Well, no. Heat is measured in Joules. It is the flow of energy from place to place. — Banno

In ordinary parlance heating is "the flow of energy from place to place". Something that has been heated becomes hotter (than it was prior to being heated), and is said to possess a (greater) degree of heat. Of course it will cool if it is hotter than the surrounding environment. Cooling is also the the flow of energy from place to place.

And there are a few eccentric posters on a pop forum who disagree with his account because it is at odds with other views they advocate. — Banno

Ah, the old 'appeal to authority' card has been played.

We cannot think without language (though a human baby supposedly can). — Olivier5

Speak for yourself. In everyday thinking concerned with what do do, what I have to do, where to go, how to get there and so on, I think in images, not words. Obviously abstract or complex discursive thought is couched in symbolic language.

So what exactly is it to be 'aware' of some data? How do we measure awareness? — Isaac

Obviously there is no way of objectively measuring awareness, but its intensity can be felt, so we have a sense of its "measure".

:up: My pleasure, amigo, I hope you find him as insightful as I have.

Cheers :smile:

I think you must be referring to Heisenberg, not Heidegger.

BTW the mention of the Dao De Ching reminded me of a book I'm currently reading, which I've found to be the closest thing to my own preoccupations and ways of thinking I think I've ever come across. It deals primarily with different aspects of non-dualism in Advaita Vedanta, Daoism and Buddhism and also gives some consideration to Heidegger and Derrida in that context..

You've probably heard of it or even read it (if not, I highly recommend it, it brings together strands of thought I've been pondering for years): it's titled Non-Dualism by David Loy.

I agree that the subjectivr and objective are "indissociable poles of all experience" as experience is modeled. I think experience itself is prior to this conception of it.

You refer to the being of a ‘we’. In what sense is it a being if there is no distinction? Isn’t pure absence of differentiation non-being? — Joshs

Strictly there is no differentiation between being and non-being, but of course as soon as a distinction is made we have being, since non-being cannot be anything, much less a distinction. Whatever we say we will fall into dualism, as Derrida points out, but it does not follow that all is text. Experience is prior to what is said, to any text, but once we have said that, well...you get the picture...

Interesting. How would that work? Kind of like meditative awareness? — Joshs

I think the aim of meditation is to consciously be in the way we primordially are. I wouldn't even call it being-in-the world, which is still a dualistic notion, but rather simply being with no distinction. The awareness of self arises 'later' as a thought.

Try this:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/ — Joshs

I don't agree with that article regarding pre-reflective self-awareness. I think pre-reflective awareness is prior to self and other; prior to subject and object.

The fact is very clear, that these methods you propose do not adequately show us the inside of any physical objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's simply not true. With the naked eye, I cannot see inside a human body, but with X-ray, MRI, Ultrasound and other imaging technologies I can see different parts of the body.

I can also cut a body open and see the heart, the lungs and other organs and parts. I can dissect muscle and bone and see inside them. I can use a microscope to see the cellular strucure of body tissues and even inside the cells themselves.

The fact is very clear, that these methods you propose do not adequately show us the inside of any physical objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, not true. Inside and outside are relative. The surface of the heart is inside the body but is the outside of the heart. What is "adequately" supposed to mean there?

In any case, this is a distraction from the actual topic of the thread, so it is pointless pursuing it further here.

MU introduced the idea of looking inside objects, and I could not see the relevance of that to the so-called "hard problem".

I gather your question is about the latter, and my standpoint is that consciousness, being non-dual. cannot be explained or understood in dualistic terms, and that via meditation it may be understood, but not in discursive terms.

Phenomenology, insofar as it understands consciousness to be intentional, is still working in dualistic terms, and I see it as helping to understand how things seem to us in our everyday dualistic mindset; I don't see how it it can offer anything beyond that.

After all philosophy is the attempt to understand the meaning of being. — Wayfarer

I think some philosophy has been concerned with that. Heidegger tried to achieve an understanding of being with discursive analysis in his earlier philosophy, but after the "Kehre" (turning) he saw the only possibility as being in allusive poetic language as I understand it.

I think philosophy can realize its limitations, but I can't see how discursive knowledge or understanding of non-dual reality, being, consciousness, is possible.

No, that's the problem, breaking an object in two allows us to see the outsides of two objects, not the inside of one. Every time we take something apart, we remove the parts from their proper place as a part of a whole, such that they are no longer parts of a whole, but are each a separate object, a whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you're being pedantic. If I want to see the structure of the inside of a stone or a piece of wood I can break it open to reveal it. I could also use xray or some other imaging technology to "see inside" the object if it isn't practical to break it open.

