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

Yes, it's crap in your opinion. but that is not controversial.

The beetle may actually be public due to quantum entanglement. — frank

I'm not sure what that could mean, but if it is so, we don't know about it anyway.

Somewhat circular.

If you are asking how you tell if something is red, the answer is that it simply doesn't matter. It's your beetle, use whatever method you like. What counts is the public use. — Banno

It's not circular; if something looks red then it is appropriate to use the word 'red' when referring to its colour, just as if something looks like a tree, it is appropriate to use the word 'tree'.

If people see it differently, they'll soon let you know. "It's not red, it's orange". "it's not a tree, it's a shrub". "Public use" is meaningless; there are only individual usages.

Yes, exactly. And assumptions aren't proof so they don't work. — Benkei

Right, no deductive argument is stronger than it's premises (assumptions); but I think it is likely that only those among the religious who don't understand that believe that the arguments for the existence of God constitute absolute proofs. The arguments can be thought to "work" without the requirement that they be absolute proofs; like any valid argument the requirement is that the conclusion follows from the premises.

Yes. That was my point in the whole exchange - Now that we can block whole categories, anti-religious people can avoid the whole problem rather than whining and growling over religious threads. — T Clark

Indeed! That said I find it hard to understand how they could not simply ignore anything they found distasteful or could find no interest in. When I look at the main page I see only what interests me, and the rest is a blur.

:up: I'm with you on that. If some are asking what you think are silly questions, or making what you think are silly statements, regarding religion, then just turn a blind eye. as you would to any subject that doesn't interest you.

I'm sorry? You've been on this site how long? If you think any of the proofs of God actually works, you haven't been paying attention. — Benkei

If you had been paying attention you would know that whether they are believed to work or not depends on what your unarguable founding presuppositions are; there can be no definitive demonstration that they do or do not work; the possibility of such demonstration exists only in the domain of logic or the empirical.

:up: I'm with you on that. If some are asking what you think are silly questions, or making what you think are silly statements, regarding religion, then just turn a blind eye. as you would to any subject that doesn't interest you.

I could be brilliant, but then I would be too exhausted to appreciate the adulation which fallow philosophers would shower on me. — Bitter Crank

:up: (Was the "fallow" intentional or a typo?)

The best threads for me are always the ones I am not competent to participate in. — unenlightened

I agree, but one must be at least competent enough to comprehend what is being presented.

First, it's worth noting that predication applies more broadly than to "judgements of experience". 2 is a number. That's not generally something one experiences as a phenomena... — Banno

We don't experience numbers per se, but we do experience number; that is we experience numbers of things,

That re-framing is to see that what is being asked here, as in so many philosophical problems, is an issue of language use. Instead of asking if "The cup is red" is true, one asks if it is appropriate to use the word "red" in respect to that particular cup. — Banno

How do we know whether it is appropriate to use the word 'red'? Is it not simply appropriate when speaking of something that appears red?

It is an issue of language use, obviously, since that is what the very question is about: appropriate use of language, but it is not nothing but an issue of language use; what is experienced or perceived is what provides the criteria for deciding appropriate use.

:cool:

My understanding of the parable is probably different than yours.

Before studying Zen, mountains are thought to be mountains and waters are thought to be waters. this is the state of mind that thinks of mountains and waters as everyday determinate entities or phenomena.

After some study mountains are no longer thought to be mountains and waters no longer thought to be waters. This is the state of mind that thinks something more "absolute" can be seen and said about mountains and waters than that they are simply mountains and waters.

After enlightenment mountains and waters are again understood to be just mountains and waters. This is the state of mind that realizes all phenomena are empty of any determinate nature, and that nothing propositional can be said about them at all beyond the conventional "mountains are mountains and waters are waters", even though the seeing is infinitely enhanced.

It's the infinite enhancement which cannot be adequately spoken. Relating this to aesthetics; it's the impossibility of saying what beauty is.

