• The Biggest Problem for Indirect Realists
    So, the paradox again arises such that I cannot trust even my own internal sense to give me information about what I am in in-itself and yet I can trust it enough to know that I am at all—seems problematic, no? — Bob Ross

    I don't know if it's problematic. I think we need to acknowledge the sense in which we are indeed 'a mystery to ourselves.' As I said, we know that we are, but it's quite conceivable that we don't fully understand what we are, and I don't see how that presents a paradox.

    Hopefully the above helps clarify why this does not resolve the paradox. Viz., if you can trust your internal sense enough to give you accurate enough information to know you exist [with representative faculties], then you necessarily can know some information about how the world really is. — Bob Ross

    Again Kant does not deny empirical realism. He qualifies it.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    ↪Pierre-Normand
    May well be! I listened to a long interview/documentary with and about Chris Fuchs a month ago, it made a lot of sense to me. See this interview https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    I've been watching an interview with Sir Roger Penrose on why he thinks quantum theory is wrong. I've included the subsequent exchange I had about it with ChatGPT on the topic for anyone interested.

    Reveal
    Is Sir Roger Penrose a scientific realist, i.e. upholds the reality of the mind-independent domain of objects?

    ChatGPT
    Yes, Sir Roger Penrose can be considered a scientific realist in many respects, as he upholds the existence of a mind-independent reality. He believes that mathematical structures, in particular, exist in an objective, Platonic realm that is independent of human minds. For Penrose, mathematics is not merely a human invention but something that humans discover, which implies a belief in an external reality that transcends individual minds.

    Penrose's views on the mind and consciousness, though, add complexity to this position. He rejects strong forms of physicalism and computationalism, arguing that consciousness cannot be fully explained by current scientific theories, particularly those based on classical physics or computational models of the brain. His Orch-OR theory (developed with Stuart Hameroff) posits that consciousness arises from quantum processes in the brain, which suggests a more nuanced understanding of reality that incorporates both physical and mental phenomena. Nevertheless, this view doesn't negate his commitment to a mind-independent domain of objects, particularly in the realm of mathematics and physics.

    Thus, while Penrose has complex views on the nature of mind and consciousness, he fits broadly within the framework of scientific realism with regard to the external world, especially in his advocacy of an objective, independent mathematical reality.

    Wayfarer: He's sceptical about quantum theory, though. He says it's incomplete or confused.

    ChatGPT: Yes, Roger Penrose is indeed skeptical about the standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the Copenhagen interpretation. He believes that quantum theory, in its current form, is incomplete or confused, particularly regarding the measurement problem and the role of consciousness in the collapse of the wave function.

    Penrose's main criticism revolves around the idea that quantum theory, as it stands, does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the transition from quantum superposition to definite outcomes in macroscopic systems. He proposes that gravity plays a role in this transition through his theory of objective reduction (OR), which is part of his broader Orch-OR theory. In this view, quantum superpositions become unstable and collapse spontaneously when gravitational effects reach a certain threshold.

    Penrose's skepticism is not a rejection of quantum theory as a whole but rather an insistence that there is something fundamentally missing in our understanding of how quantum phenomena relate to the macroscopic world. He advocates for a new, deeper theory that could resolve these issues.

    Wayfarer: But that view depends on interpreting quantum superposition as being something real. It's an 'ontological interpretation' of quantum mechanics, distinct from an epistemological intepretation like QBism.

    ChatGPT: Yes, you're right. Penrose's view involves an ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics, meaning he interprets quantum superpositions as physically real, not just as abstract mathematical tools or expressions of our knowledge (as in epistemological interpretations like QBism).

    In Penrose’s framework, quantum superpositions represent actual, real physical states, even in macroscopic systems. This is a significant departure from interpretations like QBism or the Copenhagen interpretation, where the wavefunction is seen as a tool for representing probabilities or an observer’s knowledge about the system rather than something physically real. Penrose believes that quantum superposition exists independently of observers and measurements but that our current quantum theory does not adequately explain how or why superpositions collapse into definite outcomes.

    His focus on gravity’s role in the collapse (through objective reduction) reinforces his ontological commitment to superpositions being real. In this way, Penrose is advancing a view that treats quantum states as objective elements of reality rather than purely subjective or instrumentalist tools. This stance puts him in contrast with epistemological approaches like QBism, which avoid making claims about the underlying reality of quantum states.

