Not that I know. But then again, not much is known about him. Back then it was common for intellectuals or "cultured" people to know about everything. So he could've been familiar with the physics of his day.

Back then there wasn't a distinction between science and philosophy. That only began in the mid-19th century...

:100:

Art is no luxury.

Well then one can speak of naturalistic monism.

I don't know why physicalism has to imply physics can explain everything. Another thing is to say that everything we know and love is made of physical stuff.

I don't see the necessary connection between "physicalism" and physicSalism.

Or we can speak of neutral monism....

Specialization is like a...reward. — Pantagruel

It can be. But life is multi-specialized, so we have to branch out.

But your question is a good one, it's just really hard to answer in quantifiable terms.

How exactly do you quantify knowledge? Is it measured by the salary that it facilitates? Or is it in the types of things that you do with that salary? Or the way you use your free time? — Pantagruel

Maybe speaking in terms of "knowledge" is problematic, in terms of trying to find criteria that fall under this term. In English, this word is a bit different it's not the same to say "I know how to walk" or "I know my self" as opposed to something like "I know the history of neoliberalism" or "I know Schopenhauer", etc.

How do we apply this term to actual people? I've met people who "know" a lot about manual stuff: plumbing, fixing broken machines but who aren't familiar with astronomy nor 20th century history. Yet the certainly have something I lack.

And the other way around too, some people "know" astronomy very well, but can't fix a broken desk.

I think we'd need to use a series of words that try to capture what it is you're trying to quantify. Because one problem would be to ask, then what does not count as knowledge?

Asfm for your first, it doesn't make sense to draw those distinctions and you saying otherwise is question begging in this context. Argue a case. That is, address the OP, rather than just insist it is false. — Bartricks

More than it being false, it's unhelpful.

Call it whatever you like.

There is not a single definition of philosophy and if you insist that Eastern philosophy isn't really philosophy, well that's your problem.

I said you're view of philosophy of presenting or giving arguments to be too narrow. And it makes sense to speak of different traditions: Eastern vs Western, Analytic or Continental or Pragmatism.

All I was getting at is that music and literature seem to me to offer plenty of philosophical material, not that they are philosophy in themselves, of course not.

I had a very brief interaction with Prof. Chomsky after a lecture he gave on linquistics at the University of Minnesota in 1992/93. He must have thought I was lunatic taking his 'generative grammar' to task from a decidedly Wittgensteinian position which he patiently listened to then crushed step by step in typically devastating Chomskyan fashion – well, what else, right? – and then shook my hand thanking me for "interesting chat". This happened after the lecture as a follow-up to one of my questions. It was a packed hall, good turnout, but I was probably the only non-PhD student in the room. I wish now I could remember that damn question or my follow-up criticism. (Damn, now I remember I'd forgotten to have Chomsky sign a copy of his new book at the time Year 501: The Conquest Continues.) — 180 Proof

Yeah! Believe me, I know the feeling. :rofl: If it wasn't for a friend of mine who told me, I would've not brought a book to get signed. Unbelievable.

I don't know how he manages to stay sharp after talking to so many people on so many different but important topics, it's a bit crazy.

Good. That was the point.

I know that there's an interview with Bryan McGee on YouTube where McGee compares his ideas on UG to Immanuel Kant, which Chomsky doesn't deny. I think that's accurate. — Xtrix

Yeah. He mentions that several times, especially when Kant is brought up, as he finds Cudworth's ideas more interesting. It's hard to find much literature on him, but it's possible to get an important portion of his epistemology in his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, which is readable.

Agree about Heidegger and others. Science is amazing, don't get me wrong, but if philosophy sticks only to interpreting science or speaking about clear propositions alone, it leaves out a lot for me.

No kidding? Did you study under him as well or is it exclusively e-mail (which of course he famously and amazingly responds to quickly, even at 92 years old)? — Xtrix

I wish I could've been his student. Have been reading him and learning from him for over 12 years I guess. E-mail for over six years, but I did get to meet him personally in Boston just a few months before he moved to Arizona. So that was pretty cool.

Now, I guess throughout last year, have been consciously looking at his stuff much, much less.

What clases of his did you take?

That must have been an amazing experience! :)

Interestingly enough, Chomsky would be the first to agree as well -- another clear trait of great teachers. They encourage you to think for yourself, not just blindly follow. — Xtrix

That example came from him actually. But you can use it for several people: Rand, Derrida, Lacan, etc., etc.

