This thing which does the willing is excluded from your reality, it is not real, and therefore not approached. That is why recognizing the true relationship between thinking and logic, is important. Once willing is understood as an essential aspect of such a constraint system, then this principle must be extended to all semiotic constraint systems. There is a very clear need to assume a thing which wills such a constraint system into existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
See, this is the mistake I pointed you toward. You want to reduce the constraints of logic, to nothing other than a constraint of the physical environment. But this is completely wrong, the constraints of logic are self-imposed, they are necessary for a purpose, to understand. The constraints of the physical environment are not self-imposed, and they present us with a completely different type of necessity.So, as I said, the self is free to think whatever it likes within the constraints of logic, and those very same logics constrain every self, just as the self is free to do whatever it wants within the constraints of gravity and the nature of the physical environment. — John
There is a particular type of necessity which exists within the physical wold, it is described by the laws of physics, and such principles. In order to understand the physical world, the thinking being must will into existence rules of thought, laws of logical necessity, which are consistent with the necessity which exists in the physical world around it.Why should it be necessary that the self wills these logical constraint conditions into existence any more than it would be necessary that the self wills gravity and the nature of the physical world into existence? — John
Truth is, the very idea of freedom loses all its sense if you think it (or more accurately if you try to think it: because you can't really think it) in a context of no constraint at all. — John
3. Emergence means the presence of a new and different state, not that bodies are experience. Under emergence, the non-conscious never becomes the conscious.
4. Thus, the major charge leveled against emergence is false. It never entails non-conscious states turning into conscious states. Emergence is constituted new states of consciousness following states of body. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The point of emergence is that experience is not always so. New states of consciousness appear out of previous states which are not consciousness.
If one rejects that the conscious can come out of the non-conscious, then they consider emergence impossible. — TheWillowOfDarkness
7. Semiotic theory holds the account of emergence. New states which are consciousness appear out of those which are not. Experience's place in triad is a particular state of the world with causal relationships to different states of the world. It not always there, but when it is, it is always itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness
See, this is the mistake I pointed you toward. You want to reduce the constraints of logic, to nothing other than a constraint of the physical environment. — Metaphysician Undercover
That makes no sense. I get that "emergence means the presence of a new a different state". But it does not follow that non-conscious never BECOMES conscious.. You just said that there is a presence of a new state- presumably the very thing (consciousness) that does not "become". Those are two opposing ideas. One that non-conscious does not become conscious and one where new states come from previous states. — schopenhauer1
I just do not get how physical things beget consciousness, which is the only thing we know which constructs the very world where things emerge in the first place. Prior to this, physical things are "being" or "doing their thing" if you will. But what is this mental "stuff" that is "what it's like to be something" otherwise known as experience? — schopenhauer1
The "mental stuff" is the existence of a conscious state. "What is it like" is searching for the being of consciousness-- not descriptions of "red," but the existence of being aware of "red." As such this has no description because any description is just words. No matter how I describe experience (even if it's in the first person), it will still only be a description. My telling of the red I saw will never be my seeing of red. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It really says little, if anything about what mental stuff is other than the strangest most unique property in the universe- one that allows for all other properties to be known, that gives sensation, that allows for thought, imagination, and the other cognitive abilities that animals have and even gives us the ability to understand all other properties is simply like a particle or a force or any other physical process. The otherness of consciousness is not taken serious. Where panpsychists might overmine this idea, emergentists deflate it.. — schopenhauer1
You really need to read more carefully; you're "pointing" me to a "mistake" I didn't make at all, based on something you apparently think I said, that I didn't say at all. I was merely drawing an analogy between the two kinds of constraint. — John
Why should it be necessary that the self wills these logical constraint conditions into existence any more than it would be necessary that the self wills gravity and the nature of the physical world into existence? Why would you think the latter isn't as much a curtailment of free will as the former? — John
Precisely. The emergentist is the one that respects the "otherness" of consciousness. For them it is enough for mental stuff to be a unique property of the universe. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Sensation, imagination, understanding, etc.,etc., why would we insist that consciousness was anything else? — TheWillowOfDarkness
If you call recognising consciousness as a unique property expressed by some states the world "deflating it," the emergenist is certainly guilty. For them consciousness doesn't have to be anything more-- there's nothing more about to describe or explain. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It's the dualist who doesn't recognise consciousness as unique. They are always insisting it is more than the existence of sensation, imagination, understanding, etc.,etc., as if consciousness needed to be something else. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Dualism is reductionist. The emergentist says: "Hey, I found these unique states of the world. They are awareness, sensation, imagination and understanding, etc.,etc." How does the dualist respond? By suggesting the unique state of consciousness is not enough for consciousness, as if consciousness had to be defined by some other sort of presence. The dualist does not take the otherness of consciousness seriously. They suppose there is some way to make it disappear, to reduce it to something else, at which point we will have a "full account of consciousness." — TheWillowOfDarkness
NO, my point is that they do NOT treat it is unique. They UNDERMINE it to be just another physical process. But that seems unjustified based on how unique it is compared to say, a force particle/wave or a matter particle. — schopenhauer1
