I don't think there is any such thing as awareness that's not self-awareness. All feeling is feeling of oneself, of the movements of one's own body. — The Great Whatever

Why do we have separate terminology then, awareness and self-awareness? I wouldn't say that "all feeling is a feeling of oneself". Sensation may be defined like this, classically, as an awareness of the activities of one's body parts, but I don't think that this is a correct description of what is occurring. Is seeing being aware of your eyes, and what your eyes are doing, or is it more properly described as being aware of the things which are being seen? Without a mirror, or poking you fingers in your eyes, you might not even know that you have two of them. Is tasting being aware of your taste buds, and what they are doing, or is it being aware of what is tasted? I never knew I had taste buds until long after I was tasting things.

The frog need not be aware of anything external to survive: it only needs to respond to certain motivating passions in ways that have evolved accidentally to result in an unintended external effect of which it's unaware and can't understand. Any tiny miscalibration here will result in it dying, and it will be unable to appeal to what is around it to save itself, because it doesn't/can't understand. — The Great Whatever

Are you saying that the frog is aware of all of its internal activities which cause it to catch the fly, but is never aware of the fly itself?

No prior awareness of the hunger of the self for subsistence then? — John

I would not call pains and pangs an awareness. Furthermore, I do not believe that it is the pain of hunger which motivates one to eat. Eating is an habitual activity which is generally not at all associated with the pain of hunger. It takes a higher form of intelligence than what most animals have, to make this association between the pain of hunger, and the need to eat.

Is seeing being aware of your eyes, and what your eyes are doing, or is it more properly described as being aware of the things which are being seen? — Metaphysician Undercover

Seeing is first of all the feeling of light, color, and contour. Derivatively of this we then say that we see 'things.' We always see things by way of the former, but we never come to the former by means of seeing things. The sensory components of sight come first, and are never left behind. We are not aware of our eyes as objects, but rather feel their motions from the inside. We could never see unless we had self-sensing visual feelings.

Are you saying that the frog is aware of all of its internal activities which cause it to catch the fly, but is never aware of the fly itself? — Metaphysician Undercover

The frog only needs to be compelled by hunger and instinct to behave in a certain way, which due to forces beyond its control or understanding lead it to being fed. It has no idea what a fly is, let alone awareness of any particular flies. Nor is this either sufficient or necessary: we could put it in a different environment where the same passions triggered in it caused it to survive by other means than eating flies, and it would never know the difference (so it does not need to be aware of flies at all), and on the other hand we could make it die in the presence of plenty of flies, by removing its impetus to action.

This is part of the legacy of Western philosophy known as ontological monism, which takes the transcendent and distance as fundamental, which Michel Henry criticizes. I think it's backwards: you can get to exteriority from auto-affection, but not vice-versa. If you begin with the outside, you only get a sad facsimile of the self, as 'another inside of me.' That is what is fashionable in philosophy now, but it'd be a nice to see a return to the other direction, which was championed by the Cyrenaics and Descartes. The picture we have of the competing view is a sort of 'mutual emptiness' that Schopenhauer criticizes when he asks: 'this is all very well and good, but what the devil has any of it got to do with me?' — The Great Whatever

Eh, I'm of course exactly of the opposite mind, both historically and philosophically: the notion of auto-affection has been the theological thread that philosophy has had to untangle for thousands of years, and it's only recently we've managed to really think past it in a way most welcome. I think you'd very much enjoy something like Voice and Phenomena, by the way (re: the reading group), if only because it makes this point exactly with respect to Husserl - even if you would perhaps vehemently disagree with it.

