The scientific sense of the term "gravity" which we now make common use of is first recorded in the early 17th century. Yes, people before this mused about why things fall back down to Earth, but then you also have musings about witches flying on broomsticks, people walking on top of water, yogis levitating in the East, and the like. — javra

Gravity defined simply as the tendency of things to fall was and is experienced by everyone. It is hardly something one could be unaware of. Speculations about it and the other things you mention are not in the same class for the obvious reason that the other things would not have been common experiences or to be skeptical even experienced at all.

lesser animal — javra

:roll:

Why don't you call it learning? It is after all, what one must be able to do before one can join in. The rower who is "conditioned" to that particular routine is learning to row, acquiring a skill. — Ludwig V

I like to maintain a distinction between what is deliberately learned in order to be able to participate in some specific activity and what one introjects without any awareness of or choice about what is being instilled.

When you decide to "bracket" the social role conception of the self, you have created your own problem. "Self" is a complex, multi-faceted idea. ("Facet" implies that each facet depends on the others for its existence). It is an idea that not realized in identifying objects, but in the ability to take part in various activities. — Ludwig V

I don't see that I have created a problem. I don't deny that social role(s) are a part of any elaborate conception or account of self. As I said before I think there is a more basic and more primordial sense of self, which is involved in the sheer sense or affect or apprehension of being.

We can to some extent talk about that but not in definite ways. It is more something to be evoked or alluded to than something to be defined. To relate this back to the OP somewhat I would say that the animal sense of self is not any different.

If the speed of light, together with all the other physical constants, exhibited no consistency and continually changed, one day 350,000,000 m/s and the next day 250,000,000 m/s, it seems to me that life would not be possible. — RussellA

You mean if there were no constants then no stability including life would be possible? If so I agree. That seems obvious. I think using the word consistency here clouds the issue. For me the word suggests one thing being in conformity with or non-contrary with or non-antithetical to something else and its use would thereby be better restricted to matters of logic.

I don't know the answer to your question. I don't know what fundamental reality is consistent with.

What do you think fundamental reality is consistent with? — RussellA

In accordance with what I say above I think the idea of consistency loses its meaning in that context, both because fundamental reality is presumably not something conceptual and because there is no second thing for it to be consistent with even if it were conceptual.

Good point. Myths are composed or propositions, but that's doesn't mean that they are propositions. Belief does seem to be better - so long as we bracket the context of evidence that applies to most run-of-the-mill beliefs. — Ludwig V

I am not clear what the distinction would be between being composed of propositions and being a proposition or set of propositions or being composed of beliefs and being a belief or set of beliefs. I wonder whether your point was that the use of either term should not confuse us into thinking that a myth is a belief or proposition that we have arrived at by ourselves and decided for ourselves. They are rather beliefs or propositions that are the result of social conditioning. They are introjections. In that sense they are "hinge" or "bedrock" or "background'.

A sense of self that via memory "unifies" experience.
— Janus
It seems to me that there are two related but different ideas of the self. To a great extent, we define ourselves or create who we are by what we (choose to) do. But that sense of self-identity is not always identical with our sense of the identity of others. A further complication is that often our identity is given by the roles that we occupy and these differ in different contexts. (Parent/child, teacher/student, manager/colleague) One can appeal to continuities of one kind or another - stream of consciousness, physical continuity, and so forth - but then there is the question of how important or relevant they are - especially when they conflict. So unity of experience is one factor amongst others. — Ludwig V

I did not have in mind the 'social role' conception of the self at all. I was thinking of the difficult to articulate primal sense of being an individual. As the name imply an individual is one who is not divided. One who experiences a sense of continuity. That is what I meant by saying that memory unifies experience.

:100: If fundamental reality wasn't inherently consistent, life couldn't exist. — RussellA

If fundamental reality wasn't consistent with what? Life? If fundamental reality wasn't consistent with life life couldnt exist? Profound!

No, 'shape' is the name of a discernible. 'E' is the name of a human sound.

I would say that most everyone knows very well what theft, assault, rape, murder and torture are, so I'm not seeing the confusion you apparently think is there.

For example, don't conflate the normal condemnation of murder with the practical ethical question as to which deeds deserve the appellation. The point is that if an act is identified as murder it will be almost universally condemned.

Yes, and each time, in each particular situation, how can you be sure that what makes that situation right or wrong draws from the same rules, criteria and justifications as the previous time, or compared with 20 years ago? — Joshs

The almost universal agreement about the most significant moral issues I outlined above doesn't change from time to time or culture to culture, as least when it comes to members of what one considers one's own community..

