Sure. Now answer the question - what is skydiving like? What would that answer look like?


What more would one expect or eccept in answer, except what it resembles.

One may not be able to say what it is like to skydive or to bat, but one might show it; in a poem, a video, or a painting; and it will not be exact nor complete, but that will not make it wrong. — Banno

If you ask how it feels to skydive the answer could be "exhilarating", "terrifying", "boring", "disappointing" and so on. No need for 'resemblance' language.

True, a poem might use metaphor; I don't know how that would work in a painting or video, though.

It's a common usage which makes no strict logical sense. Someone might say " what is skydiving like?" for example, which means 'how does skydiving feel?', not 'what does skydiving resemble?'. "What is it like to be a bat?" Could be rephrased as 'how is it to be a bat?' or probably better: ' how does it feel to be a bat?'.

I mean in a superposition. Their identities merge. — Hillary

That may have a mathematical meaning in the context of QM, but it has no logical meaning.

Is the position important? How else can there be two? — Hillary

If they are not at different locations then logically there cannot be two.

Two electrons are exactly the same. — Hillary

Not if they are at different locations.

How can different descriptions be the same? — Hillary

I didn't say they could be the same (if they were, they would not be different descriptions); I said two different descriptions could be of the same thing.

I'd say two different things cannot be the same.
As to your 'force/ mass x accelaration example" is that a claim of identity or proportionality?
Other examples might be cases of different descriptions of the one thing.

To be the same needs the logic of being the same? — Hillary

To be the same is the logic of being the same. What else could it be, since it's not a physical relation?

Isn't that just because to be the same is a matter of logic, and there is no unnecessary logic; it is entailment all the way down?

Kant acknowledged that a priori judgements come after experience. — Janus


I think Kant means the validity of a priori judgements are demonstrated by experience. — Mww

I am sure I remember reading a passage from Kant wherein he says what amounts to saying that a priori judgements are independent of any particular experience, but not independent of experience in general.

Now, isn't that also just what you are saying when you say " I think Kant means the validity of a priori judgements are demonstrated by experience"; that is they are demonstrated by reflecting on experience, but not demonstrated by any particular experience?

Also, it seems unarguably true that no one could make a synthetic a prioiri judgement if they had never experienced anything. Do you find yourself disagreeing with this:

(You couldn't conceive of causality, for example if you had never experienced constant conjunctions of events or number if you had never experienced different objects). — Janus

for example?

Kant acknowledged that a priori judgements come after experience. (You couldn't conceive of causality, for example if you had never experienced constant conjunctions of events or number if you had never experienced different objects). Once these concepts are synthesized from experience, and understood to be common to all experiences, they do not need to be checked against subsequent experiences; that's all the "a priori" means in this context.

The rules of valid inference cannot be deduced from empirical observation alone, although observation can validate or falsify some inferences. But this is an argument against physicalism: because logical necessity is different to physical causation, then how can it be argued that the mind is causally dependent on physical causes? That was why I originally started this thread. It's related to 'the argument from reason'. — Wayfarer

I would say the rules of valid inference are abstracted from our experience of making inductive inferences (which are not understood in terms of validity, but of plausibility). Some inductive inferences can be formulated in deductive terms, of course. For example:

P: The sun has risen every day since the earth existed
P; There are laws of nature which determine that, absent some unforeseen catastrophic event, the sun will rise tomorrow, and continue to rise for billions of years into the future.
P: No catastrophic event preventing the rising of the Sun will happen between now and tomorrow
C: The sun will rise tomorrow

Of course there is no guarantee the Sun will rise tomorrow. because some of the premises might be unsound, but nonetheless the argument is a valid deductive argument.Notice that the premises themselves are inductive inferences.

The mind could indeed be dependent on physical causes, but that would not entail that the logical content of thought is dependent physical causes.

To me this is the best and most logical response. — GLEN willows

:cool:

As for AI most of the arguments are based on what computers can do now, not what they can do in the future, ex. quantum computers. — GLEN willows

We know what they can do now; we don't know what they can do in the future. We can only assess what seems plausible now.

No, it learns and is not just repetative. — Jackson

It "learns" because we programmed it to do so. Algorithms...

If there is mystery as to the existence of the Universe, then there is an extra layer of mystery in regard to the existence of consciousness, I would say.

