I agree he relies on it. He just rejects that this is what he's doing.

Sure. Unless someone considers themselves eliminitavists, which I think is just crazy.

It needn't be the case that idealism is opposed to realism at all. One can hold that experience is the most immediate access we have to the world. All you need to do to establish realism is to say, whatever interacts with the mind is what is considered real.

From here, you'd need to distinguish between abstract thoughts about unicorns or hobbits and concrete experiences such as those objects in the world that interact with mind, which are not solely abstract thoughts.

I saw parts of Hoffman's interview with Harris and Harris' wife, Anika. It was quite interesting.

I think Kaustrup's system is elegant, though his universal mind which you mention, is also not too convincing to me. Nonetheless, even if one doesn't frame the issue as Kastrup does, I think it is clear that many problems would dissolve if we just took for granted the mental as a given and everything else would be representation.

Thanks for sharing the link, I'll check it out. :up:

My point is that the Explanatory Gap is evidence that we have a situation where brain states are correlated with mental states, but are not causing mental states- if brain states are causing mental states, we'd have at least some idea of how that happens, but it's still a complete mystery. — RogueAI

Yes. There are serious problems with mind=brain identity theories. As in, clearly our experience of the color yellow is not reflected in what we understand of brains.

I'm a mysterian honestly. I think that in principle, if we knew enough, we could see how the brain creates mind via some process which we are clueless about because we lack the relevant intellectual capacities to detect them. But we are so far away from that, maybe permanently, that to argue brain=mind is almost not saying anything. Sure, my mind doesn't come from my finger, I'll grant that.

Materialism goes from the unknown (mindless stuff) to the known (mind) via an unknown (and possibly unknowable) mechanism. That's not parsimonious. — RogueAI

Sounds like Kastrup. Which is fine, he's an interesting guy. I'd quibble with the terminology in that I don't see a contradiction in saying that mind is physical stuff, which is very different from saying mind is physicSal stuff.

I mean one can be a non-material physicalist. Or a experiential materialist, meaning the stuff of matter is not inherently different from the stuff of mind. Or we have no good reasons to think so. Of course, granting that these properties called "mental" are the most secure source of knowledge we have.

I think the only way I can understand "non material" here would be to say "supernatural" entities. Whatever else anyone may say about mind being primary or matter, I think It would be difficult to argue against naturalism. By this, I don't mean science, I only mean things of nature.

So if we are going to speak about God and Angels, we'd speak of them as things of nature. Otherwise, I don't know what to say.

Sure, I agree we know mind exists. But it rests on matter - the brain. Without a brain we'd have no mind.

Unless someone would say something like "we don't know that mind depends on brain" or "the brain is mental stuff too". I think we can say that the first option here is too plausible.

On the other hand, if you say brains are a construction of mind, then yes this makes sense. What doesn't would be to say that brains aren't matter.

I know you have not been suggesting this at all, I'm just pointing our some options that would follow from the argument.

eliminitavists (who I think are ridiculous) — khaled

:up:

Yeah. That's a pretty irrational view. It's hard to think of a philosophical view which is more irrational than that. I mean even like strict solipsism makes more sense.

I think that by today the issue is mostly - though not exclusively - terminological. Cartesian dualism, probably the most known type of dualism, assumed we knew matter better than we actually do.

Today if someone calls themselves a materialist, they usually deny the reality of experience as experienced, as in experiences are epiphenomenal or reaction to a stimulus, etc. There are exceptions too, like Galen Strawson or Susan Haack.

With idealism, it's a bit harder. You can go from woo-Chopra to common sense "reality is whatever is presented to mind'.

So the real distinction, I think, is the status of experience more so than the primacy of matter or mind.

Ah, you lasted a long time.

That doesn't make sense.

This is the nature of philosophical questions, they tend to be foundational.

It's at least that.

But in all seriousness, what the heck does low self esteem have to do with philosophy?

It makes no sense at all.

I'll let the great George Carlin speak for me:

“I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond! I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive."

:cool:

"Philosophy" is a word. Lack of self esteem are also words.

Therefore, everything is made of words, deep down.

Philosophy remains unavoidable rather than necessary or useful — Banno

:100:

He's perfectly fine for ideas. And his documentaries are quite entertaining, aside from his books.

On the contrary, Žižek is quite well known within left academia in the US. Just look at the amount of speeches he's given at US Universities and several left leaning channels.

Of course, this doesn't mean he gets into "mainstream" news, but hardly any leftists get exposure in CNN, MSNBC and the like. Sometimes such figures appear, but briefly and are usually quite hated, like Sanders was before Biden beat him.

