By assertng that 'a concept' is not idential to 'the object it conceives' you are immediately dismissing the relativity thesis by stepping back into the naive realism of 'objects'. Bohr was suggesting that what we call 'objects' are focal aspects of agreement about our experiences denoted by 'words'. Common species physiology tends to imply large areas of agreement which we tend to call 'objects'. — fresco

Then the concept that I have of your mind is identical to your mind, and your internet post and the following replies are a concept that originated in my mind when I read them, not yours (because your's and others' "minds" is just a concept that originated in my mind)? Is that not solipsism in a nutshell?

The problem with philosophy lately (at least on this forum) is philosophy's abandonment of its most fundamental field - logic - and embracing religious notions of truth like tradition (refering to dead philosophers as if they were founders of a religion) and revelation.

These "philosophers" use poorly defined terms and often find that they are either talking past each other or just using different terms to refer to the same thing.

I'm quoting from the link in the OP:

But then science broke away from metaphysics, from philosophy, as a result of natural philosophers adopting a profound misconception about the nature of science. As a result, natural philosophy died, the great divide between science and philosophy was born, and the decline of philosophy began.

It was Newton who inadvertently killed off natural philosophy with his claim, in the third edition of his Principia, to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. — Nicholas Maxwell

I think the great divide between metaphysics and natural philosophy was the result of Descartes' dualism. This separation of mind from body, rationality from empiricism, physical and non-physical, was the greatest blunder in philosophy.

Science is simply metaphysical questions that have become testable with experimentation and observation. Science has begun to answer questions like, "Why are we here?", "When did the universe begin?", "How big is the universe?", etc. with credibility - which is to say that there is empirical evidence for it - so much so that religions change and adapt with new scientific knowledge. What was once the work of gods, is now understood to be the work of natural, unintentional forces.

I think that the final metaphysical question to be answered is related to the nature of the mind and its relationship with the world. Descartes exacerbated the problem with his dualism.

yes, that is something that has been on the rise on these forms lately - people performing mental gymnastics in order to create evidence for a supreme being.

In his other thread his responses were more like what one would expect of a p-zombie.

My question is whether the N-word specifically has become a word that is per se insulting, regardless of context, where its mere utterance is a sin. — Hanover

It depends on who you ask and even then you will get contradictory answers from the same person who claim to be offended by the word, yet they use it themselves to refer to "friends".

These same people get offended when a caucasian uses the word, but not when blacks do. This is where it becomes a way to divide, like you said. To say that one group of people with a particular skin color can't do something where another group of a particular skin color can, is the definition of racism.

Then he should use that term instead of "first cause" because his intent to act isnt the first cause of his action.

like I said, when we act, our reason for acting (final cause) is determined prior to or at the time of our will to act, its first cause. — TheGreatArcanum

And like I said, we act in response to causes that exist prior our intent to act. So our intent to act can't be the first cause. Why do we act? Because we intend to. Why do we intend to act? Because we are responding to changes in the environment.

change has its origin in the will, the will has its origin in the memory; there is silence in my mind; I then will to create change within my present intuition and awareness and there is change. this process can only be pointed at with words, just like all things. first and foremost, it is a direct experience, and an experience that doesn't even necessitate a body; the body only exists to both limit and expand the potential concepts that can be conceived of towards a predetermined end... — TheGreatArcanum

This is all wrong. Change does not have its origin in the will, nor does the will have its origin in the memory.

Change can occur as a result of the will, but mostly not. Mostly change in my body movements originates in the will. Change occurs in the environment that does not originate in the will. This is what helps us determine what part of our experience is our body and what isn't. Our body entails the aspect of our experience that our will influences directly as opposed to indirectly with the environment, and the length of the spatially extended property of our sensory perceptions. Our visual, auditory and tactile sensory impressions have a distinct extended nature to them that helps us locate objects relative to the body in the environment with precision. We can feel and see things touching different parts of our body. The extended property of these sensory impressions helps us define the boundaries of our bodies. Most of the time I find myself intending to change the parts I can (my behavior) in response to changes I didn't intend to happen (the environment).

The will also precedes the recalling of memories. I can intentionally recall certain memories. Sometimes memories just pop into my head, or what I am thinking of can lead to another related memory. These are not memories that are preceded with intent. I can't say that all memories originate in the will, but many do. It also seems to me that observing the world is an intentional act and making an observation entails recognition, which uses memory.

using time, the law of non-contradiction, as a bridge. that is a bridge between being (the present) and non-being (the past). — TheGreatArcanum

Time is change and what is the fundamental essence of change? How are you aware of change?

