Sorry I didn't see this: I wasn't linked to it. Philosophim, I am not going to make your argument for you (: — Bob Ross

Yes I just wanted you to read section 4, but there's no direct link. You can ctrl+F and type the phrase in to find it directly. I'm also not trying to have you make my argument, I just know when there are other better references then myself. I read Kant's work on knowledge many moons ago, and I would not deign to be an expert on the specifics. We are not really at a point of debating if Kant's ideology works, but we seem to be debating the meaning of what Kant was saying. That type of discussion requires good references.

I think you are thinking that a priori knowledge is knowledge which one has independently of ever having experienced anything; and I am partially to blame to for that: I was misusing the term a while back. — Bob Ross

Yes, and so now I need a new clarification of what you mean by apriori. That was the crux of what I was against. Kant is easy to read at a surface level, but when you get into the specifics of it, problems start to crop up.

a posteriori knowledge is knowledge which is grounded in empirical data, and is, thusly, about reality; whereas a priori knowledge is about how we perceive reality. — Bob Ross

Are you sure this makes sense? Isn't how we perceive reality also how we empirically experience reality? A color blind person would have a different empirical experience then a normal color sighted person. Is that experience apriori or aposteriori? Let me link the first section of the article I linked.

"A standard answer to the question about the difference between a priori and empirical justification is that a priori justification is independent of experience and empirical justification is not, and this seems to explain the contrasts present in the fifteen examples above. But various things have been meant by “experience”. On a narrow account, “experience” refers to sense experience, that is, to experiences that come from the use of our five senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. However, this narrow account implies that justification based on introspection, proprioception (our kinesthetic sense of the position and movements of our body), memory, and testimony are kinds of a priori justification. And if we had different senses, like those of bats (echolocation) and duck-billed platypuses (electrolocation), experiences based on those senses would provide a priori, not empirical, justification on this account which takes a priori justification to be independent of experiences based on the senses we have.

Given these considerations, perhaps “experience” should be taken to mean “sense experience of any sort, introspection, proprioception, memory, and testimony”. This sounds like a hodgepodge of various sources of justification but perhaps what unites them is that, leaving aside memory and testimony, these sources provide us with information either about the physical world or our inner world, either the outer world through perception or the inner world of what we are feeling or thinking, or information about our bodies, through introspection and proprioception. Memory and testimony are not primary sources of justification; their primary epistemic function is to transmit either a priori or empirical justification. So the proposal should be seen as a way of distinguishing the primary sources of justification into two categories of justification: a priori and empirical.

As noted above (see, sec. 3) and below (secs. 4.4 and 4.5), “independent of experience” should not be taken to mean independent of all experience, but, as a first approximation, to mean “independent of all experience beyond what is needed to grasp the relevant concepts involved in the proposition”. It is sometimes said that a priori justification can depend on experience insofar as it enables the person to acquire the concepts needed to grasp the meaning of the proposition which is the object of justification, but experience cannot play an evidential role in that justification (Williamson 2013: 293). Later we will see that the notion of enabling experience might better be expanded to include experience needed to acquire certain intellectual skills such as those needed to construct certain proofs or create counterexamples (see, secs. 4.4 and 4.5, below).

Suppose there is a significant difference between a priori and empirical justification. This still does not tell us what the basis of a priori justification is. One view is that rational intuitions or insights are the bases of a priori justification; experiences, as construed above, the bases of empirical justification. Before discussing the nature of rational intuitions or insights, we should first distinguish between intuitions and intuitive judgments and consider what the content of intuitive judgments evoked in thought experiments is."

The point of the above is trying to make the definitions of apriori and aposteriori work, because Kant is unclear and seems to contradict himself at times (or perhaps through the language translation of his works) when he says "experience". What truly separates the two? As I've noted, there really is no mental difference between the empirical and non-empirical. To me, the true difference is in 'application' or 'assertion'. The empirical asserts that one's mental constructs represent an intake of something independent of oneself, while 'mental' aspects, such as thoughts and memory, are taken to be something that is dependent on oneself. Or maybe a better phrasing is, "of the self". But they are both experiences.

Taking space as another example, the axiom in geometry that “the shortest path between two points is a straight line connecting them” is a proposition that is true in virtue of the way we experience as opposed to what we experience — Bob Ross

So if I am blind and have no sense of touch, it is true in virtue of the way I experience? That doesn't make any sense. It is known 'to be true' (known by application) based on empirical experience. We can also know it 'by definition'. But knowing a definition of something doesn't make it true in application. I can know the definition of a pink elephant, but it doesn't mean I'll ever know one empirically.

I'm talking about instincts as the being of a person prior to any experience.

Then the root of our disagreement there is merely semantical: that’s not usually what an “instinct” means. For example, Webster’s is “a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason”. — Bob Ross

Yes, that's fine. I'm trying to note the parts of apriori that work. What works is when you note apriori as 'innate being'. This includes instincts and physical potential. These are the only things which are independent of empirical experience. You could think independent of ever having any sense, but what would you think about? You wouldn't even know what space is let alone have a memory of anything but some dark and wordless nothingness. You wouldn't even know what 'dark' is, it would just be a senseless existence. Everything else that we reason about in our head has its root in empirical experience. We create identities, memories, and then have the innate ability to part and parcel those memories into ideas, imagination, dreams, and other thoughts. But to say they are 'true'? What exactly about them is true Bob?

The point that I was making with “applicable” vs. “distinctive” knowledge, is that it doesn’t preclude a priori knowledge; and it would be applicable knowledge in your theory (assuming I grant our theory in its entirety). — Bob Ross

Distinctive knowledge is the closest to the loose concept of 'apriori knowledge'. Its an evolution of the concept without the problematic definitive issues of what apriori is. Never do I say distinctive knowledge is 'true'. Never do I separate the empirical from the mental with distinctive knowledge. The separation is when you try to take those memories and experiences, and apply it to a world that is independent of your wishes, desires, and interpretations. The idea of apriori does not do this.

Space data is not empirical—you are using the terms to loosely. There are aspects of your experience which your brain produces as a matter of how it is pre-structured to represent vs. the actual empirical data it is representing. — Bob Ross

How does a person who has no senses understand space? And if it was inborn, how come it takes several months to learn?

(Development of spatial development in babies)
4 to 6 months:
Begins to grasp objects and explores them with hands and mouth.
Starts to show depth perception (judging distances between objects).
https://www.visionlearncenter.com/post/milestones-for-visual-spatial-development

I was noting that not all aspects of experience are empirical; and I can’t tell if you agree with that or not — Bob Ross

I agree with this. What I'm noting is that apriori meaning "thoughts(?) that are independent of empirical experience" needs special care. If you are to claim an understanding of space is apriori, how can that understanding of space be completely independent of empirical experience with the assertion that is it true?

What helps with productivity is not, "I should be productive". Silence that. What you should be asking yourself is, "What do I want to accomplish in life?" Then make sure you actively work towards that. If what you want to accomplish in life is look at youtube videos all day and talk with chat bots, do so. You'll find once you have a goal that you truly wish to pursue, procrastination will turn into, "I like doing these other things too, but they're at a lower priority for now."

And if its basic maitainence and work that you would rather not be doing...you're screwed. :D

I was wondering how to tackle this post as the entirety of apriori, posteriori, analytic, and synthetic distinctions can get messy. Further, apriori knowledge is often the means of justifying said knowledge, and Kant's justification model is still based off of JTB if I recall correctly. Since we're discussing specifically what Kant is saying, I think its important that we accurately assess what Kant is saying, and not our interpretation of it.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/#ExamIlluDiffBetwPrioPostEmpiJust

Honestly, the above is a greater and more accurate source of the definition of apriori, and some of the issues. Specifically, I' m going to refer to section 4 " What is the nature of a priori justification?" Take a read and see what you think. Feel free to ask me to revisit any of the above notes when you're done. But as it is now, I think the terms need better clarification to continue.

I would say it is also independent of the imagination, thoughts, memories, etc. being that it is the necessary preconditions for that as well. — Bob Ross

I don't think we're in disagreement with the idea of apriori, just apriori knowledge. You're using math, but as I'll note, I still don't see that as knowledge independent of experience. Can you give some other examples of apriori knowledge?

Not quite: an instinct is a way one is predisposed to reacting to experience; — Bob Ross

I believe instinct includes this, but also the impetus to act at all. Apriori essentially includes the package of being prior to experience. The apriori of a fish would be very different from a human. One could also posit its the being and potential prior to experience.

whereas the a priori means of cognizing objects is a way we are pre-structured to experience. To your point, we could very well say that there are a priori instincts we have vs. ones we learn. My point here is just that you are invalidly forming a dichotomy between ‘instincts’ and ‘experience’ which turns out to be a false one. — Bob Ross

I'm with you all the way until the last sentence. It may be due to the way you're defining instincts. I'm talking about instincts as the being of a person prior to any experience. So its not a false dichotomy, its a true one.

