I agree that there are philosophical "domains" that go beyond the self-imposed limits of Objective Physical Science. — Gnomon

I don't say they "go beyond" but just that they are different domains of inquiry.

Beyond their mapping of neural coordinates of consciousness though, modern psychology tells us nothing about how a blob of matter can produce sentience & awareness & opinions — Gnomon

The brain is not a "blob of matter" so your question is moot. You seem to be thinking in terms of some obsolete paradigm.

Thank you for that careful analysis. The comment about 'being ignored' was in response to posts by several contributors who predicted that I would ignore one entry challenging one of my responses, which I did not, and which was repeated even after I had responded. (I try and respond to challenges although it's inevitable there's going to be some 'talking past one another' going on considering the subject matter.)

Given that the world represents the manifold of all possible material things, those material things are necessarily presupposed if consciousness is claimed to be inseparable from them. One cannot deny that which he has already presupposed as necessary. From which follows denial of materialism as such, is self-contradictory given from its being the ground for the composition of the world of material things consciousness is said to be inseparable from. — Mww

The 'inseperability of self and world' is an underlying theme that I have been exploring through various perspectives. The original intuition behind it was the sense that reality itself is not something we're outside of or apart from. This insight was a consequence of having been immersed in the study of the perennial philosophies and the 'unitive vision' that they refer to in their different ways. At the time I was reading the American Transcendentalists ("The act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson). This gave me an awareness that the sense we usually have of being separate egos in a material world is actually a culturally-conditioned state of being. (This will be generally stereotyped as being 'religious'.)

….if materialism were true with respect to linguistic communication, — Mww

Lloyd Gerson's point was made in respect of Aristotle. The section quoted was about Aristotle's hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism. According to Aristotelian philosophy, the form (idea, principle) of a particular thing is what the intellect knows, which makes it possible to say 'this particular is X'. The senses receive the material impression while the intellect receives the form. It is precisely that ability that underwrites reason, the faculty that differentiates humans from other animals. This is what Gerson was glossing when he said 'you could not think if materialism were true' - because rational thought relies on the abiility to grasp universal concepts and thereby understand what things are. (Aristotelianism has generally fallen out of favour in modern philosophy, although it still has plenty of defenders.)

:up:

Not according to Edward Feser, it isn't. — Wayfarer

His FRAMING of universals isn't consistent with physicalism. The issue would be: what facts of the world are explainable with one's definition, and which one's aren't. A physicalist definition covers the facts adequately.

Armstrong is not a realist about universals in the classical sense at all. — Wayfarer

Irrelevant, if all facts are adequately accounted for.

You have made the false claim that I defer to science, but I see you deferring to ancient philosophy, as if that makes it somehow authoritative. You're free to embrace what they said, but you'll need do defend it - I won't accept an argument from authority.

It was, "what justified beliefs does it lead to?"
— Relativist

The justified belief that knowledge cannot be solely objective — Wayfarer

The law of noncontradiction is objective fact. Your assertion could apply to a posterior beliefs, and the logical consequence is that we have no a posteriori knowledge - because it's logically possible for it to be false. One can also arrive at that conclusion by considering Gettier problems. This is why I stress justified belief, rather than knowledge.

If an insight leads to a dead-end,
— Relativist

Then it's not an insight. But the fact that someone doesn't recognise an insight doesn't mean it's a dead end. — Wayfarer

Consider me guilty of not recognizing this alleged insight on my own, but also recognize that I'm asking you to point out what I'm overlooking. I get it, that it entails the fact that our perspectives are inescapably subjective, but I arrived at that conclusion on my own without this alleged insight. What you call a "mind-created world" I have called a "paradigm".

the relationship 'north of'. It doesn't exist in the same sense that Edinburgh and London exist, — Wayfarer

It's semantics, describing an actual physical relation in terms relative to a cartological convention. It is a fact that Edinburgh and London have a specific, spatial relation to each other that is ontological.

the whole idea of existence depends on the mind's ability to grasp these intelligible relations — Wayfarer

The IDEA of existence depends on our cognitive abilities, but given that we have this ability, it is reasonable (justified) to believe this idea represents an aspect of the world.