One property of Intelligence is the ability to respond to the environment and make new things. I would also call the evolution of the universe from the BigBang to now an intelligent process. — Jackson

Well then AI is not intelligent according to that definition, so it seems you are contradicting yourself. Even if AI can create new things it is only on account of the fact that we have programmed them to do so, which means it is really us creating the new things utilizing the AI to augment our creativity. If the development of the universe is an intelligent (as opposed to merely intelligible) process then everything is intelligent; are you a panpsychist?

Leibniz criticized mechanism because it excluded purpose (Aristotle's telos) from explanations. Nature is purposeful. Not always, not always in a good way, but it exhibits purpose--accomplishing an end. — Jackson

Leibniz was a theist. Nature itself is not purposeful by any normal definition unless it has intentions, Either you believe nature has intentions (panpsychism) or you think it is driven by transcendent intentions (theism).

Taking experience as fundamental, though, I take to mean taking it as what fundamentally needs to be explained in such a putative theory of consciousness. So, what Chalmers has in mind would not seem to be a first person science in the sense that phenomenology is, so not an account that aims to describe how experience seems, which obviously could not be a third person account, and which makes no attempt to explain in causal terms how experience is possible.

Electromagnatic waves do not move through either, that is the analogy. I am saying that consciousness is no more mysterious than the fact we think, walk, and talk. — Jackson

Just like thought does not move through consciousness, eh? Consciousness is still mysterious, though, since there are no satisfying theories as to how it is possible that we should be conscious.

In reference to AI: A machine can think without what we call consciousness. That is, you do not need consciousness to think or have intelligence. — Jackson

It depends on how you conceive of thinking and intelligence.

No. I don't know how you inferred that. — Jackson

You said "there is no ether" and since you were drawing an analogy between the ether and consciousness, it seemed reasonable to think you were suggesting that there is no consciousness.

OK, thanks for posting the passage from Chalmers. As you say there is no mention of phenomenology there, and also no mention of a 'first person science".

From the passage:

I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental.

I think this goes without saying. Dennett and the Churchlands don't deny that we experience, and it seems obvious that any theory of consciousness must explain how consciousness (experience) is possible.

And this is an important point:

Of course, by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place.

Yes, a physical theory of consciousness would give an account of how experience is possible, as I said earlier, and not why we have experiences, or how those experiences seem (the latter being the province of phenomenology).

I sometimes think consciousness is like the old theory of ether. Consciousness is the ether through which thought takes place. Of course there is no ether. — Jackson

So, you seem to be saying there is no first person experience. In any case I think it is a poor analogy; there seems to be every reason to believe that consciousness is not a substance or substantive medium, but that it is a process.

Surely Chalmers would be aware that we already have a first person science: phenomenology. Do you have a quote from Chalmers which actually says that?

:smirk:

But seriously - the problem with the Churchlands and Daniel Dennett is actually simple. It's just a matter of perspective. The point of David Chalmer's famous paper Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, is the impossibility of accounting for the first-person reality of experience in third-person, objective terms. — Wayfarer

There are two points here I think are worth noting; first, Chalmers doesn't claim that science cannot possibly explain consciousness (otherwise he would name it Impossible Problem rather than Hard Problem); he says that a new kind of way of doing science will likely be needed; whatever we might think he has in mind with that.

And second, accounting for first person experience in third person terms does not equate to giving a first person account of experience in third person terms; which is an obvious contradiction. It may be possible to come up with a coherent physical theory that explains why we have first person experience, but that account will not be a first person account of experience, in other words, and just in case you missed the distinction.

if they're trying to figure out what consciousness means, they're not going to check out what philosophers say about it, or at least not as a basis of their work. — Skalidris

So, what will be this hypothethical independent philosophical thinker's starting point and guide, then if not previous philosophical attempts to understand consciousness? If he or she is relying on other academic disciplines: say neuroscience and empirical psychology (what else is there apart from philosophy and perhaps anthropology and linguistics which are also, like philosophy, neuroscience and psychology, academic disciplines?) and ignoring philosophy, then they will be ignoring a fair philosophical history of reflective inquiries into human experience as it is experienced. Now there are philosophers like that, of course, who say all past philosophy is simply wrong or misguided and we need to just look at the science, but that is necessarily a one-sided approach; a case of not availing yourself of all the resources available. Is that what you are advocating?

