It should be possible to make sense of any clear and consistent argument. The claim seems to be that because physicalism cannot make sense of intentionality, and intentionality is obviously real, then physicalism is refuted.

The problem is that any physicalism which claims that there can be no real intentionality is always already refuted, since the claim that there is no real intentionality is itself a claim about something and hence is itself and example of intentionality.

It doesn't follow that, for example, electro-chemical signalling, which amounts to semiosis ...that is amounts to information about some conditions or other being apprehended, is impossible just because we cannot explain how it works in the terms of physics.

It is already obvious that those kinds of biological processes cannot be explained in terms of physics. It is simply the wrong toolkit.

That there might be (current at least but even no possible future) physical explanation does not prove that something more than physical processes are involved, even if it might reasonably serve as a motivator for the faith-based intuition that something mysterious and perhaps inexplicable is going on. Claiming that the something mysterious is logical or empirical proof of a spiritual realm or god or whatever is a step too far and does not provide any missing explanation in any case.

Maybe there is nothing to understand. If no one can lay it out, we might conclude that there is no argument―that is what I've been leading up to. You can't debunk or refute an argument that doesn't exist.

It might help if you lay out what you think the argument is.

You say this:

It isn’t talking about consciousness, mind, or any number of tedious philosophical problems; it is simply saying that a mere point of view can’t be explained by naturalistic processes. — Tom Storm

But that is a mere assertion. What reason do you think the argument is offering for why point of view cannot be explained by natural processes?

What exactly are you looking for Tom. Do you think intentionailty cannot be explained in naturalistic terms? Or are you thinking that it is the origin of intentionality that cannot be explained in naturalistic terms? It is a trivial truism that intentionailty cannot be explained in terms of physics or physical chemistry―no one who has thought about it at all would disagree with that.

Do you think there are theistic, supernaturalistic or esoteric explanations that offer better, more coherent and consistent accoiunts than naturalistic ones?

I think you misunderstood me. I should have said that we would leave the door open to superstitions, folk traditions, and supernatural ideas, God and esoterica. There is little doubt that wherever there is a gap, God will be inserted, as a kind of explanatory wall filler. — Tom Storm

Yes, I suppose that is true for some―for those who need certainty. My point is that God and other spiritual and/ or esoteric notions might provide a sense of certainty, but cannot provide any cogent explanation for anything. There is nothing more mysterious, more inconsistent, more ambiguous than God, for example. Just read the Old Testament―particularly the Book of Job.

If people claim that physics can explain everything, then they are obviously wrong. I haven't heard many, or even any, claims to that effect on this site.

Why should we not trust in complexity and neuroscience up to the point of what is known in those fleids? Like all science the trust should be provisional, and completely open to revision.

Also saying that we may never have a complete account does not necessarily leave the door open to God and esoterica, because those posits can never be scientific or satisfactorily explanatory. They can only be faith based notions. Science should not have problems with faith-based notions since they can never be part of science and hence pose no challenge to it. The obverse also holds, I think, since science can never be the "be-all and end-all" of human life, it can only ever play a mere part.

The “input” to the system is treated as if it were already a perceptual unit, already individuated as visual information, when in lived experience there is no such pre-perceptual layer. What the neuroscientist calls “input” is itself a reconstruction abstracted from an already meaningful encounter with the world. The retina does not receive “edges” or “features”; it is we who later describe neural activity as if it were encoding them. The world is perceived in terms of what it affords, not as a neutral array of data awaiting interpretation. No amount of neural description can recover this level, because it presupposes it. — Joshs

The problem applies equally to postulating that the input is historically determined cultural and social socially conditioning. In lived experience there is no such pre-perceptual layer. The degree to which what we perceive is "naturally given" as opposed to culturally constructed is impossible to determine and seems always to be open to black and white thinking on both sides of the argument.

