To 'imagine' doesn't require 100% match of another's experience. — Tom Storm

Are we really imagining someone else's experience or just remembering our own experience?

When I was involved in the care of my seriously disabled brother with Multiple sclerosis I never knew what his experiences might be like such a creeping paralysis, vision loss, pressure sores and so on.

I just had to ask him what he wanted done to make him comfortable. With caring work they suggest you don't assume you know what the person wants but just listen to their experiences and requests.

I feel that people's imagination can be wrong and they impose a false representation onto someone else. It could be they diminish or exaggerate someone's experiences.

I suppose my hypothesis would be is that "we will never be able to fully define memory or map it onto a single brain region"

Or:

"All mental states have a subjective aspect and Qualia (experiential feel)"

Empathy is a controversial issue because it usually involves the alleged ability to imagine someone else's experiences.
I think this may be possible in a few cases but:

Can you imagine having HIV or Cancer if you don't have them? Can you imagine being a serial killer? Can you imagine being the opposite sex? Being (pregnant/menstruating). Being gay/straight/bi?

There is just a huge range of potential states and situations to empathise with. Are we succeeding to create a decent society based on empathy or are we actually committing serious failings?

One issue that arises in the study of memory os the wide variety of types of memory.

Muscle memory is considered part of playing the piano or riding a bike. Where you remember how to position your body (also including general proprioception) So this may involve the brain's motor cortex.

Episodic memory is something like remembering when you took your driving test.

Flashbulb memory is like a vivid memory such as of 9/11. where you were and so on.

Semantic memory can include memory of general knowledge and the lexicon.

So these things may all involve different parts of the brain. But when you explore your own idea of memories some memories are combinatorial or vague and constructed (like false memories)

This may be where phenomenology (detailed phenomena analysis) may come in.

So take 9/11, I had been to the dentists. I was in the UK. It was in New York. I was asleep. I woke in the evening. It was September. It was a warm day. I was very upset. And so on. This memory has various components.

Is this all just some series of neurons firing in the brain? Is it an accurate memory? Also how am I transmitting all this information by symbols on a screen.

I don't see this as a problem. The act of seeing other people as people requires we make a metaphorical connection with them. We intuitively, empathetically recognize they experience the world in ways very similar to the way we do. — T Clark

I had a late diagnosis of autism and that is a condition it seems where people see and experience the world differently to other people.

Initially they claimed it was a deficit of empathy in autistic people but now a better theory is that neurotypical and autistic people are having different experiences and it is a failure of communication.

I don't know if feeling comfortable around other people means you are sharing experiences. I am not convinced it overcomes a barrier in true knowledge of someone else's subjective life.

I also come from a strict religious background. People in this kind of religious situation create an environment that is closed of and only people growing up in it can empathise with the experience. That has probably been a personal problem for me not growing up "normally" so to speak and not sharing common experinces.

I think familiar experiences can be created in this kind of culturally closed of self enforcing way and emotional bonds created.

But my issue is with theoretically explaining psychological states. Because it may well be true we have a certain of understanding people like us in our culture but I wouldn't class it as scientific knowledge.

objectively better — TiredThinker

I think the term objectively better is problematic.

I don't think values can objectified. And I don't think you can get an "ought" from an "is".

I think the problem with values is that they may require telelology (or inherent purpose).

For example there is an objective way in which a heart functions maximally or a car engine. These things have a clear purpose that can be maximised and can objectively fail.

But personal goals are subjective and self generated so they can only be judged by the individual in my opinion.

People do things that harm themselves for other goals that may benefit others. or they might just be depressed and have no preferences.

I think the suffering and fear involved in dying is bad.

If the death process was truly painless you would think believers would commit suicide to reach heaven as soon as possible. I think the concept of heaven raises the issue of what we are here now for.

I think the possibility of a better afterlife may make dying easier as a process.

Some people (pro assisted suicide people) already believe having a painless premature death is preferrable then any kind of suffering prior to dying. I also don't see value in suffering.

I think dying with no after life or heaven is better than dying and things being worst which people who belive in hell hold.