I don't know what this means. The only time I need to know right from wrong is in some "particular situation." — T Clark

The counterpoint would seem to be that what you "know" as right and wrong might not be what others "know" as right and wrong. That said, most everyone knows right from wrong when it comes to the most significant moral issues. Theft, assault, rape, murder, torture.

Without humans inventing the letters E and F, how can there be these letters in fundamental reality? — Carlo Roosen

The shapes, not the names.

The presumptousness of the inexpert.

OK. "Myths and metaphysical speculations and religions" all belong in a very special category. I'll express this by saying that they are pre-rational and foundational. By which I mean that they give the people who accept them their framework for explaining and understanding the world. Its misleading, in my view, to say that people believe them because that places them alongside believing that an earthquake is happening or that the harvest is bad - everyday facts. — Ludwig V

I'm not sure about saying that myths and metaphysical speculations are pre-rational. I guess it depends on what you mean by "rational". I think of rationality as "measuring" things against other things and seeing possibilities. Hence its etymological commonality with ratio. In that kind of sense we can say (some) animals are rational from which it would follow that no aspect of human life is at least in that sense pre-rational.

I agree with you that culturally entrenched beliefs were probably at least by and large unquestioned and in view of that they could be thought of as being in the Wittgensteinian sense "hinge propositions" (although I never liked the word "proposition" in that context and I think 'belief' would probably be better).

So yes, people may not have " believed" such foundational ideas if by "beleived" is meant something like "personally arrived at by thinking about it".

Well, I disagree with the "mere" in "mere idea", because some ideas (including "I") are what set the framework within we can identify facts, experiences, etc. On the other hand, I agree that many people (try to) reify that idea. But that is a misunderstanding of language, which is not built in to, but results from imposing a limited model of language on our linguistic practices. — Ludwig V

Of course the idea of self is a kind of master or overarching idea. A reaching for unity. But is it anything more than an idea? I suppose you could say as I already have that there is a pre-conceptual "sense of self" in us and also probably in (some) other animals. A sense of self that via memory "unifies" experience.

Out of respect for our history, I won’t be so brash as to throw the ol’, much-dreaded “categorical error” at you, but rather, merely bringing it up might provoke you into looking for it. Or, in all fairness, showing there isn’t one. — Mww

But you have brought it up and I think now more explanation is required since I'm not sure what you are alluding to. Never fear giving offense. I'm here to learn not to find support for some pet theory.

If I understand what you are saying I think I agree. It is often said that the self, being the experiencer cannot be itself the object of experience, with the analogy of the eye that cannot see itself being invoked.

However the eye is a real object which can be seen, so I think it is a rather weak analogy. If the self is nothing more than an idea then of course it cannot be experienced it can only be thought.

That said we have a sense of self (or is it just a sense of being?) which seems to be pre-conceptual. If it is just a sense of being it is also a sense of being different (from everything else) it seems. I don't doubt that (at least some) animals have this kind of sense.

Fair points!

If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. — Brendan Golledge

Morality does not issue from anything as arcane as cosmogony but rather from the pragmatic necessities of harmonious social life.

I would think phenomenology would necessarily be rather poor at yielding reliable knowledge about the experience of people in general, given the neurodiversity of people. — wonderer1

Yes, there is the assumption that either we are all the same or that at least we are all basically the same. Is that assumption justifiable? I don't know.

That makes sense, and I didn't mean to imply that it couldn't be called a science at all. But the epoche does set on one side the "hard" sciences, doesn't it? That's why phenomenology has to have a method of its own. — Ludwig V

I wasnt thinking so much of a distinction between hard and soft sciences. I think phenomenology is unique whether counted as science or not in that it attempts to deal with the nature of human experience itself as distinct from all the other sciences which deal with observed phenomena of one kind or another.

Yes. You may be thinking of fantasy stories. But those rely on hand-waving - magic or future technology - to keep plausibility going. — Ludwig V

I am not sure if you would count them as fantasy stories but I was thinking more specifically of myths and metaphysical speculations and religions. That is conjectures which count themselves to be non-fictional.

Epoché; the bracketing. A method for removing the necessity for the human cognitive system to operate in a specific way for every occassion. In other words, a method for disassociating the subject that knows, from that which it knows about.