You aren’t thinking about it properly, and this is what is the root of the confusion. Not everything that is a priori is instinctual (like I noted before); and a priori knowledge is any knowledge which has its truth-maker in the way we experience as opposed to what we experience. — Bob Ross

In the way we experience... So let me note again the point about 'distinctive experience'. In the paper I comment that "I don't know why I distinctively experience, but I do." That isn't knowledge. Actions and instincts prior to experience are not themselves experience. The first time I discretely experience, I now have that experience. But there was no experience before that allowed me to discretely experience. Its an innate capability. Innate capabilities are not knowledge. Knowledge can only be gleaned from experience. So while apriori can work on its own, apriori knowledge is a contradiction.

This is why Kant noted that math is a priori; because no matter what you are experiencing, the propositions in math are true in virtue of the way we cognize objects in space and time which is true for anything a human will experience. — Bob Ross

I noted that math is the logic of discrete experience. But it still needs to be learned through experience. One cannot begin to understand the logic of discrete experience without first discretely experiencing. And that IS an experience. Every thought, feelilng, and 'mental' existence, is an experience. We forget sometimes that even when I touch something, that experience is 'mental'. The carpet doesn't feel soft outside of our touch. Its our touch interpreting the carpet into some type of sensation in our brains. Whether I have a though by touching carpet, or a thought while sitting on a couch imagining a blue sky, those are still experiences.

“1 + 1 = 2” is true as grounded by the way our brains cognize, the mathematical axioms which it has, and not because of something we learned about something which we experienced (in terms of its purely empirical content). — Bob Ross

He almost had it. Since we innately discretely experience, we all share that same aspect of viewing the world. And because we can be logical beings, we can figure out that there is a logic to discretely experiencing. Thus if you reason through it, you can conclude some type of expression of 'math'. But these are things we must learn though experiencing. Just like the fact that physics exists in our world, we don't know about it unless we experience it. Apriori means 'independent of experience'. Knowledge is "What can be logically concluded by experience that best fits reality". Apriori knowledge is therefore a contradiction. You cannot have knowledge, which is dependent on experience, that is also independent of experience.

This is why Kant famously said that all knowledge begins with experience but that does not mean all knowledge arises out of experience. — Bob Ross

A fun and poetic saying, but it does not make logical sense. Knowledge by experience is an either or situation. If you must have experience for knowledge, you cannot have apriori knowledge, or "Knowledge by experience that is independent of experience". Something isn't being reasoned through correctly.

The space which objects are presented to you in is purely synthetic: it is something your brain added into the mix—not empirical data. — Bob Ross

All empirical data is from your brain Bob. All experience is in your brain. We are fortunately able to interpret that there is a world outside of our brain that we try to master. The only difference is, 'Thoughts through nerves that hit the brain" vs "thoughts in the brain without nerves".

What we are discussing is not if knowledge begins with experience, but if there aspects of our experience which are not experiential. — Bob Ross

This needs to be more clearly defined then. How can one have experience and also not have experience? I think its a confusion as to believing that the senses are a different kind of experience then thoughts without the senses. This is a fine distinction, but they are both experiences. That's the difference between my point of 'discrete experiences' vs 'applicable experiences'. Both are experiences, and both can gain knowledge. Apriori knowledge is "Knowledge without experience, but it still starts with experience", which breaks down the more you think on it.

Bases are just different ways to represent numbers: I am talking about numbers themselves — Bob Ross

Again, numbers are signs, which are learned through experience. The sign '1' never had to arise in human society. The sign for one could have just as easily ben 'ua'. What we can learn by discretely experiencing is that we can focus on a 'discrete', or one that is separate from everything around it. We then have the capability to hold a '1' and a '1' discrete experience, and group that into a new discrete experience that we label as '2'. While I believe most people have the innate capacity to do this process, it does not result in 'math' or 'numbers'. If one is able to function with a basic logic of discrete experience, then one can do this. But to know one can do this, one has to experience it first.

The point is that there is no knowledge apart from experience. All knowledge is gained from experience. Our innate capacities determine what types of experiences we can have, and if we can reason through them in a particular way. But knowledge of that only comes after doing so. "Discrete experience" and "distinctive knowledge" solve the problem, "apriori knowledge" doesn't quite work.

If you understood the essential properties and context of what grue and bleen is, then yes

You can tell when things were created down to the year just by looking at them? When you drive through a neighborhood you know the year each house was built just as readily as the the color it is painted? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I misunderstood the question then. To tell the age that a house was built, you need verifiable records and trust in their accuracy.

This seems like "because difference is not a logical contradiction it is arbitrary." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I'm not saying that. It is arbitrary in terms of 'accuracy'. It is not arbitrary in terms of individuals or cultures. As I noted, language can be a matter of preference and power in addition to accuracy. Preference and power are arbitrary in relation to accuracy, if the only thing one cares about is accuracy. But people often care more about things other than accuracy. Would I elevate these differences to the same level as 'intelligent decisions"? No.

Human languages distinguish between shape and color — Count Timothy von Icarus

This would be about accuracy. Saying, "That feels like the color red" is something only a person with synthesia would experience. So we people without synthesia don't view the above sentence as having any accuracy.

If someone argued that chemistry should be split into chemistry done by people with blue eyes and chemistry done by people with other colored eyes, or argued that we should divide chemistry into pre and post 1990 chemistries, or a chemistry of federally recognized holidays, they would be rebuffed for non-arbitrary reasons. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, like the idea that 'slaves shouldn't read'. Such a division is about cultural power over others, not anything accurate to the nature of being a slave.

This might be filtered through "personal preference," but personal preference doesn't spring from the aether uncaused and neither do our concepts and languages. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I never implied that it did. I'm just noting that personal preference can override why one would use a term over another if you had two terms that accurately described the same situation under consideration. And in some cases, personal preference can override accuracy. Of course, the accurate term will be much more likely to accurately reflect the world, but if one is not interested in that, then it is dismissed.

A theorem (as opposed to an equation that's given a real-world interpretation) isn't described as effective, it's described as true, or at least provable in L. — J

It depends on your definition of 'true'. If you mean 'true and false' as logically valid, that's not the same as 'true means what is real'. 'Real' being, "What exists despite our knowledge".

Do you want to abandon that way of talking? If a correspondence theory of truth demands that we do so, I'd argue that it represents a reductio ad absurdum and should be rejected on that ground. — J

In the case of 'truth as reality', there is no correspondence theory of truth. The end result is, "Knowledge is the best logical process we have to understand reality, but it cannot prove that it is a 100% accurate comprehension of truth. That is beyond human limits"

And it all comes down to the fact that 'reality' does not care what we think. Tomorrow we could discover physics is wrong. Does that mean we didn't know physics? Of course not. Today with all we can reason, physics is what is known. So we go with that until shown otherwise. Maybe physics is a 100% accurate representation of truth. Maybe one day we'll discover that its not. But logically, its the best thing we have right now.

Suppose bleen is "green and "first observed" during or before 2004," or "blue and 'first observed' after 2004." Could you go walk around where you live and determine what was grue or bleen? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you understood the essential properties and context of what grue and bleen is, then yes. Notice I say context, because the context of what grue is to a scientist who studies light waves and a local and colloquial understanding of grue can be different. The important part is to first establish what the definition is in context. Only then can you go about applying that definition to confirm or deny its match.

Suppose there is a famous green landmark in your town and it got flattened by a tornado in 2006. It was rebuilt with largely with materials salvaged from the original, but has a substantial amount of new material. Is it bleen or grue? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Same response.

What if only small parts of it were replaced each year since 2004? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Seems a bit Theseus here, so why don't we go to the source?

Really the same situation applies. What does the culture think is Theseus ship? There might be a society that believes ownership only happens for five years, and after five years the original thing has changed so much that it is something completely knew and it needs to be registered with the state again.

We can have another culture that believes ownership is tied with purchase and then use. So as long as he uses the ship, its his no matter the part replacements. But if he abandons it for a year, its no longer his.

Its all about "What are the definitions in the context?" Once you have that, then you do applied knowledge. The problems often come in thinking that applied knowledge happens, then we wonder what the definitions are. That's an improper use of knowledge. That's when we're discovering what the definitions should be.

In the case of grue and blue, we're not asking what the definitions should be, we already know what they mean. Our decision is then, "should we use grue or blue"? And I mentioned earlier, as long as both are accurate to the point they are not contradicted by reality, its really a personal choice. It may be as simple as, "I like one word more than another" or as complicated as, "Those dirty grueians are a stupid people that I find inferior. Blue is obviously superior and the 'right' way to identify a color."

↪Philosophim What a cromulent response! :smile:

This just pushes the question back a level -- why is it effective? — J

Ha ha, glad you got the reference! It is accurate because it is not contradicted by reality, and that's it. If I can hold a word, phrase, or set of built up claims that are not contradicted by reality, then I have 'accuracy'. Meaning that accuracy is not about capturing 'what really is'. Its about creating a representation of the world that isn't contradicted by 'what really is'. If we use deduction, and the steps that lead to knowledge I noted in the paper, its the most reasonable way to think about the world, and the closest we can ever get to capturing 'what really is'.

But we can have multiple terms and viewpoints of the world that are effective. For example, we can use math in base 2,3,4 or any really. They're all 'accurate'. This is where the other two points I made come into play. The most likely reason we use base ten is because we have ten fingers, which are great tools to start counting with. And that's really it. We use base two in logic gates, because there are only two states for a gate "on or off". We use hexadecimal for memory, as it turns out to make more sense when you combine several binary gates together for functionality.