To me death does raise questions about the value and meaning of life.

The mind-body problem could be renamed the mind-science problem. We are very familiar with our minds and bodies but science is best at explaining the body. Science is stuck on how to account for mind within its current paradigm.

Our naive concepts of physics are more folk than folk psychology. We feel that we know a lot about the external world through experience prior to science. But scientific discoveries have revealed a hidden physical world like cells and DNA and sub atomic particles not perceived through naive perception.

I think Ryle was trying to reduce or dilute mind to naive physical behaviours not to particle physics which is a bit ridiculous when you think about.

He puts a lot of emphasis on observing behaviours as some how replacing the need to access a mind. But observation requires a mind (which is unexplained) and behaviour requires interpretation (which is unexplained and takes place in a mind)

I think people often take for granted how much information is transmitted in language (which is symbolic) and that far less is transmitted via observation. Science is communicated by language and symbols.

That is not to say observation isn't a rich source of information. But I think we mistakenly think of science as shoring up our naive "physical" perceptions and undermining our hidden mental states.

Maybe Science itself is stuck in this paradigm (naive realism?).

The surprising fact is that all we have access to is mind. We cannot know what anything is like independent of mind.
Things you think are physical must be mental entities because they are within your consciousness.

Really strong sensations such as pain are only in the mind because it doesn't make sense for pain to exist outside of mind? What form would pain outside the mind take?

When you are deeply unconscious like I have been you are not aware of anything. Even the smallest most inconsequential seeming entity must be accessed by a mind.

The Physics picture of matter is apparently largely empty space, fields and mathematical entities.

Ryle points out that the foreigner's puzzle arose from his inability to understand how to use the concept of 'the University' — Andrew M

But Ryle is creating a straw man because no one thinks like that.


In the UK we have The Open University where you study from home.

I think most people understand that a University is more than just a collection of buildings and that it is not just one building but a learning institution with a wide reach.
It is not synonymous with the problem of squaring mental states with brain states and physicality with non physicality.

It is like Ryle is pulling the wool over peoples eyes to convince them that consciousness is somewhere among all the physical things we are acquainted with if we look at them in a different way. But it isn't.

rational moral decision about abortion, assisted suicide, gender reassignment or even equal marriage, we always have to deal with people who present as rational - except in their moral belief — Vera Mont

As Judged by whom?

Is it irrational to oppose all of the above?

Does anyone have an alternate criterion for what is morally normative that they prefer? — Mark S

I think morality as we now think about it has religious connotations and is about moral ought's and things we should do to be a good person or get into heaven or have good karma

Without teleology(objective purposes/meaning|) or inbuilt moral rules then peoples goals are subjective and personal preferences. I don't think you can objectify personal preferences and claim your goals or values are superior to some one else's.

I think the idea rationality is also a value judgement and teleological. It implies that we ought to think in a certain way and draw certain conclusions. Such if I don't like the cold I should wear a jumper.

I don't think facts about the world or reality have the power to compel us to act.

I think quibbling about definitions takes up a lot of philosophy. I think somethings existence does not rely in any way on how it is defined and it either exists or it doesn't.

If we are debating whether something exists there should be really good grounds to doubt its existence in my opinion.

The problem with mental states is that they are private and subjective so there seems to be no public objective way to analyse them.

I didn't realise consciousness was a thing until I was in my early twenties. I can't remembering anyone using the term consciousness throughout my childhood.

It is hard to think about something without a vocabulary or without a discourse being started. It doesn't mean I wasn't consciousness before I had the terminology. In a way science and philosophical investigation and language discovers what is already there (as opposed to limiting what can exist)

Gilbert Ryle taught Daniel Dennett and they both seem to be consciousness deniers which is a time wasting position.

I think Descartes was right that the only thing we can't doubt is that we exist (and that is based on us being conscious of our self.)

The external world is only a perception that we try and explore we cannot get behind perception and minds to some kind of perception free pure access to reality so everything we are exploring is some form of conscious state.
I think this favours idealism and solipsism but consciousness denial is the least plausible of all theories.