The point was that the only way to observe the inside of an object is through the first-person conscious experience. The methods of science cannot observe the inside of objects. Then I gave the reason why I think it is important to develop an understanding of the inside of objects, in our quest for understanding reality — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not clear how what you say here relates to what was being discussed. We can't see the inside of objects unless we break them open, then we can. We can observe the cellular and/ or molecular structures of wood, stone or steel and so on, and it is science that has given us the instruments that enable us to do that more comprehensively than the unassisted eye will allow.

Naturalism starts from the presumption of the separation of subject and object. — Wayfarer

Language itself is based on this presumption. All our discursive understandings of the world, and even of ourselves, are dualistic. "Subject and object", "cause and effect", "substance and attribute", "mind and matter" and so on.

Not a good analogy.

Doesn't sound like you're likely to be. — frank

Are you? Do you believe a question should be considered to be coherent if we have no idea what an answer might look like?

The "hard problem" refers to explaining the experiences that accompany function. Why is there an experience that accompanies sight? Why aren't we like computers that see, process visual data, and respond per protocols, but without any accompanying experience? — frank

Right, I've read Chalmers (although years ago when at University) and I understand the basic distinction between functional and experiential consciousness, but that's not what I'm asking.

I'm asking what proponents of the "hard problem' think an explanation of why, for example, "there (is) an experience that accompanies sight", could possibly look like.

The problem as I see it, is that consciousness is (primordially) non-dual, and it is only our models and explanations of it that are inevitably dualistic, given as they are in language which is necessarily dualistic (i.e. couched in terms of subject and object).

So, I am yet to be convinced there is a coherent question there.

Whatever you're going on about, it has nothing to do with the hard problem. — frank

What exactly do you think the so-called "hard problem" is asking for?

I approach the "first-person nature of experience" from the perspective of the difference between "inner and outer". If we allow the fundamental empirical principle that some things are experienced to come from inside oneself, and others from outside oneself, we can understand that the third-person perspective cannot give us any observation of the inside. — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean inside and outside the body, no? My experience of anything internal to the body is not accessible to others. to be sure, so there is no possibility of identifying common objects of "inner" experience, as we would do with "external" objects. Is that what you mean?

That said, my experience of "external" objects is not accessible to others either; there is just the possibility of identifying, via reportage, common features between the experiences of different people.

The hard problem is just more masturbation. — neonspectraltoast

That's one way to get rid of a "hard" problem.

If I am using "know" metaphorically, ironically, wryly, jokingly, humorously or sarcastically, it is not being used incorrectly. — RussellA

Sure, you can use it any way you like, but if you want to maintain a distinction between knowing and believing, then I don't think loose or ambiguous usages are a good idea.

I think the kinds of uses you refer to have no philosophical significance other than the already uncontroversial point that there are other kinds of linguistic usages apart from the strictly propositional.

Either way, one must conclude that mental states are not the very same thing as brain states. — Banno

We already knew that, insofar as we can be aware of mental states, but not of brain states.

I know The Red Sox will win their next game, I know The Eiffel Tower is in Paris and I know that I am looking at the colour red. The word "know" is being metaphorically, in that it has degrees of certainty, because language is inherently metaphorical — RussellA

In the first case "know" is used incorrectly; you cannot know that The Red Sox will win the next game. In the second case you are merely repeating a well-worn fact. In the third case the "know" is redundant; you are just looking at something red (if you are).

In the first case you have left something out; you don't know, you feel you know, you believe. In the second case it is not really as if you know, it is that "it is well known". If you've never been to Paris, then you cannot correctly say that you know the Eiffel Tower is there, but rather that you merely accept what is generally accepted as a fact; again you beleive. In the third case the "know" is redundant; you see something red, that's all.

Similarly with same; some uses are ambiguous, but I don't think it is a matter of metaphor. If you have a red 1968 Ford Mustang and so do I, I might say " Oh look, we have the same car", but something is left out, making the statement strictly incorrect; we don't have the same car, but we have the same kind of car.

Yet it seems there are accounts of those things which are successful, and even methodological discussions in each type of study. So there's a salient distinction somewhere which renders those discussions meaningful. — fdrake

Yes, but I didn't say no account of things can be given. Remember you were asking about an account, not just of sense, but of the genesis of sense.

An account of the genesis of sense fills the hole created by successfully breaking the circle with a criticism of the given (insofar as it's propositional).

