• Consciousness is Fundamental
    Consciousness is subjective experience. That's all. Everything experiences it's own existence.Patterner
    How does "everything experiences" happen? A rock, a tree, a comatose person – what's the mechanism by which each of them "experiences" at all?

    Also, if "the brain" doesn't produce "consciousness", as you say, Patterner, then what accounts for (e.g.) every amputee's phenomenon of phanthom pain?
  • On Purpose
    'To be, is to compute'.Wayfarer
    Well, "to compute" ain't intention ...
  • Consciousness is Fundamental
    The idea is that there is no non-consciousness.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?
  • Consciousness is Fundamental
    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
    These claims are demonstrably false.

    :up:

    I do not equate consciousness with sapience or sentiencePatterner
    Define (non-sapient, non-sentient, non-mental) "consciousness" with an example that contrasts "consciousness" with non-consciousness.

    Fwiw ...
    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

    :up: :up:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    both [non-immanent] and immanentGnomon
    i.e. Y = "not-X + X" :eyes: :roll:

    I've never experienced the indwelling presence of God.Gnomon
    Fwiw, we have this in common (although I do (often) feel – embody – what Schopenhauer calls "der Wille"). :smirk:
  • On Purpose
    It doesn’t follow from this though, that there isn’t a purpose.Punshhh
    Agreed, and I stipulated it's a possibility.
  • Consciousness is Fundamental
    I can say that consciousness may be epistemically fundamental but not ontologically so.Manuel
    :up: :up:

    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
    :cool:
  • On Purpose
    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
    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.

    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
    :up: :up:

    Modern science[illiteracy] tells us that our world has progressed from a dimensionless mathematical SingularityGnomon
    Once again, this claim is false.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Since our world had a beginning, it's hard to deny the concept of creation.Gnomon
    Hasty generalization fallacy (re: "creation") derived from your poor physics (re: "beginning").

    So, an infinite deity is proposed ...
    Appeal to ignorance (i.e. "infinite deity"-of-the-gaps) AND THEREFORE a non-explanatory infinite regress.

    Have you ever engaged in an Ayahuasca retreat ... with others who will understand[understood] what you are talking[talked] about?Gnomon
    Yes, and that depends on what you mean by "understand". :fire:
  • Limits of Philosophy: Ideology

    I.e. common sense (socialization aka "ideology") can be corrected, or coarse-grained, by science (observations + experiments) that in turn, through reflection (critique / dialectics), can be corrected, or biases exposed, by philosophy. "And so on and so on ..." :smirk:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    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
    :100:
    ↪Wayfarer It seems to me that everything that exists is an object, so I don't see an issue.Relativist

    :up:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    If God is totally ineffable, why would we waste time debating on this effing forum?Gnomon
    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.
  • From morality to equality
    Too many non sequitors ...

    Besides, as @Leontiskos points out, the burden of proof is on you – answer my question:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/999752
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    To become a conduit for the will of the divine.Punshhh
    As per Schopenhauer, how can any one/thing not always already be "a conduit for the will ..."?
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    What percentage of Americans do you think are sincere God believers?Tom Storm
    I'd be surprised if it isn't more than 50% ....
  • From morality to equality
    You made the statement so you should answer for it: why "the goal should be equality for humans"?
  • From morality to equality
    The goal should be equality for humans.MoK
    Why?
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    ... a conversation about what counts as a coherent or useful idea of God.Tom Storm
    I think "a conversation about God" presupposes some idea of the real which usually is neglected and remains vague (or confused).

    ... what some thinkers call Panpsychism:

    "Panpsychism is a philosophical theory that proposes consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality".
    Gnomon
    You might find my contrarian view useful – from a 2022 thread Question regarding panpsychism ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/891939
  • What are the philosophical perspectives on depression?
    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
    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 ...
  • What are the philosophical perspectives on depression?
    "You're on Earth. There's no cure for that."
    ~Samuel Beckett, Endgame

    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
    :fire:
  • What are the philosophical perspectives on depression?
    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 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).
  • A Matter of Taste
    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 Kant means responding to X "as an end-in-itself" (analogous to a moral subject), but I prefer your formulation.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Arguments for or against God are really arguments about what counts as a valid claim to truth.Tom Storm
    I think God-arguments in philosophy are "really" about what is the real.

    And here’s the thing: how can we ground our knowledge at all?
    Afaik, foundherentism works ...

    ... should we even care what the average believer thinks?
    I never do.

    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:
  • A Matter of Taste
    Philosophers only like truth.Fire Ologist
    I only like philosophies of the real.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Clearly, either you didn't read / comprehend my last post (esp. the video clip) or it's just your fatuous disingenuousness wantonly on display again, sir :eyes:

    Try again: read slowly (without moving your lips) ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/998557

    Either Laozi's Dao or Democritus-Epicurus' Void seem to me more cogent concepts of 'fundamental power to be(come)' than the Scholastics' (generic) "ground of being" insofar as they make explicit the dynamics (dialectics) of seeking balance / moderation in daily life. Also, the Hindi concept of Brahman and school of Advaita Vedanta ("Tat Tvam Asi") as a nondualistic way of life seems far less abstract and remote (i.e. non-immanent) than "ground of being".
  • A Matter of Taste
    ... a desire to shape my own life through inquiry.J
    Yes :up:
  • A Matter of Taste
    :100:

    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
    :up: :up:

    ... 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.
    :fire:

    I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice.