Wouldn't it make more sense for you (if I've understood your thinking here) to abandon any talk of accuracy or truth? — J

No, accuracy is still extremely important, and should be the ideal goal of knowledge. Accuracy doesn't mean necessarily that you've discovered what is true, but it does mean that you're not in contradiction with what is true. Truth of course being, 'What is'.

Religion is a good example of holding a set of terms that may be both accurate and useful depending on culture and a lack of other terminology. Lets say you don't have an objective morality, but common people who till fields all day need a guide. You know that government isn't well liked by people, after all, they take your money with taxes. People like to have a greater purpose then just living. We need people to treat each other right to build a society. The idea of a "God" that can answer complicated questions that these types of people do not have the education, or real need to consider, can be incredibly useful.

Why should I not steal from my neighbor? Because God, your creator who loves you/will kill you has deemed it so. Its part of a greater plan then yourself. When you die, you'll go to heaven/hell based on your performance here. So be happy that tilling the fields is fulfilling Gods plan, don't lust after your neighbors hot body when you're already married, raise your kids well, and treat people right.

"God" in this case is not necessarily contradicted by reality. "Why can't I see God?" "God is all around us, but you can't see or hear him." "How do I know there's an afterlife." "Have faith, don't you feel it inside of you?"

Of course, increased education like neuroscience and epistemology start to reveal that "God" is simply a plausible invention of the mind, not a real applicable reality. But for a common person tilling fields, "God" may actually give them greater purpose, and answers the basic life and moral questions that one might think of while plowing a field at 2 in the afternoon. Satisfaction with their lot in life generates good work, and a life that feels fulfilled. It can create a common ideology the village can gather around that isn't government. It can give a sense of freedom and personal worth.

Welcome to the forums! For beginners I don't recommend going to school, use the internet to do that!

Here's a 30 minute summary of philosophy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5i2y5w8Dzc

Here's a friendly digest which gives a more fun overview that dives a little deeper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zElslG_tE&list=PLybg94GvOJ9FIZxEevSANiCk5O9l_rYWK

Want something more serious? Here's an online history of philosophy series of lectures for free from Arthur Holmes at Wheton College
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM

Want to just browse topics like 'Aristotle, moralty, or epistemology?' Use the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

And of course, feel free to browse the forums and start topic like, "Can I taste the color green?" :) Have fun learning!

Well, perhaps, but how can "accuracy" be a factor at all? What would make something an "accurate representation," to use your phrase, and of what is it a representation? None of the three factors talk about how such an idea could arise.

To put it in simple terms (borrowed from Sider), are we really not in a position to say that the Bleen people have gotten something wrong? — J

Accuracy is point 1.

1. Real life effectiveness

As long as an identity and its application are effective, or not contradicted by reality, people will hold it. Physics is held because it works. When it doesn't work, we look for an amendment or something wrong. Have you ever heard of phlogiston theory? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

At one time, it was considered a serious contender for why things would catch on fire. In short, the theory that was things which could burn had a substance called phlogiston in them that would burn when you exposed it to air. It has a few problems however, such as that some substances when burnt grew heavier, which couldn't happen if phlogiston was burning away. It was eventually replaced with Oxygen theory because it was more accurate and effective at describing the world.

If the Bleen people accurately describe a color that is useful, then who are we to care if they use the term? Maybe we don't like it, or we want our word to be dominate for some status reason, but if its a perfectly cromulent word, why not? :)

By referring to "accurate representation," you've introduced an epistemologically normative factor that is nowhere implied in the first three factors. — J

No, that's not what I imply in my work.

There are two types of knowledges, distinctive, and applicable. Distinctive knowledge is the knowledge of identity. What we experience, and what we we distinctively experience, is known to us as is. So if I have a definition of blue or grue, I distinctively know what those terms are. The reason why we use one term over the other are what the three points cover.

At the point I try to apply those terms to reality, I have applicable knowledge. That's when I attempt to map the definition or distinctive memory that I have to reality. If I can do so deductively, and reality does not contradict me, then I applicably know that color as grue or blue.

The three points are about the question, "Which distinctive identities would a society use and deem 'the proper one'?" So if you had a group of one people who used grue, and another group that used blue, the three points I iterated above would influence which would most likely be used if the cultures were to discover each other.

OK. So no one of your factors would be something like "This set of concepts more accurately reflects the ontological structure of the world"? — J

More, "This set of concepts most accurately represents what can be known about the world."

Heck, we even disagree on which of us is more focused on 'what we want' and 'what is most likely'. Hehe. It's that kind of topic, eh? — Patterner

Ha ha! True, it is!

Not sure it's possible for the two of us to not talk about it, though. If you say something I disagree with, I'll often want the other person to know there is another pov. — Patterner

And I greatly appreciate it! I've enjoyed my conversation with you Patterner, you write clearly, intelligently, and I always respect your viewpoint. We'll chat again, I'm sure.

Sider uses the "grue and bleen world" example (which you can read about here, p. 16) to refer to a situation that he believes needs explaining: If we encountered a people who used grue and bleen as their concepts, we'd be unable to fault them on any logical grounds. — J

Correct. We would not be able to fault them. Name creation is simply that, name creation. If you read my paper, I actually cover this with a sheep and a goat a bit. There can be a person, and thus a society, that calls both a sheep and a goat, a goat. This is because in their eyes, the essential properties of the sheep and goat, "Fur and hooves" are all that matter. The fact one has weird horns or eyes is a non-essential proper for them. Its irrelevant.

But such broad definitions may run into problems if one were to start raising 'goats'. You would find that one type of goat has medical issues that the other doesn't. They behave differently when managing them around your pens. These differences start to elevate in importance, so they become more essential. One could decide "These two are so different, I'm going to start calling one a sheep," or "(Referring to sheep) I'm going to start calling these 'fluffy goats'".

So with color, it would be the same. To a color blind person, there is no 'red' for example. In most cases, its irrelevant. However, when someone creates a bit of art with color, or you have a need to identify things based on red coloration, this becomes a problem with accurately making decisions about reality.

In my opinion, there are a few factors that determine a cultural set of words and identities.

1. Real life effectiveness

This is actually the most impactful reason. Identifying things incorrectly often leads to mistakes, stumbling blocks, and inconveniences. This gets a person and/or society to change if there is a better alternative.

2. Fulfills emotional desires

Maybe there is a viable reason to use 'grue', but since it doesn't personally impact my life, and I simply 'don't like it', I'm not going to use it. The phrase "Gay marriage" has nothing logically wrong with it, but for some people it made them uncomfortable, so they avoided it. Its the same reason I don't use "Oh snap!" when I make a mistake. It just feels dirty. :D

3. Fulfills a power structure

Sometimes words and phrases contain a cultural power over people and societies. The term "God" might not be clear or particularly useful other than a means of getting a people to unite as a nation "Under God". "Don't use the term transsexual, that's offensive, use transgender", is another example of using perfectly descriptive words to control a narrative.

My apologies on the long delay on my reply! I had intended to reply to this another time as I had some other conversations in play, and only remembered this recently.

Firstly, “a priori” refers, within the context of transcendental investigations, as “that which is independent of any possible experience—viz., independent of empirical data”. — Bob Ross

If we say 'experience' here is 'empirical data', then I'm fine with this. Our thoughts, memories, etc are all 'experience', but I suppose not define here. What we should be careful with is defining thoughts that are based on experience, vs thoughts that have no basis on experience. For example, if I remember a tree, my memory is now based on the experience and identify of a tree. True 'non-empirical' based experiences are what we would call 'instincts'. When a newborn is born for example it cries, and it can breath even though it hasn't breathed yet. The moment after it breathes, any thought on breathing is based on empirical experience.

“Knowledge” is just a justified, true belief (with truth being a version of correspondence theory) or, more generically, ~”having information which is accurate”. — Bob Ross

A JTB theory of knowledge has long been countered by "The Gettier Problem". But lets go with the idea that knowledge is something obtained through reason that is the best stab available at understanding reality. What is apriori knowledge if apriori is simply instinct? The moment a baby kicks, it knows what its like to kick through its empirical sensations. The moment a child learns about ''the number 1' its now empirical knowledge. 'Apriori knowledge' is a misnomer. It doesn't make any sense.

The proposition “all bodies are extended” is universally true for human experience and a priori because the way we experience is in space (necessarily); and so this is a priori known. — Bob Ross

Notice that even in this sentence you justified a claim of apriori by saying 'we experience'. All bodies are extended is something we empirically learn by experience, not anything we are born with.

This immediately incites the question: “if A is knowledge and B is knowledge, then aren’t they inheriting the same type of knowledge and, if so, thereby the question of ‘what is knowledge?’

Of course, you probably have an answer to this that I don’t remember….it has been a while (; — Bob Ross

Yes, I did, and it has been a while. :) You may want to re-read it again now that you're much more versed in philosophy and discussions, or at least the summary that was posted right after it on the revision I posted a while back. So we don't get into that too deeply right now and can remain focused on the point here, I'll simply answer, "Yes, its consistent at its base between the two types".

