What I have in mind is more the kind of uncritical acceptance of science as the 'arbiter of reality'. This is the view of many of the popular intellectuals and science writers who comment on philosophical questions. It is also pretty close to the attitude of many academic philosophers. Of course there are also scientists that doesn't apply to. But you can't say it isn't a very widespread element of modern culture. Why, I have even seen you criticize it from time to time (except for when I criticize it, in which case then apparently I'm attacking straw men.) — Wayfarer

I think science is the "arbiter of reality" if by that you mean the best way to understand the natural world, the way it is, the way it works, the way it all "hangs together". Science is not best adapted to understanding and describing human behavior though; the great novelist does a better job in this than the great scientist.

So, science has no business denying or pretending it can explain (away) aesthetic, ethical and mystical experience. All these are based in feeling, and those feelings constitute the richness of human life. I don't believe science is any threat to the domains of feeling. Heightened feeling can tend to generate superstition, though, and I think science, the scientific attitude, is a threat (and the best antidote) to that.

Where we probably differ the most is that I don't believe any aesthetic, ethical or mystical experiences can tell anyone anything definite about the metaphysical nature of reality. Religious experience, for example, cannot tell us whether or not there really is a God, or Karma, or an afterlife, whether reincarnation or resurrection. Ethical, poetical and religious insights are insights of feeling, allegory and metaphor, not of any determinate knowledge. What they mean for human life is also mediated more by feeling, ideally by love, than by intellect, in my view.

I think you, on the other hand, think there is some esoteric, higher, intellectual objective knowledge, and you see science as a threat to that. This is precisely where we disagree, and that is what I mean when I say you are attacking a strawman when you attack science in defence of that.

I would say that the future is manifested within us as anticipation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would like to see a separation between "experience" and "future". — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this touches on a problem you've already mentioned, the difficulty of finding the right words. We have different conceptualizations of the future. In one conceptualization, the future is exactly what can't be here yet. In another, the future is possibility that exists 'now.' In this second sense we can say that human experience is primarily 'futural.'

So what happens when "experience is synthesized" (as you say), memories (experiences) are contextualized at an actively changing present, in relation to the future. So what it is which is synthesized, i.e. produced by our minds at the present, contains elements of experience as well as elements of anticipation. Therefore this cannot be properly called "experience". Our being at the present is a synthesis of memories (past) and anticipations (future), experience being proper to the former but not the latter. — Metaphysician Undercover

For me we might as well include anticipation as part of experience, especially if it dominates the 'now.' This seems to be only matter of preferred terminology though.

Simply put, the future appears to us in the form of possibility, which is the general, universal, conceptual. But the past is revealed to us as the existence of particulars. — Metaphysician Undercover

While I like this conceptualization (which is new to me), I feel the need to complicate it. Why should the future be only conceptual possibility? Can I not have a detailed fantasy or fear of the future? And a point that you didn't respond to (which I didn't stress much) is the idea of the 'living' past. This 'living past' is not our memory of what happened. It is what obscurely governs out interpretation of the present with the help of the future as possibility. It is 'invisible' as what we take for granted. We might call it the distortion of the lens which we cannot see through that lens. It is our 'pre-interpretation' of the situation, the one we don't know we have as we employ it. It can become visible in retrospect. We can see later that we were thinking 'inside the box' the box of this 'living past.' I suppose this is a metaphorical use of 'past,' since it is not what is usually intended.

the trend in modern presentism is toward a dimensional, or 'thick" present. I call it the second dimension of time, "breadth". The issue is that the "present" is defined by our presence. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we are near the heart of the matter with this 'breadth.' My favorite approach to this at the moment is in terms of the smear of meaning. As you read this very sentence there is memory of what you have read and anticipation of what will follow in terms of that memory. The meaning is deferred. The meaning of what you have already read is not established until you have finished the sentence. The past is a function of the future, in this sense. And how does the 'present of reading' exist here? All of our conceptualizations of time depend as conceptualizations on this same 'smeared meaning' of reading/speaking and in that sense are derivative. 'Clock time' exists as a product of 'meaning time.' If meaning itself is 'non-present' in this way, then the traditional notion of the present seems to be shaken or troubled.

It is objectively true that emotions motivate behavior; I have not denied that at all. But we cannot determine objectively precisely what emotion motivated precisely what behavior at some specific time and place. We cannot determine that in any way that could be inter-subjectively confirmed by observation, and I am even skeptical that we could determine such a thing precisely even in relation to our own behavior.

