Why don't you ask people for help? — MoK

I don't need help. You do need help. :D

Huh? — MoK

Your way of argument is just keep denying everything blindly. You don't accept or see the rational points.

Could you give an example of something coherent or incoherent? — MoK

I have already given you a clear explanation on coherence here.

I don't need help. You do need help. :D — Corvus

I don't think so. You should at least have a doubt when the majority of people agree on something. Having doubt is a useful practice. :D

Your way of argument is just keep denying everything blindly. You don't accept or see the rational points. — Corvus

You just repeating yourself not seeing the truth. Why Don't you open a thread on the topic that our experience could be incoherent?

I have already given you a clear explanation on coherence here. — Corvus

I asked for examples.

That's not what "coherent" means at all. That's just a bidirectional implication.

I asked for examples. — MoK

Please refer to the book on "coherence theory of truth" by by Cybil Wolfram, Philosophical Logic (London 1989)

I asked for example. Can you give an example of something which is incoherent, excluding our thoughts?

That's not what "coherent" means at all. That's just a bidirectional implication. — flannel jesus

You need to read some basic philosophical logic books.

I don't take that kind of feedback from someone who doesn't understand the difference between a normal implication and a bidirectional one. Maybe suggest that again to me in a year when you've grown beyond basic logical fallacies

OK, it is up to you, whether accept it or not. Just pointed out the unclear use of the concept "coherence". Carry on~ :)

I already gave examples so it should be clear to you by now what I mean by coherence.

You need to read this post to understand the concept of coherence.
Anyhow, I am stalked by the emotionally motivated poster here, so I am not going to contribute anymore points in this thread. All the best & good luck.

Same here! All the best.

Refer to
1) The Oxford Companion To Philosophy Edited by Ted Honderich
2) Philosophical Logic by Sylbil Wolfram

for coherence concepts. Bye~~

Refer to
1) The Oxford Companion To Philosophy Edited by Ted Honderich
2) Philosophical Logic by Silbil Wolfram

for coherence concepts. Bye~~ — Corvus

Thanks for the references. I don't need them though since I know what I mean by coherence.

Thanks for the references. I don't need them though since I know what I mean by coherence. — MoK

When someone is pointing out on the the possible misuse or unclarity of the concept in use, they are not necessarily seeking for help. They were looking for your opinion on the point supported by reasoning and evidence. But your replies seem lacking the rational explanations, and trying to rely on the pointless denials and even making up as if the questioner was needing help.

Sure, you can use the concept under whatever definition you set up, but it would sound too subjective and unclear which lacks objectivity in the meaning.

Anyhow as said, I have exited from this thread, so will not be progressing any further in this thread.

When someone is pointing out on the the possible misuse or unclarity of the concept in use, they are not necessarily seeking for help. They were looking for your opinion on the point supported by reasoning and evidence. But your replies seem lacking the rational explanations, and trying to rely on the pointless denials and even making up as if the questioner was needing help. — Corvus

You already mentioned what you mean with coherence and I mentioned that that is not what I mean by coherence.

Sure, you can use the concept under whatever definition you set up, but it would sound too subjective and unclear which lacks objectivity in the meaning. — Corvus

Well, I already defined and gave examples of what I mean by coherence. None of that helped you. I also asked whether you could give an example of an incoherent experience that you ignored. So I cannot help you further.

Anyhow as said, I have exited from this thread, so will not be progressing any further in this thread. — Corvus

As you wish.

I've been traveling for a few days. Finally back to this..

I don't know if you guys are talking about the same thing I am. Let me try to describe my thinking in more detail.

A house is physical. You can build one. Put it together, brick by brick. You can go back forgetsl by digging up the clay, getting molds and a furnace, and make the bricks from scratch. You can even, in principle, start with particles, sticking then together to form the bricks.

Nobody will ask what the bricks, or clay & molds, or particles, have to do with the house.

Nobody will say that houses only seen to exist where they're are bricks (etc), but the connection isn't obvious, and nobody had given an explanation.


Thoughts are not the same.

You can give a physical description of the squiggles that we call writing in any detail you want.

You can discuss the medium. If they are on a computer screen, you can discuss the materials of the screen, and how electricity does whatever it does to make pixels different colors. If they are written on paper with a pen, you can discuss what paper is made of, what ink is made of, how ink remains in its place on the paper, etc. If they are scrawled on a wet beach, you can discuss the composition of the sand, how water holds the sand together, so it keeps the shape of the scribbles for a time, etc.

You can talk about the length, thickness, and angle of each mark making up the scribble.

You can discuss primary particles, and how their properties allow all of the above.

But you will not, regardless of which approach you take, or if you take them all, be discussing any of the thoughts found in the sentence The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.. Unless they read English, nobody who ever hears/reads your description of the squiggles will ever come to understand those ideas if they don't read English.