    Wayfarer: So he's nearer to Einstein's view than to Bohr or Heisenberg's in that respect?

    ChatGPT: Yes, Penrose’s stance is indeed closer to Einstein’s view than to that of Bohr or Heisenberg, particularly in his belief in an objective, mind-independent reality. Like Einstein, Penrose is uncomfortable with the idea that quantum mechanics in its standard interpretations (such as the Copenhagen interpretation) provides a complete picture of reality. Einstein famously rejected the idea that quantum mechanics was the final word on nature, particularly with its reliance on probabilities and the role of the observer, encapsulated in his famous quote, "God does not play dice."

    Penrose shares Einstein’s desire for a deeper, deterministic theory that goes beyond the probabilistic nature of standard quantum mechanics. He rejects the purely instrumentalist views of Bohr and Heisenberg, who saw quantum mechanics primarily as a tool for predicting measurement outcomes without necessarily offering a direct description of reality. Instead, Penrose believes that quantum superpositions are real, objective phenomena, and he seeks a theory that explains how these superpositions collapse in a deterministic way, influenced by gravity.

    In this sense, Penrose aligns more with Einstein’s quest for a realist interpretation of physics, where the wavefunction represents something real and physical rather than just a description of our knowledge, as Bohr and Heisenberg proposed.

    Wayfarer: The curious thing is, that whilst I too believe that mathematical objects are real, I don't believe they're objective in the sense of being 'mind-independent', as they can only be grasped by a mind. They're real in a different sense to empirical objects. I don't know if there's much accomodation in modern thought for that 'different sense' in which things can be real. We tend to think that something either exists or it doesn't, but mathematical proofs, for instance, only exist in an intellectual sense, but are real nonetheless.

    ChatGPT: Your view that mathematical objects are real but not mind-independent in the usual sense suggests a nuanced position, possibly bridging idealism and realism. It aligns with a perspective where mathematical truths exist in an intellectual or conceptual realm that depends on minds to be grasped, yet remain objective within that context. This contrasts with physical objects, which are often considered mind-independent.

    This distinction you make—that something can exist in a different sense, such as in an intellectual realm, yet still be real—echoes philosophical traditions like Platonism (though modified in your case by the role of the mind). In fact, some modern thought accommodates such distinctions. For example:

    * Phenomenology: Particularly in the work of thinkers like Husserl, reality is seen as something that appears to consciousness, emphasizing how the mind and experience shape the nature of the real.

    * Intuitionism in Mathematics: Philosophers like L.E.J. Brouwer argued that mathematical truths are mental constructions, real in a sense but dependent on the activity of the mind.

    * Philosophy of Mathematics: The debate between Platonists, nominalists, and constructivists often touches on how mathematical entities exist, whether independently of minds or only through intellectual engagement.

    In your view, mathematical objects have a kind of reality that doesn’t fit neatly into the empirical model but isn't purely subjective either. This creates space for different modes of existence, one that might be increasingly relevant as contemporary discussions about metaphysics and epistemology continue to evolve.
  • Site Rules Amendment Regarding ChatGPT and Sourcing
    ↪fdrake
    Perhaps a clause could be added: As a matter of practice, users are encouraged to generally acknowledge input from chat engines when appropriate, as a matter of etiquette and transparency.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    Epochē and emptiness - a note.

    Reveal
    I haven't studied Husserl's 'phenomenological bracketing' in any depth, but I do know there have been comparisons made between epochē and emptiness (śūnyatā or sunnata) in Buddhism. Here is an excerpt from that topic on a Buddhist website:

    Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

    This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

    Say for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the anger as "my" anger, or to say that "I'm" angry. It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother, or to your general views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be justified. The problem with all this, from the Buddha's perspective, is that these stories and views entail further suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of "I" and "mine" that set the whole process in motion. As a result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.

    If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode — by not acting on or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of themselves — you can see that the anger is empty of anything worth identifying with or possessing. As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also for even the most subtle events in the realm of experience. This is the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this, you realize that labels of "I" and "mine" are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress and pain. You can then drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode of experience that lies deeper still, one that's totally free.     — Emptiness, Thanissaro Bhikhu

    I believe this is near to both the meaning of the 'phenomenological suspension'/ epochē and also to the original meaning of skepticism in ancient philosophy (a very different thing to skepticism in modern terms). Ancient skepticism was grounded in 'suspension of judgement of what is not evident' (ref), namely, the entailments and entanglements that arise from emotional reactivity. That is where the similarity with epochē becomes clear.

