a map, like an analogy, is an abstraction of formal aspects of the territory derived from some concrete aspects of the territory that is used to survey delineate and interpret some other concrete aspects of the territory (origami or "rhizomatic"-like); therefore, only in the sense of property dualism, Oliver, do I agree with you. — 180 Proof

If that works for you, why not? To me the idea of "property dualism" means very little, just like the term "substance dualism" by the way. "Dualism" is clear enough for my taste, though.

In any case, it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature. And thus it implies a duality. A scientific theory is inherently different from the part of nature it tries to model. For instance, the current theory of evolution is different from the actual evolution of life on this planet. The latter is a process that took billions of year to unfold, while the former can be understood, mastered and taught by anyone, given a little effort.

Likewise, geology = logos about the earth and its minerals <> the earth and minerals themselves. Geology is not a stone.

He would, with the caveat that Kant is talking about the rational side of human mentality, but the brain having no representation of a visual scene, is the empirical side of brain mechanics. — Mww

An important distinction. However, percepts however require concepts. A small infant doesn't see distinct objects, only senses its mother's presence or things waved directly in front of its face. It hasn't built up the conceptual structure within which apperception is possible in the first place. That is a process that occupies the first several years of life and is ongoing up to maturity.

There's a writer, Andrew Brook, who says Kant is 'the godfather of modern cognitive science'. See an example here. (Seems the whole chapter is provided in this preview, also has a good discussion of 'the unity of self', that's my Sunday reading looked after.)

Charge is attached to a particle. So both have to be at the same place. Always. They can't be pulled apart. So charge always has the same spatial relation to a particle. Which makes it non-spatial. — Raymond

I've been trying to educate myself on concepts in physics - very difficult without doing all the maths - anyway, I've gleaned that the property of spin which is associated with sub-atomic particles has no analogy in the world of regular perception. It is nothing like the spinning of a ball or a top. There are quite a few other concepts in fundamental physics like that - they're intrinsic to the mathematical description, but there's no plain-language or common-sense equivalent. That's another of the pitfalls of trying to provide explanations derived from physics for philosophical problems.

it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature. — Olivier5

"What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning" ~ Werner Heisenberg.

In any case, it remains a fact that science implies a fundamental divide between nature as it is and our knowledge of nature. And thus it implies a duality. — Olivier5

If this were so, it seems to me, natural agents could not have any "knowledge of nature" because entities which are "fundamentally divided" from each other entail lacking any relation "between" them (re: interaction problem); and yet this is not the case – thus, we have (some) "knowledge of nature". Epistemic distinction, not ontic "divide". Otherwise, your unqualified "duality", Oliver, is too vague to make sense.

Spin has at least an analogue in the everyday world. It's associated with rotation. Rotate a fermion particle twice in space and it's spin has rotated only once. There is some strange kind of zero point spin of 1/2 (Js), like a zero point energy of 1/2 (J) for oscillators. Still, these can be identified with everyday objects. Charge has no counterpart. Two magnets attract, but exactly what is the electric charge causing this?

I think a physicist claiming they knows doesn't understand the concept. Like mental states. Modern science has transformed something inaccessible to science into a materialistic asset, which it isn't.

If this were so, it seems to me, natural agents could not have any "knowledge of nature" — 180 Proof

And de facto, our knowledge of nature is always imperfect and provisional, to the extent that some philosopher once opined that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing.

And de facto, our knowledge of nature is always imperfect — Olivier5

Why should that knowledge be imperfect? Doesn't that depend on what you call perfect?

Why should that knowledge be imperfect? — Raymond

Because of the epistemic divide I am talking about. Any knowledge is an interpretation, and any interpretation involves an epistemic jump. The map is not the territory.

Epistemic distinction, not ontic "divide". — 180 Proof

Epistemic divide.

A small infant doesn't see...... — Wayfarer

Right, and I don’t think any epistemological science or metaphysics should concern itself with pre-teen individuals. We want to know the rules, after all, not the exceptions to them.

percepts however require concepts — Wayfarer

Right again, at least as far as human knowledge is concerned, and I would add it’s pretty hard to get “concept” out of “brain state”, while it’s rather easy to get percepts....read as object of perception.....out of them.
———-

Thanks for the link; good stuff. Wouldn’t let me C & P though, which is a bummer.

Charge is attached to a particle... They can't be pulled apart. — Raymond

Um, right. That's because its not "attached to" it in a physical sense (again with the physical metaphor), charge is a property of a particle, and so its not meaningful to talk about "pulling it apart" any more than it would to talk of "pulling apart" the redness of an apple from the apple.