This is important, don't brush it aside.The reason it's not noticed is because we rely on the mind's ability to discern these relationships, without which we wouldn't be able to form an idea of the world. So that's the sense in which the world is 'mind-dependent' - not going in or out of existence, depending on whether you yourself see it, but because the whole idea of existence depends on the mind's ability to grasp these intelligible relations (which is elaborated in The Mind Created World op). Which we don't see because (as Russell says) they don't exist, they're not 'out there somewhere'. If there's a single insight that empiricism cannot grasp, it is this one and dare I say the apparent inability to grasp it, is an illustrative example. — Wayfarer

You should stop referring to the world as "mind-independent", because you know it isn't. You make it clear in that op that you're referring to the fact that it is our mental view of the world that is mind-dependent. When described correctly, it seems less profound: a product of the mind is mind-dependent.

But I think you're trying to argue that there's something magical about the fact that our minds can do what they do (where "magical"= not even possibly a consequence of material processes.) This is where your focus should be, and what you should try and make the case for. If you have a case to make, don't repeat Feser's approach of framing the issues in immaterial terms. Consider the mistake you made when you suggested that a thought might be a primitive: you hadn't considered that thoughts entail processes. IMO, the best physicalist accounts of all things mental are based on processes, not objects (and not static brain states). Concepts are not objects, they entail a sequence of thoughts and draw on memories. Consider a concept that can be described verbally: this act of description could be parallel to the mental processes involved when we formulate or utilize the concept. You don't seem to have considered this.

I think you're trying to argue that there's something magical about the fact that our minds can do what they do (where "magical"= not even possibly a consequence of material processes.) — Relativist

Not magical—just not the same kind of thing. My point is that the capacity to grasp reasons, recognise valid versus invalid inferences, and understand causal relations as relations is categorically different from the physical processes described by neuroscience. Physical causation can explain correlations and mechanisms, but it cannot be the normativity involved in reasoning.

That’s why I say neural states aren’t the “basis” of mental causation in the way you’re implying: whatever neural states enable reasoning, the content and validity of inferences aren’t reducible to their physical description. They belong to a different explanatory order.

Physicalism, naturalism, and materialism generally seek to naturalise cognition in terms of evolutionary theory and neuroscience. Which is OK as far as the science is concerned, but there's an implicit conviction, again. that science provides the court of adjutication for philosophy. What it actually does is change the terms in which philosophical questions should be asked and answered, so that they conform to what can be defended as scientifically respectable.

Furthermore even if human reason is not magical, it is extraordinarily uncanny. To think these 'featherless bipeds' descended from homonim species that evolved capturing prey on the savanahs over thousands of millenia are now able to weigh and measure the Universe.

Consider a concept that can be described verbally: this act of description could be parallel to the mental processes involved when we formulate or utilize the concept. You don't seem to have considered this. — Relativist

I have indeed considered it, and this is precisely where the argument from multiple realisability bites. Even if you can verbally describe a concept, the physical or neural realisation of that concept can vary enormously. This isn’t an incidental feature — it’s structurally unavoidable.

A single sentence can be expressed in English, Mandarin, Braille, Morse code, binary, or handwritten symbols, and the meaning is preserved across all of these radically different physical forms. That shows that meaning is not identical with any one physical instantiation.

Neuroscience faces the same issue. During the “Decade of the Brain,” researchers tried to identify specific, repeatable neural signatures for learning new concepts or words. What they found were broad regional activations but no consistent, fine-grained neural pattern that maps onto a specific meaning. That’s exactly what multiple realisability predicts: the same semantic content can be realised in indefinitely many different neural configurations.

So the fact that we can describe a concept verbally doesn’t help your claim — it actually illustrates why semantics and reasoning can’t be reduced to any one class of physical patterns. The level of explanation is simply different.

And this is precisely where the significance of universals shows up. Feser says 'A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once.' Russell: 'if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them.'

The whole basis of language and abstraction is clearly reliant on these cognitive processes which are unique (at least in the way that humans are able to use them). So I'm arguing that trying to account for them in physical terms is categorically mistaken.

In short, physical processes are governed by causal relationships; reasoning is governed by norms of validity. The latter can't be reduced to the former.