This is true even with ethology; we can only approximate even with observations of animal behavior and how much more is this true of human behavior? There is thus a subjective element even in some of the sciences (not to mention the subjective element in all the sciences due to the fact that they are human practices; which is a different subject again).

Reality also appears to be unified and invariant. — Janus


I don't understand why you would say this. Don't we confront many distinct possibilities at the present, implying the exact opposite. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course there is variation as well as invariance; I am not silly enough to deny this; it's a matter of scales. Even variation has its own regularities, though. :wink:

I agree with you that the most important things are communion and community; which in some senses are the very same things. For me both consist in dispositions which are based more in feeling than in intellectual understanding; they are more poetry than science, that is. Good poetry can well do without science (although it may benefit greatly from scientific insight) but good science ( that is, beneficial science) cannot do without poetry. This signals to me that nothing is more important than feeling, and love is the primary feeling that both binds and releases. — Janus

I completely agree. 'Feeling is first.' We need concepts and metaphors of course, but this is the 'letter' and not the 'spirit.' This spirit is 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.' The sound of language, this arbitrary 'meaning vehicle,' is something like the flesh of meaning. This flesh helps carry the feeling of the meaning and is perhaps inseparable. We use concepts to break up a unity. But we live that unity anyway.

Where we probably differ the most is that I don't believe any aesthetic, ethical or mystical experiences can tell anyone anything definite about the metaphysical nature of reality. — Janus

Right. You deny that anything meaningful can be said about metaphysics proper.

I think you, on the other hand, think there is some esoteric, higher, intellectual objective knowledge, and you see science as a threat to that. — Janus

In Western culture, scientism or 'science as a religion' is a threat to many things. It's basically built on a kind of hollowed-out and inverted form of Christianity. This is described in any number of books, although they're probably a bit too 'metaphysical' for your liking.

I think perhaps your approach to these very questions is very much influenced by cultural Protestantism - which is not an ad hominem, it's not something particular to yourself, but I think it pervades current culture. It often gives rise to a kind of reticence with respect to anything deemed metaphysical. Hence your frequent recommendation of Wittgenstein. However I don't think that you appreciate that Wittgenstein's silence was also a form of apophatic mysticism. Ray Monk, who wrote what I believe to be a well-regarded bio of Wittgenstein, says in his article Wittgenstein's Forgotten Lesson, that

His work is opposed, as he once put it, to “the spirit which informs the vast stream of European and American civilisation in which all of us stand.” Nearly 50 years after his death, we can see, more clearly than ever, that the feeling that he was swimming against the tide was justified. If we wanted a label to describe this tide, we might call it “scientism,” the view that every intelligible question has either a scientific solution or no solution at all. It is against this view that Wittgenstein set his face.

So do you think he too was 'attacking straw men'?

------

Found a nice quote:

"Religion," George Berkeley once remarked, "is the virtuous mean between incredulity and superstition".

From this interesting blog from an author that has a PhD in the philosophy of Berkeley.

----
Regarding your question about 'how meaning is able to be constant' - have a look at this OP which I started last year, when I think you weren't around. And also this post (along with @Apokrisis' response to it). They're both about the relationship between language, thought, and representation.

Right. You deny that anything meaningful can be said about metaphysics proper. — Wayfarer

No, I said that nothing definite can be said about the metaphysical nature of reality, not that nothing meaningful can be said about metaphysics. (I'm not sure what the function of the "proper" here is).

I think perhaps your approach to these very questions is very much influenced by cultural Protestantism - which is not an ad hominem, it's not something particular to yourself, but I think it pervades current culture. — Wayfarer

I don't agree with this assessment in relation to myself: I have not been much influenced by Protestantism. Certainly Protestantism has had a cultural influence, no greater than the influence of Catholicism, though (which incidentally has been generally more sympathetic to scientific theories such as Evolution and the Big Bang and Catholics and also Catholics outnumber Protestants by about 1.5 to 1 I believe). So, basically I think you are vastly oversimplifying in you view of the situation.

So do you think he too was 'attacking straw men'? — Wayfarer

No, I agree with him in being against scientism, and you should be well aware of that if you have read my many exchanges with apokrisis.

So, the idea that "every question has either a scientific solution or no solution at all" evolves out of 'black and white' thinking; thinking without nuance. Again you should have noticed that i repeatedly say that science has no business trying to answer aesthetic, ethical or mystical questions. But those questions have no definitive solution, so it would be OK to say that every question has either a scientific solution or no definitive solution; that would be a very different, much more nuanced statement.