Briefly, I will also say, that your schema doesn’t negate the possibility of a priori “knowledge” (in your sense of knowledge): it would be applicable knowledge, as the whole metaphysical endeavor of transcendental investigation would be applicable knowledge. — Bob Ross

Its similar, but not exactly the same. The most like apriori is distinctive knowledge. Thus if I kick, I have an experience of that kick, and identify it distinctively in some way from the rest of my experience. I know that experience distinctively. It doesn't mean that if I kick, a burst of air will erupt and shatter a wall in front of me. For that, I need to apply my kick to the air to see if that result happens.

The question becomes: “why don’t you think that we can apply a priori knowledge without contradiction and reasonably to the forms of experience (viz., the necessary preconditions for the possibility of experience) given that we both agree that our experience is representational?”. — Bob Ross

My disagreement purely rests on the fact that 'apriori knowledge' does not make sense as I noted above. The thing that is aprior is instinct or innate capability, not knowledge.

The fact that we can do math in different bases does not negate that the same mathematical operations are occurring, and that they are synthetical, a priori propositions. — Bob Ross

There is no instinct to do math in any base. It takes time for this to develop in humans.

"Quantity recognition: around 6 months
Quantity recognition is often the first mathematical skill children learn. Well before counting, babies as young as 6 months can demonstrate a basic understanding of quantities just by observing objects. Research suggests that babies can distinguish between different quantities, especially when the difference is significant—for example, six apples versus 12 apples.

By 10 to 12 months, babies may apply this skill when making choices."
https://blog.lovevery.com/skills-stages/numbers-counting/#:~:text=Quantity%20recognition%3A%20around%206%20months&text=Research%20suggests%20that%20babies%20can,this%20skill%20when%20making%20choices.

It is purely an abstract thing that cannot be applicably known.

Ehhhh, then you cannot claim to know that there must be a thing-in-itself at all; or otherwise concede that you can know applicably, through experience, that if our experience is representational then there must be a thing-in-itself. — Bob Ross

I cannot applicably claim to know there is 'a thing in itself'. Its a logical induction. Its plausible that a thing in itself exists, and implausible that it does not. Therefore its the smart money bet. But it is not applicably known, and because it is such a broad and unspecified definition, nothing else besides that fact that we say, "There must be something that exists in itself apart for what we observe" can ever be said about it.

"The thing in itself" is a space alien

Then a thing-in-itself is not a concept which is purely logical—that was my only point on this note. It is referencing something concrete. — Bob Ross

You misunderstood, I was creating a hypothetical in the example. My point was to give a concrete to the abstract. To demonstrate a possible 'thing in itself' and demonstrate that no amount of observation could discover it, as everything we observe from it leads us to view it as something completely different then what it really is as itself.

↪Philosophim I did read the summary. Is this the passage you're referring to (concerning "privileged structure" or the like)?: — J

This is part of it, yes. "Privileged" knowledge is really just simple knowledge that has been tested and confirmed so tightly as to be assumed to be 'true'. 'True' in this case being beyond all doubt or viable questioning at this point in time. The creation of our identities has been refined to match reality in ways that are currently impossible to contradict, and are so fundamental and basic as to not rely on much else for their foundation.

It is from these that we generally build other 'less stable' knowledge. If you got to the part about induction, you'll realize that the deduction required for knowledge is highly expensive in time, effort, and perception. Sometimes we reach a point in trying to acquire knowledge that we reach limits that must be filled in with induction. The hierarchy of whether an induction is more cogent than another is probability, possibility, plausibility, and irrational. When comparing inductions, if there is an induction that is at a higher tier, it is more rational to choose that over the lower tier.

For example, the probability of winning a lottery is 1 in 10 million. It is possible to win the lottery. What induction is more rational to consider if you are deciding to spend money on a ticket? The first one. Its possible to win the lottery, but highly unlikely. Now imagine a lottery that costs a dollar per ticket that has a 1 in 2 chance of winning millions of dollars. Same thing. Its highly likely we will win it versus the cost to entering. Compared to this, the idea that 'Its possible to win the lottery" is an inferior induction to reason with.

If you think of knowledge as often complex structures that are built upon other knowledge, more complex structures of knowledge often rely on induction of some kind here and there. The more 'solid' the knowledge, the less it relies both on inductions, but lower tiers of induction. Fundamental bits of knowledge like math are relatively uncomplex, built on the basic structure of 'the logic of distinctive experiences'. Because there is little to no induction involved, or the induction that we do rely on is the best option that we have, we consider these 'privileged'.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I think you're coming at this as a question of 'what we want', then 'what is most likely'. You want there to be something special about consciousness, I get that. Its likely part of our human desire to want to continue to live, even in the face of incredibly adversity. Once you get past that, you realize there's nothing there. But if you can't get past that, you'll likely grab onto anything that supports a continuation. I've been in your shoes, I understand.

Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, just noting where I'm coming from, and that I think we've each said our piece, and nothing more can be said. :) Genuinely, I hope I'm wrong and you're right. I've had a nice conversation with you, and hope to have many more in the future.

I just think this needs further explanation; logic and noncontradiction alone won't get us to why some matches seem more natural or reality-mirroring than others ("privileged structure"). — J

You may be interested in reading this then. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

There's a fantastic summary the next post after mine. If you're serious about this, I would read it.

But we don't have any idea how the micro physical properties give rise to subjective experience. We can't figure it out. And, as I've quoted a few times, Brian Greene, who Has a BA in physics from Harvard, and DPhil (PhD) in theoretical physics at Magdalen College, says the micro properties don't seem to have any connection to consciousness. — Patterner

That still doesn't mean conscious isn't physical. That's like saying, "We don't understand how rain works, so obviously its not of this world and God must cause it." Everything points to consciousness being physical by every measure of behavior we know. Just because we can't figure out the subjective portion of it in no way entails that its suddenly made of some new non-physical material.

Consciousness is 'something'. The best explanation from what we know is that it is the first person experience of matter and energy when it is organized in a particular way. So far, we understand human consciousness is the brain. You alter the brain, you get reports of people saying their first person experience is altered. Don't get so wrapped up in theory that you forget the decades of medicine and neuroscience behind this.

The point of 'using other language' is just to put the discussion in another contextual model that doesn't require the physical to describe it. That's it. It doesn't mean its physical or not physical, it just means 'we don't talk about it'. People misunderstand this and think, "Oh, that means consciousness isn't the brain!". No, all of our knowledge points that being the only thing which currently makes sense.

Just like back in the day people may not have understood that water turned into gas, and thought that was evidence that water was from another world.

Person: "Water must be magic. It vanishes into nothing in a few days! It must go to God's realm."

Scientist: "Well according to our studies, and our understanding of the conservation of mass and
energy, it turns into something else. All of our studies so far seem to imply it rises up in the air. We're calling it a 'gas'."

Person: "But isn't water a liquid? How can you call a liquid a gas?"

Scientist: "Well technically its still 'water'. Its just that when enough heat happens, it changes enough that its better that we don't call it a liquid anymore. Its invisible, so using a 'gas' model is better. But its still of this Earth."

Person: "So it still could be magic or God right? I mean, water comes from clouds which are clearly visible so they can't be a gas. And how does this 'gas' go from the ground to way up in the sky?"

Scientist: "Yes, its true, we can't study clouds as they're too high in the air. But its probably just water as a gas turning back into a liquid."

Person: "I heard you said its not water anymore, so it could be anything. And since its impossible to study clouds and you can't explain it, its still probably from another world."

This 'conversation' has taken some form or the other throughout centuries of human history. Here we are at consciousness, and the same thing is happening again. The money is on the brain at this point. You can be the 'person' if you want, but I think we should all try to be the 'scientist'.

I see what you mean, but we can construct an infinite number of worlds with different abstract entities highlighted (see "grue and bleen", Sider, p. 16) and most of them won't "work" at all, if by "work" you mean "give us a useful conceptual basis for navigating the world." — J

Correct.

Yet there is nothing wrong, logically, with the way these abstractions are being matched to reality. — J

If reality is not contradicting those identities, then they hold. Meaning we can identify reality in multiple ways as long as reality does not contradict our claim. The moment reality does contradict our claim however, its over. For example, if I view that every time I touch a statue, it rains, the time when I touch a statue and it doesn't rain, my abstraction is contradicted and needs to be amended or discarded to continue to be a logical match with reality.

Interesting point. But if the images in dreams are from the memories, why some folks see images that they have never come across in their lives, or meet people they cannot recognise and never met, or go to the places they have never been in their whole lives before? — Corvus

Because the human mind has the capability for creativity. Creativity often comes about by taking bits and pieces that belong to one thing, and then applying them to another. Think of a unicorn for example. Its a horse with a horn on its head. Now make a duocorn. That's a horse with two horns on its head. Keep going. That's why you can dream of things you've never seen before.

Saith him wanting to be logical. I'm looking for a discussion with clarity on a serious problem. You just want to play. It's too bad you do not know how to do either. — tim wood

You know, if you can't treat the people in front of you nicely who are trying to politely disengage from a conversation, maybe you aren't the person we should be listening to in regards to moral choices. As a long term member, you should be behaving better. Get ahold of those emotions in you that want to attack or belittle me for whatever reason, and we'll have a nice conversation another time.

The images come from similar parts of your brain that process light. Think about this. Your eyes are simply a lens in which light floods through. Your brain interprets that light, adds intention, dimensionality, and a sense of reality to it. Then 'you' see it. Dreams are a memory of past visual events being sorted through. A person born blind doesn't visually dream, because they have no memory of anything visual.
And by blind, I mean completely blind, not merely legally blind.

