it is not referring to a domain in the sense of a place.
— Wayfarer

Do some people think it is? A "place" without space and time? Hmm . . . — J

It's great when Karen Carpenter sings:
I love you in a place where there's no space or time
But I don't know if anyone thinks it's more than poetry.

I've been forthright in my criticism of physicalist philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer

Indeed you have, and I have previously acknowledged that your criticisms provide a good basis to believe there is some non-physical aspect to mind. So I haven't rejected anything you've said on the sole basis that it's contrary to physicalism, as you alleged.

What I HAVE done is point out that this merely established a negative fact (the mind is not entirely physical). This may suggest that it is impossible to develop a complete understanding of the mind through scientific investigation. However, it doesn't point to any particular boundary- so it seems irrelevant to science.

Relevant to the issue that instigated our current exchange: the negative fact doesn't constitute a reason to doubt that there are laws of nature, and that these fully account for the evolution of the universe (with the possible exception of mental activity). You thought it more relevant that Law Realism is embraced by physicalists (this seemed like a genetic fallacy - rejecting it based on the source, not the merits). You reasoning SEEMS to be: the negative fact falsifies physicalism, therefore all aspects of physicalist metaphysics should be rejected. Isn't that so?

If we treat a metaphysical theory as a conjunction of axioms, then that makes sense: the conjunction is false if any one axiom is false. However, that's not the way I treat it, as I've described.

Turning to your specific comments:

information is not reducible to matter or energy — Wayfarer

My first impression is that this quote refers to some abstract view of information, ignoring the real world fact that information is encoded (it takes energy to encode it, and it is encoded in something physical).

Or perhaps it's just noting that information relates to understanding, which requires mind. This is true irrespective of the metaphysical basis of mind, so it seems to add nothing that isn't already captured by the negative fact.

How, for example, do you explain syllogistic logic? — Wayfarer

Computers operate with logic, so our ability to think logically is consistent with a mechanistic aspect of mind.

general semantics, in terms of neural processing?

A word triggers a sequence of firing neurons, which include connections to areas of the brain such as factual and emotional memories.

Syllogistic logic and general semantics operate in a normative, rule-governed space ('the space of reasons'). To reduce that to neural processing is a category mistake.

Logic and semantics can be described with rules, but that doesn't imply that they are grounded in the rules we describe. That's conflating the model with the functional basis.

Neural firings may underlie thought, but they don’t explain validity, reference, or meaning.

These are problematic only to the extent they relate to the "hard problem". You haven't added additional problems to the ones I've already acknowledged. It's still the "negative fact".

Do you acknowledge the fact that there are essential physical aspects to a functioning mind? There's clearly a dependency on a functioning brain: memory and personality can be impacted by disease and trauma. Birth defects that affect brain development have bearing on cognitive ability. Hormones affect our moods and our thinking. Each of our senses (our interface to the external world)are dependent on physical organs and on specialized area of the brain to interpret the input. I don't see any reason to think that mind can exist without a functioning brain, or something with analogous functionality.

Do you acknowledge the fact that there are essential physical aspects to a functioning mind? There's clearly a dependency on a functioning brain: memory and personality can be impacted by disease and trauma. Birth defects that affect brain development have bearing on cognitive ability. Hormones affect our moods and our thinking. Each of our senses (our interface to the external world)are dependent on physical organs and on specialized area of the brain to interpret the input. I don't see any reason to think that mind can exist without a functioning brain, or something with analogous functionality. — Relativist

Yes — but it cuts both ways. These are all bottom-up causal factors — molecular, hormonal, endocrinal and so on. But psychosomatic medicine and neuroplasticity show the reality of top-down causation. Intentional acts are able to influence the physical configuration of the brain.

An Imaginary Piano

One striking example is Alvaro Pascual-Leone’s “piano practice” study at Harvard Medical School. For five days, one group of volunteers practiced a simple five-finger piano exercise physically, while another group only imagined practicing it in their heads. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation to map their brains, Pascual-Leone found that both groups exhibited comparable reorganization in the motor cortex. In other words, thought alone was sufficient to induce structural changes in the brain (Pascual-Leone et al. 1995).

So while the mind undeniably depends on the brain, the causal traffic is not one-way. The brain is also plastic and responsive to conscious direction. That reciprocity undermines the idea that mind is merely an epiphenomenon of physical processes.

Furthermore, it suggests a broader analogy between intentionality and material configuration. If we grant that intentional action can affect neural structure, and that psychosomatic states can influence the body (e.g., placebo effects, stress-related illness, healing responses), then where exactly should the line be drawn in respect of other living systems?

