Their appearance is certainly an illusion as well cannot perceive them at all without "projecting them onto an imaginary plane" — hypericin

We'd only be left with the equations that lead us to believe particles exist and behave in such a manner. So mathematics would be exempt from illusions, somehow. If, however, you'd say that even math is illusory then we just make everything up. There'd be no external world.

Both objects and processes exist independently of anything that may or may not perceive them, this is what I meant by "stable reality" — hypericin

I don't think this is true of objects. Processes, yes, I'd agree.

I don't have a problem with this. — hypericin

Why not use "representations" or "presentations"? These words seem to me to be less loaded, as illusion tends to be associated with something false.

Or my color might be your sound, or it might be some other form you can't conceive of. As long as qualia masks reality in some stable manner, it can take any form at all and be functional — hypericin

Yeah, that's possible.

A perception is illusory to the degree that its reality does not match its appearance — hypericin

How do particles resemble how they appear? Or DNA?

A hallucination is that which has no stable reality outside of subjective manifestation. — hypericin

But this raises more questions, what has a "stable reality"? It looks to me as if we should be thinking in terms of processes instead of objects. It's fine to speak of "stable things", while keeping in mind that everything is constantly changing.

is completely private, and so has no reality outside of our subjective experience of it. It is hallucinatory. — hypericin

Sure, qualia are private, I agree. I'm really not intending to reply with questions, but I just would like clarification. If all our subjective experiences are hallucinations, what do we do with what we ordinarily take to be hallucination? We'd have to say that it is a hallucination within a hallucination or something along these lines.

But there are an infinite number of such stable mappings. And the choice of mapping is functionally irrelevant. — hypericin

Yes, I think you're correct in terms of having an "infinite number of... mappings". Nevertheless the choice of mapping has to matter in some fundamental respect. If we're on some mountains and don't map a cliff, we'd die. So at some points our mapping converges in some crucial areas.

Therefore I think it is likely we all experience wildly different private hallucinations. — hypericin

I'd just call them experiences. But in terms of the variety involved and the subtlety found in them, it's unlikely two people would have the exact same experience. But in some cases, they have to be "similar enough."

Why should we assume physical states even exist? What evidence do you have for the existence of the non-conscious stuff these physical states are supposedly made of? — RogueAI

Most of my body is non-conscious. We can argue about chairs having or not having experience, but I don't see good reasons to think chairs have experience.

Think of some music. Is there music playing in your skull right now? Does your mind seem to have weight? — RogueAI

I am thinking of music. I don't know which parts of my brain are involved in experience. But I know that if a person lack a brain, they won't be thinking much.

Non-conscious stuff doesn't produce consciousness. It's a category error that leads to absurdities. — RogueAI

It does. Our failure to make sense of it is irrelevant. Most of us don't make sense of QM, it's inconceivable, but it happens.

Likewise, our failure to understand how matter produces experience is an example of our cognitive limitations, which must exist.

Pretty much every other option is better than brain=mental states. — RogueAI

Here I agree. Not because I don't think mind is an outcome of brain, but because there's so much involved in experiencing the world and our state of knowledge is so rudimentary that we can't say, nor does it make sense to say, mind=brain.

It doesn't follow though, that mind is not physical.

That premise rests on the assumption that mental states aren't physical states. There is no reason to believe that physical stuff isn't mental stuff. There's no other intelligible option given what we know.

So the case presented of stubbing your toe while looking at the sunset can't be stated in the terms because, absent modified physical stuff found in brains, you couldn't even stub a toe or look at a sunset. There would be nothing there.

The reason it is a one way street is because mind is not opposed to physical stuff, it is physical stuff. It's the physical stuff of which we are most acquainted with in merely having experience.

So even if you couldn't get a working brain from phenomenal qualities, you can certainly create completely new and unique aspects of physical stuff just by thinking about anything - flying fish, Paris, a golden mountain, or anything you can think of.

There's much more to say about this, such as the topic of intentionality, the property of mind which is about the postulated objects we experience in the world. Without such a property, we couldn't even construct a world.