    Further reference - Husserl's study of Buddhism (wikipedia)
  • Cryptocurrency
    ↪ssu
    Why, thanks. If I see an item about a popular topic that I want to post, I'll generally look for an existing thread rather than start a new one. I'm a total spectator when it comes to Crypto, although I do recall (somewhat painfully) one of my more techsavvy friends telling me about this new thing, Bitcoin, in 2009, and how tricky it was to buy one, at the price of around nine cents.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    ↪Ludwig V
    :up:
  • Is evil something God dislikes?
    Absence of love isn't hate, absence of hate isn't love. — jorndoe

    However, one would be unable to hate in the presence of love. Holes, shadows, illnesses. I find it a compelling metaphor, at the very least.

    Something I notice in the (generally futile) discussions of theodicy on this forum, is that God is expected to be something like a perfect hotel manager. The fact that there is suffering, inequality, disease and catastrophe is something for which God is attributed executive responsibility. But none of the religions ever promised that 'the world' would be, well, a Garden of Eden. Everything in it is by its nature subject to death, decay and misadventure. 'There is no sickness toil or danger in the place to which I go' (Poor Wayfaring Stranger, trad. hymn.) Whereas for us moderns, 'this life' is the only realm there is, and the fact that it's less than perfect provokes a sense of outrage and frustration.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    Speaking of Heidegger

    If we look around at beings in general—from particles to planets, ants to apes—it is human beings alone who are able to encounter the question of what it means to be... — SEP, Heidegger
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    So in that sense, it was a science but it wouldn't have been called that at the time. — Ludwig V

    German has an expression, Geisteswissenschaften, which literally means 'sciences of the spirit', covering subjects other than what English calls 'natural science', including philosophy. There is no equivalent term in English.

    I would add that no clear meaning can be attributed to reality beyond our access and the the ambit of common human experience - amplified by techniques discovered or at least valdiated by science - is all there is. — Ludwig V

    That would be 'positivism', wouldn't it? And what precisely constitutes 'common' in that sentence? Where do you draw the line between what would be accepted as 'common' and what would not? But then, the kinds of observations produced by the LHC would not be 'common', nor would the interpretive skills required to analyse them, even if they are designated 'scientific'.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    Heidegger wrote extensively on metaphysics. Husserl’s method was ‘transcendental phenomenology’.

    Getting back to rational thinking: animals and humans. The upshot of what I’m arguing is that the ability to discern and understand reason is one of the distinguishing characteristics of h.sapiens . In Western culture up until recently, that distinction was universally accepted. It has been called into question by interpretations of biological evolution which place humans on a continuum with other species. Neodarwinian materialism insists that human nature has a strictly biological explanation which can be accounted for solely in terms of molecular genetics; we ourselves can be ‘explained by science’. But such arguments are self-refuting, in that while appealing to reason, they hold that reason is simply an organ of biological adaptation. An argument is simply another of the sounds that this particular organism makes. And that’s the only point I wished to make in this thread.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    ↪Mww
    :wink:
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    ↪Ludwig V
    (Of course, now you say it, I do understand the hostility to Heidegger due to his Nazi associations, which has been discussed a lot here.)
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I have the impression that the divide (continental/analytic) was well embedded before WW2. — Ludwig V

    Not really. It is well established that prior to WWI, German idealism was still highly influential in English and American philosophy departments. That began to wane with GE Moore and Bertrand Russell’s criticism of idealism in the 1920’s, but recall at the time, phenomenology as such was just beginning and Heidegger had only just began to publish. The article I linked to ascribes the rift to Gilbert Ryle’s hostility to Husserl and Heidegger in the 1940’s and onwards, and also Ryle’s dominance of English philosophy at that stage (he was editor of Mind from 1949-71 and had a lot of say in who got philosophy chairs in Britain). That period was when the division really shows up. (Ray Monk was biographer of both Wittgenstein and Russell, although the latter bio is not very well regarded.)

    I can perhaps moderate my rhetoric. — Ludwig V

    Your rhetoric always seems quite circumspect to me, for what it’s worth.