I agree with most of what you wrote there, understood from a certain perspective. 'Realism' is an ambiguous term, though, with quite different meanings in different contexts.

It seems to be well accepted that Nietzsche contradicts himself often in his works, He presents multiple different perspectives and I think arguably takes none of them as absolute, in the way classic realists take their positions to be absolute.

I found this quote from Nietzsche online:

“There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

So Nietzsche wasn't right much of the time, but he was always interesting, — busycuttingcrap

So I would agree with this, but add the caveat that he wasn't wrong either; that "right or wrong" is not a suitable lens through which to view Nietzsche or in fact most of philosophy. That is to say that I agree with Hegel that philosophical ideas contain their own negations; that any idea can appear right from some perspective and wrong from others.

But, just generically speaking, OLP includes Sense and Sensibilia -- a book I read some time ago on Banno's mention, and that seems to be a book about a non-dual awareness that isn't mystical, is non-dualistic, and is both analytic philosophy and OLP. — Moliere

I have only skimmed that book quite a few years ago, so I don't remember much about it. Searching reviews online yielded one predominant theme: that Sense and Sensibilia is concerned with critiquing the "sense-datum" theory of positivists and phenomenalists, notably that of A J Ayer.

What I'm not seeing is what this has to do with nonduality. In seeing something as something, it would seem the whole dualistic conditioning of subjects seeing objects, of self and other, is involved.

Actually, I'd say one of the things I've been pushing against in this thread is the notion that AP and OLP are necessarily opposed to these notions. I believe that's a false belief. I can see, on the surface, how they seem opposed, but I'd say the "seeming" only covers many cases -- but not all. — Moliere

:up: Not all, I agree. For example, I understand Wittgenstein to have been very much in the ineffable, mystic camp on this question.

"in tandem" suggests to me the dualism you're denying, — Moliere

If it's a dualism, it's a dualism of views, not of substance. My experience has been that when in a non-dual state of awareness, dualistic views are still comprehensible, but their relativivty, their illusionistic nature, is understood.

I don't claim to have attained non-dual consciousness as a permanent state, but I don't deny the possibility. The permanent state of non-dual awareness would be what Eastern philosophers, Advaita Vedantists and Buddhists refer to as "enlightenment".

So, upon recognition that empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation -- what now? Not in a grand sense, just philosophically.

What happens to words? — Moliere

I guess it depends on what you mean by "philosophically". From the point of view of AP and OLP non-dual awareness and the realization that empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation would presumably not be of much use, because analyses and descriptions are always going to be dualistic in character. From the perspective of, for example, Pierre Hadot's 'philosophy as a way of life', practices aimed at realizing non-dual awareness, since it is an incomparably richer form of life, might be advocated.

This could take all day. How about some notable examples: Nietzsche's views on realism wrt truth-value and value judgments/normativity were internally inconsistent- in some of his works, he espouses a form of nominalism/anti-realism wrt truth-value and normativity, but in others he is presupposing a realist position, for instance in his critique of Christianity (as, seemingly, objectively false and evil/harmful). This inconsistency severely undermines many of his arguments and positions, imo. — busycuttingcrap

I see Nietzsche's critique of Christianity highlighting its incipient nihilism: by imposing values it undermines the ability to find/ create one's own, so I don't see that as presupposing realism. Perhaps you could cite some of writings that explicitly advocate realism.His attitude to normativity I see as consistently oppositional; that is he disapproves of general rules that apply to everyone. My understanding of his attitude towards "truth" is that it is less important than flourishing.

As for being fascinated by someone whose views you mostly disagree with: Nietzsche is, imo, the most interesting character in the entire history of philosophy. — busycuttingcrap

I agree with you on that, and on his status as a great writer, and on the scope of his influence. I don't look on philosophical works as being right or wrong, but as either insightful or lacking insight, interesting or lacking interest. When Nietzsche says: "There are no truths (or "facts" depending on translation), only perspectives" I don't take him to be denying that there are empirical facts, but as emphasizing their relativistic, contextual nature, and I also take it as a statement concerning supposed philosophical truths (or facts) of which there are none, because each of us has (or should have) their own unique philosophy, as befits their unique individuality.

