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

Ahh, Dennett. I'm not a fan of his views at all and in fact, seem to rather distort very elementary experience, so let's use someone else, if you don't mind.

Let's take, say, Rovelli, who says calls himself a physicalist, and he tends to allow for physicalism to encompass quite a lot.

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

I think you are on to something here. Though I don't see why one couldn't be a physicalist and allow for God to be physical and be agnostic about things like real intuitions (if they exist) and similar phenomena. Though they may be less likely to argue for this.

Now, if you include talk about ghosts and astrology, then I don't think that neither idealist nor physicalists (in as much as one can form a coherent distinction) would defend such view that much.

That's a fascinating point. — Tom Storm

I think you’re a natural-born Pragmatist.

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:

*

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

And you’re first on the list.

Great! You win access to bonus article.

'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

So what? The same could be said for running, or in fact for any aspect of our common knowledge. That all our knowledge is relative to the collective representation we call "the world" does nothing to diminish its significance as a shared understanding which is obviously reflected in linguistic usages. So, from the perspective of dualistic thinking (our collective representation of a world of objects, entities, processes and so on) it is indeed true to say that where thinking is found a thinker will also be found.

Since I've acknowledged that none of our dualistic thinking has any absolute ontological significance, or at least cannot be shown to have such, I'm unclear as to what you think you are disagreeing with.

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

Yes, I think that's kind of right, except I wouldn't say "it's entity all the way down" since that would be to privilege substance over mode, process, attribute; in other words to favour just one side of the duaiistic equation. So, I would say that from a nondual perspective there is no entity and no activity (in this case "thinking" or consciousness).

It's entity all the way down and any action is just the movements and contortions of that entity. — NOS4A2

In other words, the activity of that entity.

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

Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain and being unable to doubt it. Whether or not this implies a "thinking being", it at least implies a being that has the capacity for having pains, certainties and doubts.

Also, I strongly doubt that you could produce a dictionary definition of "pain" that includes any mention of certainty or "data".

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

As I said earlier, I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything. However, I would say that 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 (among other things).

Moreover, 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. And it seems reasonable that in order to doubt it, one must have given it some thought.

From the article... — Isaac

Also from the article:

...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.

It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies.

It's very simple why the hard problem of consciousness is hard - consciousness is unobservable, a necessity if science has to take a shot at explaining it. Hence I recommend the Eastern approach of meditation (self-reflection) if we are to make any headway in the field of consciousness studies. However this is not an either-or kinda deal I'm offering. I recall hearing/reading how, under the aegis of the present Dalai Lama, high lamas, experts in meditation, collaborated with American and European neuroscientists to deepen our understanding of the mind. Anyone with links to that research?

I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. — NOS4A2

However we're not a cup when we see a cup, nor a mountain when we see a mountain.

A footnote on Aristotlean-Thomist epistemology.

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

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.

(this is a footnote, not intended to divert the thread.)

The hard problem of consciousness is hard because it tries to unify 2 incompatible things: objective measurement and subjective experience.

One method of observation is agreed on by everyone because it can be replicated and is consistent.

The other method of observation by its very nature is not replicable (individualism/personhood/"selfness").

Trying to uncover what consciousness arises out of is like trying to "precisely measure (objectify) what makes the measuring device imprecise (subjective)".

At some point the precision definition for conscious experience/awareness fails, and the vague, generalised and more intuitive intricacies of feelings, emotions, beliefs etc takeover (the subject).

Part of the difficulty with the problem is an inability of subjects to unanimously defined what their collective subjectivity fundamentally is.

To understand is to free form completely from matter. — Aquinas on Sensible and Intelligible Forms

This is why human understanding of sense objects is always deficient. The intellect understands a form which is distinct from the form of the sense object, it understands a universal form, while the sense object is a particular form. This leaves a gap between the understanding of the intellect, by means of universal forms, and what is present to the senses, particular forms. And it appears like the gap cannot be closed, hence a duality of forms is called for.

To relate this to the topic of the thread, through the internal process, introspection, the intellect can be seen to have direct access to the form of a particular, the individual human person. In this way we can break down the gap. If the intellect grasps "forms", then it might grasp a particular form if it is present to it, despite its habitual process of employing universals toward what is present to the senses. But the gap can only be broken if we allow for the reality that the intellect can actually grasp the form of a particular in this way, and allow that this is a valid procedure of understanding. Otherwise we are stuck with the gap that cannot be closed, and we can never properly understand the particular.

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.

In my interpretation the intellect doesn’t receive it so much as it generates it, like a caricature, by including some properties and excluding others. It isn’t able to grasp the entirety nor the particularity of any one thing so it makes do with what little resources it can offer.

Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain — Luke

'Pain' is a word.

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.

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

Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use.

It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies. — Luke

Does it? From which particular comments?

Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain
— Luke

'Pain' is a word. — Isaac

Yes, a word that is often defined as a feeling or sensation.

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

The full quote may help:

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

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?

Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use. — Isaac

You seem to be accusing me of talking people and/or doubts into existence. But 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. Are you arguing that only words exist?

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

From everything I've read of yours on this site. 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.