That being said, what opinion might you hold regarding this IEP entry:

“….It is important to keep in mind that Husserl’s phenomenology did not arise out of the questioning of an assumption in the same way that much of the history of thought has progressed; rather, it was developed, as so many discoveries are, pursuant to a particular experience, namely, the experience of the world and self that one has if one determinedly seeks to experience the “I”; and, Hume notwithstanding, such an experience is possible….” — Mww

One experiences phenomena by perceiving them. How does on experience oneself? By being it? If we have a sense of the self by virtue of being then I think phenomenology would consist in the introspective apprehension of that be-ing as well as in the reflective investigation and description of the qualities and nature of experience and being in general. I'm not making any judgement about whether phenomenology yields valid or reliable knowledge. Vervaecke counts "participatory knowing" as one of four kinds of knowing.

It needs no mention of course, that my position must be that experiencing the “I” is impossible, if only the “I” is that which experiences. And why I have so much trouble finding favor with post-Kantian transcendental movements, insofar as those movements make necessary different kinds of “I”’s, or different forms of a single “I”, which makes epoché bracketing predicating one such movement, even possible.

Details. Devils. And how one meets and greets, and gets lost in, the other. — Mww

Yes, perhaps the "I" is nothing more than a mere idea which we hold as an overarching unifying principle. If that were so it would be a kind of metaphysical or ontological illusion. A proudly human linguistic reification of an idea.

I wasnt thinking clearly. I should have said "foster laziness" not "prevent laziness'. I find nothing to disagree with in what you've said. Perhaps an analogy could be drawn with the use of a calculator. Its a timesaving device and perhaps no harm if the user can perform the functions unaided but if they become a substitute for personal abilities I think thats a detriment.

You had me almost believin' for a moment there!

Well, the Husserl's crucial idea was the epoche or "bracketing" of external reality to exclude it from consideration. The "first-person" or subjective "lived world" was the subject-matter. The methods of the sciences as understood in his day were not applicable. But he did think of phenomenology as a systematic study and methodology. So in that sense, it was a science but it wouldn't have been called that at the time. — Ludwig V

As far as I remember Husserl considered phenomenology to be the science of consciousness, of human experience. I see the epoché, the bracketing of the question of the existence of an external world as being the kind of reverse mirror image of the bracketing of concern about first person experience in the other sciences. I could be mistaken about that of course.

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

I agree with that. But I do think that our capacity to imagine possibilities beyond the ambit of common experience is an important phenomenological fact about the human.

I was just trying to say that theoretical systems metaphysics is a pretty good way to distinguish one from the other, their respective commonalities notwithstanding. — Mww

Yes, I think there's some truth in that.

While they don't prevent participants who have an imperfect command of English to make use of those tools to learn how to better express themselves, they also make them aware of the risks inherent in abusing them (and enable moderators who suspect such abuse to point to the guidelines). — Pierre-Normand

I wonder whether using LLMs to tidy up grammar and improve clarity of expression would not hamper one's own development of those skills. In other words, I wonder whether it would not foster laziness. For the rest I agree with you.

But I thought that Husserl specifically developed phenomenology to be something quite distinct from science - unless you define science as anything that attempts to achieve objectivity.

Which prompts me to complain that this entire discussion is scientistic and ignores the possibility that disciplines that do not aim to emulate science may be (I think are) essential to understanding consciousness. History, Literary and Cultural Studies, Sociology, some branches of Psychology etc. - not to mention Marxism and Psychoanalysis which might well have something to offer. But, of course, it all depends how you define "science". — Ludwig V

It does depend on how you define science. I think Husserl considered phenomenology to be a science, and I see no reason not to think of psychology, anthropology, sociology and history as sciences.

Yes, I guess it is. Perhaps that simple-mindedness is a fault. One can't, for example, describe an unborn baby as a foetus and pretend not to know what kind of context that sets up. — Ludwig V

I would count simplemindedness as a fault wherever a more nuanced understanding is available.

Well, I certainly agree that it is a good thing to recognize the difference between a picture and a description and being there. Whether "limitations" is appropriate for that is another question. — Ludwig V

You introduced the photograph analogy. I think a photograph does capture aspects of the reality just as our thinking can. Thinking may be more or less apt. I can see your point if you mean to say that we needn't worry about whether or not what we say is absolutely adequate to the reality, but should rather concern ourselves with the relevance, validity and soundness of what we say within the ambit of common human experience.

First and foremost, and from which all relevant distinctions evolve, the presence in continental, the absence in analytic philosophy, of theoretical system metaphysics.

Probably isn’t a single all-consuming response, but I read this one somewhere, seemed to cover more bases. — Mww

AFAIK since Nietzsche Husserl and Heidegger the continentals have (purportedly at least) eschewed metaphysics or at least reduced it to be a subset of phenomenology.

I refuse to use ChatGPT at all. I suspect some participants are using it to research particular issues and to enhance their own posts making them look much more substantive than the posts they used to present.