As for the thesis about consciousness of others here, it doesn't even do what it wants of course, because it also sees other people as things. And so just like we have a facsimile of the self, we have a facsimile of other people. Lingis' description, what we see of it here anyway, is bloodless and facile, and does not at all capture what experiencing another person is like. — The Great Whatever

To be fair to Lingis, although the quoted phrases don't indicate it, he has been one of the most persistent critics of intentionality in the phenomenological sphere. Indeed, he ends the chapter on 'The Perception of Others' with a series of what he calls the limitations of the views above, which have to do exactly with intentionality. A sample: "The type of account we have elaborated seems to us limited in two ways. First, it would seem that the mind in the sublime sense - the other's thought, judgements, decisions, evaluations, processes that have no kinesthetic manifestation - escapes any perceptual experience. ... But secondly, it seems to us that a whole class of perceivable behaviours escapes the kind of analysis we have offered in this chapter.. There are behaviours of the other which are of their nature not associated with mine, behaviours by which the other polarizes himself over me ... To call upon me, to address me, is not to associate with me, to elicit my sympathy; it is to invoke me, to judge me, command me, contest me ..."

He's basically alluding - without naming it - to the whole Levinasian account of the Other which is always impositional, etc. In any case, my interest was how the account offered nicely links up to a testable, scientific thesis.

--

A sample, from elsewhere, to indicate Lingis's awareness of the problems of intentionality: " The sensibility for the sensuous is not a synoptic receptivity for a multiplicity of sense data; instead light, darkness, chromatic density, sonority, warmth and cold are surfaceless depths in which the sensuous body is immersed. Sensibility is not intentional; it is an involution in depths. ... We breathe for the sake of breathing the good air, we eat in savouring the goodness of terrestrial nourishments, we drink in enjoying the tang and bouquet of the wine."

Eh, I'm of course exactly of the opposite mind, both historically and philosophically: the notion of auto-affection has been the theological thread that philosophy has had to untangle for thousands of years, and it's only recently we've managed to really think past it in a way most welcome. I think you'd very much enjoy something like Voice and Phenomena, by the way (re: the reading group), if only because it makes this point exactly with respect to Husserl - even if you would perhaps vehemently disagree with it. — StreetlightX

Auto-affection has not had any real mainstream proponents aside from, basically, Descartes, and maybe you can find echoes of it in Husserl's self-conscious revival of the Cartesian spirit (and as he notes, Descartes' treatment of it is not quite right, it's more of an inkling – I think his thoughts were more or less a pale reflection of several ancient philosophers' who have not received any mainstream attention). The idea that we are only now coming to think past it makes no sense to me: rather, what you're saying here, about the outside being prior to the inside, has always been the direction of Western philosophy, so I don't see in it anything new at all, only a culmination of previous, very old, prejudices. The self and experience generally has always appeared as a problem and outrage for philosophy, and its tendency toward it has always been flight, combined with a longing sense that some mystery has been overlooked or misunderstood.

To that end, seeing the self as just another outside object, and affirming that looking outward happens prior to feeling inward, is congenial to the project. Of course in this direction we end up with neither a self nor others, but just more rocks, albeit some that, as Lingins pretends, we can animate analogically with sensory powers, as if our eyeballs floated out in the middle of nowhere, then saw two bodies and noticed a regularity between them.

The problem is of course that we don't just see external things at all to begin with: they are formed only as a coagulation of feelings, and we only come to individuate them insofar as we understand how that affect us, and so other people arise from a common pathetic source, and not as things that we must first see as rocks and then imbue with life force as we notice that they move like another kind of rock (our body, which we look at from the outside out, rather than the inside out).

In any case, my interest was how the account offered nicely links up to a testable, scientific thesis. — StreetlightX

There is not any account of other minds I'm aware of that's amenable to science in any way, and I'm not sure how this one is different. Any test I could imagine just piggybacks on preexisting metaphysical positions that beg the question. How do we know which observed behaviors are conscious?

I would not call pains and pangs an awareness. Furthermore, I do not believe that it is the pain of hunger which motivates one to eat. Eating is an habitual activity which is generally not at all associated with the pain of hunger. It takes a higher form of intelligence than what most animals have, to make this association between the pain of hunger, and the need to eat. — Metaphysician Undercover

If it is not pangs of hunger that motivate animals to eat, then what is it? Lions, for example, will not show any interest in prey when sated. It seems obvious they are aware of being sated, and stop eating at that point.

Animals don't need to "make an association" between pangs of hunger and a need to eat. They simply become aware of the urge to eat and then do what they do to satisfy it; all without any conception of satisfying an urge we would probably think.

You can starve or overfeed-to-death an organism by messing with the biochemical processes that make it feel appropriate hunger and satiation.