"Religion," George Berkeley once remarked, "is the virtuous mean between incredulity and superstition". — Wayfarer

Yes, I would interpret that to mean that religion (at its best, mind) retains the feeling that is (often, but not inevitably) lost with incredulity, without retaining the superstitious beliefs that incredulity pits itself against.

Regarding your question about 'how meaning is able to be constant' - have a look at this OP which I started last year... — Wayfarer

Ah yes, I remember that thread. I'd just like to emphasize that I don't at all deny meaning. Indeed, I am playing with a theory that radically prioritizes meaning. Both 'mind' and 'matter' are just meanings. 'Concepts' ('subjective') and 'objects' ('out there') are both just 'formed non-form.' This 'non-form' might be called 'sensation' or 'emotion,' except these mislead us into taking the subject as prior to meaning rather than one more meaning. To be sure this is 'speculative.' No one could live by it. The continuity of meaningformed nonmeaning gives rise to a sense of being an 'I' in a world with others and objects. Some of these forms are more or less pure form. At the level of the bit ('pure' unity), we can have a science of 'ideal' information. IMV it is only math's exclusion of metaphoricity ('meaning-bleed') that allows it its exactness.
==
'Does consciousness exist?' sounds like a 'materialist' denial of meaning, but for William James this question puts 'matter' or 'non-consciousness' in the same bin of abstractions from the lifestream which is one and continuous.
http://faculty.fiu.edu/~hauptli/James'DoesConsciousnessExistandTheContinuityofExperience.htm

I don't think this idea will appeal to you, and I understand the value of a more determinate theology, one with fixed meanings and concepts. Nevertheless I think James' vision is profound and worth consideration. I understand him on this issue much better having grasped what I'd call the point of later Wittgenstein. (Obviously others could reject my interpretation of Wittgenstein.) I think this is the issue that divides you and @Janus. Is the 'spiritual' determinate? Is it essentially determinate? Is it propositional? Is the truth of the spiritual 'sharp' like mathematics? I relate this to 'incarnation. ' The Father has a kind of ideal unity. The son is of flesh. So despite my love of the labor of the concept and the idea of the concept as a labor of love, I do lean toward a 'continuous' interpretation of the 'divine.' Of course further experience may change this. I may be blind to something.

I said that nothing definite can be said about the metaphysical nature of reality, not that nothing meaningful can be said about metaphysics. — Janus

What you said was:

science has no business denying or pretending it can explain (away) aesthetic, ethical and mystical experience. All these are based in feeling, and those feelings constitute the richness of human life. — Janus

But these matters are also considered in philosophy. It is one of the things that separates philosophy from both science, and from poetry, and there is more to it than 'just feelings'.

Religious experience, for example, cannot tell us whether or not there really is a God, or Karma, or an afterlife, whether reincarnation or resurrection. — Janus

That's your personal view. Religious people will obviously take issue, as there are many who believe exactly that. And I personally find the study of comparative religion, especially where it overlaps with philosophy, the source of many insights into such issues, which are not really known by either science or by modern academic philosophy.

Is the 'spiritual' determinate? — sign

:roll:

What I was trying to argue with those two threads is that a given sentence or formula or proposition might have a very definite meaning, but that meaning can be conveyed in completely different forms. If I send you the recipe for a cake, or the design for a building, you have to follow those instructions exactly to create the outcome. So I have conveyed meaning or information to you. I get it wrong, or you misunderstand it, and nothing is conveyed and it doesn't work. So, it's real, in that it has consequences that are real. Get a calculation wrong and your building fails. But then, that information can be expressed in many different media or in different symbolic forms - languages, codes, or whatever. I can send you the formula in one notation or another. What doesn't change, is the meaning or the information that it encodes or conveys. So the symbolic form and the information is not exactly the same thing. The text encodes meaning, but that meaning is something other than the physical form. That I find interesting.

As for how this relates to idealism: the rules of thought - logic, maths, syntax and so on - actually provide the structure within which meaning becomes intelligible. Without them, all we would have is gestures and sounds. And that belongs to a different order, - as Platonists would argue, a higher order than the physical order, an which is only visible to a rational mind - the 'intelligible order'. So the 'structure of thought' is also a reflection of, or interwoven with, 'the structure of the world'; which is why mathematics is predictive (among many other things.)

