Clearly, being a "successful biological organism" is rather devoid of meaning. — praxis

How so? Wouldnt it be dependent on how one defined, "successful" or what entails "success"?

Well first you try voting for the ones that agree with you — unenlightened

Which is what I said earlier:

If you don't like how they handled the budget, vote for someone else next election. — Harry Hindu

and if that doesn't work, you start a revolution. — unenlightened

Good luck. One man's revolutionary is another man's terrorist.

Well all I am suggesting is that politicians be subject to the same kind of legal restrictions as every other citizen in every other kind of job. — unenlightened

And how do you subject politicians to legal restrictions when it is the politicians that define the legal restrictions?

Everything wills, but not everything is willed.

It may sound confusing, but it is as simple as going with the flow.
In part, some things are strongly willed and steered.
But on the whole, things go with the flow - willingly, but not willed. — Shamshir

Are you saying all behaviors are instinctual, and that free will is an illusion and really just another instinctual response to our perceptions?

What is the relevant difference between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of rocks, such that you attribute consciousness to the former but not the latter? — bert1

The behavior of a rock differs not so slightly from the behavior of a person. I understand that every object is subject to physical laws, but surely you see a difference between a ball bouncing off a wall and a person throwing a ball. — Hanover

You and others aren't getting anywhere because "consciousness" hasn't been clearly defined. Do rocks and balls have memories that they can recall? Can rocks and balls form categories (concepts) of "humans", "rocks" and "balls" in their consciousness? Are rocks and balls self-aware? If we were to design a humanoid robot that behaves and responds like another human, would that robot be conscious?

In the kinds of animistic worldviews found in hunter/ gatherer cultures humans are not the focus of creation. That idea came later, most notably with the Abrahamic religions, and most especially Christianity. — Janus

Around and around we go.

Animism is the religious belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. — Wikipedia

Again I ask, what is "spiritual"? How is this any different than the Christian belief that God is everywhere and in everything? How is it not an anthropomorphic projection of one's mind onto the universe? How is that not

You are projecting to the general what applies only to the particular: what applies to you — Janus

?

Your view is too simplistic. What is lost in worldviews dominated by reductionist thinking is the sense of the sacred. Of course, religions themselves often reinforce this loss, and one way they may do this is by claiming certain places, objects, events or people as sacred in contrast to the rest as being ordinary, mechanical, fallen and so on. The sense that life itself, the universe and everything in it is sacred, divine, is both the result and expression of the meaning that is always and everywhere immanent . — Janus

Sure. Occams razor and I'm not using these poorly defined and loaded terms, like "spirituality", "sacred" and "divine". I asked for "spirituality" to be defined earlier and you and Wayfarer ignored it and instead engaged in using even more of these terms in your post. I'll glady take my simplistic view over some poorly defined view.

A view like this is probably closest to the kinds of animism that suffused the lives of hunter/ gatherers. — Janus

Exactly. Youre comparing your view with humans' preliminary explanation of the world and their place in it - when humans believed that they were the focus of creation. Religion has a tendency to inflate one's self importance which is just another form of delusion - delusions of grandeur.

To expect that failed politicians resign or be sacked is no odder than to expect surgeons that fail to resign or be sacked. — unenlightened

One man's "failed" politician is another man's "successful" politician. That is politics. So maybe we should eliminate politicians and representation and just let all citizens use the internet to vote for any bill or budget that is proposed. What a hoot that would be!

There are particular threads to discuss particular cases, so I don't want to get lost in trying to decide them here. Rather, I wonder if there is any agreement that honesty in public life should be enforceable in principle in somewhat the same way that it is in business? If my new gizmo doesn't do what it says on the tin, I am entitled to my money back; perhaps I could sue if my taxes are misspent? — unenlightened

That's how a representational democracy govt. works. You choose someone to handle the budget. If you don't like how they handled the budget, vote for someone else next election.

How about we eliminate political parties all together to try and limit some of the polarization this country is going through, and have the media stop putting microphones in front of politicians faces just so that they can lie and spin, spin and lie. I don't give a damn what a politician says because I know it will fall well short of the truth. I pay attention to their actions and how they vote in Congress.