So in short, the dichotomy between mind and matter doesn't hold. Physical stuff just "works" the way that is does, which is astonishing enough as it is.

But, I do think that many people, in general, see philosophy as a rather abstract and futile activity, but it would be interesting if someone were able to provide evidence of such opinion and I am not able to do so at present. — Jack Cummins

Excellent topic.

It's a bit hard to answer. I mean besides saying "love of wisdom", defining what philosophy is, can be quite difficult. I think we ought to be mindful that during Classical Greece, there really wasn't much distinction between philosophy and anything else.

The difference between science and philosophy only got articulated in the mid-19th century, so the word we are using now, is rather new given its history. I mean existentialism is very different from empiricism as exemplified by Locke and Hume, for example.

Bearing all this is mind, when I use the word "philosophy" in a broad sense, outside the forum or outside technical discussions, I talk about "deep questions" on "important topics" which do not need, necessarily, much by the way of technical knowledge. Given this "constraint", then novels, movies, music and everything else can contain very good philosophy. And on this view, philosophy is more important then ever, whatever else the person whom you're talking with may say about it.

Not that technical questions in philosophy as often discussed here aren't important, I think they are, but the satisfaction gained from them is from the mere pleasure of contemplating and discussing these ideas than they are about "practicality". On this later term, much can be said. But if taken to the extreme then all that matters is money and work.

That's not a life at all.

At least that's how I view this.

Liberal-National party, when it got into office, it dismantled that legislation, which was working as intended and would have greatly contributed toward reducing carbon emissions at practically no visible cost to anyone. — Wayfarer

:roll:

The really poisonous, indeed treacherous, thing that the Conservatives did was politicise climate-change policies for their own advantage, running a scare campaign on the 'great big new tax'. — Wayfarer

I assume that "lobbying" in Australia isn't as transparent as it is in the US, essentially legal bribery, out in the open. Nevertheless, those changes you indicate must have come from coal and traditional energy sectors who just want money now, without thinking about what happens a few years down the road. These "neoliberals" have this sophisticated game of politicizing things which should be obvious under the cunningly labeled term "freedom." And whose against that?

After the catastrophic bushfire season in 2019-2020 the public finally accepted the reality of having to deal with climate change. But you still get the sense the conservative side is being dragged kicking and screaming (with some exceptions at State Government levels.) — Wayfarer

That's very good to hear. I was reading or maybe I was watching some news from your own ABC that some firefighters during those bush fires were basically accepting that the Australian public simply assumed that this was going to be the new normal. Thankfully it isn't so...

https://reneweconomy.com.au/gillard-on-climate-action-it-was-done-and-we-can-do-it-again-in-the-future-63753/

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-recent-history-of-australia-s-climate-change-wars — Wayfarer

:up:

Thanks

Wow, you guys/gals have really kept this thing alive, I'm quite glad.

Pertinent to this discussion is the apparent fact that Netanyahu might finally lose power in Israel. If this amounts to anything practical on the ground is yet to be seen. Likely not. But, that will also depend on how firm the US is in dealing with Israel.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/LIVE-lapid-aims-to-announce-new-government-with-bennett-at-the-helm-1.9866751

For all the problems it has as a country, and every country has problems that's evident, I sure am jealous of people living there.

Sure, I've seen some figures in the right say some pretty stupid things about Climate Change. But's that a standard now, basically no right wing figures are particularly interesting. Say what you want about the old school Austrians, but Hayek and Schumpeter were much more sophisticated than almost anything on the right now.

Not that labor is amazing, that's another topic...

Ah cool, keep me updated on that, it will be interesting to read.

Insert good reasons in my head.

Sure. I am not sure that I phrased the last part quite well. Russell was not giving primacy to the mind, I think he was highlighting our general ignorance of it. This is were he developed his idea of "neutral monism", which states that the world is neither mental nor physical as we understand these terms.