My main disagreements really come from the ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger, whom Chomsky hasn't really dealt with (unfortunately). When I asked him if he'd ever read Nietzsche, he said he hadn't read carefully enough to really have an opinion about him. As for Heidegger, he finds him incomprehensible from what he's read (which, given the association with Nazism, is very little). So there's little to discuss with him there. — Xtrix

Yes. He said the same thing to me. Not with Nietzsche, didn't ask him about that, but about Heidegger. He did begin to read his "Introduction to Metaphysics", but that book expresses sympathies for Nazism. So he can't understand the vocabulary and he doesn't like his Nazism, I get it. Unfortunately Being and Time was translated later on. But after his initial experience with Heidegger, he probably saw no reason to return to him. Which is a bit sad, maybe he would've thought better of B&T, but I doubt it. He does mention other people who are interesting, and not known: Ralph Cudworth, Joseph Priestley and a few others. So there's a give and take there.

It's always hard to disagree with great minds. I have a hard time "disagreeing" with the Buddha, too. Doesn't mean I'll become a Buddhist, but he's very rarely wrong about anything. — Xtrix

Sure. I still read him and talk to him frequently, but, it's gotten to the point where I can't get much further in my own philosophical interests by listening to him all the time. So now I'm stumbling around and engaging with others that I find fruitful, in particular Tallis. I'll risk looking foolish until I find my own ground. I'm moving away from calling myself a "Chomskyian", it's not a good idea generally to associate as belonging to the thought of one person, a bit like can happen with Marxism. But I see where you are coming from.

Yes. And I never said music was philosophy nor novels. But that they can provide good material for philosophy would be strange to deny.

No surprise. He was (and is) my teacher. Still very much in what most call the "analytic" tradition, and so I'm not in complete agreement with everything he says, but he's one of the few people really worth listening to. — Xtrix

:100:

Though you have an advantage over me, I find it really hard to disagree with him. I can't speak about his technical linguistics, but overall, it's very hard to disagree with him. Maybe on like 2 small points, but I'm sure it would be semantic issues at bottom.

Sounds very Chomskyian to me. Which is most excellent, he's just on another level in terms of intellect and arguments. He'd probably suggest Strawson's "Real Materialism" and "Realistic Monism" in discussions on "metaphysical issues". He's made a few comments here and there (such as in New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind) where he talks about how our common sense notions don't apply to the world.

But there are facets of consciousness that are interesting, even if they're not "theories" in the modern sense. Locke's account of "physic continuity" for example, or C.I. Lewis' talk about "the given". He'd also like some of Raymond Tallis' work in Aping Mankind as well as Goodman's Starmaking. This last work has some clear connection to consciousness, or so it seems to me.

But, good post on the whole. :)

Yeah, no kidding...

do you think that this version of masculinity has a place in the modern world? — BigThoughtDropper

If it means something to you, sure. Otherwise, it shouldn't be a huge problem I don't think.

Rudyard Kipling describe "what a man should be", I kinda like it, even if it is probably impossible to fulfill:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


:wink:

Excellent suggestions! I'm still waiting for the official Mainlander translation, but I thought his critique of Kant and Schopenhauer to be very, very interesting.

Not that I agree with all of it, but damn, how insightful it is. It's going to be quite nice when that book comes out next year in English.

They were talking about bats. I'm going two steps further, to plants and rocks. Our limitations are not the limits. — James Riley

Yeah, I posted a bit on that thread.

And a :100: on this last sentence.

Plato is awesome to this day. Crazy, having relevant things to say 2000 years after death.

I also think of personal experiences that I have had with cold. It's very difficult for me to articulate, but I know there are "states" that one can be in, as a result of acclimation, where cold is not perceived like it is when in other states. — James Riley

These are very suggestive.

I'm not that brave.

I've had other experiences, some in the course of ordinary life, others, well... in college :grimace: way back when, that at least illustrate how powerful the mind can be, given the fact that most of us, most of the time, take it for granted. It doesn't provoke or incite much awe or bafflement for many, it seems to me.

