Well if I understand your question correctly the answer should go like this.
Being able to experience your environment and what patterns, emotions and social cues mean you gain a huge survival and flourishing advantage.

But experience is subjective. Natural selection can only act on morphology and behaviour. ("Natural selection can hear you scream but it cannot feel your pain").

Dualism does not mean that there is more than one way of thinking about reality. — Dfpolis

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities and beings that are distinct beings because these laws are causal and act on them. What acts on and what is acted on are two different things.

Whether the laws of nature are descriptions of regularities or are regulative is not something we are going to resolve. So let me ask you another question: what is the source of the laws of nature? They cannot be inherent in beings if:

... they [physical beings] have no intrinsic necessity and so need to be sustained in being by something that has such necessity. — Dfpolis

Do the laws of nature have such necessity?

Elsewhere you say:

... the laws of nature are contingent and need to be discovered empirically.

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent.

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God

Added:

Rather than the "fundamental abstraction" you give us the fundamental addition. Although you say that "agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)" is human rather than divine, you appeal to the idea of:

... an agent intellect to understand intelligible contents

The idea of intelligible content has a double sense. Things are intelligible both in the sense that they are intelligible to us and that they are the work of Intelligence or Mind. They are the former because of the latter.





.

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God — Fooloso4

Ya got that right:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347359286_Does_God_Gamble_With_Creation

Only the content of our experiences has a subjective quality. The process enabling our conscious experiences is biological thus it is affected by all known evolutionary pressures like any other biological trait. So the high accuracy of our experiences raises our chances for survival and procreation.

You define consciousness as "awareness of intelligibility", to be aware of our ability to understand. What about our ability to be aware on the first place....known in Science as Consciousness!(the ability to be aware of internal or environmental stimuli , to reflect upon them with different mind properties through the connections achieved by the Central Lateral thalamus i.e.intlligibility" and thus creating conscious content during a mental state.) — Nickolasgaspar

You misunderstand the definition. I mean the "ability to be aware" in operation. I add "of intelligibility," because we are never aware without being aware of something intelligible. This is important because the carrier of intelligibility is a neural state. I thank you for showing me how my definition can be misunderstood.

Usually, the brain does not "create" contents, but processes contents coming to it from the senses.\

Its looks like we have the practice of cherry picking a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility or Symbolic thinking or Meaning — Nickolasgaspar

What you call "cherry picking," I call "focusing." My work is no more cherry-picking than any study that focuses one aspect of a whole to the exclusion of others.

Also, intelligibility is not "Symbolic thinking." It is a property that things (mostly outside the mind) must have if they are to be known. In other words, know-ability. If they could not be known, we could not know them.

a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility — Nickolasgaspar

Intelligibility is typically a property of objects in nature that may be neurally encoded, not a property of the mind. In the mind, it is actually known, rather than merely intelligible, for consciousness makes merely intelligible contents actually known.

s this the Hard problem for you? because if that is the case a simple search will provide tones of known mechanisms on how the brain uses symbolic language and learning (previous experience) to introduce meaning to stimuli (internal or external). — Nickolasgaspar

No, it is not the Hard Problem. You need only refer to my article.

Do any of these articles show how we become aware of the contents the brain represents and processes? If not, none advances the reduction of the act of (as opposed to the contents of) awareness to a physical basis.

Are the facts you raised the following.
(1) The Fundamental Abstraction of natural science (attending to the object to the exclusion of the subject);
(2) The limits of a Cartesian conceptual space. — Nickolasgaspar

No, those are explanations for the problems. The problems I was referring to are:
1. Problems with verbal reports of consciousness (p. 98).
2. No neural structures correspond to propositional attitudes (p. 98).
3. Dennett's arguments against a physical reduction of consciousness (p. 98).
4. A causally impotent consciousness cannot enhance reproductive fitness, and consequent failure of an evolutionary explanation of its genesis (p. 99).
5. The inability to explain the genesis of environmental knowledge (p. 99).
6. The failure of David Lewis’s Humean supervenience because of one-to-many mappings of the physical to the intentional (pp. 99, 107).
7. The inability to account for purposeful human behavior (p. 99f).

I am a Methodological Naturalist and like science my frameworks and gaps of knowledge are shaped by our Scientific Observations and Logic solely based on Pragmatic Necessity , not because of an ideology. — Nickolasgaspar

I am also a methodological naturalist, with no need to capitalize because it is a method, not an ideology. Nothing in my article transgresses the bounds of methodological naturalism. The actual problem is you seem to be a closet physicalist -- unwilling to admit that the intentional theater of operations is just as natural as the physical theater. If you were not a closet physicalist, you would have no difficulty in being open to intentional realities. So, you might as well come out of the closet.

