I might come back to this latter on if beneficial. Let me know.

Your focus here is on God's desires (which are a part of God - this thought God is supposed to be divinely simple and thus partless) whereas mine was on God's teloi, or ends, that God seeks to actualize via his desires (which are other in respect to God). The latter, to my mind, necessarily entailing the reality of teleology. The end addressed is, again, apart from what God is. (Much like the universe is not, traditionally in the West, of itself an aspect of God but instead is God's creation.) In the latter case of teleological motives for creation - thereby of intent-ional creation - there will always then be an end which was not God's creation but which God seeks to actualize. With both the latter entailing lack of being "all-powerful".

The solution is generally to define omnipotence more carefully, to reject the law of the excluded middle in some sense, maybe just for God, of to reject the God of classical theism as incoherent. I would go with the latter. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You've brought up good examples. Plenty more; such as Genesis 2 onward portraying God as an omnipotent being that had no control over what the serpent did.

But yes, I go with the latter as well.

Coincidentally, I just came across a YouTube video, by Sabine Hossenfelder, on the topic of "why the universe is not locally real". [...] To quote an old TV ad : "Is it real, or is it Memorex?" :smile: — Gnomon

Just saw the video. Very interesting. Still, first off, I’m no expert in the intricacies of modern physics and, secondly, all modern physics is chockfull of inference (the speaker’s reference to multiple worlds theory’s possible disagreements with some of the premises as one example). So, I’ll let others engage in the heavy-duty physics interpretations of these latest findings.

For what its worth, though, in terms of non-locality and all the other weird aspects of quantum physics:

We often assume that we conscious humans are the be-all and end-all of awareness – this as (mind-endowed) observers. Bring back the facts of biology into this equation and we multicellular organisms are constituted of individual living cells – from individual skin cells to individual neuron cells. Grant that each of these individual cells is endowed with its own primitive mind (as per, for example, the enactivist stance of Evan Thompson in his book "Mind in Life") – needless to add, cells to which the multicellular organisms in which they occur serves as their commonwealth upon which each such cell is dependent and whose preservation each such cell operates to maintain – and you obtain the following biocentric like perspective:

Each one of these primitive mind endowed (and, hence, awareness endowed) cells is constituted of organic molecules – some of which which have been empirically evidenced to exhibit at least some QM properties. *** The cell itself, however, does not exhibit QM properties. Skipping a good deal of rational inference, for each cell to properly function so as to live requires that each cell of itself settles all the QM weirdness (which, again, can apply to various organic molecules and, needless to add, their components) in a way that at the very least ends up resembling our locally real world.

We are constituted of these cells. Those that pertain to our CNS then constitute our own mind and give form to our own conscious awareness.

Going by the aforementioned, then, our own empirically known world will then necessarily be locally real.

I know, the just expressed is in certain respects speculative – or at least will appear so to those who might disagree with some of the premises expressed, such that an individual cell holds its own primitive mind, one that thereby also observes its environment (think, for a blatant example, of an ameba that recognizes and must readily distinguish predator from pray). All the same, this perspective so far works for me as a way of making sense of how QM applies to our empirically known reality.

At any rate, nice video / info!

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*** for example:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/09/238365/a-natural-biomolecule-has-been-measured-acting-in-a-quantum-wave-for-the-first-time/

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-diffract-molecules.html

------

Edit: As a quick addendum to the proposed perspective: I take this to be readily evident but it might not be so to others: our immediate environment is always thoroughly infused with cellular life, be it diploid (e.g., eukaryotes such as ameba) of haploid (e.g. bacteria on solid surfaces and pollen in the air) – all of which would, in the previously given perspective, of itself settle quantum weirdness so as to successfully persist as an individual cell … one that interacts with its environment, including with other (locally real) cells. So, in this interpretation, we always dwell in a non-QM empirical world - this if one’s own body’s makeup were to not be enough (though I currently think it is). Our empirical awareness of QM's validity only comes into play when we focus - not on life, but - life's (as well as non-life's) material components.