The fact that you keep using concepts to refer to other concepts without ever getting to perceptions indicates that you don't have a mind at all. These are the types of responses one would expect from a mindless robot or zombie.

Well, backtracking on my limited knowledge of Spinoza, this raises the concept of necessitarianism. If everything that is the case can only be true in one world*, then God is equanimous with a strict degree of agency pertaining to the current state of affairs of the world. So, human agency is essentially an illusion and God too has limited agency if we equate Him/Her/It with the World. — Wallows

What would limited agency look like vs. the illusion of agency? In other words, how would God know that his agency isn't an illusion, and just limited?

So, I'll assert that to have a mind is to have some degree of agency, or more succinctly, to have a mind is to have something called a free will. — Wallows

Right, so what would the illusion of free will look like vs. limited free will? And how is limited free will not a contradiction?

Are you an internet bot, or a human being?

How do you distinguish anything in awareness? What are the fundamental distinctions?

In other words, "unity" and "difference" take the form of words, which are colors and shapes or sounds, that you learned through perception. These scribbles and sounds are meaningless until used to refer to some perception of the world.

Then how do you know that you have a concept in your mind? What form does a concept take for you to be aware of it and communicate it?

I think that the object itself, its essence and all of its changing qualities, are subsets of an 'original concept' which has become subjected to chaos, in which case, there is a dialectic between the concepts presented to the object by nature, and the original concept of the object. Man conceives of objects, he assigns words to them, to both objects and abstract relationships between objects, and those words refer to the essences of those objects; and the closer that those definitions become to the 'original concept' that is, the original essence or 'reason' for the existence of the thing, which is synonymous with its function in nature, the higher his level of knowledge is raised. That is to say that ignorance has its origin in the difference between man's conception of the essence of a thing and its original essence, as it were, and if there is too great a distinction between the two in one's mind, one believes, not in truths, but in falsehoods, and one doesn't have knowledge, but opinion. Associatively, wisdom, as distinguished from knowledge is a correct apprehension of, not the essences of particular things, but the essence of existence itself.

I'm not entirely an essentialist, because I don't believe that all original concepts are eternal, but only that some are, like specifically, Aristotle's laws of thought, which I assign actual ontological value (essence) to. — TheGreatArcanum

Concepts are formed from perceptions. Perceptions are prior to conceptions. Perceptions are brute and vivid, while conceptions are recalled by the will and are less detailed than their related perceptions.

A conception can't be a fundamental essence of reality because they are composed of the more fundamental perceptions of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. The most fundamental essence of reality, from the perspective of a non-omniscient mind, are colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. The aggregation of these fundamental essences into objects in the mind when I look at the world is a brute process. Objects are axiomatic in that the fundamental essences are not willed into these forms like I can will an imaginary object (concepts) in my mind. They are forced and then I form concepts in order to categorize my perceptions into something useful for survival and pleasure.

If we can only conceive of abstract concepts and not objects, and seemingly, this must be so because we cannot fit objects into our mind, but only our conceptions of them, either objects do not exist in the actualized sense of the word, or they are at the same time both objects and concepts. — TheGreatArcanum

They are not one and the same just as effects are not the same as their causes. Concepts are about objects and their aboutness comes from the causal relationship between the object and the concept. Effects carry information about their causes. Effects can be representations of their causes.

I don't understand this notion of abstract concepts not having spatial properties when it is obvious that they do. If your ideas had no spatial property then how can you tell one idea from another. Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are separate ideas and can both appear together in one's mind as distinct entities, or else how could you tell them apart in your own mind when you think of them both at the same time?

Almost every sensory impression (visual, auditory, tactile and gustatory) has a spatial property relative to the other sensory impressions and include the property of being extended from a central location (my head). I can hear something coming from behind me while only having a visual awareness of what is in front of me. If someone was coming towards me from the front to greet me and shake my hand, I would see them, hear them, and feel them all at the same location. These separate sensory impressions line up in their extended locations, which is how we end up using different senses to reinforce the location of objects relative to our own bodies.

For all I know, and that's not a lot, I assume that agency is irrelevant, given God's solipsism. — Wallows

If intentionality isnt a necessary component of mind, then if God's mind lacks intentionality, how is that any different from a physical universe that is shaped by mindless, unintentional forces, the way way science describes reality?