Of course, its a memory, not a 'live stream'. So it can be experienced in a hazy or unrealistic matter. And we have the gift to take experiences in our memory and shift them around into 'potentials'. So I can imagine a horse with a horn on its head. This is the source of creativity and problem solving. To fix a problem you don't know the answer to, you often need to piece things together in ways that you haven't observed before.

All people have the ability to discretely experience. That's to take the sea of existence and form identities or 'existences'. So you can look at 1 field, or 1 blade of grass, or 1 piece of grass. The ability to form a discrete identity, is what '1' is. When you are able to say you have 1 identity, another identity, and you want to lump them into another identity that counts how many individual identities there are, that's 2.

Math is simply the logical result of the combination and separation of discrete identities. That's why I can have 1 banana, add another one, and I have 2. Each banana isn't the same mass or size. Its about adding the concepts of what we discretely identify together. That's why it 'works'. If our discrete identities about the world "That is a banana" are true, then it is also true that there are two bananas in our grouped identity.

But because math is about identities, we can create identities in our head that don't work in the real world. For example, each family in America has 1.5 children. The abstraction of the average is mechanically correct, but if it is trying to match reality, it fails as no one has 1 and a half kids.

Math, like language, is a tool of logic with rules. If we use it with the idea that our abstraction is trying to match reality, and we are correct in matching our abstractions to reality, it works because that's how we perceive identities, and our identities are not being contradicted by reality. Thus we can have two bananas, because they are actually bananas. We can add two unicorns, but we cannot have two unicorns, because unicorns don't exist.

I don't agree with it. I just don't have a problem with it
— Philosophim

You're taking issue with it, saying he's mistaken, so don't be too polite about it. :wink: — Wayfarer

Ha ha! No, I genuinely respect Chalmers. How do I explain this...human beings form knowledge and outlooks on life from their perspective. This perspective includes their background, use of language, culture, and their own particular view point on reality. As such, we are all going to have our unique approach to figuring out the world around us. I respect a person's view point that is internally consistent with this background.

As you noted, we are all representing the world the best we can. Hearing of another perspective of how to view that world has always fascinated me. There are people who cannot visualize for example. How different would one's perspective be with that? Someone very short or very tall. Someone incredibly wealthy and another incredibly poor. And of course, 'the average person' (which is more a concept then reality). The fact we're able to come together and have a communicable discussion about reality at all is sometimes a feat in itself. :)

From my own perspective, which of course is just as circumspect as any other perspective, I am a fan of knowledge and communication that is both accurate in assessing reality, and open to the greatest number of people despite our different perspectives. But I'm also aware that there will always be the need for sub-perspectives and different ways of viewing and stating things about the same underlying reality we're all looking at. And sometimes, those sub-perspectives have invaluable points or additions that can and should be brought into the larger perspective.

My disagreement with Chalmer's conclusions is not as a sub-perspective. I don't believe he's in any way noting that it is a fact that subjective consciousness is at its core, necessarily separate from matter and energy. Matter and energy as the building blocks of reality are of course incredibly broad representations of existence around us. To be specific, 'energy' is really just the momentum of matter. And if we wanted to be even more general, its just 'existence'. How we part and parcel that undefinable but all encompassing concept into 'existences' is part of that unique and individual group experience of humanity. His conclusions and word choices within his sub-perspective, can be easily misinterpreted using the language of the general culture. Few people have the learning and background of Chalmer's to truly understand what he is intending, and instead think he means that subjective consciousness is necessarily apart from the brain, and therefore there is a soul, afterlife, etc. That conclusion helps no one.

If you read more of Chalmers, you will see he in no way discounts the neurological perspective. — Wayfarer

Yes, and this is the point I was trying to get at as well. We don't disagree on this aspect. Like Chalmers I am not asserting that it is the truth that subjective consciousness is necessarily neurological, but he is also not asserting that he truly knows what it is otherwise. What I am stating is out of the available theories that I am aware of, the one which fits in with what science has demonstrated to us over decades about the brain so far, is that consciousness is the experience of being. Every being we know of is 'physical' in the fact that it is made up of matter and energy.

There has never been a discovery to my mind, of some 'thing' which is not matter and energy at its core. While speculation, creative thinking, different perspectives, and experimentation are all to be encouraged, the existence of such possibilities does not mean that at this moment, their existence should override what we know currently works to help us navigate the world and make life preserving and enhancing decisions. It doesn't mean that these exploratory measures won't result in a change to the general understanding of the world in the future, but they must prove themselves as offering some real and tangible value to the general perspective that our current understanding and knowledge does not.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

This is a category error. One mistake our brains do over and over again, and I am not immune from this, is elevating concepts that that we have reasoned completely through language as if they are actual representations of reality outside of that language.

Getting stuck in the language and perspective can lead us to think, "Yes, we measure time by observing change. The observation of change requires memory. Memory requires an observer. Therefore time only happens with observers!" Of course, we have to be careful what we mean by time here. "Observed time" would be a more accurate representation of reality. If we're not here, wouldn't the Earth still rotate around the Sun? Of course. Meaning that relations between objects would still persist with the momentum that they have at any X time. If there is no observer to label it as 'time', then that label and concept doesn't exist. But the fact that there wouldn't be a label based off of an observer is what wouldn't exist, not the relation of the matter and energy. Useful labels are descriptors of reality for us to understand, but our 'logical' conclusions involving labels must not be confused with reality itself.

The 'observer' needed for quantum mechanics is also a misunderstanding of descriptions within the context of the math, and mixing them with our common English understanding of the word. Taken from each context, or perspective, they are not the same meaning. Our observations, or our passive existence taking in light, does not change quantum mechanics. Otherwise the rest of space would not exist. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical understanding of particles so small, that our scientific attempts at observation; bouncing a beam of light off of them to measure them for example, affects the particle itself. I've often described it as using a bowling ball to measure the velocity and location of a ping pong ball. The experiment affects the outcome itself, and this leads to mathematically logical limits in outcomes.

I don't think that its another category of thinking. It's the first- and third-person perspectives. — Wayfarer

I have not problem in viewing consciousness from both a first and third person perspective. I just think its the most reasonable case that consciousness is the brain's first person perspective.

If you are interested into a deeper explanation of what I've noted here, I have a post on these forums in which I tackle knowledge. Feel free to give it a read or not. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

It's great you're digging into this, but you will need to understand that you can't both agree with Chalmer's argument, and also hold that consciousness is physical. — Wayfarer

Oh, I don't agree with it. I just don't have a problem with it. When he defined what it was that was separate from 'physical', I understood what he meant. Chalmers is not asserting that subjective consciousness is necessarily separate from the brain. What he's saying is we can't at this moment measure it as a physical entity, and that I have agreed with the entire time. Just like we can't measure space as a physical entity, nor can we measure time as a physical entity. And in this, subjective consciousness is not 'physical'. But it doesn't mean its apart from the physical, or that its even its own entity.

He's using physical in the sense of 'the physical and mental'. It doesn't mean the mental is existent in some reality, just like being mentally unconscious doesn't mean your physical brain is in a state of unconsciousness. He's not claiming mental as 'some other thing existence'. Its a classification of a state of being. And we know as beings, that we are physical. As long as none of his claims outright deny the idea that consciousness does not have a physical origin, I'm fine with it.

David Chalmers: "It's not physical"

Yes, this is his opinion to the solution of the hard problem, but not the hard problem itself. I still believe what I have said does not contradict what the underlying issue of the hard problem is. I disagree with his solution to the problem, because he also currently has no evidence to deny that subjective consciousness could be an aspect of matter and energy. The only thing he can truly conclude is that we cannot be other matter that has the subjective experience, therefore we cannot measure it. If you listened to the rest of the video, he notes that scientists right now are working to correlate their own subjective experiences with their brain states, something I've noted before. His, "Not physical" at best is using a category that does not require us to know whether it is physical or not. Which here, I have no disagreement again.

he says it might be an additional property that is associated with matter (a position which is called 'panpsychism'). But it's crucial to recognize that he doesn't say it can be explained in terms of known physical properties. He says that science has to admit consciousness as a fundamental property. By that he means it is irreducible, it can't be explained in terms of something else. — Wayfarer

No, he does not mean that it can't be explained in terms of something else if he is intending it to be like space or time. Space is a concept we use in relation to matter. We measure it with matter, yet space itself is not matter, but the absence of it. Time is not an existent 'material' concept, but it is is determined by watching and recording the differences in materials. Subjective consciousness as well, if it can only be known by being a material, is still known and defined in terms of the material that it is. Chalmers cannot deny this by his own reasoning. Just that we can't directly measure what it is like to be some other thing.

So if he wants to claim subjective consciousness as an existence that cannot be directly measured like space or time, I'm fine with this. He's not claiming that space and time exist apart from matter and energy, and he has no legs to claim with any evidence that consciousness is not in the same boat. This fits fine into the behavior version of consciousness, and simply gives another linguistic approach to the discussion. I certainly don't see it as a paradigm shift. It gives no argument that the brain does not or cannot cause consciousness, or that consciousness could exist without matter and energy. At most, its an option we can explore, of which I have always been open to.