Okay, imagine you live during the Middle Age and try to understand the world around you. Would you study the thoughts of the many ecclesiastics around you? Would you criticize bits of their theories or would you start from scratch? This example is a bit extreme but do you get my point? If you've found a method that is totally different from what already exists, it doesn't make sense to try and criticize a theory that uses another method. That's exactly why creation-evolution debates are pointless to me. — Skalidris

I get what you're saying but I didn't have in mind so much that a philosopher should focus on working within and/or critiquing the ruling paradigm of her day, but should become aware of the whole history of thought. So, perhaps it could be said that many academics today are too narrowly focused on contemporary debates while ignoring the evolution of philosophical thinking. On the other hand it could be said that some moments of philosophical thought are rightly thought to be mistaken and/ or unlikely to yield any further conceptual progress, for example dualism, nominalism and platonism.

Is your "independent thinker" aware of philosophical history or not, because I think that is a crucial point to consider.

It all depends on which "independent thinker" and which "academic philosopher" wouldn't you say? How can you generalize about such a comparison?

Perhaps it could be said that academic philosophers generally know more about philosophy (at least their own specialist niche but probably also some, if not considerable, general background) than "independent thinkers", if by "independent" you mean to indicate someone who is not interested in familiarizing themselves with the history of ideas, and thinks they can start themselves from scratch.

If you try to start from scratch you will probably repeat mistakes which have already been corrected within the tradition, or come up with ideas which are well-worn and could have been acquired with far less effort by being familiar with the tradition. Would it be wise not to avail oneself of the fruits of sustained philosophical efforts others have made?

But doesn’t the content of the thought process itself unfold this way? Its not as if how we perceive our thinking phenomenologically has to run counter to the temporal nature of its organization at the neural level. Doesnt deep thought imply difficult thought , and doesn’t difficult thought imply a constructive process, a piecing together of something richer over time? — Joshs

That makes sense to me. I guess we could say that deeper thought is like a more complex tapestry; with more interwoven threads, and then be free of the depth metaphor.

I have been speaking about the content of the thought process, not its neural underpinnings. Of course the latter can only be more or less complex over a given duration, or at least so we must presume, I guess; and it doesn't seem apt to speak in terms of nuance or subtlety when it comes to neural processes, but in any case that was not what I had in mind. I agree with you about being able to

feel more and more complex feelings, over smaller and smaller increments of time — Joshs

The Law of Noncontradiction "states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time." ~(p & ~p)

We can say (language) things we cannot mean (logic). For instance: The apple is all red AND The apple is not all red! There, I said/wrote a frank contradiction but when I attempt to think it, I draw a complete blank (Zen koans, mushin no shin). — Agent Smith

The LNC doesn't state that you cannot make contradictory statements; if it were impossible to make contradictory statements then the LNC would be redundant, or would never have occurred to anyone in the first place, so I'm not seeing the problem here.

No answer to no question seems appropriate.

being wrong about this?:

The essence of capitalism is capital growth or profit, over and above any growth in actual products. — Janus


Which is what I was responding to. — Streetlight

I don't acknowledge that I was wrong about that. You haven't explained why you think I am wrong other than to claim that I was saying that capitalism is merely an abstract matter; which I have already corrected you on.

Sorry, I didn't notice a question; you'll have to spell out the question in clear terms that my simple mind can understand.

Then no doubt you can spell out the connection between treating capitalism wrongly as an abstract matter of profit growth and two paragraphs of "there's no hope to change it". — Streetlight

I haven't claimed that capitalism is merely an "abstract matter", so I have no idea what you're driving at. I also haven't claimed that there is no hope that it will change; I think it will change eventually, either through some catastrophe, supply of resources hitting a wall or enough people realizing that spinning money out of nothing is a flawed notion that will ultimately bite us in the arse.

If you believe you can bring it down by "throwing spitballs at Mt Everest", then go right ahead; I will applaud if you succeed.

I largely disagree, but none of this has much to do with what you originally wrote, nor what I was replying to. — Streetlight

Everything I have written has to do with what I originally wrote, if not with the OP itself. I wouldn't expect you to agree, in any case, since we obviously come from very different sets of presuppositions about the human condition.