Probably both. But a problem with "naturalism" is that it’s so vague that you can smuggle a lot into it. I think the explanatory gap for intentionality applies to both naturalism and physicalism, because both seem to share the central assumption that everything, including mental states can be explained in terms of physical processes or natural laws. — Tom Storm

I don't think that is a fair assessment of either physicalism or naturalism. It may apply to certain stripes, but beyond that, no. For example there are physicalssts such as Galen Strawson who propose a kind of panpsychism. Naturalism in the broadest sense, I would say, just rules out an intelligent designer, it doesn't rule out that matter might be, in some sense, intelligent at all levels.

We often end up in physicalist or naturalist circles claiming that our mysteries are explained by evolution or complexity and emergence, and that time will answer them definitively, or that we’ve described the problem incorrectly, so we simply restate it in a way that makes it disappear. — Tom Storm

Again I think this is not right. That there may be mysteries which might never be explained is not ruled out by either physicalism or naturalism. Supernaturalism posits an intelligent designer and an overarching plan, and the problem with those ideas is that they can never be demonstrated to be true, and they are, given the nature of the world we know, greatly implausible to boot.

Yes, and this is really the area I’m interested in: understanding the argument, not refuting it or trying to sidestep it. I want the best possible formulation of this argument. We often move so fast on this site that, for the most part, people are playing a kind of tennis with their own preconceptions: you hold this, I return your serve with mine.

Hart’s argument concerns an explanatory gap. Even if every mental state is correlated with a brain state, that only gives a correlation, it doesn’t explain why the brain state represents the world rather than merely being a physical pattern. The point, it seems is that naturalistic accounts struggle to bridge the gap from physical patterns to meaningful content. — Tom Storm

It seems to me the argument is one from incredulity coupled with accusing naturalism of not being able to deliver on what it does not necessarily claim to be able to deliver on. In other words, as you say the "explanatory gap" is counted as being fatal to physicalism/naturalism.

But really, what is the alternative? Positing a designer or even merely some kind of pan-psychism does not solve the "explanatory problem" because there seems to be no way of explaining how either of those alternatives could work. So it doesn't come down to a contest of explanatory power so much as a case of people simply having different intuitions in the matter.

The physicalist/naturalist can fairly say "why should we posit entities for which we have no evidence, and maybe even no possibility of evidence?".

Naturalism or physicalism?

In an earlier response I outlined what the world being intelligible means to me. It means simply that an organism can navigate an unarguably complex environment successively―where "successfully" means simply 'well enough to survive, if not to thrive', and where thriving would indicate greater success.

If the non-naturalist explanation is that intelligibility is somehow an essential feature of things, even a matter of essences that allow an "agent intellect" to grasp their meaning and significance, would that apply only to symbolic language enabled beings or would it apply to animals also?

Notice, however, that an 'essence' limits the changeability of something (edit: because an essence would imply a defining characteristic that cannot be changed without annihilating the entity that bears the essence). — boundless

Right, but it seems undeniable that each entity is unique and that there will never be another the same. In our thinking about the one, I think we should not dis-value or deny the reality of the many.

No matter how we might want to diminish its importance by intellectualizing it, it is undeniable that each biological entity's deepest instinct is to survive. I think that is the unconscious motivation for concerns with rebirth and afterlife. It is really a motivation deriving from, a concern that finds its genesis in, the very sense of self these various religious teachings are advocating liberating ourselves from in one way, by means of faith, meditation or practice, or the other.

So, I don't see it as being a help, but rather as a hindrance, to effective practice leading to liberation from the fear of death.

If there is no continuity of memory, then there is no continuity of "interesting threads". On the other hand what if, as Kastrup believes, nothing is lost but all experience is taken up by the universal mind or God, contributing to its evolution? I'm not saying I believe that, but it dispenses with the need for individual rebirth.

Not "forever", but cyclically. In Buddhist cosmology, a universe comes into existence, exists, and then disappears. And then another one appears, exists, disappears, and so on. — baker

I don't see how that helps the case unless universal liberation were achieved at the end of the life of each universe. By the way, do you have a citation from the scriptures to support that cosmological view?

