Sartre is giving account of the person who attempts a removal of meaning to them, to arrive an account of existence itself.

Roquentin, who is searching of the meaning of existence, cannot find anything because any meaningful connection he experiences is of him. He is assaulted by Nausea in finding all the things he expects to be meaningful are not. In removing what he put with existence as it appears to him, he finds an empty world. Since he removed various meanings with existence to his consciousness, he has nothing to see, hear, taste, touch, smell, etc. He has nothing to possess or seek. He has no-one to laugh with or love. He doesn't even have a sky too look at. In existence itself, there is no ocean and green, white spec or seagull. Positively sickening.

The Nausea is in coming a realisation the meaning of the object to oneself is located within one's own consciousness experience, rather than in the object--that one will never be able to find the meaning of the existence itself. The existence itself is empty of these human meanings and so cannot amount to a discovery of how the things "really work" or what they "essentially are."

Sartre is drawing a sort of similar point to Kant, only about meaning instead of epistemology. Since the meaning we experience is our experience, the meaning of things cannot be given to us otherwise in any case. Just as what we know must be of experience for Kant, Sartre is pointing out the meaning we feel or encounter must be of our experience.

It seems as though Roquentin is having a kind of illumination, a positive revelation of the reality of the universe, whereas prior to his communion with the Nausea, he existed in a state of dull unreality.

Indeed so, existence itself has been illuminated to him. He now realises it is not merely equivalent to the various meanings which appear to him (e.g. green, ocean, white specs, sea gulls), but is instead something else which exceeds and is other to them. He learnt, for example, that there is more going on than just ocean [that] is green.

"Ocean is green" is merely one account of meaning which appears to him. Existence itself is much more. Not only a fact not mentioned in "Ocean is green," but a fact of consequence to existence--who knows what other meanings existence might be with? No longer can we say existence must necessarily be limited to the concepts of ocean in green. Someone else might come along and notice a purple ocean. Someone else a desert. And so on.

It's a reverse reductio. I'm taking it is true God is necessary and then examining what it entails.

Since a necessary God is given regardless of what exists, in any case, the necessary God cannot be dependent on being made true by existence. There is no counterfactual or other possiblity to the necessary God.

Therefore, the necessary God cannot exist. For the the necessary God to exist would deny God's very necessary, as it would mean God's presence would have to be made true by existing (as opposed to not).

Do you mean that a necessary god is one that exist in every possible world? — Banno

I do not. I mean the necessary God must be so in any instance, so it cannot be subject to the action of existence to make it true over not. Therefore, the necessary God cannot exist. A necessary God cannot be put there by existing or not.

We can do even better than that.

A necessary God is true in any case.

Existing things only.obtain when they exist.

A necessary God must obtain, it cannot be dependent on whether it exists or not.

A necessary God, therefore, cannot exist. It cannot be determined by existence, as it must be true in all possible cases.

Not only does atheism obtain (God doesn't exist), but does so necessarily by the necessity of God

I would agree compared to the days of the old place. Here, I'm not so sure.

I think lots of knowledgable regular posters becoming less active has had a big impact, more so than outright change of policy compared to the early days of of this forum.

Descartes is doing a little bit more than a tautology. He talking about a necessary aspect given a particular existing event. That's to say if there is an experience, there is an individual or entity aware of soemthing.

I know he's still around; he passed through the main philosophy discord I frequent. He got banned there too.

Spinoza is describing how it happens: if qualia is produced by non-qualia, then it is a mode of substance. We get the causality in the presence of that mode.

That's what makes the difference between it happening or not. If the mode is not present, we do not have qualia caused by non-qualia.

For Spinoza, qualia is modes of substance.

Qualia is both a mode of body and a mode of mind. A mode of body, in that qualia is an instance of existence caused to be. In that qualia has conceptual meaning, it is also a mind of mode.

Whether it is caused be a conscious entity or a non-conscious entity, qualia is explained for Spinoza. Qualia is of both body and mind in either. The combination problem makes no sense, since mind and body are never being combined. Both are always there in parallel.