When we don't know, we admit we don't. We shouldn't go on and invent extra entities which are in direct conflict with the current successful Paradigm of Science. — Nickolasgaspar

On the other hand, when we do know, say by analyzing first-person experience, we should admit it.

The success of the current paradigm is impressive, but still limited. Note the seven unanswered difficulties above. Nothing I propose conflicts with any experimental fact, so please stop making such baseless claims. Instead, my suggested new paradigm increases the range of explained phenomena.

Yes a healthy functioning brain is a necessary and sufficient explanation for any property of mind known to us. — Nickolasgaspar

This is not the claim of a methodological naturalist, but of a dogmatic physicalist.

that's not a reason to overlook the huge body of knowledge that we've gained the last 35 years. — Nickolasgaspar

For me, it is not. For you, it seems to be reason to ignore all previous progress.

How can you be sure about the epistemic foundations of your ideas and positions when you are not familiar with the latest epistemology on the topic? How can you be sure that we haven't answered those questions when your philosophy is based on ideas and knowledge of the past? — Nickolasgaspar

All humans are liable to err, and no one can know everything. I opened this thread to allow people the opportunity to point out actual problems. My not knowing everything is not an actual problem with my work. If you find an actual mistake, please point it out.

All the knowledge we rely upon was obtained in the past. You seem to think it has an expiration date. Should I stop driving because the idea of wheels has expired? Can I still use counting? Thread?

IS it ok if I ask you to put all the problems in a list (bullets) so I can check them? — Nickolasgaspar

See above. The list is not intended to be exhaustive. It is just the problems I have identified.

yes they have been huge progress to the emerging physical nature of consciousness. — Nickolasgaspar

Please explain how neuroscience has come closer to understanding our awareness of (as opposed to the processing of) neurally encoded contents.

By default we know,can verify and are able to investigate only one realm, the Physical. — Nickolasgaspar

Congratulations on coming out of the closet!

Sadly, you are fundamentally wrong. We also know, and so can analyze, intentional operations. We know that we know and can speak of what we know.

In my academic links you can find tones of papers analyzing which(and how) mechanisms enable the brain to introduce content in our conscious states. — Nickolasgaspar

Again, the issue is not contents, but our awareness of contents.

Can you give me an example for every single problem? — Nickolasgaspar

I am not asking you to solve "every single problem," but to respond to my actual arguments. If you do not wish to do so, you are wasting my time.

Abstract concepts do not help complex topics like this one. — Nickolasgaspar

All science is based on abstract concepts, because it seeks to be universal, and universal ideas are abstract.

Plus you strawmanned me again with that supernatural first person data. — Nickolasgaspar

Not at all. I said that we are dealing with first person data, and you responded I was dealing with the supernatural.

Science tells us that the brain is necessary and sufficient to explain the phenomenon even if we have loads of question to answer — Nickolasgaspar

Science cannot possibly tell us any theory is sufficient to all phenomena, but only that it is sufficient for the phenomena for which it has been confirmed.

Here is some Academic material ... — Nickolasgaspar

Thank you.

How can natural selection act on experience? — GrahamJ

Excellent question.

I just did a bit of poking around:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/dennis-polis

A few points, none of which he made in this article but inform his work:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument. — Fooloso4

I have to admit that scholars in the sciences who show their theological affinities run the risk of discrimination.

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities — Fooloso4

No, I am not. I am not saying they are separate, only that they are real because if they were not real, we could neither discover nor describe them, and we do both.

Do the laws of nature have such necessity? — Fooloso4

The laws of nature have physical, not metaphysical necessity. They could be different, and there might even be actual universes in which they are different.

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent. — Fooloso4

Yes. Logically (wrt human knowledge) and metaphysically (wrt the nature of existence) contingent.

Upon further examination ontological commitments are with God — Fooloso4

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition.

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter — Dfpolis

What happens to God’s will if we determine the origin and nature of will, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Freud and embodied approaches in cognitive science, in terms of a differential ecology of drives? In a twist on Aristotle, Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”.

Way to many problems in your philosophy, but I think we are done.
Thanks for your time.

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition. — Dfpolis

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument. — Fooloso4

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right!

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle.

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right! — bert1

And maybe the rejection is also right.

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle. — Wayfarer

I don't want to turn this into another theism vs atheism debate, but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle.

