It's odd that you rule out the possibility I'm right. — Relativist

It's not a personal issue. It is physicalism that I'm critical of, not you in particular. See response above.

I wasn’t expecting a response, and a well-spoken one at that. So…thanks.

I’ll address just this one item, the rest being uncontentious other than relevant particulars:

The issue is that nothing tells you about or can articulate an "intrinsic" nature of things. — Apustimelogist

I understand nature of things to mean real material things. Even so, I’m of the opinion metaphysics can articulate the intrinsic nature of me, whether or not the mere satisfaction I get from it reflects the truth.

I agree explanations don’t come for free, and I think the fundamental restriction is the human intellect itself. We are, after all is said and done, at the mercy of ourselves.

I don’t believe it, it’s just my preferred explanation*, I don’t hold beliefs. Yes, I am familiar with the interaction problem.
I don’t see it as dualism, although it conforms largely with what is understood as dualism. I see the problems around dualism as a human construct. So where one thinks of substance dualism, for example, I don’t see these as fundamentally different substances, just differing kinds of substance. I entertain both idealistic and materialist ideologies, both atheistic and religious. I don’t see all these divisions as problematic, but rather divisions we have created. That what people think about and talk about are narratives based on an incomplete understanding of our world, coloured by the human condition.That what we don’t know likely vastly outnumbers what we do know. That we really have no idea about existence, because our narratives are developed solely around what we do in the world we were born into. That the basis of the existence we experience is entirely unknown. This is evidenced in the dilemmas any attempt to determine, or understand what existence, or our existence in this world, we come up against.

Surely given the advances in scientific research and human intellect, we would have discovered, or understood existence by know. But we haven’t, maybe we are no further forward in this understanding than prehistoric people. Are we missing something?

More generally, this directly relates to "free will". Physicalism entails compatibilism: any choice you make will be the product of deterministic forces, a set beliefs (dispositions) that are weighed by the mental machinery, and can only produce one specific result. In hindsight, it only SEEMS like a different could have been made. In actuality, no other choice could have been made, given the set of dispositions that existed when the choice was made. So the collective set of dispositions necessarily leads to whatever choice that is actually taken. — Relativist

:100:

I embrace physicalism (generally, not just as a theory of mind) as an Inference to Best Explanation for all facts. You can defeat this only by providing an alternative that better explains the facts.

:up: :up:

I’m not anti-physicalism, I just don’t see aspects of being in the same way. I won’t comment on what Wayfarer is saying about this, as I will almost certainly misrepresent him and confuse, or derail the discussion.

You seemed to answer my question about p zombies in your reply to Mww. What I’m saying about p zombies is that the physicalist account of the our world with conscious beings in is identical to what a p zombie universe would be like if described by a neutral observer. The p zombie would be processing information and internal mental states just as described by physicalism when physicalism is describing conscious beings. The only difference is that it would not be conscious. Absolutely everything else would be identical.

You can defeat this only by providing an alternative that better explains the facts. — 180 Proof

Well spotted, 180! And the only fact that the physicalist doesn't come to terms with, is the reality of her own existenz. But, I get it, people need something to hang on to.

There's nothing in what I say that is 'anti-science' or 'opposed to science'. The only thing I'm opposing, is the application of scientific method to philosophical problems.

that linguistic communication would be impossible if materialism were true. — Wayfarer
I see no reason to believe that. Perhaps you are working with a redundant model of material as 'mindless substance'. If material in all its forms were nothing but mindless substance, then of course it would follow by mere definition that conscious material is impossible. But that is specifically the "question-begging presumption" I was referring to. — Janus

may be simply implying --- based on absence of {empirical or theoretical} evidence to the contrary --- that massive space-occupying Matter*1 --- what we normally mean by the word --- does not have the "right stuff" [necessary qualities or capabilities or potential] to produce weightless spaceless shapeless Mental Phenomena such as verbal communication of ideas. Yet staunch (anti-spiritual) Materialists*2 insist that Matter must possess the potential for Mind. And I provisionally agree, but it's a "question-begging presumption" --- a philosophical hypothesis --- lacking step-by-step evidence or theory of how mundane lumpish matter became Mindful*3. Without an account of the steps & stages of that fortuitous emergence, it's a circular argument. So, the key question here is : what is the "right stuff" for evolving living & thinking Matter?