Let's use the exmaple of qualia coming out from no qualia. For Spinoza, the absence of qualia is body and mind. The occurrence of qualia is body and mind. So when qualia is generated out of its absence, it an event of body and mind (no qualia) going to another event of body and mind (qualia).

Spinoza's metaphysics are like a Xantos Gambit. What he's describing and analysing is what is necessarily true. He's not doing speculation of possible counterfactual (e.g. Does the Christian God exist or not? Does Zeus exist or not?). He is describing what will be true in any instance of what events occur.

If for example, the being like the Christian God were exist, Spinoza's metaphysics would be true. The being would be modes (God, creator, judge, Jesus, etc.) of Substance, as would the various places (Heaven, Hell, Earth, etc.).

If Zeus existed, Spinoza's metaphysics would be true. Zeus would be a mode of Substance, as would all the pantheon and their realms.

If bodies without conscious experience generate experiences,the Spinoza's metaphysics are true. The mode of a body without consciousness would be followed by a mode of conscious experience, both of substance.

If any body or part of a body that generates a conciousness experience also already has its own experience, then we have the modes of body and its present experience followed by a mode of new experience, all of substance.

Whatever exists, whichever of these possible conunterfactal states of existence happen, they are consistent with Spinoza's metaphysics. Spinoza is talking about what will be true of any of these possible events.

Now it is pretty clear to me you're actually avoiding the answer. I can accept that my earlier questions make no sense, this one really does. It is a very simple question and it makes sense. Why are you referring to older posts of mine? Are you disrespecting me? — Eugen

The question does not make sense. Spinoza's metaphysics recognise the question has no answer because it fails to understand what it is talking about.

Spinzoa's metaphysical system details how events that occur of the necessary substance and so are explained in the relations of that substance. If a state of consciousness follows out of a state which is not concious, it is explained in that those to events (modes of extension) have relation of substance.

In any case, it is impossible for an event non conscious state followed by a concious state to go unexplained. To understand Spinzoa here, you have to realise his system is saying the hard problem is logically impossible.

In this respect, Spinoza's metaphysics are consistent with materialist style accounts in which states or consciousness are produced out of non-conscious bodies. His metaphysics are also consistent with certain pansychists postion in which each conscious experience is a production of an entity with its own conciousness experience--e.g. an account in which my brain, arms, fingers, cells and atoms each had their own personal experience.

My apologies, that was meant to be "psychologically".

The point I'm making is about souls/identity, not the body.

I did nothing of the sort. I'm pointing out you are enforcing everyone must have an identity of male or female to find physiologically.

It would only be true in cases of having a male or female identity to find. If someone had an identity to find physiologically, which was not male or female, your claim would not be true. There are souls other than male or female someone might have.

I'm worried about the contradiction in your statement here. You say you aren't for enforcing identity, yet that's exactly what your ontology does. Why would I be open to such a statement? We aren't even to the polical concerns yet. This doesn't make sense purely on a rational/truth/description basis of the claims itself.

Either you don't understand your ontology is enforcing an identity or you are willing to tell falsehoods that it's not. That's a violation in philosophical terms, a bad understand of your ontology at the very least, if not a bad ontology, which deserves to be called for what it is.

(I do not believe "identity" should be forced on anyone. I am politically independent and about in the middle. This is a philosophy forum though) — Gregory

Why then are you insisting humans must have a male or female soul? That's enforcing an identity. You are saying the must have either of these identities, rather than respecting any fact made by their own being.

If we aren't enforcing identity, people will only have a male or female soul if they have a male or female soul. It is not necessarily humans have either.

Reproduction is not sex or gender. It's done by bodies. Bodies which act in reproduction as they do, whether they are female, male or anything else.

People have a problem with your account because its equivocating biological reproduction with a person identity and supposing a restriction upon identities which fails to recognise, and unjustly discriminates against, whole host of people.

1. We are talking about is mind, not ping pong. If we talked about ping pong, we would be describing something else entirely. Why call it mind? That's what we are trying to talk about.

2. It means experiences are of both matter and mind, rather than being a substance opposed to matter. It is not a question of combination because every experience is its own thing, a mode of matter and mind. Whether that experience be of a human or of a rock.

The point is S denies the hard problem. If you think there is a hard problem, you disagree with Spinoza.