That's your personal view. Religious people will obviously take issue, as there are many who believe exactly that. — Wayfarer

But religions contradict one another as to what is told. Also I was not denying that someone might be convinced by a mystical experience of the existence of God, or the Universal Buddha nature or Karma, reincarnation, the trinity or what5ver else, but that mystical experiences are had by individuals and only the individuals in question really know what the 'content' of those experiences are, and so inter-subjectively corroborated kinds of knowledge cannot be had from them. This is analogous to feelings and sensation no one can know my pain. So religious experience is more akin to feeling than it is to thought; because the latter may be shared and critiqued and tested and so on.

But these matters are also considered in philosophy. — Wayfarer

I have never said that we cannot think about religious and ethical and aesthetic experiences; I have said that no definitive knowledge is achievable in the way it is with math and science. This is a commonplace insight really, everyone knows that there cannot be "progress" in philosophy in the way there can with maths and the sciences. It seems to me that you have a kind of emotional resistance to these commonplace insights; iut;'s like you don't want to believe them; so you don't really engage with them.

religions contradict one another as to what is told. — Janus

If you're interested, there are many convergences to be found in them. Of course, not many are interested.

you don't really engage with them. — Janus

I do try, Janus. Our dialogues usually end up at this point. I get we have a divergent 'meta-philosophy'. Let's just leave it that.

So I have conveyed meaning or information to you. I get it wrong, or you misunderstand it, and nothing is conveyed and it doesn't work. — Wayfarer

Indeed. There's no question that meaning is sufficiently determinate for practical life. So please don't misunderstand my point in terms of the explosion of all meaning into mist. An easy example of what I have in mind is my thread about 'the real is rational.' Clearly these words out of context are not easy to interpret. To call them meaningless because they are ambiguous, however, is a mistake in the other direction. IMV it's the fear of interpretation that tempts some thinkers to reject spiritual talk altogether. If it's not medium sized dry goods or educated common sense it's 'nonsense.'

So the symbolic form and the information is not exactly the same thing. The text encodes meaning, but that meaning is something other than the physical form. That I find interesting. — Wayfarer

Of course I agree, and I am particularly interested in that issue myself (hence the moniker.) Meaning is 'incarnate' in text, has text for its 'flesh.' Translation as transmigration of soul meaning happens all of the time. The question might be phrased in terms of whether translation is ever perfect. And can I even read same text twice? I can of course scan the same words. But can I have exactly the same 'meaning experience'? The text is grasped as an abstract unity. It's the same river and yet it's not.

As for how this relates to idealism: the rules of thought - logic, maths, syntax and so on - actually provide the structure within which meaning becomes intelligible. Without them, all we would have is gestures and sounds. And that belongs to a different order, - as Platonists would argue, a higher order than the physical order, an which is only visible to a rational mind - the 'intelligible order'. So the 'structure of thought' is also a reflection of, or interwoven with, 'the structure of the world'; which is why mathematics is predictive (among many other things.) — Wayfarer

Yes. I understand this very well. And 'interwoven' is close to a metaphor used by Husserl. For very good reasons we divide our experience into these realms and postulate faculties. The question is whether this division is sharp and absolute. Clearly mathematics is especially pure, a-historical, sharp. But even here there is trouble. It was precisely the philosophy of mathematics that lead me to study mathematics. Its attempt to capture the continuum and the infinite led to a foundational crisis and even a schism. In what way is the number 12349823489982323423432 intuitively given? We have a faith in our algorithms. Its meaning is not as sharp as that of 2, it seems to me.

The question might be phrased in terms of whether translation is ever perfect. And can I even read same text twice? I can of course scan the same words. But can I have exactly the same 'meaning experience'? The text is grasped as an abstract unity. It's the same river and yet it's not. — sign

Plainly, the kinds of meanings that are found in great literature (or even quotidian literature) and recipes are completely different. In the case of recipes, formulas, and the like, information is conveyed exactly. In the case of literature, then it's a completely different kind of meaning - evocative, revealing. Art reveals new and unthought-of perspectives. 'I had never thought of it that way' or 'I remember that feeling now' - revealing something about the inner life of the author or the reader.

But even though that's all true, it's not exactly the argument I'm trying to develop. To those who propose that knowledge or meaning is 'encoded in the brain' or is identical with 'brain states', what I'm trying to argue is that the faculty that grasps meaning cannot be physical. There's actually no physical analogy for whatever that faculty is (other perhaps than computers, which are after all built by us). But the fact that it's not physical, means that, for most people, then it must be spooky or spiritual or far-out or something. Whereas I'm saying in some sense that it's 'hidden in plain sight'. We actually don't understand something fundamental about our own abilities in this regard.