The problem is of course that we don't just see external things at all to begin with: they are formed only as a coagulation of feelings, and we only come to individuate them insofar as we understand how that affect us, and so other people arise from a common pathetic source, and not as things that we must first see as rocks and then imbue with life force as we notice that they move like another kind of rock (our body, which we look at from the outside out, rather than the inside out). — The Great Whatever

The problem here would be that you simply set up an alternative dualism - the one of self and qualia instead of that of self and world. And so the problem is not dissolved. You are still talking about the observers of observables in a way that makes the observation as a process mysterious.

So solutions to this problem have to understand the self and its objects - ideal or real - in terms of a semiotic relation. The observer side of the equation must also be generalised (so that it no longer seems so mysteriously and ineffably particular). We must be able to talk about observers as something themselves individuated, rather than starting with them as some brute fact individuation.

You can starve or overfeed-to-death an organism by messing with the biochemical processes that make it feel appropriate hunger and satiation. — The Great Whatever

You mean biosemiotic, not biochemical. You have to mess with the signalling, the system of interpretance, not the material state that is the subject of some interpretation.

You mean biosemiotic, not biochemical. You have to mess with the signalling, the system of interpretance, not the material state that is the subject of some interpretation. — apokrisis

Are you saying that the "system of interpretance" is not underpinned by any biochemical system that you could mess with in order to disrupt it?

Are you saying that the "system of interpretance" is not underpinned by any biochemical system that you could mess with in order to disrupt it? — John

If an organism has the actual choice to overeat or starve itself, then the materiality, the chemistry, is not really the issue, is it?

OK, then I guess I'm asking whether you think there is any biochemical system you could mess with in order to remove the capacity to have that "actual choice". I don't know, perhaps I'm missing some crucial point here?

Seeing is first of all the feeling of light, color, and contour. — The Great Whatever

OK, but isn't the light, colour, and contour something external? So isn't this "feeling of light", an awareness of something external?

The frog only needs to be compelled by hunger and instinct to behave in a certain way... — The Great Whatever

As I explained, I don't think it is hunger which compels one to eat. And being compelled by instinct cannot be classified as a form of awareness. Perhaps awareness could be classed as an instinct, but not vise versa.

If it is not pangs of hunger that motivate animals to eat, then what is it? Lions, for example, will not show any interest in prey when sated. It seems obvious they are aware of being sated, and stop eating at that point. — John

It is the desire to eat, which motivates one to eat. At the first level it's habitual, at the deeper level it's instinctual, but pangs of hunger are not what stimulates the desire to eat. Compare how many times that you have had the desire to eat with how many time that you have had pangs of hunger, and check how valid your inductive reasoning is, which tells you that pangs of hunger motivate an animal to eat. Yes, after one eats, an animal is sated, and stops eating, but how does that imply that pangs of hunger motivate one to eat?

Animals don't need to "make an association" between pangs of hunger and a need to eat. They simply become aware of the urge to eat and then do what they do to satisfy it; all without any conception of satisfying an urge we would probably think. — John

Can we not establish a proper differentiation between pangs of hunger, and the urge to eat? Do you not agree with me, that these are two completely different, and very likely completely unrelated things? If the urge to eat only came about from pangs of hunger, there would probably be no obesity in the world.

OK, but isn't the light, colour, and contour something external? So isn't this "feeling of light", an awareness of something external? — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

As I explained, I don't think it is hunger which compels one to eat. — Metaphysician Undercover

How am I even supposed to respond to this?

Compare how many times that you have had the desire to eat with how many time that you have had pangs of hunger, and check how valid your inductive reasoning is, which tells you that pangs of hunger motivate an animal to eat.

It is the desire to eat, which motivates one to eat. At the first level it's habitual, at the deeper level it's instinctual, but pangs of hunger are not what stimulates the desire to eat. — Metaphysician Undercover

First up, I thought we were speaking about animals, not about humans.

In any case, you say that "at the first level it is habitual", but that can't be right since otherwise newborn animals would not feed. You say that "at the deeper level it's instinctual" but what could the instinct to eat be other than the felt urge to eat?