By understanding paticcasamuppada, dependent co-arising. — baker

That might be the theory, but where is the practice?

I don't think so.
Enlightenment the Buddhist way is not something many people would or even could want. I find it odd that the idea has such prominence in culture at large, when it's such a highly specific niche interest.

In any case no one but the actual enlightened would know,

Indeed, the phrase colloquially used is "It takes an arahant to know an arahant". Other than that, there are in traditional teachings some pointers as to how even non-arahants might recognize one.

and is it even credible that any human being could not be mistaken in thinking they were enlightened?

It happens all the time in Buddhist venues. It's actually not a problem there. — baker

But how do you, presumably a self-acknowledged unenlightened one, know all this? Or, on the basis of what do you believe it?

Also, rebirth is quite consistent with anatman. If the male human John Smith can become in the future a female ant, then there is little in John Smith that can be considered an underlying essence. — boundless

If there is little (nothing?) in John Smith that can be considered to be an underlying essence, then the idea of him becoming a future female ant seems unintelligible. I've heard the "candle flame" analogy, but it seems simplistically linear and naive in the context of a vastly interconnected world.

In my book for the environment to count as intelligible all that is required is that percipients can successfully orient themselves in it such as to act in accordance with what is actually going on. A percipient that could not do this would not survive for long. Creatures of all kinds have eyes, ears, noses, mouths and parts sensitive to touch.

It seems unarguable that those sensory organs developed in response to the possibilities afforded by environments. Eyes would not for example have developed in the absence of light. To say that the environment is intelligible is only to say that creatures with the right sensory organs and nervous systems can navigate successfully enough to survive. As an analogy to say that something is visible does not require that it be seen, but merely that it reflects light.

As I understand it, intelligibility is an attribute of events, not of objects. Objects are perceptible. Cognition and re-cognition of objects happens for humans and animals on account of gestalting and memory. We can say that animals "see things as", see things in terms of affordances, and we might say this is a kind of judgement, but it is not judgement in the conceptually reflective sense made possible by symbolic language.

It seems to me that aboutness is possible only on account of symbolic language. Chomsky says that words do not directly possess referents in the world and I take this to mean that words, being generalizations, do not strictly refer to particular objects, but rather to kinds of objects, which reference is a linguistic, not a worldly states of affairs. It is humans that use or take words to refer to particular objects in particular situations.

Aboutness has a couple of closely related but different senses.

(1) It's a property of the experience, the property to be about an object. It arises with the experience from physical processes in the brain.

(2) the relation between the experience and the object.
Arises by virtue of seeing the object. Doesn't call for other physical processes than (1) and the object.

. — jkop

This might be merely a terminological issue (so much in philosophy is) but I think it makes more sense to say that experience is of objects and sensations and judgements are about attributes and relations.

Indeed. Can it be demonstrated that a single person has achieved this end? How would we even do that? How do we even know it is a plausible possibility? — Tom Storm

I agree. I think the idea of the enlightened one is just a case of the usual human myth-making. In any case no one but the actual enlightened would know, and is it even credible that any human being could not be mistaken in thinking they were enlightened?

Cheers, yes the idea of liberating all beings is aspirational. And given how few (if any?) do ever seem to be liberated, and the acknowledgement within the traditions of its rarity...
That said, acting for the benefit of all rather than the self would seem to be liberating for the self (or from the self).

Personally I like to think of death as being liberation for all―either in eternity or oblivion―the idea of rebirth makes little sense to me. It seems to be, if anything, to be motivated by attachment to the self.

The idea of ending suffering for all beings seems to be in both traditions and also seems impossible to me. Buddhist cosmology posits a beginning-less creation―if the (illusory?) world has existed forever, and suffering is still universal then how could progress in that goal ever be imagined to be plausible?

Right, I think it is true that for any biological lifeform physical suffering is inevitable. I read the prescription of non-attachment as recommending an acceptance as total as possible of this ineliminable condition of life.

