That makes it clearer now. But if that's the case, that's pretty much a personal God. It thinks, it wills...

"It" doesn't "think" or "will" as I point out here. So explain how you get a "personal god" from (my description of) Spinoza's substance.

I think they confused the attribute of mind with the presence of an all encompassing thinking being, a finite casual actor, who wills things.

I was about to say there is a mismatch between what they think of as minds and Spinoza's attribute of mind. They are still thinking of mind as the existence of a thinking entity, not an immanent feature of all modes. In their terms, I suspect they would consider Spinzoa a materialist, atheist.

You expressed what I was thinking better than I did when you said:

"Mind" (or "consciousness"), therefore, is an activity, or process, and not a thing in Spinoza's ontology — 180 Proof

Whatever makes it possible before it happens exists without interruption afterwards. So the hard problem comes down to subtracting something at the beginning and being surprised by its addition.

So the hard problem comes down to subtracting something at the beginning and being surprised by its addition. — Valentinus

Elaborate. I'm not following this ...



I don't believe it can be made plainer than this:

"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

And substance aka "God" is not an entity – not a "person" – but a process, as S says: nature naturing.

I suspect there is not a way to do so.

Eugen appears to a dualist who thinks anyone who has one substance, of which there are explicable instances of caused experiences (i.e. there is no hard problem), must be a materialist.

Ok, now I feel I know even more due to your explanation, thank you!
Indeed, as you put it, God is not an entity, therefore it doesn't think, will, and it cannot be called personal.
Moreover, one could argue that there's no God at all, there's just a process that can be called natural.
Now here's what I wasn't able to understand so far:
1. Why does a man have qualia and think, but a rock cannot have qualia or think?
2. If rocks do have qualia and think, why doesn't a planet have qualia and think?
3. Why not the whole universe can think and feel?
What's the fundamental difference between things that have consciousness and things that don't?

Eugen appears to a dualist — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm neither a dualist nor any other of the four mentioned. I'm pretty much an agnostic trying to find answers. I do understand the 4 types of ideologies I've mentioned and their problems, but I still don't understand Spinoza. It seems to me that there's no logic in his view of the mind. For me, it just sounds like ''It's like that because it's like that''.

Note.—Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have strayed from the truth is sufficiently evident from what has been said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile by other reasons with which they try to prove their point, they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. Wherefrom the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly ignorant; thus they clearly show, that they do not know the meaning of their own words. I myself have proved sufficiently clearly, at any rate in my own judgment (Coroll. Prop. vi, and note 2, Prop. viii.), that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. xiv.), that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God. — Spinoza, Ethics

What's the fundamental difference between things that have consciousness and things that don't? — Eugen

In terms of humans: the distinction between conscious beings and non-conscious ones doesn't parse according to Spinoza's categorisation of things. Consciousness isn't some magical faculty in Spinoza, it's just a way a human body's constitutive relation can be effected by stuff and effect itself. It's more homeostatic feedback, less light of the mind. It's more about being an agent - an effector of itself and other beings, and the aspects of being an agent (thoughts, feelings) are couched precisely in those terms of effectivity. Contrast this to a causally isolated Cartesian "soul" or a "free will" which is freed from materiality.

In terms of broader metaphysical categories, ideality vs materiality:

Note.—This is made more clear by what was said in the note to II. vii., namely, that mind and body are one and the same thing, conceived first under the attribute of thought, secondly, under the attribute of extension. Thus it follows that the order or concatenation of things is identical, whether nature be conceived under the one attribute or the other; consequently the order of states of activity and passivity in our body is simultaneous in nature with the order of states of activity and passivity in the mind. The same conclusion is evident from the manner in which we proved II. xii. — Spinoza, Ethics

For Spinoza, your mind and your body are both your processes, both expressions of you, neither body nor mind derives from or is subordinate to the other. Mind and Extension are both attributes of substance, ways of conceiving its nature. It is that they are attributes of substance that allows the following kind of example: (with some butchery), if you look at an alcoholic and see someone addressing their sorrows with booze, you see them in the attribute of Mind. If you look at an alcoholic and see an electrochemical process requiring ethanol, you see them in the attribute of Extension. Further for Spinoza, the two motivations of the alcoholic are structurally the same - both strivings, one of an electrochemical process for ethanol, one of a human being for consolation. They're the same being (mode), described under different aspects, neither more real or fundamental than the other, neither causally antecedent to the other.

Spinoza says God has intellect. The intellect we know is our own and he says perfect free will is an illusion but also that there are passions of the soul (mind, thought). So God is conscious by analogy, but we really can't understand Him.

I hope this clarifies things

Not quite, the existence of an alcoholic who drinks in conjunction with having sorrows is under the attribute of extension. It's meaning in ideas is under the attribute of mind.

