I got there from this site which has really broadened my range of understanding - limited though it remains. So thank you! :pray:

because of cupidity — Wayfarer

The song's wrong, it's cupidity, not money which makes the world go around...

Meanwhile one of the consequences of Trump's election lies is determination on the part of many lower-level election officials to reinforce and safeguard free and fair elections. It's becoming quite a grass-roots movement throughout the US. — Wayfarer

Hope so.

I wish one of the other consequences was the elevation of truth in politics.

The self is the overarching temporally extended narrative construct of a necessarily embodied and social consciousness which turns the animal acting in an environment into a subject. It is that through which the individual recognizes that it is one of many, i.e., an individual in a society of individuals, which are also selves. The self is that which recognizes itself as a self in a world of selves.* — Jamal

Very nice.

I don’t think it’s “immaterial”, but I don’t think it’s all about the brain, though having a brain is no doubt helpful. — Jamal

Yes, I think embodied cognition is a crucial part of this. As George Lakoff says, the mind is inherently embodied - a brain with no body can't interact and can't become a self.

“...there is no real person whose embodiment plays no role in meaning, whose meaning is purely objective and defined by the external world, and whose language can fit the external world with no significant role played by mind, brain, or body. Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are metaphorical, meaning is not entirely literal and the classical correspondence theory of truth is false.”
― George Lakoff, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought

Interesting brief John Searle chapter on direct realism and what he considers to be recurring mistakes in philosophy.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328147585_The_Philosophy_of_Perception_and_the_Bad_Argument_Sprachtheoretische_und_interdisziplinare_Aspekte_einer_brisanten_Alternative

Thanks and I think this may be a good summary of Wittgenstein's approach. My only question is should we take this methodology seriously? It sometimes reads like it's merely shuffling words around.

"'So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?' It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life." — Richard B

Move over post-modernism. For those who wish to understand perception and the nature of the real, I suspect this approach is unlikely to satisfy.

Most of our problems in philosophy seem to stem from 'as they really are'.

I was hoping you'd drop by. Is your take on the conversation about realism informed by Austin and Searle?

My memory is that you would have no truck with the idea of a tree 'as it is in itself', finding this qualifier redundant.

Do you agree with Searle's account of 'the bad argument' as being a key fallacy driving these sorts of discussions that inevitable end up talking about visual illusions, etc?

Is there a fallacy found in that we are not seeing the seeing, the visual experience?

What do you say to the person who asserts that when a human regards an object, that object is to a greater or lesser extent created in the experience of perception, which brings with it anticipatory notions and memories, along with a particular cognitive apparatus which sees colours and other attributes which are present in the experience of looking but not in the object being seen. I've never known where one can stop with this (idealism I guess) and why it matters, except as a problematic foundational argument for a particular ontological position.

Before I had studied Ch’an [Zen] for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.
— Qingyuan Weixin

(I assume as a matter of course that all here are at the 'before' stage, myself included of course.) — Wayfarer

There's something very archetypal about that formulation: the quotidian/the higher awareness/the quotidian And comforting...

:up: Fascinating stuff.

Seemingly, the masses go to vote just for trivial aspects rather than asking to the politicians more effectiveness. We live in a period of time where it is more important for a politician to have a good spotlight than a great rethoric. — javi2541997

I've generally never seen it much different than this, it's just that each generation's trivialities seem more grotesque that the last.

AFAIK, so far only De Santis & Individual-1 (less and less) ... they're also looking for anyone who the MAGA mouth-breathers will support. Like Pence (who's delusional), Haley ain't one of them. — 180 Proof

I'm not across this issue - living elsewhere - but this seems on the money. Trump still has a hold of a significant chunk of the GOP. Do you think De Santis will be a bigger problem than Trump - being more disciplined and focused?

Being someone who likes flow charts more than chapters, I would like to see a chart expressing what each philosophical position holds is responsible for a human being seeing/experiencing a tree - in simple and direct language.