And yet, you find different interpretations of it. The third type of dukkha is most often interpreted as a form of suffering/unsatisfactoriness/ill-being that permeates all conditioned states. I believe that one of the late-canonical commentarial books in the Pali Canon clearly say that even arhats and Buddhas experience dukkha while alive in the forms of physical pain and this third 'mysterious' type. — boundless

So, according to the passage quoted, the first kind of suffering is due to pain―no problem interpreting that―suffering can even be defined as pain. The second kind of suffering is said to be due to "formations",and I said I would interpret "formations" as negative mental tendencies. If we are at all self-aware and aware of others, I think we know that negative (suffering inducing) mental tendencies or thought complexes come in many forms. The third type of suffering is due to "change"―which is also easy to understand. We are creatures of habit (some more than others obviously) and we desire security (again some more than others). The more we desire security and predictability the more change will cause us to suffer. Change might cause either mental or physical suffering or both.

So, I would say there are really only two kinds of suffering―physical and mental (in the latter category of which I would include emotional and existential suffering). That said, perhaps it could be argued that if human life in general has somehow gone off the rails spiritually, then existential suffering (angst) would not be merely due to personal mental (conceptual and emotional) complexes.

That's my take on it.

PS. After writing this response I read your next post which quotes Gautama as saying much the same as I have said above.

As pointed out, this is kind of irrelevant to the OP. Earth need not be the normal frame. The calculation can be done relative to any frame of choice without changing the answer (the relative ages of the twins at reunion), which is frame invariant. — noAxioms

Earth may not be the "normal" frame (although it certainly is for us). The fact remains, however that, if the theory is correct, the twin who traveled at near light speed will have aged less than the one who remained on Earth.

You are just repeating what I had already said...that the thought that mind and body could be completely independent of one another is absurd...while apparently imagining that you are somehow disagreeing.

I think that's probably right, but I didn't want to assume so, because I really haven't looked into it much. So, it might take a year of our time for the cosmonaut to raise his coffee cup to his lips. :cool:

Watch them on TV. — Banno

Good point (how did I miss that?), but the video data from them would presumably be slowed down too relative to us. So the question then is whether their physical movements would would look slowed down to us or look normal. I can't answer that.

If someone were traveling close to the speed of light relative to me, special relativity says their physical processes would appear slowed down from my frame — movements, reactions, even neural activity. That part makes sense when thinking about observable behavior. — RogueAI

Their physical processes cannot be observed from my frame until they return. Then I would see that their physical processes had been much slower than mine as evidenced by their relative youthfulness― assuming, that is, the correctness of the theory.

The other question as to the speed of their mental processes could not possibly be established other than, if at all, by asking them. Also, the idea that their mental processes "movements, reactions, even neural activity" could be slowed down relative to Earthers, while their mental processes could remain the same speed as the Earthers' just seems absurd.

If their mental processes remained the same while their physical processes (although seeming normal to them) were slowed down, then presumably, as I said already, their mental processes would seem speeded up to them. That just seems impossible. So, I think that question is really a non-question.

So I have been addressing the question and your claim that I am adding an unhelpful complication seems completely unfounded.

Nothing has a traveling speed. Speed is relative to something else. Every object is stationary in its own frame. Earth is traveling at near c relative to the object I mentioned in my prior post, and yet you don't experience time running slow, which would be a violation of the first premise of relativity, and also a violation of the premises (whatever they are) of an absolutist interpretation such as LET. — noAxioms

Unless I am mistaken, the theory says that if you traveled at the speed of light to some distant star and then returned, those on Earth would have aged much more than you. In that scenario Earth is the stationary, "normal" frame and the starship the one at great speed relative to it.

So what does that leave? If the mind is totally external to the universe (BiV for instance, several forms of 'souls', etc), the mind is external to the universe, and works more like a moving spotlight in that which it experiences. — noAxioms

It is merely a conceptual matter. If traveling at speed close to c slows down bodily processes relative to those who remain on Earth and mind were completely independent of matter then presumably the slowing down would not apply to the mental processes. It is a ridiculous conversation anyway because mental processes cannot be independent of bodily processes. Also no one has ever, or probably ever will be able to, do the experiment.