The only over-arching value I can find in Nietzsche is that of flourishing.

All true. And yet analytic method is ubiquitous. — Banno

That's true, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, phenomenology and even PoMo are also full of it
(analysis that is :wink: ); but analysis, like shit, comes in many forms: it all depends on one's diet.

When I want "higher quality content" I read the greats. But sometimes it's interesting to wallow in one's own lower quality content, put it out there and see how it relates to the lower level contents of others.

If you got nothing out of it, it would be a waste of time, for sure, but then how long would anyone participate in anything they got nothing at all out of?

But I realize I’m not leading by example, as I hardly contribute to the philosophy discussions these days. Seems I could only keep that up for a few years. — Jamal

If only all of us were as wise as you; but then that would mean the death of PF.

To be serious, the wish for higher quality content is the wish that this site should approximate to academia; and I see academia as being, in general, rather narrow and normatively constricted. I like to encounter as diverse a range of views as possible, no matter how whacky or "folksy' they might seem, because thereby I can understand humanity better.

All I got was a pare of flip flops — Tom Storm

I feel you, brother: "Killing me softly with your thong".

0. Analysis: doggedly tearing all the others into pieces. — Banno

Anal Isis: the Egyptian Goddess of trying to breath life into excrement.

(personally, I find Nietzche's views and writing to be fascinating, even though I think he was wrong about 80% of the time). — busycuttingcrap

I'd be interested to hear which of his views you think were wrong and why. Also I find it hard to relate to finding views you consider wrong to be fascinating; which leads me to wonder whether philosophical views are ever right or wrong, rather than showing or failing to show insight.

I'd certainly find it hard to understand why anyone would be fascinated with philosophical works they thought to be lacking in insight. That leads me to the curly question as to whether a work could be insightful, yet nonetheless, wrong. :chin:

Creativity is problem-solving. — praxis

I think that's one important dimension: but to be creative, problem-solving has to involve imagination and novel solutions, and not all creative work is problem-solving in any strict sense.

Point is, regardless of your state of mind in deep mediation or enlightment or Psilocybe subaeruginosa, you remain embedded in the world. — Banno

:up: Yep, there's no denying that!

Just going to note that "what come's next?" is a question for after the trip, when you have to... well, do the things. work, or whatever it is.

What comes next after realizing the world is not dualistic, and propositions are a collective representation? — Moliere

It's not as though people cannot function in a dualistic world even at the height of their non-dual awareness; it is possible to hold both views "in tandem" so to speak.

Dōgen:
“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

Of course it is. That's obvious to the point of being trite. But you still only get the bloody nose.

Try this: You are roughly right, Janus; so what goes next? — Banno

You only get the bloody nose if you are stupid, and as I say I've never seen or heard of anyone so stupid.

"What goes next?"...I have no idea what you are asking. I'm not denying empircal reality, if that is what you're getting at. The mayahanists recognized that samsara is nirvana; It is not a matter of positing two realities, it is a matter of altering the way you see reality, not of altering reality itself.

It's been a long time since I did drugs, to be sure, it's a fine way to be shown the arbitrariness of the world. However there's plenty of folk who have tried to walk through a tree after eating those mushrooms from around Dorrigo. The result is not supernatural abilities, but a bloody nose. Reality doesn't care what drugs you take. — Banno

:rofl: I've seen plenty of people on mushrooms and LSD and I've never seen anyone try to walk through a tree, a wall or anything else of a solid nature. Nor have I seen or heard of anyone jumping off a building or out of a tree, imagining that they can fly.

You completely missed the point, which was not about the nature of empirical reality, but that the propositional character of empirical reality is a dualistic collective representation, which may dissolve when one is in an altered state of consciousness. And no, such altered states are not states of confusion, but of utmost clarity, but I guess you would have had to experience it to understand. Perhaps try meditation if hallucinogens are too daunting.