All this of course ends up in metaphysics or ontology... or both.

But I just gave you the fact that the brain is doing stuff (that is the interpretation), so it is indirectly accessing the tree, as it filters through that process.. which by the way, if I haven't stated it, is a human process. — schopenhauer1

Indeed. And in this argument it might be posited that via this 'human process' is built-in neuro-cognitive schema that impose what we think is reality upon the external world - in the Kantian sense, I guess, that time and space may not have a reality outside of human experience and are part of our sense making apparatus, etc.

This can all get highly complex when you add in intentional states and the work of direct realists like Putnam and Searle - none of whom I understand very well.

Then of course there is idealism, which would dissolve the entire problem of realism/antirealism and claim that while what we see is 'real' it is not what we think. Reality is the the product of consciousness and matter (trees, etc) is merely what consciousness looks like when seen from a particular perspective of mentation. This debate about realism is a kind of dress rehearsal for the mind body problem.

I think your approach has been correct. I also thought that that is arguing direct realism - that there is an objective unmediated reality 'out there', external to human perception that humans apprehend and see alike.

It's been interesting to read.

t's philosophy, and inherently messy subjects, so I say go for it. — schopenhauer1

You misunderstand me. I am asking how it is possible for us to build a robust case (the least 'messy' case possible) in this space. I am not saying that it shouldn't be done.

You are doing what I was saying we tend to do- inserting ourselves in the picture. You are coming at it from a post-facto manner. — schopenhauer1

I agree with you. Can we even talk about this subject without being hopelessly enmeshed in strictures of experience and our conceptual schemas?

Even language is a kind of sense that does not make actual contact with the things it is describing. Language's connection to reality seems as tenuous as that of visual perception.

Nicely summarized. :up: I avoid strong metaphysical commitments by claiming a form of pragmatism. I don't need to know what or why just how. No matter what we belief about the nature of reality and being, as soon as we walk out the door we behave as naïve realists. At some level the games we can play with conceptual framing and language don't matter all that much.

the vast majority of creatures, other than h.sapiens, get along perfectly well in their environmental niche without any requirement for conceptual analysis. — Wayfarer

I think this also holds for the Young Liberals I have known.

It's statistical reasoning, which makes films so bad. — ssu

For sure. But this was often at play, Pauline Kael made a similar argument over 40 years ago in 'Why Are Movies So bad? Or, The Numbers'. She was politically incorrect and brazen. Obviously written before TV got good.

The studios no longer make movies primarily to attract and please moviegoers;
they make movies in such a way as to get as much as possible from prearranged
and anticipated deals. Every picture (allowing for a few exceptions) is cast and planned
in terms of those deals. Though the studio is happy when it has a box-office hit, it isn’t
terribly concerned about the people who buy tickets and come out grumbling. They
don’t grumble very loudly anyway, because even the lumpiest pictures are generally an
improvement over television; at least, they’re always bigger. TV accustoms people to not
expecting much, and because of the new prearranged deals they’re not getting very
much. There is a quid pro quo for a big advance sale to television theaters: the project
must be from a fat, dumb bestseller about an international jewel heist or a skyjacking
that involves a planeload of the rich and famous, or be a thinly disguised showbusiness
biography of someone who came to an appallingly wretched end, or have an easily
paraphrasable theme, preferably something that can be done justice to in a sentence
and brings to mind the hits of the past. How else could you entice buyers? Certainly
not with something unfamiliar, original. They feel safe with big-star packages, with
chase thrillers, with known ingredients. For a big overseas sale, you must have “international” stars performers who are known—such as Sophia Loren, Richard Burton,
Candice Bergen, Roger Moore, Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Alain Delon, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen. And you should probably avoid complexities: Much of the new
overseas audience is subliterate. For a big advance sale to worldwide television, a movie
should also be innocuous: it shouldn’t raise any hackles, either by strong language or by
a controversial theme.

