There may be such entities. I don't think it torpedoes it though.

Thanks for expanding, but I'm still not quite clear on your position. Is experience material in your view ? Why is the subject familiar with experience as opposed to simply familiar with the world ? I guess I'm a direct realist in some kind of postHegelian sense. So for me there's no image between us and the world. — plaque flag

Sure, experience is material, or physical. I distinguish here an epistemic claim with a metaphysical one. Everything we are familiar or acquainted with is through experience, this is an "idealist" claim. The metaphysical side is that everything is physical stuff.

One is top down (the epistemic claim), the other bottom up (the metaphysical claim). I think that we have an idea of the world, which is provided by the world. So, there is mediation, but it's also a direct realism, I don't understand indirect realism, despite looking at examples or definitions.

Sorry, my views sound strange given the philosophers I tend to think are correct. I take it, following Galen Strawson, that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, it arises from configurations of matter. So, there is no "immaterial"-material problem.

Nor a mind-body problem, as these terms are used of today. I agree with Chomsky (and Locke and Hume and Priestley) that we don't know what "bodies" are. Until we know that, we can't formulate a mind-body problem.

Another issue is considering matter as described by modern physics, not much in it is "material" as that word is taken to be associated with "tangible stuff", but that's another conversation...

But what is this subject ? — plaque flag

It's a hard topic, though I agree with Descartes in so far as he takes it that experience is the phenomenon, we are most familiar with out of everything. I drop the dualism, especially the substantive kind.

A self is a "fiction" (as Hume says) of a kind - a very useful one. But is a self a subject? Probably not in all respects.

It's very dense territory.

I do think insisting on the mystery of consciousness can be done in an interesting way (forgetfulness of being), but I also think Dennett is right to be frustrated with those who block the road of inquiry. — plaque flag

I understand that perspective. But I don't see any contradiction or roadblock here by saying that experience is mysterious for us, in terms of how it arises from matter and letting neuroscientists and cognitive scientists do the hard science.

There are important discoveries to be made in these fields no doubt and even if I think they won't be able to explain the so called "hard problem", they can prove me wrong or find some other way of answering the question.

One last comment on Dennett, he has interesting things to say (outside consciousness), but regarding this question he was once asked about it in relation to other animals, and he replied, roughly, by saying "do monkeys and chimpanzees use English or any language? can they ask questions?"

I take this to mean that if monkeys or chimpanzees were capable of asking questions, then they would be capable of answering. It doesn't follow.

So perhaps you and I aren't too different in perspectives. Maybe different emphasis.

It's not that I take the issue too personally, it's that arguing against it - as Dennett does - seems to me to be irrational in the extreme. The point about limits is too trivial, a bit like denying that when we see the sky during the say, it doesn't look blue. That's what I find annoying.

But you grant it as an empty platitude. OK, better than not granting it, no doubt.

There is a fine line between arrogance in terms of saying what we can't achieve, that's correct. On the other hand, it's even more arrogant to think that we can achieve everything, if only we tried enough.

I think it's perfectly clear that we won't be able to learn much, if anything, about free will (and will actions more generally considered). Why do I say something so presumptuous? Intelligent people have been discussing it for over 2000 years without an iota of progress. Now, if someone denies that we have free will, OK.

The idea of matter thinking is one we can make no sense of, how brain matter produces thought seems to me to be a conceptual issue that we cannot understand, for similar reasons as the free-will issue.

There are other issues: in physics for instance, we still have a lot to discover, but we do have to keep in mind practical considerations when it comes to feasible experiments.

But there's obviously still a tremendous about to learn.

That's not knowledge. I'm talking about (conceptual) knowledge not sniffs and glances. — plaque flag

There's no reason to believe that we happened to evolve into a species that happens to know everything there is to know about the universe. That's simply wishful thinking.

But if you think this is wrong, because we went to the moon, then OK. You seem to believe that we are not creatures of nature. Because if we were, there would have to necessarily be limits to what we can and cannot know. In order to know something, some aspect of reality, one must be ignorant of other parts of it, otherwise, no cognition could possibly develop.

An organ like the brain and a faculty, like our minds, depend on constraints for possibility, otherwise they would have no shape, we would be very much "a blank slate", as Locke argued. That's just not true, we aren't blank slates.