If I have it right, you have a barrier beyond which language cannot go, but beyond which a phenomenological method of introspection supposedly can see. Hence you find the term "ineffable" appropriate. — Banno

You have it all wrong, mate. You're like a man who refuses to open his eyes and then complains that he can't see what everyone around him is talking about. It's all around you; it's just a non-dual way of seeing that cannot be captured by language. Perhaps the best thing for you would be to drop some acid, and then see if you can communicate what you've experienced. That should open your mind at least a little. As Dylan says "Don't criticize what you can't understand".

What do you think of the idea that the ineffable used to be thought of in terms of a hidden substance , a thing -in-itself, the noumenon that stands on the other side of a divide between our representations and the essences buried within external nature as well as in the interiority of our own subjectivity? And more recently the ineffable , rather than pointing to a hidden substance, is associated with the unconscious of thought , the fact that the origins of our values are not transparent to us, and neither is language transparent to itself. In other words, the ineffable is irreducible difference , displacement and becoming rather than interiority, essence, ipseity, pure self-reflexivity. — Joshs

I have been thinking of the ineffable more in terms of human experience. The Kantian notion of the noumenon places it beyond human experience. which would make it not merely ineffable, but from the perspective of experience, non-existent.

I agree that noumena might be thought to "have" essences, if by that is meant an absolute nature; in that conception they would be thought to 'be some way' even though we could never have any idea of what that way of being could be. This seems perilously close to being incoherent, at least from a logical propositional perspective. When asked about such things Gautama refused to answer or resorted to answering in terms of polyvalent logic.

I think your second sentence there points to this difference if you accept that what is "unconscious in thought" is nonetheless, non-dually, experienced or perceived. The very non-duality of the experience or perception guarantees that it cannot be expressed in our dualistic language, or in terms of bivalent logic.

Non-dual experience cannot be thought of in terms of "interiority", essence, ipseity or pure reflexivity" since those are all concepts, and non-dual perception is understood to be non-conceptual.

Here's the issue that plagues any attempt to claim ineffability:

The problem with claiming that something is ineffable is, of course, the liar-paradox-like consequence that one has thereby said something about it. — Banno


Can you escape this paradox? — Banno

There is a difference between contradicting yourself by claiming that "something" (some specific thing) is ineffable, and claiming that much of human experience (generally speaking) is ineffable.

The other point is that whatever is ineffable in human experience, propositonally considered, "drops out of the conversation", but may be the subject of poetry and the other arts. The ineffable, as such, may drop out of the philosophical conversation, but the fact that there is the ineffable need not: it may, on the contrary, be considered to be of the greatest philosophical significance (but obviously not on a conception of philosophy as narrow as AP or OLP).

And yet you have participated all along; if it is so hopeless why not walk away and cease wasting your precious time?

@Constance may correct me, but that is precisely what I understood her original question to you, that you have spent so many words evading, to be. :roll:

I might regret those words, since ↪Janus
wants me to explain truth to him yet again. :roll:

. — Banno

I wasn't asking you to explain truth, but rather to explain, per the physicalist view that we are affected by, and know, an external (in the sense of external to our bodies) world of meaningless micro-physical events, how it is that those phenomenologically imperceptible impingements on the body-brain give rise to a semantic representation of "a world" that is understood in logical propositional terms.

I'm not suggesting that the mind-body problem is a real problem except when the basic presuppositions are physicalist. Of course I don't expect you to attempt to answer the question in good faith, but rather to evade it by pretending that you don't understand it, that it is "confused" or that it is not interesting enough to bother.

One hopes that one returns to the same question in a different way.

.

Right, you being such a great exemplar of that! I can't think of a more predictable and yet, ironically, prolific and with so little to actually say, poster on this forum :rofl:

Which knowledge claims? What objects in which world?

