But we have good reason to credit humans with "experience", even if it is just a folk psychology term. We know what we mean by the word, and we know what to expect of organisms with the kind of complex nervous systems to have it. — apokrisis
What is experience if not information; and conversely what is information if not some kind of experience? — Janus
Information in-forms entities, that is changes them, and so all change is relational. — Janus
Change is experienced in different ways by different entities, and talk of interiority even in the case of biological entities, even humans, is a relative matter, not an absolute one. — Janus
We know what we mean when we says things like "The cliff experienced the erosive force of the wind and rain" , or "the electron experiences the attraction of the nucleus". — Janus
Human experience is a difference of degree not an absolute difference of kind. — Janus
Now how are you going to continue on to show they are two ways of talking about the same thing? — apokrisis
You seem to think it might be ... life ... and interiority. — apokrisis
Even though the non-conscious experience of electron now makes their experience as epiphenomenal as it could get. — apokrisis
That is one kind of experience and the experience of a rock or electron might be another kind of experience — Janus
but, as I said earlier the difference in kind between life and non-life is a relative one, on Whitehead's view, not an absolutely radical one. — Janus
Anything that is affected has some kind of "interiority"; rocks will be affected according to their internal constitution, and so will electrons. This is not animism, though, since it acknowledges the almost negligible sense in which things like rocks and electrons could be said to have an "interiority". — Janus
Because their experience, though of course non-conscious, and however minimal, and which is determined by their own constitution, is not epiphenomenal precisely because it is what determines how they will respond to any affect. — Janus
Of course rocks have some kind of internal structure. But in what sense does that structure model anything? — apokrisis
Scientific modelling is a scientific activity, the aim of which is to make a particular part or feature of the world easier to understand, define, quantify, visualize, or simulate by referencing it to existing and usually commonly accepted knowledge. It requires selecting and identifying relevant aspects of a situation in the real world and then using different types of models for different aims, such as conceptual models to better understand, operational models to operationalize, mathematical models to quantify, and graphical models to visualize the subject. Modelling is an essential and inseparable part of many scientific disciplines, each of which have their own ideas about specific types of modelling.[1][2]
So, modelling doesn't have a "feels like". — schopenhauer1
Again, now that you have actually read the thread, you will appreciate that your old hobbyhorses are irrelevant. — apokrisis
Or is an individual occasion like the present moment, of zero duration, therefore not actually existent?
So, modelling doesn't have a "feels like". In fact, it doesn't have a metaphysical anything in the "real world". It is all abstracted information, so that it can be quantified or simplified for epistemological reasons. Again, you are mixing the map for the territory. You are waffling between words. Is it the definition you sent me, or are you cramming other concepts into this word? — schopenhauer1
(Not necessarily related to Whitehead. Personally, I would stay away from Whitehead and most of the so-called process philosophers since they do nothing but introduce noise.) — Magnus Anderson
"No duration" does not mean non-existent. Time can be defined as the number of events between two events. Events themselves have no duration — Magnus Anderson
This seems to imply that time could be constructed from events of zero duration, which is about as sensible as space being composed of points of zero extension. I fail to see the logic in either assertion. — prothero
↪Magnus Anderson What defines an event? You have made event sound as though everything came to a stop between periods of “duration”.
Time, as I see it, is a method of measuring motion. Motion does not cease.
“Events” are really just points of a duration which impress more so upon memory. — raza
It is in thinking that our mathematical models represent the complete "real world" that we commit the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness". Such models are only ever idealized, abstract, partial and incomplete representations of the "blooming, buzzing, confusion" which is nature. They largely leave out the feelings and experiences of their creators. — prothero
It is in forgetting that it is a thinking, feeling creatures with value judgements about the world that engages in observation, measurement and empirical science in the first place that one creates an artificial "bifurcation of nature". — prothero
The way we think about the world influences how we act in the world. If we think we are only physical-chemical machines in a valueless, purposeless, largely insentient universe we will act accordingly and the results will be in neither the best interest of the planet or of ourselves. — prothero
No answer. — schopenhauer1
Where was the question that was cogently expressed and relevant to the discussion? — apokrisis
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