Similarly, the existence of electrochemical process requiring ethanol is under extension. But it is also a mode, its significance in ideas, of the attribute of mind. All modes are under the attribute of mind, not just instances of human conciousness.

1. A rock might have experience and think. It's down to whether a rock exists with experience, just as with a human. (a lot of the time people just think rocks do not).

2. Answer as above. Planets can. They just have to exist with experience (people usually think this is false).

3.Just as above , only with the universe.

The difference is the existence of experiences. Beings with experiences exists with experiences. Those without experiences, have no existing experiences. An entity goes from concious to non-conscious when their experiences no longer exist (e.g. an unconscious person, a dead person, etc.). An entity goes from non conciousness to concious when its experiences come to exist.

:up: Thanks, you beat me to it.

Now here's what I wasn't able to understand so far:
1. Why does a man have qualia and think, but a rock cannot have qualia or think? — Eugen

Spinoza might say 'Because it is not in the essence of rocks to have qualia or think as humans do, if at all.' In other words, what makes them distinct kinds of entities is the different degrees of complexity which constitute each, and that the 'functional complexity' of humans is above a threshold sufficient for them to "have qualia" and to "think".

2. If rocks do have qualia and think, why doesn't a planet have qualia and think?

Rocks do not; and even if rocks did, inferring that planets would on that basis is a compositional fallacy or hasty generalization fallacy (e.g. cells that make up your body undergo mitosis but your body does not periodically self-divide into two bodies) premised to begin with on a category error of referring to astronomical bodies (re: "planets") in terms of functions peculiar to ecology-bound organisms (re: "qualia and think"). :roll:

3. Why not the whole universe can think and feel?

Same as 2. Also, according to Spinoza, "the universe" is an infinite mode and therefore lacks "think" and "feel" essences appropriate to its constituent finite modes like human beings.

What's the fundamental difference between things that have consciousness and things that don't?

Some are 'functionally complex' enough to manifest self-reflexive phenomenal awareness (i.e. "consciousness") and some – the astronomically vast majority – are not. The "fundamental difference", Spinoza might say, is their different essences which, in contemporary computational or systems theoretic terms, correspond to (I term it) 'different degrees of functional complexity'.

update:

Well, I won't waste any more of your time, Eugen, trying explain something that is not even worth your time to adequately study in the first place in order for you to comprehend that spinozism is about 'the logical structure of reality' – that it is, in his sense, logic – which he attempts to demonstrate. Spinoza ain't, at any point, just making shit up, as you suggest. :shade:

The error of composition and the idea of emergence says that the unity of parts creates something different from what was in the parts alone

All modes are under the attribute of mind, not just instances of human conciousness. — TheWillowOfDarkness

:up:

I don't think any strictly abstract philosopher can maintain a position of pantheism for long. The philosophical explication of it is really panentheism

Why not philosophical pantheism?

There isn't much room to speculate with pure pantheism. Hegel explicates this point at the end Philosophy of Mind

Spinoza might say 'Because it is in the essence of rocks to have qualia or think as humans do, if at all.' In other words, what makes them distinct kinds of entities is the different degrees of complexity which constitute each, and that the 'functional complexity' of humans is above a threshold sufficient for them to "have qualia" and to "think".

2. If rocks do have qualia and think, why doesn't a planet have qualia and think?
Rock do not; and even if rocks did, inferring that planets would on that basis is a compositional fallacy or hasty generalization fallacy (e.g. cells that make up your body undergo mitosis but your body does not periodically self-divide into two bodies) premised to begin with on a category error of referring to astronomical bodies (re: "planets") in terms of functions peculiar to ecology-bound organisms (re: "qualia and think"). :roll:

3. Why not the whole universe can think and feel?
Same as 2. Also, according to Spinoza, "the universe" is an infinite mode and therefore lacks "think" and "feel" essences appropriate to its constituent finite modes like human beings.

What's the fundamental difference between things that have consciousness and things that don't?
Some are 'functionally complex' enough to manifest self-reflexive phenomenal awareness (i.e. "consciousness") and some – the astronomically vast majority – are not. The "fundamental difference", Spinoza might say, is their different essences which, in contemporary computational or systems theoretic terms, correspond to (I term it) 'different degrees of functional complexity'. — 180 Proof

Ok, now I pretty much understand. It sounds exactly like materialism. You just need enough complexity and some unconscious elements will form a conscious element. At least, in materialism you have evolution as the basis of explanation, while in spinozism, it is exactly like I thought: ''it's like this because it's like this''. It's in the nature of things to be like that, it's even a threshold, something called ''complex'' (whatever that means), but the whole thing is not complex enough to be conscious...