Again, if this doesn't sound at least plausible, then I have nothing more to say, we are too far apart on this topic.

I predict that dogs won't understand laptops for at least 1000 years. Why? They currently don't have such a capacity. Maybe by then they will be a different species who can use a laptop, but they won't be dogs anymore.

Still, we should be skeptical, we do have good evidence that ever since humans domesticated with dogs 15,000 years. In those 15,000 years, the only evidence of change in the species is one of phenotype, not one of cognitive capacities.



If such a being exists, it would know. Not a semantic issue. Dogs understand/know/are familiar with smells we cannot, that's just a biological fact. Same with Cats and night vision.

It sounds semantic because there are no other animals that possess symbolic representations associated with language use, therefore we use the best words we can to approximate what they do that we can't.



Thanks!

His point is really not hard to understand and the opposite view, that we can in principle know everything if we "learn enough" is anti-scientific in the extreme. I won't use his words, because apparently, they aren't clearly stated.

Either we are natural creatures, or we aren't. If we are natural creatures there are things we can do and things we cannot do. We cannot fly like eagles, we don't have the visual acuity of a mantis shrimp, we don't have the capacity to smell as much as dogs and so on.

Continuing with the case of other animals, suppose someone says "dogs will learn how to use laptops, it's just a matter of "learning more" and eventually they will understand it".

That is a silly argument.

Likewise, we as human beings, while possessing properties and capacities which are unique in the whole history of life (as far as we know), are still creatures of nature. Like the dog never being able to use a laptop, there will be things we will never be able to do or understand.

We won't learn to breathe underwater like fish, nor can we understand how it is possible for matter to think. We know it can, but we don't see how it's possible. Likewise, we cannot comprehend the idea that the universe is as large as it is. Sure, we can draw a symbol representing infinity or alternatively, a very large number, but our brains quite quickly "shut down" when we start contemplating galactic distances.

But there's no reason why another, intelligent being somewhere else in the universe would have any problem understanding how matter thinks or have any issues contemplating gigantic distances.

Either something like this is true, or we are completely separate from nature and possess powers given to us by God, or whatever supernatural explanation you would like to invoke.

We actually do though, but that is not why you can't refute those ideas. Rather those are ideas science cannot test, as metaphysical claims we just cannot. Solipsism cannot be tested or proven because it says only your existence is certain and everything else is either doubtful or non existent. So it can't use any metric to support it's argument. — Darkneos

How? What you are arguing doesn't at all go against what I'm saying. You say that because these views are metaphysical (which isn't clear that they are, some are epistemic, as solipsism is about our knowledge of the world, not the world itself -as would be claim made by materialists or idealists) hence science cannot test them.

I agree science cannot not test them. If we knew more, if we had a more sophisticated and elaborate understanding, I don't see why we couldn't know enough to say for certain "solipsism or skepticism is false." We can't say they are a-priori necessarily metaphysical views.

For an advanced civilization, they may be trivial questions.

Nevertheless for us, the issues will remain problematical, so it's not as if I'm trying to refute these ideas, we can only go by probability and likelihood here, in my opinion.

Well - in a sense yes. We wouldn't have a brain if there was no gravity, nor electromagnetism, nor proteins or anything else which emerges from physics, as almost everything does.

But we look at the relevant organ to study the phenomenon. From that, we can focus on the cognitive aspects, the neurological aspects or even the phenomenological aspects, many ways to treat this topic as you say.

But I think it makes more sense to study brain behavior than looking at what physics does. So, some approaches are slightly more relevant than others.

:cool:

I think I may have an idea of what you're saying.

:scream:

Mon dieu!

You take ideas seriously? How could you?




:wink:

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Extreme_space/What_is_the_Universe_made_of#:~:text=The%20Universe%20is%20thought%20to,visible%20object%20in%20the%20Universe.

Also we can make a ton of sense of the external world, that’s how we have modern society. — Darkneos

Yes, because more often that not, our perceptions and conceptions are similar enough that we understand each other more or less.

But we don't understand the external world enough to refute solipsism or skepticism, or idealism and many other ideas. If we did have a better understanding of it, these problems need not arise.

