the whole planet.

Here we are unfolding our peacock fans of mind, even though there are no ladies to impress, because we have them all the time and can't help it. It's a pain, but we keep doing it, as if the 'understanding' of a species of ape is the crown of creation.

When we dolphins look at this question of humanity, we put it differently; we ask 'what the hell went wrong with humans?

Animals do not create knowledge, but exist entirely within the constraints of their genetic programming. — tom

This is quite untrue; as your own reference states:

"Socially mediated traditions of behaviour, although known in many species of animal (see, for example, Galef 1980, 1990; Roper 1983; Terkel 1994; Reader & Laland 2000; Rendell & Whitehead 2001), are particularly striking in the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes (Whiten et al. 1999), and the variation among the tools made and used by different chimpanzee populations is so rich that it has been studied as ‘material culture’ (McGrew 1992)."

This translates as know-how transmitted socially and not genetically.

I also came across this:

"Dogs are able to follow pointing by head and eyes, or by hand, even if the hand is opposite to the side on which the target lies — ‘crossed pointing’ — and even if the hand remains stationary or the human moves in a direction opposite to their pointing. These impressive abilities raise two questions. Firstly, is this a special-purpose skill or part of a complex of abilities with wider implications? In humans, pointing and gaze-following have been causally linked to reference, one of the fundamentals of language [1]; moreover, pointing and gaze following are generally seen as part of a suite of abilities that together confer ‘theory of mind’ [2]. Nothing in the normal behaviour of dogs gives convincing evidence of any canine ability to understand mental states, let alone reference."
Animal Communication: What Makes a Dog Able to Understand its Master?Richard W. Byrne

That dogs do not have a theory of mind goes very well with my earlier suggestion that they are aware, but not aware of being aware. I won't expound further on the connection between a theory of mind and self awareness, but I think it is a close connection.

There is still the question of simulation vs the "real thing." — anonymous66

You are simulating well enough to fool me. ;)

It's a test for responsiveness, and that is all you ever have. All you have are my posts; I hope they are sufficient to convince you that I am conscious some of the time, because I cannot offer you my subjectivity. Turing is saying that if you cannot tell the difference between a person and a program, then it is unreasonable to claim there is a difference.

Are you sure that dogs are aware rather than just conscious? If by "awareness" you mean they possess qualia - i.e. they not only detect a particular shade of grey (dogs may not be the best animal for this) but are also aware they are detecting it, there is no evidence for that or reason to suspect it beyond anthropomorphism. There is no evidence that non-human animals possess qualia, which seems to render them, by your definition, unaware. — tom

I don't remember mentioning qualia. I did say that I regarded consciousness in the full human sense to be being aware of being aware. This surely makes clear that I am using awareness simple as a precursor to human consciousness. So I am saying with some sureness, but not infallibly that dogs are at least aware, but not necessarily conscious, i.e. not necessarily aware of being aware.

And now we have to talk about evidence again. Anything whatsoever that is evident to me is, if the term means anything, conveyed through my qualia. My qualia are my evidence but they cannot be evidence of your qualia, let alone a dog's.

So the evidence of awareness of others can only be behavioural, which surely is the point of your robot trick. Dogs behave like people in so far as they go to sleep and wake up, they get excited and frightened, and so on. And they die. So I can distinguish between a dead dog, an unconscious dog, and wakeful dog with a degree of confidence except at the margins. Awareness shows itself behaviourally as responsiveness to the environment; that is the only possible evidence.

Let's talk about the Turing test. There are robot cars these days that are responsive in an intelligent way to the environment. Like a well trained sheepdog, they go where you tell them to and adapt on the way to the circumstances. But they fail the Turing test as soon as you let them off the lead.

The best way to conduct a Turing test is to refuse to say in advance what it will be, because as soon as one tells the programmer, he can program the appropriate response. So I have given away my secret here, but there are plenty of others...

He was talking about Owen Smith not JC. — Baden

That.

Actually, Corbyn clearly is the greatest orator around here at the moment, one who re-enchants a wide range of the disenchanted, my decrepit self amongst them. For god's sake don't try to turn him into a smooth talking evasive cliche-merchant like all the rest.

I wouldn't be so sure you know how to use the word. A robot can be programmed to respond to pain stimulus in a certain way. Why would a dog be conscious and a robot not? — tom

In common parlance, which is where I deliberately started, the word 'conscious' is used in relation to humans and higher animals, and is not clearly distinguished from 'awareness. Such beings are said to be conscious or unconscious. Whereas when I contact the emergency geeks, they do not ask whether the patient is conscious and breathing, they do when I dial 999.

Later, I make a distinction for philosophical purposes between 'awareness' and 'consciousness' exactly for the purpose of clarifying the difference between human and animal. This is a stipulated distinction and not a matter of common usage. I am exactly not claiming that dogs are aware of being aware, but merely that they are aware, when they aren't in common parlance 'unconscious'.