However, I would not say that anything deep that I have experienced is an indication of anything else other than the power of the mind. The main reason for saying this, is that you can easily get these cult types, who base authority on personal experience. I try to avoid giving too much metaphysical significance to these things, however strong they may be. But again, I could be wrong.

Having said that, I know where you are coming from. And it makes sense, both in the human case, as well as in the case of predators and prey.

Because, again, my definition of All would suggest there is a way. I'm fairly certain that when I die, that will happen, but it would be cool if I could do it now. And be choosy about it. Then again, I hear nature calling me back to life to enjoy her now. I'm torn. — James Riley

The only reference that comes to mind for me, is that state before I was born. No matter how hard I try, none of the words I use in ordinary life apply to that state such as "fear", "joy", "love", "pain", "long" etc. etc. After death, I suspect the state will be the same as the state before birth. Who knows? It might be nice to be a universal mind of some sort, but I can't fathom what such a thing would feel like or be like.

I don't know how that follows? — James Riley

I simply mean that if rocks and rivers were conscious in some way, then the way we treat things we consider to be non-mental, would be way too horrible.

, I'd have to ride wit UPN since it accounts for UPNN and UPN and the absence of both. After all, it would be a weak sauce indeed if infinity could not account for the absence of itself. If could not, then it would be finite. — James Riley

I see. Yeah, that view is plausible. I personally use the word "nature" that way I can use the terms "mental" and "non-mental" with more ease. If you speak of God, then that puts intention and a mind of some kind in the picture automatically. "All", as you said, is a better term. I'd only ask you, does this "All" include "non-mental" stuff, or would you be of the view that there is no "non mental" stuff: all is part of one mind?

Thus, a rock "perceives" from it's point of view, even if we can't fathom it. — James Riley

Sure, that's a rational option. It could be something like that, or it could be something that we can't help postulate. We simply cannot help but attribute human aspects to the world: "The leaves wanted to fall", "The flower is looks for the sun", "The river races to the sea", etc. I understand we need to be able to use words to talk to each other. It could be that we are simply using the wrong approach to think about the way the world appears to us.

But I can't say with much certainty. I tend to favor the view that we construct the world according to our cognitive, intellectual and genetic capacities. How this things "in here" (in the head) relates to whatever is out there, is very obscure, not to say a mystery which is what I think, but avoid saying too much. But my intuition is that there is non-mental being.

Alternatively, there could be a very obscure kind of mentality in most things that connects everything together.

Hell, I don't think even the geologist understands what he's saying when he talks about a million years, much less billions and more. We can throw the terms around to help us grasp ideas, but as it was opined above, these are but maps and not the terrain of time. — James Riley

Yeah. It's hard to make sense of what these statements amount to, absent us.

Sure, this is a good place to think out loud. What you're talking about makes sense. In so far as we are conscious, we can say in very general terms, that consciousness is molded matter or matter organized in a certain way. There's a problem of course, which you point out in your rock example. How can matter possibly be conscious? When we look at things, they don't seem to exhibit any manifest - visible - aspects that could tell us they have experience.

But either mind is found in some way at the bottom of physical stuff, as a dormant potential let's say, or we have no idea at all as to how it could even exist. Then again everything at bottom is physical stuff. So it is quite surprising. Perhaps a rock, modified by God (to put in a colorful manner), could be modified in such a way that it could have experience.

If what you say about rocks is true, that is, if they could experience - which they may - then existence is a mistake. I hope your wrong in this case.

Here's the part I sense, intuitively, but have no way of proving: All became so "Godly" (for lack of a better term) that it could both precede the parts coming together, and be a following result of their combination at the same time. Based upon my previous chronology, it is hard to make that leap, for surely All could only do that after the events that created All brought All into being. But time and chronology don't work in a linear fashion for All. — James Riley

This is also a big problem. I think it's related to the problem of "The One and the Many". Are there many things in the world, say, isolated beings or are things at bottom undifferentiated? I tend to favor the view, like it seems you do too, that all is one. But maybe at a certain step of complexity, things become individual "to themselves", so to speak.

I should add, I think these topics are way over everybody's head. We just pretend to understand these things. :sweat:

Well, if you're a panpsychist you'd probably argue that rocks and rivers have some experiential or mental component.

I don't think that's the case. But I can't offer evidence in either direction honestly. I can only use my intuition. I don't see evidence that points to these things having mind of any kind.