Right. There's your 'thinking stuff' again. — Wayfarer

Just like Chalmers came up with his ideas using 'thinking stuff' too. He's just a man like you or me. Its fine if you don't agree with my conclusions, but don't discount thinking and questioning ideas, because you will subtly be against it in yourself as well. People move forward and discover by using the proposals, thoughts, and ideas of others as a springboard for new and better ideas. The alternative is dogma, and the elevation of an idea to a pedestal where most do not belong. It is great that you like the idea of subjective consciousness as another category of thinking, but I think the idea that the existence of the hard problem leads to the necessary conclusion that it is some other form of existence unrelated to matter and energy, does not follow.

Tim, all I'm feeling over here is hostility and not a discussion. Lets just shelve this one and I'll catch you on another thread.

Last things first: philosophy is not logic — tim wood

I highly disagree Tim. Without logic, philosophy is simply imagination and emotional exploration. These are elements of philosophy, but the tie that binds them together to be philosophy is logic.

Your views (near as I can tell) are reductionist, legalistic, amoral, and inhuman. — tim wood

You have not asked me why I have those views or have come to my conclusions. You are assuming things that I don't think are true here. Perhaps they are, but neither you nor I will be able to confirm that if you aren't interested as to why I've made my conclusions.

And partner with that is the expectation that the guest and the stranger will themselves meet certain standards of behavior. I would like to see something like that employed at the US Southern border: respect, courtesy, concern and care, and the possibility of entry on meeting certain conditions. — tim wood

We have that today. If you enter through legal means you are treated just like that. Its those crossing the border without permission that generate much of the anger in America. I'm feeling this is more of a political and personal issue to you then a philosophical discussion. I don't care about politics, and I like to think of the subjects from a stable base that builds a compelling argument. If you're interested in that, I'm interested. But if this is a political or venue to assume I'm evil because I conclude something you dislike without exploring more, I'm not.

That is not what Chalmer's says at all. So stop saying that you're 'interpreting' or 'supporting' Chalmer's argument, when you're actually disagreeing with it. If you were honest, what you would say is 'there is no hard problem as Chalmers describes it'. — Wayfarer

I decided to get Chalmer's words himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yHTiQrrUhUA

Check out around 6:40. His notes are:

"The hard problem is concerned with phenomenal consciousness: what its like to be a subject.

At 8:26 he goes into the Easy problem. Again, this is about consciousness as behavior.

We have to be careful when we speak of consciousness to understand the implicit aspect that we're talking about. When I say, "Consciousness is your brain" I'm talking about the behavioral aspect of consciousness, which has not been refuted as of today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bejm1mYsr5s

In this video at about 5:40 to the end, he covers what he means by 'consciousness as a subjective experience is immaterial'. He notes its like space, time, etc. Of this, I have no problem. This is a question I've been asking for some time now from you Wayfarer, "What is it for consciousness to not be physical?" Here Chalmers gives a clear reply. And this definition of 'not physical', I have no problem with. Its a classification of category, not a claim that, "It is not matter and energy". Just like we cannot have space without matter, and time without matter, it is not a claim that we can have consciousness without matter. This definition of 'immaterial' is perfectly fine for me. This is because it is the creation of a concept within reality that does not care as to the specifics of its makeup. As long as one does not conclude from this that consciousness exists as some essence apart from the physical reality we live in, its fine.

Information itself is not a medium. If I transmit information electronically, the medium is copper or electromagnetic waves, or through speech as sound waves in the air. They are physical media. But the interpretation of information is not a physical process, and information is not physical — Wayfarer

If it is not a physical process, then what is it Wayfarer? I've already described a radio. I've already noted the brain processes information through the senses, and I don't think you deny those are physical. Its fine to claim its not physical, but if you can not demonstrate it as something else, then I don't see it being viable.

Humans build radios to do that and then interpret the sounds as meaningful. There is nothing in the 'physical world', if you mean the world outside human affairs, that will do that. — Wayfarer

Ok, but you're not countering the point that information can be interpreted by physical things. If humans are physical, then there is nothing odd with them interpreting information either. I think the only way this works for you is if its assumed that humans aren't physical. Since this is not the general viewpoint, we need to provide evidence that they aren't physical. Otherwise my point that information can exist a physical medium and physical interpretation holds.

For decades, radio telescopes have been scanning the universe looking for signals from intelligent life. Overall, they've found none (with one possible exception.) All the signals so far have a physical or natural origin. If they found a signal originated by an alien intelligence, it would be something other than physical or natural. — Wayfarer

I was with you until you said it had to be something other than physical. We don't even know if something other than the physical exists.

As noted, psychosomatic medicine, the placebo effect, etc, undercut physicalist accounts of mind. — Wayfarer

This does not if one assumes that consciousness is an aspect of physical reality like 'wetness'. In which case consciousness is also a part of physical reality, and conscious thoughts could affect the brain and body.

I am not understanding what you aren't understanding. Why risk the fate of a country on an issue so complex on average citizens and not experts in that field that have access to information that the general public may not. like I said in my previous post, it should be down experts chosen by elected officials. — Samlw

Democratically elected right? We're talking about the same thing. Ultimately this is the people choosing, through representatives usually.

If someone broke into your house for a warm nights sleep when its cold outside, when you did not want to invite them in yourself, that's a violation of your sovereignty of your home.
— Philosophim

Again, the comparison doesn't meet the severity of the topic. I understand the logic you are trying to use however you simply cannot use a blanket answer from the situation you just described as the answer for a topic that is so complex as immigration. — Samlw

Then I don't understand your topic. This seemed to be to be a sovereignty vs justifications for breaking sovereignty question. What is your point? You use illegal immigration combined with the question of who to let in and not. Are these meant to be part of the same topic, or different questions?

My answer was that a country should decide who to let in, and not. Period. The morality is sovereignty, and the idea that a country is best equipped to handle its own immigration based on a complex number of factors that only a society can handle itself. As such, there is no justification that I can see for illegally entering into a country and living there against its citizens wishes.

What do you think about this?

And I think THIS is definitely debatable. It is the moral question of whether the person in control of the land/property should or should not let a person in.
— Philosophim

This is literally the question from the start. — Samlw

Yes, and I've put my answer forth. Now why do you disagree? To be clear, my answer is: Nations can manage their own immigration issues. If a nation freely decides to limit or let in more immigrants, that's their decision." There is no, "A nation should let immigrants in when X, Y, and Z happens" if people don't want to. Immigration is a willingness of its citizens to accept foreign change and influx, it is not a moral responsibility.

They could instead fight for their own country, or move to a place in their country that is not affected by war.
— Philosophim

Both of those options are terrible, either potentially die and kill people for your country, or move to a poor place due to your country being war-torn and have a terrible quality of life. — Samlw

These are less ideal choices yes, but not choices that compel others morally to provide them the more optimal choice. Life is often unfair, cruel, and less than ideal. It is not a moral responsibility of anybody to make life fair for everyone else across the board, because that takes time, resources, and effort that people are generally using on themselves to make their own life acceptable first. And by 'moral responsibility' that if they don't do this, someone else has the right to take from them, or coerce them to assist others.

Can I ask what happens if a majority of a nation voted for open borders and the country gets ruined because of it? — Samlw

Then they made a mistake obviously. Why it got ruined would be the question here. Was it because they didn't understand the culture they were letting in? They were too altruistic for their limited resources? The issue is not whether legal immigration vs illegal immigration is moral in this case, but whether they made a misjudgement. If you're looking for a benefit vs cost analysis on a countries capacity for immigration, that's fine. If you're looking for a moral justification for illegal immigration, I still have yet to see it.

You are comparing someone who has potentially escaped a war zone, their family killed, scared and not knowing where to go. To someone stealing a car... — Samlw

No, I was comparing to Tim's scenario. My point was that he was already assuming that if a person commits a crime, they have moral justification for doing so. They do not. A crime committed alone does not determine whether that crime was morally justified. If you believe a crime is morally justified, then you need to explain why, not just assume the crime is morally justified.

If you're claiming illegal immigration is morally justified because the other illegally entering person does not get the benefits they want, I don't agree. If someone broke into your house for a warm nights sleep when its cold outside, when you did not want to invite them in yourself, that's a violation of your sovereignty of your home. Now, we could argue that you denying the person a place to sleep, despite not knowing what quality of character they are, is immoral. And I think THIS is definitely debatable. It is the moral question of whether the person in control of the land/property should or should not let a person in.

I believe that the sovereignty of one's property is in the decision of the person. We can judge their decisions as who to let in or not let in as immoral, but defying that decision because someone else wants the benefit of being on that property needs a good reason. I can't see any viable reason except in matters of immediate life or death, and In the case of a nations decision, I see even less of a good reason why someone should force themselves in to live there against the wishes of its people.

In the case of a refugee for example, it is not a life or death situation that they travel to a country that does not want them. They could instead fight for their own country, or move to a place in their country that is not affected by war. It is not an immediate life or death situation in most war torn situations for people to immigrate to a new country. Its more convenient, higher quality of life, and much more beneficial. But it is a want, not a need. Therefore I see no justification in illegally going to one.

No moral issue? Another categorical statement? Well, maybe not for you. — tim wood

Then please explain how it can be moral.