What would you expect from a generation who grew up watching scripted shows labeled "reality" shows?

Wikipedia: Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics and post-reality politics) is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.

Just look at so many posts on this forum where feelings carry more weight than evidence and claims are made that everything is subjective.

You are projecting to the general what applies only to the particular: what applies to you. Some people need organized religion and others don't. It's up to the individual to find out what they need; to discover, that is, what works for them. — Janus

Strange how you singled me out for "projecting to the general what applies only to the particular", when everyone in this thread would be doing the same thing, like using ill-defined terms like "spirituality", as if it applied to all atheists or whole cultures, as something they lost. :roll:

Delusions work for people who have no interest in the truth, or in spite of the truth that isnt consoling to them. Religion works as a crutch for the weak .

But Western culture has lost its spiritual foundation. I see threads like this, and there are many, as being an (often uncomprehending) lament over that.

So you might ask, am I suggesting a return to traditional religion? I don’t think that’s possible either - but we need to understand what has happened by loosing it. — Wayfarer

I was a Christian the first half of my life and then I became an atheist. The only thing that I lost was my belief in a god.

What is "spirituality" - a belief in a higher power, a belief in souls - and how does one lose it if not by freeing oneself from one's cultural conditioning?

Scientific naturalism, a la modern atheism, pretends to depict the world as it really is, devoid of the superstitious trappings of the past. But it too is a deeply historically-conditioned worldview, embodying a set of values - namely, ‘the value of no value’, the assertion of the Universe as devoid of meaning and therefore purpose, and that humans are the result of a fundamentally meaningless physical process. That’s scientific atheism in a nutshell, and that is what I see behind many of these threads. — Wayfarer

Wrong. Your freedom is realized when you understand that you don't need to look to a higher power, or to others, to give you meaning and purpose. You have the power to give yourself meaning and purpose with your own actions.

I basically believe that nothing has any meaning. — yupamiralda

Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. Meaning is everywhere, possibly the fabric of reality itself.

If nothing had meaning then there would be no way for us to communicate, as communication requires shared meaning. Your scribbles on the screen mean something that I try to get at when I look at them. They mean the ideas in your head and your intent to share them with others as that is what caused the scribbles to appear on the screen.

When asking myself what I should do under this condition, I decided I didn't believe in anything more strongly than that I was a biological organism, and my thinking should revolve around the idea of being a successful biological organism — yupamiralda

That is all any of us can do. Humans are very versatile (thanks to their large brains an opposable thumbs) and the variety of ways in which we choose to be successful organisms can make it seem like we have transcended our biology, but that is an illusion.

You arent just an organism, but a very intelligent and highly social organism that finds success in establishing long and useful relationships with others.

and doing what I can to ensure my offspring's success). — yupamiralda

Sounds like you find meaning in being a good parent. Why would you think this is absurd or deserving of criticism or insults?

If you still aren’t convinced that a semicircle is part of a circle, just go out and find two semicircular objects, put them together, and you will find that they make a circle. — Troodon Roar

So the only way to make a circle is by putting two semi-circles together?

If I can make a circle without using two semi-circles as parts, then doesnt that mean that semicircles arent necessarily parts of a circle?

I argue that parts can have properties that the wholes which they form with other parts lack. — Troodon Roar

Then the "parts" aren't part of the whole, but something else entirely.

For example, a semicircle is half of a circle, but the semicircle has two corners/edges/vertices and has a straight side as well as a curved side, whereas the circle has no corners/edges/vertices and has just one curved “side” enclosing it.

So the semicircle has at least two properties — having corners/edges/vertices and having a straight side — which the circle it forms along with another semicircle lacks.

So this is clearly a case of a part having properties that the whole does not have.

So the whole is not necessarily greater, in every way, than the part. — Troodon Roar

A semi-circle is not part of a circle. It is a different shape entirely.