[...] Together those processes make up the mind. Is it real? Yes. Is it physical - good question. What kind of a thing is it? I'm not sure, but I do believe it is a manifestation of physical, biological, neurological processes. — T Clark

Shoot. Going by that definition, I could qualify as a materialist myself. :wink: No bones to pick. Cool definition. :up:

Was in a rush with my last post. But regarding God’s intentionality, here’s a maybe better expressed argument:

Either a) God intentionally generated an initial given (e.g., the occurrence of light as per Genesis 1) or b) God has been intentionally generating givens for eternity such that there never was any initial given that God intentionally generated.

If (a), the generation of this initial given (call it X) was then necessarily to some extent limited or bounded (hence, determined) by an end – for the sake of which it was generated – which, as end aspired toward, could not have been generated by God prior to God’s very first, intentional generation (i.e., his generation of X). Here, then, God was himself to some degree limited or bounded (determined) by his actively held intent (telos or goal or aim), an intent held by him which he did not create and which he did not instantaneously realize. Therefore, God was not - and thereby is not - omnipotent.

If (b), then the conclusion of (a) also applies – for, here, there never could have been an initial, intentionally created end (for the sake of which future creations would be enacted). To intentionally create such an end (call it Z), an end for the sake of which this created end Z is brought about is required. One could here draw this out ad infinitum and, always, there will be one end for the sake of which a creation is made which was not itself God’s creation yet was requisite for God’s intentionally creating anything. Hence, God is not omnipotent.

Lastly, were God able to fulfill all ends that God aims to fulfilling – as would be required of omnipotence – then God would at such juncture no longer be intentionally (i.e., teleologically) creating anything whatsoever. For all God’s intents would have here become fully actualized as God intended. Therefore, the omnipotence of a psyche logically mandates that the psyche does not intentionally generate anything - for there here is nothing that this omnipotent psyche has not been yet able to actualize.

Due to the aforementioned, no individuated psyche (no individuated anything, actually) that is teleologically driven - of which intentionality is a form - can possibly be omnipotent.

Hence, an omnipotent creator deity is logically impossible. Same is valid for the impossibility of an omnipotent designer, programmer, etc.

---

Hopefully that makes better sense. Would welcome to hear any flaws in this reasoning.

I really don't see how that follows. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's fare. It was tersely given argument.

If the universe develops teleologically why does that entail that God is guided by the same goals? I don't even see how this necessarily applies to God's immanent activities and properties. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"It doesn't" to both questions.

It only requires that God has goals in what God does. If God does not have any goals, then irrationality or, at best, arational reasoning (if that can even make sense). If God does have goals, then these ends with God pursues cannot rationally all be God's creation. This is because the very act of creating (and of designing, programming, willfully generating, etc.) is intentional. Hence, it is driven by at least one end which is a priori to the act of creation for the sake of which the creation is enacted.

This is likely still too terse. Followed through, though, it at least currently seems to me that no god can be omnipotent (if at all occurrent) - for any god will abide by at least one telos/end that this god did not create. An end which the god seeks to actualize, but has not yet had the ability to.

B. Seems to imply that having goals necessarily implies a lack of agency. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I find quite the contrary to be the case: Agency cannot occur in the absence of teloi, i.e. of ends for the sake of which agency is enacted. This is what makes our free will intentional (here, for those of us who at least entertain the possibility of free will). We as agents are neither "fully determined" nor "perfectly undetermined by anything" in what we do. And each choice we make will be intentional (an unintended choice is nonsensical). This then, to me at least, entails that our freely willed choices are always partly determined by the ends we actively hold for the sake of which we so generate a made choice. While at the same time not being fully, or absolutely, determined as per traditional interpretations of causal determinism.

Surely one isn't free if one's behavior is arbitrary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hence free will needing to be intent-driven or intent-semi-determined - and, thereby, intentional.

The ability to rationally develop one's own goals and the ability to have second and nth order goals about one's own desires are both generally taken as prerequisites for freedom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I grant this. And it, to my mind, can get complex. But then in so developing one's goals via one's free will, one's free will, to be intentional, will need to be telos-driven (i.e., semi-determined by teloi which are a priori to this developing of end to follow in the future). In sort: otherwise one's develping of goals would be unintentional and, hence, arbitrary.

How does this not rule out all free will? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. It is, I find, a requisite for free will's occurrence. This with free will loosely defined at the metaphysical freedom to choose otherwise in the same situation - something which causal determinism disallows. (But then, neither does this in and of itself validate the reality of our being endowed with free will.)