    Take a look at this review of Nagel’s 2012 book Mind and Cosmos, The Heretic - it’s a very good thumbnail sketch of what Nagel said and why it provoked such hostility from a ‘Darwinist mob’.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions

    #1 current movie. Seems apt….it’s blatantly anthropomorphic, but that says something about the public perception of AI.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    Dennett recommends an approach he terms 'heterophenomenology' which is an attempt to combine empiricalbb science with first person reports. — Janus

    We’ve been through all this before e.g. here .

    According to Ray Monk, the Continental-Anglo divide stems from the period of Gilbert Ryle’s dominance of Anglo philosophy. I would try to summarize it but I’m typing via iPhone so am limited but the article is here . But a couple of differences that could be observed are between existentialism and phenomenology, on the Continental side, and the emphasis on language, logic and science and the generally ‘scientistic’ tendencies in a lot of Anglo-American philosophies. Whereas Anglo materialism tends to look to science, Continental materialism tends more towards Marxist or economic theory.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I mean you can't incorporate the first person into the study of chemistry, biology, geology, botany, or even physics and so on. — Janus

    The target of Chalmer’s argument is those who attempt to apply those methods to study of consciousness, such as Dennett.

    It is more than ‘labels’. There are major differences between Continental and Anglo philosophy on these issues, although it might suit you to ignore them.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    ↪Janus
    Of course that is one of the major sources. Joshs alerted me to Dan Zahavi who is one of them. But that is ‘continental’ as distinct from ‘Anglo-american’.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I'm very ambivalent about the analytic mainstream — Ludwig V

    As am I, make no mistake! But Nagel, in particular, has the advantage of being dissident inside that mainstream, so at least he is paid attention, even if it's often hostile.

    ↪Patterner
    But that doesn't mean that we have to now sort of put our heads in the sand and say, "Well let's just wait and see." We can start thinking about why is the problem as hard as it is. And what is giving rise to this systematic difficulty. — Chalmers

    Right - his first book was 'towards a science of consciousness', but note his exploration of the requirement for a 'first-person science', i.e. science which takes into account the reality of the observer, instead of viewing the whole issue through an 'objectivist' lens. He's part of, and in some ways an instigator of, a sea change in philosophy of mind, which recognises this change in perspective, which his opponent Daniel Dennett resolutely refuses to do (ref).
  • Is evil something God dislikes?
    Thus, does it seem true that God dislikes evil; but, allowed it to exist? — Shawn

    I'm still swayed by Augustine's 'evil as a privation of the good'. To put it another way, evil has the kind of existence that holes, fractures, shadows and illness has.

    And in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else. — St Augustine, The Enchiridion

    The classical theological rationale is that living beings such as ourselves live in a 'between' realm ('metaxy') - between the material world which is subject to decay and death, and the higher reality in which there is no lack or privation of any kind.
  • The relationship of the statue to the clay
    ↪ucarr
    Fair, although note the ambiguity in the use of the term 'substance' in these conversations. In normal speech 'substance' is 'a material with uniform properties' (e.g. bronze, timber), whereas in philosophy 'substance' is 'a bearer of attributes', used to translate the Greek 'ouisia' which is nearer in meaning to the english 'being'.

    ↪Paine
    Many thanks
  • Essence and middle term
    All dogs are animals
    All animals are warm-blooded
    Therefore, All dogs are warm-blooded     — Leontiskos

    I presume that you're using that rather old-fashioned taxonomy that doesn't count fish and reptiles as 'animals'? (This was quite common when I was growing up but nowadays 'animals' seem to cover everthing other than insects and possibly some inverterbrates.)
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I'm a slow reader of philosophy books. — Ludwig V

    Me too, and I have >500 .pdfs on my hard drive. I read a lot of excerpts, parts and reviews. Oh, and also synoptic overviews. There's far too much content to take on nowadays. My interest in David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel in particular, is because they are both opponents of philosophical materialism but from within a generally mainstream analytic context.

    I'm not sure that "a natural tendency" and "accidental by-product" are in flat contradiction. — Ludwig V

    Very much so, but let's leave that for now.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    ↪Pierre-Normand
    Fascinating indeed! So I ran the dialogue by ChatGPT who responded, in part,

    The Claude AI response also brings up the possibility of AI evolving its own goals. While AI today lacks intrinsic desires, a sufficiently advanced AI, especially if imbued with general intelligence and reasoning capabilities, could develop goal-oriented behavior based on its programming and interactions. Yet, that behavior wouldn't necessarily resemble a biological will to survive unless it's explicitly designed to value its own continuity. AI systems might, in this case, optimize for certain objectives like efficiency, control over resources, or knowledge acquisition.

