Perhaps it's about joining up the stuff we can talk about in a coherent fashion.

Of course, you can show stuff as well as say it. — Banno

Coherence exists within some context or other. Philosophers have invented language games wherein they purport to be somehow saying the unsayable. Perhaps that would be, if successful, a form of showing rather than saying, of implicit allusion rather than literal explicitation.

This reminds of one of Ashleigh Brilliant's sayings: "My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can't do anything about".

Perhaps the philosophers' biggest problem is what to say about all the things they cannot say anything about.

My question is: is that always going to be a Cartesian self? I think it might be that everytime we go to explain the self, we'll automatically conjure some kind of independent soul. What do you think? — frank

I think of different selves as being nothing more than different kinds of disposition or orientation. Do we need a notion of soul to understand that or simply the notions of distinctively individual awareness, focus and intelligence?

I just noticed this thread and have not read it through so please excuse my question if it has already been asked and answered; what do you mean by "highest"? Most comprehensive or overarching. most critical, most meta-cognitive? Or most spiritual, most enlightening, wisest?

Consciousness is something that knows of its own being even in the absence of stimuli. — Wayfarer

What theory of consciousness allows the statement "you could be conscious even without an external world" to be true? — Brenner T

The claim is wrong simply because there is never for anyone alive an absence of stimuli.

muddle classes — Swanty

Is this a jokey play on words or are you a New Zealander?

Democracy Song by Leonard Cohen


It's coming through a hole in the air,
From those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
That this ain't exactly real
Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there

From the wars against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
From the ashes of the gay
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don't pretend to understand at all

It's coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat

From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on

It's coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it's here they got the spiritual thirst

It's here the family's broken
And it's here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men
O baby, we'll be making love again
We'll be going down so deep
The river's going to weep
And the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway
Imperial, mysterious
In amorous array
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

:roll: :yawn: Does he claim the conditions and the responses are the same for all or not?

Edit: I suspect you won't answer this because to do so would be damning for your boy's position (and I imagine, yours).

All of what you said is pretty much the opposite of Schopenhauer's claim. — schopenhauer1

So Schopenhauer claims there is no diversity in the ways people respond to their conditions? In that case he would obviously be mistaken.

I don't think it works like that. First off, we know we die and that there is a demise. Then there is the fact that we are lacking and strive for satiation. These are just built into the framework. They are not situational, though situational harms add to it. — schopenhauer1

Sure we know we die. That fact may cause some to suffer and not others. As I said earlier its a matter of attitude and disposition. I don't know what you mean when you say "we are lacking". Lacking what? For example say I am hungry. If I have food then no problem. If I don't have food then I will possibly suffer as per what I said previously—that suffering comes from wanting the circumstances of my life to be different than they are. Even then I may only suffer if I have no means of changing those circumstances to a
more congenial situation or changing my attitude such that I no longer wish my life to be different than it is.

This contradicts what I believe to be true from Schopenhauer's observation: — schopenhauer1

Please lay out the point you want to make. I am not inclined to read that passage and have to try to figure out what the counterpoint to what I said is.

Suffering as Schopenhauer defined it, is structural and contingent, pleasure is only contingent. As a more straightforward point, suffering is all that matters in axiological estimations. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure what you mean. I would say that absence of pleasure brings suffering and that absence of pain brings pleasure. Life is inherently pleasurable when I am not experiencing some kind of pain and inherently painful when I am not experiencing some kind of pleasure.

Whether experiences are painful or pleasurable can have much to do with the attitude we hold towards those experiences.

Indeed, and this is an important insight, yet it’s often put aside. — schopenhauer1

Right and it would be equally absurd to claim that existence is completely free from pleasure.

Pain is the negative aspect of existence. Pleasure is the positive. It would be absurd to claim that existence is completely free from suffering.

Nah, I mean the concept of suffering is entailed in being self-aware of existence. If you are not self-aware (of existence), you probably don't understand about suffering as a concept, even though you may suffer. — schopenhauer1

Suffering is not inevitable merely on account of being aware or self-aware. Awareness may be a necessary, bit not a sufficient, condition for suffering.