In his book "The Concept of mind" Ryle is very annoying and tiresome in his attempt to reframe of redefine words we use to describe mental states. Mental states are the only thing we have immediate infallible access to because we are directly a mental states all the time and they are private and subjective and immediate.

First one its the Unconscious Self (Unconscious Self awareness — Nickolasgaspar

Can you cite a paper on this. It seems contradictory. Awareness is opposed to the unconscious.

The only way I can understand it is to say that there are distinct objects in the world that seek to or manage to preserve boundary integrity.

I would say that all objects are selves in the sense of possessing a coherent unified identity that can be preserved. But in the more trivial sense I highlighted in my previous post where something inhabits the same place so it can continue to be coherently identified.

A fragmentary self in a human would seem to be a failure of memory where one experiences being confused about who and where they are at a given time. In this state bodily unity is not a accompanied by mental or cognitive unity. But I think the subjective self is more what we refer to as self over our physical attributes. But our physical attributes may form part of our self identity.

I think that there is a fundamental problem in defining something like the self in that it is not clear what it refers to and it seems to be down to the individual to decide.

I think in a fairly trivial way the self could just refer to the human body because the things described as a self constantly co-occur with the body.

For example when I say I am going to the shop. I am saying I am taking my body to the shops and you would expect to find me as a body/organism at the shops.

If I say "I am thinking of chocolate or I am having an identity crisis or I am conscious", you wouldn't think that that these things were occurring in a different location to the body.

A question then seems to be whether the self can ever be independent of the body such as in a reincarnation scenario. We want to persist through time as a coherent whole.

Another question for me is how awareness arises so one becomes to be aware of possessing a particular body at this time in history. In this sense our consciousness has a component where it is focused at one locus which is currently a particular body from which we experience a reality.

I think how we come to be aware of a particular body is a fundamental question and I think the self issue is more about inhabiting a particular body and consciousness than a selection of traits and preferences.

I don’t think it’s “immaterial”, — Jamal

It is immaterial in the sense it is not correlated with anything physical and in the sense it is not objectively visible or in a one to one relationship with any particular brain state.

Other peoples perception of us is arguably a combination of how they perceive us and our physical attributes.

Our own perception of our self could include many things such as our perception of our body
(proprioception/ haptic and internal and external sensation of our body)

Our perception of our beliefs, emotions and thoughts. Our feelings about ourselves/identity/values self esteem. Preferences/likes and dislikes. Hopes aspirations.

What seem important is to have a unified locus of perception/awareness that keeps us aware of a continuity between all these internal things and unifies our incoming data from the external world.

I think that if humans died out and all that was left was our artefacts then our artefacts would be evidence of us and the explanation of their origin would involve our design capacities and mental states.

It is not clear what conclusions you could draw from humans just by analysing the mechanisms of their artefacts.

To me it is a choice to try and explain everything without a creator and that would be wrong in analysing human artefacts.

I don't see why we have to try and explain reality as if it only consisted of insentient atoms bang together. To me that is an arbitrary choice that ignores other phenomena that exists like our mental states, consciousness, symbols language and so on.

It does not follow from the fact of the heart having a function that it was purposely designed to have that function. As far as we know the heart and its functions evolved. — Janus

But it has a specific function and serves an essential purpose just as much as a pen does if not more so.

As I say I still think the no design position is equally as speculative as the design position and also unfalsifiable.

In relation to the thread topic and as I said earlier. if humans are intelligent designers who were not designed then the same could apply to other intelligent designers avoiding an infinite regress. The benefit of an intelligent designer is that they can explain their creation and explain functions.

For something that is not designed the human body succumbs well to a functional analysis.

I don't think the onus is on the design advocate to find a designer the onus is on someone to explain reality without reference to a designer if that's what they think is the case.

I feel like people want us to take a certain attitude to reality when it is an open question.

Also the recent explosion of human technology in a short period shows that what is said to take millions of years to evolve can be created in a few years with intelligence.

We know human technological artifacts are designed for specific purposes; — Janus

That is not true though.