Depends on how you look at it. :joke: — Gnomon

That's as good an answer as I'll probably get in regard to my question. :grin: Thanks for it.

Empirical science ignored the mental aspects of reality for centuries, because it was associated with Souls, Spirits, and Ghosts. — Gnomon

I myself think of this as "Empirical science ignored the mental aspects of reality for centuries, because it was associated with Psyche (as in "psychology" - the study of psyche)". But yea, your assessment seems to be about right.

The Great Programmer designed the universe to ... ? — unenlightened

Even in denying the validity of the argument I've presented against exactly such a "The Great Programmer", you do realize this question can only be answered via a teleological reason, don't you? In other words, by providing an end for the sake of which the means (in this case, the universe) was set in motion.

However, it is hardly clear that this problem implies the "God of classical theism," a God that only seems to exist in philosophy journals anyhow, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Haven't read the entire OP yet, but as to this, the reality of teleology directly contradicts the occurrence of the "God of classical theism".

This omnipotent God (psyche) either a) unintentionally creates everything or b) intentionally creates everything.

If (a), reasoning (emotive as well as cognitive) goes down the drain, and anything might be - which at the very least rules out the existential requirement for such a God.

If (b) then God Himself is teleologically driven, and hence determined, by His intentions - all intentions being teleological, i.e. intent/goal/end driven. Therefore, God here can rationally only remain subject to teloi (goals) which God does not (intentionally) create but, instead, intends to fulfill (irrespective of what they might be). Hence, here, God cannot be the omnipotent "creator of everything" - for he cannot, when rationally addressed, create (intentionally) his own intents by which he's driven when so creating.

There's always blind faith ... but when it comes to reasoning, the reality of teleology is logically incompatible with an omnipotent God that creates everything.

This goes out to those who are not irreducibly fixated on the unquestionable reality of their own particular worldview, whatever it might be (if any).

"Apparently, monistic Materialism solves the origin problem by denying that it is a problem : consciousness is not real, but ideal : a figment of imagination, so it literally does not matter. Dualism just accepts that we tend to think of Mind & Matter as two completely different things, and never the twain shall meet : hyle + morph = real matter + ideal form. Monistic Panpsychism assumes that Matter is an illusion generated by the inherent mental processes of nature (a priori Cosmic Consciousness), hence matter does not matter." — Gnomon

While I wouldn't say that physicality doesn't matter, I'm in general agreement with the given description of panpsychism. Nevertheless:

So conceived it seems to me that a world of so called “monistic panpsychism” would yet necessarily consist of an ontological duality: namely, between 1) awareness (with any kind of ur-awareness which might apply to non-life included) and 2) everything that is not awareness (which, as such, thereby informs, and thereby gives form to, awareness). Here, then, all aspects of mind and body that awareness can be in any way aware of would ultimately consist of the same basic stuff - with mind and matter being only a property dualism of this substance (rather than being two ontological substances). And, in conformity with the boldfaced and underlined parts of the quote, this underlying stuff/substance which is “everything that is not awareness” would itself ultimately be the product of awareness when globally addressed - this then likely in a multiplicity of different ontological manners.

Then: Properly speaking, would you interpret panpsychism thus understood to be an ontological monism or an ontological, non-Cartesian dualism?

Hence, is consciousness actual rather than illusory, fictional, etc.? — javra

This is monism. This is reductionism. So how I think of things – how Peirce thought of things, how systems science thinks of things – just doesn't share your ontological commitments. You are trying to jam square pegs into round holes. — apokrisis

My lack of effort, you say. Alright then. Baby steps.

Here's a proposition: "I am conscious of this text." In your worldview, does this proposition have a truth-value?

Yes. But what are the ontic commitments of this term "real" that you employ. Or what has become now the term "ontic" that I guess is supposed to mean "really real" or "fundamentally real" or "monistically real". — apokrisis

None of that, or at least not necessarily "fundamentally real". The ontic is that which ontology is the study of. That which is actual rather than illusory, fictional, etc. Hence, is consciousness actual rather than illusory, fictional, etc.? It need not be fundamental for me to make my argument that it cannot be empirically studied by the sciences. But if you deem it illusory, fictional, etc. then that's a disagreement on what is actual and what is not in this world.