Whether these terms might have an extended application to a hypothetical robot, I rather doubt, but am open to persuasion. At the moment, I am of the opinion that awareness is not a computation, so I tend (with the rest of the world) not to say when my computer freezes, that it has become unconscious.

The anecdote goes against its (at least by your reading) own point. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The story comes to us from a book; it is a teaching story. It seems to teach that the story, nor the book are valuable, but that the value is elsewhere. It relates to the story about the finger pointing at the moon - don't worry about the finger, look where it is pointing. The finger does not reach the moon, or transmit the moon; forget the finger, look to the moon.

"If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it," Shoju replied. "I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is."

"I know that," said Mu-nan. "Even so, this work has been carried from master to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having received the teaching. Here."

The book, the story, is a 'symbol', a pointing finger. It does indeed work against itself; it points away from itself.

At the risk of creating another valueless story, I will pontificate about the moon.

The sage lets go of that and chooses this. — Lao Tzu

The influence of Chinese philosophy has already been mentioned. Central to this is the notion of flow, first expounded in the I Ching, and later in the Dao and continued by Chang Tzu. Letting go of that is letting go of the past, and in letting go of the past one lets go also of the future because the future is the projection of the past. This connects directly to the Buddhist tradition because it forms the structure of desire. Desire consists of an image from the past which one seeks to achieve in the future. It gives rise to suffering because it makes the present unsatisfactory. This is the present; this is the moon.

It is a challenge to Western tradition, steeped in original sin and the work ethic and self-improvement and the life of the mind as thought. It is a challenge to every tradition, including itself. The challenge is to understand that life is now - to understand immediately. As the parrots in Huxley's Island say, 'Be here now.'

It requires letting go of all that which is everything one thinks one is or was or ought to be or will be; letting go of the valuable tradition.

I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled,
complete awakening, and for this very reason it
is called 'unexcelled, complete awakening.

Siddhartha Gautama,from the Vajracchedika.

So for the record, this statement has absolutely nothing to do with Buddhism (Zen or otherwise). It appears to be some sort of S&M spirituality. — Mongrel

For the record, it's a statement about fitness regimes. Personally, I find declarations of meaninglessness applied to well used phrases a bit suspect. Especially when unaccompanied by any analysis of the internal contradictions that might make them so.

I hope you are familiar with the use of analogy. The basis of the analogy is that one subordinates oneself to a strict regime in order to achieve a goal fitness, or enlightenment. Both are somewhat difficult and serious undertakings that require that one take pains to achieve them. Neither has the least connection with S&M, and it is an uncharitable smear to suggest it.

I take it that you do not appreciate my thoughts. I'd be grateful if you would just ignore them, since you do not wish to engage with them.

As if you would know. — Mongrel

As if you would know what I am in a position to know. This is just childish isn't it. It is also a really misguided putdown on your part, since I am claiming that the phrase has meaning for the unenlightened - so I am indeed in exactly the position to know.

Give me a break. — Mongrel

Have a break.

"Transcending the self"- it seems to be a meaningless idea... — John

Well you understand it in the context of physical training - crossing the pain barrier; not being self-indulgent. One 'pushes oneself' necessarily from a place of exteriority to the self that is being pushed. That is why the trainer is useful, apart from a certain expertise, as the psychological support against the weakness of oneself.

It's only a meaningless idea if you are entirely single-minded and at one with the universe.

The cruelty thing.

If you are foolish enough to hire a personal trainer, you expect him to push you to do things you are reluctant to do, to hold you to a regime when you want to abandon it. You don't want him to indulge your weakness. The self cannot be transcended by such indulgence.

So when your trainer gets tired and weak, you become his trainer, and hold him to the standard he has set for himself as he has done for you.

The master has not mastered the pupil, but mastered himself, except that in this case he has slipped. The pupil is not looking to become the master of anyone but himself. Seeing the master slip, he hauls him back from the abyss and doesn't worry about a a little rope burn to the ego.

Burn all the books then? — Wosret

No, burn all the second hand inspirational psychobabble peddled by folks who don't practice what they preach. But only the best disciple should burn them in each case. It's not permission to burn someone else's valued traditions, only your own.

Yes, that probably wouldn't work too well. But it might be possible to stop the car without switching off the engine, or to stop the rushing chatter of thought without becoming unconscious.

The pupil teaches the master 'presence'. What the master is saying shows his attachment to the past, contrary, presumably, to the very teachings he seeks to preserve. The pupil demonstrates the preservation of the teachings in his own person by his rejection of the value of un-lived teachings. His response is a great kindness in both reawakening the master, and reassuring him that the tradition is still alive. Un-lived teachings are nothing but a burden to the world.

That's a very enlightened if somewhat old-fashioned position.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
Socrates.

My unenlightened and more fashionable way of saying the same thing is that all knowledge is provisional and fallible, rather than absolute. I usually know when it is raining, but I might be fooled by a well aimed garden hose. Still, if there is a suspicion of a problem with the car, I'd suggest slowing down and pulling to the side of the road.