Damn man, I actually find it quite intuitive! :rofl: Maybe because I agree with what he's saying. Probably Art Hobson's Tales of the Quantum may merit a look, it's fantastic, tough, but I like how Hobson thinks, takes QM as is, no Many Worlds, no fancy stuff - just interpreting the data and what is means.

Might have helped here, am not sure.



It is excellent, so far, I am liking it more than Satantango, then again, Satantango's brilliance came out in the last 6 pages or so. We'll see, but amazing so far.

On Physics and Philosophy by Bernard D'Espagnat

New Essays on Human Understanding by GW Leibniz

Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai

Forget it, the gig is up - too many superb sources being called ideologues or whatever. And what, they think the New York Times or whatever establishment media (who never see a war they don't salivate for) are more trustworthy?

Not worth it, it isn't serious.

As we have advanced in our knowledge of the world, our vocabularies change to reflect that change. Thus, what was once considered the soul, can now be called consciousness, though the concept soul was rather broader and obscure too, I haven't seen a clear definition from the classics I am currently studying - Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, etc.

The self is different and now refers to a subset of phenomena that fall under the scope of experience. What it is, or is not, is quite difficult. But it is useful - even in law.

This of course, does not mean that these words can't be used in another way, such as saying that "this music moved my soul", or saying "that was a spiritual journey".

But if we want to advance in understanding consciousness, we want to avoid as much ambiguity as is reasonable. And we can surely take ideas from people who belied in the soul or spirit and apply it in a modern setting. So they can be useful to some people, no doubt.

Not to mention the creation of small circle of cliques of similar minded people who go around saying the same thing to each other in different settings...

It becomes narrow and repetitive quite soon. One finds interesting views in many places.

Fair enough.

It's kind of the only label I identify with comfortably, but I do recognize that McGinn is not for everybody - he can be too opinionated and this can sometimes say things which are doubtful. But being a Mysterian myself, I can't help but like him.



I can certainly understand that, if there is such an "intrinsic character", but it plays no role in the development of the field, then this is not something of concern for a Mathematician. This applies to physics too, I think.

If you have in mind ethics, political philosophy and the like, there is a lot of interesting material. But as to the sciences and math, there is no neat distinction between philosophy of any field in science and the science itself. We call it philosophical when the question sounds deep.

Other problems: the self, free will, monism, knowledge and the like, don't look promising, because we've been debating them for thousands of years. Branches of science developed out of philosophy, but a set of important questions (to a good deal of the founder of these fields) have been left behind.

Could be a clue of questions which we don't have the intellectual capacity to solve.

I wonder what you would make of this blog entry by Colin McGinn. It's quite short. Does he have a point, or is it not even wrong?

https://www.colinmcginn.net/what-is-mathematics-about/

The idea is to go beyond what is often said to be the beginning of a philosophical journey or adventure, which is that philosophy begins in wonder.

I think it goes beyond that, all the way to utter astonishment, at existence, and life and the universe and objects and perception and unity and diversity and knowledge and so on and on.

Of course, the association one has with any particular word may render any definition bland or trivial. Jeff Bezos having billions may be astonishing to some, and in a way it is. But not in a good way.

That's not how I experience astonishment, nor do I expect others to have the same experience as I do.

I like Tallis' response best.

"In the beginning was astonishment."

Actually, Locke was one of the first philosophers (one of them, not the first one) to speak about consciousness, and he does so, several times in the essay, with quite interesting results.

As for the rest of your argument, this is terminological. The whole idea of the "hard problem" was introduced by David Chalmers, a philosopher, not a scientist. Yet scientists seem to find the idea useful, so they borrowed it. That's perfectly fine and healthy.

That quote I gave from Locke barely needs modification, it pretty much considers the hard problem, and says we can't understand how this is possible (how matter could think), but if nature ("God"), chooses so, then so be it, we must concede to matter the property of thought (consciousness), but it remains inconceivable to us.