What does "empiricism" mean? As a psychological disposition, it means a tendency to emphasize the value of experience and to distrust abstract reason. But it is as a philosophical conception, not as a psychological mood, that is discussed here. As a philosophical conception, empiricism means a theory according to which there is no distinction of nature, but only of degree, between the senses and the intellect. As a result, human knowledge is simply sense-knowledge (or animal knowledge) more evolved and elaborated than in other mammals. And not only is human knowledge entirely encompassed in, and limited to, sense-experience...; but to produce its achievements in the sphere of sense-experience human knowledge uses no other specific forces and means than the forces and means which are at play in sense-knowledge.

Now if it is true that reason differs specifically from senses, the paradox with which we are confronted is that empiricism, in actual fact, uses reason while denying the power of reason, on the basis of a theory that reduces reason's knowledge and life, which are characteristic of man, to sense knowledge and life, which are characteristic of animals.

Hence, first, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency between what an empiricist does -- she thinks as a human, she uses reason, a power superior in nature to senses -- and what she says -- she denies this very specificity of reason.

And second, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency even in what she says: for what the Empiricist speaks of and describes as sense-knowledge is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously introduced intellective ingredients -- sense-knowledge in which she has made room for reason without recognizing it. A confusion which comes about all the more easily as, on the one hand, the senses are, in actual fact, more or less permeated with reason in man, and, on the other, the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent.

Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism, bolds added - something I often see here.

Note for example, this passage in Leon Wieseltier's review of Dennett's Breaking the Spell:

the "reason" that Dennett imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.

This point is also elaborated at considerable length by Thomas Nagel in his essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion.

It was precisely the philosophy of mathematics that lead me to study mathematics. Its attempt to capture the continuum and the infinite led to a foundational crisis and even a schism. — sign

Actually I read something about that recently - was it Georg Cantor who had more or less a nervous breakdown? There are some very interesting mathematical philosophers about. And you and I have discussed many times Wigner's essay on the Unreasonable Efficacy of Mathematics in the Natural Science.

Coming to think of it, have you heard of the book by Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math? I think we all should get hold of that. There's reviews here.

Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates trusted theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, physics hasn't made a major breakthrough in more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mind-boggling theories, like supersymmetry or string theory, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink how they do physics. Only by embracing messiness and complexity can science discover the truth, not as one might prefer it, but as it is.

The problem is not maths per se. Maybe it's more about the absence of practical wisdom. In any case, mathematical Platonism would not necessarily culminate in these kinds of conundrums. (I've heard it said that Penrose is a Platonist, but he's way over my head....)

To those who propose that knowledge or meaning is 'encoded in the brain' or is identical with 'brain states', what I'm trying to argue is that the faculty that grasps meaning cannot be physical. There's actually no physical analogy for whatever that faculty is (other perhaps than computers, which are after all built by us). But the fact that it's not physical, means that, for most people, then it must be spooky or spiritual or far-out or something. Whereas I'm saying in some sense that it's 'hidden in plain sight'. We actually don't understand something fundamental about our own abilities in this regard. — Wayfarer

Oh I very much agree with you here. To be blunt, our situation is freaky, mysterious, uncanny, wonderful. And yet practical life obscures this. 'One' does not talk about certain things, question certain things. I was quite suspicious of the 'spiritual' once myself. I remember my crude bias toward it. I was still rebelling against the crude understanding that I had of it in the first place. Only in retrospect when my rebellion was complete could I finally go back and see it all in a new light.

First, then, comes the development of doctrine; secondly comes its fixation. Only after that does the opposition of believing and thinking, of immediate doctrinal certitude and so-called reason, enter in. Thinking reached the point where it relied only on itself; the first thing the young eagle of reason did was to soar as a bird of prey to the sun of truth, from there to declare war on religion. Then, however, once more justice is done to the religious content also, in that thinking finds its completion in the concrete concept of spirit and enters into a polemic against abstract understanding. — Hegel

And of course 'abstract understanding' is just crude or partial or incomplete understanding, an understanding that only grasps opposites and doesn't see their unity (to oversimplify.) I also note that Hegel does indeed identify his thinking with (rational) mysticism in the shorter Logic.

was it Georg Cantor who had more or less a nervous breakdown? — Wayfarer

He wrestled with issues like that more than once. Something that fascinates me is that he absolutely hated infinitesimals. He described them as germs. At the same time he was himself offering so truly mind-bending and controversial mathematics. All of this was connected with the divine for him. The math stands on its own feet, but the man contemplated the relationship of God and the infinite.

