Your source claims that systems are open, not that they have no definition. In fact he claims the exact opposite. — Isaac

When did I say systems have no definition?

He suggests that biological systems reverse the direction of the second law, the flow uphill of it. — Isaac

Right, therefore contrary to your claim, these supposed "open systems" are not subject to the laws of physics. The second law of thermodynamics being a law of physics. This is a very good reason why systems theory is, as I said, very flimsy. Within the parameters of systems theory, we need to assume "open systems", which are incompatible with the laws of physics, in order to account for the existence of living beings.

It is temporary and doesn't defy any physical law. — Isaac

Isaac, you are not making any sense. You admit that the biological "system" is contrary to the second law, yet you also claim that this does not defy any physical law. Is the second law of thermodynamics not a physical law in your mind?

The system and the internal are the same thing. — Isaac

Yes that is exactly the problem I described. The internal and the system "are the same thing". This is another big defect of systems theory. You have a boundary which separates "the system" from the external, but no boundary to separate "the system" from the internal. Therefore you have no way to account for changes to "the system" which are not from an external, observable, cause, and are not caused from within "the system". "The system" changes in a way which is not caused by "the system" itself. Such a change would be consistent with the second law. And, "the system" must follow this law of physics or else it cannot be classed as a "system". A "system" is a human construct. Further, there is no observable external cause of these changes. The changes must be internal, because external causation can be excluded. But they are not from within "the system" because "system" does not allow for changes which are contrary to the laws of physics. If it changes in a way other than by the laws of physics, it cannot be understood as a "system". So these causes of change which are contrary to the laws of physics must be excluded from "the system". They must be caused by something not within "the system" yet they cannot be classed as external, because such causes can be excluded through observation. Therefore we need a boundary to the internal, as well as a boundary to the external, so that these changes can be properly understood as not having an external cause, nor being caused by temporal changes to the system itself (2nd law).

No, there are no hidden internal states. Internal states are definitionally those which are not hidden. — Isaac

Clearly there must being internal hidden states, when "hidden states" is described as you did. You said that they are states hidden from the system doing the inferencing. The constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from that system. Look at the diagram you provided a few pages back, (which doesn't copy in the following quote). Notice that it shows both internal and external "S", when you say "S" is a hidden state.

A 'Hidden State' in active inference terms is just a node in a data network which is one (or more) node(s) removed from the network carrying out the inference.



'S' are hidden states. They're not hidden from 'us' (the organism), they're right in front of us, I can see then touch them, feel them. They're hidden for the network doing the inference because that network can only use data from the sensorimotor systems ('o' and 'a' in the diagram) with which it has to infer the cause of that data (the external states). I probably should use the term 'external states' but that gets as much flack from the enactivists who then bang on about how it's not really 'external' because we form an integrated network with our environment. So I could call then 'nodes outside of our Markov Boundary', and no-one would have the faintest idea what I was talking about...So 'hidden states' seemed the least controversial term... Until now. But this... — Isaac

[It] must instead engage in a reflective move that allows it to explore and assess the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions of the latter. — Joshs

It's this move that I'm questioning. It seems odd to say that scientists as a group are blinkered by some presupposition (that is nonetheless clear enough for Mr Zahavi to see without trouble), and yet assume that the mere mention of the problem is sufficient for phenomenologists to shed presuppositions like unwanted clothing in a heatwave.

What is it about the mind of a scientist that shackles them in chains so unbreakable, yet as gossamer in the hands of the philosopher?

Is it just wishful thinking? Or do we have some good reason to believe that Mr Zahavi and his ilk are not just labouring under exactly the same degree of presupposition as the scientist, just from a different source?

It seems odd to say that scientists as a group are blinkered by some presupposition (that is nonetheless clear enough for Mr Zahavi to see without trouble), and yet assume that the mere mention of the problem is sufficient for phenomenologists to shed presuppositions like unwanted clothing in a heatwave.

What is it about the mind of a scientist that shackles them in chains so unbreakable, yet as gossamer in the hands of the philosopher? — Isaac

I agree with Husserl’s and Heidegger’s critiques of realist assumptions undergirding much scientific thinking. But I don’t find it necessary , as they do, to distinguish in categorical fashion between what scientists supposedly do and what philosophers do. Realism is a metaphysical presupposition common to an era of philosophy and science. Postmodern sciences, along with postmodern philosophies, abandon realism ( or at least most forms of it). Science , like philosophy , is a culturally constructed niche. Truth gets its authority and coherence only within specific cultural practices.

As Joseph Rouse argues in Articulating the World:

“Scientific understanding specifically and con­ceptually articulated understanding more generally are not perennial pos­sibilities always available in human history or to rational or intelligent beings of different biological species or planetary ecologies. Sciences are historically specific practices that emerged within human history, with significance and justificatory standards that continue to change. This recognition ought to broaden the scope of philosophical reflection upon the sciences.