If the supposition that there is one way in which we can tell if a proposition is true, then the answer I gave, the T-sentence, is the only candidate. — Banno

To keep it simple start thinking about empirical claims concerning things in this world. '"Snow is white " is true iff snow is white' tells us nothing beyond the fact that the account it exemplifies, the correspondence account, is the only account that makes any sense.

Then take that example: we know "snow is white" is true if we know snow is white: but how do we know snow is white? We know it appears white, and we know we say it is white; is that the same thing? So, do we know anything about snow?

"(H)ow epistemic connections work between knowledge claims and objects in the world" is an ambiguous question. — Banno

Can you explain why you think that question is ambiguous?

To be able to determine if someone is deluded, you sort of already have to have a notion about determining both the minds of others, and the truth about the world. — Moliere

True, but to entertain the idea that anyone might be deluded all that is required is the notion of a possible difference between human beliefs and conceptions about what is actual and what is actual.

Note that not having a reason isn't the same as things being true or false. It may just be that there is no reason at all. The reason unmarried men are bachelors is because that's the relationship between those locutions. The reason crabs can't talk is because they are not in the class of talking animals. — Moliere

Again true: but having any reason to believe some proposition does not guarantee its untruth. The bachelor example is a tautology, and the truth there is, as you say, a matter of definition, or which is the same, usage. Whether or not crabs can talk, though, seems to have nothing to do with our definitions, beyond the fact that they either satisfy our definition of talking or don't.

Well, yeah. Exactly why I claimed to be out of my depth -- the mind-body problem has been around for awhile specifically because it's a quagmire of a problem.

I'm not sure what would qualify one to not be out of depth with the mind-body problem. — Moliere

I wonder whether the "mind-body" problem is not so much a "quagmire", if the implication there is that it is a real problem so difficult that we get stuck in it at every step, as it is a merely apparent problem contingent on our dualistic mode of thinking; a problem to be dissolved rather than solved.

We don't expect the crabs or the lions to talk, but some of us might talk to them. Or even claim to hear them.

So, what's the difference? Without an account, then there is no difference. Rather, we have to accept that some people can talk to the whales, crabs, lions of the world. — Moliere

Perhaps, or they may be deluded.

The lion may already be speaking, but there's no way we'd understand what he's saying because we're different creatures. — Moliere

I don't discount the possibility, and yet I see little reason to believe it. Wittgenstein's statement never made much sense to me. If we hear anyone talking in a foreign language we cannot understand them. So, of course if a lion is speaking we cannot understand her; however if she spoke English or we could speak "lionese" we could. I think it's a trivial point to be honest.

We're just barking while we feel like it all means something. — Moliere

That's not how I see it. If the dogs barking different sounds evoke specific associations reliably in other dogs, and they can self-reflectively represent themselves to themselves as beings who are capable of symbolic representation, then you are right. Do we have any reason to believe that is the case?

The only thing is, every single one of the claims is false. So it is possible for us to carry on at length while having no contact with truth -- it doesn't matter that it makes sense to us, because astrology can make sense to us, and it is false. — Moliere

You assume that astrological claims are false. Of course, no one denies that we can make sense of pure fiction, so I'm not seeing the point.The idea of fiction only makes sense in contrast to the idea of reality; which is not to say that we know what is real in any absolute sense.

But this is all just to make sense of an epiphenomenal account of meaning -- that language means, but meaning drifts beyond any empirical measurement and has no causal connection to the world or brains. — Moliere

The epiphenomenal account, as I understand it, says that meaning and consciousness are fictions, that they are unreal, that they don't really exist or at least that they are not what we think they are and have no causal efficacy. I can accept that in a kind of Spinozistic sense, where thinking such and such leads to thinking something else, which leads to thinking something else and so on, and at the same time all these thoughts are correlated with neural "acts" which are causally connected, but we cannot successfully merge the two accounts.

This is a kind of "parallelism" (different to Leibniz' though) where the causal account and the semantic account are different accounts of the one thing from different perspectives, which would mean, strictly speaking to say something like " the thought that I will lift my arm caused my arm to lift" is a kind of category error, but "I lifted my arm because I wanted to" is not and "my arm lifted because CNS signals from the brain caused it to lift" is not either.