I'm not sure. All I know is that new perspectives nearly always offer something worthwhile, no matter how small. This particular perspective may prove to be useful ... or not. Consider it in a positive light first, and see if you can glean anything useful? — Pattern-chaser

What do you mean consider it in a "positive light"? If you are asking for me to assume the idea for a moment and contemplate the implications of such an idea, then I have done just that, which is why I posed the questions I did. Read the first sentence of what you quoted from me. I said, "If the world isn't real then...". They aren't rhetorical questions. They are questions based on assuming the idea is true. In other words, it doesn't offer anything coherent (and therefore useful) if it can't answer those questions.

Old perspectives were once new perspectives. How recent a perspective is in the mindset of an individual or group of people has no bearing on the validity of the perspective. Logic and reason are what determine the validity of some perspective.

How is it that you are aware of other minds if not by the same way you are aware of everything else in the world - via the senses? If the world is an illusion, then why wouldn't the other humans and their minds be part of that illusion? You actually never experience other minds, only bodies, yet anti-realists believe in something that they have no evidence for while rejecting what they do have evidence for. Anti-realism inevitably falls into solipsism. To even say that there are other minds is to say that they are separate from yours, and what is the medium that separates them if not the shared world that they are part of?

"Other minds" is an inference based on the use of your senses, not fundamental like the experience of other bodies. The idea of other minds comes after your experience of other bodies. In other words, you would never have the idea of other minds if not for your experience of, and need to explain, the behaviors of other bodies.

Because, speaking colloquially, 'we're all of the same mind'. In other words, members of a culture (and species, come to think of it) will inhabit a domain of shared meanings. It's not as if the 'hallucination' (bad word, again) is particular to you. Or put another way, when it is, then you really are hallucinating. — Wayfarer

:roll: Word salad. If "we" are all of the same mind - meaning there is only one mind, then solipsism.

Cultures and species would be part of the illusion - what isnt real.

If you were speaking colloquially, why would anyone disagree with your ideas or use of terms?

If it is an illusion, then how do we distinguish between schizophrenics and everyone else?

If the world isnt real then what does that say for the other humans that are part of it? This is the typical anti-realism nonsense that doesnt admit that human beings are a "physical" part of the world like everything else, yet they don't seem to apply the same illusory characteristic that they apply to everthing else. How can there be a mass hallucination when the existence of other human beings with minds would be part of the entire illusion of reality? How does this idea not collapse into solipsism?

I haven't had much luck using google. — Josh Alfred

Probably because you're using the wrong keyword, "non-validity". Google "invalid reasoning", and that should help.

Invalidity is a property of reasoning. What is characteristic of reasoning is that we produce reasons as evidence for a certain conclusion we wish to establish. Reasoning is closely connected with inferring. The reasons we provide allow us to infer a certain conclusion.

Deductive logic deals with reasoning that attempts to establish conclusive inferences. To say that an inference is "conclusive" means that if the reasons given are true, then it would be impossible for the inference based upon these reasons to be false. Such reasoning is called "valid" reasoning. "Invalid" reasoning is where the conclusion isn't necessarily inferred from the reasons, or premises. In other words, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premises.

Whenever we discuss the meaning of words, I do not think we are trying to figure out the objective meaning of those words. After all, words do not seem to have objective meaning. — TheHedoMinimalist

If words didn't have some degree of objectivity then we would always be talking past each other. We would never communicate at all. How could we lie to each other if the meaning of my words in my mind didn't mean the same thing in your mind? We would create our own arbitrary categories of our individual perceptions and never be able to communicate them to others. How would you expect me to understand the scribbles you put up on a screen if we didn't have some shared understanding of what those scribbles mean? Who would you be "talking to"? It seems that we would all be only talking ourselves. So, why didn't you just say your post to yourself in your mind? Why did you type it out and submit it on a philosophy forum? Isn't it because you wanted to share your idea with others who have a shared understanding of the meaning of the scribbles that you put on the screen? The scribbles mean your ideas and your intent to communicate them.

Rather, words are tools that we use to draw significance to certain phenomena and associations. — TheHedoMinimalist

I would use the term, "attention" instead of "significance".