Again, the ship is always stationary in its own frame, and while inertial, it is the Earth inhabitants that age more slowly. The reason it works out is because the ship is not always inertial, so it takes a shorter path (intervals as integrated along all the relevant worldlines) through spacetime than does Earth. — noAxioms

It is very simple―do you believe that if someone could travel in a vessel at near light speeds and returned to earth in say twenty years that they would have aged more or less than those on Earth? I believe the standard view is that the traveler would have aged much less.

Now, "suffering due to pain" seems clear. But what about the other two? What does even mean "suffering due to formations"? — boundless

It seems obvious to me―it means suffering due to negative thought complexes or patterns.

“Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. When you see someone in a sorry state, in distress, you should conclude: ‘In all this long time, we too have undergone the same thing.’ Why is that? This transmigration has no known beginning. … This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.” — SN 15.11, bhikkhu Sujato translation

This notion of transmigration could be consistent with the idea that Atman is Brahman. That it is Brahman who is endlessly transmigrating and suffering in many different forms, without retaining the idea that Atman (in the sense of a personal soul or even karmic accumulations) is in any kind of (even illusory) personal sense reincarnating.

Yes, I tend to agree with you that without the belief in rebirth long-term practice is difficult to maintain and one might become convinced of one or all these things. — boundless

Why should belief in rebirth be motivating in a context that denies personal rebirth? Or even in the Vedantic context where reincarnation of the personal soul (which however is seen as ultimately an illusion) and where it is in any case exceedingly uncommon to remember past lives, and hence establish any continuity of self? Why would attaining peace of mind, acceptance of death and the ability to die a good death not be more motivating?

Apparently you misread what I wrote. I had in mind the commonly imagined scifi scenario, where you are traveling at close to the speed of light and all processes. including bodily processes, are slowed down such that you are aging much more slowly than those who remain on Earth.

I was attempting to point to the absurdity of thinking that the bodily processes could be slowed down while the mental processes continued at the "normal" speed, which is also to point to the absurdity of thinking that the mental processes could be independence of the bodily. It would save wasted time if people read more carefully.

I think the sort of dualism you suggest here is incompatible with relativity theory, which blatantly says that you can't tell if you're 'moving fast'. For instance, relativity says that if you fall into a large black hole, you cannot tell when you've crossed the event horizon. What you're suggesting is more like the experience of your body stopping as all physical processes come to a halt as the EH is approached. This would falsify all of 20th century physics, requiring a 3rd interpretation. Not even the absolutists predict that experience, regardless of one's philosophy of mind. — noAxioms

I agree, but based my reply on an assumption of mental states being in sync with (if not just being) neural states. If they're two different things that got out of sync, there would be a test for absolute motion. Your arms would be hard to move. You'd not be able to understand speech. You'd probably die if your mental states are in any way involved in life support, like say choosing to eat. — noAxioms

Yes, I agree that dualism is unsupportable. If we were traveling at speed close to c, aging of our bodies and all its physical processes would, according to the theory, greatly slow down. If our minds were independent of, and unaffected by, physical processes, and proceeding at their "normal" rate, then our subjective experience of mental processes would, presumably, seem vastly speeded up, which seems absurd.

I’m trying to understand how (or whether) relativity meaningfully applies to subjective mental events like imagined music, not just external physical actions. — RogueAI

If mental processes are independent of neural processes then they ought to be unaffected by the relativity of velocities. If they are not independent of neural states then they ought to be affected. Under the affect of psychedelics time dilation is a common experience, but that is an altering of the subjective sense of time.

Suppose I could somehow observe their inner mental activity directly. — RogueAI

The idea of someone observing someone else's subjective sense of time makes no sense.

I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you responding to my disagreement with "the rational is the real"? Are you pointing out that it could be true on some definitions of the terms?