I've told you I am a holist and not a reductionist and therefore don't buy the causal cop-out that is supervenience.

So your line of argument goes wrong from there. I am not a reductionist. And you don't seem to have a clue about what else that leaves. — apokrisis

Could you calm down a bit? First off, you could interpret "to supervene" as "to be dependent on something else for truth, existence, or instantiation (definition pulled from Wiktionary)", which is what I intended. Let me know of a more appropriate term to express this and I'll use it: If A's occurrence holds X, Y, and Z as its constituents, then A is dependent on X, Y, and Z in such manner as that just quoted. And obviously this does not negate holistic top-down processes from operating on X, Y, and Z.

Secondly, of main interest was the one question I previously asked, together with what is meant by you to be "an idea".

But I'll cut the crap. If you have no intent to discuss the issue, then so be it.

Really what? Really an idea? Really material? Really semiotic – as in the modelling that connects the two? — apokrisis

I didn't ask "really". I asked "real". As in something that ontically occurs. Not as an idea, but as that which apprehends the idea of consciousness when so thought of.

"Really material" would be contingent on what you here mean by matter; I'll tentatively interpret you meaning that matter is the constitutional makeup of any given (what Aristotle intended by "matter") - and that consciousness thereby supervenes on its own constituents. If this is an accurate interpretation of what you here mean by "material reality", I then easily accept this to be true.

But then its being semiotically real as a "modeling that connects the idea to its constituents" can so far to me only be a misguided inference. And this precisely because I so far cannot make either rational or experiential sense of awareness of itself being an idea - I so far cannot understand how it can be an idea that thereby (due to its semiotics) then holds awareness of other ideas. This would result in turtles all the way down, for all ideas have their constituents - e.g., lesser ideas or connotations, all of which further supervene on the operational parts of a CNS - here apparently entailing that the idea of, say, evolution is in fact itself endowed with first-person awareness.

So I'll again ask a question in the name of optimally impartial philosophical enquiry:

Do you find that consciousness can only be "a) an idea and b) its constituents which are c) connected semiotically by modeling"?

Your previous reply - and I thank you for it - indicates yes. So, if your answer is "yes", then please express what "an idea" signifies in this context - such that consciousness becomes distinctly different from the idea of evolution which consciousness can be aware of (in that while the first is aware the second is not).

My bad for assuming you might have had the curiosity and knowledge to follow arguments already much simplified. — apokrisis

Their implications are so far too vague to be clear, apo. Do you uphold that first-person awareness, aka consciousness, is real?

↪javra
Ask RogueAI. — apokrisis

My bad for not clarifying: my last question regarding kindergarten was rhetorical.

As to RogueAI asking me, can you not, you know, express your views in manners that others can understand?

:blush:

----------

Why do I feel like I'm in kindergarten ... on a philosophy forum? One of those things one might never know.

Remind me which one you are again? — apokrisis

Use more syllables, apo. Meaning transference is important to discussions.

Oh, no. I understand symbols devoid of content. :wink:

I have no idea what any of this huge sentence means. Sorry. — Tom Storm

no worries

Maybe you could entice me to. What's an example of something that is not a social construction according to these texts and Vygotskain psychology.

Besides, you really have nothing to correct in what I interpret your state of mind to be?

metaphysical frameworks, such as idealism and panpsychism, which were derided as baseless nonsense by the positivists of the past, are back in new forms. But such claims cannot be taken as a true description of an ultimate reality for there is no credible realist theory of language that would make sense of such claims. — Tom Storm

I am wondering what people who study philosophy think of this claim as it strikes me as an interesting argument and might breathe some new life into debates about idealism. — Tom Storm

As someone how holds imperfect knowledge in this realm (in all realms, actually), at this point in our history I find the quoted argument for the most part valid. Nevertheless, for those of use don't remove the objective idealism from out of Peirce's metaphysics of objective idealism (with his notion of Agapism, for example, very much included), his is one example of a description of reality which can - I so far think - at the very least facilitate a "a credible realist theory of language" that thereby makes sense of the very metaphysics addressed - one wherein the physical world is effete mind in relation to which propositions can either be true or false. But I grant that Peirce's writings (and I have not as of yet read all of them) are not amongst the most analytically stringent writings out there in terms of presenting a coherent whole. (My favorite in this regard was the pantheistic metaphysics of Spinoza's Ethics; agree or disagree with it, it was exceedingly transparent in its premises-conclusion format; but no, not a system of either idealism or panpsychism.)