Perhaps you have some other kind of argument in mind? I'm all ears. :cool:

Sure. Dennett is a decent liberal, so far as I know. He's also quite entertaining in the examples he gives. His is a materialism of a certain strain, which we have no reason to believe is true. Galen Strawson calls himself a materialist too, but he's probably Dennett's fiercest critic.

Yes, it's good to be exposed to such views, I agree. But after that, at least to me, that type of thinking is just very boring. You get rid of consciousness, or claim to anyway. Fine. Now what? Why bother with anything in philosophy outside ethics perhaps? And even here, as you say, ethics would also be problematic. It's all just chemicals anyway.

But philosophy of mind is interesting.

Daniel Dennett is its poster-boy, but it’s a very widespread failing in modern philosophy. — Wayfarer

Ugh. Him and the Churchlands and even much worse, Rosenberg. Total lunacy.

I mean, if you want to deny conscious experience, fine. But then just study the brain or something. Why bother speaking about "there seems to be qualia" be there isn't any. It's quite amazing to believe that we are Zombies and not people.

The most fascinating question of them all, at least to me. I think we tend to adapt metaphysical views based, to some extent, on what we believe to be the case. A religious person may well find idealism more attractive than other varieties of thought, whereas many scientists would likely prefer materialism, in so far as it can be articulated. Chomsky would say that materialism can't be formulated.

Not that these views necessarily need to clash with each other. It depends on how you use the terminology. I think Strawson's "Real Materialism" is possibly the most sensible metaphysical view, taken as a whole. But I suspect some people here will take it to be vacuous.

I also suspect we also choose if it makes sense to believe the world to be "ghostly" or "machine-like". Also subject to temperament: tender minded vs tough minded as William James put it.

It keeps coming back to consciousness. You know, what is it? Something the brain does, as the heart pumps blood. But obviously consciousness is our access to the world.

So I agree with Xtrix, the following questions are crucial:

"what is metaphysics"? and what is "consciousness"? This thread presumably takes these things for granted. — Xtrix

Metaphysics has many definitions. Maybe the safest characterization of it would be, metaphysics tries to articulate, in the broadest possible manner, what the nature of the world is like, based on experience. Besides saying consciousness is something the brain does - which is true - what can be said about it? Well, conscious activity, when directed at the world, has intentionality.

In the human case, we have reasons to believe that besides consciousness, we have self-consciousness: awareness that we are aware of the world. In poetic terms, I believe Schopenhauer said it somewhere not in these terms, that in human beings, our conscious awareness is nature being able to look at herself.

All very hard questions. I'll end my mad ramblings here. :)

Have you read Lao Tzu? Give me one of his arguments.

Both Socrates and Plato made arguments.

Do I have an unduly narrow concept of bakery if I don't consider music a form of it? — Bartricks

Not in a while. Though some here would give you many very detailed arguments.

Just open the book, read any page. Tell me those aren't arguments. In fact, they seem to me to be practically identical with Wittgenstein's mysticism in the Tractatus.

Of course, if you think the "Tao" is a bad idea or something which makes no sense, then it won't be of any use to you.

But the same can be said about Heidegger when he uses the word "being" in Being and Time.

Well, if you don't consider music to have philosophical aspects, then you can say that aesthetics is not a part of philosophy, nor is the perception of sound, much less are you able to say why we consider some noise to be just that, noise, and why in other situations noise is perceived by us as music.

So yes, leaving the arts out of philosophy would be a mistake.

I have thought deeply on the topic. I even put my chin on the back of my hand and pondered. Which leads me to what you told me:

If they're not making an argument, then they're not philosophers. — Bartricks

So Lao Tzu makes no arguments? Did Socrates give arguments or was it Plato?

The point, as I see it, is that it's not clear what should be called philosophy and what should not be called philosophy. Case in point would be Newton and Kant. Both were scientists and philosophers.

If you tell me there's nothing of philosophical relevance in novels or music, then what you think of philosophy must be quite narrow.

Yeah. Well, can't this topic come under the cover of, say, "what's it like to be in pain"? As in, we have an idea of what such a state consists of, therefore we might want to avoid doing that to bats.

Or something like that.

Na man, I'm kidding! :rofl: :razz:

Needs detail. — Banno

Why are you copying my argument? :cool:

In the absence of a binding system of morality, concepts such as "consciousness" have to carry the moral load. — baker

Sure, consciousness is an absolutely crucial aspect to moral considerations.