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there. The problem is the proposal that the mental "resides in" or "is attached to" the physical in the way that a physical property like charge does with a physical object, without itself being physical. In other words, the interaction problem, dualism's harder problem of consciousness.

Because of the epistemic divide I am talking about. Any knowledge is an interpretation, and any interpretation involves an epistemic jump. The map is not the territory. — Olivier5

The map is the territory. What we think we see is what we see. There is no epistemic divide. This leaves reality out of reach forever. The interpretation, the theory is the reality. An observation is not theory laden. The observation is the theory.

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there. — Seppo

Uh, yeah...right. a property. In any case. Well, not in my case. Then what's that property like? The name already implies it. Particles are charged, which mean they contain this property. That it's inside it. Where else it can be? A hundred meters away from the electron? You can't pull charge out, can you? If you can tell what that property is you would be awarded a Nobel prize, for no one knows. The concept of charge is a mysterious one. What's its nature? What's the nature of a particle?

And that's why consciousness is an even greater mystery. But because it's inside us, like electric and color charges reside in a quark or electron, it's familiar. Consciousness might even be a complicated arrangement of charges. It is, in fact. You can call charge physical, but its nature is not known, nor is the nature of consciousness. You can feel its nature though.

:yikes: Um... alrighty then

As far as 'the problem of interaction' is concerned, those problems are unique to Cartesian and post-Cartesian dualism. That arises from the problematical conception of 'substance' which as already been noted. In short, it posits mind and matter as two radically different substances, then wonders how they are able to interact.

Hylomorphic dualism is a different matter. It is preserved best in Aquinas, which unfortunate in some ways, as his obvious centrality to Catholicism is a red flag for secular or modern naturalist philosophy. But I think what Aquinas articulates is a consequence of his absorption of the Western tradition of philosophy until his day, constructed on the basis of Aristotelian principles as developed by the subsequent tradition. So, I would argue that Aquinas is, in his own way, a representative of the philosophia perennis. Perhaps one of the last outposts, by virtue of his relationship with the institution which preserved and carried forward his ideas. (I'm not writing this as a Catholic, by the way.)

The crucial point about Aquinas' hylomorphism is the way that the intellect (nous) comprehends forms (ideas). The principle is that the rational element of perception is united with the ideas of things in a way that sensory perception cannot be; knower becomes united with known. As Lloyd Gerson puts it, paraphrasing the famous passage from De Anima

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. ... Thinking [i.e. discursive reason] is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally. — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

So rational knowledge of particular beings comprises the synthesis of sensory knowledge with intellectual perception. Through the intellect, 'what things truly are' is known, because the intellect sees the essence, is-ness, of things, whilst sensory perception only perceives their material form, which is in essence 'accidental', according to this philosophy.

However, this entire approach obviously depends on acceptance of the reality of universals (even if in the Aristotelian form of 'moderate realism' in contrast to the supposedly 'extreme' realism of Plato) which is generally a no-go theorem for modern empiricism (for deep historical reasons). But all the reading I've been doing of the Western philosophical tradition, it seems to offer the most coherent base of operations.

Some refs: https://thomasofaquino.blogspot.com/2013/12/sensible-form-and-intelligible-form.html

https://aquinasonline.com/cognition-identity-conformity/

Oxford introductory bibilography to contemporary hylomorphism.

Epistemic divide — Olivier5

:ok:

So, I would argue that Aquinas is, in his own way, a representative of the philosophia perennis. Perhaps one of the last outposts, by virtue of his relationship with the institution which preserved and carried forward his ideas. (I'm not writing this as a Catholic, by the way.) — Wayfarer

This is certainly a healthy subject at present. I recently saw an interesting discussion about this aspect of Platonism featuring Dr Jim Madden from Benedictine College. Incidentally, the work of Platonist scholar Dr Lloyd P Gerson keeps coming up in discussions I have read. I just read Gerson's paper - Platonism Versus Naturalism intriguing, even to a layman. Any views on him?

He's challenging to read for the non-specialist. He's the leading professor of Platonist Studies and so his writings are situated in the context of classical studies, and many of his arguments are replies to or arguments against views of other eminent specialists, with constant allusions to the classical corpus and also many highly-compressed versions of philosophical arguments. A 'Gerson reader' for the non-academic audience would be very useful. But that essay you mention, that I quoted, and which is also available as a video lecture by him, is a good starting point. I have the e-edition of From Plato to Platonism and have just discovered his latest, Platonism and Naturalism - the Possibility of Philosophy. I'm starting to get used to his style and intend to persist with reading his books despite the challenges.