I too presume that Mind naturally evolved from non-conscious physical predecessors. But I've never seen any scientific evidence or theory that describe, step-by-step, how that transformation could have happened. Moreover, I don't accept that hypothetical-quark-composed Matter was the "fundamental" element of evolution. Instead, as Einstein concluded, time-causing Energy was the primal force behind space-time & evolution, that eventually shape-shifted into various change-causing agents (Gravity, Nuclear Forces, Thermal Energy, Electromagnetic Fields, etc). So, it seems obvious that whatever Causal Principle (possessing the right stuff) produced the Big Bang beginning and subsequent space-time evolution, could-and-did eventually cause Life & Mind processes to emerge. Unfortunately, details of the necessary critical intermediate stages (non-linear Phase Transitions*4) have not yet been documented.

So I'm guessing that the non-sentient precursor of Mental Processes (e.g. linguistic) was more likely the non-spatial, massless stuff of Causation : Energy in all its forms. E=MC^2 has no place for matter. Even Mass is a mathematical measurement of resistance to Force, and C is a mathematical constant, not a measurement of a material object. Therefore, I agree with both Wayfarer and his Materialist critics, but with a twist : massless, spaceless Energy is capable of transforming into both Matter and Mind. But Mind (consciousness) is not a "separate, non-physical entity"*2, it's an active meta-physical brain Process, with no mass or inertia. :nerd:


PS___ This is not a "redundant" model of Matter, but a novel cosmic perspective on the evolution of Mind. Do we want to debate whether Causation has the right-stuff to create linguistic (knowable) noumena within a world of material (observable events & properties) phenomena?


*1. What is Matter? :
In physics, matter is any substance that has mass and occupies space (volume). It is the physical material that makes up the universe and can be found in various states, or phases, such as solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. All matter is ultimately composed of elementary particles like quarks and leptons, which form protons, neutrons, and electrons, which in turn form atoms.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=what+is+matter+in+physics

*2. Materialism is a philosophical view that posits that physical matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states, can be explained by material interactions. In this view, the mind is not a separate, non-physical entity but rather a product of brain processes, and reality is governed by natural, physical laws. This can also refer to a value system that prioritizes material possessions, but in philosophy, it refers to the belief that the physical world is all that exists.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=materialism+philosophy

*3. Ideonomy: A Science of Ideas :
The foundational insight of ideonomy is that ideas are part of the natural world. Just as humans are part of the natural world, the thoughts and ideas generated by human minds are also natural phenomena. Accordingly, we should expect there to be underlying laws or patterns in ideas, the same way we observe laws that govern other natural phenomena. While most phenomena in our universe are examined through a scientific lens, ideas are often treated as magic. Ideonomy aims to remedy this.
https://gracekind.net/writing/ideonomy/intro/
Note --- This is not an actual physical science, but merely a recent instance of a long history of philosophical proposals to combine the tools of concrete Empiricism with those of abstract Reason, in order to put the observing Mind under the microscope, so to speak. For the near future, any "hard" evidence turned-up may be watered-down with imagination & interpretation, as usual with any novel views of reality, such as Quantum Theory.

*4. Phase transition : The process where a substance abruptly changes from one state of matter to another, like a solid turning into a liquid or a liquid into a gas.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=phase+transition
Note --- The "abrupt" change is also non-analytical, so intermediate steps --- the mechanism --- between states are unknown.

That comment of Janus was in response to a gloss of the Platonist scholar Lloyd Gerson, which in turn was a gloss on Aristotle 'D'Anima' ('On the Soul'). It is a very specific argument, that it is the ability of intellect (nous) to grasp forms (universals) that makes communication possible, in that they provide us with a stock of general concepts, which materialism denies (as materialism is generally nominalist.)