I don't think this applies to "what it's likeness" though. Or at least, I'm not seeing the connection.

Any account of consciousness has to account for its moral implications. — baker

Yes, what you quote there is true. That was a problem for Cartesians who by today's standards would be considered quite monstruos. Animal rights, though still having ways to go, have improved drastically. It's a major topic of concern now with criminal liabilities, back then, it was not too important.

But today, I think the issue can be put forth without much controversy, bats should not be made to suffer needlessly.

But I think this is true even if "what it's likeness" arguments don't follow, that is, they can't be stated properly. Even if there is no such thing as "what it's like to be a bat", I think it makes sense to treat them decently.

Or would you say what it's like arguments are necessary here?

Well it's good to know that all the universities and all the professionals and amateurs are wrong in thinking about Eastern philosophy as a tradition that is different from the Western one.

Even without the
benefit of philosophical reflection, anyone who has spent some
time in an enclosed space with an excited bat knows what it is to
encounter a fundamentally alien form of life." — baker

Thanks for pointing that out.

Wouldn't being in a completely dark cave and using a rock to try and find out where the walls are be akin to a kind of echolocation?

Sure, it could well be the case that bats have experience. There's no way to tell that I know of. I don't think this should necessarily raise ethical concerns about treating bats badly or anything like that. I assume our intuitions of giving experience to creatures starts to blur quite a bit in the case of worms.

Part of the problem has to do with using our notion of experience and applying to other species. But we know of no other metric to think about experience at all.

Doesn't look likely we are in the real world then? :grimace: — Down The Rabbit Hole

Well, there are few certainties (if any) in life, so there's no way to know for sure. But based on probability and plausibility, I think this is the "real" world. But as an idealist of sorts, take that with a grain of salt. :chin:

A lot of the bad reviews might be people that don't agree with his conclusions. I don't think this is good reason for disliking a book though - I am happy with a book that is well written and challenges my worldview. — Down The Rabbit Hole

:up:

Honestly, the one clear PR mistake Hoffman made, to my mind, was to put Deepak Chopra as the top blurb in the back of the book. At least that's how it was with the hardcover version of the book. It's fine if you think people ought to be open minded or don't find Deepak silly.

But having that name as the top comment will turn off many people who don't take Chopra seriously. This happens to include many of the people you'd want to get to take "conscious realism" seriously.

That one issue aside, the book is fine and mostly enjoyable.

I was thinking of getting Hoffman's book a while back, but the reviews were terrible. — Down The Rabbit Hole

The book is fine. I mean, I think it's good to put idealism back on the table. The main problem with the book has to do with him saying that science does not tell us about the nature of reality. But he relies on science to lead him to his idealism.

But I did not think the book terrible, even if it was not persuasive to me. You might like it, or not.

That makes no sense. Everyone in the world is a philosopher then.

I never said musicians and artists are philosophers, I said that they offer "provocative philosophical material". Quite different.

You would agree with me, then, that it is rather silly to talk of western philosophy as if it is something. We should just talk of 'philosophy' and pay no heed to where the philosopher happened to be born. — Bartricks

If you prefer that, sure. I personally like to think of philosophy in a broad manner. This makes me include novelists and musicians as providing provocative philosophical material, yet they're not called philosophers.

If they're not arguing something, they're not philosophers. So, Descartes is. Lao Tzu isn't. — Bartricks

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. The designation of "philosophy" can be misleading, I think.

Lao Tzu is not arguing? What about early Wittgenstein? Those look more like statements rather than arguments.

True, Descartes was a philosopher, but he was very much interested in math and physiology. Then again, Newton was a philosopher too.

It's only by the mid 19th century that the distinction between scientists and philosophers became more apparent. Around the time Whewell coined the term "scientist", the distinction was not yet clear. Descartes, Hume or Kant could not have told you is they were a philosopher or a scientist.

These are just convenient designations. "Western" philosophy goes from Plato to Russell, but it does not include the Buddha or Lao Tzu, etc. etc.

So no, it's not just "philosophy" it's a large portion of it.

He is saying that it is a personal position but it should not be implemented as a Stalinist social directive. — Tom Storm

Ah. Gotcha. Thanks.