Assuming they have a good reason for being here, likely necessity, there is nothing immoral about it - the necessity being instead grounds for a moral claim. — tim wood

This is a lot of assuming. That would be like me saying, "Assuming people have a good reason for stealing your car, there is nothing immoral about it - the necessity being instead grounds for a moral claim." Can you note when you think it is moral to illegally immigrate somewhere, and why it is moral for a country to allow that illegal immigrant to be there? This is not an emotional issue for me or a "Its obvious" question. Lets engage in philosophy, the logic of it all.

Physical processes don't suggest conscious awareness, unless you mean behavior. The physical processes that don't suggest awareness don't suggest the absence of conscious awareness either. Nor do they suggest that awareness could not arise from physical processes.

You ask why subjective awareness at all. Presuming it is a real thing then why not? We have a subjective prejudice that physical stuff could not have subjective experience. Exactly what would be the argument supporting that conclusion? We have nothing to compare our situation with so it remains just an assumption based on intuitive feelings I think. — Janus

Well said Janus.

Again, that is not the point of David Chalmer's essay, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. I'm taking issue with your paraphrase of his argument. If you want to argue that this is what he should say, feel free. But it's not what he does say. — Wayfarer

As I've noted before, I'm not quoting Chalmers. I appreciate the point out to Chalmer's words, but I'm simply noting the underlying support and reason for the hard problem. Think of it this way. Lets say that we could examine a brain, and objectively know exactly what it feels like when that brain functions in a particular way. The hard problem would disappear. But as long as we can never objectively know what its like to have the subjective experience of another being, the hard problem stays.

Again, it's not what he says. He says that there is no satisfactory theoretical account of ANY conscious experience, not just of other people's or of animals. — Wayfarer

Again, I'm not quoting Chalmers. As to what he's talking about, its not behavior. Its the fact that we cannot experience the subjective experience of another being. We are not in disagreement on this.

Drugs can alter mood and behavior, and brain damage can lead to significant changes in consciousness and personality. But this doesn't demonstrate that consciousness is entirely a product of brain activity. — Wayfarer

True, but do we have evidence of something independent of the brain in regards to consciousness?

Neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections—shows that consciously undertaken actions and thoughts can have real, measurable effects on the brain’s structure and function. — Wayfarer

The fallacy here is the assumption that consciousness is independent of the brain. If it is not, and simply a result of the brains functions, it is the brain affecting the brain. While an interesting avenue to look into something independent of the brain, we need evidence of that something for this to be a viable point.

This is an example of top-down causation, where mental processes, such as attention, intention, and practice, influence neurophysiological changes, distinct from the bottom-up causation that is implied by physicalism. Your proposed schema is all 'bottom-up'. — Wayfarer

My proposal doesn't use top or bottom. I simply believe that physical matter and energy can have subjective experiences. It is a property of matter like, dry, wet, sandy, etc. It is what it is 'to be'. To what point? I don't know. That's the hard problem. We can't know what its like for a skin cell to be that skin cell. At what point does a clump of brain cells have a subjective experience? Is the subjective experience of being drunk the same across every individual? We can't objectively know.

Furthermore, the analogy of the brain as a receiver rather than just the generator of consciousness provides a different way to look at this issue. Just as a radio receives and tunes into waves without generating them, the brain may play a focusing or filtering role, modulating and organizing conscious experience but not wholly creating it — Wayfarer

Sure. I have no problem with this idea. But do we have evidence that the brain is only a receiver? We do have evidence in regards to how the senses are processed. So in that regard, it is. But as for consciousness, where does the brain receive this? How? Is there some type of measurement we can find that shows there is something independent of the brain affecting the brain? For that, we don't. So while its a nice idea to explore, the lack of evidence leads this to a dead end.

We have no scientific theories that explain how brain activity—or computer activity, or any other kind of physical activity—could cause, or be, or somehow give rise to, conscious experience. We don’t have even one idea that’s remotely plausible — Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality, Pp 18-19

Correct, and I am not disagreeing with this. What he is not saying is, "Consciousness is not physical." What he's really asking implicitly is, "Why is consciousness physical?" Why can something physical have a subjective experience? To me, its like asking why water is wet. Why does a rock exist at all? Why is there something instead of nothing? It is the mystery of being.

What do we want in a scientific theory of consciousness? Consider the case of tasting basil versus hearing a siren. For a theory that proposes that brain activity causes conscious experiences, we want mathematical laws or principles that state precisely which brain activities cause the conscious experience of tasting basil, precisely why this activity does not cause the experience of, say, hearing a siren, and precisely how this activity must change to transform the experience from tasting basil to, say, tasting rosemary. These laws or principles must apply across species, or else explain precisely why different species require different laws. No such laws, indeed no plausible ideas, have ever been proposed. — Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality, Pp 18-19

Again, nothing that I've said contradicts this. At the crux of it all, why is this? Because we cannot objectively determine what its like to have the subjective experience of tasting basil. I can know what its like for me, and you can know what its like for you. But we can't objectively know what its like for the other person.

Information doesn't exist in the same way that matter and energy do—it isn't a physical substance or force. Instead, information exists in the relationships between entities, and its significance depends on interpretation. — Wayfarer

And yet wasn't there a relationship between the radio waves, the radio, and then the sound played? Isn't an interpretation a physical response to stimulus or an event?

The book itself is not one thing and its meaning another; rather, the meaning emerges through the interaction between the symbols on the page and a mind capable of understanding them. — Wayfarer

Your book example is spot on. And I can agree that we can have an interpretation of information as both a medium which exists, and the interplay between that medium and an interpreter. What hasn't been shown is the noun or the interpretation of information that isn't through some physical medium. Can you think of one?

Information, in this sense, is relational. It depends on the patterns or structures that carry meaning and on the existence of an interpreter. This makes information fundamentally different from matter and energy—it’s not a physical object but something that manifests through relationships and interpretation. — Wayfarer

What are thing things in relationship, and what is doing the interpreting? What is easier to state with what we know, is that matter and energy can hold particular states (information as noun) and can have reactions when that state collides with another state which we call an interpreter (information as relation). What is wrong with saying that this is an aspect of the physical world, when we have evidence of a radio interpreting waves?

What I'm noting is that the standard model of science posits that the brain is the source of human consciousness, at least in terms of behavior.
— Philosophim

I think, actually, that you will find that a very difficult claim to support. You assume that this is what science posits, but there's some important background you're missing here.

At the beginning of modern science, proper, 'consciousness' in the first person sense was excluded from the objects of consideration. — Wayfarer

I want to be clear again, I am noting that science can measure consciousness as behavior, and agree 100% with you that it cannot currently objectively know the first person sense of it. As for behavior, the entirety of neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychiatry operates and functions as if consciousness as a behavior is an objective result of the mind. Without this, the entirety of modern medicine would not work.

Now, when you say 'the standard model of science', this is what you mean (whether you're aware of it or not.) And within that model the only 'real objects' are, well, objects. If 'mind' or 'consciousness' can be said to exist, then it can only be as a product of those objects. That's why you're incredulous at the denial of a causal relationship between brain and mind - to you, it's just 'the way things are'. But I'm afraid it doesn't hold up to philosophical scrutiny. — Wayfarer

I don't believe its a product of these objects. I believe it is the experience of being these objects. If it was a product, we could see it. We can't see it, because we aren't 'what it is like to be that'. The radio exists. What is it like to be it? The cells in your feet exist. What is it like to be those living cells? Its not a product, its an aspect of being that matter and energy has. The only way to know, is to be it.

Does this sound far fetched? Go with me for a second and take the idea that you're a physical being. Then you are 'something'. You are the existence of that. Not a chair over there, or the light bouncing around. You are a physical human being, and that is what it is like for you to exist. If you were 'something else' then you would be what it is like to be 'that something else'. Why keep introducing 'something else' when we have no evidence for it? Why introduce unnecessary complexity when we have the simple answer in front of us that works in accordance near perfectly with the behavior aspect of consciousness as well?

Regardless Wayfarer, thank you for tackling those points again. You're an intelligent and well spoken person, and I do enjoy reading your perspective even if I don't always agree on it. We also may be going around and around at this point, and if you feel we're rehashing old ground, you have my respect if you feel there is nothing more to add.

If we use the Turing_Chalmers' argument to the effect: a cyborg externally programmed to behave like a conscious human will appear to be conscious i.e., have a selfhood without that actually being the case, then we cannot be certain that an observed person is really internally conscious i.e., in possession of a selfhood. — ucarr

What we don't know if whether the robot actually has a subjective experience of being a robot. Its does not have to be the consciousness of a human to have a subjective experience. A dog likely has a subjective experience because of its behavior, but we still don't know what its like to BE a dog.