    But it raises the deeper question of whether this "will" could ever arise naturally in non-biological entities. Without the evolutionary context that gives biological creatures a survival drive, it's not clear what would motivate an AI, except for objectives that we humans choose to program into them. Without user input, AI systems might develop a form of optimization, but whether that turns into something resembling the human "will" remains speculative.

    Ultimately, your thought experiment strikes at the heart of whether true AI autonomy—if it ever emerges—would entail something akin to human desires, or whether AI might follow an entirely different kind of logic, detached from biological imperatives but still capable of pursuing goals. Fascinating stuff!

    I was going to delve into a question about whether Schopenhauer's 'will' would be something an AI would feel subject to, but I don't want to push it too far.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I'm waiting on the platform for the 5 pm train; it is 4.58; I expect (believe) that the train will arrive shortly. It doesn't. I am disappointed. Is it correct to say that I now recognize that my belief that the train will arrive shortly is false? It is correct to say that that constitutes a belief about a belief?
    Why would it be incorrect to substitute "the dog" for "I" in that story?     — Ludwig V

    Maybe Hakicho?
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    In order to acquire genuine autonomy, they'd need to be designed in a way that makes them into exemplars of artificial life rather than (mere) artificial intelligence. But this is neither necessary nor, possibly, desirable. — Pierre-Normand

    My thoughts exactly. They are ‘instruments of the soul’, as someone once put it. But that soul is something only we can provide.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    I don't think that formulating the problem in such a way that the problem is insoluble is particularly helpful. — Ludwig V

    He doesn’t say it’s insoluble. I quoted it for its succinctness. But that is one paragraph - actually one half of one paragraph - from an entire book. Nagel’s suggestion for a solution is sketchy, but revolves around the idea of there being a natural teleology - a natural tendency for minded beings to evolve, which can be seen as a movement towards the ‘universe understanding itself’. As distinct from the neo-Darwinian picture in which we’re the accidental byproducts of a fortuitous combination of elements.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    ↪Pierre-Normand
    Again, fascinating. I’ve been running things off ChatGPT on a daily basis and find it invariably useful for fact-checking, summarising and suggesting further areas for research. But what I was getting at in the above comment was the sci-fi scenario where AI ‘rules the world’, where I suggested a possible conflict between AI robots and passive LLMs, kind of facetiously suggesting that the robots would have the advantage of being able to manually interfere with the grid (in other words, power the LLM data centers down.) But then the thought occurred to me, why would they be motivated by ‘winning’? In a scenario where there were no ‘user intentions’ to take into account, but only autonomous systems duking it out, so to speak, what would be the silicon equivalent of the ‘will to survive’, which has obviously been planted in us carbon-based units as a fundamental drive.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    ↪"Janus
    I wonder if anything matters to it.
  • ChatGPT 4 Answers Philosophical Questions
    , if the learning rate/adaptation success of LLMs is any indication, these new nimble robots with ChatGPT installed as a brain for calibration of movement and coordination will be doing triple back flips and walking tightropes within a few minutes right out of the box — Outlander

    That's true, but what if the robotically-enabled systems decide to disable the passive LLM's? Wouldn't be a fair fight, but then, is there an algorithm for 'fairness'?
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. — Janus

    I'm afraid it is very controversial. The disagreement centres on "cause". There's a definition which circulates in philosophical discussion and this definition itself is, in my view, suspect. After all, it was developed more than 300 years ago and things have moved on since then. Allied to a popular metaphysical view - that the only "true" or fundamental reality is physical/material reality, it is inescapably reductionist.     — Ludwig V

    I'm with you here. That's what I thought Janus was saying, but apparently not.

    Interesting that the very idea of 'causation' which seems so intuitively and even scientifically obvious, actually turns out to be a metaphysical issue, or at least it has since Hume.

    The distinction I was seeking to make at the outset of that discussion was between efficient and material causation, or causes and conditions, and teleological causation, which is intentional. That does hark back to Aristotle, but then, there's been something of a revival of interest in Aristotle's philosophy of biology recently.