It’s caused when you are conscious, and amplified and a difference even in kind of suffering through self-awareness of existence. — schopenhauer1

Suffering is not caused merely by being conscious or being self-aware. You could be conscious and self-aware and not suffer, if by suffering you mean a general condition and not chronic pain or the suffering caused by illness.

It is laughable that you consider any counterargument but not your own taken to be self-evident assertions to be a "gotcha".

I'm only interested in reading (more than once) good arguments and not in being advised to go read this or that. If you have a decent argument you can set it out in your own words.

I'm running out of steam and getting short on time. I still don't get why you defend physicalism against the possibility of non-physicalism when you so clearly expressed that:

There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false? — javra

Firstly I'm not defending physicalism but refuting the claims of its supposed inconsistency.

I've provided this explanation, if not in full then in part: there can be no objective good - and hence no objective morality - within any system of physicalism.

You can, of course, evidence me wrong by pointing out any physicalist system wherein there can be coherently maintained an objective good.

But I'd like to know: why does all of this matter to you? — javra

You haven't explained why there can be no objective good under physicalism. I gave you examples to show that there can. You also haven't explained how there could be objective good under idealist or antirealist systems without positing a lawgiver apart from appeals to human flourishing and harmony etc which don't depend on any particular metaphysics.

Only the ethical and the aesthetical matter to me and I don't see those as being dependent on any particular metaphysic, and that is why the debate between materialism and idealism doesn't matter to me.

I am merely interested to see if proponents of idealism can show that such values are only or at least better supported by idealism (absent a lawgiver). Apparently that cannot be shown, at least not by you or anyone else I've encountered.

Thanks for trying anyway.

On what grounds if both percepts are physical in the same way via the functioning of the brain. (To better drive the point home, I'll specify that the observer of the cat is not surrounded by others - and that he observes a cat which he has no reason to presume is a hallucination even though it is.) — javra

In the case of the real cat there would be light reflected from it which enters the eye, etc. You know the story. In any case I have never had such a realistic hallucination, even during my extensive use of hallucinogens. I don't know anyone else who has either. I'm not saying such a thing is impossible, but if it is possible the level of delusion would be extreme.

Via examples, the Platonic / Neoplatonic notion of the Good can only be a non-physical ideal - one that is nevertheless the ultimate reality. But please note: no law-giver created or else decreed the Good in either system of understanding. And such objective good requires an non-physicalist metaphysics. Wtih the occurrence of such an objective good then also is entailed an objective morality. — javra

How would the objective morality in such a belief system be enforced other than via people believing in it? If it is non-physical how could such a thing exist if not in some universal mind. Goodness is a value and as far as I can see values can exist only in, be held by, minds. You seem to be gesturing at something, but it lacks coherent detail.

I acknowledge the sentiment, but none of this is a rational grounding for what is good. Slavery was once generally important to people, for example. Would that make slavery morally good? And on what grounds would an Orwellian 1984 not last long? Besides, why is lasting long a good to be aspired toward within physicalism? — javra

Why is it not a practical rational grounding? If you want a well-functioning society that fosters human flourishing and harmony why would you not want the most significant moral principles to govern? Slavery is a moral failure to be sure. It is pre-rationally normal for humans to care predominately about their own welfare and the welfare of those close to them. I don't believe the abolition of slavery depended on any higher principle. It depended on people having compassion and coming to count those who were previously thought to be of no significance to be of significance after all. We see the same thing happening today (although not enough to be sure) with animal welfare. Physicalism does not seem to be an impediment to such sentiments.

Oppressive dictatorships cannot last. Oppressed people will eventually become fed up and revolt. Humans may not have achieved much in the way of harmoniously living together but that lack of achievement has chiefly occurred in societies where people have believed in a higher good or deity. From a purely rational perspective there is no reason to grant one person more rights or privileges than another. So slavery itself can only be supported by practical reasons, and those reasons are not good ones because they promote disharmony.

How is a distinction between the perceived physical cat and the perceived non-physical cat to be made when both are equally "neural process and hence physical" as perceptions? — javra

The hallucinated cat is not a cat at all. The perceived cat is a cat.