The specter of epistemic or conceptual relativism has often haunted any philosophical acknowledgment of the historical specificity and con­tingency of scientific understanding. Such concerns dissipate with the
recognition that what is historically specific is the truth-­or-­falsity and the significance of scientific claims rather their truth. The sciences mat­ter, and make authoritative claims upon us, because of rather than de­spite their historical and cultural specificity, and truth is a concept that expresses that authority. Sciences are powerful but historically specific extensions of the conceptually articulated way of life that is our bio­logical heritage. They do not instantiate an ideal possibility perennially
available with sufficient intellect and social support. They likewise can­not transcend our historical contingency in order to take on a “god’s-­eye view” of ourselves and the world. Science is indeed a precarious and risky possibility that only emerged in specific circumstances, and could disappear.”

When did I say systems have no definition? — Metaphysician Undercover

You said...

There is no such thing as a "discrete system" — Metaphysician Undercover

In response to...

So simply by the definition of a discrete system we've got, of necessity, an internal state, an external state, a Markov boundary, and two different probability functions on either side of that boundary. — Isaac

If sll you meant was that yhr boundaries overlap, then I don't see how that forms a criticism. Systems can be defined. They therefore had thst which is the system and thst which is not. If they don't have those two categories they are not defined.

Right, therefore contrary to your claim, these supposed "open systems" are not subject to the laws of physics. The second law of thermodynamics being a law of physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Christ! Is this going to be one of your stupidly arrogant "all maths is wrong" arguments all over again. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy increases during any spontaneous process in an isolated system. Living systems are not isolated systems. The only truly closed system is the universe so any part of it decreasing entropy is not defying the second law. This is physics basics I learnt in school.

The constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from that system. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it isn't.

Notice that it shows both internal and external "S", when you say "S" is a hidden state. — Metaphysician Undercover

Mathjax error, my apologies. I've corrected it, so thanks for pointing it out. The Mathjax 's' is the hidden state, not the normal type 's'.

If...

Science , like philosophy , is a culturally constructed niche. — Joshs

... then it seems likely to me that when...

Postmodern sciences, along with postmodern philosophies, abandon realism — Joshs

...they merely replace it with another culturally constructed presupposition.

To assume otherwise requires us to believe that modern philosophy has miraculously broken free of ten thousand year old shackles.

I'd have to say neither. — Isaac

.....yet it appears to me that you responded with logically consistent intelligibility. I have no choice but to seriously admire that response, arising as it apparently does from one human, and directed toward another, constructed from neither consideration of brain machinations nor philosophical predications as a product of them.
———-

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity.
— Mww

Again, on point, but is any philosophical text less attempting the same thing. — Isaac

Less attempting implies a relative quantity. But the mechanistic necessity of neuroscience, as opposed to the logical necessity of philosophical texts, is a relative quality. So, no, the one is not attempting a measure of the other. While it is certain that each form of necessity belongs to its own domain, holding sway only within it, it still remains to be acknowledged which came first.
—————

As an aside, your hidden states are an interesting concept. I might find a place for them.

... then it seems likely to me that when...

Postmodern sciences, along with postmodern philosophies, abandon realism
— Joshs

...they merely replace it with another culturally constructed presupposition.

To assume otherwise requires us to believe that modern philosophy has miraculously broken free of ten thousand year old shackles. — Isaac

What I appreciate most about Rouse’s approach is that rather than treating philosophical or scientific conceptual norms as grounding starting points for understanding the nature of scientific thought, he begins from the actual contextual discursive engagements from which such grand ideas are generated. It is through such actual temporal practices that we determine what is at stake and what is at issue in such practices. Agreement or disagreement on what is true or false within a given set of shared activities must rest upon a prior agreement concerning larger goals and what matters for that activity. Even within agreed upon conventions, the shared truths will never be total, but partially ambiguous and thus contestable. Forms of realism tend to give short shrift to these features of scientific conceptualizations as a form of niche building , by assuming certain norms of naturalism as absolutely determinative rather than as included within the continual contextual redetermination of what is at stake in scientific inquiry.

As Rouse says

“Sellars shares with the disunifiers (Nancy Cartwright, Ian Hacking) a conception of scientific understanding as representing the world, whether or not these various representations can be unified into a single, idealized, systematic “image.” Scientific understanding is taken to be embodied in scientific knowledge. Whether that knowledge primarily takes propositional form or is substantially realized through mathematical, material, visual, or com putational models, scientific understanding is mediated in whole or part by a representational simulacrum of the world it seeks to understand.”

“Sellars himself provides a key formulation for my naturalistic alternative to representationalist conceptions of scientific understanding. In a justly famous passage from Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, he argued that “in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says” (Sellars 1997, 76). Representationalist conceptions identify scientific understanding with some position or set of positions within the space of reasons—that is, as a body of knowledge. I instead locate scientific understanding in the ongoing reconfiguration of the entire space. The sciences continually revise the terms and inferential relations through which we understand the world, which aspects of the world are salient and significant within that understanding, and how those aspects of the world matter to our overall understanding. Scientific research also enables the expansion of the space of reasons by articulating aspects of the world conceptually.”

The simple idea that we just directly see what's there doesn't seem to be sufficient here. — Isaac

I get it that we don't always see what's there, In fact most of what is in the visual, auditory, olfactory and somato-sensory fields is generally not noticed; and I know this simply by self-reflection; I don't need scientific experiments to tell me that.

But that's not what I'm talking about anyway; I'm saying that what we are immediately aware of, we are immediately aware of; that's just what we experience, and I'm not attempting to draw any further conclusions from that.