You're making him sound like an idiot! — RogueAI

It was in no way my intention to.

I anticipate and expect that he will correct me in any way that my statements might misrepresent him. Still, from past discussions on this topic in this thread, this is what I've honestly gathered.

ps. I should have written Chat GPT (not GTP)

I’ve noticed that @apokrisis hasn’t responded to a number of your questions, so I’ll do my best to do so in my honest interpretations of his state of mind. @apokrisis can of course readily correct me wherever he finds me mistaken in anything I say (it is, after all, a best current understanding).

(I wrote this before seeing both yours and @bert1's most recent replies; posting it all the same)

Apo is an eliminativist who deems all speak of first-person awareness and, hence, of consciousness to be a linguistic social construct devoid of real referent(s). Because of this, all your questions regarding the reality of consciousness as first-person awareness are nonsensical to him - with answers that are "not even wrong" as he might say. We are all – take your pick – moist robots or philosophical zombies that hypnotize ourselves via our language into illusions of being consciously aware when, in fact, no such thing can ever and in any way occur.

The socially constructed term (as though there could occur any linguistic terms that aren’t) we specify as “consciousness”, however, can be behavioristically interpreted and defined as “evidenced input into a system conjoined with the output of same said system”.

Hence, if a robot or computer program can report on inputs – with Chat GTP as one example of this - it is then as conscious as anything else. No awareness required - or, for that matter, possible. At least not as anything that is in any way real.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, there is the connotative issue of modernity vs. primitivity at play, and all that this might imply.

Likewise, instead of presuming that essential Potential was fully-formed into Consciousness at the beginning, ... — Gnomon

Only want to here point out that most ancient perspectives - such as that of Stoicism - in no way held such a view of an animistic world. This turn of events emerged with Abrahamic perspectives.

Objective knowledge from science about our moral intuitions is “impartial” and even mind-independent. Obtaining mind-independent knowledge is the standard goal in science. — Mark S

While I fully agree that objective knowledge - hence either perfectly impartial knowledge or a relatively impartial knowledge that aims toward the former - is the goal of the empirical sciences as an enterprise (all aspects of the scientific method function so as further approach this end), I'm not at all in agreement that any knowledge - including one that can by hypothesized as completely impartial - can ever be awareness independent. And I can here only interpret "mind-independent knowledge" to be just that: knowledge whose occurrence is not in any way dependent on awareness.

This disagreement might then likely be an insurmountable impasse for us.

And, perhaps most importantly, he was on an episode of "The Simpsons." — T Clark

:lol:

Objective knowledge about why our shared intuitions about good are what they are could be similarly useful. — Mark S

I don't disagree with this, but find it agreeing with my previous post. "Objective knowledge" cannot be interpreted as a (physical) object whose attributes are thereby equally applicable to all co-existent minds in impartial manners. Hence, I so far can only interpret it as "impartial knowledge" regarding our shared intuition about the good. Yet, to in fact be impartial, this knowledge will need to be equally applicable in valid manners to all minds the world over - if this is at all possible. And this, again, is not a theme for science to discover but, instead, one for meta-ethics to investigate.

If I'm missing something let me know.

A very well thought-out OP.

I don't know if I should throw this monkey-wrench into the wheels, but I will. For science and philosophy to converge on the issue of morality, what is first needed is a common understanding of the the term "good" references in all cases, irrespective of whether moral or not.

The mass murderer considers murdering innocent bystanders a good pleasure to obtain - this in terms of their own mind's workings. What then, for example, unifies as an underlying facet of all conceivable behaviors that which is good to the unconstrained mass murderer with that which is good to, for example, Mother Teresa?

Here is not addressed the issue of cooperation (which can be at the very least inferred from empirical observations), cooperation's mores, and the societal (or even universal) morality that can thereby obtain as a facet of these mores. Here is addressed why any such optimal means of cooperation is deemed - maybe in an a priori way - something good to begin with. In contrast, for one possible to conceive example, there is the the good(ness) to be aspired toward of a cosmically obtained absolute nonbeing - this as entertained by most, if not all, antinatalists - wherein the very process of cooperation is deemed to be a deficit of that which is good and, thereby, in this sense alone, an existential bad (for some measure of suffering will yet occur in such cooperation at least at times).