Can we not establish a proper differentiation between pangs of hunger, and the urge to eat? Do you not agree with me, that these are two completely different, and very likely completely unrelated things? If the urge to eat only came about from pangs of hunger, there would probably be no obesity in the world. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I agree that we can establish such a distinction, whether it is a "proper" or improper one is an open issue, but in any case I can't see the relevance to the argument of our being able to establish such a distinction. Animals cannot establish such a distinction, and I think we must imagine that they eat when they feel the pangs of hunger, if food is available, or they go in search for it if it not. Alternatively we may say that they eat when they feel the urge, but whatever way we want to express it ,it is a feeling, an awareness, within the animal that motivates it to eat. And I had thought that you were arguing against TGW's position regarding "inner affection".

OK, then I guess I'm asking whether you think there is any biochemical system you could mess with in order to remove the capacity to have that "actual choice". I don't know, perhaps I'm missing some crucial point here? — John

It's up to TGW to make sense of that claim. My point is that in talking about "chemistry", he is misdirecting us from the formal cause to the material cause when dealing with the issue of "mind".

I'n not going to reply to this, because I don't think it matters. The point was just that if you stop something from feeling hunger, it can die as a result, vitiating the (IMO absurd) claim that hunger doesn't compel eating. I have no desire to engage with your elaborate whatever-it-is.

I'n not going to reply to this, because I don't think it matters — The Great Whatever

Is that you don't think, or you don't feel? Or that you don't think you should feel? :)

How am I even supposed to respond to this? — The Great Whatever

To interject here, sometimes people eat because they enjoy eating, or because they're bored. You are correct in that we seem to eat primarily to get rid of an uncomfortable notification; indeed without this uncomfortable notification the only thing that would compel us to eat would be an understanding of biological functions paired with a general desire to continue to exist. Generally I would say that most people would prefer to rather continue to live without having to eat instead of being constrained by the biological necessity of fuel and the subsequent motivational discomfort.

Perhaps this is why Aristotle was quite reserved and pessimistic in his thoughts on the telos-attaining man. As I recall, Aristotle thought contentment and "happiness" was only available for those who didn't have to work hard, manual labor for their entire lives and had a certain degree of comfort and luxury. These comfortable people inevitably started doing philosophy, and reflected upon the human condition and thus we have existentialism/pessimism.

You are correct in that we seem to eat primarily to get rid of an uncomfortable notification — darthbarracuda

Just to clarify on this point – an important thing to note here is that hunger is not a notification in the sense of providing the organism with information. The organism learns nothing about the objective state of their body from being hungry per se (that is, not unless they are prior aware of some theory of objective hunger and take this sensation merely as an indicator of some separate state), nor what needs to be done to recognize this. Hunger is not a signaling of any state of the body whatsoever to the organism, who need know nothing objective about its own body at all in order to be hungry. Possibly it learns something that, for a human with speech powers, might be expressible with 'I'm hungry' while the sensation persists. But this could only be construed as a report of a feeling, not an objective state (thus it would be true even if one were 'objectively full,' but one's body were thrown out of whack to be hungry even when the stomach was full and no energy was needed).

Hunger simply compels us to act in a certain way like a whip does – we don't, by being hungry or following this compulsion, learn anything about the mechanisms affecting us, or their manner of resolution, or the objective effect we have on food or our own body by eating.

To interject here, sometimes people eat because they enjoy eating, or because they're bored. You are correct in that we seem to eat primarily to get rid of an uncomfortable notification; indeed without this uncomfortable notification the only thing that would compel us to eat would be an understanding of biological functions paired with a general desire to continue to exist.

In such cases, the eating is still compelled by an appetite of some sort: the feeling of hunger is only an example, and not of intrinsic interest.

The observer side of the equation must also be generalised (so that it no longer seems so mysteriously and ineffably particular). We must be able to talk about observers as something themselves individuated, rather than starting with them as some brute fact individuation. — apokrisis

I like the idea of the subject and object being disentangled (starting with neither in its purity), but who is this "we" that must talk about observers being themselves individuated? It's as if we always already "believe" in the "we" and the "I."