If intentionality can be a component of mind, but isnt a necessary component, then it can be said that there are multiple minds in which case solipsism isnt the case. We could have minds too as you havent defined what mind is. All you have said is what is irrelevant. Your primary concern should be in defining mind in a coherent fashion before you can make coherent claims about the existence of gods and the case for solipsism.

For all I know, and that's not a lot I assume that agency is irrelevant, given God's solipsism. — Wallows

But how do you know anything if you aren't a mind?

If agency is irrelevant then that is no different than saying that reality is unintentional which is the same explanation science provides.

So you are saying that none of us have a mind including God? That would just be a mindless state of affairs no different than how science describes reality.

If God is the only one with a mind then how is it that you even know what a mind is to say that God has the only one if what you experience and "are" isn't a mind? Again, what is a mind, if God is the only one and we aren't?

How can I be a figment of god's imagination if I have a mind? If my experiences are not my mind, then what is a mind?

Not true. God is the ultimate solipsist. You are merely an avatar posing as God. — Wallows

But I don't know that I'm really an avatar posing as god, therefore god can't be omniscient. All I know is that I have a mind, and if solipsism is true, then I am the solipsist by default and you are just an internet forum post because solipsism is the state of affairs where there are no other minds other than my own.

If you are claiming to be an avatar with a mind too, then solipsism cant be the case, or you would have to at least redefine what a mind is.

If God is a solipsist, then I'm the God/solipsist, as I know that I have a mind, and you all only exist as internet posts when I read them. None of you are actually even human beings - just words on a screen.

all sounds and visuals carry meaning, which is what caused them. Words mean the idea the user intended to convey.

So I think language, in some sense, is required for memory to work. :chin: — Pattern-chaser

It's the other wait around.

Language is composed of words and words are just sounds and scribbles - sensory impressions - empirical.

How can so many people even understand, or know about, the idea of causation, without causation?

How did you come to know about and understand causation - on your own by trying to integrate all of your experiences into a consistent and coherent whole, or by hearing others mention it? It seems that any refutation of causation refutes itself.

In logic, what is the relationship between some evidence, or some premise, and its conclusion, if not a causal relationship? Does not the conclusion follow from the premises? How can you even say you are being logical without causation? You must refer to reasons (causes) to support your conclusion (the effect). Logic is a causal process.

If causation "isn't" the case then solipsism necessarily is the case. And even then causation would exist if I (the solipsist) were to think of it and causation would still be the case because my thinking causes its existence. The solipsist would be the first cause.

1) I believe that consciousness neither consists of nor emerges from material phenomena — Dusty of Sky

What exactly is the difference between material and mental phenomena to say that one cannot consist of or emerge from the other?

3) I believe that science paints a useful but extremely limited picture of reality — Dusty of Sky

How is science extremely limited? - in relation to what other means of investigating reality?

4) I believe that although science can give us lots of information about what matter does, it can't tell us why it ultimately does it (rather than something else), what it's ultimately made of, or where it ultimately came from. — Dusty of Sky

Why not? Again, what exactly is "matter", and how does it differ from "mind" to say that they can't interact or consist of one another?

and written from a philosophical rather than a purely scientific perspective. But all the better if it makes references scientific findings. — Dusty of Sky

What would be the difference between a philosophical perspective and a scientific one? Shouldn't the conclusions from all domains of investigating reality be integrated into a consistent whole, with none of them contradicting each other?

Books I'll recommend are Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True and Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works.

Humans aren't the only conscious beings. Any animal with a central nervous system can be considered as having the potential for consciousness.

The reason consciousness evolved is because consciousness allows learning, which allows the fine-tuning of one's behavioral responses to specific stimuli several times over ones life-time, whereas fine-tuning one's morphology to one's environment takes generations.

Natural selection acts on both our bodies (our genes) and our minds (once central nervous systems evolved). Natural selection filters our behaviors through learning about the environment which enables us to respond to stimuli on the fly rather than responding over generations with the accumulation of new genetic codes over generations. Consciousness allows us to respond to more immediate changes in the environment, as opposed to the slower, geological changes. So basically, consciousness evolved to allow organisms to respond to environmental changes on much shorter time scales than evolving your morphology to respond to environmental changes that occur on much larger time scales.

The doctor makes a judgement comparing what you claim to see, with a standard, the norm. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is this just another judgment, or are you actually explaining what is the case - that the doctor is making a judgment? You end up with an infinite regress of judgments which just becomes incoherent. Is the universe one big judgment? Does that even make sense?