So, to my way of thinking, direct realism is merely saying that what I am immediately consciously aware of is directly real for me, and I can acknowledge that the "independent" reality of the things I am aware of is not directly known, in the sense that my perception of those things is the result of a relatively extended process of which I am not at all aware and can only know "secondhand" via the data gained by other investigators..

As I said before it's just two different ways of looking at it. I am an artist, not a scientist, so I give priority to my immediate experience; I prefer to maintain an orientation that does not involve objectifying that experience. I also agree with Heidegger and other phenomenologists that that orientation is both temporally (historically) and experientially prior to the objectifying orientation, which is secondary and derivative. Each orientation delivers its own different possibilities for knowledge and understanding, to be sure.

I get it that we don't always see what's there, In fact most of what is in the visual, auditory, olfactory and somato-sensory fields is generally not noticed; and I know this simply by self-reflection; I don't need scientific experiments to tell me that.

But that's not what I'm talking about anyway; I'm saying that what we are immediately aware of, we are immediately aware of; that's just what we experience, and I'm not attempting to draw any further conclusions from that. — Janus

Notice that when psychologists play ‘gotcha!’ and talk about how our naive perception is fooled by illusions and tricks, that the ‘real’ truth of what we experience is hidden from us , they are referring to a level of analysis that first needs to be constructed by us as a fresh perspective. In other words, in order for some some phenomenon to be declared ‘hidden’, the conceptual framework within which its hiddenness is intelligible must first be invented as a fresh form of conceptualization. Could one not then follow the phenomenologists and say that both the ‘naive’ and the hiddenness-savvy frameworks are different varieties of direct perception, the second being an elaboration and transformation of the former?

The sciences continually revise the terms and inferential relations through which we understand the world, which aspects of the world are salient and significant within that understanding, and how those aspects of the world matter to our overall understanding. — Joshs

'Quantum physics is a law of thought' ~ Chris Fuchs

What is it about the mind of a scientist that shackles them in chains so unbreakable, yet as gossamer in the hands of the philosopher? — Isaac

I'll have a go at that. First, it's by no means 'all scientists' - you can't stereotype scientists. But the classical paradigm of science from the time of Galileo until recently presupposes the division between subject and object - the scientist as detached observer, an all-seeing eye, in a world of objects theoretically intelligible in terms of their primary attributes, describable in terms of Cartesian algebraic geometery.

In terms of engineering and science, such a stance is pragmatically justified. But it has existential implications which are not disclosed by its own methods - because scientists are also humans, and science a human enterprise. And a consequence of this stance is described in the often-quoted expression of 'cartesian anxiety', which

refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

There's been an enormous shift in science in the 20th century, due to the belated understanding of these issues, which you might call 'meta-scientific'. That's what the article pinned to my profile page, The Blind Spot of Science, addresses, drawing on phenomenological analysis.

If sll you meant was that yhr boundaries overlap, then I don't see how that forms a criticism. Systems can be defined. They therefore had thst which is the system and thst which is not. If they don't have those two categories they are not defined. — Isaac

Sure, you can talk about different systems in that way, and even "define" what would make one system distinct from another. But if in reality, there is an overlapping of the things which you are applying the theory to, then these things cannot be adequately understood as discrete systems.

That is the whole point which you do not seem to be grasping. You can "define" anything, anyway you want, but if that definition is not represented in reality, then the definition is just a falsity, which becomes a false premise if used in any logical proceeding. So, you define systems as being distinct or discrete, but the things which you apply the theory to are not really that way, they overlap, and share, etc., so your systems theory is just giving you false premises, i.e. that the thing identified as A is a discrete system, and the thing identified as B is a discrete system, when in reality they are not discrete. And, the need to assume "open systems" demonstrates very clearly that this is a falsity

Christ! Is this going to be one of your stupidly arrogant "all maths is wrong" arguments all over again. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy increases during any spontaneous process in an isolated system. Living systems are not isolated systems. The only truly closed system is the universe so any part of it decreasing entropy is not defying the second law. This is physics basics I learnt in school. — Isaac

You're really not making any sense Isaac, we're not talking mathematics here. We're talking ontology. You insist on "discrete systems", but now you deny "isolated systems". How could there be a discrete system which is not isolated from other systems? To make it discrete there must be a boundary which separates it from others, or else the many supposed systems really exist together as just one continuity. If there is a boundary then it must consist of something real, which would separate one system from another, thereby isolating them from each other. Otherwise the boundary is purely theoretical, and absolutely arbitrary. Arbitrarily placing theoretical boundaries, within a continuity, does not produce discrete entities. The hour existing between one o'clock and two o'clock is not a discrete unit of time, it's just created from theoretical, arbitrarily placed boundaries

Mathjax error, my apologies. I've corrected it, so thanks for pointing it out. The Mathjax 's' is the hidden state, not the normal type 's'. — Isaac

Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that we need to assume internal hidden states as well, for the reasons I explained. The composition, or constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from it. The system does not apprehend its own composition, and this is internal to the system.

...modern philosophy has miraculously broken free of ten thousand year old shackles. — Isaac

Internal/External. Physical/Non-physical. Physical/Mental. Material/Immaterial. Noumenon/Phenomenon. Subject/Object. Mind/Body. Direct/Indirect.