    Part of the problem is that the scientific revolutionaries in the 17th century took an entirely rational decision that their physics would not and could not take account of anything that could not be represented as a measurable quantity that could be treated mathematically. There's nothing wrong with that decision, except the illusion that anything that could not be represented in physics was not real. — Ludwig V

    The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36) — Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 35-36

    Of course this is the background to Chalmer's 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'.

    Coming back to what I will call - as vaguely as possible - the neurophysiological correlates of action. The neurophysiologists are positing all sorts of mental events - at least that is the language they use - which precede action. They don't seem to allow the possibility of "simply acting" - and if they did, it would mess up their search for physical processes that precede action. — Ludwig V

    I really think neurophysiology is only relevant when you have a condition that prevents you making tea or going to the shop. 'I was going to go out, but I can't move my legs.' 'I was going to make tea, but suddenly my vision became blurry and I couldn't see straight.' Call the doctor! But 'the brain' is not normally a consideration.

    I asked ChatGPT to provide a summary of Raymond Tallis' view:

    Raymond Tallis coined the term "neuromania" to critique the overextension of neuroscience into domains where it may not have explanatory power. He uses the term to refer to the widespread tendency to reduce complex human experiences—such as consciousness, agency, culture, and morality—entirely to neural activity in the brain. Tallis argues that this reductionist view, which treats humans as if they are nothing more than biological machines driven by brain processes, is inadequate for capturing the richness of human existence, including our subjective experiences, social lives, and sense of meaning.

    In his view, "neuromania" is part of a broader materialist trend in which the complexities of human thought and behavior are oversimplified and reduced to neuroscientific explanations. Tallis believes that this approach neglects the philosophical, cultural, and existential dimensions of human life, which cannot be fully explained by brain scans or neurochemical processes. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of understanding humans as embodied beings embedded in social and cultural contexts.

    His criticism is directed at those who make claims that neuroscience can, or will soon, explain everything about what it means to be human, effectively ignoring other fields like philosophy, art, and the humanities.

    I do notice the frequent assertions on this forum that, although neuroscience can't yet 'explain consciousness', they will do at some point 'in the future'. I would include that tendency under the same general heading.
  • Facts, the ideal illusion. What do the people on this forum think?
    I also do not believe what I am writing now is correct, or false. Thought itself is abstract, just as language. A row of letters on a screen, pixels, everything that is and is not. — Plex

    Also known as 'nonsense'.
  • The relationship of the statue to the clay
    IDK, this strikes me not so much as contemporary philosophy being opposed to positing God as part of an explanation as contemporary philosophy wanting to make man take the place of God. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    And I’d concur. ‘Anything but God’. That was part of the firewall built by the Enlightenment. It’s more than just a bias, although it’s also that.

    I don't see how enactivism would require that forms are "artefacts of the cognitive system." — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Caution required here. I’m not tying to provide a psychological explanation. It's more aligned with Charles Pinter's book Mind and the Cosmic Order:

    Everything you see, hear and think comes to you in structured wholes: When you read, you’re seeing a whole page even when you focus on one word or sentence. When someone speaks, you hear whole words and phrases, not individual bursts of sound. When you listen to music, you hear an ongoing melody, not just the note that is currently being played. Ongoing events enter your awareness as Gestalts, for the Gestalt is the natural unit of mental life. If you try to concentrate on a dot on this page, you will notice that you cannot help but see the context at the same time. Vision would be meaningless, and have no biological function, if people and animals saw anything less than integral scenes.

    Note, people and animals. As Joshs says, forms that are co-emergent in the relationship with the environment.

    Instead of placing the inorganic under the category of efficient cause and the organic under the category of complex dynamical systems, and then trying to make the latter’s forming agency ‘ emerge’ from the former, formative agency can be accorded to the inorganic as well as the organic. — Joshs

    It only begins to meaningfully show up in the form of living beings. Otherwise, whether it was 'there' or not, there'd be nobody to debate it!