Just to clarify on this point – an important thing to note here is that hunger is not a notification in the sense of providing the organism with information. The organism learns nothing about the objective state of their body from being hungry per se (that is, not unless they are prior aware of some theory of objective hunger and take this sensation merely as an indicator of some separate state), nor what needs to be done to recognize this. — The Great Whatever

This is precisely what I was referring to. Thanks to a familial relationships and pseudo-memories imbued within genes (i.e "instincts"), hunger automatically, or very quickly is learned to be, a signal for the need to consume something. A baby, when faced with the crisis of hunger for the first time, cries out in anxiety, and is then fed goopy food or breast milk. Soon the baby learns that there is a direct relationship between them experiencing hunger, crying, and getting food (a something that tastes interesting and goes in the mouth), therefore, the experience of hunger is connected to getting food. As the baby matures into a child and adult it takes responsibility for this necessity and gets food on its own without (usually) crying.

I like the idea of the subject and object being disentangled (starting with neither in its purity), but who is this "we" that must talk about observers being themselves individuated? It's as if we always already "believe" in the "we" and the "I." — Hoo

Obviously the Pragmatic "we" - the community of minds that is the limit to rational inquiry (see Peirce).

So yes, I already believe in that "we" and also say that is the thought it should have here. In doing so, I am urging an opinion on you which I am claiming would the inevitable destination of clear thinking. And that method of thinking is also defined in the same fashion.

In the end, everything is recursive - the view we establish from inside the problem we want to describe as if we stood outside it. But that entails no paradox if it is measurably true we are achieving the purpose we had in mind.

Hunger still affects the body, and is produced via the body which is outwardly connected with the world. All suffering seems to be bodily, which means it's an experience of being-in-the-world, an intentional consciousness.

And the experience of hunger would still be a hunger-for, wouldn't it? Even if one is hungry and it does not offer any theoretical information about how one procures a meal for themselves, consciousness is intentionally related to something that it's attempting to secure to stop it's suffering. So once it manages to find something that it holds onto, it develops a sort of theoretical frame of mind.

Thanks. That was a great answer. I'm not saying that all difficulties are permanently abolished, but it was a nice clarification.

I thought this was a philosophy forum where people are motivated by something other than instinct?

When animals create knowledge and in particular when they transfer this knowledge by creating cultural artefacts, then there will be no explanation for that phenomenon other than they possess qualia. Same goes for robots.

Is "empirical confirmation" ever possible? What do your instincts tell you? — tom

These are all irrelevant points, as far as I can see. We were discussing your idea that animals are merely "robots". I asked you if that means it is OK in your book to torture them. Although of course if you really believe they are robots then the notion of torturing them would be incoherent for you, so I'll put it another way; would it be OK to burn them alive, starve them to death, cut off their limbs little by little, immerse them in caustic soda or what ever other kind of treatment you know would cause terrible suffering to a human?

Because to do any of those things (except for starving to death, which makes no sense in this context) to a robot or a computer, however well it might play go or chess, would be no problem, since we know they don't suffer.

So, cease to evade the issue by tossing out red herrings and answer the question honestly.

Hunger still affects the body, and is produced via the body which is outwardly connected with the world. — Marty

If we're looking 'from the inside,' then no: the point that hunger doesn't tell us anything about any objects at all, not even our own bodies, prevents it from showing us the body as in any way outwardly connected with the world. It might ultimately be so connected in fact, but the hunger itself does not help us understand this.

All suffering seems to be bodily, which means it's an experience of being-in-the-world, an intentional consciousness. — Marty

The point is that hunger is not intentional. It has a sort of internal telos to it, but that telos doesn't reach out toward anything else. An adult might understand that hunger requires an outside source to satiate it and so go looking for it: but hunger on its own does not help with this, it only compels the organism to act in certain ways, and those ways get more complicated as the organism becomes more intelligent.

If ultimately there is no difference in kind from the barest capability of sensation and the fully developed human, then even in the latter case one will not actually be looking for any sort of object to feed the hunger: the hunger will still be pushing within itself for certain actions to be taken for no reason, but some of that movement will have been projected into a sort of simulacrum-world, where part of the pathos gets parsed as 'hamburger,' leading to the false picture of intentionality.