I'd say ban its use altogether except in those kinds of threads explicitly concerned with exploring the chatbot nature such as @Pierre-Normand has produced.

I mean even banning it for simple purposes such as improving grammar and writing clarity. Of course this will rely on the honesty of posters since it would seem to be impossible to prove that ChatGPT has been used.

OK. I'm not denying that so-called analytic and continental approaches to philosophy are concerned with different things. Its too complex a topic to bother trying to address here, and it really has little to do with the OP in any case.

I think it's worth noting that in that three-year-old conversation you linked I said I approve of a plurality of approaches because we cannot pre-emptively decide what each will turn up. I havent changed my mind on that. You seem to be much more intent on polemicising the issue.

Certainly the brain can be studied by empirical science. Consciousness as such though is not an observable phenomenon. Dennett recommends an approach he terms 'heterophenomenology' which is an attempt to combine empirical science with first person reports.

Do you think we can be confident that introspection and reflection on experience may yield reliable information about the nature of consciousness?

What are some of the major differences you see between Continental and Anglo philosophy?

I'm not concerned about labels. I just don't understand the call for a "first-person" science given that we already have phenomenology and (I forgot to mention) psychology.

I mean you can't incorporate the first person into the study of chemistry, biology, geology, botany, or even physics and so on. That said it should be obvious enough to acknowledge that all those sciences are carried out by persons and that they are dependent on human perception and judgement. I can't imagine anyone being silly enough to deny that.

Right - his first book was 'towards a science of consciousness', but note his exploration of the requirement for a 'first-person science', i.e. science which takes into account the reality of the observer, instead of viewing the whole issue through an 'objectivist' lens. — Wayfarer

Don't we already have, and have had for a long time, that "first-person science" in the form of phenomenology?

But, to be fair, those effects are not always being consciously manipulated. — Ludwig V

Right, but then isn't that the "simpleminded" case?

Perhaps it's not relevant. Let's not pursue it here. — Ludwig V

:cool:

Oh, I don't think it is all that simple-minded. It is an attempt to gain a rhetorical advantage by labelling the phenomenon in a prejudicial way. If I'm feeling charitable, I try to ignore the label for the sake of the argument. — Ludwig V

Well, I think it's either simpleminded or dishonestly tendentious. "Trying to gain a rhetorical advantage" seems a strategy more suited to sophistry than to philosophy.

I'm not that bothered about that supposed failure. It's a bit like complaining that a photograph doesn't capture the reality of the scene. — Ludwig V

I'm not bothered by it either, so it wasn't a complaint, but merely an acknowledgement. I see it as a good thing to acknowledge our limitations.

But not by reporting facts. Language has resources beyond that. — Ludwig V

It's not clear to me what you are wanting to get at here.

That's true, but what if the robotically-enabled systems decide to disable the passive LLM's? — Wayfarer

Would it be the robot's "brain" that decided or the robot itself? :wink:

It isn't different to what I've been saying all along. My writing seems clear to me, but maybe I overestimate its clarity for others, I don't know.

I'm familiar with Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. I read the book many years ago. I agree that it makes no sense speaking about the brain deliberating, making decisions and so on because that way of speaking belongs to the space of reasons, to the understanding of human experience and behavior. There is a sense in which activities of the brain are no part of human experience. We are "blind" to what goes on in the brain. However there is another sense in which deliberating, making decisions, judging and experiencing in general are not really separate from neural activity—they are the experiential dimension of neural activity, so to speak.

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. — Janus

I'm afraid it is very controversial. The disagreement centres on "cause". There's a definition which circulates in philosophical discussion and this definition itself is, in my view, suspect. — Ludwig V

By "cause" I mean something like "provides the necessary conditions". I'm not thinking in terms of "linear' efficient causation, although that too arguably plays a part. There are always going to be problems with our attempt to formulate ideas of causes and conditions, given that those formulations are inherently dualistic and given that the reality is, presumably, non-dual.

That said, we are concerned with what it seems most reasonable to say, while acknowledging that our words can never capture the reality.

give rise to that decision or action — Janus

You've moved away from the troublesome concept of cause to something vaguer, which masks, to some extent, where the disagreement is. — Ludwig V

So, here is where I think your misunderstanding of my argument is. To my way of thinking if a set of conditions gives rise to another set of conditions then the former could rightly be said to cause the latter, at least within the scope of what seem to be reasonable ways to think, while not extending to a claim of exhaustively capturing what is going on.