Anyway, I'm offsite until 1 December I have some other writing to work on. Chat then.

The only thing I'm opposing, is the application of scientific method to philosophical problems. — Wayfarer

Such as?

Mind (consciousness) is not a "separate, non-physical entity" — Gnomon

It would be a different kind of 'physical'. It had to have evolved, with life, for once there was no life and consciousness on Earth, and now there is.

but it also commits us to a very specific kind of explanation: one where wholes are derivative, and the only truly fundamental realities are the constituents and their interactions. — Wayfarer

Well, no because you can use any level of explanation you find convenient for the task or the part of reality you are interested in.

When we identify something, we identify a gestalt, not an assembly of simples. This is a basic fact of cognition.

A gestalt has properties that no list of constituent parts captures: unity, salience, meaning, intentional relevance. — Wayfarer

And this is just a certain level of explanation in the realm of psychology, where these concepts may have some utility whether on a formal or informal basis, or fundamentally inaccurate/accurate. But that doesn't invalidate the possibility or validity of explanations from the view of neurons as units of information-processing. That doesn't invalidate the fact that if these psychological constructs belong to an organism, then it also belongs to a biological structure made of cells and molecules and fundamental particles, the excitations of quantum fields. There is only one way you can make consistent the plurality of a person, an organism, a brain, a many-particle quantum system, existing within the same vicinity. With appropriate assumptions, we can just see all these characterizations as different ways of looking at the same system at different scales. But if different scales exist, it implies that descriptions on one scale under appropriate assumptions are due to appropriate coarse-graining of descriptions on a smaller scale. I don't see how you can get out of that, it doesn't really work the other way round.

The point is that the reductive strategy that works for chemistry or planetary motion is not obviously suited to phenomena whose defining characteristics are holistic, structured, and inherently perspectival. If explanation bottoms out in simples, yet consciousness and cognition are inherently gestalt-like, then either: — Wayfarer

The thing is that the only difficulty here in psychology is qualia. But there is no problem for anything else. People create computational models to explain perceptual phenomena, cognition, behavior all the time, and these models can be based around neuronal-type architectures. And maybe at some point computational models will also be able to give us insights into neural or information processing correlates of reports of our own experiences like "gestaltness". No you can't explain experiential qualities, but I see nothing stopping anyone in principle from giving causal explanations to our behaviors and reports associated with those experiences. And thats all really science wants to or needs to explain. What a psychological or neuroscience wants to produce is a working p-zombie, because that would give you everything you need to know about why behaviors happen, including meaning. Because to me, meanings can be nothing more than our behaviors and reaction and predictions concerning things we see in the world, similar to but more general than the idea of 'meaning is use'.

Here, you're committing the 'mereological fallacy'. This is central to an infliuential book, The Philosophical Foundations of Neurosciences, Hacker and Bennett (philosopher and neuroscientist, respectively): — Wayfarer

You see, I think your approach is undermined by this reductionism, the conviction that basic physical level is the only real one, to the extent that you can't even consider any alternative. You simply assume that philosophy must defer to physics, as if that can't even be in question. — Wayfarer

The problem is that you like to reify concepts to the extreme where they should not be mixed or made to touch. Whereas I think we are looking at the same world through a plurality of tools.and concepts at different scales which are different but nonetheless will overlap or inform about each other. And we should make use of tools and concepts when there is explanatory interest in doing so.

Someone can identify someone else as drunk in a completely in formal way with no scientific training or definitions, and the drunkenness is simply a property of what someone sees in someone else's behavior. That doesn't mean that the chemical structure of alcohol and how it affects a brain is not relevant to explaining what someone is seeing and characterizing in a different way under a different perspective. They are all windows onto the same world that are interlinking.

Similarly, I can talk about our explanations and descriptions being limuted by the brain because there is good empirical reason to think that is the case. If I were to inject a excitotoxic chemical into your right hippocampus that destroys your neural tissue, it will be associated with a dysfunction in your ability to think in certain ways even though "thinking" is quite an abstract, nebulous phrase that probably is easier understood in the daily conversations of people and their own experiences than from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience.