Itself. It is mind.

This is why there is no hard problem for Spinoza. Matter does not create mind. Both matter (attribute of extension) and mind (attribute of thought) are necessary.They are never created or caused to come into existence from their absence.

Experiences are just some modes of both matter (in that they are existing things, caused from others) and mind (in that they have a certain meaning in concepts and logical relations).

Panpsychism, in the sense you are thinking, is too reductive for Spinoza. Spinoza says all things are animated even when experience does not exist at all.

This sort of panpsychism makes the same sort of reductive error as a reductive materialist: just as the materialist claims mind is "just the brain", this panpsychism claims mind is "just experience".

Spinoza point is everything is always animated in mind. Even when thinking or experiencing beings do not exist, reality still has its significance in concepts, in the meanings which might appear to experiences. Mind is not experience and is given without experiences.

My comment would be there is no effective difference, much like Kant's critique of the ontological argument-- one can say there is a necessary real. Or one can say there is a necessary unreal. Only in this case, the difference is only a flavour of description, since this ontological argument is not referencing a difference of possible, counterfactual states (God exist vs God does not exist). Real or unreal, one is merely making an argument for a distinction of absolute infinitity. Either side is just as committed to a positive claim about a distinction known.

I would actually extend such analysis to other philosophers who give ontological arguments. Even those who do make a confusion for the question of whether God exists or not. No doubt they are mistaken, but the mistake is not a presupposition.

Rather, they have confused one distinction they are trying to describe, the necessary infinite, with another distinction they care about, an existing finite entity of a deity of some kind. Insofar as this goes, I don't think anyone ever holds a postion of presupposition. I think the critique philosophers are making presupposition is one of the biggest mistakes in the canon. They aren't presupposing, but confusing one thing for another.

The reason I say you are a dualist is because you hold experiences are a different type of reality, such that they cannot be affected, explained, related to or accounted for by other things that exist. You hold experiences to be other to the things which are caused to exist by other things.

You have a dualism between the realm of experience and a realm of non-conscious things.

1. A rock might have experience and think. It's down to whether a rock exists with experience, just as with a human. (a lot of the time people just think rocks do not).

2. Answer as above. Planets can. They just have to exist with experience (people usually think this is false).

3.Just as above , only with the universe.

The difference is the existence of experiences. Beings with experiences exists with experiences. Those without experiences, have no existing experiences. An entity goes from concious to non-conscious when their experiences no longer exist (e.g. an unconscious person, a dead person, etc.). An entity goes from non conciousness to concious when its experiences come to exist.

Not quite, the existence of an alcoholic who drinks in conjunction with having sorrows is under the attribute of extension. It's meaning in ideas is under the attribute of mind.

Similarly, the existence of electrochemical process requiring ethanol is under extension. But it is also a mode, its significance in ideas, of the attribute of mind. All modes are under the attribute of mind, not just instances of human conciousness.

I suspect there is not a way to do so.

Eugen appears to a dualist who thinks anyone who has one substance, of which there are explicable instances of caused experiences (i.e. there is no hard problem), must be a materialist.

I think they confused the attribute of mind with the presence of an all encompassing thinking being, a finite casual actor, who wills things.

I was about to say there is a mismatch between what they think of as minds and Spinoza's attribute of mind. They are still thinking of mind as the existence of a thinking entity, not an immanent feature of all modes. In their terms, I suspect they would consider Spinzoa a materialist, atheist.

Not at all, thought it might seem that way with the amount of philsophers who try to suggest we know nothing about conciousness-- some of them would like the absence of the hard problem to be a conspiracy theory of a secret society.

But no. There is nothing esoteric or unjustified there, only description of conciousness itself.

The question doesn't make sense because it is impossible for the hard problem to be true.

Spinzoa is a materialist, so if that were wrong, he would be in some sense wrong. But that's only a fiction: one cannot coherently pose an alternative to a non-reductive materialism. Other postions fall into one logical incoherence or another

We know there isn't a hard problem. We have to equivocate consious experience with something else to even suggest it. The hard problem is logically incoherent.

Depends, a coherent panpsychism is just a materialism with more states that produce conscious states. Spinozism is consistent with that.