It is a theory of replicators subject to variation and selection. But look - a "physical" theory of abstract objects! — tom
You think consciousness is amazing, but I think Life is also amazing, and we know that Life is a physical process. It is a physical process we are beginning to understand rather well, but if you look at the physical theory that explains it, there is no mention of "say, a force particle/wave or a matter particle". — tom
You think consciousness is amazing, but I think Life is also amazing, and we know that Life is a physical process. It is a physical process we are beginning to understand rather well, but if you look at the physical theory that explains it, there is no mention of "say, a force particle/wave or a matter particle". It is a theory of replicators subject to variation and selection. But look - a "physical" theory of abstract objects! — tom
Yes, I believe that this is a valid point. But the point I am making is that there is a real need to differentiate between the constraints which are imposed on the living being from its environment, and the constraints which are inherent within that living being. These two types of constraint cannot be reduced to one category of similar type constraints. The reason that they are completely distinct is that the external constraints act to limit our freedoms, while the internal constraints are what allow us to maximize our freedom, in relation to the restrictions of the external constraints. Therefore they are completely opposed, and cannot be reduced to two of the same kind. The external constraints limit our freedom, while the internal constraints maximize our freedom. — Metaphysician Undercover
I tend to be a monist though, and to think that ultimately the 'internal' and the 'external' are not two separate realms at all. The distinction between the internal and external environments is a useful one to be sure; but I think it has no ultimate ontological force. — John
That's only true under your assumed principle that there is no ontological difference between internal and external. The fact though, is that we assign values to potential acts, therefore activities have values assigned to them prior to even existing in the external world. So even if there were no activities in the physical world, this would not deny the existence of values, which are assigned to potential activities. This is what the concept of energy, the capacity to do work, signifies, a value is assigned based on what can be done, potential activities. Lack of external constraint would not leave freedom without value, it would allow unlimited possibility, and this is extremely valuable.And I disagree that external constraints, unlike internal constraints, limit our freedom but do not at the same time enable it. If there were no external constraints then there could be no freedom; one could not do anything of any significance because anything we did would be of equal value, that is of nil value, to everything else we might do. — John
Lack of external constraint would not leave freedom without value, it would allow unlimited possibility, and this is extremely valuable. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, rather dualists are saying that sensation, imagination, understanding, etc. etc. are not the same as physical processes because the sensation of "red" is not the same as the wavelength hitting rods and cones UNLESS it IS the same (pace panpsychism). Rather dualists (which I personally do not identify with), will say that mental stuff is tied with physical stuff but is not the same. Again, I am not arguing this, just stating some of its ideas. — schopenhauer1
If this is the case, emergentists are essentially dualists, and then they are one step away from unintentionally saying that there is this mystic mental stuff that is part of existence. — schopenhauer1
...once it is done you are constrained by the fact that you have done that thing and no other.. — John
A "physical state of the world" which is experience-- mental stuff is a physical state of the world itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness
For emergence, mental stuff is physical stuff, just not the same physical stuff as bodies and their environment (e.g. rods, cones and light). Experience is a unique existing state. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The emergentist isn't one step away from saying that mental stuff is part of existence. They claim it outright. Existing experiences emerge out of non-conscious objects. The presence of experience in the world is the intention of their entire position.
Here the only thing you get wrong is the "mystical." Since experience is an existing state, there is nothing strange about it's presence as a unique object. To be more than non-concious states is what the existence of experience entails. There is no "mystery." The uniqueness of consciousness is its nature. If consciousness exists, that's what we get. — TheWillowOfDarkness
This is not just unique like one process is unique from another, but it is different in its apparent nature in that it has its "what it's likeness" that is leftover and is not explained where other physical processes do not have this explanatory gap. It is in causality (or may be the ground of causality if you think that), like other physical processes, but how it is that this mental stuff exists once other processes are in play, is not explained. Why the genie? What is this "stuff" other than saying that it is a state of existence. — schopenhauer1
That makes sense. Molecules become the sensation of red, that does not make sense other than positing a dualism of mental stuff that is simply not explained as to why it is entailed from molecules when all other stuff is not. — schopenhauer1
Now we are faced with this fundamental principle, that the internal is prior, and the external is posterior, that is, unless you still deny such a distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover
Exactly. It's state unique to any other-- it is "what it's likeness": the existence of being aware which is not captured in any description. This is the "stuff" other than just being a state of existence. It's a "what it's likeness" rather than a rock or limb. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Being a "what it's likeness," which is not captured in any description, IS how the state is distinct and unique. It doesn't need to be anything else. — TheWillowOfDarkness
No... that's the strawman again. Molecules do not become the sensation of red. Certain instances of molecules generate a new state (consciousness) which is not molecules. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Right, certain things cause this "red" thing which is unique in the fact that it is a what it's like experience, something that is radically different than any other physical phenomena. If you cannot see how this is so radically different that pit is not like other physical phenomena of nature- even other very unique phenomena — schopenhauer1
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