You refer to "when I decide to act or simply act". That seems to posit the possibility of acting without deciding to act, which seems absurd, and certainly won't help the neurophysiologists, who are looking for causes of action. — Ludwig V

It seems to me that very many even most of our actions happen without conscious decision. I think it is only meaningful to speak of decision when we are self-consciously aware of deliberating over what to do. We can posit that unconscious decision-making takes place, but then it becomes, as is so often the case, a terminological issue. Same goes for positing unconscious intentions. Are these unconscious decisions and intentions just rationalizations after the fact? If not what could they be other than neural activity?

Then we need to think about planning, preparing, trying - where do all these fit in? — Ludwig V

To my way of thinking planning and preparing can be parts of deliberation, Trying is just doing it seems.

The dualists explained "simply acting" by positing that they took place very rapidly or unconsciously, which I think most people now recognize as hand-waving. Neurophysiologists are doing the same thing. The difference is that they are waving their hands at physical correlates.
It's a mess. — Ludwig V

For me there is no separation between the physical processes and the semantic or qualitative aspects of our lives. They are all of a piece and only seem separate due to our inherently dualistic thought and speech.

So I don't believe the meaningful qualitative dimension of our lives would be possible without the physical. However I don't buy the reverse argument that because the very idea of the physical is a part of our meaningful qualitive experience and judgment that it follows that the physical universe could not exist without the presence of percipients capable of apprehending it. So i think in that sense it is most reasonable to say that the physical universe is both ontologically and temporally prior.to perception, experience and judgement.

Moreover, merely replacing the mind by the brain leaves intact the misguided Cartesian conception of the relationship between the mind and behavior, merely replacing the ethereal by grey glutinous matter. — Wayfarer

What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. The counterpoint to that—thinking of the mind as ethereal is the equally retarded sibling.

You apparently just don't get it. I don't expect you to agree with me, but your objections, which amount to changing the subject, show no understanding of what I've been saying. The principle of diminishing returns dictates that we might as well leave it there.

What if the either/or thinking is correct? There are either/or situations. A square circle is either/or. It's not both. — Patterner

A square circle is not either/ or and nor is it a paradox, It is just an incoherent conjoining of words.

Of course they do, but we also act for reasons. As I keep trying to get you to see they are just different kinds of explanation. You might get it if you ditch your either/or thinking.

The whole process of perception and action is 'of a piece' but you don't say that can be explained solely in terms of physical processes unless you're a philosophical materialist - which you say you're not, but then you keep falling back to a materialist account. — Wayfarer

You continue to misunderstand. I'm not claiming that intentionality and personal experience can be comprehended or encapsulated in any purely physical account.

But the 'two competing explanatory paradigms', mental and material, just is the Cartesian division - mind and matter, self and other. — Wayfarer

Again you misunderstand. The Cartesian claim is that of two distinct substances. Spinoza corrected that with the realization that thinking in terms of cogitans and thinking in terms of extensa are two different modes of understanding and he said they are the two we humans can comprehend out of the infinite attributes of the one substance.

So they are not "competing" explanatory paradigms, and I didn't say they were. I said they are two different and incommensurable explanatory paradigms. I think you see them as competing because you presume that one must be correct and the other incorrect. So you are reflecting your own prejudices, not mine.

The way to "transcend that division" is to see that they are just two ways of understanding and that no polemic is necessary or even coherent between them.

They might be unconscious, but that doesn’t mean they’re reducible to, or explainable in terms of, electrochemical processes. That is precisely materialist philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer

I haven't said that our actions and decisions are exhaustively explainable in terms of neural processes. We make sense of our actions in terms of reasons not in terms of causes, and I've explicitly acknowledged that in this thread I believe.

Obviously stimuli can affect your endocrines, adrenaline, and the like. But that is a matter of biological physiology, not electrochemical reactions as such. Electrochemical reactions are a lower level factor that response to higher-level influences, which in the case of humans can include responses to words. — Wayfarer

Stimulation via the senses is achieved via electrochemical processes as I understand it. And again, I don't think that is controversial. So the whole process of perception, judgement, decision and action is all of a piece. It doesn't follow that we can dispense with our ordinary way of understanding perception, judgement, decision and action in terms of affection and reason, or in other words it doesn't follow that scientific descriptions of what is going on could outright replace those ordinary kinds of explanations. They are just two different explanatory paradigms which cannot be combined into a unified master paradigm as far as I can see, I admit it might turn out that I'm wrong about that of course. At present no such master paradigm seems to be on the horizon.

.

However you want to label it is not relevant to the point.

So, you don't believe that when you act there have been prior neural processes which give rise to that action? Determinism doesn't entail that one cannot learn and/ or change one's mind, or that rational argument has no effect on what is believed. If you think that then you are working with a simplistic notion of determinism.