There is here a warrantless conflation between lawgiver and afterlife. See, for example, Buddhism. I said "no" to your assumption of there being a deity (a law-giver) which ordains an objective good. — javra

I'm not conflating lawgiver and afterlife. I'm asking how physicalism could undermine the idea of there being consequences for immoral actions. I'm wondering how non-physicalism could support morality in any way that physicalism cannot, since that seemed to be your contention. You haven't attempted to address that question.

And, within physicalism, why are these to be deemed "good"? — javra

Because they are generally important to people, and because a society with moral principles that promoted general disharmony and suffering could not last long. It would necessarily be despotic.

The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical? — javra

The hallucination is a neural process and hence physical. Of course it is not a physical (real) cat. I see no inconsistency there but rather a conflation between the hallucination and what is hallucinated.

No. Reread what I've stated more attentively before replying and you might see how this assumption is unwarranted. — javra

I read it attentively the first time and I can't see what in a non-physicalist model the objective support for morality could be other than a lawgiver or else some kind of karmic threat of having to pay for transgressions. And again, I don't see how any of that could work absent the assumption of an afterlife.

And on what is this notion of what a "good life" is itself grounded, philosophically speaking within systems of physicalism? I'm not here addressing dispositions. I'm addressing logical reasoning. — javra

It would be grounded on human flourishing and social harmony. Of course there will be inconsistency if you presume that those things are not grounded in our physical embodiedness. Absent that assumption I see no inconsistency. In other words on the physicalists assumptions there are no inconsistencies even though there may be on yours.

There a bunch of other reasons, but as one significant gripe I have with it (here placing its inconsistencies aside), if physicalism is true, then this will easily lead to - if it does not directly entail - moral nihilism. And it certainly does away with any possibility of an objective good. — javra

By "inconsistencies" I take it you mean that physicalism is not consistent with our "normal' intuitions about the nature of mind and consciousness and the subject?

Anyway you've left those aside so are you saying that because (many or most?) people need to believe that moral laws are given by a higher (necessarily non-physical) power, physicalism in denying the existence of such a law-giver will lead to moral nihilism?

I don't think the idea of an objective moral good depends on a law-giver. I believe there are objective facts about human flourishing and suffering and social needs and social harmony which support the most basic and significant moral injunctions (usually proscriptions).

Ergo, enduring the suffering of life with as much grace as possible when things get rough is stupid - and there is no ultimate good to aspire toward, well, other than one's personal death when life gets a bit too much. — javra

What about the idea of living a good life. improving the lives of others. Do you believe that it's all pointless if there is no afterlife? It may be for you but I'm sure there are many people who don't think this way. Thinking this way is after all only a particular attitude or disposition not a reflection of objective truth.

:cool:

:up:

But then nothing is both alive and dead at the same time. — Banno

Right. I think this is the nub. 'Not-A' should strictly be the negation of 'A'. We cannot say 'if something is alive, then it is dead' even if we can say 'if something is alive then it will be dead'.

Also, in ordinary language 'not-A' can alternatively be anything which is not A. As you point out death is not-A in the second sense but it not strictly the negation of life. The strict negation of life would be no life. Language is messy.

Propositional logic deals in propositions. Your piece has the form of a modus ponens, but doesn't deal in propositions. That makes it interesting in several ways. But "not-a" is pretty well defined in propositional logic, in various equivalent ways. And by that I mean that the things we can do with negation in propositional logic are set. There are not different senses of "not-A" in propositional calculus. — Banno

OK thanks. It does seem to be a propositional statement in ordinary langauge.

1. If there is life (A) there is death (not-A)
2. There is life
3. Therefore there is death.

But as I've said before my undertsnding of formal logic leaves much to be desired.

I'm not interested in being moved by the question as to the truth or falsity of physicalism I'm just interested to know why others are moved by it.

Mind in part consists of thoughts. How are thoughts physical? One can of course state that the thoughts of a corporeal sentient being would not be in the absence of the respective corporeal body. But this does not entail that the given thoughts - say of a unicorn or of Harry Potter - are of themselves physical. — javra

But if not everything that does or can occur is physical, then physicalism so defined can only be false. — javra

Thoughts are widely considered to be neural events or processes. That they do not seem to be such to the thinker is no guarantee that they are not such. There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false?