The dichotomies above, and undoubtedly several more like them that didn't immediately come to mind, are the problem. All fail to be able to take proper account of meaningful experience. No one seems to have figured out how to escape them, stipulate a simpler but richer terminological framework that is amenable to evolutionary progression; a taxonomy that retains their usefulness but improves upon explanations where they have failed. No one well-known enough yet, anyway. This first bit is just a general set of remarks involving one aspect of the recent discussion.




To your account...

I'm in agreement with most if not all of your criticisms here. The special pleading, in particular, that the mod has been guilty of. That said, there is one thing that struck me as needing attention. It has to do with(seems to based in and/or upon) your uncertainty regarding the concepts(philosophical positions) of direct and indirect perception. Direct realism vs. indirect realism. I'm with you on the skepticism about those notions- their muddled. Ill-conceived frameworks as best I can see. Both of them. For the same reasons, no less. That said...

It seems that you want to say that we do not directly perceive anything at all. That seems to be based upon current knowledge regarding how our relevant biological machinery works. Good stuff, by the way. It's as though the denial is based upon the fact that so many different autonomous biological structures are necessary and involved in a timely(albiet virtually negligible increments) fashion.

That's only a problem for accounting practices(notions of mind/consciousness/meaningful experience) when and if they are based upon one of the aforementioned dichotomies.

As best I can tell, there's no problem with someone accepting most, if not all, of your explanations and simply noting that you've done a great job of teasing out all of the nuance regarding how biological machinery works autonomously as an elemental part of all meaningful experience(consciousness; thought; belief; etc.).

the scientist as detached observer, an all-seeing eye, in a world of objects theoretically intelligible in terms of their primary attributes, describable in terms of Cartesian algebraic geometery — Wayfarer

Not sure that's an accurate or fair description.
Experiments are often devised to focus on specific variables and to eliminate others, ceteris paribus.
This has worked fine in many or most cases, then there are cases where that becomes more difficult.
Say, when a measurement itself interferes markedly with the measured, or when the larger environment/system (in a sort of holistic sense) can't be ignored.
It's just a (traditional) feature of designing experiments to minimize elements that aren't the objective, it's not so much that other elements simply are said to not exist.

it appears to me that you responded with logically consistent intelligibility. I have no choice but to seriously admire that response, arising as it apparently does from one human, and directed toward another, constructed from neither consideration of brain machinations nor philosophical predications as a product of them. — Mww

I didn't mean to say nothing was going on. My point was your wording, your description of it, was a foreign to me as mine is (perhaps) to you. It's not about the process, it's about our descriptions of them, our rendering of them into words and concepts. That something is going on is undeniable. Whether your description of it rings true for me or mine for you has little to do with that fact.

While it is certain that each form of necessity belongs to its own domain, holding sway only within it, it still remains to be acknowledged which came first. — Mww

I think that the scientific and the philosophical domains are not so very different from one another, and so the question of which came first is not answerable by declaring 'philosophy!' or 'science!'. We each have different narratives, which we would use different language to explain, about how we think. The only proper answer to which came first would be that of the first thinking human, or (in an individual's case) the one they had as a baby.

Every single other narrative has no better claim to primacy than any other.

your hidden states are an interesting concept. I might find a place for them. — Mww

Glad you liked it. Fertile ground for both scientific and metaphysical speculation, I think.

he begins from the actual contextual discursive engagements from which such grand ideas are generated. — Joshs

Interesting, but I don't buy it. You frequently seem to have this dichotomy on how you express these ideas which makes them unconvincing. You'll talk a lot about unexamined preconceptions, culturally embedded narratives, the ephemeral nature of what is real... (all ideas I'm very sympathetic to). Until....

Until it comes to your personal favorites. Then the rhetoric suddenly changes. Now it's all 'actual', 'must', 'is', 'are'... You begin by saying that ideas are shackled by unexamined presuppositions, culturally embedded narratives, etc, then proceed to announce replacement concepts as if they were the unshackled 'Truths' of the way things are.

All ideas are culturally embedded narratives. All of them. That includes Heidegger, that includes Rouse, that includes Zahavi, that includes the idea that all ideas are culturally embedded narratives... All of them.

what we are immediately aware of, we are immediately aware of; that's just what we experience — Janus

Then isn't that somewhat trivially tautologous? What is it you draw from this conclusion that you found novel?

As I said before it's just two different ways of looking at it. — Janus

Again, I'm not clear on what the first 'way' really is. It doesn't seem so much a 'way of looking at things' as just a reiteration of what the words mean. That which it seems to me is the case seems to me to be the case. What am I missing that is concluded from that approach? How does it, for example, inform your art?

I'll have a go at that. — Wayfarer

Good attempt. But, like @Joshs, you've given an excellent account of the unexamined preconceptions of scientists. What you've not answered is why we shouldn't assume that the philosophers providing these alternative accounts have any fewer (if different) unexamined preconceptions.

The philosopher doesn't have a different brain, they're brought up in the same culture they're only trained (when they are trained) by other philosophers using their previous ideas. So whence this magical shakle-breaking? Why no unexamined preconceptions behind Heidegger, behind Pinter, behind Bernstein, behind the idea of a 'blind spot' in science?

I'm totally on board with this idea that science has unexamined preconceptions which, if you question them, undermine some of its oft claim to 'truth'. I really don't have any complaint about that at all.