I just don't understand this kind of pedantry which spits in the face of blatant facts about how biology relates to experiences. We should be using the full range if concepts and explanations to talk about the world so for instance we.can have experiences as one level of description on one hand related to our daily lives, but we can also talk about the very same systems, organisms, people in terms of brains or how brains affect experiences, behaviors, reports. It seems that I am actually advocating for the complete opposite of what you think I am - usign the full range of conceptual tools and explanations to alk about things. But that doesn't change facts that when you zoom-in onthe region of space in the vicinity of your body and head, you will find neurons, molecules, the validity of physical descriptions that can be causally connected to how we experience and see things.

Its very hard for me to see how one can argue that levels of explanation on a larger scale are somehow not less fundamental compared to descriptions on smaller scales where you zoom-in. I don't think it even makes logical sense. Like its fine to say that we have two different explanations on two different scales describing the same part of the universe, and these two explanations are just different, maybe incomplete, maybe difficult to link together - like say a mundane description of an economy or game of cricket or religious ceremony vs. a physical statistical mechanical description of the physical interactions in an entire city or in a game of cricket or a religious ceremony. But its difficult for me to look at these two descriptions on even terms. There is an asymmetry there somewhere between the more abstract descriptions on a larger scale vs. the smaller scale one.

I see omly one way to make descriptions at different scales consistent if they exist in the same universe. That doesn't mean we need to restrict ourselves to one fundamental level of explanation all the time.

In my brand of physicalism, I will agree with my own claim that I am experiencing something, just that to say that I am experiencing something doesn't add anything to the p-zombie account. But the subtlety is that my p-zombie account just is cataloging the way we describe the universe in our theories. The theories don't talk about intrinsic natures in the sense as described in Chalmers' book "The Conscious Mind" (pg. 153):


"physical theory only characterizes its basic entities relationally, in terms of their causal and other relations to other entities. Basic particles, for instance, are largely characterized in terms of their propensity to interact with other particles..Their mass and charge is specified, to.be sure, but all that a specification of mass ultimately comes to is a propensity to be accelerated in certain ways by forces, and so on. Each entity is characterized by its relation to other entities, and these entities are characterized by their relations to other entities, and so on forever (except, perhaps, for some entities that are characterized by their relation to an observer). The picture of the physical world that this yields is that of a giant causal flux, but the picture tells us nothing about what all this causation relates. Reference to the proton is fixed as the thing that causes interactions of a certain kind, that combines in certain ways with other.entities, and so on; but what is the thing that is doing the causing and combining? As Russell (1927) notes, this is a matter about which physical theory is silent."

At the same time there would be no duality between intrinsic stuff and physical stuff because the physics is just relational descriptions of events in the intrinsic stuff. You could add a separate consciousness stuff next to the intrinsic "physical stuff" and get dualism. The passage I quoted is in a section about panpsychism which would be the alternative where the intrinsic "physical stuff" is actually just consciousness. My view is that the last option would not really be meaningful. I have no coherent characterization of what conscious experience is or means in a similar way to how physics is silent on the intrinsic nature of things.

There's nothing in what I say that is 'anti-science' or 'opposed to science'. The only thing I'm opposing, is the application of scientific method to philosophical problems. — Wayfarer

Do you regard Inference to Best Explanation as "scientific method"? That's all I've done.

You see, I think your approach is undermined by this reductionism, the conviction that basic physical level is the only real one, to the extent that you can't even consider any alternative. You simply assume that philosophy must defer to physics, as if that can't even be in question. — Wayfarer

I do not "defer to physics". Physics provides a set of facts. A metaphysical theory needs to be able to account for all facts, including (but not limited to) the facts physics presents to us.

If explanation bottoms out in simples, yet consciousness and cognition are inherently gestalt-like, ... — Wayfarer

Whoa! Did you actually make a positive claim? Do you indeed believe the mind is irreducible? Or is this one of those noncommital possibilities (you did say, "if"). What about everything other than mind? You said you accept science.