Coming to think of it, have you heard of the book by Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math? — Wayfarer

No. Haven't looked into that. I haven't really kept up with physics. I really like the tension that is already there in pure math. The real number system is eerie indeed. 'Most' real numbers contain an infinite amount of information. For this reason they must literally remain nameless. No algorithm can even approximate them with arbitrary precision. This is connected to Cantor. As you may know, there are different levels of infinity (an infinity of such levels.) Even stranger is that the proof is relatively simple. But what does this proof mean? Is this proof nothing more than symbols that have been moved around to mechanical rules? Or was something discovered about an objective realm to which we have access non-sensually? Or? I'd say that there is genuine intuitive content in the proof, but I don't know how to position that intuitive content.

I also agree with the criticism of any empiricism that refuses to acknowledge intelligibility. For me the question is what to make of this intelligibility. To deny it is to deny that such a denial is intelligible.

So is "objective" the same as "fact" and/or "truth" on your view? — Terrapin Station

Well yeah. What are you talking about when you make any claim about how things are?

If you were to type "I feel happy.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like your emotional state, that I can glean accurate information about some state-of-affairs independent of my own mind? If they do, then you are speaking objectively. If not then your are speaking fiction, or lying. What is subjective is your arrangement of sensory data that makes up your conscious state (working memory). Your view is subjective because it is unique. The world (objectivity, truth, the way things are) is made up of subjectivities in a sense, which is why I said they are subsets of objectivity.

If you were to type, "Harry Hindu is wrong.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like me actually misinterpreting my sensory data, your intent, etc. where my mental representation of the world isn't accurate, or truthful? Another word for my worldview would be "fictional", maybe even "delusional".

It is objectively true that emotions motivate behavior; I have not denied that at all. But we cannot determine objectively precisely what emotion motivated precisely what behavior at some specific time and place. We cannot determine that in any way that could be inter-subjectively confirmed by observation, and I am even skeptical that we could determine such a thing precisely even in relation to our own behavior.

This is true even with ethology; we can only approximate even with observations of animal behavior and how much more is this true of human behavior? There is thus a subjective element even in some of the sciences (not to mention the subjective element in all the sciences due to the fact that they are human practices; which is a different subject again). — Janus

This is akin to saying that we cannot determine objectively what causes nuclear bombs to explode. We don't see atoms. We see objects. We don't see minds. We see bodies. If we can get at the existence of atoms through the behavior of macro-sized objects, then why can't we get at the existence of minds and their contents through the behavior of other bodies?

We can only approximate anything using whatever method we choose - science or any other. That's not a limitation of science. It's a limitation of our own perceptions and assumptions. What separates science is that it tries to unite ALL views into a coherent ONE.

You're missing the point which is that physical processes can be mechanically modeled; whereas volitional processes, whether emotional or instinctive, cannot. You could never even say precisely what neural process caused what behavior, let alone determine precisely what neural process is correlated with what emotion.

I do try, Janus. Our dialogues usually end up at this point. I get we have a divergent 'meta-philosophy'. Let's just leave it that. — Wayfarer

I don't think we have a "divergent metaphilosophy"; I don't even know what a "metaphilosophy" could be! There is just philosophy as far as I am concerned.

The main point of divergence between us is as to whether religious experience (the ethical or aesthetic experience) can yield objective, which means inter-subjectively confirmable, knowledge. I've explained at length my reasons for thinking it cannot. You say it can.but you seem to be incapable of explaining how that could be possible. A good definition of superstition would seem to be 'believing in something you cannot explain your reasons for believing in"; so I remain convinced that you are not being philosophical in this, but superstitious.

On the other hand if what you believe in not objective esoteric knowledge, but ultimate mystery, then there is no problem because you cannot be called upon to explain the inexplicable. This was Wittgenstein's position; "whereof we cannot speak...".

[delete]

I think this touches on a problem you've already mentioned, the difficulty of finding the right words. We have different conceptualizations of the future. In one conceptualization, the future is exactly what can't be here yet. In another, the future is possibility that exists 'now.' In this second sense we can say that human experience is primarily 'futural.' — sign

But isn't the second sense a faulty, or even false conception of the future? We can't conceptualize the future by describing it as what is now. The future is not now, it's what lies ahead. When we conceive of the possibilities for the future, which exist now, we are really referring to the past. We consider the way things have been in the past, along with our capacities to change things in the past, and from this we develop possibilities for the future. There is no conceptualization of "the future" here. The only thing that "the future" does in this conceptualization is validate "possibilities", as real, in the sense of free will. If one does not believe in free will, then even this is removed, and "the future" here refers to nothing at all, as there is nothing to distinguish it as being different from the past.

