Indeed. I guess idealists Like Kastrup would say that physicalism is itself a kind illusion and the universe is entirely mentation - material objects are what mental processes look like when seen from a particular perspective. Sometimes this strikes me as just the opposite of Dennett - instead of consciousness being a type of illusory phenomenon, the body is the illusion. — Tom Storm
The consequences of idealism vs materialism make little difference in practice to how one lives it would seem to me, except that idealism makes room for a reboot of the idea of the supernatural. — Tom Storm
For my money enactivist approaches in cognitive psychology do a better job of this than the alternatives, via a monism that avoids the kind of idealism championed by Wayfarer, Kastrup, Hoffman, Kant and others.
— Joshs
Thankyou for my inclusion in such exalted company :up: — Wayfarer
'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. we made up the word 'thinking' as being 'that thing which these entities do'. — Isaac
I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. There is no difference between a backflip and the one that performs it, for instance. The entity is the backflip. It's entity all the way down and any action is just the movements and contortions of that entity. So it is with consciousness. — NOS4A2
Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we treat the data as being already given. It's part of the definition. — Isaac
It isn't. Necessity is a modal concept. That which must exist. The only way I can see it entering into logic is modally - if X then Y. So we could say "if the word doubt refers to a scientific object/event, then it implies there's a thinking subject also as a scientific object", but simply using the word doesn't cash out that modality. — Isaac
From the article... — Isaac
...despite his appeal to "notional worlds," Dennett still owes his reader an account of how we are able to interpret the content of "reports" that others make and the content of the
beliefs they hold. And even he realises that the heterophenomenological "process depends on assumptions about which language is being spoken, and some of the speaker's intentions." But he gives no explanation as to how we are able to interpret these quasi-'reports' of others. For example, in collaborating to create your heterophenomenological world I hear you say "I see a purple cow." But what is it that I take you to be saying? How am I to understand the meaning of that report if it is referring to some item in your notional world? What is it about my knowledge of English that enables me to know what you mean? It cannot be that I understand you because I know what kind of notional objects your words designate. For, to put the point succinctly, the private-language argument will work just as effectively against objects in a notional world as in a private inner world. Beetles in boxes are beetles in boxes, whether they are real or notional. [...]
I believe it helps to see how unbehaviourist [Wittgenstein] really was when we contrast his position to that of Dennett's. For in concentrating solely on the "grammar" of our mental discourse, by rejecting the name-object picture of language as altogether inappropriate in this domain, Wittgenstein is led to a more satisfactory view of the nature and importance of consciousness. He has not tried to equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies, rather he has reminded us that in treating others as conscious we are always engaged in an interpretative project (broadly conceived) informed by our form of life.
I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. — NOS4A2
Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its Form is received in the Knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses.
If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the Forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.
Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — Aquinas on Sensible and Intelligible Forms
To understand is to free form completely from matter. — Aquinas on Sensible and Intelligible Forms
My interpretation - the senses receive the material form - color, dimensions, texture, and so on - while the intellect "receives" the intelligible species which is the type, which allows us to know what it is. "Knowing what [x] is" is the point.
Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain — Luke
I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything. — Luke
it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts (among other things). — Luke
if to have a doubt is to have a lack of certainty with regards to some proposition, then there must be someone to doubt it. — Luke
It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies. — Luke
Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain
— Luke
'Pain' is a word. — Isaac
I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything.
— Luke
Yet...
it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts (among other things).
— Luke
...is a direct claim about existence resulting from the use of a word. — Isaac
if you agree with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for one to doubt they are in pain, then it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts — Luke
Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use. — Isaac
It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies.
— Luke
Does it? From which particular comments? — Isaac
Yes, a word that is often defined as a feeling or sensation. — Luke
You have agreed that it makes no sense for one to doubt that they are in pain. Therefore, are you arguing that people don't exist? Or that they don't have pains and doubts? Or that people are only words? — Luke
you've already agreed that people have doubts and pains, and you've already agreed with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for a person to doubt they are in pain. So I don't see what your point is. — Luke
You claim either that consciousness is nothing more than a human fiction, or else it's not a fiction but there's no need to explain it. In short, that human experiences are make believe and there's nothing more to consciousness but language use and other behaviour. On the other hand, you've recently told me you do not deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc, so it's unclear. — Luke
This conception itself comes from Newton and Liebnitz' religious intuitions, but is now perhaps more associated with militant atheism than religion. The thing is, this supposes the existent of eternal Platonic laws, something that seems at odds with physicalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm also not sure that idealism necessarily opens the door to the supernatural anymore than physicalism. There are plenty of naturalist flavors of idealism. Idealism simply entails that mentation is fundemental. The natural sciences can still be said to describe all that can be known about that mentation. — Count Timothy von Icarus
In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. — Joshs
Then I recommend The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson and Rosch and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind, by Evan Thompson. — Joshs
It is disappointing that Evan Thompson does not mention reinforcement learning. Surely he would have mentioned it alongside connectionism if he knew about it, so I guess he didn't know about it. Yikes.
It seem to me that humans are fundamentally similar to reinforcement learning systems in what they are trying to achieve. In human terms you might say reinforcement learning is about learning how you should make decisions so as to maximise the amount of pleasure you experience in the long-term. (Could you choose to make decisions on some other basis?) — GrahamJ
In human terms you might say reinforcement learning is about learning how you should make decisions so as to maximise the amount of pleasure you experience in the long-term. (Could you choose to make decisions on some other basis?) — GrahamJ
In stating the hard problem this way, have I unwittingly signed up for transcendental or metaphysical realism? — GrahamJ
A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not pointing at a thing. — Isaac
The ontology of mathematics. Can it be said that 2+2=4 was true prior to the universe and after its predicted collapse? That's difficult, but, the truth of this claim appears to be independent of the universe. — Manuel
A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not pointing at a thing. — Isaac
I'm a competent user of English, so I can agree that people have pains and doubts since I know how to use both of those words. — Isaac
Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. — Isaac
Words don't point at things. — Isaac
if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism — Isaac
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