But then by the same token, so do the replacement philosophies. They too are culturally embedded. They too assume things. They no more have a claim to being an account of 'the way things 'really' are'.

But if in reality, there is an overlapping of the things which you are applying the theory to, then these things cannot be adequately understood as discrete systems. — Metaphysician Undercover

So? They only need to be defined systems for the model to work, not closed ones.

You can "define" anything, anyway you want, but if that definition is not represented in reality — Metaphysician Undercover

Who says the definition is not represented in reality?

you define systems as being distinct or discrete, but the things which you apply the theory to are not really that way, they overlap, and share, etc — Metaphysician Undercover

Overlapping and sharing in no way prevents a system for being defined, and it only need be defined to have internal and external states, to have probability functions performing gradient climbing equations against entropy.

You insist on "discrete systems", but now you deny "isolated systems". How could there be a discrete system which is not isolated from other systems? — Metaphysician Undercover

Easily thus. "Everything within the cell membrane is the system, everything outside of it is not". Nothing about the fact that my newly defined 'system' exchanges molecules with the system outside of it, prevents it from being defined as a system and therefore being modelled as performing this gradient climbing function. If you can't explain how you think the openness of systems prevents this model then simply repeating that it does doesn't get us anywhere.

it is quite obvious that we need to assume internal hidden states as well — Metaphysician Undercover

Internal states are literally defined as those which are not hidden. It's just the definition of the terminology.

The composition, or constitution of the system doing the inferencing is hidden from it — Metaphysician Undercover

Then it is an external state as far as the system is concerned.

That's only a problem for accounting practices(notions of mind/consciousness/meaningful experience) when and if they are based upon one of the aforementioned dichotomies. — creativesoul

I'm not really sure what you mean here?

as an elemental part of all meaningful experience(consciousness; thought; belief; etc.). — creativesoul

Are you perhaps suggesting that some parts of meaningful experience are not mediated by how the underlying biological machinery works?

What you've not answered is why we shouldn't assume that the philosophers providing these alternative accounts have any fewer (if different) unexamined preconceptions. — Isaac

In philosophy there is space for 'the unconditioned', although I will grant you that most of today's academic philosophy show no grasp of the idea nor any interest in it. (It may be there in Heidegger somewhere, although I've not studied him in depth.) There is also the fundamental philosophical maxim, 'know thyself' with the concommitant emphasis on self-awareness. And again, the reason that philosophy is different to natural science, is that in this discipline 'we are that which we seek to know'. So it must be of a different order to a methodology that is primarily oriented to the objective domain, although by no means incompatible with it on those grounds.

But then by the same token, so do the replacement philosophies. — Isaac

Do you see how that is reductionist? You're willing to accept such criticisms, but only on the basis that those criticizing don't know any better or any different. So you're still operating within the science paradigm. Philosophy is a different way of thinking or being. A comment on Jurgen Habermas' critique of post-Enlightement philosophy is relevant:

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong. — Does Reason Know what it is Missing?

Then isn't that somewhat trivially tautologous? — Isaac

No, it's not tautologous: what we perceive is experienced as being perceived immediately, or do you experience some time lag between turning to look at, say, a tree and seeing it?

As to how it "informs my art" it's the difference between accepting what you perceive just as it immediately appears to you, giving yourself over to it and becoming absorbed in it, and objectifying and analyzing the the experience; separating yourself from it, so to speak.

The difference is perfectly clear to me: if you don't understand the profound experiential difference between the two dispositions, then I can only conclude that perhaps you've never experienced it?

It seems that you want to say that we do not directly perceive anything at all. That seems to be based upon current knowledge regarding how our relevant biological machinery works. Good stuff, by the way. It's as though the denial is based upon the fact that so many different autonomous biological structures are necessary and involved in a timely(albiet virtually negligible increments) fashion.

That's only a problem for accounting practices(notions of mind/consciousness/meaningful experience) when and if they are based upon one of the aforementioned dichotomies. — creativesoul

I'm not really sure what you mean here? — Isaac

Just a general overview of what we're all doing here. We are attempting to take proper account of something that existed in its entirety in some form or another prior to our awareness and especially prior to our accounting practices(naming and descriptive practices).

Whenever a terminological framework has the purpose of explaining human consciousness(meaningful human experience) and/or other kinds of consciousness(such as non-human meaningful experience), and it is based upon either internal/external, or physical/non-physical, or even perhaps both, then those practices are doomed to fail as a result of not having the explanatory power to be able to take proper account of that which consists of both internal and external things, physical and non-physical things.

All meaningful experience consists of internal and external things, physical and non-physical things. Categorizing all the elements of meaningful experience into those dichotomies guarantees misunderstanding of that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Seeing red is a meaningful experience.

Meaningful experience exists in its entirety, in simpler forms, prior to our knowledge. <-------That's the pivotal ontological consideration which ought inform the selection/creation of our terminological framework.