A misuse of language is more similar to a misuse of a hammer than a logical error or an inaccurate observation. — TheHedoMinimalist

A misuse of language is a logical error in the sense that terms do have an agreed on, or shared, meaning. Someone misuses a term when they take an existing term with an agreed-upon meaning and use it in a different way without a coherent definition of how they are using it. The term is either incompatible with the other ways they use language (they are inconsistent) or the way we understand the world (our observations).

Because of this, it seems that what we should consider a living thing is not a question that could be answered through scientific experiments or logical deductions. It is a question of value. When we call something a living thing, we are putting it into a category above all other types of things.

Biologists define living things as organisms and emphasize their ability to maintain homeostasis and replicate its genetic information. But, are those things actually important? Should we really think of living things as just a collection of cells which replicate themselves? I think of life as the process of being alive and as a state of animation. I do not understand why we consider trees and fungi to be alive. They appear to have no mental activity or display any interesting or complex behavior. On the other hand, I do not understand why we don’t consider certain AI Programs to be living things. Some AI Programs are capable of complex information processing, sensory detection, learning, understanding of spoken language, and list goes on. When I think about the key characteristics of life, I do not think about the stuff about organic matter that I learned in Biology class, I think about the animation of the mind and body present in animals and certain machinery. I think about the ability to experience pain and joy, and the ability to perform a variety of fascinating activities. Of course, I do not think that we should stop studying non-living organisms or over-study living non-organisms but simply stop making the assumption that only organisms are alive and that every organism is alive. I think such conception of life is often forcing us to ignore what exactly is significant about life. — TheHedoMinimalist

So what you have done here is question the agreed-upon meaning of "living thing". Sure, we could use the boundary of organisms evolving central nervous systems as what defines "living thing", but we've agreed upon the boundary where complex molecules began to replicate.

What we will disagree on is the boundary at which to distinguish living things from non-living things - not the fact that there are things that have certain properties inherited from prior things in prior states. These inheritences are modified by interacting with the environment and are copied into the next generation of things. At which point of change in inheritence we choose to define "living things" from "non-living" things can be arbitrary in the sense that it doesn't really matter to anything else but us humans who have the need to communicate with each other, but it does matter if you are a human who has the need, or intent, to communicate their ideas with others, so it helps to know how humans interpret the meaning of certain scribbles or sounds.

I don't need 'evidence' to identify that arguments about 'evidence for God' are futile, anymore than I need 'evidence' for the futility of the claim that there is 'evidence for the beauty of the Mona Lisa'. i.e. The context of 'evidential' claims is one of agreed observational criteria.
Your demand for 'consistency' appears to be semantically vacuous. — fresco

Then why do you believe that the arguments about 'evidence for God' are futile? Why would you not believe that the arguments about the 'evidence for God' are not futile? Any reason you give for your belief is evidence for your belief. Whether it is good evidence - evidence that integrates well with the rest of what we know and how we use language - is a different story.

No. It means that subgroups of 'believers' have there own parochial observational criteria including, for example, 'the complexity of the life process'. Atheists might agree on that 'complexity' observation but consider it as 'evidence' for some yet to be discovered 'other natural process'. — fresco

It's not the complexity of the life process, it is the imperfect design of organisms, the extinction of 99% of life that has existed, and the vast areas of existence that are devoid of life that is evidence that existence was not intentionally designed with life in mind. If the properties of God are so difficult to agree on by believers, then how do the believers know that they aren't simply talking past each other? There could be many "gods". God could just as well be defined as an extradimensional alien. Is it the terms that we are disagreeing on, or are we simply talking past each other?

The reason for the futility of the 'evidence for God' debate, is that The 'properties of God' remain disputed, even amongst believers, hence the choice of 'evidence' is arbitrary. — fresco

Which is no different than saying there is no evidence.

Sorry Harry, I don't do words chasing words round infinite regresses — fresco

Im not asking you to chase words. I'm asking you to be consistent. You arent. Any infinite regress is one of your own making. I'm basically asking you how you resolve the regress your own claims make. But what would one expect from someone who thinks that evidence is in the eye of the beholder?