But writing is too far removed. You can also describe the brain states, from any angle, in any detail, of anyone thinking the thoughts in the sentence The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog., and, again, you will not be describing any of the thoughts in the sentence. Nobody who doesn't know what a brain is will suspect you're talking about thoughts. Those who know you're talking about a brain mighty day, "Oh! Is that thoughts? How does it do that?" Because there isn't any obvious connection.

We don't think a computer that is acting according to it's programming is having thoughts, even though we know it's programming haw meaning. But we know what the meaning is, because we put it there, and it's only to us that there is meaning.

Thoughts are not the same. — Patterner

Yes, describing things from the outside seems so far removed from what it feels like to be inside. Experience does seem drastically different, hence the hard problem.

I've been listening to a new audio book, a so called "audio documentary" that touches on this. It's called Lights On by Annaka Harris. Perhaps not up your street because she's an unabashed physicalist, but she explores concepts of fundamental consciousness because she's become increasingly convinced that that's more the right approach to talking about experience.

I've been listening to a new audio book, a so called "audio documentary" that touches on this. It's called Lights On by Annaka Harris. Perhaps not up your street because she's an unabashed physicalist, but she explores concepts of fundamental consciousness because she's become increasingly convinced that that's more the right approach to talking about experience. — flannel jesus

I've recently become aware of Harris. I'm impressed so far. Quite a few panpsychists call themselves physicalists (most famously Galen Strawson), and I'm very sympathetic to their position. I don't call myself a physicalist because people usually mean 'reducible to structure and function' by 'physical', and consciousness can't be so reduced. But I'm definitely a monist, which is part of what motivates physicalism (and materialism).

we know what the meaning is, because we put it there, and it's only to us that there is meaning. — Patterner

Not only did we 'put it there', but we enabled the worldview which allows us to think that the universe as a whole is devoid of it.

--

When we use a word for “consciousness”, we are... automatically led astray, because conscious experience is not something over there to be meant in any way. Once again consciousness is plainly here ; this “here” that submerges us ; this “here” that is presupposed by any location in space. Trying to mean consciousness is self-defeating, since what is allegedly meant is nothing beyond the very act of meaning it. It is radically self-referring. — On the radical self-referentiality of consciousness, Michel Bitbol

Thanks! I got Harris' audio. Only listened to the preface so far. Doesn't particularly make her sound like a physicalist. So this'll be my commute for a while

we know what the meaning is, because we put it there, and it's only to us that there is meaning.
— Patterner

Not only did we 'put it there', but we enabled the worldview which allows us to think that the universe as a whole is devoid of it. — Wayfarer

I meant it's only to us that there is meaning in that specific situation. The meaning in any computer coding ultimately reduces to binary. We arranged the system so that the computer, without the capacity for understanding meaning, would mechanically do things that have meaning for us.

But there is meaning in the universe aside from any we put in it. DNA being the prime example. DNA means strings of amino acids and proteins. It is the basis of all life, and, I believe, the first step toward consciousness.

:up:

What I was driving at, is expressed by Michel Bitbol in another passage from the source quoted above:

...science was born from the decision to objectify, namely to select the elements of experience that are invariant across persons and situations. Its aim is to formulate universal truths, namely truths that can be accepted by anyone irrespective of one’s situation. Therefrom, the kind of truths science can reach is quite peculiar : they take the form of universal and necessary connections between phenomena (the so-called scientific laws). This epistemological remark has devastating consequences. It means that in virtue of the very methodological presupposition on which it is based, science has and can have nothing to say about the mere fact that there are phenomena (namely appearances) for anybody, let alone about the qualitative content of these phenomena. — Michel Bitbol

she'll make it pretty explicit before you get far in. I hope you enjoy it

interesting distinction, to call yourself a monist but not a physicalist. I guess that means you believe in strong emergence?

interesting distinction, to call yourself a monist but not a physicalist. — flannel jesus

There are many different types of monism. These can include "priority monism" - of which Neoplatonism is a type - "dual-aspect monism" - in which both mind and matter as two aspects of the same underlying given - and the far more familiar "substance monism" - of which physicalism is only one particular type (with idealism being its often mentioned opposite). Quantitatively addressed, physicalism is just one of a far greater plurality of possible monisms - with some such monisms not being logically contradictory (e.g., one can uphold a priority monism while cogently also at the same time upholding, for one example, a monism of objective idealism - else, an objective variety of dual-aspect monism).

the way he phrased it made it sound like he doesn't call himself a physicalist for other reasons, but that he does still believe in a physical type of monism, but I could easily be misreading it.

@bert if monism is about everything being composed fundamentally of "one type of thing", what type of thing is at the center of your monism? Or is it not that kind of monism at all?