How does "everything experiences" happen? A rock, a tree, a comatose person – what's the mechanism by which each of them "experiences" at all?Consciousness is subjective experience. That's all. Everything experiences it's own existence. — Patterner
Yes, but that "idea" doesn't define (or describe it in a way that discerns it from its negation / absence): according to you, what is consciousness?The idea is that there is no non-consciousness. — Patterner
These claims are demonstrably false.I am saying consciousness does not cease when one is in general anesthesia ... the functioning of the person's brain does not create consciousness. — Patterner
Define (non-sapient, non-sentient, non-mental) "consciousness" with an example that contrasts "consciousness" with non-consciousness.I do not equate consciousness with sapience or sentience — Patterner
What "makes us conscious" is the (rarified) arrangements of our constituent "particles" into generative cognitive systems embedded-enactive within eco-systems of other generative systems. Afaik, all extant evidence warrants that 'consciousness' is an emergent activity (or process) of complex biological systems and not a fundamental (quantum) property like charge, spin, etc. — 180 Proof
Agreed, and I stipulated it's a possibility.It doesn’t follow from this though, that there isn’t a purpose. — Punshhh
:up: :up:I can say that consciousness may be epistemically fundamental but not ontologically so. — Manuel
:cool:I once had a lucid dream where I inhabited a plant, briefly. It was like my consciousness, disembodied, was moving around a landscape. At one point, I moved into a plant and could feel being the shape of the plant and the energies coursing through the xylem tubes. There were intense colours across a spectrum, it was very thrilling. Then I moved out of the plant and across the landscape again and remember looking back at the plant and wanting to be that plant again. It was like I experienced what it was like to be a plant. — Punshhh
This seems to me a genetic fallacy, sir. Given the preponderance of evidence that "observers" (e.g. subjectivities) are chance emergents, it's doubtful that "meaning" (purpose) is anything other than a (semantic) property, or artifact, of "observers" and not, as you suggest, inherent in nature. After all, (e.g. entropy, evolution, autopoiesis) direction =/= purpose, intention, or goal. However, even if the universe does have a "meaning" (purpose), then, like the universe as a whole, such a "meaning" (purpose) is humanly unknowable (Nietzsche, Camus) – merelogical necessity: part(ipant)s in a whole cannot encompass (completely know à la Gödel(?)) that whole.In a world that gives rise to observers, meaning [may or]may not be an add-on. It may[or may not] have been that it is there all along, awaiting discovery. — Wayfarer
:up: :up:The problem is precisely that 'the equation' makes no provision for the act of observation.
— Wayfarer
In my understanding, interpretations of quantum mechanics, which do not make a provision for the act of observation are just as consistent with the mathematics and observations of behavior as those that do. — T Clark
Once again, this claim is false.Modernscience[illiteracy] tells us that our world has progressed from a dimensionless mathematical Singularity — Gnomon
Hasty generalization fallacy (re: "creation") derived from your poor physics (re: "beginning").Since our world had a beginning, it's hard to deny the concept of creation. — Gnomon
Appeal to ignorance (i.e. "infinite deity"-of-the-gaps) AND THEREFORE a non-explanatory infinite regress.So, an infinite deity is proposed ...