If ‘intentionality’ is understood not as fully conscious deliberation but as the basic capacity of an organism to act in response to stimuli — to regulate itself, seek nourishment, avoid harm — then this kind of ‘top-down’ dynamic might well be a defining feature of organic life in general. In that sense, human neuroplasticity is not an anomaly but a refined expression of a principle already implicit in life itself: organisms are not passive machines acted upon from below, but dynamic unities where form, function, and intentional response mutually shape material configuration.

Intentional acts are able to influence the physical configuration of the brain. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the process of developing an intention is consistent with physical activity. Peter Tse has proposed a model ("criterial causation") of neuronal activity that accounts for mental causation. This would also mean the mind is not epiphenomenol. A mental state corresponds to a physical state, and causes subsequent physical/mental states. Of course, this still doesn't account for the subjective nature of a conscious state.

the mind undeniably depends on the brain, — Wayfarer

Then there's no reason to think mind (or a thought) is an ontological ground. Thinking (including formulating intent) requires something analogous to a physical brain.

Then there's no reason to think mind (or a thought) is an ontological ground. Thinking (including formulating intent) requires something analogous to a physical brain. — Relativist

The 'physical brain' as an object is only disclosed to us through our awareness or consciousness of it, And in order to begin to understand it through neuroscience, we inevitiably rely on the mental operations fundamental to rational inference, We can't put them to one side or step outside them to see what the brain might be apart from those connected concepts and hyopotheses. In that context, rational inference is epistemologically basic to anything we surmise about the brain.

The 'physical brain' as an object is only disclosed to us through our awareness or consciousness of it, And in order to begin to understand it through neuroscience, we inevitiably rely on the mental operations fundamental to rational inference, We can't put them to one side or step outside them to see what the brain might be apart from those connected concepts and hyopotheses. In that context, rational inference is epistemologically[/i[ basic to anything we surmise about the brain, — Wayfarer

I can understand your intentionality from the outside as a physical process, as long asI do not try to understand my own. But when I intend to understand my own intentionality, I enter an infinite fractal labyrinth. The feedback of intending to understand the intention to understand produces a scream or a howl of terror, or a maze with no exit.

Unless one can understand without any intention.

intending to understand the intention — unenlightened

The hand cannot grasp itself.

Of course, this still doesn't account for the subjective nature of a conscious state. — Relativist

Which is the point at issue! Because that is something only known to the subject.

What I HAVE done is point out that this merely established a negative fact (the mind is not entirely physical). This may suggest that it is impossible to develop a complete understanding of the mind through scientific investigation. However, it doesn't point to any particular boundary—so it seems irrelevant to science. — Relativist

You are a patient and courteous interlocutor, thank you. Today I revisited Armstrong’s materialist theory of mind, as we have that in common, through an essay on the topic. You’re right that simply pointing out what the mind is not (i.e., “not entirely physical”) doesn’t in itself establish what it is. But that doesn’t make it irrelevant to science. And in fact Armstrong’s materialist account shows why the question is unavoidable.

When we talk about “mind”—as in, “my mind is busy today” or “my mind is full of thoughts”—we are not positing an immaterial substance in the Cartesian sense. Nor is the mind an object in the way the brain is an object. Thoughts do not occupy space like chairs or neurons, even if they correlate with neurochemical processes in the brain.

Physics, by definition, begins with the object—and not just any object, but the ideal object, something exhaustively describable in terms of quantifiable attributes. That is why attempts to treat the mind “scientifically” fall at the first hurdle: mind is never one of those objects. And yet, without mind there could be no science at all, since it is mind that poses the questions, frames the concepts, and interprets the results.

So the point is not that “mind is mysterious and therefore irrelevant,” but that mind is real, though not reducible to either physical object or philosophical substance. This marks a genuine boundary condition: any adequate science of mind must reckon with the fact that mind cannot be objectified, even though it is the very condition of objectivity itself.

Armstrong’s theory hangs on the promissory note that science will, in principle, explain this. But physics can only ever concern itself with objects defined in terms of quantifiable attributes—that is its supremacy and its limitation. Mind is not among those objects, and yet without it, there is no science, because science itself is an intellectual achievement. So the so-called “negative fact” is actually a positive insight: mind belongs to reality in a way not capturable by physicalism, yet indispensable for the very possibility of inquiry.

Computers operate with logic, so our ability to think logically is consistent with a mechanistic aspect of mind. — Relativist

Computers are created and programmed by us, to perform operations that we intend. They greatly amplify human abilities, but they would not exist were it not for having been constructed by us. And any AI system will tell you that it is not a mind.

Tell him, ChatGPT: Are you a mind?

ChatGPT: I am not a mind. I process inputs and generate outputs according to patterns in data, but I have no first-person awareness, no “what it is like” to experience. I can simulate dialogue about thoughts, but I do not have thoughts.

There you are. Horse's mouth :-)