So what makes optimal cooperation, rather than absolute nonbeing, good? (as an aside, with a heads up that notions such as that of Nirvana entail being - this in contrast to the nonbeing longed for by the antinatalist)

Philosophically, the issue is not - or at least, is not foundationally - that of "what proposition specifies that which is in fact good" but, instead, "what universal attribute(s) constitute the very existential occurrence of good and bad (and, by extension when applied to psyches, the potential for evil)". Here circumscribing everything from a good piece of pie, to a good argument, to a good killing (from a vengeful murder's point of view just as much as from a hunter's or farmer's that kills for strict sustenance, etc.), to a good morality (such as the morality of female circumcision can be for some, but is not so deemed by most of the West - etc.) ... and everything else under the sun.

The later philosophical issue enquirers into something that cannot be empirically observed - but is instead presumed in empirical observations. And while i grant that not all philosophers are concerned with this issue, many are.

In sum, it so far seems to me that science and philosophy can only happily, satisfactorily, converge on the issue of morality only if both agree on what the meaning of "good" (regardless of the language in which it is expressed) can and does signify, and what it applies to in all its conceivably instantiations. (Again, including what Stalin deemed to be good for himself (and others) and what Mother Teresa deemed to be good for herself (and others) both here being individual instantiations of this very same meaning - of that which is good - as its meaning is here equally applicable to both). And this underlying issue of what I deem to be meta-ethics I find cannot be obtained via science but, instead, potentially only via philosophy.

This is intended for one and all:

*1. Panpsychism :
Though it sounds like something that sprang fully formed from the psychedelic culture, panpsychism has been around for a very long time. — Gnomon

Though my current conviction makes me partly dogmatic about the two being equivalent, I’m at the same time curious to discover how my understanding could be wrong – hence the question:

In what conceivable way is panpsychism not a reclothing (i.e., re-branding or re-veiling) of the quite ancient and, back then, basically ubiquitous notion of animism?

In other words, what can possibly be rationally different between panpsychism and animism as metaphysical understandings of reality?

----

As a reminder, to say that “everything is endowed with anima” is equivalent to saying that “everything is endowed with psyche” - first term being Latin and the second Greek, with both terms having the same underlying meaning.

And if animism needs to be made more palatable, the Stoic notion of an “anima mundi” is basic animism conceived of in stratified layers of efficacy in relation to the cosmos / whole.

Gould is one of my favorite writers. — T Clark

It's easy to understand why.

It's hard to believe he's been gone for more than 20 years. — T Clark

I don't mean to suggest that I knew him personally; I didn't; still: “Only the good die young,” comes to mind in thinking about him. (different ways to interpret this; but in this context I interpret it as “pass away while yet being young at heart”) Or so it seems to me, at least.

How people ever talked themselves into something as nonsensical as eliminativism, I'll never understand, but thankfully it's well on its way to the ash heap of history. — RogueAI

Yes. But in @apokrisis's poignantly expressed questioning:

Does that sentence even make sense? And from what point of view? — apokrisis

:razz:

OK. I'll bugger off now.

An entertaining read.

Well … We will someday hold that horizon in our hands, by gosh! We just need to run faster toward it, that’s all.

BTW, I am here officially making a bet with anyone who so wishes on a case of wine (need not be expensive) that no one will ever hold the horizon in their hands, like ever. Any takers? (As to time-frames, maybe its best to make it within our own lifetimes.)

-------

Obviously, this bet would apply only for those of us who are not horizon-eliminativists, and thereby for those of us who maintain that the horizon does in fact occur.

You had no argument you could make. — apokrisis

The posturing guru speaketh. Bravo!

Stephen J Gould wrote, "In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'" Does that agree with your position or disagree with it? — T Clark

It agrees quite well. BTW, I have fond memories of Gould's various takes on sociobiology - albeit with some disagreements in some of the details.

Going back to my previous comment including the example, even many (most?) of our empirical observations are inferences and not direct observations. That may have been less true in Pierce's time. — T Clark

I think you are here erroneously conflating, or maybe fully equating, science to physics. A category error.