I would keep away from Hume if I were in your shoes, which in a way I am, at least at the moment you read these words.

The external world is an extremely difficult topic. Assuming more people exist other than I - which is a mere assumption, for I can do no better - we don't know what 95% of the universe is made. 27% or so, is called dark matter - which is a misleading name, it might not even be matter - the rest is dark energy, also a misleading name.

So we only partly understand 5% of the universe. But we must postulate 95% of it with stuff we know virtually nothing about, except that if it is not postulated, the 5% we do know doesn't make sense.

Now, if you take it that physics to be, outside our immediate perceptions, the most reliable knowledge we have, then it shouldn't be terribly surpassing if we cannot make much sense of the external world, because the topic is much more difficult than physics.

So, we postulate what we need, in order to make sense of the world. If that includes other people, so be it. We cannot attain certainty in empirical affairs.

It's a mere problem of taste. Didn't do it for me at all.

But I can see why other people may think it's very good.

Speaking of Zen, one "pop" book (a novel actually) that spurred on a mini-industry was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. I'm just looking now that according to one source, Philosophy Now, it is the bestselling philosophy book of all time. I find that hard to believe, but if true, is a shame.

That a clear example of (in my opinion, of course) pretty bad "philosophizing", it was so pretentious and vacuous that I could get more than halfway through. Though I'm sure some swear by this book...

So the pop-thing is mixed. I do think there are quite interesting and unique "philosophical" aspects to some aspects of pop-culture, which should not be looked at derisively, as can happen.

But then there's the bad stuff we all know about...

That is not panpsychism though. Matter is capable for many things under specific conditions but we don't go around talking about i.e. Pancombustism, or Panflatulencism or Panphotosynthesism.
Actually this is a great point you made, because this is the WHOLE argument of our current Scientific Paradigm. — Nickolasgaspar

That's exactly right. But then I don't see why we can't speak of pancombustism, or panphotosynthesism or pan-everything. That's a problem for the panpsychists who focus on consciousness at the expense of everything else.

Even if the claim is as broad and vague as possible, it's nonetheless true, in so far as we get all these processes from combinations or interactions between matter or "physical stuff".

Now ,we can rule out panpsychism or consciousness in structures without similar biological gear, because such structures lack sensory systems(no input) or a central processing units capable to process drives and urges (which are non existent),emotions, capability to store info (memory), to recognize pattern, to use symbolic language, to reason, etc etc. — Nickolasgaspar

But I don't see a principle by which sensory inputs and processing units couldn't be created by people, in a non-biological creation. Again, I don't think it's plausible, but I don't think it's impossible either.

As for panpsychism, the reason I don't think some formulation can't be ruled out, is that there is obviously something about matter that when so-combined, leads to experience. Granted, it's in brains that such combinations arise, so far as we can tell.

But even so, if matter did not contain the possibility of consciousness as a potential, then experience couldn't happen even in brains.

This doesn't suggest that, as some panpsychists have argued, that particles have experience. That's a bit much.

I was replying to his specific claim that we don't know if matter can be conscious. I think it can, when so modified in specific configurations leading to brains. Brains are molded matter. But I make no reference to the quantum properties of the universe to explain experience, so biology very much matters.

Yet I don't think we can rule out panpsychism, or even the possibility that consciousness could arise in other types of material, such as silicon and metal.

I don't personally believe in either of the abovementioned options, but I can't rule it out.

That specific example can be easily carried to past philosophers. But some of the stuff, say PKD writes, or Pynchon or even a character like Hannibal Lecter, these don't fit neatly into a specific philosophical lineage.

Or at least, it seems to me it could lead the conversation to the philosopher, instead of the character.

But yes, The Matrix can be used as an example for Descartes, Berkeley or Kant or Schopenhauer, Putnam, Bostrom, Baudrillard, etc.

Will some people get more out of reading Descartes and Kant? Depends on the person. They do have a larger wealth of ideas than film (in my opinon), but, there are aspects of the film which don't fit neatly with any philosopher. All I'm saying is that there can be interesting philosophical/psychological and ethical matters that could be discussed absent specific figure X.

But your point is quite valid.