In my opinion, this is a classic view, but it doesn't fully take into account all economic factors. For example, the explosive growth of the US stock market and the rise in stock indices, as well as real estate, over the past five years wasn't due to a sudden shortage of stocks or real estate. It's simply that a huge amount of dollars were printed, and the excess ended up there. — Astorre

You've changed the subject. You were talking about printing money to give to those who had lost jobs due to technology so they could remain as consumers buying, presumably, consumer items including food clothes, cleaning products and less essential items. I thought you were claiming this would cause inflation―"if you give everyone a million dollars then a loaf of bread will cost a million dollars"―and I pointed out that this would be the case only if products (the loaf of bread in this example) were scarce.

3. How will a market economy cope with this challenge? After all, if we simply start handing out money to people simply for living, inflation will instantly reduce this money to nothing. Prices will simply rise. For example, if tomorrow everyone had one million dollars, then a loaf of bread would cost a million dollars. — Astorre

Inflation will only result if there is insufficient product to meet demand.

He certainly does not treat the things in themselves as a mysterious region behind the veil of appearance: — Paine

Right, and I agree; I think such an idea can be nothing more than that, an idea. Where I don't agree with Hegel is in his thought that actuality is ideal; that is I don't agree with "the Rational is the Real".

Good luck with your writing project; such things are more important than wasting time on here in argy bargy land. For me it is nothing more than a diversion―interesting at times, and at other times frustrating and a source of distraction.

What does knowing something exhaustively mean? Does it mean there are degrees of knowing something? Any examples? — Corvus

It just means we don't know everything about anything. There is always more to know about things and different ways to know them than those which are possible for us...due to the existence of different scales and perceptual systems.

What is your stance on the issue? — Corvus

I tend to favour seeing process, relation as ontologically fundamental rather than thing or substance being fundamental. So, things are processes, not ultimate entities or substances. So, I would say we know things―we are inextricably related to things, and those things are inextricably related to other things, and other things know them in ways that we don't. So, we don't know anything exhaustively. I think it is inapt to say we don't know anything about things in themselves, because the idea of a thing in itself is nothing more than an abstraction.

Of course, I'm highly sympathetic to Levin's neoplatonism, but that critic seemed to have some pretty good points to make about whether his ideas really are able to be validated empirically. — Wayfarer

It's a thorny question. What does "validated" mean? If it means verified, then the point seems moot since it is well-accepted in philosophy of science that no theory can be verified. Also, by 'neoplatonism' I presume you are not referencing Plotinus, but just mean 'a new form of platonism'?

I take Levin to be conjecturing that inherent within matter itself is a "space" of possible, potential forms, and a kind of inherent instinctive intelligence and agency that is capable of, to use Whitehead's terminology, "creative advance" whereby novel forms "ingress". The idea is that both living and non-living matter is "organic" or "self-organizing", yet not with any antecedent "purpose" or transcendent mind at work. It certainly seems right to me that there is no strictly mechanical explanation for the mysteries of morphogenesis.

Anyway Levin seems to me to be concerned not with positing metaphysical theories, but only in using his conjectures to guide what to look for in his experimental work. His concern is with the science itself.

A great poem! Wallace Stevens has long been one of my favorites.

We could like to try to figure out what the nature of time could be in more understandable and realistic manner from our own material world we live in. — Corvus

We can only figure out what the nature of time is in the context of how time appears to be to us. It doesn't follow that there is no time independent of us and our figuring.

So, we can either take the illegitimate leap and firmly declare that there just is no time apart form us, or we can allow that time has, or at least may have its own existence―an existence we can only surmise from our own experience, or if we don't allow that our experience shows anything at all bout the 'in itself' nature of time, then on that assumption we must accept that the 'ultimate' nature of time is unknowable.

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way. — Paine

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real". Nietzsche also rejected the idea of the ding an sich, but for a very different reason―he also rejected the dialectic method as a way to knowledge.