As far as I know there is no conceivable way of blending accounts given in causal, physical terms with accounts given in terms of subjective reasons. They are simply different kinds of accounts.

:up:

Yes. Same as serial killing. Some of us think it's a bad thing. :razz: — Tom Storm

:lol: There are not many who don't share that presupposition!

God seems a particularly fragile and tendentious explanation primarily because theism itself remains obscure, and as far as I can tell, incoherent. — Tom Storm

I have to admit it seems somewhat incoherent to me too, but the theologians would have something else to say, I imagine. As always it all depends on your founding presuppositions.

And, by extension, do we humans do the same while feeling like we do differently? (the epiphenomenal belief, I think, fits here) — Moliere

Well, we say that we understand words and phrases to represent or refer to things, and animals don't say that, can't say that. Epiphenomenalism makes no sense to me because the idea that we understand ourselves to be doing certain things, like feeling certain emotions or feeling that we understand things in a certain way, but are not really doing them makes no sense. unless it is a case of later coming to understand that we were not doing what we thought, but something else, like 'I wasn't feeling love, but possessiveness'.. But such realizations would need to be phenomenological, not strictly empirical, because these kinds of subjective impressions cannot be supported one way or the other by observations of measurable physical phenomena.

I don't think I have in mind what you're describing. If I did then I'd have more sympathy for Husserl than I presently do, given I don't think it's possible to attain that state, and even go so far as to say that our conceptualizations can even enhance our experience -- that language and conceptualization can, in addition to obscuring, elucidate. It just depends on how you use it. — Moliere

I agree there is a certain, ordinary sense in which conceptualization can enrich our experience. But the state, which you think it impossible to attain, has a very well attested history of being reported, both in the East and the West. Of course that doesn't and cannot demonstrate empirically that such a state is attainable, only your own experience could demonstrate that, if you attained it, and then it would arguably demonstrate it only to you ( although it is said in the East that those who have attained can recognize it when others attain it. I don't know about that, but from my own experience I believe the state is attainable. I don't expect you to think of that as evidence, though; for all you know I might be deluded.

This isn't accurate; the part of the Big Bang model that is empirically corroborated and widely accepted posits an expanding and cooling universe from a hot dense prior state. — busycuttingcrap

That's right; the furthest we can think back towards an origin is this "hot dense prior state" which was a dimensionless point.

This is really no more a well-understood "entity" than God is. There is physical theory and there is theology; nether of which are exhaustive or definitive.

God is different, though, because if you ask for a physical explanation of God, you show that you do not understand the concept.

It's not the "expanding and cooling universe" that God explains; He doesn't explain the physical theory even if He might be believed to have been its origin. Our physical theories break down at the BB, so we are no better off when it comes to explaining in physical terms the origin without the idea of God than we are with It. In other words all the physical theory is consistent with God or without God; it makes no difference.

I think we might agree on one thing, though; and that is that "God did it" is not any better. from the point of view of advancing physical theory than "it just happened"; but I don't think many would claim that 'God did it' is a physical theory.

The Big Bang is understood to be the origin of this universe at least, it is also causa sui, meaning that we must take it as such since, it it were caused, we have no way of knowing what the cause could have been. Even if we did know, it would only move the problem one step back, because then we would need to explain what caused the cause of the BB.

Of course, theists will say, if they accept the BB, that God caused it. At least that introduces a conscious intention into the story.(not that I personally buy it). It remains the case that if you posit a chain of causes, you either must accept that the chain had no beginning or else posit a first cause that itself is uncaused.

Neither is a satisfactory explanation, but we should not expect anything more. So, it's not really a case of "kicking the explanatory can further down the road" at all, but of acknowledging that whatever traditional explanations we might accept, or novel explanations we might come up with we are going to hit a wall beyond which our explanations cannot penetrate.