Thanks for your reply, it was quite comprehensive. :up:

In general that the "new physics", as it was when Russell wrote about these topics, renders the ideas of objects as not being tenable. He thought we should think of the world as being composed of "events". This "new physics" was also the final nail in the coffin of our idea of impenetrable matter, and "has become as ghostly as anything in a spiritualist séance."

This combined with his view on how little we know about psychology prompts him to say that we don't know if "the physical world is, or is not, different in intrinsic character from the world of mind".

That's a general outline. I assume that some of what he says is outdated, but he did interesting work.

Thus, in my humble opinion, we would be doing ourselves a great favor by reminding ourselves that the word "myth" is a synonym for "it was just too complex". — TheMadFool

I mean, many myths are about how the world was made by Gods. Whether Amaterasu in Japan or Brahma in India, so sure these are complex. But these contain little factual truth.

On the other hand, Haack mentions the Legend of King Arthur. Some parts of that are based in history others not. But I tend to be of the mind that everything is quite complex. And absolutely taking cell phones back to the past would've been akin to magic or miracle.

Over millennia, the metaphysics might've altered in such a way that souls became nonviable entities and disappeared [species have gone extinct when the environment transformed and became hostile to them (fossils)]. Thus, what was true in the past is false in the present. — TheMadFool

I'd only modify that but saying souls were approximations of what they thought was true. Now we much more accurate approximations, but we can translate the word "soul" in Plato or Descartes intelligibly in many instances.

As you will have realized by now, my objective is to raise doubts about the well-hidden assumption that the metaphysics of the world doesn't change. — TheMadFool

Clearly, it must if when we are trying to articulate metaphysics, we use the concepts and ideas of our time. And these must change, if our knowledge has changed. So it's likely that metaphysics is constantly changing itself. So we must rediscover or restate what it is, every so often. Peter Strawson argued for something like this in Individuals.

I was reading some of your replies, quite interesting. You work in/with quantum physics?

If you go through some of Russell's works such as The Analysis of Matter or An Outline of Philosophy, I think you could find some connections to metaphysics with sound scientific basis.

And I'd gladly participate if it didn't include Gödel.

I'm sure other threads will appear that will offer the opportunity to highlight a problem in language use.

I've read very little Austin. And mathematical logic is something I cannot do at all, it's beyond me I'm afraid. The only philosophy of language I can do are the people I mention in my profile and a little Wittgenstein, though nowhere near your level.

As for the OP, I can't even comment much. I don't understand what "prov[ing] everything in mathematics" would even entail.

So you can go ahead and go wild, if you like.

I mean if you can incorporate this topic to Susan's Haack's "Innocent Realism", then the thread can stay of topic as it concerns the nature of reality and how it sometimes appears in parts. Thus a story may contain parts of it that are true - events that actually happened in the world, with events that did not happen, which would make it fictitious. And there may be exaggerations and so on.

I doubt that in such short periods of time, which for our history as a species is nothing, would show noticeable changes in gravity or any other fundamental force of nature. At least I haven't seen any evidence for it.

As for the other options, maybe. But given the fact that we can distort stories quite severely in a day, myths going back thousands of years are prone to be extremely exaggerated. I'm not saying that they couldn't contain some elements of truth in it, but the further back you go, the harder it is to believe in aspects of stories which by today's would be impossible.

So again, if you can keep the topic within a metaphysical framework, that is, covering one of the many aspects of metaphysics, then this can be discussed. But if that's not possible given what you want to expand on, then going to another thread would be better.

It's an interesting question. I suppose you'd have to take into consideration the fact that fictional characters are created based on traits that real people have. And novels, for instance, allow you to get into someone else's head for a while, so you live a similar experience to the characters you are reading. But I don't think the difference between fact and fiction is nearly as strong as is sometimes believed.

There's also the curious aspects of many myths. I assume such stories are told more or less accurately, but as hundreds if not thousands of years go on, aspects of the story become exaggerated to the point were there maybe very little if anything is such myths, which is a true description of events. I have in mind national myths and ancient folklore and the like.

Most times yes, sure. I think there are specific circumstances that a song or a movie will communicate with you even more deeply than words ever could. At least that's been my experience on certain occasions.