Cheers, I think I already read that review on Medium. If it was the same one I found it a bit carping―I don't think Levin is concerned with promoting dogma―his statements suggest to me that his idea of a platonic morpho-space is a conjecture that guides him in what to look for in his research. If there is some kind of intelligence, or problem-solving ability in living matter and even in non-living matter, then it doesn't really matter where it comes from or where it "resides". In fact the questions as to where it comes from or resides may be senseless―because unanswerable. Such abilities, if they can be demonstrated experimentally, may simply be in the nature of matter―with any further explanation being impossible. It's like the question 'Why is there anything"―it is not so much to be answered as it is to engender a sense of mystery and awe―an inspiring feeling to enhance the creative spirit.

Edit: I had a look and it was the same review I read previously―I recognized the "cover" image.

explore different paths to meaning without this having an adverse effect on their ability to earn a living. — baker

Many people find their meaning in earning a living―that is, in their profession.

But we'll have to (return to a traditional mindset) or we'll be miserable. — baker

You are speaking, and can speak, only for yourself.

the physical is not merely mechanical and mindless as has been assumed by the scientific orthodoxy. — Janus


My point exactly! — Wayfarer

Actually on second thought "scientific orthodoxy" seems a bit strong. "Popular image of the scientific view" seems more apt. What individual scientists believe would not be so easy to discover. Also science has done very well with mechanical models so the methodology is useful, even though it comes up against limits in some areas.

Evidence and models are again appeals to empiricism, don’t you see? Not all philosophical analyses can be expressed in those terms.

As for whether there is a ‘crisis of meaning’ I think it’s axiomatic, but I wouldn’t want try and persuade those who don’t agree.

As it is the basic argument of this thread has a clear provenance in the sources quoted. — Wayfarer

It is scientific evidence which is motivating Levin's work, and he constantly says that mere speculation won't do for definitive views. On the other hand we all have our own inventive beliefs about the nature of things. The difference between you and me seems to be that I don't take my own intuitive convictions to be reasons for anyone else to believe as I do.

When you say you think the crisis of meaning is axiomatic I think you misuse the term. What is axiomatic is what is self-evident to anyone, and that others disagree shows that the belief in a meaning crisis is not axiomatic. Also the belief in the meaning crisis is a conclusion you have reached on the basis of what you take to be evidence and is hence a conclusion, not an axiom.

What you claim as a "provenance" is just a compendium of others' intuitive convictions that trot out regularly apparently because you find them copacetic, chosen simply because they align with your intutions. Why would you expect that to count as convincing evidence to the unbiased?

I added a bit more to my post as you were responding.

I take this to imply that the hidden purpose of my argument is to 'restore the ancient order'- harking back to some supposed 'higher knowledge' which was imposed on the masses by the aristocracy and the Church ('political elites'.) This is the way you often intepret my posts, and I can sort of understand why. After all the so-called 'perennialists' who invoke the 'wisdom traditions' are often political reactionaries. So this kind of analysis can easily be associated with them. But, not my intent. I think I'm fully cognizant of the way that the knowledge we have now prevents any kind of return to a traditionalist mindset. — Wayfarer

I don't think I'm specifically implying that you want to return to the "aegis of tutelage" (Hegel) that both Kant and Hegel were concerned to throw off. It's more that you seem to deplore modernity, see it as a step backwards somehow. So, for me the question becomes 'Specifically what are you proposing then?".

You say we cannot return to a traditional mindset, and of course I would agree that we cannot, but would add that even if we could it would not be desirable.