Then the account of ineffability you've given locates the ineffable precisely in the genesis of sense. Why? — fdrake

An account of the genesis of sense cannot be given, precisely because it assumes what it purports to explain. In other words no account can get outside of sense in order to explain it, and gaining a perspective form outside in order to gain a comprehensive view is just what is expected of giving an account of the genesis of sense.

Sense is dualistic, and experience is non-dualistic. Sense finds its genesis in experience, but any account of that can only be in dualistic terms; trying to give an account of that is like chasing a mirage.

Hence we are faced with ineffability.

Fuck, thanks, that's magnificent; I haven't heard it before. Like the Perfect Circle 'Imagine' it's melancholy (and anthems should be melancholy) but musically there is no comparison.

Ahhh…another one of the cool kids. — Mww

Indeed it could be said...

I'll see your Beavis and Butthead and raise you a Rick and Morty. :nerd:

Sorry, Frank. Dunno what that means.

I’m a virgoyankeebabyboomer with no sense of humor. — Mww

I'm a virgoaussiebabyboomer, with some kind of sense of humour, and I don't know what it means either...

edit: (dirty, perverse and/or absurdist)

I have always hated Imagine — Tom Storm

You might like this version:

but it seems Janus (and ↪Constance
?) suppose there is something else, something ineffable, found by phenomenological introspection or some such. I think it's a beetle. — Banno

In one sense it is a beetle. It is our pre-dualistic experience. But since we all have such experience it can be talked about in general, even if specifics are impossible, and hence we say it is ineffable.

Not to be found via introspection, but via meditation, contemplation, reflection in a certain way of thinking more akin to poetry than logic.

Experience has a non-dual aspect that cannot be expressed in dualistic language. We can talk about what might be thought to be the implications of non-dual experience, even if we cannot talk directly about, but can only allude to, it.

OK, later then. Happy New Year!

OK, I'm assuming you think we can use names correctly even when we don't know what they refer to; and I think that although that might be true, it seems useless and without any interesting implications.

Using a name without knowing what it refers to is not intelligent usage; it would be as significant as a parrot being able to use a name.

So, you're saying that I can use a name correctly even if I don't know who or what it refers to?

A description may be used to pick out some individual in order to give it a name. But thereafter, the name can be, and Kripke claims, is, used to pick out that individual without using the description. — Banno

This would only work for those who already know the individual being referred to by name. This requires context, which is established by description; so it seems rigid designation is always underpinned by implicit description, even in cases where no explicit description is required. The only way around that would be to have just one unique name for every individual, but that would be enormously cumbersome.

And that's not something we might consider? — Banno

Well it is, but then it could not happen right now, as I currently think just the way I do; it would take time. But then as I say, if I later changed my standpoint, it would not be a counterfactual scenario, but a change in the factual.

But this seems to raise the question as to whether there are various possibilities as to how my life will unfold, and of course, from the epistemological and the logical points of view, there are. But are there really?

That, I would say, is unknowable; which seems to mean we are not entitled to an opinion on that question. I also think we have to acknowledge that the granting of alternative future possibilities is only relative to the limited context of what we know and what we can imagine.

After all, you might not have agreed with Quine... — Banno

I'd say that if I do indeed agree with him right now, then it is not the case that I might not have agreed with him right now, because that would mean comprehensively changing the way I presently think. On the other hand I might not have agreed with him in the past, or I might not agree with him in the future, but neither of those possible scenarios would be counterfactuals, as far as I can tell.

Cheers, I'm surprised to find myself agreeing with Quine, but then I've never read much of his work. Perhaps I too hastily formed a bad opinion of it...

Well, no, since as you will have noted, he gives examples where this is not the case. — Banno

I searched through the essay and could not find any examples which deal with just what criteria we could possibly have for deciding whether it should be thought of as the same lectern in counterfactual scenarios. The way I see it, since nothing is separable for everything else, the identity of an object is its entire history up the present and none of that could be changed without losing its identity.

So the slightest variation in constitution (?), any counterfactual at all, would bot be "this lectern"?

this lectern may have been in the other room, but may not have been made of ice - since it is made of wood, if we suppose that it might have been made of ice, we would better say that this lectern might have been replaced by another, made of ice. — Banno

Could it have been made of a different kind of wood? Or of the same kind of wood from a different tree? Or different planks from the same tree?

Logic is nothing more nor less than valid thinking, which is again nothing more than consistency; it says nothing about the content of thought, but merely codifies its forms.

I don't read much pop sci; but if you would like to link something I'd look at it.

But you know that people have been thinking about a possible link between consciousness and quantum mechanics at least since Penrose. — frank

Yes, but I don't have an opinion about such speculations as I know too little.