As best I can tell, there's no problem with someone accepting most, if not all, of your explanations and simply noting that you've done a great job of teasing out all of the nuance regarding how biological machinery works autonomously as an elemental part of all meaningful experience(consciousness; thought; belief; etc.). — creativesoul

Are you perhaps suggesting that some parts of meaningful experience are not mediated by how the underlying biological machinery works? — Isaac

You've highlighted the role that the biological machinery plays in seeing red. I've a couple of quibbles with certain phrasing but those terminological choices may not be important to your position. In other words, I do not think your position hinges upon the idea that autonomous machinery like biological brain structures "mediate" in the same sense that people do. I could be wrong, but if I take you to mean that the underlying biological machinery directly influences and/or determines every part of meaningful experience, then you would be correct. I am suggesting that some parts of meaningful experience are not "mediated" by the underlying biological machinery, if by that we mean "mediated" in the sense of directly influencing and/or determining everything that meaningful experience consists of.

An individual's biological machinery, while facilitating their meaningful experiences, does not have any determinative influence whatsoever upon that which exists in its entirety prior to becoming a part of an individual's meaningful experience.

....you're still operating within the science paradigm. Philosophy is a different way of thinking or being — Wayfarer

Methodological Naturalism.

Seeing red...

The color red cannot be properly taken into account when and if the practice itself involves situating the result of biological machinery within the biological machinery. Seeing red is a result of biological machinery working autonomously. The result is not equivalent to the machinery necessary in order for it to happen anymore than it is equivalent to the wavelengths we call by the name "red".

The experience of seeing red consists of all the individual things causing us to see red. The biological machinery is but one of many. The wavelengths we call "red" are another.

The colors we see are not in the head. They are not outside the head. They are part of a larger whole(light). Where there is no biological machinery capable of detecting light(parts of the spectrum anyway) there are no individual colors(ranges of wavelengths) being filtered from the rest. That filtering happens and must in order for them to become meaningful by virtue of becoming part of a meaningful correlation drawn between them and something else by a creature so capable. That's how everything becomes meaningful. Light is no exception. There are certain biological structures that do parts of that job; that autonomously detect some wavelengths which has the unintended consequence of isolating them from the rest. However, seeing red requires more than just isolating/detecting the color. In order for it to become meaningful and/or significant to creatures, they must be endowed with the machinery required for detection as well as correlation.

That is not to say that seeing red is something that happens in the brain, for the biological machinery - while necessary for seeing red - is not exhaustive of the meaningful experience. Seeing red requires more than just adequately evolved biological structures capable of isolating certain wavelengths of light. It first requires light being emitted and/or reflected from things other than the host of biological machinery, being detected, and becoming part of a meaningful correlation(which requires the previous biological machinery, and other structures as well).

All seeing red consists of the wavelengths we call "red", an emission source, and a creature with adequate biological machinery to detect(isolate) and subsequently draw correlations and/or associations between the color and something else. That is how all red things become meaningful to all creatures so capable. The richness of the individual experience is directly proportional to the sheer number of correlations drawn between the color and other things by the creature having the experience.

All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience<---------that's just a common-sense core tenet/guiding principle.

A creature cannot be said to see red if the color is not meaningful to them. The color red must be meaningful to any and all creatures capable of seeing red, unless all detection of those wavelengths counts as seeing red. Seeing red is a meaningful experience, afterall. Some things completely lacking biological machinery are capable of detecting those wavelengths. Surely we aren't going to demolish our understanding of meaningful human experience by virtue of equating it to color detection devices, are we?

Besides, there are some things with adequate biological machinery capable of detecting those wavelengths, but there is neither good reason nor adequate evidence to warrant subsequently claiming/believing that the color is somehow significant and/or meaningful to machinery host for they do not have the other biological structures that seem to be required for drawing correlations between the color/wavelengths and other things. The structures serve as benchmarks for certain complexoty levels of meaningful experience, should our knowledge of them be robust enough. This all lends itself well to evolutionary progression.

@Isaac

Sentience and the Origins of Consciousness: From Cartesian Duality to Markovian Monism

The primary target of this paper is sentience. Our use of the word “sentience” here is in the sense of “responsive to sensory impressions”. It is not used in the philosophy of mind sense; namely, the capacity to perceive or experience subjectively, i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or having ‘qualia’. Sentience here, simply implies the existence of a non-empty subset of systemic states; namely, sensory states. In virtue of the conditional dependencies that define this subset (i.e., the Markov blanket partition), the internal states are necessarily ‘responsive to’ sensory states and thus the dictionary definition is fulfilled. The deeper philosophical issue of sentience speaks to the hard problem of tying down quantitative experience or subjective experience within the information geometry afforded by the Markov blanket construction.

Regarding the "hard problem" it does refer to this paper:

Bayesing Qualia: Consciousness as Inference, not Raw Datum

The meta-problem of consciousness (Chalmers (this issue)) is the problem of explaining the behaviors and verbal reports that we associate with the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. These may include reports of puzzlement, of the attractiveness of dualism, of explanatory gaps, and the like. We present and defend a solution to the meta-problem. Our solution takes as its starting point the emerging picture of the brain as a hierarchical inference engine. We show why such a device, operating under familiar forms of adaptive pressure, may come to represent some of its mid-level inferences as especially certain. These mid-level states confidently re-code raw sensory stimulation in ways that (they are able to realize) fall short of fully determining how properties and states of affairs are arranged in the distal world. This drives a wedge between experience and the world.

...