I know he reads the originals in Greek and is a Platonist, so certainly will divide some people. I personally find this useful because I am interested to read from someone with full commitment to the philosophy. The paper was highly accessible in terms of his use of language so I may check him out further.

Charge is attached to a particle... They can't be pulled apart. — Raymond
Um, right. That's because its not "attached to" it in a physical sense (again with the physical metaphor), charge is a property of a particle, and so its not meaningful to talk about "pulling it apart" any more than it would to talk of "pulling apart" the redness of an apple from the apple.

And in any case, charge is a physical property of a physical object- no mystery there. The problem is the proposal that the mental "resides in" or "is attached to" the physical in the way that a physical property like charge does with a physical object, without itself being physical. In other words, the interaction problem, dualism's harder problem of consciousness. — Seppo

Interesting thoughts. I don't know if the analogy of apples to physical particles helps here. Apples as objects can be grounded in the certainty of common perception, if we so agree. But physical particles are only categorized by their properties and do not have any material or observable substance. The lack of identity of physical particles should also be of very serious philosophical concern.

a fairly recent take

Thanks for mentioning Gerson. Based on online reviews (not Amazon), his From Plato to Platonism interests me – seems to challenge my 'anti-platonic naturalism' – the most. :cool:

Yes, that was my angle. I always want to hear the best possible defence of a position different to my own if I can find it (and if I can understand it :gasp:).

This leaves reality out of reach forever. The interpretation, the theory is the reality. — Raymond

You contradict yourself here, it seems to me.

My original point was that it is an error to consider science as anti-dualist. Individual scientists might be monist, if they care enough about confused metaphysics, but science itself requires no such monism. In fact, science AS A METHOD, is structurally dualist in that it combines facts and theories. No science without theory, and theory is thought. Science cannot devalue human thought without devaluing itself. And science cannot deny the existence of a thought-independent world out there. Otherwise all sciences would be but branches of psychology.

You contradict yourself here, it seems to me. — Olivier5

I like to contradict, be it myself or others. Keeps things going. What's wrong with that? I just don't like to contradict.

What do I seem to contradict? I use two approaches to reality. One that sets it apart of the human mind, implying the dualism you seem to have in mind, and the notion that such a form of dualism doesn't exist. Reality is what we think. A physicist sees fields of particles, a pantheist sees conscious entities everywhere, and a dualist like myself sees both approaches (not to an independent reality, in case you might think I contradict myself covertly...) combined., i.e, the basic ingredients of reality possess mental charge, as well as material properties. That's a different kind of dualism, I guess.

Is the dualism spoken about here the dualism you have in mind? The duality between what we think about reality and reality itself? Between knowledge about the world we see and the world itself? If that's the kind of dualism the thread is about, then there seems to be no problem. What we think about the world is the world.

Reality is what we think. A physicist sees fields of particles, a pantheist sees conscious entities everywhere, and a dualist like myself sees both approaches (not to an independent reality, in case you might think I contradict myself covertly...) combined., i.e, the basic ingredients of reality possess mental charge, as well as material properties. That's a different kind of dualism, I guess. — Raymond

Isn't it simply a displacement (or universalisation) of the classical Cartesian human mind vs matter 'divide', in direction of panpsychism?

Oxford introductory bibilography to contemporary hylomorphism. — Wayfarer

Good resource. I note with interest:

"Jaworski, William. Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind: How Hylomorphism Solves the Mind-Body Problem. Oxford University Press, 2016" - "Argues that structure or form is a first-order explanatory principle [and] that endorsing this position provides the necessary metaphysical tools to solve various versions of the mind/body problem ...."

Seems close to my own intuitions.

Is it implying that assuming dualism is a possibility that all science must be false in order for that to be the case? — TiredThinker

Yes, it's implying that. But that implication as knowledge is also knowledge, which science is; so it says that its own claim is false.

You find yourself in a situation equivalent to Zero's paradox. "I am lying." If it's true, it's false; if it's false, it's true.

The article writer was, in my opinion, a total nincompoop who could not see beyond his nose. Or else he was a total genius and his claim proves the absurdity of our existence.