I think there are historical reasons that lead us to conclude that consciousness is a property of matter. But it also depends on what you think matter (or more broadly "the physical) encompasses.

We don't know that consciousness is limited to brains. We don't know what causes it. Often when this is mentioned, the response is that we know that you can be made unconscious by various actions. Actually all we know is that we don't remember things from that period. Neuroscience says a lot about cognitive functions and their connection to neurons and glial cells and...so on. But that there is awareness/experiencing. — Bylaw

I agree. We do not know if experience is limited to brains. It could be the case that panpsychism is true, or a variant of the idea that some kind of proto-life is found in all the universe.

It could be. But it could be wrong. We don't know enough to be sure about this.

It's a delicate issue. I think there are pop tv-series, movies and maybe even games, that certainly have quite interesting philosophical concepts and art is often the most direct way to expose complex ideas pertaining to mood, insight, looking at persons thinking process and so on.

Suppose someone finds an interesting character in a TV show. They want to find out more about what makes this character "tick". These "... and Philosophy" books can be good to expand on certain themes in a show.

But then there's a bit of a dilemma: do you use the show as an excuse to introduce people to Plato, Augustine, Descartes? Or do you directly expand on the character itself, without pushing the classics on the reader?

I think there's room for both, but my general feeling is that they tend to opt with the second option, that of introducing Aristotle or Sartre or whoever. Which is fine, but then many of these books end up looking similar.

It's more honest to expand on what the person finds interesting in the show, than forcing Aristotle (or whoever) on to the reader.

Of course, there must be some authors who can combine the show with a historical figure and do a good job with it, but it often feels contrived. Perhaps a reference or two to some classics would do a better job than introducing Bentham for the 50th time. Might be a personal thing...

Sure. And some aspects of other biological organs are also quite puzzling, baffling even.

So, we have this thing in our head that produces thoughts, it has many neuronal connections and many connecting regions which cohere in very subtle and complex manners that lead to our experience.

But then we also have "the gut brain", which has hundreds of millions of neurons and can apparently suffer from Alzheimer among other diseases. Why aren't we conscious of it the overwhelming majority of the time? Why isn't it conscious itself?

https://academic.oup.com/acn/article-abstract/37/3/595/6535686?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Could nature have found a more efficient way for organisms to get rid of waste that did not include going to the bathroom, as it were?

So, one can be confused at these too, but, as you say, certain very curious psychological mechanisms apparently determine what we find baffling, and what we don't. There is only so much we can focus on at a given time, so I guess it makes some sense.

Of course, and philosophy wouldn't be nearly as interesting if we all agreed. I find unanswerable questions - especially in the pursuit of the thinking that leads to it, to be quite exquisite reasoning and I admire that process because I find a certain beauty to it and it leads to epistemic humility (not addressing you in any way as arrogant or anything remotely like that, just to be clear.)

However, I completely understand with, sympathize and enjoy people who think this specific aspect of philosophy to be a waste of time. It can be, if you don't find it interesting, it is.

As for the last part, sure, they need to present the relevant evidence for big claims, but I do believe there is a rather nebulous territory in which some scientific arguments can clash productively with philosophy. But some areas not, like, it would be silly to deny QM because you don't think it's coherent, or that someone would dispute that the amygdala plays a role in anxiety.

So, it's complex. :)

I won't quibble with the comments about animals, it's a matter that won't get us far, since we agree on the practical considerations.

The same should be true about Metabolism, constipation, mitosis, memory, photosynthesis, conductivity, liquidity, fluidity, replication, organization, emergence etc. As a scientists we should ignore the "why" questions and try to answer the how and what questions. — Nickolasgaspar

And it is a very good list, and I agree that all these things are quite baffling, as I think existence should be.

I am surely not going to get in the way of a scientists and suggest them what they should, or should not do. Science has been a spectacular success story since it lifted off in the 17th century and it should continue as far as it can.

Nevertheless, in a philosophy forum, one that features people interested say in Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein and so on in the tradition, it is quite important to deal with these why questions, to differing degrees and with different perspectives in mind. It's built into the fabric of the discipline.

But on the practical dealings of the experiments, and data collection and theories, that's mostly up to the scientists.

