I did not know about this quote. I have to read up on Aristotle, a bit embarrassed to admit I know very, very little of his thought.

Thanks for sharing.

One could make a case that being and experience require each other. For if we lacked the latter, we could not recognize the former. Sure, you can say that things existed before we arose, but we can only speak about them in our terms and our way of understanding. If we remove this, then, it is really difficult to speak about anything, naturally.

Something existent absent anything to confirm its existence is very problematic. We tend to say existence just is. We can say that after the fact.

I agree with such statements with qualifications. For if we never arose, we could not say that planets or rocks existed, for these, as planets and rocks, depend on our concepts. Another creature might bundle together different properties under the concept of existence.

I mean, you are right, "intelligence" could be used metaphorically - but then it's unclear as to what this means. We can describe physics in terms of intelligence too, but then we are being misleading.

And to be fair, several advances in AI are quite useful.

All this worry about AI when we have much, much more serious problems with regular human I, makes me think such worries are very much misaligned.

Also, not much is known about human intelligence, so to speak of the intelligence of something that isn't even biological should make one quite skeptical. Something in our thinking about these issues has gone wrong.

Exactly - his philosophy can be polarizing. It is interesting, but his previous works, before Process and Reality, specifically, The Concept of Nature, is better, or to be more accurate, I preferred.

I mean one can point to Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke and so many others that do excellent work in both these fields, which, incidentally, cannot be done independent of the other, it's basically impossible.

You can emphasize one or the other or try to do both equally. But there is no pure metaphysics nor pure epistemology, so they are wedded in a sense.

:up:

Not that they call it this, Lewis calls it conceptual analysis of the given in experience, whereas Tallis calls his approach "epistogony", literally generation of knowledge, but also "making knowledge visible", which is a kind of analysis of the given.

But both are basically analyzing everyday experience in a manner in which I think "epistemic metaphysics" is accurate.

In any case, the relevant books are C.I. Lewis' Mind and The World Order and Raymond Tallis' The Knowing Animal.

There are important economic factors here, no doubt as you showed in the article you shared. And indeed, there may well be other economic factors which the US has an eye on in the near future - or after the war.

The case of the Nordstream bombing is an illustration of such interests. Nevertheless, states also want power for the sake of wielding it. Now the issue is Russia, but the real concern for the US is China. But there is also plenty of business that could be done with China without recourse to provocations in Taiwan and sanctions on Chinese technology.

Why deny an immediate source of income? They don't want China to be as powerful as it is. Likewise with Cuba and Iran, sanctions on those countries are hurting what would otherwise be a business bonanza. But Cuba and Iran disobeyed the US, that is not liked. So, the profits can be set aside, while we teach them a lesson in obedience.

So yes, economy is important, but so is raw power.



Sure, I never meant to imply it was a secret. Makes some strategic sense too, in so far as Russia does not obey the US in several matters.

How far this attitude should be taken, i.e. what price should be paid in terms of lives for this expressed goal, is not clear.

I think we've had enough murder and war. Plainly, the powers at be do not.

A speck that views the universe as we do, is quite a mighty one, it seems to me.

How can one expect otherwise? It's not pretty - in fact, it's likely of the highest criminal tier imaginable, to profit from war. There is an argument to be made that weapons manufacturing should be left to the state and this way one leaves out most profit incentives.

These companies have a role to play in wanting this war to be longer - the more bullets and missiles are used, the more they sell. How much can we attribute exclusively to this industry is an open question. I suspect that the Pentagon's stated aim, "to severely weaken Russia.", is the bigger culprit.

Then again, these things are quite entangled together and prove difficult to tease apart. In any case, expected but disgusting nonetheless.

Depends on one's interest. Interesting to note nobody chose "metaphysics", which can't be right on a forum of this size. I think the example of Whitehead might be too polarizing, often it's hard to figure out what the heck he's saying, though there are some who interpret him in an interesting manner.

For my own interests, mostly the "manifest image" of everyday life, I think there's a lot of interesting ground that could be covered by an epistemological oriented metaphysics, as exemplified by C.I. Lewis and more recently by Raymond Tallis.

But there's just so much value to most of these approaches and subjects.

Just saw this, but have to say excellent post. Clear and interesting.

Would be nice to have decent mathematical skills to delve into this topic with more detail, but, I suppose basic arithmetic already offers plenty of food for thought.

Good question, I suppose I'd currently say I'm a "skeptical realist". There are many flavors of skepticism, from Pyrrhonian to "mitigated skepticism", found in Gassendi or Hume.

I just am not certain what part is completely external and what isn't. Quite hard to tease apart.

It may now be a cliche, and these, we are told, should be avoided. Nonetheless, I think they apply to those of us who resonate with them. Although the quote mentions literature specifically, I think it can apply to philosophy as well:

"Fiction's job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." - David Foster Wallace

I think this applies to my fascination with the dark side of human nature - from a psychological perspective, and also to my obsession with the idea that there are things in themselves - an aspect of reality, which we know that we cannot know. At least it is for me.

I suspect both have a tenuous connection with (im)possibility. How could a human being possibly do something as abhorrent as that? And, How can it at all possible the world as it is, differs radically from the way it appears?

Both are frustrations at lack of understanding, and yet both show a fascination with the way people think about others and the world. A good philosopher or a good novel with a philosophical idea, will comfort me in the darkness, I suppose.

And I could be doing shit psychoanalysis. Does my social status and my environment contribute to how I think? To a large extent sure. But since I cannot live two lives in separate environments, I cannot say...

In any case, thanks for opening this thread and allowing me to type out loud, with no real point in mind...

The fact that we are self-aware is nothing but an illusion, which is a good thing, because this means we don’t die entirely as long as this universe exists.

I can also argue that the source of my experience arises from the movement of my index finger. Doesn't mean it's true, much less that such statements should be taken seriously.

The only way to say that we don't really or truly die until the universe end is to argue that, in some technical sense, completely foreign to our understanding of the word, "consciousness" persists either in pieces of matter, or in some combination of "Universe-stuff".

One can freely decide what terminology one wants to use, but then go on to mistake the technical definition with our understanding of the word. In short, this looks to me as playing with words.

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.