And your loves and hates define the limits of your understanding. One might argue that the feeling of depth is a function of the richness , intricacy and anticipative continuity of the surface movement or flow of our experience of events. Depth would not be so much a vertical as a horizontal process, concerning how effectively we are able to transform ourselves rather than about the enlargement and deepening of a pre-existing way of feeling and understanding. — Joshs

Depth is usually conceived not as consisting in "surface movement", or the superficial, but in subtlety, nuance, complexity of association and allusion and of what is at work underlying the production of surface movements.

So, it seems apt to think of depth as a "vertical process" insofar as it consists in going deeper than what immediately appears.The ocean or the human face seem to be good metaphors.

I agree with you that capitalism has become more and more widespread, nearly universal, as a socio-economic model and practice; and I haven't said otherwise. This is now so deeply entrenched that I think there is little hope it will change; not as we might want it to and certainly not rapidly. This is because there is no clear figurehead which represents it which could be overthrown, as was possible with feudalism.

So, as I see it, sweeping, rapid change is unthinkable and not worth wasting any intellectual effort on. The only way to effect any (modest) change at all will be from within the system itself. The system is now a juggernaut which cannot willfully be stopped, although it could indeed collapse, and inevitably will, if we don't address the problems of overpopulation, environmental pollution and destruction, resource depletion, impoverishment and destruction of soils, global warming, etc, etc. Problem is we can't predict when or how that will happen, so for the time being it is possible to remain in general denial.

But this is straightforwardly wrong. Interest has been around long before capitalism has. — Streetlight

The essence of capitalism is capital growth or profit, over and above any growth in actual products. Once ownership became established then usury was conceptually enabled. Usury just is capital growth without production. When was the "official date" of the beginning of capitalism according to you?

Historically, mega-debts just disappear during large scale economic contractions. Capitalism magnifies natural cycles of growth and decline. During booms, capitalists seem undefeatable. During busts we wonder why we ever thought living this way was intelligent. — frank

I don't believe mega-debts can simply disappear without consequence, even in the purely economic context. In any case, in the more encompassing ecological context under which the economic context is and should be understood to be subsumed, we are accruing a mega-debt to the environment, to the Earth and it's resources and other inhabitants, a debt which is indifferent to our current financial status in the cycle of "booms and busts".

I think a new religion will eventually emerge and absorb concerns like environmental exploitation and global warming. — frank

Such an undesirable thing may happen and "absorb concerns", but that doesn't mean the problem will have gone away.

Why do you see this as paramount? — frank

Revolutionary thinking is doomed to failure insofar as it seeks to wipe away existing institutions and infrastructures without understanding the consequences. Programmatic thinking is doomed to failure insofar as it seeks to impose new conditions from above. Both are based on the erroneous idea that humanity can predict and control its future.

The only thing which will help our situation is education and widespread individual change of thinking and orientation based on reasoned understanding of the human situation and acknowledgement that the future must remain pretty much unpredictable. Failing that, we're fucked; it's just a question of when; of how long the smoke and mirror show based on denial can be kept going.

The current problem, which some see as a crisis, for capitalism seems to be that the upward spiraling generation of mega-debt, which is acceptable only based on the premise that the future can be relied upon to be more prosperous than the past, seems to be sailing dangerously close to the wind, given overpopulation, resource depletion, habitat destruction, global warming and so on.

I think humanity has never been in a more precarious situation. Hopefully we'll muddle through, but I think the first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that no one is at the helm. There are no effective captains of the ships of state, and arguably never have been.

Programmatic or revolutionary thinking is doomed to failure in my view, and the only hope can come from full acknowledgement that the future cannot be predicted and controlled. But the conceit that it can and must be, and that otherwise we should be subject to the profoundest and most crippling anxiety and confusion. is deeply rooted in the collective psyche, I fear.

:smile: And I should have added: usury has been around for a very long time.

Interest, or the realization of profit, or increase in capital. without having to produce anything, seems to be the essence of capitalism. Of course this notion of interest or, what is essentially the same thing, rent, is intimately connected with the concept of ownership. If you are deemed to own something, then you can legitimately lend it, rent it or simply hang onto it and hope to sell it for profit.

:cool: :

No ,sorry, I should have added 'yes' or 'right' to indicate that I was agreeing with you.

Inductive reasoning is not, in the first instance, or essentially, a matter of deriving general principles. It is, primordially, just expectation based on prior experience. Animals do it, and your own body will do it before you are even aware of it. Survival would be impossible without it.