    Do you think that aesthetics in philosophy is a thing? Should it be?
    Moliere
    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 ...

    Do you have a sense of your own taste?
    Yes. I'm drawn to concise, clearly written, jargon-free texts on (suffering-based / agent-based) ethics and (naturalistic) ontology.

    Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems?
    They tend to focus on aporia which align with my own speculations or reflectively throw me into question.

    Is there such a thing as bad taste in philosophy? If so, what should one do if we encounter bad taste?
    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.

    Likewise, is there such a thing as good taste in philosophy such that it differs from "the opposite of bad"?
    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.

    How do you feel about your own personal aesthetic choices?
    Well, they seem to work for me ...

    Do you think about how to choose which philosopher to read?
    Not consciously.

    How do you think about others choosing different philosophers from you? Is that the sort of thing one you might be "more right about"?
    To each his own. No.

    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
    :up: :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
    :cool: :up:

    Philosophy at this point for me is mostly about doing away with bad ideas, which is most of philosophy.ChatteringMonkey
    :smirk: :up:
  • Waveframe cosmology ToE
    While lacking empirical predictions or quantitative rigor, [Waveframe cosmology] ....Razorback kitten
    ... is pseudoscience, thus for Einsteinian (as well as Everettian) physics the following still suffice:
    What is space?
    Three-dimensional continuum.
    What is light?
    Radiation.
    What is matter?
    Mass.

    I can't accept it. [ ... ] None of it makes sense to me ...Razorback kitten
    An appeal to personal incredulity is just denialism (E. Becker), to wit:
    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
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    I have constructed a non-anthro-morphic god-model ...  a featureless abstraction (pure Potential),Gnomon
    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.

    Rather an ontological hybrid of Epicurus' void and Spinoza's substance, I think, is consistent with modern physics speculation e.g. Penrose's conformal cyclical cosmology (that accounts for "before the big bang" and eliminates "eternal inflation") or Hartle-Hawking's No Boundary hypothesis (that eliminates "the big bang singularity") – though the jury is still out, the "origin" of the universe is explanable, if only in principle, by the non-transcendent, self-organizing of nature itself without any ad hoc, transcendent "pure Potential"-of-the-gaps (i.e. "Meta-Physical" appeal to scientific ignorance). From Laozi to Spinoza to modern fundamental physics, the more parsimonious speculation is nature alone – sans Aristotlean/Whiteheadian 'teleology' – suffices.

    :point: Bad philosophy –> bad science –> woo :sparkle:
  • Where does logic come from? Some thoughts
    Doing logic then seems to be a property of minds.kindred
    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.
  • Where does logic come from? Some thoughts
    Anyway, I'll go on: my point – maybe not quite the OP's – is not that "logic is inherent in existence" but, parsimoniously, that logic is existence (i.e. 'universes' themselves are logico-computable processes ...) about / from which we (can) derive abbreviated syntaxes & formulae ...180 Proof
    Consider this empirical support for transitive inference by nonhuman animals:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635708000818]



    @tom111 @Banno @Wayfarer @T Clark @kindred
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Physicalism provides a very good reason to think we have similar "inner-lives": we have a similar physical construction.Relativist
    :up:

    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
    :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.
  • How Will Time End?
    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
    :up: :up:
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    [N]aturalism and physicalism ignore the foundational, disclosive role of consciousness at the basis of scientific theorising.Wayfarer
    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.

    [T]he real question of philosophy is ‘know thyself’’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)

    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
    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.

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/#4

    Julien Offray de La Mettrie (d. 1751) – In L’Homme Machine, he argues that humans are essentially sophisticated machines, governed entirely by physical processes.
    ... as opposed to "governed by" (e.g.)
    :sparkle: astrological forces :pray: ... Rejection of Cartesian dualism (or immaterialism) =/= "the whole story".

    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.
    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.

    Ludwig Büchner (d.1899) – In Force and Matter, he argues that all spiritual phenomena are explicable through matter and force.
    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.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_B%C3%BCchner

    more context:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy

    J. J. C. Smart (d. 2012) – A champion of the mind-brain identity theory: mental states just are brain states.
    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.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdurantism

    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". 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).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Malet_Armstrong#Philosophy

    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.
    Rejection of Cartesian dualism (or immaterialism) =/= "the whole story". Their eliminatism is an epistemology (i.e. scientific materialism), 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).
    A pragmatic form of the Churchlands' eliminativism – epistemic (i.e. scientific), not a (nothing but matter) metaphysics.

    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.
    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:

    But my thesis & blog treat Consciousness and Life as philosophical subjects, not scientific objects of study.Gnomon
    ... explains nothing. It opens up possibilities, but possibility is cheap. — Relativist
    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".
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    transcend RealityGnomon
    Such as the 'not real' (e.g. ideals, fictions, impossible worlds ...)

    It’s not that the material world is unreal—it’s that it cannot be the whole story.Wayfarer
    Who has ever claimed that it is? Cite a single non-idealist philosopher who says 'the material world is the whole story'.

    Besides, IME it tells us inhabitants of the material world more of "the whole story" than tales about any 'immaterial world'. :sparkle: :eyes:
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    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
    :fire: