This has been on the back burner for awhile; should it move up? — Noble Dust

Here's a link to a review I did.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/642269

I can't say I am a big reader — Tom Storm

You clearly once were though.

My preference is for essays. — Tom Storm

Any in particular?

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it? — Possibility

I think this is a good analogy.

My current (perhaps unenlightened) view is that morality is the societal aggregate of subjective values, and hence is societally relative. I think this might also be called cultural relativism by some philosophers. — PhilosophyRunner

My understanding of morality splits the difference between subjective and objective views. As I see it, morality at its most basic is a reflection of human nature. We are social animals. We like each other and like to hang around with each other. We have empathy. Add on top of that the needs of running societies ranging from just a few people to millions and you get a complex mix of biological, psychological, sociological, and cultural.

I've linked to this video several times here on the forum. I think it's fascinating and tells us something profound about human morality. 13 minutes.

A book about a dystopian society where everyone is forced to read Kierkegaard should be required reading for anyone who suggests everyone must read Kierkegaard. — Baden

Relax, relax. We'll make them read Yeats, Joyce, and French too.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that students needs to find their own interests in reading, but books like these are called “classics” for a reason. — Dermot Griffin

I got beaten up here on the forum for starting the discussion "You don't need to read philosophy to be a philosopher," so you can sort of see where I'm coming from. I'm not really a classics kind of guy. On the other hand, as I noted, I think taste is very important. Students need to figure out what their taste is. There's no better way to do that than by having someone passionate show them theirs.

I left "Self-Reliance" by Emerson off my list.

Be the same, read the same books, agree about everything. Some of us need to read The Plumber's Bible, but not all of us. — unenlightened

Are you a Plumbatarian?

This is intended as a serious comment.

Boy. Pretty depressing. I don't think teenagers need to be more depressed than they already are. Also, a lot of this stuff is specifically Christian. I'm not a big fan of the ram it down their throats approach. Teach them to read and show them things worth reading, which can include stuff on your list. Allow them to find things of their own they like to read, even if it's auto repair. Teach them to write. Teach them history and geography. Teach them science and math. Teach them German (or Japanese, or Latin).

Here are books I've given to my children because they've meant so much to me:

"Freedom not License" by A.S. Neill
"Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
"The Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu. I give the Stephen Mitchell translation
"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov
"The Poetry of Robert Frost" by Robert Frost
"The Wisdom of Insecurity" by Alan Watts
"Life's Ratchet" by Peter Hoffman
"The Panda's Thumb" and other books of essays by Stephen J. Gould
"The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin
"Titus Groan" by Melvyn Peake
"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner
"The Education of a Poker Player" by Herbert Yardley because my father gave it to me
"You Have the Right to Remain Innocent" by James Duane

I could keep going. I don't suggest making students read these books and I don't think these are by any means the best or the most important. I don't think that matters. Well written matters. Taste matters - not that it's important that students agree with yours, but they should learn that they need to find their own.

If you make a man into a monkey, that monkey's gonna monkey around. — Delbert McClinton

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively. — PhilosophyRunner

In order to understand something scientifically, you must observe it objectively. Science isn't the only way to know things.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is. — PhilosophyRunner

I think you're right that there is, or can be, a conflict between a scientific understanding of consciousness and our personal experience. I'm pretty committed to the idea that the mind emerges out of the nervous system in the same way life emerges from chemistry, but even I run up against that ...but..but...but of what it feels like to be me.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner

I don't think it's that hard. Consciousness is more than our experience, it is also behavior. We recognize consciousness in others without having to actually experience what they are.

He is trying to make up a fuss? I don't see anything wrong with what he said, but I do see you as constantly quick to disagree and making personal comments. — chiknsld

Angelo Cannata was intentionally provocative and I was provoked, in a pretty mild mannered way. I've read some of Angelo's posts. He has no trouble standing up for what he writes. I'm sure he'll let me know if he objects.

I don't see anything wrong with what he wrote either. I just disagree with it. And I said so. The only thing I wrote that could be construed as personal was the statement about him raising a fuss. Seems like a valid comment to me.

Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself. — Angelo Cannata

The purpose of science is not "building a good relationship of man with himself."

science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition. — Angelo Cannata

Science is not research that "improves human knowledge and human condition."

It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons? — Angelo Cannata

So.... It's an easy fact. And if I disagree, I'm ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid. The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. It may be true, but it's not easy.

consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. — Angelo Cannata

And digestion is the processing of food in the mouth, stomach, and intestines, but it can still be understood by good old everyday science.

But seriously, you're clearly just trying to raise up a fuss. Consciousness discussions go around in circles and never get anywhere. You haven't even defined what you mean by the word. You'll find it has many different meanings.

Certainly wouldn't. How do you think the lucky guy would feel 'hey we've brought you back to life, but all your relatives died a million years ago. Let us know if you need anything.' — Wayfarer

For human or near-human animals it would be unethical, but not necessarily for others. Maybe we can use the technology to bring back the animals and plants we are driving to extinction right now.

What would there to be gained by decoding it? Aren't we already embodiments of it? Doesn't 'what we are' exemplify 'what it means'? — Wayfarer

They have determined from looking at DNA that homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans. They can also trace human migrations across the world from Africa starting about 100,000 years ago. Looking at DNA similarities and differences can show who is related to whom and how long ago the populations split off. The same can be done for species, human and non-human, with much greater time spans since their most recent common ancestor. There is a huge amount of information available and they've only been working on it for about the past 20 years.

I love the way they can correlate archeological, linguistic, and genetic information about humans to give our pre-historic history, if you will. On a broader scale, they can use geology, paleontology, comparative biology, and genetics to do the same for non-human species. Linnaeus organized and classified biological organisms based on common structural features. Then paleontology came along and allowed that classification to be extended to extinct organisms. Then Darwin came along and provided a rationale for what Linnaeus had found. Then genetics and microbiology came along and added another layer of detail and connection.

No, I do not know that. — Athena

This is something Wayfarer wrote in a thread about a year ago:

This idea is not dissimilar to one in many of Alan Watt's books. For example The Book: on the Taboo against Knowing who you Are, which 'delves into the cause and cure of the illusion that the self is a separate ego. Modernizes and restates the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta and brings out the full force of realizing that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe.' Watts does bring an element of the 'divine play', the game that Brahman plays by manifesting as the multiplicity, each part of which then 'forgets' its relation to the whole. Which actually dovetails nicely with some elements of Platonism, i.e. the 'unforgetting' (anamnesis) of the state of omniscience that obtained prior to 'falling' in to carnal existence. Note well however the mention of 'taboo' in the title. — Wayfarer

Sorry, Wayfarer, I keep referring to this post. It's just that you explained it much better than I tried to.

This is a summary from Wikipedia of Carl Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious:

Collective unconscious (German: kollektives Unbewusstes) refers to the unconscious mind and shared mental concepts. It is generally associated with idealism and was coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts, as well as by archetypes: ancient primal symbols such as The Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, and the Tree of Life.[1] Jung considered the collective unconscious to underpin and surround the unconscious mind, distinguishing it from the personal unconscious of Freudian psychoanalysis. He believed that the concept of the collective unconscious helps to explain why similar themes occur in mythologies around the world. He argued that the collective unconscious had a profound influence on the lives of individuals, who lived out its symbols and clothed them in meaning through their experiences. The psychotherapeutic practice of analytical psychology revolves around examining the patient's relationship to the collective unconscious. — Wikipedia

But it's easy to think of the ancient Greek getting an idea and thinking it is a God speaking to him. — jgill

I didn't reject his idea out of hand, although it certainly sounds outlandish. I just don't see how he justifies the idea. Have you read the book? As I noted, it has some interesting stuff in it. But the main idea seems farfetched.

He was more of a thrill-seeker than an intellectual. — chiknsld

God. Such baloney. He wrote a book "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits," based on 40 years of study in his back yard.