The way you spoke of reference in your post prior to this one, is not one I have much issues with. So I think we're OK. :up:

We can communicate with our gestures, our clothing, our way of walking, our facial expressions, our tone, etc.

We can also communicate with paintings, music, architecture, sculptures, etc.

No words are needed.

I'm not saying it's a contradiction. I think it's a fact that it's people who refer, not words themselves. I think we might be caught in a semantic quibble here.

What do you have in mind when you speak of "referring"?

I take reference in philosophy, a technical term, to mean a relation between the word uttered and a thing in the world.

The key for me, so far as my understanding of reference goes, is that the word I'm using must relate to something in the world. I don't think there has to be something in the world of which the word I'm using must "signal out" as it were.

I can speak of dragons or Planet 1234. There are no dragons in the world and there is no Planet 1234 anywhere, I just made it up. So I don't see a necessary word-object relation.

However, if you mean that by reference you have in mind an intended meaning or something like that. With this, I don't have any problems.

I'm not sure I'd even see it as a paradox, but just as different ways of thinking. — Janus

That's probably more accurate to what happens.

If proper nouns or names, like John, refer to particular things, then nouns or general terms like 'tree' 'cat' 'mountain' and so on refer to particular kinds of things. So, I don't see why those kinds of names can't be understood as rigid designators of particular kinds in a way analogous to how proper names are seen as rigid designators of particular entities. — Janus

I don't think names refer. Nor do words actually. People refer, it's an act that people do. Sometimes people use words to refer, like me referring to the keyboard I'm using to type out these words.

I mean sure, you can say that we speak in generalities many times, if not most of the time. Look at most conversations, both written and spoken. How often do we refer to specific things? Not that it very rare, it's just that referring is a small part of everything else involved in language.

What does it feel like to be pouring out such thoughts on a laptop at 02.16hrs ?
Bloody crazy. You know what I mean ? — Amity

It's not dissimilar to what Hume thought about when he had a psychological breakdown:

"Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? ... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

I think philosophy of language helps to clarify our thinking to others and most importantly, to ourselves. This in itself can be tremendously useful. Beyond that it surely can't resolve the question you pose, I don't think.

When we say words like "love", "hate", "joy", etc. we assume other people "like-me" will take that word and the meanings attached to it and interpret it in a way that approximates what I'm feeling. But we cannot know the other person will feel the way we actually feel. We simply cannot be precise enough to describe our emotions in many occasions.

So absolutely, philosophy of language has clear limits. I (believe) I know what you mean. :)

Sure. I wasn't intending to imply a contradiction. I suppose it's a bit of paradox if you will.

Yes, I'm familiar with Kripke to an extent. I do think rigid designators are true in science if our scientific theories are correct, that is the name we use for the entities postulated match, or form a correspondence. So if I say that Alpha Centauri is 4.36 light years away, the name and the numbers of that statement apply to the world.

Outside of science, I don't think this is the case. That is we can use words to refer, but it's not necessary, we use words all the time without referring to specific things in the world.

At least that's how I think of the topic.

If John is terribly burned or otherwise disfigured he may become unrecognizable, but measurements or DNA testing could still establish his unique identity. John's ashes are not really John, but are just John's ashes; the remains of his body after cremation. — Janus

I think that we recognize objects via something called "psychic continuity", similar I suppose to object permanence. That is, we have some conception of John, such that it would be true that he can go through several radical changes and still be John.

But a blow to the head may alter his personality and way of behaving in such a manner that although the name of that person is still "John", he is not the "John" we have in mind, when we usually talk about him. His DNA will be the same, but a radical change in behavior will cause us to consider them for all intent and purposes a different person.

Or take the story in which a witch turns a prince into a frog. We still know he's the prince, even if he's a different species. And similar stories. It doesn't matter much what the physical configuration of the person is, it matters that we conceive of them as being John (or Mary), etc.