I think the beetle/box language game thing can be parked, but I guess you are saying that although humans 'create' green - it is not out there in reality - what is out there in reality is a particular light frequency that we experience as green. This can be objectively tabulated as a quality of the external world.

Is it not the case that humans experience specific light waves as color? Color is not a property in the world so much as a constructed perception, based on our visual apparatus.

I appreciate Rupert Spira's description of god as 'old language' for the transcendent and 'oneness'.

He had an astonishing mind.

One of those guess you had to be there moments? Despite that, hopefully you grasp the relevance. — Mww

Cool story. I think you need to change your name to Kantian Stargazer.



Thanks, so it was Cook's ship. I was trying to recall the details of this story with someone last week. It's the prefect example of what I was getting at.

One can imagine this kind of thing happening with concepts and frames of reference quite easily.

What are you to do, when perception presents to your reasoning mind something for which it has no conceptual representations already? — Mww

Indeed. I think this is a similar point @joshs makes in relation to how people assimilate (or fail to) unfamiliar information or fresh worldviews. We seem to need to have a partial appreciation (some conceptual representation) to take any useful step towards comprehension of the new or towards paradigmatic shifts in thought. Is something is truly unfamiliar to us are we blind to it?

:pray: :wink: Did you ever see that film 'Round Midnight with the great Dexter Gordon? I used to watch it regularly at an arthouse cinema near me, a flask filled with something nice in my pocket.

Some claim matter is neither created nor destroyed. How do you go about refuting this? For example: do you think caused and created are two different things? — ucarr

I know this is to someone else but it interests me to some extent.

I think causality is a provisional human understanding which seems to fit some matters. I don't think we know enough about reality or the universe to know that all things have causes or even what causality amounts to. I am not confident that we can look at our experience of our world and derive from this anything approaching a totalizing truth claim. At best, what we have are some testable, sometimes useful claims, but no overarching, demonstrable metanarrative. I think this gap or tension propels some of us into theism/mysticism/quantum woo or even radical politics, as the emotional need for universal narratives that can save humans and make sense of everything constantly overwhelms us.

If someone claims God is self-caused, how would you refute this refutation of {cause ⇒ effect} is always temporal? — ucarr

The problem with any claim like this - 'Leprechauns are self caused and are only seen by people who believe in them,' - are that seem to be more a jumble of words than statement about the world.

Is it not fairly dubious to claim self-creation for something which can't be demonstrated to be extant in the first place?

Temperament is very important. In my case I think experience does play a role, - I have been around too much suffering and death. But I am grateful for my own good health and fortune. Can't say I have ever felt like I belong anywhere, except maybe some jazz bar somewhere with a Sazerac and a freshly lit Lucky Strike... those day are long gone. If god stories involved booze and jazz clubs, I might have been a theist.

Someone, something, somewhere deserves thanks for this wonderful world. — T Clark

I can't imagine thinking this. To me the world seems an amoral and dangerous place (at best). But there are some people I would thank for their sacrifices on behalf of others.

It seems to me that Earth’s person Gods are childish creations of human imagination. On the other hand, the absolute, ultimate ground of existence God seems credible to me. — Art48

I think it's just that ideas of gods evolve with changes in human knowledge. Also in my experience, conservative people seem to still like the stern father model of a deity. More liberal types seem to like 'the force' style theisms. God depictions seem to reflect education, culture and politics - which is hardly surprising. Theism has never stuck me as coherent or necessary and I think belief in god might just come down to personal taste, not all that much different to whether you like garlic or Beethoven.

So which are type are you, Tom? — 180 Proof

Fool mostly and wannabe thinker.

Many people are asking really big questions and exploring the world’s philosophical heritage. — Wayfarer

That's really important. The internet gets a lot of flack, but access to decent thinkers and communities has never been easier. Of course, we get the DK crowd and the bluffers too, but at least they are mostly wanking about matters of importance.