I don't have much to offer here except a recommendation that you take a look at a book by Julien Jaynes - "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." An odd, odd book whose major premise I have a hard time swallowing. But Jaynes has some great things to say about consciousness and metaphor before he gets into his main subject. I suggest you take a look. Here's a link to a PDF version. Look at Chapter 2.

https://nextexx.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/julian_jaynes_the_origin_of_consciousness.pdf

Just a taste:

We are trying to understand consciousness, but what are we really trying to do when we try to understand anything? Like children trying to describe nonsense objects, so in trying to understand a thing we are trying to find a metaphor for that thing. Not just any metaphor, but one with something more familiar and easy to our attention. Understanding a thing is to arrive at a metaphor for that thing by substituting something more familiar to us. And the feeling of familiarity is the feeling of understanding.

Like what if our understanding of individuality is wrong? What if we are each are points of consciousness of the same universe? — Athena

As I'm sure you know, that idea has a long history.

So how is your brother doing? — Bitter Crank

He is doing well.

Self knowledge is good and useful. — Bitter Crank

My older brother started taking an anti-depressant. He found himself thinking more and more about how he had behaved all his life and how much he hurt people. It made him miserable. His solution? Stop taking the anti-depressant. That seemed like a pretty good solution to me.

Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis in the 1890s. He deserves credit, but psychoanalysis would have benefitted from more science and less philosophy. — Bitter Crank

I've never thought of psychoanalysis as scientific. I think it's more of a meditative practice. It's about awareness, not facts. Clearly Freud considered it science.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Wittgenstein

Been there. Done that.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2152/philosophy-joke-of-the-day/p1

The Prairie Home Companion Joke — Bitter Crank

They brought in Paula Poundstone and Roy Blount Jr. to help out the regular guys. They were wonderful. One joke after another non-stop. I had stopped listening to PHC after a while when it became too strident, but I still tried to listen in for the joke shows.

For me, humor is just a consequence of the working of our minds. Evolution gave us minds that could manipulate abstract ideas and stand as observers of ourselves and others. Humor is just one way that expresses itself. I can't see that it has any special value of its own, except maybe as a way of bringing people together.

Maybe humor is like consciousness and arose from the same source. Now you've given us the Hard Problem of Humor.

I like the Sumerian story that we are special to the earth because we were created by a goddess to help the river stay in its banks, so it does not flood and kill plants. I believe others also saw it as our purpose to take good care of the earth. We have the ability to create Eden but I don't think Eden looks like New York city.

Or there is Chardin's notion that God is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man. We have a pool of consciousness that has grown a lot since the beginning of man. That consciousness is not physical yet it strongly affects our lives. — Athena

I like those kinds of stories too. I don't see them as in conflict with the ideas I expressed. Well, maybe they are or seem to be, but the sign of a philosopher the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at one time.

And it is quite true that science has a bad habit of viewing humanity as merely some insignificant material accident - a meaningless blip in a vast cosmos — apokrisis

I am human and I am a humanist, by which I mean we created human value and meaning. That's a good thing. I love humanity. I feel a connection with my fellow humans. But meaning doesn't mean anything outside of a human context. As I see it, the only way there could be meaning beyond a human scale would be if there is a God. I am not a theist.

No lump of matter in the known universe is more complexly structured that the nervous system of the average human. — apokrisis

There is a lot of the universe we don't know. If there is life elsewhere, and I would put my money on "yes," I can't see any reason it might not also rise to that level.

But science can see both how humans are completely insignificant and also completely special - and why these two things are not incompatible but just two slants on the one, four causes and Aristotelean, story. — apokrisis

I think only human value has anything to say about how humans are insignificant or special.

evolution has made man once again the center of the universe, not spatially, not metaphysically, but in Teilhard’s word, “structurally.”

“Man is the hub of the universe,” “the structural key to the universe.

This is from your Merton quote. It seems so self-important I have a hard time knowing what to say. We are not important to anything but ourselves, and that's enough. That's the way it should be.

Although Wayfarer accuses me of it, I am not a reductionist. I don't think your and my vision life is all that different. But still...

