I am far from being an expert in Spinozism, but so far I also find him letting huge room for interpretation. You can be a materialist atheist and argue Spinoza's God is nothing more than blind nature, you can be an idealist and argue Spinoza was an idealist, you can be a panpsychist, and so on.

I believe that in regards to mind, his view rises many questions. Even in places where he had a clear opinion, like in the case of free will, if you dig deeper, you'll find some issues.

So far, I think he was actually an atheist trying to come with a new view in a world dominated by religion, but he didn't want to be too radical, so he came up with different version for the divine than the mainstream dogmatic religions, a view that leaves freedom of interpretation and that could make happy both spiritual and atheist people.

I mean neither.

Every conscious experience is its own unique state of existence. When a concious experience is produced, it isn't a combination of things which are already there.

It's an entirely new state formed or created. One which was not there prior. Small blocks never come together. Every instance of experience is its own state.

When a concious experience is produced, — TheWillowOfDarkness

Produced by what?

It's an entirely new state formed or created. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Formed or created by what/who, why, how....?

In the common case of our experiences, our body responding to an environment. Light hits my eyes, soon after, the state of experience of me seeing something is formed.

So light(fotons) hitting my body(atoms), create an experience. So how come matter can create consciousness?

People who insist on a consciousness basis for understanding will never find an answer to the "hard" problem. For me its not a hard question at all. A brain doesn't make consciousness so much as it is consciousness. How does blue and red make purple? By combination of parts. There is nothing easier for me to think of than that consciousness comes from my body

The experience is a new state of matter generated. It is what the given relation of things does. Water, when combined with paper, produces new states, soggy paper which were not there before. Same here. Light, combined with out eyes (and other imvived parts of our body), generates a new state, a conscious experience of sight, which was not there before.

I say it makes conciousness because the brain (and other states of the body) are distinct things. When I look at a brain, I'm not looking at the experience of blue, purple or red.

This is where I simply don't see how you could avoid the hard problem. When asked how come photons interacting with atoms(atoms and photons have no consciousness) you get a conscious experience. You cannot just say "well... it just does".

Well, at the level your asking, that's how all causes work.

Why does the paper get soggy in the rain? The state of soggy paper results from the paper and rain interacting.

The hard problem is a mistep.People pose it because they fail to recognise concious states are just more existing instances of causality. The mistakenly think that generating conscious experiences is something states cannot do.

1. So you're saying Spinozism doesn't encounter the hard problem because it is different from materialism, or because the hard problem isn't a thing to begin with?

2. So you admit that in both Spinozism and materialism some combinations of unconscious matter create conscious states?

Can a materialist be a spinozist without contradicting himself? What about a panpsychist? Or is spinozism fundamentally different from those two ?
A better question: if one thinks the hard problem or the combination problem is true, can he still be a spinozist in regards to mind?

The latter, there has never been and will never be a hard problem.

Unconscious matter can create conscious states. It just one state matter (the experience) which is the conscious experience, following other states of matter (body, environment), which produce it.

Unconscious matter can create conscious states. — TheWillowOfDarkness

1. Ok, so if that works, spinozism works, but if you're not right and there is a hard problem, then spinozism doesn't work, right?

2. In regards to consciousness, spinozism is consistent with materialism and not with panpsychism in your view, right?

We know there isn't a hard problem. We have to equivocate consious experience with something else to even suggest it. The hard problem is logically incoherent.

Depends, a coherent panpsychism is just a materialism with more states that produce conscious states. Spinozism is consistent with that.

I'm not interested if the hard problem is real or not, I am interested if spinozism can still work if the hard problem were true and materialism false.
So please give me a precise answer in this sense.

Thanks!

The question doesn't make sense because it is impossible for the hard problem to be true.

Spinzoa is a materialist, so if that were wrong, he would be in some sense wrong. But that's only a fiction: one cannot coherently pose an alternative to a non-reductive materialism. Other postions fall into one logical incoherence or another

Spinoza got his idea of the soul from Descartes. Someone CAN be an epistemic Spinozian while remaining a materialist. I think Hegel was exactly that. Pansychism is a whole different question. If you struggle with mind coming from matter, maybe a spiritual tradition that subscribes to a "soul" is more to your taste. Remember, there are thousands of religions in the world. You can look on Wikipedia to find a comprehensive list of them

The only thing I'm struggling with is to find out if spinozism can still work if the hard problem were true and materialism false. Could you please offer me a precise answer to this one?

Yes. Spinoza had two attributes we know of. Thought and matter. Both come from God and work parallel to each other. If you want to believe, as he did, that your mind and body are two substances that emanate from the divine altar, that's fine. There is nothing wrong with that

The only thing I'm struggling with is to find out if spinozism can still work if the hard problem were true and materialism false. — Eugen

Yes. "Materialism" (re: natura naturata, or modes) is not ultimately real (re: natura naturans, or substance) in spinozism and, therefore, it's false to claim so. Also, in spinozism, "consciousness" does not emerge from "unconscious matter" so there's no "hard problem" (just as there's no "mind-body problem").

One way to approach the matter is that "consciousness" was/is not a property or quality that can/could be recognized as a thing in itself without describing a world it was happening in.
So, everyone has to start at the beginning. There are no artifacts.

... There are no artifacts. — Valentinus

:confused: ???

Spinoza's God is the perfect image of the Jewish Shekinah. We usually read the old Testament and latter Jewish works in light of Greek exoterisism. But these questions go far deeper (as I'm finding from reading Jung) than that and its not helpful to view Spinoza in light of Aquinas. Some of Spinoza's arguments against the "schoolmen" seem ridiculous if viewed from Aquinas's perspective. The extent to which Jewish esoteric thought influenced dear Spinoza is irrelevant to me for the reason that his works are highly esoteric in themselves while retaining a serious use of logic

We know there isn't a hard problem — TheWillowOfDarkness

By ''we'' you mean like a secret society made up of people who think they know everything?:joke:

Not at all, thought it might seem that way with the amount of philsophers who try to suggest we know nothing about conciousness-- some of them would like the absence of the hard problem to be a conspiracy theory of a secret society.

But no. There is nothing esoteric or unjustified there, only description of conciousness itself.

For me, materialism makes no sense. And it is not because I don't want to, or because I'm biased, by the contrary, I find people who believe in it being biased atheists. It just doesn't add up, it makes no sense, it has no logic. I've seen tons of people thinking like me, so I think ''we know'' is purely your personal opinion.
But I'm not here to argue about that.

Thank you, I've written you a private message :)

Yes. "Materialism" (re: natura naturata, or modes) is not ultimately real (re: natura naturans, or substance) in spinozism and, therefore, it's false to claim so. Also, in spinozism, "consciousness" does not emerge from "unconscious matter" so there's no "hard problem" (just as there's no "mind-body problem"). — 180 Proof

Thank you!
I think there are only 4 ways in which mind can exist (or not): materialism (mind emerges from matter); dualism/pluralism; panpsychism (small minds get together and form other minds); idealism (mind is fundamental, not emergent, and everything else emerges from it).

In your opinion, which one is closest to Spinoza's view? Or maybe you think he somehow manages to escape all 4 and come up with something totally different?

Thanks!

A fifth way is spinozism: thought is one out of an infinity of parallel attributes (essences) of substance (natura naturans) by which degrees / complexities of changes within its modes (natura naturata) can be conceived, or intelligibly described e.g. as a pattern (order) of ideas, conceptions, etc. "Mind" (or "consciousness"), therefore, is an activity, or process, and not a thing in Spinoza's ontology (so "mind"-ing is like walking, breathing, digesting, seeing, etc).