A computer has numerous purposes and not one specific purpose and apparently unlimited potential. A pen can be used to sign a check, write a novel or draw a picture or to scratch an itch.

There are many multi purpose artefacts that can be used in different ways in the future.

The only point that matters to me is that humans are intelligent sentient designers so that paradigm is possible.

Biology is very teleological in its need to describe what every mechanism in an organism does and how it contributes to survival.

The no design position to me is more of an interpretation than anything falsifiable. We know the heart has a function because when it fails you get very sick or die.

Word salad — 180 Proof

No it's not.

This statement is not true unless, — 180 Proof

I am referring to intelligent design by humans which is intelligent design.

Whether the whole or reality is intelligent designed is another issue. But there is evidence of intelligent design. Which increases the likelihood of intelligent design elsewhere.

Humans have got to the stage where we are genetically modifying species, cloning species and creating artificial reality. It is making a theory of intelligent design or even the brain in a vat more plausible every day,

The White swan is not evidence of the Black swan but it makes the existence of black swans unproblematic but as I say Europeans didn't see it that why.

I don't see why humans assessment of nature and physics should be the final measure of what exists.

The fundamental difference is that humans exist and, as far as humans know, a "creator deity" does not exist. — 180 Proof

It is not really a fundamental difference. What we do know is that intelligent design exists and that is all that matters to allow intelligent design. Now you seem to be saying something doesn't exist if humans can't perceive it.

Well, take the example of Black swans. Black swans were viewed by Europeans as the the paradigm of implausibility because every swan they found was white.

But really the existence of swans makes it possible swans of any colour could exist.

The lack of evidence of black swans appeared to make them implausible but it was a limitation in European humans current perceptual scope.

So because we know intelligent designers exist that itself cannot be ruled out and the issue then becomes one of faith.

Is there intelligent design elsewhere?

People who are adamant there isn't God believe there must be life on other planets and use the existence of life here to take that stance and are quite adamant. But apparently we can't stretch human capacities like intelligence and consciousness in the same way but must reduce everything else to brute insensate mechanism.

PS do you only make short posts? If so why?

If a creator does not need a creator then [it]there is no infinite regress of creators[/i].

The believer in a creator does not need to say where the creator came from.

If you believe humans can create things but are uncreated then the same can apply for a hypothetical creator deity.

Surely strawberries only consist of atoms?

or maybe there is some other unknown component of strawberries that gives them their juicy red succulent strawberry qualia...

So you don't deny that computers are intelligently designed then?

Here is the logic:

God created the universe therefore God must have a creator.

Hence.

Humans created the piano therefore humans must have a creator.

I live in a house, in a city. I am typing this on a smart phone. So yes. I see intelligent design all around me all the time.

Are you denying the existence of intelligent design?

Do you believe my phone created itself from a primeval soup?

No.

People ask where is the evidence for design. Well it is all around us. Humans have designed/created/invented millions of artifacts including the computers we are now using.

Humans are proof that intelligent design is a possibility and it is weird that at this time in history of the greatest human ingenuity we are denying design.

The reason we can imagine intelligent, rational etc designers is because it is an ability we exhibit. And yes when we ask who invented the car we don't go on to ask who invented the person that invented the car.

So it is not just a causal question of what caused the thing that caused the thing it involves intelligence and volition and consciousness etc.

So I don't think looking for design and creation in reality is a stupid or defunct question.

There is also the question of why reality should be subject to human reason and why we should have the capacity to understand it.

I would like to hear the explanation of how a strawberry emerges from atoms.

I think people conflate emergence with dispositions.

I have the the disposition to be angry but not all the time and only under certain circumstances.

In order to be angry I have to have that disposition available.

Something cannot emerge without a preexisting disposition in nature.

The only way consciousness could come to exist is if reality had it as a disposition. The only way anything could emerge would be through preexisting dispositions or possibilities.

I am mainly concerned with the question of whether someone's descendant can inherit guilt. It is a common theme in religion with the original sin and in the Notion of Karma.

I was bought up being told that I was inherently sinful and deserving of hell. And there is the doctrine of total depravity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity

But it doesn't necessarily make sense.