Yes, and that depends on what you mean by "understand". :fire:Have you ever engaged in an Ayahuasca retreat ... with others whowill understand[understood] what youare talking[talked] about? — Gnomon
:100:Scientific knowledge is a superior authority, because it's the only methodology that reaches "an intellectual consensus about controversial matters... [Armstrong] concludes that it is the scientific image of man, and not the philosophical or religious or artistic or moral vision of man, that is the best clue we have to the nature of man". — Relativist
↪Wayfarer It seems to me that everything that exists is an object, so I don't see an issue. — Relativist
No one here "debates" ... "God". It's just that many folks spout fallacious apologia of their preferred, effable woo (e.g. "God", "First Cause", "Intelligent Designer" ... "Programmer / Enformer", etc) which we must call-out as, at best, unwarranted (i.e. incoherent). Expressed doubt – critique – is not "debate"; besides, I've found that woo-of-the-gapsters (like you, Gnomon & ... e.g. @Wayfarer) are too chickensh*t to actually debate (about) their "God"-idea and would rather "waste time" preaching question-begging "mysteries" to us rather than defeasibly reasoning with us.If God is totally ineffable, why would we waste time debating on this effing forum? — Gnomon
As per Schopenhauer, how can any one/thing not always already be "a conduit for the will ..."?To become a conduit for the will of the divine. — Punshhh
I'd be surprised if it isn't more than 50% ....What percentage of Americans do you think are sincere God believers? — Tom Storm
I think "a conversation about God" presupposes some idea of the real which usually is neglected and remains vague (or confused).... a conversation about what counts as a coherent or useful idea of God. — Tom Storm
You might find my contrarian view useful – from a 2022 thread Question regarding panpsychism ...... what some thinkers call Panpsychism:
"Panpsychism is a philosophical theory that proposes consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality". — Gnomon
I suppose it's because we humans are more beasts than angels – human, all too human. Besides, the player never "deserves" the hand s/he's dealt ...Why do you think that humans cannot find peace? Why are they not wise enough to judge properly the situation, so everybody gets what they deserve? — MoK
:fire:I say it is healthy to be unhappy about injustice and misery and suffering even if one is not oneself so badly off. Don't mistake compassion for sickness. Do not go to your local doctor because a child is starving a thousand miles away. There is no pill that you can take that will nourish that child. — unenlightened
I suspect for some people doing philosophy causes or exacerbates (subclinical) 'depression', and so taking (short? long?) periodic breaks from philosophizing (i.e. reflective inquiry-practice) such as physically demanding hobbies (e.g. carpentry, fitness training, gardening, child/elder care, etc) might help ease the intensity (re: 'being depressed' is what persistent self-doubting feels like).Since I was diagnosed with depression, I wanted to get a philosophical approach to why people suffer from this mental state; and on the other hand, if there is another way to get through it apart from medical drugs. — javi2541997
I think Kant means responding to X "as an end-in-itself" (analogous to a moral subject), but I prefer your formulation.I tend to think of disinterested interest as untheorised interest, a term I've often used. Untheorised means responding to something without frameworks or training, intuitively for pleasure and, I guess with disinterest - if by this we mean minus theoretical investment. — Tom Storm
I think God-arguments in philosophy are "really" about what is the real.Arguments for or against God are really arguments about what counts as a valid claim to truth. — Tom Storm
Afaik, foundherentism works ...And here’s the thing: how can we ground our knowledge at all?
I never do.... should we even care what the average believer thinks?
:up: :up:I see it as a contingent product of culture and language. Most people arrive at faith through socialisation and the intersubjective agreements held by the community they grow up in. Faith is in the culture.
:up: :up:It doesn't seem to me there are that many philosophical questions. Or maybe it would be better to say that what appear to be many questions are all variations and/ or elaborations on a few basic questions ... The categories of philosophy seem to show the basic questions. — Janus
:fire:... some dislike science because they think it disenchants the world. Others like science because to them, on the contrary, understanding how things work makes the world more interesting and hence more not less enchanting.
For some it's (almost) a reflex or bias. In so far as "aesthetics" is inherently philosophical, whether or not one makes aesthetic choices "in philosophy" seems to presuppose (an unconscious) metaphilosophy ...I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice.
Do you think that aesthetics in philosophy is a thing? Should it be? — Moliere
Yes. I'm drawn to concise, clearly written, jargon-free texts on (suffering-based / agent-based) ethics and (naturalistic) ontology.Do you have a sense of your own taste?
They tend to focus on aporia which align with my own speculations or reflectively throw me into question.Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems?
I find 'essentializing' any form of bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, pedophilia, superstitions, academic quarrels, etc to be in "bad taste" and I tend to name and shame the culprit.Is there such a thing as bad taste in philosophy? If so, what should one do if we encounter bad taste?
As a rule, I don't 'essentialize' (i.e. reify the non-instantiated or un- contextualized) and avoid vague words or slogans as much as I can.Likewise, is there such a thing as good taste in philosophy such that it differs from "the opposite of bad"?
Well, they seem to work for me ...How do you feel about your own personal aesthetic choices?
Not consciously.Do you think about how to choose which philosopher to read?
To each his own. No.How do you think about others choosing different philosophers from you? Is that the sort of thing one you might be "more right about"?
:up: :up:I often say that belief in God (for instance) is more likely a preference for a particular type of meaning and value which attracts us, rather than the outcome of sustained reasoning. If reasoning is involved, it tends to be post hoc.
[ ... ] there is often a clear aesthetic preference for a world with foundational guarantees of beauty and certainty.
[ ... ] notions of intrinsic meaninglessness is ugly, stunted and base. And therefore, wrong. — Tom Storm
:cool: :up:The process of philosophy is more interesting to me than the results of philosophy ... Good questions and observations that force us to look at the world differently -- that's the best philosophy to me. — Moliere
:smirk: :up:Philosophy at this point for me is mostly about doing away with bad ideas, which is most of philosophy. — ChatteringMonkey
... is pseudoscience, thus for Einsteinian (as well as Everettian) physics the following still suffice:While lacking empirical predictions or quantitative rigor, [Waveframe cosmology] .... — Razorback kitten
Three-dimensional continuum.What is space?
Radiation.What is light?
Mass.What is matter?
An appeal to personal incredulity is just denialism (E. Becker), to wit:I can't accept it. [ ... ] None of it makes sense to me ... — Razorback kitten
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you ... The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
I.e. a distinction without a difference. Why bother? No testable predictions are derived from this "model" so it's not scienrific. No questions go unbegged either by your "god" so it's not coherently philosophical.I have constructed a non-anthro-morphic god-model ... a featureless abstraction (pure Potential), — Gnomon
And minds are governed – constrained – by laws of nature so that, in actuality, logic is also "a property of" nature. Nonhuman animals do not 'invent' transitive inferencing: they embody it (since their "minds" are embodied) in nature.Doing logic then seems to be a property of minds. — kindred
:up:Physicalism provides a very good reason to think we have similar "inner-lives": we have a similar physical construction. — Relativist
:fire: Outstanding clarity! – even woo-addled idealists like @Gnomon and @Wayfarer should be able to grasp this and (if they're intellectually honest) reconsider their 'disembodied mind' dogma.The success of physics, in particular, provides good reason to believe that the observable universe is natural and operates in strict accordance with laws of nature. The question remains: does it account for the mind? At the onset of the investigation, I expect that it should - because we're part of the universe, and there's no evidence of anything else existing that is nonphysical or exempt from laws of nature.
Physicalist theory proposes models that account for the functional and behavioral aspects of mind (beliefs,learning, dispositions, the will, perceptions, "mental" causation...). — Relativist
:up: :up:I am not sure that it is possible for time to end. That is partly because I am inclined towards a cyclical picture of the universe and see the idea of 'nothingness' before or after the existence of life in the universe as rather dubious. — Jack Cummins
This is so because "consciousness" (qualia, intention, feeling, or other folk-percepts), in contrast to observation, on occasion might be a consequence but is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition (or operational requirement) of "scientific theorizing". And given the absence of a testable explanatory model of "consciousness", your criticism is empty.[N]aturalism and physicalism ignore the foundational, disclosive role of consciousness at the basis of scientific theorising. — Wayfarer
Not a "question of philosophy" but a Delphic reminder of practical living that one needs to understand one's limitations (in order to avoid hubris)[T]he real question of philosophy is ‘know thyself’’ — Wayfarer
Hobbes' "whole story " is epistemic (re: he's (mostly) a scientific materialist as per his De Corpore (chap. 6)), not metaphysical; rejection of Cartesian dualism (or immaterialism) =/= "the whole story" but, instead, it is how Hobbes finds a part of "the story" that includes – constitutes-informs – its scientific reading.Cite a single non-idealist philosopher who says 'the material world is the whole story'.