Sometimes I take a left
When everything is right
And I can see the road
When I turn out the light
I sleep under the stars
And then it starts to rain
Take cover in a bar
And run into a friend (x4)
Till the sun comes out again

Fell asleep in LA
Woke up in Bangkok
Gave my soul to a babe
In a pawn shop
Oh my ee oh my home

Could be anywhere
And any road, any road
Any road will take me there
Any road, any road, any road

Oh my ee oh my home
And any road, any road
Any road will take me there

I may have roamed these streets
A hundred times before
And when I finally meet you
I'll roam a hundred more
And maybe we'll go north
And maybe we'll go south
Just to keep on rolling, rolling, rolling
Is what it's all about

Fell asleep in LA
Woke up in Bangkok
Gave my soul to a babe
In a pawn shop
Oh my ee oh my home
Could be anywhere
And any road, any road
Any road will take me there
Any road, any road, any road

Oh my ee oh my home
And any road, any road
Any road will take me there

Oh the last thing I remember
Before she broke my heart
We were riding in a rickshaw
Down Sunset Boulevard
And I asked her where we're going
She said, "baby don't you care
Any road, any road will take you there"

Fell asleep in LA
Woke up in Bangkok
Gave my soul to a babe
In a pawn shop
Oh my ee oh my home
Could be anywhere
And any road, any road
Any road will take me there

Yes, I remember seeing Nebrija. :cheer:

No worries, it's actually not important.

I suppose that I should also mention that this so called "hard problem" was already well-known to John Locke, and I think his answers or musings, if you prefer to call them that, are quite on point:

"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power...

Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man can know. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought..."

Today we would of course change "God" for "nature", and the argument still stands remarkably well.

I didn't end up staying in academia, but technically I am one. Afraid I can't answer most of your questions, with perhaps the exception of some aspects of philosophy of science.

I think that the thought behind this is that the end justifies the means, so that who cares if a "hypocrite" state (and all powerful states are similar in this respect) arms Ukraine, the important thing is to beat this evil monster who knows not how to reason and so forth.

What I find quite confusing, which I heard said several times - and I don't know if it's been mentioned here, haven't kept up on the details, though have seen some of your replies, which, to my light have been excellent - is that if we somehow let Russia win, then, quite literally it is said "I don't want to live under a dictator."

Same "logic" with China.

If you failed to see a connection between these conclusions, then I will be more comfortably in knowing I am not a completely crazy person.

Yes. It's easy to pick out one person and blame all the evils on the world on that person. And sure enough, he is a despicable thug. But what makes anyone think that removing him - if that could somehow be made possible - would not guarantee someone worse to rise to power, because that's never seen before.

I was skimming a book the other day, Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz, in which she says something to the effect of (I don't have it with me at this very moment):

"So how does it feel to be wrong? It feels like being right."

And as you say, that applies to us too, no doubt.

What I don't think should be in question at all is what you say: trying to take the discourse into a place in which we can have an effect (in principle) on policy, and that means our own countries, not a foreign one.

But this truism, is questioned as being doubtful.

At least those Russians who protested the war and who are now in jail understood that much. And they seem to have had been covered favorably. Oh well.

Sure and as you know, I agree with the sources you post, they tend to be the same ones I use.

However, it must be pointed out, that in areas of international affairs, you can find an "expert" defending any conceivable view, often quite horrible ones.

This isn't physics in that respect: for every Mearsheimer or Chomsky, you get a dozen state fanatics, with decent credentials too.

Of course, you would do well to point out that the level of the sources you cite are of much higher regard and respect than others. But than can be easily dismissed.

He went out to the garden. Silence.
A whistling in the distance, louder as it morphs into a howl.
My shadow on the floor shows the sun above quickly being blocked.
I look up, wide eyes.

One should bear in mind that what we do when we discuss metaphysics is not what Aristotle had in mind when he was discussing his views. He was interested in what kind of things there were in the world, such as a house: what properties must something have in order for it to be considered a house.

We have long since lowered our standards of intelligibility in this field. We cannot say what a house is - in a mind independent manner. We can speak of what conditions do we take to be necessary to call something a house or a river or a statue, etc.

But that brings in forth important epistemological consequence, which turns metaphysics into a kind of hybrid field consisting of our knowledge and how the world is revealed to us.

So it becomes murky. Usually these discussions turn to matters of what kind of stuff the world is made of: physical, mental, neutral, etc. stuff. Most of these discussions are terminological and not substantive. With some minor - and interesting -exceptions.

Sure - if it comes up again, we can continue whenever that happens. As you say, I don't think much hinges on this, but something could come up.

:up:

If there is an existing thread where the topic can be discussed, that's fine with me.

But I'm not interested enough in the topic (at the moment), to start a new thread about it, because I don't think I'll be able to participate in it with the proper consideration an OP should have...

So you think we experience redness in addition to red or painfulness in addition to pain? The point I'm making is that Dennett doesn't deny that we experience red or pain; I think he's arguing against the reification of those experiences as redness or painfulness, causing us to imagine something additional to the experience of red or of pain. — Janus

If I talk about redness, I am talking about an aspect of the experience, which includes other factors such as smell, sound, distance, etc. Though I usually speak of red, blue, etc.