Another thing is that you get the attribute consciousness/mind, from something ultimately unconscious. That again sounds familiar and I personally don't see how that can happen without answering the question ''How can consciousness/the attribute of consciousness arise from something non-conscious?". I guess in spinozism the answer is simple: because this is how things are.

Now why would one arrive to these conclusions? What's the logic behind all those ideas? So far, spinozism sounds very weird to me.

Spinozism in a nutshell: there is an infinite number of attributes caused by something totally unconscious called God, but we can call it nature, the universe, or even Boogeyman. How come something unconscious gives rise to an attribute called consciousness? - It just does; Why are there infinite attributes and not just 25? - Because God; Why this gave rise to something in the first place? - Necessity; Why was it necessary? - It just was; How does this parallelism in cause-effect work if attributes don't interact? - It just does; Why are some things conscious and some aren't? - Complexity; How come the whole is not complex enough to be conscious? - It just isn't.

Flawless metaphysics.

Ok, now I pretty much understand... Spinozism in a nutshell... Flawless metaphysics. — Eugen

Ah yeah, that's the cliff notes version of Spinoza For Dummies. :meh:

So far, spinozism sounds very weird to me. — Eugen

Yes. Grappling with his ideas more thoroughly will make what you previously thought seem weird to you. :razz:

The reason I say you are a dualist is because you hold experiences are a different type of reality, such that they cannot be affected, explained, related to or accounted for by other things that exist. You hold experiences to be other to the things which are caused to exist by other things.

You have a dualism between the realm of experience and a realm of non-conscious things.

Elaborate. I'm not following this ... — 180 Proof

Chalmers argued that the "problem" could not be solved by reducing the fact of experience to a result of functions:

"When it comes to conscious experience, this sort of explanation fails. What makes the
hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance
of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the
cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination,
categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered
question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? A simple
explanation of the functions leaves this question open."

This is a good observation and the paper goes on to suggest other approaches including the Bateson information parallel between "knowers" and what is known. But if such approaches are possible, the starting point of physical and computational functions that were deemed inadequate for the task at the beginning seem arbitrary in their subtraction from what is possible. I can take away something from the beginning and give it back to myself later on.

Spinoza says God has intellect. The intellect we know is our own and he says perfect free will is an illusion but also that there are passions of the soul (mind, thought). So God is conscious by analogy, but we really can't understand Him. — Gregory

So God is conscious after all, the only problem is we cannot understand its consciousness. That's very different than what 180 Proof and TheWillowOfDarkness are saying here.

This is also one of my issues with spinozism - it leaves so much room for interpretation.

The reason I say you are a dualist is because you hold experiences are a different type of reality, such that they cannot be affected, explained, related to or accounted for by other things that exist. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If by reality you mean matter, then yes, I don't believe consciousness can be described with that. That's the hard problem. I could be a dualist, but who knows, maybe I'm an idealist and I don't believe in matter at all.
''We know'' materialism is false because of the hard problem and panpsychism is also very problematic. But I'm open-minded to other ideas, this is why I want to understand spinozism better. The problem is that it seems to be highly interpretable and so far I think it is not a serious view in regards to the mind. But who knows... maybe I'll get more information.

"The Hard Problem" is only "hard" for philosophers because philosophizing, as Witty et al point out, does not explain matters of facts, but only describes (or, as per Deleuze, re/creates) concepts – interpretations of facts (& practices). The so-called "problem" of the 'explanatory gap' is a scientific – testable hypothesis-modeling – problem, various solutions to which have been proposed and the latest are still being further developed by e.g. Giulio Tononi (ITT), Thomas Metzinger (PSM), Antonio Damasio (SMH & CST), Sebastian Seung (CT), Stanislas Dehaene (GWT), R.S. Bakker (BBT & HNT) ... Those are among the 'models' I currently find most promising. I just can't take serious mysterians like Chalmers (or other panpsychists) who propose that the 'explanatory gap' is a "hard problem" for philosophy, which it is not, because philosophy itself is not (equipped to effectively engage) in the 'theoretical explanation' business.

Why do you expect consciousness to come come only from another consciousness. In theism God creates consciousness from nothing, not from his nature. If a personal God can create from *nothing*, a consciousness should be able to come out out of an impersonal God

in theism, God is conscious.

And by the way, I don't care much about theism. For me, getting to conscious from something that possesses 0% consciousness simply makes no sense, and that makes me neither a theist nor a dualist.
How come a blind God, with no will or with no power to act on its will can be called God in the first place? That's simply nature, it's a materialist view. How can unconscious nature create consciousness? The ''intellect'' you're talking about doesn't sound to me like an intellect at all, and the fact that ''it cannot be understood'' is so vague and leaves so much room for interpretation.

For me it is simple: is consciousness fundamental or emergent? The question covers 100% of the possibilities.

Everything that possesses 0% consciousness is simply nature, nothing divine in it.