— 180 Proof
Thomas Hobbes (d.1679) – Argued that all phenomena, including thought, are explicable in terms of matter in motion. Leviathan opens with: “The universe is corporeal; all that is real is body.” — Wayfarer
... as opposed to "governed by" (e.g.)Julien Offray de La Mettrie (d. 1751) – In L’Homme Machine, he argues that humans are essentially sophisticated machines, governed entirely by physical processes.
Again, an epistemic paradigm rather than an ontological deduction. All d'Holbach is saying, it seems to me, is that whatever else (e.g. im-material) might be going on, we do not observe anything other than this nomological state of affairs. For him it is not "the whole story" but simply, pragmatically, materialism (of the 18th century) was the only self-consistent and testable "story" worth telling at the time.Baron d’Holbach (d. 1789) – In The System of Nature, he writes: “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it... his ideas are the necessary effect of the impressions he receives.” That’s full-blown deterministic materialism.
Whether of not there are "spiritual phenomena" is irrelevant to Dr. Büchner who is NOT a metaphysical "the whole story" materialist but a scientific materialist.Ludwig Büchner (d.1899) – In Force and Matter, he argues that all spiritual phenomena are explicable through matter and force.
Invoking Occam's Razor, Smart's physicalism amounts to an explicit rejection of Cartesian dualism; for him physicalist explanations are not "the whole story" but suffice for understanding the physical world and its constituents such as functioning human brains. Btw, Smart's explicit metaphysics concerns perdurantism rather than ("reality is nothing but matter") materialism.J. J. C. Smart (d. 2012) – A champion of the mind-brain identity theory: mental states just are brain states.
Rejection of Cartesian dualism (or immaterialism) =/= "the whole story". Despite academic labels or publication titles, Armstrong is a physicalist-functionalist (and more broadly a scientific realist); in the context of his work on "mind", as I understand it, the use of "material" (re: materialism) is synonymous with embodied. AFAIK, Armstrong's "the whole story" metaphysics consists in 'only instantiated Platonic universals exist' (like e.g. laws of nature, embodied minds, truthmakers, etc).David Armstrong (d.2014) – Argued that mental states are physical states with a certain functional role.
Rejection of Cartesian dualism (or immaterialism) =/= "the whole story". Their eliminatism is an epistemology (i.e. scientific materialism), not a (nothing but matter) metaphysics.Paul Churchland (b. 1942) & Patricia Churchland (b. 1943) – Advocates of eliminative materialism, which holds that beliefs, desires, and intentions as ordinarily understood don’t really exist; they’re just folk-psychological illusions awaiting replacement by neuroscience.
A pragmatic form of the Churchlands' eliminativism – epistemic (i.e. scientific), not a (nothing but matter) metaphysics.Daniel Dennett (d. 2024) – A leading proponent of functionalist materialism, famously dismissive of qualia and any notion of non-physical mind. See: Consciousness Explained (1991).
Well, Wayf, the illusions (i.e. things not as they appear to be) do exist ... Read Rosenberg's book: it's a scientistic polemic (almost a parody) and not a well-argued thesis. :smirk:Alex Rosenberg (b. 1946) – Author of The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, where he asserts that physics is all there is, and that even meaning and morality are illusions.
But my thesis & blog treat Consciousness and Life as philosophical subjects, not scientific objects of study. — Gnomon
IME, philosophy that does not address (i.e. make explicit or clarify) how things are and instead (unsoundly) asserts how things might (or ought to) be "... explains nothing ... is cheap".... explains nothing. It opens up possibilities, but possibility is cheap. — Relativist
Such as the 'not real' (e.g. ideals, fictions, impossible worlds ...)transcend Reality — Gnomon
Who has ever claimed that it is? Cite a single non-idealist philosopher who says 'the material world is the whole story'.It’s not that the material world is unreal—it’s that it cannot be the whole story. — Wayfarer
:fire:What lies behind the traditional philosophical denial of common sense would seem to be the assumption that this world, not being perfect, cannot be the true world. The human desire for a transcendent reality, as opposed to this "mere shadow world" [ ... ] — Janus