Žižek's problem, as I see it, is that he suffers from quite serious problems in terms of scholarship. He often cites dubious sources - random tabloid magazines - or he makes up stories. I've seen several instances, after having watched too many of his conferences. He for example says that Israel is one of the most "aethistic" countries in the world, which is false.

He's said he's spoken to Chomsky by phone, which is not true. He reviews movies he has not watched, which is misleading and so on.

This doesn't meant he is not worth listening to. He is and is also quite entertaining. But I'd take him with a grain of salt.

Boredom is a product of the brain, and a fairly basic one too. If our technologies include making changes to how our brains work, curing boredom should be simple. Not by making new stuff to entertain us, but by letting us not get bored with stuff we already have, letting us feel happy and grateful for all the good things we have no matter how long we’ve had them. — Pfhorrest

The issue is sustaining being grateful for a very, very long time. I'd think we'd need a different type of brain to be able to do that.

I only read a little from Pearce's thread and although he is obviously extremely intelligent, I don't take transhumanism too seriously. It seems to me that they over-estimate what science can do. Then again, I may be very wrong on this topic.

Death is a problem. Perhaps it's the ticket necessary for life. The problem if human beings could live forever, would be boredom. Irrespective of all the technologies that could be offered as a solution for boredom, I think that it can't be overcome in the long term.

I'm not sure I can articulate the intuition behind my argument, but that would be the problem more than death itself. I suppose transhumanists might do good in what they're after, but something about living forever or for a very, very long time is suspect to me.

Human beings are so complicated, that I think it is almost impossible to find one main culprit for depression.

Surely the prevailing ideology of individualism contributes in no small amount to such feelings. But the history of depression predates this ideology and depression has always been around. There may be more now, sure.

Then again, as others have mentioned, we may simply be more aware of it, thus detection goes up. It was not until recently, in the US and Europe at least, that mentioning that you're going to a psychologist meant that you were totally insane.

From my own experience, being involved in a social group may help. But if you're not feeling good, you won't react to the group your with.

Or maybe we could speak of architecture instead.

Surely we don't want that. :)

It's on the path of being unanimously recognized as shameful. One important factor that may impede the situation is that Israel sells a bunch of technology to other countries, so a lot of money is involved. If that weren't the case, I think other countries could be more forceful, like China maybe or Russia.

But yes, change has to be brought to bear externally.

He's even further to the right than Netanyahu! He's nuts. Israel doesn't even really have a center anymore. I don't know how it can come back.

Pressure from the US could help somewhat, but this guys just barbaric.

Yeah, good point. It can get too wide for the purposes of this thread.

It is a good metaphor and I think that it is ripe for much speculation based on the idea of plumbing, as in how philosophy could be used as a replacement for religion, which is to say open to mysticism or profound experiences albeit within a roughly rational context.

No I mean, her approach looks to me to be quite solid. It's just that based on what it says, it's hard to know what to do next.

I know. He did extremely interesting work. It was so sad when he died out of the blue really.

It's useful to have some idea or orientation in mind, while being aware that in some crucial respects some of our ideas will be way off the mark in relation to how other people react to them.

The issue I'm not clear on, which you discussed quite well, is that I'm not sure what is specifically philosophical about critiquing, say, the idea of the social contract. David Graeber was an anthropologist, and he also mentioned the same thing, in less detail though.

It's not that reading or thinking about matters in a broad manner isn't helpful, on the contrary, it can be a heuristic, if nothing else. But currently -I'm not as confident on this as I used to be - I'm not sure what's specifically philosophical about critiquing these ideas.

On the other hand, if the critique is based on a tradition such as the skeptical, empirical or rationalist tradition, or pragmatism, then I do see the philosophy.

Yes.

In matters of politics it's often a brute fact, the more you theorize about a specific problem, the less reality-as-other-people-see-it will accommodate your views.

But being interested broadly in philosophy can very much help. Again, this depends on what someone takes "philosophy" to be.



Sure.

The problem is when other philosophies come in and entrance people, such as followers of Mises or Hayek. I think there is some sophistication in this school of thought. I think a lot of it is wrong, but once people get into it, it's hard to get out.

But the same thing can be said about the left and Marx.

Yes. Žižek gives interesting examples of this.

But these things can and are pointed out by journalists or teachers. Philosophers can play a role, but I think it's something that anybody can do, once they see through the PR.

Yes. Others too, such as the Anthropologist David Graeber have also pointed this out. I get it, if we are to live in a large society, we need some kind of arrangement to take care of things that everybody needs.

The problem lies in the solution. One thing is to correctly point out, as Midgley does, that we need philosophy to help us address issues like these. A whole other thing is how to do it.

