I don't agree that the subject is the world for Wittgenstein. — Janus
Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed
out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to
a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with
it.
Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the
self in a non-psychological way. What brings the self into philosophy is
the fact that 'the world is my world'. The philosophical self is not the
human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology
deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world--not a
part of it.
— W
So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end. — W
It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it
exists.
To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a
limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is
mystical. — W
When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be
put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at
all, it is also possible to answer it.
Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it
tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist
only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and
an answer only where something can be said. — W
There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. — W
I think he refers here to the world as experienced. He was no solipsist.
In any case I disagree that we experience the world or that we experience ourselves as being my world. We undergo affects, which we experience as events, people, places, things and so on; along with emotions, thoughts and desires that are occasioned by our experience of these. We think of this as my life, in which we are engaged with these things, the totality of which we think of as my world. But the shared inter-subjective world is always already externalized insofar as it is objectivized as a world of events and objects that are publicly available to experience. — Janus
I don't read Hegel as asserting that being is a "pure thing"; rather it is no-thing. This is Hegel's preemption of Heidegger's ontological difference. I also believe Hegel is concerned with the "what-it-is" of being, but rather with unravelling the logic of the concept of being. That-it-is is a given; Hegel would echo Spinoza in declaring that there is no possibility that there could be nothing. Being is no-thing, ( insofar as we cannot say anything really determinate about it) but it obviously is not nothing at all.
I would say that being is certainly not an abstraction for Hegel. In a way Hegel's notion of being equates with his idea of spirit. the world of beings is the dialectical manifestation of spirit. — Janus
Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an other; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.
Nothing, pure nothing: it is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content — undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuition and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being
— Hegel
I respect your disagreement. — t0m
I realize that Heidegger was probably inspired by this connection of being and nothing, but I don't see the ontological difference here at all. It looks like concept analysis. — t0m
Ummm, yeah. So, some theory that explains the mind and how it came to be, which includes whatever theory you have on the subject as well, isn't important, and doesn't need to be useful to be important. Okay, Wayfarer.I'm not denying that such theories can't be useful, but that they often occupy a position of exaggerated importance in the landscape. — Wayfarer
Perfect. Then we finally agree on something. We finally agree that humans are just another species of animal and that differences doesn't make one special, because every species, and every individual within that species, is unique, and would make every one of them special, which would then just dilute the meaning of "special".Every animal is different from each other. If humans are special because they are different, then every animal is special because each species is different from another. — Harry Hindu
You make my point for me. — Wayfarer
That is my perspective - of being inside the head of a body. If our minds are not processes of our bodies, then why does it seem that way? Why is it so brute? This isn't a rhetorical question. I expect an answer, MU. Please don't try to wiggle your way out of it.You premise that your mind is part of your body, so you're just begging the question. I can't answer that question because your premise is not something I'm willing to accept. And I do not agree with your use of "I feel it in my mind". Any time a bee has stung me (many times I might add), I have felt it in the part of my body where it stings me, not in my mind. Do you not recognize a distinction between the conclusion you make with your mind, "a bee is stinging me", and the observations which lead you to that conclusion? — Metaphysician Undercover
That is my perspective - of being inside the head of a body. If our minds are not processes of our bodies, then why does it seem that way? Why is it so brute? This isn't a rhetorical question. I expect an answer, MU. Please don't try to wiggle your way out of it. — Harry Hindu
It may be possible at some point in the future to establish causation between levels of abstraction, but third person observation/measurement of subjective experience is not possible (as others have already noted). — Galuchat
Congrats, MU. You win the award for the most pathetic attempt to avoid answering a direct question. What is it with you "philosophers" that like to question the basis of some scientific theory, but then don't question any "philosophical" theory that you hold and then have to perform these mental gymnastics in order to avoid answering the questions. It's quite pathetic to watch what I thought were intelligent people, behave as if they are delusional.It is you who is wiggling. Last post you said your body "includes my mind", implying that the mind is a part of the body. Now you say that the mind is a process of the body. Which are you claiming? If the former, I cannot agree, as I've already explained. If the latter, then I need an explanation from you as to how something which is referred to with a noun, "the mind", can be said to be a process, an activity. All I see is category error on your part, attempting to make something (the mind) which is understood as a thing engaged in the activity of reasoning, into a process, the activity itself.