But some times the continued presence of malicious human behaviour through history can make you support a notion of original sin. Are we born with innate antisocial traits?

There are so many clear cut cases where it's practically undeniable the U.S. government owes people compensation. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc — Tzeentch

Is any case clear cut?

Do you think throwing money at the aforementioned countries will benefit them.

Those three cases you mentioned are controversial. So I don't know why you believe them to be clear cut. Iraq was a dictatorship where Sadam invaded his neighbours Kuwait and Iran and gassed the Kurds.
Afghanistan had an ongoing civil war and the Taliban were in control harbouring al qaeda and oppressing all the women and most of the other people.

North Vietnam illegally invaded South Vietnam to impose communism.

When you say the USA owes compensation do you mean everyone who lives in the USA? The Tax payer? Future tax payers and their descendants?

Taking wealth of people would be penalising them so we would need to target the right people.

Furthermore, do you believe moral logic trumps scientific logic as motivator of the fight against evil? — ucarr

I don't know what moral logic is. And I don't know if all ideology has a moral component.

Camus seems to just be highlighting that what motivates people is meaning rather than facts. If your meaning leads to self sacrifice it might be undesirable. However life seems to be built on sacrifices.

I am somewhat nihilistic, personally, without an ideology.

I think that death is inevitable and how you approach it may differ. A hedonist might want to make life as enjoyable as possible until its last moment regardless of morality. A transhumanist wants to extend life as long as possible
. Someone who believes in an afterlife may want to live a good life to ensure an afterlife reward or may be willing to suffer under the the belief the afterlife will be better.

Science could be used to enhance life but it has also been seen as robbing life of meaning and turning us into automatons to be manipulated. Or uncovering a lack of freewill.

In the end this is all going to be filtered through personal consciousness which I think leaves us with an existential dilemma concerning meaning making.

...people will sacrifice their life for an ideology.
— Andrew4Handel

Do you think this is a good thing? — ucarr

Why does my opinion matter? I am citing Camus on the power of ideology to motivate versus science.


I think evil is something that makes life hard to live and fighting against evil or harm may be worth sacrificing ones life. It is painful to live with injustice and flagrant greed.

Philosophy at its core, one might argue, concerns wisdom about living the good life. If suicide per Camus is the philosophical problem, then his character bore the stamp of deepest skepticism. — ucarr

Camus in Myth of Sisyphus says that few people will die for the sake a scientific truth but people will die because they judge life to not be worth living. And people will sacrifice their life for an ideology.

You didn't cite any of the article.

It is very long.

The mystery is when the emergent property is not predictable or when the concept of emergence is applied with no causal explanation attempted.

If I rubbed two sticks together and consciousness emerged that would be an emergent property but it would also be magic and inexplicable like neurons firing creating consciousness.

From the article:" Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of a high-level system upon its components; qualities produced this way are irreducible to the system's constituent parts"

Also from the article:

"Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? "

Emergence is a mystery rather than an explanation.

Why should A emerge from B?

↪Andrew4Handel If you want my opinion, a person shouldn't be punished for a crime they didn't commit. — Tzeentch

But should they benefit from a crime someone else committed?

Cut race out and most Americans have been disadvantaged on the same basis. — BC

Privilege is advantage and who you're parents are determines what advantages you inherit especially inheriting money.

It does seem to be a minority of society that are the main exploiters and people who accumulate wealth but the rest of society can help enable this and have trickle down benefits. It is an ongoing struggle.

I live In Bristol England that benefitted extensively from slavery being a prominent slave trading port.
They only got rid of the prominent statue of Edward Colston a slave owner during the pandemic and BLM protests following George Floyds murder.

I grew up seeing the statue regularly and it was seen as unproblematic and I being mixed race didn't respond negatively to it. The poor in Bristol also benefitted from Colston's wealth to some extent as he was a major benefactor to the city.

But the persistence of the staute to me indicates a failure to come to terms with the ethical ramifications and implications of the cities history. This was a relatively very recent event. The city can be smug now despite entrenched inequality.