Of the large number of possibilities which one could theoretically come up they can be arranged into two groups, those where there is a mental origin, or ones where there is a non mental, or physical, origin. These categories are derived from the two things we know for sure about our being, 1, that we are, have, a living mind and 2, there is a physical world that we find ourselves in. If you can provide an alternative to these two, I would like to know. — Punshhh

And yet, some people seriously entertain solipsism and idealism - because they are not provably impossible. This is the sort of thing I'm complaining about. I'm fine with the focus you suggest.

When it comes to philosophical enquiry into our existence, philosophy is mute, blind, it can’t answer the question. — Punshhh

This tells me you are not a theist. Philosophically minded theists often think they can "prove" God's existence through philosophical analysis. Debating these issues is what drew me to learn a bit about philosophy.

I’m not going to talk for Wayfarer, but the impression I had was that the philosophical interpretation of the physical world (including our scientific findings) is what he takes issue with. — Punshhh

Actually, he accepts science. His focus seems to be philosophy of mind. He takes issue with materialist theory of mind. Issues SHOULD be taken with it, but I object to declaring materialism (in general) false on the basis of the explanatory gap, while meanwhile taking flights of fancy (mere possibilities) seriously.

This seems like a lot (and, I do not mean this disparagingly. I'd not have seen this until this ninth page) of back-and-forward to simply say

"Wayf doesn't accept that conscious activity can be reduced to neural correlates"

Nothing profound or wrong going on there. Maybe the gripe is with people who seem to think materialism is provable. That seems to me, demonstrably not the case (and perhaps, demonstrably not possible). But that doesn't actually make it untrue. Its awkward.

But I don't see anyone being unnecessarily defensive about it. Seems a run-of-the mill Phil of Mind disagreement.

I don't say they "go beyond" but just that they are different domains of inquiry. — Janus

So, you are saying they are parallel domains --- empirical vs speculative --- not one above another? That's OK. I was not implying any heavenly domain for philosophy, but merely that it is not bound by the necessity for material evidence. In that sense, philosophers are free to "go beyond" the physical limits of Science, in order to explore the metaphysical (immaterial) aspects of the Cosmos. :smile:

The brain is not a "blob of matter" so your question is moot. You seem to be thinking in terms of some obsolete paradigm. — Janus

Apparently you took my metaphorical figure-of-speech as a literal physical description of the brain. I am familiar with some cutting-edge theories of mind, that blur the borders between physics & metaphysics, and Idealism & Realism. But most still insist that Consciousness is inherent in Matter, not an add-on.

I agree, except that I reserve the term "Consciousness" for homo sapiens with big complex neural systems. It's a product of long evolution, and only the potential for C is inherent in the emerging world. Therefore, in lieu of conscious atoms, I focus on causal Energy, not inert Matter*1, as one form of the general power-to-transform. Gravity & Forces are other forms of EnFormAction. Hence, EFA, not dumb Matter, is the precursor of the process of subjective Awareness. Anyway, all discussions of Ideas & Opinions are Moot. :nerd:


*1. The statement that "matter is energy locked into form" is a popular, but oversimplified, way of describing a core concept from Einstein's theory of relativity. A more precise understanding is that matter and energy are two forms of the same fundamental thing, and can be converted into one another, as described by the famous equation \(E=mc^{2}\). This equation shows that mass (a measure of matter) is a form of concentrated energy.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=matter+is+energy+locked+into+form
Note --- That fundamental "thing" is what my philosophical thesis calls EnFormAction. It's a portmanteau coinage, so you won't find that term in a textbook of Physics or Psychology. But it's all natural, no spooky spiritual intervention necessary.

Thank you for that careful analysis. — Wayfarer

Ehhhhh….I would never be so presumptuous to hint you needed support. Or even wanted any. It’s just that when they line up against a metaphysical paradigm, without comprehending its depth, or misunderstanding the implications of an otherwise simple proposition, or purely rational concept….

But yeah, on the other hand, if you can’t wrap that paradigm in weights and measures, it ain’t worth a piss hole in the snow, right? And yet, no science (for which weights and measures are mandatory) is ever done that isn’t first thought (for which there are no weights and measures at all).

Anyway….ever onward.