Of course, I'm not going to say that there is something red-like on top of the colour red, that statement has no meaning.

Naive experientialism says there is an inner world of qualia, which is a reification of the concept of felt qualities of experienced visual and tactile impressions. I don't see much difference between the two reifications: one "outer" and one "inner" — Janus

That's not how my intuition of experience feels at all. I don't think of an inner world of qualia, I think of objects having colours.

Just saw Wayferer's comments, we can continue this on another thread.



On to the OP, I think there is significant amounts of nuance, involved in Descartes view. Which interestingly enough, is being revived by fanatics of AI, who apparently think we know enough about the mind to build a computer that can mimic it.

I'm sure people who torture animals have Descartes in mind, and his conception of body too.

It's kind of futile. I agree with your correct characterization.

If people want to feel morally righteous with people that lived 400 years ago, that tells you something about them.

Sure. And what's a bit ironic is that if you look at modern physics, say, quantum physics, it does look rather ghostly and weird. Yeah I can see how Dennett misreads the situation and ends up with his weird views.

That sounds interesting, but I don't think we need scientific experiments to confirm the dualistic nature of human thought; all we need to do is look at language.and its formalization in propositional logic.The dualistic nature of human thought says nothing about the nature of reality in my view. — Janus

Of course, the nature of reality is different from our intuitions. Just that it's good to have some experimental evidence to back up our intuitions.

Right, but I don't think he is denying that we see red or experience pain. He is rejecting qualia which, as he says, an additional 'thing': is the redness of red, the painfulness of pain; these are reifications of post hoc conceptualizations, not something we experience. We experience red and pain, not the redness of red or the painfulness of pain. — Janus

This sounds to me as word play. The red thing or pain and the speaking about the "redness" or the "pain-ness" is simply to highlight the quality we see or feel. If I say "look at how beautiful the ocean looks
today" - I'm highlighting the various aspects of the ocean, which includes blue-ness. But if you want another term, then I'm happy to say blue.

Do you think most people think of consciousness in these qualia-type terms? Even if you think they do, do you think they experience consciousness this way or just unreflectively think of it this way? Also Dennett is quite clear that he is rejecting the folk-conception of consciousness, which is naive in a very similar way that naive realism is naive. You could even call it naive realism about consciousness, where that which is reified is not objects of the senses but qualities of experience. — Janus

Sure, I do.

I don't think the naive argument works so well with experience as it does with naive realism in terms of how the world is.

I think the way we experience consciousness is the way it is. However, if you want to find out how the brain produces this property, you can do neuroscience of psychology of perception. Doesn't alter at all our experience in the least.

I think the main reason people reject Dennett's philosophy is that they think it rules out spirituality, meaning personal transformation and altered (non-dual) states of consciousness, but I don't see why that would necessarily be the case at all. — Janus

I mean, if you were correct, there would not be SO many articles arguing against Dennett's view, including Searle, Block, Zahavi, Tallis, etc., etc.

So either he is being deliberately tricky or he can't explain his views well. He explains his views well, so I think he's being tricky.

Correct, but it was Descartes who was more influential, up to Newton he was considered a scientist of the highest order. Spinoza's fame was different, as far as I know.

Gassendi too and Hobbes didn't agree with Descartes. But Descartes made significant contributions to mathematics - and his view have had - and continues to have - an enormous grip on the imagination, even if we now think he is wrong.

There's scientific evidence that we are natural born dualists, very interesting literature with experiments done by Iris Berent in The Blind Storyteller, that seem to give good evidence to this view.

For good or ill (I happen to think Descartes has merits few after him have, such as attributing "common sense" - good sense - to people, that given enough evidence, nobody should be thought of as a fool and should be treated with respect), he happened to have quite horrible views on animals, but not of people, is a sad fact of the times.

BTW, I skimmed 'The Consciousness Deniers' and I could find no quotes from "the deniers" themselves which show that they actually are denying the existence of any kind of consciousness, which is telling. I'm no fan of Galen Strawson; I think his father was a much better philosopher. — Janus

You do try to defend Dennett quite a bit, I remember you telling me that he couldn't really believe that consciousness was actually an illusion, because that would make him an idiot - and he's not an idiot. But the statements are there:

“The elusive subjective conscious experience—the redness of red, the painfulness of pain—that philosophers call qualia? Sheer illusion."

Ok, he doesn't mean that, he means that consciousness is not what we take it to be. Then he is using the word unlike most people - including scientists - use it, so the onus is one him to give a clear definition of what he's talking about.