Why don't you just come out and say what you are alluding to? You believe that the mind is the brain. I don't believe that at all, because contrary to what you are saying, it doesn't seem to me, to be that way at all. Nor does it seem like the mind is a process of the body, because the mind is the thing which is carrying out this process of reasoning, it does not seem to be the process itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
Is the mind a model of the brain, or is the brain a model of the mind? When we look at another brain, why don't we see their experiences instead of neurons firing? Is the brain we see just the way our mind models their mind? Or is the mind a delusion of the brain?But doesn't that impossibility result if you insist experience is something more than (a pattern of) neurons firing? — Benkei
This is exactly what is referred to as ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. — Wayfarer
When we look at another brain, why don't we see their experiences instead of neurons firing? — Harry Hindu
But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration is not known to science. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem. — Wayfarer
I'm a panpsychist who agrees with this conception of substance. If I understand you, of course, which I probably don't. — bert1
Congrats, MU. You win the award for the most pathetic attempt to avoid answering a direct question. What is it with you "philosophers" that like to question the basis of some scientific theory, but then don't question any "philosophical" theory that you hold and then have to perform these mental gymnastics in order to avoid answering the questions. It's quite pathetic to watch what I thought were intelligent people, behave as if they are delusional. — Harry Hindu
This is no different than saying that my body includes the process of digestion. — Harry Hindu
Science itself has shown that there aren't things, but only processes. Every "thing" is just an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", which is itself an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", all the way down. Things are just processes. Everything is a process. — Harry Hindu
Now, are you going to provide an answer that will show why we appear to be inside bodies? — Harry Hindu
So, then how is it that you can even talk about your mental processes and feelings if you aren't aware of yourself, or your own mind? How is it that you can talk about being aware of being aware, if the "subject" can't be an object of perception? How can you talk about your own perceptions?For the very simple reason that experience requires a subject, and ‘the subject’ can’t be an object of perception. — Wayfarer
This doesn't answer my question at all.When you look at fMRI data, you don’t see experience - you see a graphic representation of neural activities. But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration isn’t seen in the fMRI data. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem. — Wayfarer
What does "operate meaningfully embodied in the body" even mean, and what does that have to do with my question?Brains don’t have delusions. Actually brains don’t have or do anything; they only operate meaningfully embodied in the body, in the nervous system, in the environment. — Wayfarer
You tried to explain but failed. It isn't nonsensical. You merely took one small meaningless difference in a part of my post, that wasn't part of the question, and focused on that, rather than answering the question.As I explained, your questioning was nonsensical. You shifted from the assumption that the mind is part of the body, to the assumption that the mind is a process of the body. And I explained why it was nonsense to speak of the mind as a process. That's why I couldn't answer your question, it really didn't make any sense to me. — Metaphysician Undercover
So, something the body is doing isn't a process? Who's being nonsensical?"The body" doesn't include the process of digestion, that is something that the body is doing. It is this type of category mistake which makes discussion with you very difficult. See, in the act of digestion, something which is not part of the body becomes part of the body. Since this process necessarily includes something which is not part of the body, we cannot properly say "the body includes the process of digestion". You continue with your nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover
I never said anything was wrong with being a body. Sheesh, MU. You are all over the place, jumping through impossible hoops in your mind - all in an attempt to not answer a simple question. Well, it's simple for me, but not for you because you assume that the mind isn't part of the body when that is how it forcefully appears. I'll tell you what, MU. I'll make a post with the question all by itself, so you can't get side-tracked with other stuff, that has nothing to do with the question, that I said. You can continue to respond to this post, but I'll just ignore it, as I'm only concerned with the answer to my question in the following post:What's wrong with being inside a body? I don't see any problem with this. I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. Does that answer your question? The problem that I have with what you have said, is that you have proceeded from the assumption "My mind is inside a body", to two distinct and equally invalid conclusions. 1, My mind is part of a body, and 2, my mind is the process of a body. — Metaphysician Undercover
When you look at fMRI data, or just look at someone's brain, WHY can't we see their experiences? — Harry Hindu
What I'm asking is, is there really a brain filled with neurons there, or is it experiences there and the brain only exists in our mind as a model of their experiences? — Harry Hindu
MU, why does it appear that we are inside individual bodies if we aren't? — Harry Hindu
I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. — Metaphysician Undercover
It means that it is part of my body and not yours or anyone else - just like your nervous system is part of your body and not part of mine.Didn't you read my post? I said:
I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. — Metaphysician Undercover
Further, I said that if the mind is inside a body, this does not lead to the conclusion that the mind is part of a body, nor does it lead to the conclusion that the mind is a process of the body.
Here's a question for you HH. What do you think it means "to be inside a body"? — Metaphysician Undercover
It means that it is part of my body and not yours or anyone else... — Harry Hindu
Saying that the mind can exist apart from the body is like saying the nervous system can exist apart from the body... — Harry Hindu
How does a mind see, hear and feel without eyes, ears and a nervous system? What is the point of having a body if a mind can do these things without one? — Harry Hindu
When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg?Being inside a body means to be part of that body? Since when? Does being inside a box mean that you are part of the box? How about a car, or a house, does being inside one of these mean that you are part of it? — Metaphysician Undercover
What happens in an apple doesn't happen in the orange. Apples and oranges aren't a good comparison. When something happens in the mind, we can point to some event in the nervous system. The nerves in your arm are connected to your brain. This is why you feel, or aware, of the bee sting in your arm.Why would you say this? The mind and the nervous system are two distinct things. Unless you have a principle which makes them comparable, your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. In the case of apples and oranges there is a common principle, they are both fruit. In the case of the mind and the nervous system we could say that they are both properties of life. But this does not make what is true of the nervous system also true of the mind, just like what is true of an apple is not necessarily true of an orange. Clearly your comparison is meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover
Then I don't know what it is that we are disagreeing on here. What does a mind do without a body? Can it exist without a body? Can digestion exist without a body?A mind doesn't do these things without a body. Obviously. — Metaphysician Undercover
When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg? — Harry Hindu
Then I don't know what it is that we are disagreeing on here. — Harry Hindu
What does a mind do without a body? Can it exist without a body? Can digestion exist without a body? — Harry Hindu
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them.
Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.
According to Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker, anyone who raises even philosophical objections of the kind that Nagel does, must ipso facto be on the side of creationism. There are only two possibilities in their view: materialist or creationist.
— Wayfarer
I don't know much about Coyne, but I like and agree with some of Dennett's work, and ditto for Pinker - particularly 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' ... But I can't agree with them on that. It's not just my worldview that they are summarily dismissing, but also that of the very many religious or spiritual people who work in evolutionary biology. — andrewk
Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that the main source of negative reviews of Nagel's book was that in it he gave credence to some Intelligent Design advocates. — andrewk
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