You have to realize that judgments are about things, and it is what those judgments are about that matter. Sure, it could be that judgments is all you can do and make of the world, but the aboutness of those judgments creates a relationship that we usually refer to as "accuracy", so judgments themselves have a property of accuracy where they are more or less representative of what they are about.

Instead of "judgment", I think I prefer "interpretation". Our senses don't lie, but we can lie to ourselves by interpreting sensory data incorrectly. In interpreting sensory data, we are attempting to determine what they are about. What they're cause is. If they have no cause, then solipsism would be the case, which is what it seems that you are ultimately arguing for.

If they have a cause, then realism is the case and our sensory data actually has meaning in that they are the effect of prior causes - like your body interacting with the world that other minds share.

How else can you explain similar judgments by similar minds? Think about it. If we are all separate minds without a shared world (if that makes any sense) then how is it that we came to similar judgments about our separate sensory data - like that there is an "external" world and that there are other minds, and that you are similar enough to be part of a group of similar entities called "human beings"? How is it that "norms" can even be established and referred to? How is it that language could evolve at all? There must be more to the world than just our judgments - or its solipsism, and I assure you that if solipsism is the case, then I'm the solipsist and you are just a judgment in my mind that only exists when I read your words.

In what other case would your proposition not be the case? It seems to me that you would simply be talking about something else entirely (a different case), and therefore making a category error or talking past each other. — Harry Hindu

Different case indeed, that is probably what it would be. But I've qualified the particular case I presented, so unless the case you are presenting is quantifiable under the constant that I specified in my particular case, it has no pertinence, and you are the one talking past me. — Merkwurdichliebe

So were you talking past Banno here:

So that I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream is a subjective fact - or if you prefer, it is a subjective truth. It's truth is dependent on my own taste. — Banno

The proposition "I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream", is not a subjective truth/fact. — Merkwurdichliebe

If we were talking past each other, then how can we say that we are disagreeing? A disagreement is about the same thing - just different explanations about the same thing. Whether we are actually representing the actual state of affairs with our use of language is a separate issue from whether or not we're talking about the same thing. We could all be be wrong, despite our conflicting explanations - which is what a disagreement is.

We make judgements about anything. Do you recognize the difference between the thing and what is attributed to the thing (a property)? Or, the difference between the subject and the predicate? To say that something has a specific property does not mean that the thing actually has that property, the statement is a reflection of a judgement. It means that the thing has been judged to have that property. — Metaphysician Undercover

I already explained how saying something has a specific property does not mean that the thing has that property. Like I said, "The apple is red" is making a category error in attributing redness to the apple when it is actually a property of the apple, light and your sensory system. Like I said, redness carries information about all three causes, not just the apple. Just as a doctor can test your sensory system by making you look at letters, the letters are the constant, but our sensory systems could be different and create different visual effects in our minds. We can make different judgments about the letters, but the letters don't change. In other words, the letters have properties in and of themselves that makes them letters regardless of our individual judgments. If they didn't, then how could the doctor test your vision?

That's nonsense. If it isn't a judgement which determines whether the fruit is ripe or not then how is the ripeness determined? Do you not see that there needs to be criteria as to what constitutes "ripe" and, that there needs to be a comparison of the fruit in relation to this criteria, in order for the fruit to be determined as ripe or not? If this comparison is not a judgement, then what is it?

This is the case when any properties are attributed to anything, it is a matter of judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you are confusing categorizations with judgments. Sure, humans create arbitrary categories to make sense of the world. These categories can vary from person to person and what one considers "ripe", another might consider "over ripe", but we are still both talking about the same thing - some property of the apple that we refer to as ripe. If we both weren't talking about the same apple, then we would both be talking past each other. If I was referring to the apple when using the word, "ripe", and you were referring to your judgment, then we would both be talking past each other. When I say that the apple is ripe, am I talking about the apple in your head, my head, or there on the table?

Is thinking a property of you? Are you a thinking entity? Is your thinking a judgment of mine, or is it really a property of you - part of what it means to be you?

In this case, it is the case. In another case it may not be. Both cases may be equally sensible internally, and totally contradictory externally. But that is okay since the constant of each is independent of the other, and each uniquely contains it's own exclusive subset variables. — Merkwurdichliebe

In what other case would your proposition not be the case? It seems to me that you would simply be talking about something else entirely (a different case), and therefore making a category error or talking past each other.