It’s more that in current Western philosophy there’s a kind of unwritten rule that certain lines of argument are not considered as a matter of principle. When Thomas Nagel’s book Mind and Cosmos came out, which was critical of what it called neo-Darwinian materialism, some of his many critics said that he was giving ‘aid and comfort to creationists’, never mind that he himself frequently affirms that he is an atheist. There is the view that naturalism has to be the final court of appeal for philosophical claims.

My view of the laws of nature is that science assumes that the Universe displays regularities which are called (for better or worse) ‘natural’ or ‘scientific’ laws (even while I also note quite a few articles questioning the entire idea.) And that while science discovers and relies on those laws, it doesn’t, nor should be required to, explain them. Science works on the level of contingent facts and material and efficient causes, and not metaphysical ultimates. In fact, I don’t think science as now construed is the least concerned with why anything exists, in any sense other than understanding its causal precedents. And why the universe has the laws it does is not itself a scientific question (and the claim that there might be ‘other universes with different laws’ has always struck me as otiose. )

but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle. — Fooloso4

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God. In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread.

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God. — bert1

A conclusion aimed at supporting his assumptions.

In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread. — bert1

What is not particularly relevant, whether he chooses to call it an conclusion or whether God is relevant? As to the former he make the distinction. As to the latter, God is fundamental to his ontology, his claims about the laws of nature, agent intellect, and his criticism of science in favor of theology.

What happens to God’s will if we determine the origin and nature of will, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Freud and embodied approaches in cognitive science, in terms of a differential ecology of drives? In a twist on Aristotle, Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”. — Joshs

I am not quite sure what you are asking, but I will comment.

First, the idea of differential drives is simply wrongheaded. We desire food, water and air. If I asked, "How much food (or money) would you be willing to take for all your air?" you would think I was crazy. This is because our desires are incommensurate. We need a satisfactory, not a maximal, amount of food, water and air, and, indeed, of all the things we naturally desire. So, they cannot be traded off against one another. Accordingly, the idea of a maximal good or utility or anything of that sort is nonsense.

Second, our learning the nature of things in general, or will in particular, cannot change God, for, if God exists, it is as unlimited being, and nothing can change (add to or detract from) infinite being.

Third, the idea of a "life of the drives" seems to entail some kind of panzooism, in which everything is alive and has drives. But, to be alive is to be act to benefit the organism and its species. Clearly, inanimate things do not seek nutrition or reproduce to sustain their species. So, the idea seems to be more poetic than literal.

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God. — Fooloso4

Of course! God is the ultimate cause of reality. Darwin recognized that when he wrote of his belief in "designed laws." Still, being the Ultimate Cause does not mean that God is the proximate cause of phenomena. As scientist and philosophers, we want to understand proximate, not ultimate causes. That is why Darwin developed his theory. The same with Newton and many others.

So the high accuracy of our experiences raises our chances for survival and procreation.

Are they highly accurate? After all, for much of human history, we've had some kooky beliefs about what, exactly, the world is and is made of.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument. — Fooloso4

My argument is based on the premises laid down -- none of which are theological. So, to reject my argument you need to show either that my premises are false, or that my reasoning is invalid. Rejecting them because I also think that there is an ultimate cause of reality is an act of prejudice, and so irrational.

And maybe the rejection is also right. — Fooloso4

This confirms that many atheists are not open to rational discourse -- even when the subject is not theological.

First, the idea of differential drives is simply wrongheaded. We desire food, water and air. If I asked, "How much food (or money) would you be willing to take for all your air?" you would think I was crazy. This is because our desires are incommensurate. We need a satisfactory, not a maximal, amount of food, water and air, and, indeed, of all the things we naturally desire. So, they cannot be traded off against one another. Accordingly, the idea of a maximal good or utility or anything of that sort is nonsense — Dfpolis

My point about differential drives is that psychologists and biologists today view organisms as self-organizing systems whose functioning is defined by reciprocal interactions with an environment. There is not first an organism and then its interactions with its world. The organism is nothing but these adaptive interactions. ‘Will’ derives from the overarching tendency of living systems to maintain consistent goal-oriented adaptivity in the face of changing environmental conditions. Our drives ( need for air, food, water, sociality) are interconnected within the functionally unified purposes of the organism as a whole, ‘Will’ makes no sense outside of this reciprocal feedforward-feedback adaptive relationship between a living thing and its world. To desire is equal parts affecting and being affected by. The idea of a divine will , a first or final cause existing outside of a continually changing system of interactions, is an empty, incoherent concept. All causation is reciprocal , contingent and relative to a system of exchanges . What gives Will its meaning , even for a hypothesized god, is its relevance to the aims of adapting to a changing world. Will prior to world is like the smile before the Cheshire Cat.

Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”. — Joshs

I was thinking about that while reading the essay offered upthread by Fooloso4: The Battle of the Gods and the Giants by Joe Sachs. Nietzsche's objection to laws of nature was not a rejection of natural causes but a protest against how they are imagined. It is interesting to hear Sachs make a parallel observation regarding Aristotle's understanding of nature:

When Aristotle says that nature acts for ends, he explains this by saying that the end is the form. Things have natures because they are formed into wholes. The claim is not that these natural wholes have purposes but that they are purposes. Every being is an end in itself, and the word telos, that we translate as end, means completion. When we try to judge Aristotle's claim that nature acts for ends, we tend to confuse ourselves in two ways. First, we imagine that it must mean something deliberates and has
purposes. Second and worse, we begin with our mathematically conceived universe, and can't find anything in it that looks like a directedness toward ends. But Aristotle indicates that it is just because ends are present in nature that a physicist cannot be a mathematician. We have seen that even change of place becomes impossible in mathematical space. But there are three other kinds of motion, from which the mathematician is even more hopelessly cut off, without which activity for the sake of ends would be impossible. Things in the world are born, develop, and grow. Genuine wholes, which are not random heaps, must be able to come into being, take on the qualities appropriate to their natures, and
achieve a size at which they are complete. But mathematical objects can at most be combined, separated, and rearranged. If we have first committed ourselves to a view of the world as being extended lumps in a void, there is no way to get wholes or ends back into the world. That means in turn that the question of ends has to come first, before one permits any choice to be made that empties the world of possibilities. — Joe Sachs

This is not what Nietzsche is saying exactly in his objection to metaphysics nor is he rejecting modern methods, but it is another way to ask what laws of nature refer to in our picture of a caused world.

My point about differential drives is that psychologists and biologists today view organisms as self-organizing systems whose functioning is defined by reciprocal interactions with an environment. — Joshs

Of course.

The organism is nothing but its adaptive interactions. — Joshs

Not quite. It is a structure able to interact in what was an adaptive way in its native environment. Whether its species will survive depends on the rate at which its progeny can adapt to environmental change.

‘Will’ derives from the overarching tendency of living systems to maintain consistent goal-oriented adaptivity in the face of changing environmental conditions. — Joshs

Scare quotes always concern me. Clearly, you recognize that this is not "will" by the usual definition. It is an adaptive response without conscious commitment. Will, in the proper sense, is a commitment in light of knowledge. This is analogous to what you are describing, but hardly identical. The common note in the analogy is desire, or goal orientation. The difference is that biological desire need not involve awareness, while will proper does. This is a move from the physical to the intentional theater of operation.

‘Will’ makes no sense outside of this reciprocal feedforward-feedback adaptive relationship between a living thing and its world. — Joshs

This would be true if I let you equivocate on "will." I won't. Will in the proper sense is a conscious commitment, and as such transcends the merely biological. So, I am happy to agree that an adaptive biological inclination makes no sense outside the biological context, but that is not what will in the proper sense is.

You can see this from the fact that willed commitments can be extremely unadaptive and harmful -- both to the individual and to the species. Even more telling is the fact that in making willed commitments, we typically have immanent within us incompatible alternatives. There is no counterpart for this in the physical theater of operations, where one initial state is always mapped unto one final state. It would be unadaptive to take the time and energy to represent alternative courses of action if the outcome were predetermined and the alternatives were actually impossible.

The idea of a divine will , a first or final cause existing outside of a continually changing system of interactions, is an empty, incoherent concept. — Joshs

Thank you for your faith claim. Now, how about an argument that shows that one conscious being cannot commit to the good of another, even if it is unadaptive for the one committing? You might just show that the concept of conscious commitment is incoherent.

All causation is reciprocal — Joshs

Really? So an artist creating a work is acted upon by the work that does not yet exist? My learning a song causes the song? Perhaps you can explain what you mean.

What gives Will its meaning , even for a hypothesized god, is its relevance to the aims of adapting to a changing world. — Joshs

No. Will is the capacity to knowingly commit, even if it is non- or un-adaptive.

Will prior to world is like the smile before the Cheshire Cat. — Joshs

Again, this does not work. I can commit to the good of my children even before they are conceived.

it is another way to ask what laws of nature refer to in our picture of a caused world. — Paine

We need to remember that mechanism does not contradict teleology. It merely rearranges its constituents. Mechanically, initial states and the laws of motion determine final states. "Final state" is just another term for "end." So, mechanism says systems act toward ends. Every physical end requires means, or mechanisms, and every set of determinate means leads to a determinate final state or end.