Yes, a word that is often defined as a feeling or sensation. — Luke

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.

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

None. 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. Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. Words don't point at things.

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

That none of that agreement brings an entity into existence to which those words must refer. Knowing how words are used is clearly not the same as knowing what sensible entities exist

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

I'm not claiming to be an expert on the matter, but if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism it might be more profitable to explore that first rather than assume I'm being unclear in my use of it. If you have a clear understanding of the notion, but my position remains unclear, then there'd be some matter to resolve, but as it stands I'm not seeing where your issue is with my holding those two positions. One is a matter of psychology, the other a matter of neuroscience. Anomalous monism clearly sets out how the two are not sharing the same ontology, so there'd be no reason to see any lack of clarity in those two positions.

Exactly. Depending on how one conceives of God, God could be physical. For example, God as the self-perceiving, omniscient universe experiencing itself, something that comes into effect immanently (e.g. a hive brain organism that encompasses all the mass energy in the universe into itself after having started as one of many intelligent species), is totally conceivable in physical terms.

The other thing to consider is that the "conservative" position in modern physics has generally been to embrace eternal, timeless laws of physics that exist outside of reality and are unchanged by anything physical. 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.

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.

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

It's tricky. I mean we can say that Newton and Leibniz were wrong in terms of specifics, though oddly now physics may be giving Leibniz the edge in terms of considering what constitutes the universe, Leibniz did not think atoms exist or if they did, were fundamental.

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.

But I agree generally, that such views are at odds with mainstream physicalism.

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

You said it: "naturalist flavors" of idealism, but in general, idealism can also be used by Deepak Chopra, or some current guru-of-the-moment in India, where they seem to appear with frequency. In that respect, these idealists are liable to say incoherent things.

I don't know of any spiritualist or mystic who would call themselves a materialist.

But if you stick to naturalistic idealism, then yes, claims made would be much more sober.

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

I am a mathematician, and have worked in machine learning and (the maths of) evolutionary biology. From a distance, an enactivist approach seems attractive to me and has a lot in common with the branch of machine learning known as reinforcement learning. But I have looked at the first 3 chapters of Mind in Life available on Amazon, and close up, I do not like it. Also, I don't think it helps with the hard problem.

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?)

I found nothing to suggest that Thompson's model separates the reward (=negative or positive reinforcement) that an agent receives from the environment, from other sensations which provide information about the state of the environment. I consider this separation vital. In order to make good decisions, the agent must learn the map from states to rewards, and learn to predict the environment, that is, learn the map from (states and actions) to new states. Instead Thompson has (figure 3.2) a set of vague concepts - 'perturbations' from the environment go to a 'sensorimotor coupling' which 'modulate the dynamics of' the nervous system. This looks like an incompetent stab at reinforcement learning.

The hard problem for me is that negative and positive reinforcement perform the function of pain and pleasure, but negative and positive reinforcement are just numbers, and we have no clue about how a number can become a feeling. In stating the hard problem this way, have I unwittingly signed up for transcendental or metaphysical realism?

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

Pleasure isnt such a simple concept from an enactivist perspective. What constitutes a reinforcement is not determinable independently of the normative sense-making goals of the organism.

I am confident that Thompson is familiar with concepts of reinforcement learning, but it is too far removed from
the enactivist model he champions for him to bother with it. If you are interested in a comparison of reinforcement learning approaches with enactivist ones, here’s one link you can check out.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04535.pdf

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

Do you mean, that hedonism is the only basis you see for an ethical philosophy? That there are no ends beyond pleasure?

In stating the hard problem this way, have I unwittingly signed up for transcendental or metaphysical realism? — GrahamJ

Based on what you've said, I think 'metaphysical realism' with a strong side-order of Skinnerian behaviourism.

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

If someone says they are in pain they are, if they are not lying, referring to a pain that they feel.

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

It's true in virtue of the meaning of the words "two", "plus", "equals" and "four". It can be empirically tested: select any two pairs of objects, put them together and count to see if the result is four. It always seems to come out that way. Perhaps when the laws of nature change and objects start spontaneously disappearing, then it will no longer hold. Then we will say two plus two would have equaled four if one or more of the objects had not disappeared. :wink:

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

i.e. 'true in all possible worlds'.

It's hard to imagine a possible world in which this wouldn't be the case, we can change the symbol "2" to "II" or something else, but it's still a mathematical fact.

Not that I take you to be saying the opposite, but, the ontology of math is pretty crazy.

You could change the symbol to anything you want, but what the symbol represents would have to be constant. That's what is interesting!

Absolutely. And that it doesn't seem to depend on the universe, somehow. Utterly baffling.

But math doesn't depend on objects.

I've moved my reply to a thread on mathematical Platonism as it is a different question to 'the hard problem of consciousness'.

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

You agreed that people have pains. Did you mean only that people have words?

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

Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain"; that there is never any feeling of pain involved.

Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. — Isaac

Ah, "scientifically relevant". Is it not scientifically relevant to investigate mental events?

Words don't point at things. — Isaac

Only fingers point at things?

if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism — Isaac

As far as I know, anomalous monism does not deny that there are mental events.