Now, if a scientists were to say, that free will is an illusion or that we don't actually perceive colour, we only think we do, then the philosophers can have say, and rightly so, in my opinion.

Sure. I don't see any a-priori prohibition as to why silicon could not produce consciousness.

But since we don't understand it very well in our own case (human beings), and cannot prove other animals are conscious, to say that an AI has experience can be misleading.

We assume (and I think with good reasons) that other animals are conscious, but since we cannot get inside other species heads (or nervous system), there will remain some doubt about this.

We don't fully understand many things in nature i.e. organization,electricity, gravity, light, life, quantum behavior etc etc but that doesn't mean we haven't identify the responsible mechanisms for them and use this knowledge to come up with predictions and applications.
I get what you mean but these type of statements look more like an excuse people give to avoid doing the hard work (studying the actual science of the field). They sound more like a "why "question (why matter can do that) highlighting our surprise for being possible. — Nickolasgaspar

There is nothing here with which I disagree.

The puzzle, for many people, and I assume even some scientists is the why question. And there should be space for surprise. There seems to be nothing in the "physical stuff" of nature which could lead one to conclude "consciousness comes from that". If there were, then, it wouldn't be surprising.

However, I don't see why this would entail people giving up on neuroscience at all. There is plenty of good research being done in the field with all sorts of practical applications. Some of it can have bearing on practical stuff concerning experience, such as the Libbett experiments, which have to do with will and when we become aware of us making a decision.

Or the work of Stanislas Dehaene, or Thomas Metzinger. Plenty of interesting material.

The issue is not one of not being able to find neural correlations, or not being able to form theories, whether that of embodied cognition or computational approaches, or whatever else is fashionable.

It's much simpler than that: we don't understand how matter can think. We simply lack an intuition of how the stuff we see in the world, could, in certain combination, lead to experience.

There is no doubt neuroscience is very useful. But I doubt we will understand how matter can think, we only know it is so in our own case.

Very much so.

Him and Chomsky, whom McGinn got the idea from.

There is some truth to this post, no doubt. Especially when one considers the sheer amount of books on the neurophysiology of consciousness, which tell you... very, very little about it.

But certainly not in principle. Consciousness is a phenomenon of the brain, which needs interaction with the environment to awaken its dispositional knowledge, which, if absent, doesn't lead anywhere.

If we had a much more sophisticated and intelligent cognitive system, we could discover how it is that brains produce experience. But we don't, so we are going to remain puzzled about how this phenomenon could ever arise from such an organ.

Welcome!

Hope you have fun here, it's a great place to deepen one's knowledge on many topics in the field.

Don't be afraid to express your opinions, because, ultimately all of us may be wrong. :cool:

So, you think the origin of morals is indeterminate? — Bob Ross

It's a bit tricky. It's species-dependent in so far as evidence pertaining to other animals being moral is shaky, some apes show the first glimmerings of such a capacity, but it's nowhere near the level of sophistication we show when we make moral judgments.

So, it's "objective" in the sense that human beings tend to agree on moral judgments, much more frequently that is otherwise stated, but we do not know if hypothetical alien species would necessarily have the exact same morality we have. It doesn't have the same level of objectivity physics has, for instance.

I don’t think I quite understood this part: why? — Bob Ross

As mentioned above, despite some tenuous evidence that other species may have morality in very specific occasions, the degree in which we have morality is not paralleled by anything else we see in the biological world.

This probably shows that in having a sophisticated moral capacity, we are speaking about a new level of complexity in nature, in which understanding is limited.

Again, if another, more intelligent alien species exists, that also had a moral system somewhat similar to ours, they might very well be able to explain why "murder is wrong" or "rape is wrong" in terms other than "it's wrong, you wouldn't like to be murdered or raped."

At bottom of these judgments, there's a feeling of repulsion or wrongness that is hard to verbalize.

I suspect there could be more to say instead of relying on feeling, but we don't know enough - we don't have a sufficiently large understanding - to explain these things in more depth.

Welp, Finland enters NATO tomorrow. It's one way to decrease security, but we know that states only pretend to care about security issues - they usually just make the whole situation worse.

I know. I was merely teasing, as he sounded a bit hesitant about it.