:up:

I have no problems with 3 of the 4 categorizations you've given. The first one, or "0" is the one that I'm unclear of, which one of those mentioned would approximate your conception of what's real?

Hmmm. Sounds like a process philosophy of sorts.

I'd be interested in looking at that book. :cool:

"Real' gains traction only in a particular contrast.

A metaphysical speculation that attempts to use the word without such a particular context fails to gain traction. — Banno

That looks likely.

Then by definition illusions are fake.

What would you do with fiction then? Just leave it at fiction?

That's also look legitimate to me, perhaps even central.

Quine I believe does not like this solution, but we can speak of "real" and "existent" as separate but related concepts. Existence refers to things in the world, real to almost anything. Thus there are real fictional characters, such as Frodo but he doesn't exist in the world. But there can be fake fictional Characters such as Fred, who I just made up and is not in any novel.

On this view, one suggested by Haack, real is to be contrasted with fictional.

Existence is thus slimmed down somewhat, but continues to be very complicated.

For example, when Maxwell proposed the existence of an invisible and counterintuitive "field", to explain the weirdness of electromagnetism, he was practicing Philosophical Meta-physics. Today, we are accustomed to the concept of "fields", even though we have never seen one. What we observe are the effects of the field on certain kinds of matter, such as iron filings. We "see" those fields with the inner "eye" of imagination — Gnomon

Sure. I'd imagine that if we were miniscule creatures we could see these fields, that's what I imagine a commitment to some kind of realism entails, which is not inconsistent with some strands of idealism. All this depends on the meaning of each word and for what domain this idea is applied: I can be an idealist about tree and rivers, but think that particles aren't entirely dependent on me, though the way we apprehend them does depend on us.

Platonism about mathematics (or mathematical platonism) is the metaphysical view that there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices. — Gnomon

That's sounds legitimate to me.

Peirce divided metaphysics into (1) ontology or general metaphysics, (2) psychical or religious metaphysics, and (3) physical metaphysics. — Gnomon

Though Peirce kept coming back to his categories of firstness, secondness and thirdness. He was a genius of the highest order, no doubt about it. But his ontological project expressed in these terms are quite obscure, or rather, I don't "get" why he needs these three categories as opposed to two. He stresses the simplicity of them, I don't see it yet.

Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. — Gnomon

Perhaps. It would need epistemology too. The distinction between what we see and what we see in our minds eye is not that straightforward to me. Though I see were you are coming from, in the case of math for example.

Analysis of language is indeed a legitimate topic for philosophy. But if that language is too specific & reductive, we soon lose the general & holistic meaning of the words. — Gnomon

Absolutely. It becomes talk about talk, instead of talk about the world or what we take to be the world.

Well, I'm speaking to the heavens here. I've been asked to state how metaphysics is possible. Such a formulation entails a Kantian framework. I'm unsure meeting this demand is necessary to even speak about metaphysics. I follow Susan Haack here and by extension parts of C.S. Peirce. I don't think "metaphysics" entails a special kind of knowledge, nor does it need special justification any more than ethics or epistemology or any other field in philosophy.

I think that metaphysics is about the world and relies on experience. I think its task it provide a general framework on how to think about the world: how it makes sense to divide it up and think about its many aspects. This unorthodox view on the field means that some of the traditional question of metaphysics, that of identity or of the nature of the self and others are more correctly thought of as epistemic questions as these pertain more to our understanding than it does the world.

Then again, this distinction may be misleading, as almost everything we analyze about the world is analyzed by us, and not some Martian.

If we don't do metaphysics, meaning analyze the various aspects of the world, we end up with bad metaphysics: everything is only particles or fields. But that doesn't reflect our living in the world or the complexity involved in our interactions with it.

In any case, so as to not take up more space here if not to reply to something, I'll post a very good article on metaphysics and how one could think about it in contemporary times.