It's philosophical terminology for 'being of a fundamentally different kind'. — Wayfarer

I know what the word means, but I don't see how it applies here. The differences we are talking about here are not metaphysical. They are downhome, everyday, and physical. Also scientific. Every living thing is made up of chemical elements. The same chemical elements that make up non-living materials. Every interaction between those elements in living organisms take place in accordance with the same chemical and physical laws as they do for non-living materials.

Of course living organisms are different from non-living matter, but that difference is organizational, not material.

which is what you said. — Wayfarer

It is not what I said.

So it is said, but that, in turn, depended on a causal chain that goes back first to the way that stars produce heavy elements, and before that to the way that the Universe produces stars. But I'm dubious of the idea life just spontaneously generates and evolves really constitutes any kind of theory. — Wayfarer

Now there's a clear difference between what you believe and what I do. If I understand you correctly, you are dubious that life is created by the self-organization of non-living matter. I think it probably was, but I'm not ready to have a more detailed discussion about that. I need to do a lot of homework first.

I'm aware of some books on the physical possibility of life spontaneously self-generating, but the question I always have is, why is it felt that this constitutes an explanation? Or rather, what kind of explanation does it provide? — Wayfarer

It isn't an explanation by itself. Specific self-organizational processes will have to be determined before the explanation is adequate. No one said the process is well understood.

They exhibit self-organisation, homeostasis, the ability to reproduce, evolve and mutate, and heal from injury. — Wayfarer

In my understanding, as limited as that is in this case, non-living matter self-organizing is what lead to the beginning of life.

But it's not. Or rather, they are included, but there are other levels of organisation which are not apparent on the level of physics and chemistry. You're preaching reductionism, whereas I'm saying there's a (warning: philosophical terminology) ontological distinction in play. — Wayfarer

As I said, I think your language is ambiguous. You say there is an "ontological distinction." I'm not sure what that means. Is there an ontological distinction between water and ice? Between individual cells and the liver or brain? Between country music and rock and roll? Between potatoes and amoeba. Living things are different from non-living things, but we're all in the same family.

I'm strongly anti-reductionist and I think I've shown that in what I've written on the forum over the years.

And you're looking at the entire discussion through the spectacles of an engineer. — Wayfarer

First, I admit that was gratuitous rhetoric. There's truth in what I wrote, but I used it mostly because I thought it was clever.

And no, I'm looking at this discussion, and all other discussions, through the spectacles of T Clark. It's because I look at things this way that I am an engineer, not the other way around.

You know this is a politically explosive issue right? — Athena

I made a statement of fact about what Darwin wrote in "Origin of Species." Any political interpretation is yours.

the inheritance of acquired characteristics has had a wild roller coaster ride over the past two centuries. — Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Quanta Magazine

When I read "Origin of Species," I was surprised to see that Darwin included inheritance of acquired characteristics as a potential mechanism for evolution in addition to natural selection.

the ultimate reality is not something seen, but rather the ever-present Seer.

Have you thought about how this ties in with Taoism and other eastern philosophies. The ultimate reality in Taoism, the Tao, is not human or conscious. In a sense, consciousness creates our world, the multiplicity, from unspeakable oneness. This view seems contradictory to the one you describe.

the The Third Way. — Wayfarer

Interesting website. Thanks.

There's nothing about chemical and physical laws which in itself will give rise to living organisms. — Wayfarer

This is an ambiguous way of saying it. Life is completely consistent with chemical and physical laws. If you look closely, you won't find any molecules acting in ways that don't follow those laws. On the other hand, one couldn't predict that life would arise or what it would look like from those same laws. This is what strong emergence is about. Reductionism but not constructivism.

living organisms are fundamentally different to inanimate matter — Wayfarer

Ok. And organic chemistry is fundamentally different from physics. Neurology is fundamentally different from mind. Again, that's emergence.

there's memory, and there's intentionality, even if its rudimentary in the very simplest forms. — Wayfarer

@apokrisis and I just had this discussion in a different thread. He said something similar. I rejected the term "intentionality" in this context. As I wrote in one of those posts, you are palling around with Thomas Merton and his hippie noosphere cohort.