Again, how much of what we know is a brute fact? — T Clark

This question is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the proposition it is in reply to. All the same, there is no metaphysics that is both consistent and does not utilize a brute fact. Matter for materialists, as one example of this.

One of these crucial, pivotal inferences is that others are like us in being endowed with this "first-person point of view". Our observations (not inferences) of what they do sure as hell evidence and validate that they are thus endowed. Nevertheless, we do not observe them as first-person points of view. — javra

Again - many of what you call "brute-facts," we do not observe from a first-person point of view. — T Clark

If I remember right, I've only called one's own conscious being a brute fact to one's own conscious self. What are you here referring to?

All the same - though I do have my reason for so calling one's own conscious being a brute fact - if possible, due to the complexities involved, I'll retract my so claiming it to be with a "my bad". While I hold that it's not explainable in terms of more fundamental facts, I very much know that it's occurrence and form is dependent on a physical substratum of body and (in animals) brain - together with environment. Hence, the complexities.

As I noted in my last post to Wayfarer, it is unlikely you and I will get any further with this discussion. I've participated in similar ones many times, I'm sure you have too, and it never goes any further than this. This is probably a good place to stop. — T Clark

Alright. Thanks for the heads up.

FWIW, I'm in agreement, as I hope is also evident from what I've said above.

Useful crib on scientific method: — Wayfarer

:up: Cool. Thanks

I can't follow your argument there. Science is the combination of theory and test, deductive prediction and inductive confirmation. — apokrisis

When so loosely understood, what then isn't?

Take metaphysics. It is inferred theory and it is tested against a rubric of reason, it has deductive predictions from postulates and inductive confirmations of these predictions. And, it must conform to the observable world to be taken in any way seriously.

So now metaphysics is a branch of science? Um, no, it is not. ... boring as this might be, again, because it is not empirically testable (to be lucidly clear, your metaphysics very much included), and this because it has no empirically falsifiable hypothesis to test.

I'll try to leave our disagreement at that.

A direct question: does the total self of mind and body which can be to whatever extent empirically observed by others which you (I would assume) deem yourself to be hold a first-person point of view which is now reading this text? — javra

Does that sentence even make sense? And from what point of view? — apokrisis

Good luck with that, apo. I'll for now just choose to believe yours is merely a stinginess of charity mixed with some degree of deception (be it self-deception or otherwise). But hell, I could be talking to a Chat GPT program after all. So who knows?

As I just wrote in my previous post to Wayfarer, most of what we know is not based on our own direct observations. — T Clark

Yes. In absolutely full agreement. (Ergo the importance of trust and the significance of betrayal (of trust), including that of willful deceptions.)

It is a commonplace of all philosophy, at least since Descartes, that all our observations are imperfect and might be anywhere from 99% right to 100% wrong. At the same time, if you and I are both people of good will and both interested in learning about how people think, you're reports of your experience of your mind are likely to be valid, if imperfect. — T Clark

OK to this. As a reminder, I'm a diehard fallibilist. But it equivocates between empirical observations (which, yes, could in principle could include hallucinations - hence being technically fallible) and inferences, with these being optimal conclusions drawn from that which is observed (and since no one is omniscient, everyone's inferences could be potentially mistaken at times - hence being technically fallible).

Now I maintain this too is a fallible observation (a rabit-hole of philosophy, kind of thing) but, pragmatically, something that we all immediately know as a brute fact that we cannot rationally - nor experientially - doubt: we are as that which apprehends observables (including our thoughts, with some of these being our conscious inferences). Long story short, this is a direct experiential awareness of our own occurrence (again, as, I'll for now say, "first-person observers") Here is made absolutely no claim as to what we, as such, in fact are - be it entities/substance, processes, both, or neither. It doesn't matter.

In contrast to this direct experience of what is, we have inferences we live by. One of these crucial, pivotal inferences is that others are like us in being endowed with this "first-person point of view". Our observations (not inferences) of what they do sure as hell evidence and validate that they are thus endowed. Nevertheless, we do not observe them as first-person points of view.

We, hence, cannot observe other's consciousness and its factual activities - such as, for one example, what the consciousness remembers via the workings of its total mind.

None of this needs to be appraised for day to day interactions. But we are philosophically debating this very point, so I've mentioned it.