"Disagreeing" is a way of saying "I feel differently than you do" in these situations. That's a common sense of the term "disagree." — Terrapin Station

You seem to be telling me that the string of symbols, "disagreeing", has a meaning independent of how I feel about it, and if I feel differently then I would be "wrong".

In discussing some state of affairs, it is useful to stay on topic and not change the topic to someone's feelings when were talking about how things are independent of any feelings.

Sometimes you're just presenting an alternate way to look at or feel about things, by the way — Terrapin Station

Then you are referring to your view of the thing and not the thing itself. In this instance you wouldnt be disagreeing with someone, you would be talking past each other.

You have said yourself that saying it doesnt make it so. If saying it doesnt make it so, then what makes it so? And are we talking about your view of the world, or the world itself independent of both of our views?

Subjective statements are category errors where one projects mental properties onto non-mental objects. Objective statements are implied to be about the world independent of the statement itself.

For instance, is the following explanation about an actual state of affairs that is the case whether you say so or not?

The proposition "I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream", is not a subjective truth/fact. The proposition functions to abstract your subjective conception into a mode of objectivity (viz. language). The sentiential truth is found in the propositional transmission of the objectified sense of one's subjective meaning. The "I" simply contains the subject as a grammatical device, it does not represent subjectivity in any existential/metaphysical sense. Propositional truth is only determined by the coherence of its objective sense, never by any subjective meaning. — Merkwurdichliebe

Is it actually the case that the proposition "I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream", is not a subjective truth/fact regardless of whether you claim it and Banno believes it?

By disagreeing with someone you are essentially telling them that their version is wrong and yours is right and that there is a state of affairs independent of what you both are claiming and that language is simply a means of representing some state of affairs that is either more or less accurate than another claim about that state of affairs.

That's strange I would think that "ripeness" is a judgement made by human beings, and not a property at all. When the banana is ripe for me, it is overripe for my son. Ripeness is not a property at all, it's a judgement, just like good and bad are not properties of moral and immoral acts, they are judgements of such acts. Come to think of it, redness, big, small, hard and soft, and everything that we call "properties" are just judgements made by human beings. When we say that such and such has X property, we are just making a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, what are you saying - that there are no such things as properties - only judgments? Judgments about what?

It seems to me that a judgment is a property of a decision, goal, or intent. What is ripe for you isn't overripe for your son. It is still in a state of ripeness that either you or your son prefer. It isn't that it is over ripe for your son, it is the same ripeness as it is for you, it's just that he prefer's his under ripe, whereas you prefer yours ripe. You aren't determining the ripeness of fruit. It is your judgment, or preference, of the current state of ripeness. Your judgment has to be about something, and it is about the current state of the fruit. You are committing a category error in projecting "good" or "bad" onto the fruit, when the fruit is only ripe, over ripe, or under ripe, not good or bad. Good and bad are properties of judgments.

"Big", "small", "hot", "cold" are relative terms, meaning that they point to the relative properties of size and temperature when compared between two or more things.

No. Only conclusive evidence constitutes proof. Quantity (of evidence) does not equal 'conclusive', as you must know well. — Pattern-chaser

Why isnt a quantity of evidence not equal to conclusive evidence? You keep avoiding the question. What would proof of causation look like if it doesnt look like what is happening right here right now - us communicating. What is communication if not a causal process? Can you reply to a post before I post it and before you read it? Is not your reply the effect of my post and you reading it?

As having properties is how we describe things. Where does the property emerge from, the human mind which does the describing? If you are direct realist, then the property is the thing, and it is therefore composed of parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends upon the property. The apple's redness is not a property of the apple alone. It is a property of an interaction between the apple, light, and our sensory system. Through causation, redness can inform us of the state of our sensory system, the wavelength of light and ripeness of the apple. The property of ripeness belongs the the apple alone, not redness. Redness is a property of the mind when looking at, or thinking of, an ripe apple.

but it isnt just me. One bit of evidence by itself isnt much, but an amalgam of evidence can be considered proof. Again I ask you, what would proof of causation look like other than observing it in action and participating in it everyday at all times, like we do now?

Then wouldnt you say that the usefulness of the idea of causation is evidence that the idea is accurate?

I don't think it's possible. How do we not know it's just a delusion.

I know I was hungry this morning. Am I just delusional? — Merkwurdichliebe

Why would god have created a universe where we could conflate its existence with delusions, or where delusions of any kind exist?