I guess what I’m wondering is if there’s a word or phrase that denotes the difference between the working definition someone uses in daily life and the formal definition they’d give if asked, — Brad Thompson

Babies learn language long before they learn to read. People don't give children definitions, they talk to them, tell them things, ask them questions. Babies and little kids build their worlds at the same time they build their language. Their, our, minds are built that way. People learn the meaning of language by using it. Meaning is usage.

Definitions come much later. People don't need to know what hamburgers are, what to call their dogs. We only need definitions so we can know what "onomatopoeia" and "dorsal fin" mean.

Elan vital, if memory serves, is about a so-called life principle that is infused into the physical (chemical soup?) for life to exist. Not a bad hypothesis if you ask me as the genesis of life hasn't yet been put on a firm physical foundation. Until such a time as that's done, we're free to speculate as much as we wish, oui? — Agent Smith

Non. On ne peut pas spéculer sans comprendre.

We know enough about how life began to understand that there's nothing magic about it. No elan vital. All the materials are standard stuff - carbon, hydrogen, iron, water, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, etc. They're all put together by chemical processes that follow the rules of organic chemistry. Of course there's more to it than that, but it's clear it's one of those things science is good at figuring out and will.

The only difference is that when I read them again decades later, the ideas didn't have anything like the same impact, — jamalrob

I think the idea of psychohistory opened up my mind to what science could be. It was the scope of the books. The power of the technology. I can still remember that feeling.

I think it makes sense, given that science fiction, including cyberpunk, is primarily about ideas. — jamalrob

I agree. When I was in my teens, I read the first three books of the seven book "Foundation" trilogy. I was blown away. I can still feel the intellectual impact those ideas had on me. I went back and reread "Foundation" about five years ago after I gave it to my son for Christmas. It kind of stinks from a purely literary point of view. Asimov wasn't all that great as a writer, but the ideas still work.

Keeping in mind that he was writing about efficient cause and not the broader Aristotelian concept, here is what R.G. Collingwood wrote about causality in “An Essay on Metaphysics.”

That the term cause', as actually used in modern English and other languages, is ambiguous. It has three senses; possibly more; but at any rate three.

Sense I. Here that which is ‘caused' is the free and deliberate act of a conscious and responsible agent, and 'causing' him to do it means affording him a motive for doing it.

Sense II. Here that which is 'caused' is an event in nature, and its 'cause' is an event or state of things by producing or preventing which we can produce or prevent that whose cause it is said to be...Sense II-refers to a type of case in which natural events are considered from a human point of view, as events grouped in pairs where one member in each pair, C, is immediately under human control whereas the other, E, is not immediately under human control but can be indirectly controlled by man because of the relation in which it stands to C. This is the sense which the word 'cause' has in the practical sciences of nature, fi.e. the sciences of nature whose primary aim is not to achieve theoretical knowledge about nature but to enable man to enlarge his control of nature. This is the sense in which the word 'cause' is used, for example, in engineering or medicine...

Sense III. Here that which is 'caused' is an event or state of things, and its 'cause' is another event or state of things standing to it in a one-one relation of causal priority: i.e. a relation of such a kind that (a) if the cause happens or exists the effect also must happen or exist, even if no further conditions are fulfilled, (b) the effect cannot happen or exist unless the cause happens or exists, (c) in some sense which remains to be defined, the cause is prior to the effect; for without such priority there would be no telling which is which...Sense III refers to a type of case in which an attempt is made to consider natural events not practically, as things to be produced or prevented by human agency, but theoretically, as things that happen independently of human will but not independently of each other: causation being the name by which this dependence is designated. This is the sense which the word has traditionally borne in physics and chemistry and, in general, the theoretical sciences of nature... — R.G. Collingwood

When I first read this, I found it unsatisfying and confusing. As I’ve thought about it, I’ve come to think that the distinction between the first two senses he writes about and the third is worth considering. In the first two, the agent of causality is a human actor. In the third, it is another event. According to Collingwood, the first two senses are the original meaning of “cause,” while the third is a cause metaphorically by comparison to the first two. After thinking about it, that makes some sense to me. Perhaps the question I'm asking is whether that metaphorical understanding makes sense.