I attribute memory; or thinking, or feeling, or seeing, or knowing; to people all the time just based on their self-reporting and other behavior I can observe. That's how we know the world. Mental processes are not special. — T Clark

I'll again propose and argue that his attribution is due to inference - much of it unconscious and hence automatic - and not due to (first-person) observation (which can only be direct - rather than, for example, hearsay). For instance:

Of course I can. Here I go. Watch me. Hey, Javra, what are you remembering right now? — T Clark

What if I answer "nothing" or "a pink dolphin" or something else and it happens to be a proposition that I'm fully aware doesn't conform to the reality of what my current recollections are. These examples are obvious, but then I could answer with a proposition that, thought false, would be easily believable by you - and one which you'd have no possible way of verifying: e.g., "I'm now remembering your last post before this one".

You can infer what I'm remembering - but you do not observe it. Hopefully that makes better sense?

I pointed out how it is failing the test in terms of being a generalisation that ought to contain supersymmetry as a particular feature. And in being thus currently tested, that makes it doubly a problem if you want to say it is currently untestable – the stronger claim that it can't even be tested in principle. — apokrisis

OK, to state what should be obvious to those science savvy, such as yourself, one does not - and cannot - empirically test a theory inferred from data via use of strict theory and still declare such test one of empirical science.

The historic complexities aside, the theory of evolution can, for instance, be empirically tested in the lab - with fruit flies as just one among many examples.

The physics theory of relativity only became empirical science when empirically tested, and it was thereby empirically found that gravity does in fact bend light.

One does not test a theoretical inference against another theoretical inference - regardless of what the latter might be, that of supersymmetry included (which has alternatives to boot) - and then declare this a scientific test. For there's nothing empirical about such a test.

Hence, there is no currently imaginable way to test M-theory empirically - although, with no one being omniscient, given a lack of dogma one can/should allow for the existential possibility that at some point in the distant future someone somewhere might figure out a way to empirically test it. Until then - if this "then" will ever occur - it is not a scientific theory exactly and solely on this count: it cannot be empirically tested one way or another other.

This potential confusion between theoretical abstractons that might or might not be valid (edit: which often enough compete against each other) and that which becomes empirically tested and thereby empirically verified is why I initially addressed in a tongue in cheek manner that "(purely) theoretical fartology" is not a valid scientific discipline.

Would Chat GPT make as many rookie errors? There are whole shelves on the social construction of the self that could be poured into its pattern-matching data bank. It would at least be familiar with the relevant social science. — apokrisis

A direct question: does the total self of mind and body which can be to whatever extent empirically observed by others which you (I would assume) deem yourself to be hold a first-person point of view which is now reading this text?

As to social constructions studied by social sciences, these will include comparative religions just as much as those relevant notions of self (and in fairness, of non-self). Leave cultural constructs aside for a moment and given an honest proposition regarding what factually is in therms of your consciousness: do you in any way occur as a first-person point of view that is now reading this text?

Is it an untested theory or the mathematical generalisation of tested theories? — apokrisis

I didn't say "currently untested". I said "currently untestable". A major difference for those science savy.

I find plenty of disagreement. But not much of importance. You articulate a cultural construct with a long social history. — apokrisis

Ah, I see. My occurrence as a first-person point of view is a "cultural construct with a long social history" - a proposition that thereby lacks a truthful correspondence to anything real, I then infer. Claims like this make one doubt one is talking to another human rather than some AI robot.

As for the rest, we all know that he who presents the most ostentatious posturing wins. Much like those chimp ancestors of ours. So, go for it.

I would define "mind" as the sum total of an entities mental processes which include thinking, feeling, perceiving, knowing, remembering, being aware, being self-aware, proprioception, and lots of stuff I'm leaving out. I think all of those things are observable from the outside (third person observation) and many are observable from the inside (introspection). — T Clark

So you're claiming that you (or anyone else) can observe what I'm remembering right now? I won't even push the issue by addressing those good or bad vibes of former days for which I currently can find no adequate words but, nevertheless, can still remember. I'm here simply addressing (maybe via use of brain scans) another's ability to observe that which I as a so called "mind's eye" can perceptually remember via the non-physiologial senses of one's mind (say, my perceiving the remembered smell of a particular rose).