The idea that we are only now coming to think past it makes no sense to me: rather, what you're saying here, about the outside being prior to the inside, has always been the direction of Western philosophy, so I don't see in it anything new at all, only a culmination of previous, very old, prejudices. — The Great Whatever

I suppose we simply have different approaches to the history of philosophy then. The whole idea of self-affection is pretty much as old as God himself, who is the auto-affecting being par excellence. Is it any surprise that Henry is as much a theologian as he is a philosopher? Anyway, you find the same structure at work in conceptions of the soul, spirit, liberal individualism, DNA, computer code - any reductionist program where something is meant to be sovereign over itself without remainder. It's only recently that we're coming round to the understanding that such conceptions are entirely inadequate to the complexity of the world. And even then we have a long way to go. That such a prodigious philosopher as Henry could simply transpose such an ancient mythologeme into phenomenology and declare it 'radical' attests to that, I think.

the point that hunger doesn't tell us anything about any objects at all, not even our own bodies, — The Great Whatever

What if I feel hungry for something - like something sweet rather than savoury? We can be satiated on steak and yet still discover an appetite for chocolate mousse.

Your apparent suggestion that appetites lack objects doesn't square with experience. it seems classic reification in support of some dualistic or panpsychic conception of qualia.

Do you, when you feel hunger, not feel the contractions of your muscles near your stomach? Do you not feel pain in certain areas they're bodily? Then will not further deterioration of your body cause a specific attunement which in advanced understands the world as "something-which-can-satisfy-my hunger/a-hunger-for-something?" This is no more than Heideggerian comportment. So it does change the ontological meaning of beings - it is that which is desireable for one to eat. Of course, we cannot in advance know everything that is edible, but then I wasn't arguing for a theoretical knowledge of what can actually fulfill my hunger, merely that consciousness is looking for something outside itself to fulfill that purpose, and interact with it.

How does an adult understand that hunger requires an outside source to satiate it, without feeling hungry? He can't in advance search for something that he has no understanding of. The understanding would have to come first, and then once he understands his hunger, he begins to go outside to search for what can stop it. This is all that's really required for intentionality.

any reductionist program where something is meant to be sovereign over itself without remainder — StreetlightX

I'm not sure who you're supposed to be criticizing here, me personally or the general Henrian program that uses the term auto-affection, but in either case this is a profound, profound misunderstanding. Whatever the conclusion ultimately is, you need to understand that this is not a real or cogent criticism, and that you don't have the intellectual privilege of this cursory dismissal. Understand that while you have a prerogative to disagree, you are not doing so in an informed way.

Also, I don't share Henry's Christianity, but it's not exactly a traditional onto-theological take on divinity, and he's gotten in trouble with the Christian community because of it. It's also worth noting that Henry's own Christianity, though I don't agree with it, is so opposed to the idea presented in your quote that only a total ignorance of the position could have caused you to say that. A huge portion of the Henrian theological project is the notion of passivity and having to freely receive oneself from an outside, which Henry associates with the Holy Spirit. And this is a Christian idea that your trite version of the history of phil. will not countenance.

It's only recently that we're coming round to the understanding that such conceptions are entirely inadequate to the complexity of the world. And even then we have a long way to go. That such a prodigious philosopher as Henry could simply transpose such an ancient mythologeme into phenomenology and declare it 'radical' attests to that, I think. — StreetlightX

Well, all I can say is I feel the same way. There is absolutely nothing radical or new in what you are talking about. It is old hat in the oldest sense of hat. It was in Aristotle, it was in Ryle. Ask yourself this: if what you think is so radical, why does everyone agree with you? Why is everyone tripping over themselves to say things like the title of your OP, and why is any mention of Henry in a serious context made in order to dismiss him as vociferously as possible? Think about the current intellectual landscape and where you stand in it, honestly. Then trace it backward.

I think much of the confusion hinges on the fact that while I am talking about monism and the primacy of exteriority and transcendence, you are talking about theology, which you are so scared of being accused of that you are unwilling to engage with the subject being spoken of.