If you think the mind is irreducible, how does it come into existence?

Yes, I can agree with that. It does still leave quite a large gap to be filled, though. Which is I suppose what this thread is about. The idea that physicalist accounts can go only so far and we should refrain from overstepping their explanatory power.

….physical theory only characterizes its basic entities relationally, in terms of their causal and other relations to other entities…. — Apustimelogist

Theory characterizes (its objects) relationally, yes, the first and foremost relation being, such objects in conjunction with the human constructing the theory.

Ever notice, that Einstein’s (1931) stone-dropping/railroad platform gedankenexperiment requires a mediating observer not on the platform nor in the car? The immediate observer(s) in either place characterize the stone-drop relative to himself, the second-party mediator characterizes the drops relative to each other. Simultaneity of relativity cannot be observed by an immediate observer.

Objects may be theoretically characterized as relating to each other, re: a planet and its moons, but that relation must still be meaningful, which cannot be found in the mere relation itself, but requires an subsequent relation to a subject by which the first is adjudicated. On the other hand, for that relation of object to subject with no other intervention, it must be the case meaning is contained in the relation, as a possible deduction from it, which is commonly called judgement.

This then, may be the dividing line between the physical and the metaphysical. The former’s meaningfulness requires a series of relations and the judgements thereof, the latter’s meaningfulness is deductible from the relation alone, for which only a singular judgement is required.

Physicalism and toaster ovens/particle collides, not a problem;
Physicalism and human subjectivity, not a chance.

The reason that the mind is not an object like those of physics or chemistry is because it is what we are. The mind (observer, subject, consciousness) is the one utterly indbuitable fact of existence because it is that to whom all experience occurs. — Wayfarer

You assert the mind is not an object, and therefore "not in the frame". And yet, it is a fact that I exist, I am an observer, a subject, and I engage in mental activities. "The mind" is conceptually that aspect of myself that engages in mental activities. Reconcile this.

Now the entire phenomenological, idealist, Indian, and most contiental philosophy understands this in a way that Anglo physicalism cannot.

And for you, that's just an inconvenient detail, — Wayfarer

To claim these philosophical perspectives "understand this" implies you have identified some objective fact. You have stated no facts that need to be accounted for. You've discussed an alternative, incompatible paradigm that depends on vague concepts.

You say you accept science, but science is reductive. You need to explain how your vague concept of "the mind" fits into a universe that is otherwise completely physical. You also need to reconcile how the functions of this non-object "mind" are influenced by the physical (drugs, brain disease, trauma...), and how the mind can have causal efficacy with the physical aspects of the body.

You also need to reconcile how the functions of this non-object "mind" are influenced by the physical (drugs, brain disease, trauma...), and how the mind can have causal efficacy with[/b[ the physical aspects of the body. — Relativist

Re: (woo-of-the-gaps) substance dualists such as @Wayfarer @bert1 @Gnomon et al.

Yes, it's a good challenge, and an insurmountable one to substance dualists. Fortunately there aren't any.

EDIT: I've been gestating a thread about causality and panpsychism, but am not ready to plop it out just yet. I hope you can bear the suspense.

I hope you can bear the suspense — bert1

:smirk:

The idea that physicalist accounts can go only so far and we should refrain from overstepping their explanatory power. — Punshhh

For me, nothing can fill that gap. No one will he able to give a characterization of the intrinsic stuff talked about in the Chalmers' quote of my previous post. And this is just the nature of how descriptions and explanations work in an information processing system like a brain, imo. There are inherent limitations such as described by the munchausen trilemma.