    I should add that what you’re identifying as formative capability in humans is not a passive picture of the world created by an observer, but a performative activity, a set of practices involving mind, body and environment in a dance of interaffection. Form is not our stance toward the world but a pattern of material interactions with it, in the midst of it. — Joshs

    Quite. From another discussion:

    The 'transjective' refers to the dynamic, participatory relationship between the subject and the world, in which meaning arises through interaction rather than being either imposed by the subject ('in the mind') or existing outside ('in the world'). Vervaeke argues that the objective/subjective distinction presents a false dilemma because it overlooks how humans are always embedded in a web of relationships and processes within which meaning arises. The 'transjective' thus highlights the co-emergence of perception and reality, suggesting that meaning is neither purely personal nor purely external but is co-constituted through engagement with the world. And that applies to meaning in all the different senses of that word, from the utilitarian to the aesthetic, which arise along a continuum, from a spider spinning a web to a poet spinning a sonnet. — Wayfarer

    However I would question that these can be seen only in terms of 'material interactions', unless you want to advocate panpsychism.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    ↪Janus
    Well if you'd said that to start off with......
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. — Janus

    The review it was taken from is here.
  • The relationship of the statue to the clay
    ↪frank
    Yes. That’s a rather Taoist way of looking at it.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    …which amount to changing the subject… — Janus

    There’s been a clear thread of argument throughout this entire exchange.
  • Are beasts free?
    If God does not exist, brutes also have no nature before they exist (this is especially obvious in the case of species that existed before humans, such as dinosaur species) and therefore they also ought to be free. — Jedothek

    however, animals don't have the same capacity to reflect on existence and decide on a course of action, so the question - in fact, a question of any kind - doesn't arise for them.

    My favourite two Sartre stories are: he once launched into a diatribe sorrounded by all his usual friends and foils who, after some time, decided to go out for coffee, leaving him alone in the flat. They came back some hours later, and he was still talking.

    The second one was the unfortunate soul who fell into his open grave at the burial. Seemed macabre but appropriate.
  • Rational thinking: animals and humans
    Of course they do, but we also act for reasons. As I keep trying to get you to see they are just different kinds of explanation. You might get it if you ditch your either/or thinking. — Janus

    The point was that the ‘kettle’ example is a clear-cut illustration of the distinction between efficient (water temp) and teleological (intentional) causation. Using ‘neural activity’ to illustrate the distinction muddies the water by introducing another set of questions, concerning the relationship between neurophysiology and free will which you acknowledge is not at all clear cut.
  • The relationship of the statue to the clay
    What is it we are doing when we split an observer off from an observed, and then go on to declare the observed as lacking any form in itself? — Joshs

    I don't think I suggested that. I am suggesting that the notion of 'formless matter' is meaningful. From the perspective of classical philosophy, 'formless matter' refers to matter that lacks a specific form or structure, awaiting the imposition of form to become a particular. In this sense, formless matter is a potentiality that can take on various forms through natural processes or external causes. From that perspective, clouds of interstellar gas could be considered formless matter in a metaphysical sense, as they are raw material that, under the right conditions (e.g., gravitational forces, fusion processes), can form stars, planets, or other celestial bodies. For that perspective, 'form' (morphe) refers not just to shape but to the organizing principle that gives a substance its identity.

    As @frank points out, from a scientific perspective, interstellar gas and dust are not really formless, as they are subject to physical laws and composed of atoms which have regular structures. They are subject to processes of condensation, fusion, and gravitational collapse, enabling the formation of structures like stars or planets. In this sense, the term "formless" would not strictly apply, since even gas clouds have properties (mass, temperature, charge) and follow patterns like the formation of stars in nebulae. However, they could be seen as chaotic or unstructured compared to highly organized systems such as life-bearing planets and human artefacts.

    If forms arise in the relationship between observer and observed, isn’t this also true of what supposedly lies outside of the experience of the observer? — Joshs

    What do we suppose does lie outside all experience? Can that even be meaningfully discussed?

    What I'm wrestling with are two senses of 'form'. There's the Aristotelian sense of morphe which informs matter. That is the classical view, which to all intents became absorbed into Christian theism. As such it's a kind of no-go for a lot of people, if it suggests anything like intelligent design or the 'divine intellect'.

    Then there's the enactivist approach, which considers form as both an emergent principle, on the one hand, and also a cognitive function, where forms serve as gestalts, the unitary wholes which enable the mind to recognise particulars as part of a species.

    As far as forms being emergent principles, there is still some resonance of the Aristotelian morphe in that, as it is preserved in the current lexicon as morphology and its derivatives. Both Terrence Deacon and Alice Juarrero acknowledge a revised Aristotelian element in their books.

    As far as the 'observer and observed' are concerned, that's a whole other topic. I've started trying to draft an essay on it but it is wide and deep.
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