Isn't it simply a displacement (or universalisation) of the classical Cartesian human mind vs matter 'divide', in direction of panpsychism? — Olivier5

I don't think so. It's just a convenient way to solve the problem of how mind can emerge from material processes. If you consider material processes the only thing to exist, that problem can never be solved. You can involve whatever material processes, strange self referential loops, structured processes in the brain interacting with the material world, but that still leaves out a necessary ingredient: the mental. One can say it's an illusion coming into existence as a by-product of the processes, but that denies the reality of the mental.

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it. It is a necessary ingredient for interaction. Like mental charge is. Without this charge no interaction with the world around us would be possible. Materialists call it an illusion, while it's a reality. We couldn't even be mindless zombies because they can't exist in the first place, as matter without charge can't develop.

So there is no divide but a strict unity. Mind and matter can't be pulled apart, like charge and particle can't or brain, body, and the world can't.

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it. — Raymond

That's panpsychism, too iffy for my taste.

Point:

when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

Counterpoint:
“....No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere....”
(CPR, A141/B180)

These two guys cannot both be right. Or....under what conditions could they both be right. Granting the validity of mental seeing in both cases, is seeing the form in the first the same or not, as imaging in the second?

Inquiring minds......

The mind exists only as a part of language, not as part of the world

The gist of the comments are about how the mind and brain interact, inferring that the mind and brain are two different things, whether different substances or made up from the same physical stuff.

Taking intentionality as an example, where intentionality is the quality of mental states (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) which consists in their being directed towards some object or state of affairs.

For example, I intend to raise my arm and my arm raises.

Rather than treat intentionality as a mental state of the brain that causes a new state of affairs, "intentionality" should be treated as a linguistic term that describes the state of the brain prior to its causing a new state of affairs.

IE, the mind is not a cause of a new state of affairs, the "mind" is no more than a word used in language to describe the state of the brain that causes a new state of affairs.

Language allows us to talk about unicorns, Sherlock Holmes, Martians, dragons, as well as minds.

I simply think the mental and matter are connected, like the charge of an electron is attached to it, contained in it, or is a property of it.
— Raymond

That's panpsychism, too iffy for my taste. — Olivier5

Panpsychism:

"Panpsychism is the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. The view has a long and venerable history in philosophical traditions of both East and West, and has recently enjoyed a revival in analytic philosophy. For its proponents panpsychism offers an attractive middle way between physicalism on the one hand and dualism on the other. The worry with dualism—the view that mind and matter are fundamentally different kinds of thing—is that it leaves us with a radically disunified picture of nature, and the deep difficulty of understanding how mind and brain interact. And whilst physicalism offers a simple and unified vision of the world, this is arguably at the cost of being unable to give a satisfactory account of the emergence of human and animal consciousness. Panpsychism, strange as it may sound on first hearing, promises a satisfying account of the human mind within a unified conception of nature."

It's both matter and mental that's fundamental. I think it's the matter only view that is iffy. It is even contradicted by physics as physics projects a charge on matter too. Both quarks and leptons contain two kinds of color charges an electric charge. Mass is a different kind of charge. Physics doesn't call that mental charges but nevertheless charges nature with something panpsychism does too. Particles have no minds though, and it's therefore that panpsychists are not taken seriously. The Sun is no conscious viotile star as Sheldrake maintains. He even links this greedy star behavior to dark matter. Stars looking for other stars to eat by propelling themselves with cosmic rays, thereby creating the appearance that the laws of gravity look different over big distances. The guy has imagination but is crazy at the same time. A simple calculation shows he can't be right. He merely uses science as a cover for his weird idea. Dead matter has no mind. That's where the misunderstanding originates. Panpsychists claim everything has a mind. Though the quote doesn't say this. Remains the question what physicists mean by charge. It's a property, yes. But what is it? What's is nature? God knows, but you can use it to explain consciousness. Matter alone doesn’t suffice. If charge is a property of matter though, and it is, but with unknown nature, then consciousness is a logical property of complex structures of matter interacting with the world. It's even a necessary ingredient, like charge is for interaction with other particles. The charge of a particle makes it react to other particles, like it can influence other charged particles at the same time.
It's impossible to explain the feeling of pain, or seeing red (or even hearing it) and hearing sound (or seeing it), by reference to an uncharged material process. But as matter has charge, the problem dissappears. Hearing music is the charge of the material process in the brain it corresponds to. By hearing it we are even aware of these charges, mysterious as they might be. Why should the materialist call them illusions if they are there? Because they deny the dual aspect of nature, leading to unsolvable problems like the "hard problem", which actually is no problem at all.