How do you get people who don't care too much about these things, to think about the social contract or philosophy? For many, religion takes care of much of the philosophy or it serves as a placeholder so that they don't have to think about the issues. But honestly, I wish I could give good reasons for people to care about these things. What's sad is that there should be a need to do so in the first place, instead of it being obvious why such matters should be interesting "by themselves", as I think they are.

Janus has a point in so far as no one asked anyone I know if they wanted to be part of any contract.

Not implying that social benefits aren't most welcome and most badly needed - but for it's a very misleading picture.

Ah. Yes, it's mind boggling.

Hmmm. But if nothing exists, doesn't that include me (you) as well?

It's hard to say, absent seeing polls. My impression is that you tend to get both, though maybe not in equal amounts.

That is to say some people think the fundamentals are wrong, others think we need to change what we already have, that is to stabilize our to reinforce the pillars, as it were.

I think that these views "capitalist", "socialist", "anarchist" and so on, though important in that they offer a pattern of ideas or a tendency to reach certain conclusions about certain systems best suited for people, at this point in intellectual life, obscure more than clarify.

On an issue by issue basis, it's easier to speak on important topics, even if disagreement is inevitable on many topics. But if we start saying "capitalism" or "communism" is excellent or horrific, we just lose a large portion of the potential audience.

Not necessarily. People just buy the myth and carry on, but when things go to shit, then we start questioning fundamentals such as the 2008 market crash or the Pandemic now.

People are now even using the word "capitalism" to discuss the ideas that sustain it.

The social contract has its limits. I'm currently not seeing a big state showing something different on a large scale. There may be scattered examples of, say, worker co-operatives and similar institutions based on voluntary cooperation and the like, but not on a large scale.

As we've sadly seen with COVID, we can't even co-operate with a damn virus which isn't even very deadly. This forebodes a very bleak future with the urgent case of climate change.

But people will care about that only when they can't find food in the super markets or they can't go outside for too long or they'll suffer heat stroke.

Instead of thinking about how we could perhaps work at an international level on climate change or nuclear weapons, people's imaginations are caught in this whole AI stuff and wanting to go to Mars. This is being done by Important People like Musk and Bezos. So this is individualism on steroids.

So - how to proceed? I can argue why I think most of the promises of AI aren't plausible or I can talk about evidence relating to climate change, but if people don't care about facts anymore, what gives? It's not like speaking of caring for Mother Earth really moves people, outside of certain sensibilities.

Ugh.

It's hard. I mean, I think that the central point is true, we as a society only need philosophy when things go bad or things don't work anymore.

It's just that even defining philosophy is difficult. There are just so many ways of thinking about it and even applying it. And it's not trivial to say that speaking of philosophy is such or such a tradition is wrong, we may not share the assumptions they have.

And when it comes to ethics and especially political matters, I think that the topics can often be devilishly difficult. We no longer live in a time when a person could be very knowledgeable on all topics, there's way too much to cover.

Yet we need it, like she points out. Jeez... I'm tying myself in knots here...

I'm sure this is a common one. It's blown my mind when I try to get my arms around it since I was a teenager. Still does. Imagine nothing. Really nothing. No one to know it's nothing. No space, not quantum vacuum. Nothing. Not anything anywhere. No things. No where. — T Clark

Isn't this the thought that comes to mind when someone tries to think about how it was before birth for each of us? Speaking for myself, when I try to think of any concept at all: long, boring, slow, pain, happy or anything else, none of this applies to whatever before birth was. So I think we all have an inkling of this already.

I suppose the only "positive" thing I could say is that it was dark. Not in the sense of feeling in a bad mood or being in a bad place.

But maybe even that's not correct.

I assume that what happens is what appeared to happen prior to birth, it disappears.

Unless someone can give me good reasons to suspect that the state after existence will be different from the state of before existence.

It was one suggested by Bryan Magee in relation with Kant's idealism, but it could apply to almost any strand of innatism.

He did not say this exactly, but the gist of it is on point. Take any object, say a red ball. You're in front of a red ball and you experience it. No problem. Now imagine losing sight. What do you have in front of you? A red ball still. You can touch, smell it, hear it bounce and so forth. But now eliminate touch. What do you say? It's still a red ball, you can hear it bounce and smell the rubber.

But now eliminate smell, sounds and taste, etc. What do you have in front of you? It's a problem. If you experienced the ball normally but then lose all senses one by one, you have to still conclude that there's something there. What is left of it though? Some kind of mental essence for us and a mysterious nature left for the object, both inscrutable to us.

And if a person happens to be born, missing all senses sadly. What world is there for that person?

It was a profound experience for me at the time and pointed to me to our quite fundamental epistemic situation. I've never ceased to be baffled by it, simple as it may be.