Qualia – just like dogs and cats – are part of the inferred suite of hidden causes (i.e., experiential hypotheses) that best explain and predict the evolving flux of energies across our sensory surfaces.

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Schwarz’ imaginary foundations are purpose-built to fill that role. They are purpose-built to be known with great certainty, while not themselves being made true simply by states of the distal world. Creatures thus equipped would be able, were they sufficiently intelligent, to assert that despite holding all the phenomenal facts fixed, how the world really is might vary, even to the point of there being nothing at all bearing the properties so confidently represented as being present.

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We suggest that ‘imaginary foundations’, far from being a highly speculative addition to standard accounts of hierarchical Bayesian inference, are in fact a direct consequence of them. They arise when mid-level re-coding of impinging energies are estimated as highly certain, in ways that leave room for the same mid-level encodings to be paired with different higher-level pictures, including ones in which nothing in the world corresponds to the properties and features at all (as we might judge in the lucid dreaming case).

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That puzzlement finds its fullest expression in the literature concerning the ‘explanatory gap’, where we are almost fooled into believing that there’s something special about qualia – that they are not simply highly certain midlevel encodings optimized to control adaptive action.

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From the PP perspective, [qualia] are just more predictively potent mid-level latent variables in our best generative model of our own embodied exchanges with the world. They are not some kind of raw datum on which to predicate inferences about the state of body and world. Rather, they are themselves among the many products of such inference.

...

But in another sense, this is a way of being a revisionary kind of qualia realist, since colors, sights, and sounds are revealed as generative model posits pretty much on a par with representations of dogs, cats, and vicars.

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Our distinctive capacities for puzzlement then arise because, courtesy of the depth and complexity of our generative model, we are able to see that these groupings (the redness of the objects, the cuteness of some animals) reflect highly certain information that nonetheless fails to fully mandate specific ways for the external world (or body) to be. We thus become aware that these states, known with great certainty, seem to belong to the ‘appearance’ side of an appearance/reality divide (see Allen (1997)).

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It is realist in that it identifies qualia with distinctive mid-level sensory states known with high systemic (and 100% agentive) certainty.

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Our own qualitative experiences, this suggests, are not some kind of raw datum but are themselves the product of an unconscious (Bayesian) inference, reflecting the genuine (but entirely non-mysterious) combination of processes described above.

So, 1) the science of Markov blankets doesn't directly address the philosophical issue of subjective experience (as explained in the first paper) and 2) colour terms like "red" don't (only) refer to some property held by some external world cause but (also) by something that happens "in the head" (even if you want to reduce qualia/first-person experiences to be something of the sort described in the second paper).

We present and defend a solution to the meta-problem....

..by removing it almost completely from the lexicon of philosophy as such and discussing it as far as possible through the metaphors of science and engineering, especially useful for the elimination of anything that seems mysterious.

So? They only need to be defined systems for the model to work, not closed ones. — Isaac

I have no doubt that such models may work. I've repeated that already, they are created for specific purposes, and are adequate for those purposes. What is at question is the truth or falsity of the models, in the sense of correspondence, and that is whether the models are a fair representation of what is supposed to be being modeled. Mathematics can be used, with statistics and probabilities, to create predictive models, with the models being symbolic (having predictive significance), without representing the activity being predicted.

Who says the definition is not represented in reality? — Isaac

I said that. That is exactly the evidence I have been giving you, and arguing. Have you not been paying attention to the evidence I've given you? What's the point to this type of discussion, if you just pay attention to the parts of what I say that you want to?

Overlapping and sharing in no way prevents a system for being defined, and it only need be defined to have internal and external states, to have probability functions performing gradient climbing equations against entropy. — Isaac

You are not paying attention to what I write. I clearly indicated that overlapping does not prevent a system from being defined. I said it prevents a system from being defined as "discrete", which is the word you used.

Easily thus. "Everything within the cell membrane is the system, everything outside of it is not". Nothing about the fact that my newly defined 'system' exchanges molecules with the system outside of it, prevents it from being defined as a system and therefore being modelled as performing this gradient climbing function. If you can't explain how you think the openness of systems prevents this model then simply repeating that it does doesn't get us anywhere. — Isaac

Good example. Now do you see that the "cell membrane" in your example is a third thing? It is neither within the system nor is it outside the system, according to your statement. Does your model account for the existence of this third thing, the boundary, which is neither within the system nor outside the system?

Of course the nature of the boundary is extremely important to the nature of the system because it has a very important function in relation to the "openness" of the system. And in your example, the activity called osmosis demonstrates this fact.

Internal states are literally defined as those which are not hidden. It's just the definition of the terminology. — Isaac

I know, that eternal states are defined that way, you've stated that. What I am arguing is that the definitions employed by systems theorists are false premises, and that is why systems theory is flimsy. So, the point is that "internal states" is literally defined as those which are not hidden, bit this false definition literally hides the fact that many internal factors of any system, actually are hidden.

Then it is an external state as far as the system is concerned. — Isaac

Again, you were not paying attention! The possibility that it is an external state can be excluded through observation. The influence on the system, of external states can be observed. But when the system acts in a way such that it is influenced (caused) to behave in a way which is neither the result of observable external causes, nor the system itself (2nd law), then we ought to conclude internal causes which are not part of the system itself. To conclude "hidden" external causes is a false conclusion, because properly designed experiments have the capacity to exclude the possibility of unobservable external causes.