Interesting. Until this site, I had no idea people outside of an institution actually read academic philosophy and took it seriously. I'm delighted that they do as it suggests hard thinking is not entirely a forgotten past time.

I did a similar exercise in the first few months of being here and I identified four types: thinkers, theorists, monomaniacs and fools. Naturally there's often a blur between types. The monomaniacs tend to hawke an obsession, which everything keeps coming back to. The theorists are those who suck up and spout scholarship like it's a form of redemptive catechism. The thinkers include anyone seriously engaged in ideas, with or without a philosophical education. The fool are those who... you can guess. I value all of it, but sometimes the answers to OPs read like a series of satirical depictions of personality types and their flaws. When I feel that way, I go back to music.

The concept of God is too complex and too multifaceted to be reduced to a single logical argument or observation. Instead, the pursuit of God is a deeply personal and meaningful journey that is often based on faith and intuition rather than logic. — gevgala

Everything you've argued could also lead to 'so who cares?' I guess the next part of this is establishing what faith and intuition actually mean. There's pretty much no belief going that can't be held by faith and intuition, from alien abduction to Bigfoot.

The problem I have with the "designer" idea is that it is definitely unfalsifiable, and it involves an entity, which is not observable, and processes of which we can have no idea, so it would appear to be of little or no use to the speculative understanding. — Janus

Yes, and it involves an entity for which we have no actual evidence in the first place - or a series of entities, or an advance alien species. Even if one accepts a designer it is impossible to say what or who that might be.

The design argument resembles the 'something from nothing' argument or pre-suppositionalist justifications for reason - it's an attempt to prove a god figure without actual evidence of that god. This is done by avoiding the pesky question of evidence for a deity and pointing instead to debatable interpretations of phenomena as evidence of their works. 'You see, there is a god, I can't imagine how else we could explain the origin of life/design/reason, etc.' A fallacy from incredulity.

Well, at the very least, "the onus is on the design advocate to" demonstrate scientifically that both the universe and life are "designed" in the first place. — 180 Proof

:up:

The fallacy of incredulity includes what I said, but it also includes other things. — Sam26

And includes what I said. :wink:

There seems to be an equivocation in the use of the word 'purpose' between #1 and #2. — Fooloso4

Indeed.

My argument is not simply based on, "Well, it's just common sense, or it must be true because it's easy to understand," — Sam26

I never said it was. I said you were making a fallacy from incredulity. Might I say, a textbook example.

(1) Human artifacts that have a structure such that the parts fit together to accomplish a purpose which is higher than any part alone, such as a watch, car, or computer, are the result of intelligent design.

(2) Artifacts of nature have a structure where the parts fit together to accomplish a purpose which is higher than any part alone, such as the human body. — Sam26

That's an example of a false equivalence fallacy - based on some resemblance. I think you need stronger premises.

There's much more to the argument, but I'm going to leave it here. — Sam26

Perhaps better we leave this discussion to people with actual philosophy and science expertise.

Thanks for the response though. — Sam26

You're welcome. I enjoyed the discussion.

The key difference is in how secure the person is in those beliefs – an agnostic will recognize a realistic possibility that their beliefs are incorrect, whereas a theist or atheist generally will not. — Gnomon

Most atheists I've encountered these days say they are agnostic atheists - for reasons I described earlier. I think this makes sense. One claim goes to knowledge, the other goes to belief. It is entirely possible not to know if god exists but also to not hold a belief in any god/s.

As Kant pointed out, personal experiences are the only evidence of ding an sich Reality that we humans have, from which to construct our worldviews and belief systems. Everything else is hearsay. — Gnomon

I know the argument, but such hearsay actually runs the world and our belief systems. How would governments, a military, corporations, social groups function without their articles of faith - documentations, texts, constitutions, preambles, amendments, treaties, books... ? Personal experience is never just a value free experience - in most cases people are primed by culture and the weight of conventions to see and experience in very particular ways.