If what it is like to be something can be taken as a directly aquainted example of irreducible ontology, then it seems ontologies strongly emerge macroscopically.
An issue is that if all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains, this emergent ontology seems not only epiphenomenal but also disconnected from our own reports about our own experience which would be due to the brains - this seems incoherent.
For me, the most logical explanation is that any strong emergence is an illusion (and there is no scientific evidence for it anyway) and we actually have no intuitive, coherent sense of the fundamental "intrinsic" ontology of the universe, partly because of limits on how any intelligent system can work.
When I think about this stuff, it always invokes the imagery of the strange loop and munchausen trilemma that really be escaped from.
The closest kind of fundamental "intrinsic" ontology I would pick would actually probably be something like informational (e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33286288/), but I don't even actually know what that actually really means; the generality of the concept is appealing, that is all.

For me, nothing can fill that gap. No one will he able to give a characterization of the intrinsic stuff talked about in the Chalmers' quote of my previous post. And this is just the nature of how descriptions and explanations work in an information processing system like a brain, imo. There are inherent limitations such as described by the munchausen trilemma.

Yes, agreed, which is why in religious and mystical practice this tendency is acknowledged and there is an effort to get past, or around it. Through the practice one learns to subjugate the intellectual mind and seek new ways of relating to the world and being. Having done this for many years, I like you, have an unfillable gap. A gap which isn’t empty, but is rather undefined, kept clean, so to speak.

If what it is like to be something can be taken as a directly aquainted example of irreducible ontology, then it seems ontologies strongly emerge macroscopically.

Yes, but we can’t go past “seems” here. This is an example of human thought coming up with what seems to make sense. We might be mistaken, or viewing the issue through some kind of prism (metaphorically).

An issue is that if all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains, this emergent ontology seems not only epiphenomenal but also disconnected from our own reports about our own experience which would be due to the brains - this seems incoherent.

Yes, it suggests that there is more to it, wherein the raw experience and the presence of being in that experience is always the primary objective in animal evolution and behaviour. Just how the body achieves this might be more complicated, or novel, than we might at first imagine.

We should remember in this that we are creatures, living entities and we still haven’t got to grips with what it means to be alive. What that entails and enables. For example, it might be necessary for an entity to be alive to become a being. So our hypothetical super advanced AI robot will never be a being until it is alive.

For me, the most logical explanation is that any strong emergence is an illusion (and there is no scientific evidence for it anyway) and we actually have no intuitive, coherent sense of the fundamental "intrinsic" ontology of the universe, partly because of limits on how any intelligent system can work.

Yes, but that is admittedly a partial view. We should remember that we only have a partial understanding of our world, how it is produced, sustained and why it is here and why we are here. We are really in the dark on all these questions.

When I think about this stuff, it always invokes the imagery of the strange loop and munchausen trilemma that really be escaped from.

I would suggest a bit of lateral thinking, as a tonic.

The closest kind of fundamental "intrinsic" ontology I would pick would actually probably be something like informational (e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33286288/), but I don't even actually know what that actually really means; the generality of the concept is appealing, that is all.

Yes, that is interesting and monism is being tossed around a bit in there. I don’t see the appeal in going too deep into these analyses. The people doing it are trying to find out something new and this is how they do it. I do similar things in mystical practice, it’s deep complicated and usually doesn’t produce much in the way of results. But it’s also a way of trying to find out something new.

…..directly acquainted example of irreducible ontology, then it seems ontologies strongly emerge macroscopically. An issue is that if all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains, this emergent ontology seems not only epiphenomenal but also disconnected from our own reports about our own experience which would be due to the brains - this seems incoherent. — Apustimelogist

From the PubMed link….

“…. A key insight here is that structure emerges from influences that are not there, much like a sculpture emerges from the material removed….”

….which by all accounts would seem very much contrary to the principle of cause/effect, and removes the prohibition regarding uncaused effects, making “irreducible ontology” rather suspect.

And this, immediately preceding, for context…

“….The requisite absence of specific influences are precisely those described above; namely, internal states and external states only influence each other via the Markov blanket, while sensory states are not influenced by internal states…”

….while it may be true sensory states are not influenced by internal states, it must be that internal states are influenced by sensory states, which contradicts that internal and external states only influence each other, insofar as sensory states are themselves internal.