No. That word game doesn't work. It is the DEBATE based on ' evidence'
which is futile. — fresco

Dont you need evidence that the debate on evidence it futile? What reasons do you have to say that the debate is futile and wouldnt you be using your reasons as evidence?

If the debate is futile then why are you even on a philosophy forum debating it? Those of us that believe the debate to not be futile are at least being consistent in debating it. You arent. If I thought a debate was futile, then I would have abandonded the discussion, but you dont seem to believe your own words based on your behavior, so why should we believe you?

'Delusions' are defined primarily by social consensus regarding 'inappropriate behavior'. The fact that what we call 'brain functioning' may be correlated with this is a more recent view which has tended to replace 'spiritual possession'. — fresco

No, delusions are irrational beliefs, not behaviors.

the will is a process in the sense that its a bridge that connects potentiality and actuality; it has no real existence in itself, obviously, it's not an object; — TheGreatArcanum

You said that it is a process or a bridge that connects potentiality and actuality, so how can you then say that it has no real existence? How is it that you are talking about it if it has no real existence? I'm not saying anything about it being an "object" or not, I'm just asking what you mean by "real" and "existence". To me, something is "real" or "exists" if it has causal power. The will appears to cause things to happen, and the will is influenced by perceptions at any given moment. The decisions we make at any given moment are dictated by our present experience in relation to similar memories. We often "choose" the action that has always worked before. We are creatures of habit, and only change when forced to. Even if the will is an "illusion", illusions exist and are real. They have causal power.

logically speaking, the will can be represented symbolically a subset of memory, meaning that the intentional process which converts potentiality to actuality in mind is born out of memory, and also, returns to memory, so really, the will involves two processes the instantiation of the will out of memory and potentiality into actuality, and the return of that actuality back into memory. — TheGreatArcanum

This all seems so unnecessarily complicated. There is no conversion needed as there is no difference between mind and body that needs conversion. Bodies are processes too. Notice that you and I both haven't used the terms "physical" or "non-physical" in any of our explanation so far.

using coherent terms like physical and non-physical is necessary, for either the will is born out of a prior state of actuality and therefore physicality, or it is born out of a prior state of potential and non-locality...and its freedom is entirely dependent upon whether it is born of actuality (actualized potentiality) or potentiality (unactualized potentiality). — TheGreatArcanum

If they are coherent and necessary, then why haven't you used them in any of your explanation so far? What is the difference between physical and non-physical that requires some sort of conversion before being causally linked? How can you also say that the conversion doesn't really exist or isn't real?

Let me say it one more time, 'existence' and 'evidence are words triggering concepts the utility of which differs according to the context in which they are used. From this pov all concepts exist by virtue of the words which evoke them, but the concept of evidence presupposes a context open to the possibility of social consenus about the utility of another concept like 'God' — fresco

You're forgetting that the words are used to trigger concepts in other minds via communication. The concept of existence exists as something non-verbal in your mind, which you then translate into verbal form for communicating, but if the same concept isnt triggered in another mind when you use that word, can you really say that the concept was triggered by your use of the word?

As an atheist, I cannot dispute 'the existence of God' for 'believers', because the concept is functional for them, albeit dysfunctional for me. — fresco

Delusions are functional for those that have them, but not for me.

At first glance, I noticed that the subject of each paper is intention, not volition (will). — Galuchat

What is the difference between intention, volition, and while we're at it, goal?

what about the will in terms of phenomenology?... — TheGreatArcanum

The will is what is what I would call a process - similar to a central executive in an information processing system that utilizes working memory - and I would avoid using incoherent terms like "physical" and "non-physical".

It is true. Simply saying “not true” doesn’t make it so. — I like sushi

I didnt simply say, "not true". I also backed it up with examples. You're the one making assertions with anything to back it up.

In an F1 race a yellow flag has a particular meaning. “Yellow” doesn’t exist detached from an object. — I like sushi

You originally asked what yellow is, not what means. What it is is a color. What that color means in any particular context is what caused it.

So are you asking what the will is or what the will means?

.Futile because 'evidence' in the case of 'God' is in the eye of the beholder. — fresco

Why would we talk about evidence differently only in the case of God?