Can you identify this reality that we all share that hasn't already been mediated, parsed and shaped by society and family expectations and cultural values?

There are just too many similarities between human artifacts and artifacts of nature that point to ID, they're innumerable. — Sam26

Your points are interesting to me, I think it 's certainly possible to see similarities in things if you choose too.

The only thing that I can see that you have going for you is that most philosophers and scientists don't believe in ID, although many do. — Sam26

I'm neither a philosopher or scientist nor know those worlds, so they don't really impact upon my views other than indirectly.

the human brain is probably the most complex thing in the universe, if it's not, it's certainly among the most complex; and to think it happened by chance (which maybe logically possible, although probably not metaphysically possible) is to strain credulity. — Sam26

That seems a classic fallacy from incredulity - you even used the word credulity. I don't know the universe well enough to make any totalising claims about human brains. But I do know it is us making value judgments like this and we're a bit biased. 'Complexity' is an idea defined by us and who knows what counts as complex outside of the human imagination.

I don't think there is any way to explain, how for example, the human body happened without some intelligence behind its structure, other than to appeal to ID. — Sam26

There's another fallacy from incredulity. 'I can't imagine how else it could have happened..."

I have no illusions that this will be convincing to many of you, but I think it's an important point to be made. — Sam26

It's not convincing because we still lack a demonstration of how nature is the product of design. It still seems a wonky inference to make, but it's easy to see why people might make it.

Of course many consider the hallmark of good design to be simplicity. Something being complex is just something being complex. One would need a demonstration of how complexity would be impossible without a designer. Not just an argument from personal incredulity.

I think the architecture of ant colonies is instructive because it involves many ants doing specialized tasks. If it is intelligent design then which ant or ants is the designer? — Fooloso4

There must be a university educated chief engineer ant who directs it all. It's impossible to imagine how else they could do it. Of course we know the answer here - god directs it all - the ants are entirely incidental...

:up:

:up:

The point is that we do have objects that don't fit your criteria, and yet we know they're intelligently designed. — Sam26

I was simply responding spontaneously to your question about what is evidence of intelligent design. I think my answer is pretty sound, but I never pretended that it would determine with 100% accuracy all cases. No doubt there are elaborate things crafted from metal, stone and wood that are mysteries. Nevertheless, the fact that we can all tell they are crafted suggests design isn't entirely elusive.

What we come back to is the notion that we have yet to demonstrate that the world or universe is designed. I am not convinced by any of the arguments in support of the proposition, as I've stated earlier, just as I am unconvinced there are gods. It's a judgement I make and others will make different judgements.

Okay. So, none of the stories are true? What is this "broader truth"? For that matter, what is it broader than? Who are these allegorical stories really about? — Vera Mont

Plenty of books on this by people like Paul Tillich, David Bentley Hart and Shelby Spong and the like. I'm not a progressive Christian, so I'm not involved. I never had the interest to go look for subtext and interpretative value.

I'm asking the most superficial, obvious question - not necessarily of you, but of any or all apologists:
If not from the Bible, where does the character of God come from? — Vera Mont

I grew up in the Baptist tradition. We were taught that the Bible stories were allegories to tell a broader truth about the nature of god and man. Literalist interpretations are more of a recent phenomenon within Protestant traditions - according to people like Karen Armstrong and David Bentley Hart (two theist writers of note).

God it would be argued comes first. Stories which capture the deity come second. Hence the evolving nature of theology over time. Most theists I grew up in the 1970's-80's with would argue that all religions are human attempts to capture the same truth about the transcendent or 'oneness' using a language that belongs to a particular time and place. This is known as the perennial tradition.

One of the odd consequences of the argument against design is that the only creatures that we know of that are capable of designing is h. sapiens. — Wayfarer

I would say a beaver dam, spider web or a bird's nest are designed too. Maybe not in the same manner as a car but certainly planned and contrived for a purpose.