This has obviously been hugely beneficial in many ways - in that sense, I'm very much a progressive liberal. But at the same time, it has its shadow. And the shadow is precisely the sense of being cast adrift in a meaningless cosmos, the children of chance and necessity, with only our own wits and purposes set against the 'appalling vastnesses of space' (Pascal). That's nearer to what I mean by the 'predicament of modernity'. The resulting idea that 'the universe is meaningless' is very much the product of that mindset. It comes directly from the 'Cartesian Division' that was mapped out in the OP. And yet, it remains a kind of cultural default for much of the secular intelligentsia. — Wayfarer

For me your "shadow"―that we are cast adrift in a meaningless cosmos―is one way of interpreting the situation, but I find it overly totalizing. Many, if not most, people are not concerned with metaphysical questions, and I don't believe they are generally oppressed by a sense of meaninglessness, not nearly as oppressed as they would have been by the fears imposed on them by the church. They find their meanings within their close relationships and families, entertainment, hobbies and sports, and I don't see that as being a negative. It only appears shallow if you assume there is some deep purpose that is being neglected.

So, I think the so-called "meaning crisis" is overblown. You say yourself the attitude that the cosmos has no overarching purpose is a default for the "secular intelligentsia". That may be so, but do you think they are on the whole oppressed by that attitude or depressed by it? I would say not. Some may be, to be sure. Coming to terms with the reality of inevitable death is a challenge for anyone who dwells upon it. I believe we have an instinctive resistance to the idea of ceasing to exist―it unsettles us. If we are going to live with that awareness we each have to find our own way of coming to terms with it.

So I am reacting against the physicalist view, yes. The view that what is real, are the entities describable in terms of physics, and that life and mind are products of, or emerge from, that. If you see the way the division or duality was set up in the first place, then you can see how it is a picture based on an abstraction. That is what this thread is about. — Wayfarer

I don't believe that life is necessarily disenchanted by the idea that we are physical, that is mortal, beings. And I don't think that idea is the same as to say that we are exhaustively describable in terms of physics―the latter idea is for me patently absurd. I don't believe that even biology can be exhaustively understood in terms of physics―they are very different disciplines with very different aims.

I don't think the idea that life and mind emerged from the physical is necessarily self-contradictory, incoherent or absurd, but it is seeming, in light of Levin's experiments, to be inadequate to explain what is observed about morphogenesis for example.

I think some kind of panpsychism or panexperientialism might be the best presupposition to start with―that the physical is not merely mechanical and mindless as has been assumed by the scientific orthodoxy. The problem, though, is always going to be finding clear evidence for such a thing, and being able to develop a clear model of just what might be going on. Perhaps it is simply not humanity's lot to be able to achieve a clear and comprehensive understanding of the nature of nature.

On the other hand there is no reason not to exercise our imaginations and explore such ideas.

Well, they're spelled out in the two italicized paragraphs above. What I'm arguing is that physicalism in its modern form, arose as a consequence of the Galilean and Cartesian divisions between mind and matter, between primary and secondary qualities, and so on. This thesis has been explored in detail in those sources I provided, amongst many others (i.e. Whitehead's 'bifurcation of nature'.) So if you think that is overall mistaken, then how so? — Wayfarer

I'm not sure which italicized passages you are referring to. I don't disagree that Galileo's distinction between primary and secondary qualities and Descartes' position of mental and physical substances helped to cement dualistic thinking. However I think the provenance of the distinction between mind and matter has a much more ancient provenance and is in fact the natural "folk" default that came on the heels of philosophical analysis itself, which is, like language, inherently dualistic when it attempts to be propostional, to predicate.

I see it as also being due to the fact that we can successfully model natural processes mechanistically (up to a point) and that such modeling has been tremendously useful. Of course it doesn't follow that nature is mechanical or dualistic. Organism does not equal mechanism, even if it can be successfully and usefully modeled that way. Such modeling is going to be inevitably inadequate to the reality. "The map is not the territory".

I think the dualism arguably goes back at least to Plato, and to the polemic between Parmenides and Heraclitus. The notion of an ideal world of perfect forms set against this "inferior" material world. As Whitehead said 'Philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato". Whitehead sought to stand Plato on his head as Marx is cited as saying he was doing with Hegel. Actually Marx claimed he was standing Hegel on his feet, and I think that is what Whitehead was doing with Plato―dispelling the fallacy of misplaced concreteness involved in reifying the forms.