The latter, there has never been and will never be a hard problem.

Unconscious matter can create conscious states. It just one state matter (the experience) which is the conscious experience, following other states of matter (body, environment), which produce it.

Well, at the level your asking, that's how all causes work.

Why does the paper get soggy in the rain? The state of soggy paper results from the paper and rain interacting.

The hard problem is a mistep.People pose it because they fail to recognise concious states are just more existing instances of causality. The mistakenly think that generating conscious experiences is something states cannot do.

I say it makes conciousness because the brain (and other states of the body) are distinct things. When I look at a brain, I'm not looking at the experience of blue, purple or red.

The experience is a new state of matter generated. It is what the given relation of things does. Water, when combined with paper, produces new states, soggy paper which were not there before. Same here. Light, combined with out eyes (and other imvived parts of our body), generates a new state, a conscious experience of sight, which was not there before.

In the common case of our experiences, our body responding to an environment. Light hits my eyes, soon after, the state of experience of me seeing something is formed.

I mean neither.

Every conscious experience is its own unique state of existence. When a concious experience is produced, it isn't a combination of things which are already there.

It's an entirely new state formed or created. One which was not there prior. Small blocks never come together. Every instance of experience is its own state.

Conscious states are modes of body. To be conscious is to have existing states of conciousness which are caused by other things. It's just a causality, like rain making paper soggy.

In this case, we have some states which are not concious experience interacting to create a new existing state, a conscious state. No hard problem. The causality is question is some things which are not consciousness getting together to cause it.

They are modes of extension.

States which have been caused to exist. At some point, specific modes extension generate another mode of extension, a feeling.

There is no hard problem. Some modes of extension (e.g. brains, environment, etc.) result in others (e.g. a feeling) occurring. At least, that is the general point in the terms you are concerned with.

We could always get more specific, as Spinoza does sometimes, about more specific relations of the various causality we encounter about our feelings. But such empirical questions aren't in the concerns (indeed, they are thought outright impossible!) by the cult of the hard problem.

]I agree with you that "every atom would somehow be alive" would generate no ends of problems for Spinoza's account, but I don't think he's committed to the background of concepts you've used to pin the claim on him. — fdrake

It's not a problem at all. Indeed, it is a possible set of events. We don't know what a body can do-- if we had atoms which produced states of conciousness, we would have atoms which were "alive" in this sense.

What trips people up is misunderstanding the attribute of mind. It is NOT mind in the sense of an entity having thoughts or experiences. Those are modes of existence, of extension/body. In this sense, they aren't of the attribute of mind at all. If I'm speaking about how I have a present thought or feeling, I'm only speaking about modes of body.

The attribute of mind is a different distinction, dealing with relations of logic and meaning, not whether thinking beings exist or not.

The discintion is embedded in morality itself. If all it took was the existence of something to make an ought, then anything that existed would be moral. There would be no space for wrong to be committed. Any time a suggested ought didn't happen, it wouldn't even be the case it ought to be (as it didn't exist).

The is/ought distinction gets confused because people mistake it for a suggestion morality is not..

Really, it's a logical discintion that a fact of existing is not the same as a fact of an ought-- that's to say, we do not get or derive the ought from the mere fact something exists. The ought is own fact, an ought about something, which is known on its own terms.

In the respect, the human sensing of morality is about an is: a fact of the ought, about a state or action of concern. We never derived from the fact something existed. We know all along that some existences we ought to have (or not have).

Yeah, but that's exactly Sophsitcat's point: the "is" amounts to an objective account of who someone is with respect to normatively. We have described the "is" of an individual's value or ought, such that we have a grounded moral cliam. In this respect, we have a moral realism, just grounded on the signifcance of an individual's existence rather than a transcendent force or encompassing rational standard.

So it doesn't do away with moral fuel at all, it just shifts from concept or history, to the existence of a given individual. The ought becomes a feature of the contingent being-- "this is an existence which ought to be treated in this way"-- and grounds questions of how to treat them. (and versions of this are common amongst "PC" culture because it's frequently about respecting and valuing a given individual for who they are, for the fact they are an existence which is valuable).