It'll be great. Literature has plenty of material for philosophy.

Ah. I see. So all we have to do is wait for @Noble Dust to create a thread about PKD. Damn, that's like a big responsibility. Not easy to create a thread about one the most philosophical of sci-fi writers. Wonder how that will go.

But no pressure. :lol:

Well, I mean, what did you make of it?

Assuming you haven't 100% finished, I'll just say, a certain part of it, is quite "trippy", for lack of a better word, in the best sense of that word.

I think this is the "real" hard problem, actually. The problem is matter in general, not consciousness more narrowly considered.

First of all, baryonic matter makes up about 5% of the universe, whereas 27% is made of, so- called "dark matter" (which isn't even clear is "matter" at all), and then most of it is "dark energy", which we also don't know what it is.

Now, of the 5% of the matter we do know and love, we do not know its inner nature nor why it came to be (as opposed to anti-matter or something else), and why there is so little of it in the universe.

From all these very serious complications, one then can proceed to ask how consciousness may arise out of specific configurations of matter, or why matter works without direct contact, or how can quite insubstantial particles form living creatures, or colours or music, or almost anything else.

So yeah, matter is the hard problem. Consciousness is the specific configuration of matter we are best acquainted with out of everything there is, so it is (or should be) the least mysterious aspect of matter, while still admitting that it is, in a sense, mysterious.

It's a very good essay, and she makes some excellent points. This type of approach seems to me be quite pertinent and potentially very useful for ethical matters, as well as politics and political discourse.

It seems to me that it is much harder to do this, with say, epistemology and metaphysics. It could be done, to an extent, but the practical use of these fields is not immediately apparent.

Nevertheless, there is much here which is very valuable. And it certainly doesn't hurt that she writes very well, which is always a treat.

There a some good point in that, but also some serious issues, the fields he claims to be exhausted (Kantianism, Existentialism, etc.) are not.

If he has read the classic, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, he should clearly see that what motivated the questions they asked were the consequences of the science of the time, that has very little practical consequence. Might as well criticize literature for not helping ordinary folk.

A few other issues.

He has merits in terms of too much specialization and obscurantism - and the fact that all of it has moved to academia is not ideal either.

Nevertheless, the "ivory tower" critique - which has merit, no doubt - is not at all exclusive to philosophy. It's a privilege, one that should be treasured. And if some can make these ideas communicable to the masses, such as Magee or Russell, then all the better.

Of course, being the one to claim the whole field is stagnant can create the impression that the person writing is enlightened, which is suspicious to say the least...

Ah, ok - yes that summary was quite useful, thanks for that.

But, imagine that someone does sincerely believe it is right to kill an innocent person as they take a walk passed their house: are there any absolutely obligatory judgments that you can point to to condemn their behavior? That would be a metaethical question. — Bob Ross

In this example, I think so. To kill an innocent person for no reason, is not only irrational but outright evil. I mean, it's even a bit embarrassing to spell out why killing an innocent person is evil. These types of cases have been talked about in depth by others.

Having said that, I think it's important to realize that, at a certain point, it boils down to this is wrong (or this is good), without any further understanding of what this wrongness entails, beyond it being wrong.

I suspect that our understandings aren't elaborate enough to explore this topic with much more depth. If an alien species exited that had a higher overall intelligence, they would know significantly more about these topics.

Alas, that's my intuition, could be totally wrong.

VALIS? Meh. I thought it was average. I suppose the fact that it was semi-autobiographical made it more tolerable. But Horselover Fat? Come on, it's silly.

Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, A Maze of Death and Martian Time Slip were much better.

And of course,A Scanner Darkly.

I forgot quite a bit, as I went on an obsessive binge and read like 14 books of his in three weeks. At my peak I was doing one a day. I couldn't get enough. But the consequence of that is that my memory of a lot of them is extremely patchy, if that.

The Issue with The Three Stigmata... is that it's also rather heavily theological, and that can push away some people who would otherwise participate.

A Skanner Darkly is also very deep - about identity mostly, but lots of material. Several others, but Ubik can be interpreted in many ways.

I don't think a thread needs more than 4 or 5 people. And his books are also rather short, can be read in three or four days without much trouble.

It's up to you.