While I like this conceptualization (which is new to me), I feel the need to complicate it. Why should the future be only conceptual possibility? Can I not have a detailed fantasy or fear of the future? — sign

What would this consist of, the fear of something very particular in the future? I really do not think that this is possible. Consider any time that you have been afraid of a future occurrence. You could only nail down the particulars of that occurrence, to an extent, because the event has not yet happened. The rest of that event escapes the imagining of the particular. So the imagining of that future event is really more general than it is particular.

I can imagine many particular events which I will be involved in tomorrow. But since I do not know the specifics of how these events will unfold, my imagining of them is really very general. The problem is that I can name these events, and this makes them into particulars according to having been named as particular events, but in my mind when I actually think about them, there is just a general idea which is being referred to by that particular name.

And a point that you didn't respond to (which I didn't stress much) is the idea of the 'living' past. This 'living past' is not our memory of what happened. It is what obscurely governs out interpretation of the present with the help of the future as possibility. It is 'invisible' as what we take for granted. We might call it the distortion of the lens which we cannot see through that lens. It is our 'pre-interpretation' of the situation, the one we don't know we have as we employ it. It can become visible in retrospect. We can see later that we were thinking 'inside the box' the box of this 'living past.' I suppose this is a metaphorical use of 'past,' since it is not what is usually intended. — sign

I don't seem to be able to understand what you mean by "living past" here.

If it can be explained by reasoned argument then it can be understood by anyone capable of reasoning. Of course this does not mean that it will necessarily be agreed with. Your implication that I would not be able to understand your argument seems like a weak excuse for not giving it, and also seems to show a kind of arrogant elitism with which I would wish to have no truck.

Wish granted.

Seriously - I know that the arguments I put are difficult and often somewhat esoteric. They are hard to explain, and I few people who really understand them, but I do recognise when my position is challenged. But 'not being understood' is not being challenged - it's not being understood.

I don't think I'm a crank, or that I am howling at the moon. I did two degrees, one Honors in Comparative Religion and an MA Buddhist Studies, and got good marks in all my units. I make a living as a tech writer. So I don't see myself as eccentric or delusional. I often try and explain things to you, in particular, which is often greeted with 'you haven't answered the question' or 'you're not able to explain yourself'. So really, honestly, I think you don't understand what I'm trying to say, and also I don't think you *want* to understand it. I think you want to take issue with it, for the sake of having an argument. Which is a salutary reminder that posting on Internet forums might indeed become a needless diversion.

I am going to take time out over Christmas. I'm trying to learn some challenging skills for my profession, and I really need to concentrate.

All the best for Christmas and New Year, and so long for now.

I often try and explain things to you, in particular, which is often greeted with 'you haven't answered the question' or 'you're not able to explain yourself'. — Wayfarer

You often respond obliquely--which I think is at least partially on purpose as a defense mechanism, often ignore stuff (I know I do, too, but I do it via ignoring sections of long posts, because they introduce way too many topics/subtopics, and I want us to tackle one thing at a time so we can actually "get somewhere"--this is one big reason that I prefer chatting to message boards), and you have a tendency to respond kind of like a telemarketer--as if you were resorting to a script that gave you canned responses to objections, where the canned responses often involve quoting something that doesn't really address the points that someone brought up (and sometimes that contain ideas that the person just argued against).

You're missing the point which is that physical processes can be mechanically modeled; whereas volitional processes, whether emotional or instinctive, cannot. You could never even say precisely what neural process caused what behavior, let alone determine precisely what neural process is correlated with what emotion. — Janus

It's not just neural processes that are involved with emotions. There are also chemical processes. This combination is what correlates to your model (the emotion you feel) of those processes. Emotions model those processes. The emotion you feel is a model, just as the color you see.

Notice that I didn't use the term, "physical" processes. They are just processes. Why would one kind of process (mechanical) be modeled, when another kind of process (volitional) cannot?

Instinctive processes are simply built-in behaviors that occur without any intent. Those are modeled with any robot that behaves based upon it's built-in programming.

Well yeah. What are you talking about when you make any claim about how things are?