Why is evidence for your existence different than the evidence for God?

This another great example of Witt's "language on a holiday" - where you "use" the term "evidence" in a way that makes it incompatible with what we already understand it to mean.

What about sense of authorship where there is none? Libet’s experiment highlighted that well enough. We’re biased to assume authorship when the outcome is positive. — I like sushi

Not true. Many athletes take ownership when they fail and give glory to God when they succeed. And if we didn't take ownership when we fail, then how do we learn?

Asking what “will” is a bit like asking what “yellow” is. Without context there isn’t much we can say. — I like sushi

Yellow is a color. Where is the context in that?

If it is incoherent, then how are we using words in the first place rather just putting scribbles on a screen? If it is incoherent, are we necessarily using language at all?

We’re too busy struggling with defining ‘consciousness’ as is I reckon. — I like sushi

It seems to me that explaining the will is part of the battle in explaining consciousness. Can there be consciousness without will?

Cite credible scientific research. — Galuchat

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15925808

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/03/15/power-conscious-intention/#.XOlR5v57lhE

https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=crn.2016.23.27

Just Google, "the neurophysiology of intention" and you will find plenty of credible research.

The main (Pragmatist) point I want to re-iterate is that questions that imply a regress of definition (language chasing language) fall into what I take to be Wittgenstein's 'language on holiday'. Language is 'not on holiday' when it applies to communicative situations which involve decision about subsequent action either individually or jointly.... — fresco

No. The above quote is what Witt meant when he used the phrase, "language on holiday". You are taking his phrase and reusing it in a way that is incoherent.

Witt is often regarded as an anti-philosopher in virtue of his expressed beliefs that “most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.” Witt even suggested that the subject he was dealing with is “one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called ‘philosophy.’”

Wittgenstein demotes philosophy to a sort of organization of thought, a clearing away of cobwebs. According to Wittgenstein, unlike empirical problems, philosophical problems can be solved “by looking into the workings of our language… in such a way as to make us recognize those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not by reporting new experience, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.”

What you have done is take Witt's own words and twist them into something incoherent and not what he meant, which is no different than bewitching (or insulting) our intelligence by means of your use of language.

If you know you don't know something, that's something you know. — Wayfarer

That is assuming that you know what knowing really is.

We can know a lot about such phenomena (obviously) - short of what they really are. — Wayfarer

You said it yourself. They are phenomena. What is phenomena? Knowing a lot about something entails knowing what they really are. If you don't know what they are, effectively you don't know what you're talking about.

it's a simple question. If "mind" is an irrelevant term given your thesis, then I'm asking you to explain the use of the terms you are are using (and because you are using them you are implying that they are relevant), like "Wittgenstein".

Namely, he believed that these philosophers were all in one way or another trying to hit on the thesis that our language does not represent things in reality in any relevant way.

If language does not represent things in reality, then what does the above quote even mean? Is it not a use of language that represents some state of affairs other than it just being a string of scribbles on a screen?

Richard Rorty was influenced by James, Dewey, Sellars, Quine, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and Heidegger.

What is a Rorty, James, Dewey, Sellars, Quine, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Derrida, or Heidegger? I'm focusing on your use of language here. Are words just scribbles and sounds or are they about things that arent words themselves? Is Wittgenstein a word, mind, or what? You used the term, Wittgenstein, not me. What is it?

No. Its meaningless because we are not engaged on any mutual, everyday project. Its what Wittgenstein called 'language on holiday'. Words like 'mind' are irrelevant to a thesis which ultimately implies that 'observers' with 'minds' are inseparable from the so-called 'objects' they appear to contemplate. That point is precisely why Heidegger for one, needed to resort to neologisms — fresco

Congratulations! You've wiped away subjectivity and the subject in one swift stroke and redefined "minds" as "objects".

What is a Wittgenstein and what is its relationship with "language on holiday"? It seems to me that you are saying that Wittgenstein IS language on holiday if Wittgenstein is inseperable of the "objects" it contemplates.

It seems to me that all of your posts are a "Wittgenstein" (language on holiday).