Now, refer back to the "cell membrane" which is neither inside the system nor outside the system. Clearly it has an influence on the system. Is that influence better classified as from inside the system, or outside the system. Since it is an integral part of what composes the system, it must be inside the system, so we cannot truthfully say it is outside the system. But by your description, it is not inside the system, it is the boundary.

I didn't mean to say nothing was going on. — Isaac

Granted. But you did say neither one nor the other of the two possible explanatory methodologies, was going on, with respect to a single given occasion, that is....what did Issac do with what Mww gave to him.
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I think that the scientific and the philosophical domains are not so very different from one another, and so the question of which came first is not answerable by declaring 'philosophy!' or 'science!'. — Isaac

If it be agreeable that the domain of philosophy is rational thought in accordance with logical law, and the domain of science is empirical experiment in accordance with natural law, and furthermore that no human ever performed an experiment without first thinking how it should be done in order to facilitate an expected outcome.....we arrive at both a clear chronological succession and a clear methodological distinction.

The success rate, the productive usefulness of one over the other......well, that’s a different story, innit.
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All ideas are culturally embedded narratives. All of them. — Isaac

If that were true, there would never be such a thing as a paradigm shift, whether in science, ethics, metaphysics or anything else. If there ever was that which is sufficient reason to cause the collapse of an antecedent condition, then that thing could not be contained in that which collapsed. No paradigm shift as such, is possible if the idea from whence it originated was already included in an extant cultural narrative.

Even if the argument is that ideas acting as sufficient reason for a paradigm shift are already culturally embedded narratives, the instantiation of a different relation between any two of them, or between any one of them in relation to experience, is itself a different idea, hence sustains the notion of being not itself already culturally embedded.

The alleged “hidden state” was once a new idea, despite both “hidden” and “state” being already preconceived and not necessarily related to each other.

Anyway....you got lots of folks vying for your attention, so I’ll just retreat to the back row, with all the other Group W troublemakers......

“....A Markov blanket comprises a set of states that renders states internal to the blanket conditionally independent of external states....”
(Friston, et.al., 2020)

If that which is internal to the blanket is external to that which observes it, the proposition is a mere rework of.....

“....objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made....”

...a 1787 treatise on human reason. The conditions are representations, thus “conditionally independent” descriptions of a set of states is nothing more than “not known by means of these”. So it is that behind a Markov blanket resides a ding an sich.

Is it a far-fetched personal cognitive prejudice, or is it a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same? Dunno, who’s to say? But it’s fun to play with all the same.

You frequently seem to have this dichotomy on how you express these ideas which makes them unconvincing. You'll talk a lot about unexamined preconceptions, culturally embedded narratives, the ephemeral nature of what is real... (all ideas I'm very sympathetic to). Until....

Until it comes to your personal favorites. Then the rhetoric suddenly changes. Now it's all 'actual', 'must', 'is', 'are'... You begin by saying that ideas are shackled by unexamined presuppositions, culturally embedded narratives, etc, then proceed to announce replacement concepts as if they were the unshackled 'Truths' of the way things are. — Isaac

If you were arguing that all of us should abandon realism and avoid the tendency to use terms that suggest we believe there is an unshackled truth beyond our models I’m all for that. By all means challenge me whenever I let such vocabulary slip in. But if I understand you correctly,
you believe such realist terms SHOULD be part of our scientific and philosophical claims , and furthermore , we can’t help but have them be implicit in our thinking because , as the cliche goes , insisting there is no objective truth out outside of local conventions is itself a claim to universality. But as Rouse argues “Nothing matters from the imag­ined standpoint of the universe (which is itself only conceivable from a specific location within it), but we do not and cannot actually occupy such a standpoint.”

The point isn’t that there is no objective
truth , or no independently existing world outside cultural assumptions, but that 1) anything we say about such a cultural-independent realm is contingent on and relative to our practices, which are always changing.

2)Any claim of an asymptotic movement of scientific knowledge toward representation of something independent of that movement itself is a claim within a practice that is itself changing , and changing in qualitative ways that do allow of linear , cumulative or even Popperian progression. Is this a claim to universality? No, it is an invitation to look very closely at what you and I are doing right now in this conversation , or what you do day to day at your job. It is an invitation to see for yourself if what appears to be an internally generated representational model of an outside doesn’t qualtiatively alter the sense of that outside in the act of representing it. If one does not see this then one has no reason to abandon representational reason.

All I can tell you is that once one sees qualitative change within quantitative continuity , difference in kind within difference in degree , in everything that representational realism counts on as subject only to change in degree , one cannot unsee it. We postmodernists don’t want to make truth claims , we only want to share with others the incessantly dynamic qualitative movement we cannot help seeing in every context that realists render as qualitatively frozen.

All ideas are culturally embedded narratives. All of them. That includes Heidegger, that includes Rouse, that includes Zahavi, that includes the idea that all ideas are culturally embedded narratives... All of them — Isaac

Yes, but it seems that to you this is a bug, a contextual imposition of cultural bias and distortion on an autonomous scientific enter­prise from the “outside”. To me it is a feature. It is the place where truth happens , rather than truth residing in the attempt to transcend such narratives in the interest of objectivity.