If you were to type "I feel happy.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like your emotional state, that I can glean accurate information about some state-of-affairs independent of my own mind? If they do, then you are speaking objectively. If not then your are speaking fiction, or lying. What is subjective is your arrangement of sensory data that makes up your conscious state (working memory). Your view is subjective because it is unique. The world (objectivity, truth, the way things are) is made up of subjectivities in a sense, which is why I said they are subsets of objectivity.

If you were to type, "Harry Hindu is wrong.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like me actually misinterpreting my sensory data, your intent, etc. where my mental representation of the world isn't accurate, or truthful? Another word for my worldview would be "fictional", maybe even "delusional". — Harry Hindu

I wouldn't say it can't work to divvy up the terms that way, but it's very different than the definitions I use. (And it's very different than some conventional usages, although of course you don't have to care about that.)

One thing that's unusual about divvying up the terms that way is that usually something being a fact and/or being true is seen as normative, in the sense that people should ideally agree with things that are true or that are factual.

On your view, where subjectivity is a subset of objectivity, which is the same as truth/fact, a comment like "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" is thus objective, is true and is a fact. As is "Mozart was a better composer than Frank Zappa." If something being true or a fact implies that we should agree with it, then we should agree both that "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" and that "Mozart was a better composer than Frank Zappa." Although of course, agreeing with both of those "facts" poses a bit of a problem.

You could circumvent this, though, by simply saying that "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" always has an implied "<Harry feels that> Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart," and I'd agree with that idea--there's always an implied <so-and-so feels that> with statements like that. On that view, what one should agree with, given that it's true/a fact, is that "Harry feels that Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart."

One thing that's unusual about divvying up the terms that way is that usually something being a fact and/or being true is seen as normative, in the sense that people should ideally agree with things that are true or that are factual. — Terrapin Station

But this contradicts the objective fact that mass delusions exist and that large groups of people can take fiction as fact. Take the belief that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe, for instance. What is factual isn't what is normative. What is factual is that norms exist and can be maintained for a long period until more efficient norms are established.

On your view, where subjectivity is a subset of objectivity, which is the same as truth/fact, a comment like "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" is thus objective, is true and is a fact. — Terrapin Station

You could circumvent this, though, by simply saying that "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" always has an implied "<Harry feels that> Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart," and I'd agree with that idea--there's always an implied <so-and-so feels that> with statements like that. — Terrapin Station

Yes, that is how I would circumvent that. Value statements (statements that use "better", "worse", "good", "bad", etc.) are statements about your conscious state, not about something that exists independent of your conscious state. "Goodness" and "betterness" are not things that exist independent of your mind. But that isn't to say that they aren't part of the world. Your mind is part of the world and anything your feel would be an objective fact. Mistaking your conscious state as the state of the world would be making a category mistake.

But this contradicts the objective fact that mass delusions exist and that large groups of people can take fiction as fact. Take the belief that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe, for instance. What is factual isn't what is normative. What is factual is that norms exist and can be maintained for a long period until more efficient norms are established. — Harry Hindu

"Normative" in this usage is another word for "shoulds." It's not denoting statistical norms. "People should ideally agree with things that are true or that are factual" doesn't imply that they in fact do agree. The idea is just that ideally, they should.

But that isn't to say that they aren't part of the world. Your mind is part of the world and anything your feel would be an objective fact. — Harry Hindu

I agree with that up to the "would be an objective fact" part. But I'm using a different definition of subjective/objective than you're using..

Considering that I used to think pretty much just as you do, I don't believe there is any problem with my understanding of what you write. It's not inevitable that if someone understands your arguments, they will therefore agree with them, you know!

Anyway, I'll leave it at that and in turn wish you all the best for the festive season. :smile:

On your view, where subjectivity is a subset of objectivity, which is the same as truth/fact, a comment like "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" is thus objective, is true and is a fact. As is "Mozart was a better composer than Frank Zappa." If something being true or a fact implies that we should agree with it, then we should agree both that "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" and that "Mozart was a better composer than Frank Zappa." Although of course, agreeing with both of those "facts" poses a bit of a problem. — Terrapin Station

This doesn't follow at all. If there were an objective fact of the matter regarding which one of the two is the better composer, then one of the statements would necessarily be wrong.

Both could still be statements about an objective fact; people don't always get the fact right.

On HarryHindu's view, subjectivity is a subset of objectivity. Anything subjective is also objective. And in his view, objective things are the same as true or factual things.