The project is called "Innocent Realism" by Susan Haack:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305505412_THE_WORLD_ACCORDING_TO_INNOCENT_REALISM_THE_ONE_AND_THE_MANY_THE_REAL_AND_THE_IMAGINARY_THE_NATURAL_AND_THE_SOCIAL_2016

The whole idea of this thread was prompted by a suggestion made by Banno. He seemed to be implying that a lot of these questions are due to a confusion in language: free will, mind and the like are problems which can be seen correctly or dissolved once you properly analyze the propositions and words used.

So if someone's approach is philosophy of language, then I'll engage with the topic in a manner in which a person thinks it makes sense to talk about these issues. However there was bound to be some disagreement quite soon given the nature of different personal dispositions.

You are correct that I did not manage to specify the field in question in a sufficiently clear manner such that it can be seen as legitimate. Then again, besides mentioning some of the topics that go into the field called "metaphysics", I don't know how else to formulate the topic.

There's much more to reality that highlighting one aspect alone. Granted, physics is quite amazing and if not the, then its among the most important ideas we've discovered as a species. Having said that, to say that the mental isn't something real - meaning existing, is so irrational, it's hard to even comment about it.

Yes we can say this is a consequence of empiricist thinking and the like, but Locke and Hume would've never dreamed of denying experience. In many aspects, they were quite sophisticated, even if the view they took on the mind was mistaken.

I agree that some ideas are real. How this cashes out more precisely is extremely difficult to elucidate, because it seems to me that we cannot do metaphysics without very important epistemological input.

Why should we be able to ask these questions, discuss them and on rare occasion answer them, as happens sometimes in science, is amazing. It doesn't even have survival value, as far as I can see.

Aristotle is someone I've yet to work on. Thanks for the source, much appreciated. :up:

Yes.

I think that there is not much difference between science and magic, for example. Sure, someone will say "we understand science", magic doesn't exist.

What's crazier that we can assemble parts of matter to create a laptop or that we can make a card look like it disappeared from thin air?

Not being scientisitc, the point is that I think those that deny the a-priori don't seem to me to be surprised enough about the phenomena of existence. But innatism should not be controversial, the fact that it is shows that empiricism in psychology, in modified form, is still the dominant view.

I'm aware that you know Kant well, other people told me this and I've since verified it. I don't expect agreement in many aspects on these topics, how could I, we all think differently to some extent.

And although we may agree on, say, 80% of the topics covered, it's that 20% or so that we focus on or make a big deal about.

In any case, I'm assuming you want to add something I missed or correct a mistake in my general argument?

Thank you.

X meaning any specific concept. It could stand for laptops, trees, rivers, books, this was shorthand.

as if you had to have the concept "laptop" before you encountered a laptop or hear anything about it.

You can't see the problem there? — Banno

The person who first thought of an abacus had to have an idea of what it would be before he finalized it. He may have been playing with pebbles or sticks, but he/she got the idea to create an abacus. There was none prior to that, I'd think.

Yes, it is a massive problem. With very, very little contact with objects (sometimes with no contact at all) , we come up with concepts. It is crazy. I just happen to think it's true. I can't explain it, as I said.

Fantastic. Many thanks. I'm going to have to read that essay now. :cheer:

As argued, if this were so we would never learn; we would require the concept in order to recognise the concept.

So that's wrong. — Banno

I don't see the need for an infinite regress. We just need the concept and then the thing. Not a concept of a concept.

Sure, I could be wrong.

Sorry about the mess in replies, there are several posts on different topics with you and I lost the order, hah. I too have gone astray here on subjective states because I think we have them.

I think Wayfarer is correct. But if he doesn't convince you, nor others, I don't think I'd be able to, honestly.

So tell me something, any updates at all regarding more literature on innate ideas?

I'm now going to the pragmatists, but they don't say much about it that I've found. Perhaps obscurely in Peirce, but not much.

The concept is not a thing in the head, but a capacity to do stuff. — Banno

You need a concept to recognize an object as being X= laptop, tree, etc.

One can know a lot about how to fix an a car, but have no idea how the thing works.

You did learn to count. — Banno

Someone pointed out some very basic notions of counting, such that 1+1 = 2. But nobody was taught how to count all the numbers we can count. There isn't enough time in this world for that.