Suffering is caused by being born. It's that simple. No more. — schopenhauer1

Suffering is not simply caused by being born but by the demand that your life should be other than it is.

I think it shows that 'not-A' has at least two different senses. The world is not as neat as formal logic. Formal logic may not be as neat as it might be thought to be either.

But that situation, where the antecedent is denied, is irrelevant because the second premise assumes A to be true. And it necessarily follows from the first premise that not-A is simultaneously true. This is self-contradictory and violates the LNC. — Benkei

What about my earlier example:

Here's an example in ordinary langauge with the same form.:

1.Life therefore death
2.Life
Therefore
3.Death.

Both valid and sound it seems — Janus

:ok:

I don't agree that it is self-evident (or even plausible) that time is merely "one of the forms of our sensibility". If, as according to Kant, the in itself is unknowable how can it be justified to claim that time does not exist in itself?

How am I not addressing the argument? What point have I neglected to address?

For me the idea of explaining the nature of the subject in physicalist terms is simply, under a certain conception of the nature of the subject, a misunderstanding of what could be possible in attempting to combine incommensurable paradigms of thought.
— Janus

You put a lot of effort into disagreeing with something you actually don't disagree with. — Wayfarer

I think you missed "under a certain conception". Under the intuitive conception people commonly have of the mind and consciousness and the subject a physical explanation is obviously impossible. Under a physicalist notion of the subject (that is that the subject is the living body) a physical explanation may indeed be possible.

You assume that the subject cannot be physical and then criticize physicalism for not being able to explain it. Can't you see that is tendentious thinking?

I do, but this is qualified by declaring that the world is not ultimately or really mind-independent, insofar as any judgement about its nature presupposes, but then 'brackets out', the observer. — Wayfarer

This clearly shows a confusion between judgement and what is being judged. Of course judgement is mind-dependent, but there seems to be little reason to think that the Universe could be human mind-dependent given that all the evidence points to its having being around for about seven thousand times as long as humans have been. I don't think this is a hard fact to grasp, but surprisingly you seem to have much difficulty understanding (or is it perhaps accepting?) it.

For me the idea of explaining the nature of the subject in physicalist terms is simply, under a certain conception of the nature of the subject, a misunderstanding of what could be possible in attempting to combine incommensurable paradigms of thought.

Even a "hard" science like geology is not understandable (even if it were possible it would be an immensely cumbersome task) in terms of quantum physics.

Sorry Timothy your point there escapes me. I can't see how death, if we accept there is no afterlife, is not the negation of life from any point of view, commonsense or otherwise.

I'll need some more explanation.

Yes, all that. As I mentioned earlier the opposable thumb has also played a great part.

It is naturalism (or physicalism) that is human-centric. Why? Because of having excluded the subject from consideration of what is real and declaring the measurable attributes of objects the sole criterion for what exists, as if that has philosophical significance, independently of any perspective whatever (something that the ‘measurement problem’ has made explicit.) — Wayfarer

Naturalism consists in the idea that the natural world is not dependent on humans for its existence. Your view, counterpointing naturalism, is that the natural world does depend on humans for its existence. It is obvious which view is human-centric.

The central idea of The Blind Spot of Science is trivially true. Of course science only exists on account of humans. I've challenged you before to explain how the human subject is to be incorporated as an integral part of the theory of astronomy, geology, chemistry, natural science or any of the non-humanistic sciences.

Of course you can never answer the challenge because its a ridiculous notion. We are already there in those subjects as the investigator, but we don't appear in the subject itself just as the eye does not appear in the visual field. Those disciplines study their respective subjects as they appear to us. How could it be otherwise?

Yeah, but if you affirm that "death" is equivalent with "not-life," you'll be stuck affirming Plato's argument for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo, which in turn implies that you may be reincarnated for innumerable lifetimes where you have to debate these same topics before finally achieving henosis and completing the process of exitus and reditus. That's a pretty rough commitment to have to make. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd have thought it is the opposite. If death is equivalent to not-life it means no afterlife.

Right so no counter argument or critique of what I've said just more references to your favourite authorities. Seems pointless.