Even all that aside, there seems to be a fertile ground remaining for representationalism regarding the human cognitive system, which is all metaphysics needs for the development of a purely speculative theory prescribing a method to it.

And if that is the case, then the more parsimonious relief of the “incoherence” related to being “disconnected from our own reports about our own experience”, resides in the notion that “all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains”, is false.
—————-

When I think about this stuff, it always invokes the imagery of the strange loop and munchausen trilemma that really be escaped from. — Apustimelogist

I understand you probably meant can not be escaped from, and to that I would certainly agree. From the metaphysical view alone, it is circular to describe reason with reason, even while it is impossible to do otherwise, and, from the metaphysical view with respect to the physical view, the former only works with the invocation of abstract ideas, themselves the product of the “strange loop” of pure logic. “Strange loop” being a euphemism for necessarily extinguished infinite regress.
————-

idea that physicalist accounts can go only so far and we should refrain from overstepping their explanatory power.
— Punshhh

For me, nothing can fill that gap. — Apustimelogist

Why should there be a gap, when it is really a case of no contact? Physics over here looking right, metaphysics over there looking left. Inside the skull, outside the skull. Metaphysics describes how to think, physics is merely one of the myriad of things thought about.

Critical metaphysics generally doesn’t concern itself with the possibility of possibilities, which perfectly describes empirical knowledge of neural fundamental conditions, such as Penrose/Hameroff (1990) “O.O.R.”, and whatnot.

Hard physical science generally doesn’t concern itself with logical justification for, e.g., pure a priori synthetic cognitions.

Physics shouldn’t bother with consciousness; metaphysics shouldn’t bother with time dilation.

Better, methinks, to grant the ignorance implicit in both, than to force them to fight with each other because of it.

I beg to differ. The position that "conscious activity cannot be reduced to neural correlates" is a strong claim- it implies impossibility. My position is that there's no basis to claim it's impossible ("not impossible" is a modest claim) — Relativist

That's definitely fair, and fwiw, where I sit.

But I feel exactly the same level of passion as Wayf does about avoiding people who claim its either sorted, or all-but-sorted. We actually simply have no clue yet, and may never.

I feel exactly the same level of passion as Wayf does about avoiding people who claim its either sorted, or all-but-sorted — AmadeusD

Withholding judgement is perfectly reasonable. Nevertheless, it is not UNreasonable to make a judgement. My judgement is that naturalism is the inference to best explanation, as an overall metaphysical theory. So, I "believe" naturalism is true - basically I see no good reason to think anything unnatural exists. This is not an expression of certainty - I'm open to having this theory challenged and defeated. But the mere possibility it is false is not a defeater.

This point bears repeating (reposting):

So, I "believe" naturalism is true - basically I see no good reason to think anything unnatural exists. This is not an expression of certainty - I'm open to having this theory challenged and defeated. But the mere possibility it is false is not a defeater. — Relativist

@Wayfarer @Gnomon @bert1 ... @T Clark et al

'Naturalism' isn't a clear doctrine, so I'm not sure if I'm a naturalist or not. I'm inclined to agree with @Relativist in that I don't think anything 'unnatural' exists, but I think that just means I'm a monist.

EDIT: If you say something is 'natural', what have you said about it?

If you say something is 'natural', what have you said about it? — bert1

I'll give you my definition:

The natural= That which exists (has existed, or will exist) starting with oneself, everything that is causally connected to ourselves, and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe.


Naturalism is a metaphysical system that assumes the totality of reality is natural. The "natural" is anything that exists that is causally connected to the actual physical world through laws of nature.

:up: :up:

If you say something is 'natural', what have you said about it?

Not a lot.
Natural might be code for what humans say about it informed by science and the world of human knowledge. Not very much really, if we are considering what exists. We are only experts about what we find in front of us.

and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe.

This might need tidying up a bit. You might have left a big hole there for other things to sneak in.

I would define natural as everything except what is made up in peoples heads. Putting the emphasis on the human mind, the only place where artificial things are created.