But they're defined in opposition to each other. Body is only extension with no thought, mind is only though with no extension. Even the human body is conceived of being like clay or earth, nothing alive about it, and the bodies of animals collections of mechanical parts. Man is different solely because of the divine gift of reason. — Wayfarer

That's right. Though a distinction is drawn as you note: the principles of body were well understood, according to Descartes and the Cartesians.

The mind was more problematic. No principles could be given that accounted for our creative aspect of language use and free will, though apparently Descartes wanted to write a book about this but never could - the Church and all.

Dennett doesn't see the mental as you and I see it, for him it is an illusions "a trick", as he says, "there's no real magic" (meaning the experience you and I, and almost everybody in the world take as self evident, as they should, is somehow magical or woo, if you like).

That's a downgrade from Descartes, because Descartes was not crazy enough to think we doubted consciousness - while Dennett does.

You mean to say Descartes' conception of body. For Descartes the mind and creativity could not be explained by materialism.

Dennett on the contrary that everything can be explained by science.

What they do share in common, I think, is that they both thought they knew enough about bodies to reach such grand conclusions.

Descartes had good reasons to posit res cogitans, and to believe he understood bodies. Dennett (and company) have no good reason to think we understand matter to a minute fraction of what they believe we actually do.

Agreed. Descartes is very often ridiculed in pop-science books, and sometimes even in philosophy. I think it's quite an ignorant view, because for one, he was highly respected at the time and for another, it's not as if were alive back then, we would have known that, say, his dualism is known to be false or that we do not believe experience to be the thing we are most certain we have.

If we assume body to be mechanistic, his metaphysics were quite sensible. But it is also true that viewing animals in such a manner intuitively looks quite grotesque.

The issue with Descartes is muddy. Many of his statements appear to show he thought of animals as mere automatons.

But there are other passages which are less clear. In a letter to his friend Mersenne, I believe he said something to the effect that he cannot know whether animals are automata or not, because we cannot see into their hearts, roughly stated.

It is true, however, that many of Descartes followers did think of animals as mere machines and participated in animal cruelty. Though barbaric to us - the reasoning they had was not completely crazy, it had some merit.

But it was also evident to others that this was insane, like Hume, for instance.

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

90 seconds to midnight. The closest it's ever been. Posted by people who are not idiots by the way. This cannot be forgotten, regardless of who one "supports".

It can tend to fade into the background given immediate deaths, but, it's a real problem.

:rofl:

I don't know man, it's kind of like sure, that's fine use cartoons if you want, no problem.

But then you have people complaining that these people need a "real flesh and blood relationship", when often porn is not made as a substitute for a relationship.

Yet if someone watches "real porn", it's exploitation - which it is - though it's not the only job that does this, by any means.

So, getting a real-life partner is the solution. I'm skeptical if this is the solution. Probably some kind of education on the topic is the best bet.

Do cars owe us anything or calculators or laptops or fans?

Until we can find a way to show that other people are actually conscious - as opposed to assuming (with good reason) that they are, I don't see the point is asking the same question to a computer.

It doesn't make sense.

The extent of usage and the nature of the porn viewed is probably of significant importance.

One cannot pretend that male horniness, especially when being a teenager or a young adult, is a very powerful force, so the market for such an audience exists in spades.

An interesting issue that arises is if it is possible to make such content showing a different side of sex which does not always reduce people (specifically women) to objects.

Murky area.

Oldboy :fire:

Better question would be why don't we make them? There are so many ways one can do something wrong (not limited to moral choices), but very few ways to make them right.

In no particular order:

Mulholland Drive
Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
Airplane!
Oldboy (Korean version)
The Matrix
Dr. Strangelove
Lost in Translation
The Departed
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I'm surely missing some, haven't seen a good movie in ages - novels tend to be just so much more fulfilling.

There's no scientific findings published by Nature that address mind independence. This is an assumption arising from your worldview. I've said this several times now. I'm not sure why it's unclear. — frank

I'm mostly talking about physics and aspects of astronomy. Not biology or stuff that's even more complex than that. I'd say that there are parts of astronomy that are arbitrary, sure. With physics, much less so.

From what I can see, most physicist take themselves to be talking about the world irrespective of our beliefs, desires, everyday concepts and so on.

Everything else becomes much muddier and more difficult very quickly. Which doesn't render it less valuable or interesting, but arbitrariness and our ways of thinking about them do enter much more clearly, imo.

I have the same worldview you do. I'm just clearer on the arbitrariness of it than I think you might be. — frank

That's quite possible. :)

I'm saying these are epistemological differences, not ontological ones.

I'll even grant the point about the alien.