To quote Patterner:

As you say, re: the rock's possible subjective experience, we simply assume not. So, possibly (but unlikely) the rock could be suppressing it's selfhood from expressing as behavior so as to keep its selfhood hidden from observers.
— ucarr
Another (unlikely) possibility is the rock subjectively experiences, but has no capability of expressing any behaviors. Maybe it's exactly what we think it is, but conscious. — Patterner

I've underlined the part of your above quote wherein you describe what it's like to be a color blind person without being one yourself. How is it that you can do that? You have enough information, both from science and from descriptions given by color blind persons to approximate in your understanding what the experience of color blindness is like. There is presumably some degree of separation between what the actually color blind person experiences subjectively, and your cognitive simulation of that experience but, again, I claim the difference is by a navigable degree, not by an impenetrable categorical difference. — ucarr

Its not unnavigatable, its just not objective. We take these conclusions through behaviors, approximations, and logical applications. I can imagine what it is like to be confused about something I see. So I take that feeling, and combine it with colors. Then I imagine two colors, and both are grey. Now I have an approximate understanding of what its like to be color blind, but I still don't have the objective 'subjective experience' of an actual color blind person.

Its like describing an apple to someone. You could probably make a pretty good approximation through descriptions based on what people know that aren't apples. But you wouldn't actually know what an apple was like until you saw it front of you. Until you tasted it yourself.

Or to be simpler, if you believe nations cannot do wrong or be wrong, then what is there to discuss? — tim wood

No, I'm noting that a nation run largely by its people are free to decide their immigration policy. If they feel they don't have enough immigrants, they can open their doors. If they feel they have enough, they can close them. If there are mistakes for that nation in having too little and too much immigration, a nation is free to change it to fix these issues, and I see no broader moral issue here. In any case, I see no moral justification for illegal immigration.

I did ask if you had an example you wanted to cover. Since you don't, and I've stated my points, then I suppose the discussion has reached its end.

Yes and No. Yes, we know that it happens in the brain. No, we do not know HOW. That's the HPoC. — Patterner

We're really not that far off from one another. Please don't take my disagreement as hostile. :) The reason why we don't know how is because we cannot currently know what its like to be the thing having the subjective experience. If we could, the hard problem would be solved.

I am the being having the subjective experience. That does not help me understand how it is achieved. — Patterner

Actually, you could determine how you experience. If you were in brain surgery and a doctor stimulated a region of your brain in the same way and you experienced a sensation every time, you would know how to create the sensation by stimulation your brain. In a less sense, we do this with drugs like alcohol, caffiene, or pain killers. You are the only one who knows what it feels like however. We can't take, "the state of Patterner's subjective experience," and say, "Any time a person drinks alcohol, they will have the same subjective experience of being tipsy as Patterner does."

We do not know how to go about the HP. That's why it's named the Hard. Because we don't know. How is all of that subjectively experienced? — Patterner

Right. We're along the same lines here again. This is because we can't know what its like objectively for something else to experience being them. That's all there is to it.

Physicist Brian Greene says there are no known properties of matter that even hint at such a thing. Why do I see red, rather than just perceive different frequencies, the way a robot with an electric eye might? — Patterner

The problem is we're looking at matter and energy externally for behavior. Since we cannot look internally to see what the experience of being that thing is like, we're stuck for now. Do we know how a robot with an electric eye experiences processing? We don't. We can observe behaviors, break it down into its bytes and bits, but when the entire process is running, when the code is flying by at millions of bytes per second, processes being monitored and checked...what is the experience like? We don't know. We currently can't know.

These things can, and do, take place without any subjective experience. — Patterner

Incorrect. We don't know. Just like I don't know if you have a subjective experience that is like mine at all. We do not know if a robot or a program doesn't have a subjective experience. It doesn't behave like a consciousness, but it doesn't mean there isn't a subjective experience. What is it like to be a bacteria? It responds, eats, and divides. What is it like to the be cells in my hands? The blood in my veins? All of these are living things. Do they have a subjective experience of being? We can't tell, because we can't BE the thing we're looking at.

I think your point above makes an important clarification: there's something about the native point of view of the sentient that obstructs, so far, our understanding how (or if) physical processes give rise to the subjective experience. — ucarr

Yes, that's correct.

As I understand you, you're implying that the subjectivity of the sentient is insuperable i.e., it is a container which has no exit. — ucarr

Also correct.

If it’s true that the subjectivity of the sentient is insuperable, that then calls into question the possibility of objectivity in general. If the sentient cannot know what it’s like to be beyond its own subjective being, then it follows that the sentient cannot know what it’s like for anything, other than itself, to be, whether a stone, a galaxy or another person. — ucarr

Because we go by behavior. Lets say I eat a poison apple and get sick. My eyes glaze over, my pulse races, and I start to sweat remnants of the poison. That's a physical reality that does not depend on how the personal is personally experiencing the sensations of being poisoned.

It sounds strange, but, in my context here, when we claim to know the chemical composition/interactions of a rock, we’re also claiming to know “what it’s like to be that rock.” — ucarr

Its not strange at all. We objectively do not know what its like to be that rock. What we do is look at the measurable existence of the rock and 'its behavior'. Since we do not ascribe anything the rock 'does' to an internal locus, we say it doesn't behave like its conscious. But do we objectively know it does not have a subjective experience? No. We simply assume.

To be sure, knowing a rock by knowing its chemical composition/interactions is a much more simple phenomenon than knowing another person by knowing their consciousness, but the difference is a difference of degree, not a categorical difference. — ucarr

The difference is that a human has different behaviors that we ascribe to being conscious. But we cannot objectively know what its like for that other human to have the subjective experience of being themself.

If we’re locked out of objectivity because of insuperable subjectivity, then we’re thrown all the way back to securing our beliefs on the basis of faith rather than on the basis of science. — ucarr

We are locked out of objectivity in determining the subjective experience of any existence. It is faith that you and I share a similar consciousness. We can note that our behavior may be different, but that doesn't mean our subjective experience during that behavior is different or the same. For example, we could both see the color green, but I subjectively experience it differently then you. Indeed, some people are color blind. This means their subjective experience of green is so similar to another set of colors, that they can't really tell much of a difference. But can a color sighted person every objectively know what that's like? No.

Existentialism, which is centered on “existence precedes essence,” gives us a way forward with our database of scientific disciplines and their methodologies. We, as existentialists, can assert that we don’t really know the world beyond realistic-seeming narratives that, ultimately, in the absence of epistemological certainty, we hold as true on the basis of faith. — ucarr

This seems to hold on a surface level. Great points Ucarr!

How do you feel about slavery? Do you think the Taliban are doing a good and admirable job of governing Afghanistan? How abut Iran? Or if the US state of Texas (et al) criminalizes abortion, well done them, yes? — tim wood

None of this has anything to do with the topic of immigration.

How about if the will of the American public is to deliver all of its "illegal" immigrants to England. Why should the English object? — tim wood

Because each nation can determine their own immigration policy. If England doesn't want America's immigrants, it has the right to say no.

We know that an individual can do wrong. Your proposition amounts to saying that in a group constituted in any of a particular set of ways, those people so constituted can do no wrong, or at least nothing you could object to. Which I think is ridiculous and absurd. Are you that? Or have you just misspoke? — tim wood

There's a large emotional undercurrent for you here that isn't come out as points or policy yet. So I'll ask to focus the conversation. What's wrong with a democratic nation deciding how much immigration it wants to let in? If you believe that a democratic nation can make a wrong choice in its immigration policy, what is it, why? If there is a problem, what would fix it?

You may have addressed it, but you are still using an inaccurate definition of the HPoC. As J pointed out early on: — Patterner

And I'll note again, the only reason we cannot figure out how physical processes give rise to the subjective experiences of the mind is because we have no way of objectively knowing what it is to hold that subjective experience, because you must BE that being having that subjective experience.

It is NOT that we don't understand that the brain causes subjective experiences. We know portions of the brain that affect the different interpretation of sensations we have. We can stimulate areas of the brain and a person can say, "When you do that, I imagine a dog." What we cannot do is know what they are experiencing directly when they say, "I imagine a dog". When a patient takes a particular type of medication, they feel woozy. This is an objective fact. Do we know what its like for the patient to have the subjective experience they have when they say, "I feel woozy?" No. So we can never objectively note what 'woozy' is as a subjective experience, only an observed behavior. That's the crux of the hard problem.

These things change various aspects of how the brain works, and, therefore, what we subjectively experience. They don't address how it is that we subjectively experience them at all. That's the HPoC. — Patterner

No, that's the easy problem.
"For Chalmers, the easy problem is making progress in explaining cognitive functions and discovering how they arise from physical processes in the brain. The hard problem is accounting for why these functions are accompanied by conscious experience."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43853850#:~:text=For%20Chalmers%2C%20the%20easy%20problem,are%20accompanied%20by%20conscious%20experience.

And why is it hard to find why these functions are accompanied by conscious experience? Because we cannot know what it is like to BE that other conscious experience. Consciousness as a behavior is simple to observe. Consciousness as a subjective experience can only be known by being that subjective experience.

So when we give a drug that treats schizophrenia, we know that it works by behavior. We don't know what its like to be that person having schizophrenia, or what they are feeling as a subjective experience when they take the medicine. That's it.

It is not in any way an implication that the brain is not the source of consciousness. It does not in any way negate the behavior based approach to consciuosness and mental health that has worked for decades. It does not negate the fact that the brain causes your subjective experiences. Its just noting that because we can never know what its like for another being to experience their own subjective experience, we cannot objectively match brain state "X, Y, Z" and say, "Whenever X, Y, Z is matched, all people will experience the exact same subjective sensation of wooziness." We might see they all have the same behavior, but we can never objectively know what each individuals subjective experience of 'woozy' is.