I see/hear your challenge to the thesis of the OP. I agree with an element of it but also am trying to challenge your statements. Are we, perhaps, talking past each other?

I figure this sort of thing has always been difficult to talk about.

↪Joshs
I see/hear your challenge to the thesis of the OP. I agree with an element of it but also am trying to challenge your statements — Paine

What I wrote addressing the OP was just me swinging wildly trying to make sense of an at-first alien language. Now that I put it in the context of Enlightenment rationalism it starts to make sense, and its irrelevance to the post-Darwinian, post-Hegelian delineation of the Hard Problem Dennett and Chalmers are grappling with also becomes clear.

You have mapped the problem to your satisfaction.

The categories are the architecture of mind. They are not imposed in the sense that one can either impose them or not. They are the way the mind makes sense of sense data. — Fooloso4

According to Kant's totally unnecessary theory. In reality, ideas such as Humean causality are empirical generalizations.

I get a message stating that I cannot open files from Microsoft 95 or earlier — Fooloso4

I have Windows 10 and can open all my files. Message me with your email address, let me know what you want, and I will send it in a format you can open (docx? pdf?).

A follow up. You skipped right over the point:

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts ... — Fooloso4 — Fooloso4

Quite so. As Kant has no facts to be categorized, there is no basis for categorization, as the mind categorizes based on recognized content. The theory is incoherent.

I have Windows 10 and can open all my files. Message me with your email address, let me know what you want, and I will send it in a format you can open (docx? pdf?). — Dfpolis

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion.

As Kant has no facts to be categorized, there is no basis for categorization, — Dfpolis

,
The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind.

...as the mind categorizes based on recognized content. — Dfpolis

This assertion is not a refutation. Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions. You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent. It coheres quite nicely. The question [is - correction made] whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion. — Fooloso4

They are available online and some are quite long.

The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind. — Fooloso4

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. It can only modify of our prior neural state. To categorize we must judge that we are dealing with an instance of a category, and judgements are propositional attitudes which, as Churchland notes, have no neural counterpart. Are you now abandoning naturalism?

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions. — Fooloso4

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing, not on a recognition of meaning -- which is required for categorization. So, you must either abandon Kant, or explain how neural processing can impose abstract a priori categories. (Connectionism assumes training, which may establish a posteriori patterns or associations. As I point out in my article, associations are not judgements.)

You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent. — Fooloso4

The theory is not incoherent because I disagree with it. Rather, I disagree because it is incoherent. Categorization requires judgement, which is not a sensory function.

It coheres quite nicely. — Fooloso4

Only if one does not reflect on the mechanisms it proposes.

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive. — Fooloso4

This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way. Sensing and knowing are similar, but essentially different, as sensation does not involve concepts, which require awarenss of content.

Hi D.f., I just finished reading your article. I thought it was quite good, well written, and easy to read. I think you did a very good job of exposing the problems of the SM of neuroscience, and covered the difficulties from many different angles. However, I disagree with your conclusion which you draw from your proposed solution. Specifically, I disagree with your claims of bridging the dualist gap.

The article rejects dualism as a framework, qualia as essential to consciousness, actual information in computers, and the reduction of biology to physics. It also clarifies the concept of emergence. — Dfpolis

The Aristotelian duality of matter/form, potential/actual, does not provide the basis for a rejection of dualism as you claim, it only reinforces the need for dualism. I will attempt to briefly explain the issues in the following.

First, in the general sense, the separation between potential and actual is proposed by Aristotle as a sort of dichotomy. This means that your attempt to reduce, and resolve them into one, rejecting dualism, is a basic misunderstanding of these principles, in the first place. Consider the difference between potential and actual as analogous to the difference between future and past, in time. The difference between future and past is very real, and only a fool would deny this because, that it is real, is an idea which is fundamental to all human decision making in relation to action taking. It is only in a purely theoretical setting, imaginary I might say, that the difference between past and future might be denied. Now, as you describe, there is always an intermediary between the two, which relates them, and this is "the present" in time.

The intermediary can be apprehended in two different ways, as relational (as unifying the two), or as divisional (as a boundary separating the two). Regardless the two are distinct. Your example, the relativity of simultaneity does not demonstrate that the boundary does not exist, or is not real, it shows that the boundary is vague in our understanding, not well understood, allowing that constructive (conceptual) relations between the two distinct parts may be created in different ways, from different perspectives (frames of reference).

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided. What Aristotle showed was that the classic dualism of mind/body needed to be expanded to include all of physical reality. The broadening of this dualism under the categories of matter/form, potential/actual, would allow us to properly position the duality found within the living being, discovered through subjective introspection, in relation to a wider duality which encompasses all of reality. Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection.

The second point is that when you describe the Fundamental Abstraction (notice "the present" above is a fundamental abstraction) you improperly conclude that dualism can be rejected by excluding the need for a fundamental abstraction. Yes, it may be the case that if we could exclude the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, we could reject dualism, but we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction.

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism. So, you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side. The token side is not representational, therefore any understanding of what a token is, in itself, is not representationally based, but ontologically based. So the type/token distinction cannot be understood through representation alone because the token cannot be grasped. We need to apply some ontological principles. Therefore, we cannot avoid the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, as a basic ontological principle which separates the type from the token, rendering such a distinction as a valid distinction. And this necessitates a metaphysical dualism. To derive the Fundamental Abstraction we turn to our most primitive and basic intuitions such as the difference between past and future, mentioned above. And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological, is nothing but a fundamental abstraction itself..

The final point I'd like to make concerns your focus on the agent intellect, and neglect of the passive intellect. The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect. The agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception, "the agent", was somewhat taken for granted, as actual, formal, therefore consistent with the classical notion of an immaterial intellect. The problem they had was with how to understand the passive intellect. Aristotle demonstrated the need to assume a passive aspect which could receive impressions from the senses. To be a receptor requires passivity. And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter. So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions. And Aristotle states that this is a requirement for all intellectual activity.

So Aquinas was perplexed by the problem of assuming an immaterial intellect, as agent, active and immaterial, directly united with the immaterial soul, yet still having a passive aspect, i.e having some features of potential. I believe that what Aquinas suggested is that this passive or potential aspect of the intellect ought to be understood in terms other than "matter". This is consistent with your rejection of the term "matter". What Aquinas suggested is that this potential, or passive aspect ought to be understood in relation to time rather than to matter.

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. — Dfpolis

It doesn't, the mind does.

To categorize we must judge ... — Dfpolis

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori.

Are you now abandoning naturalism? — Dfpolis

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism.

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing — Dfpolis

There are two issues here. The first is your mischaracterization of Kant, leading to your declaring it prima facie impossible and incoherent. The second is I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple".

I disagree because it is incoherent. — Dfpolis

It appears incoherent to you because what you are criticising is your own misrepresentation.

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.
— Fooloso4
This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way. — Dfpolis

It should be: The question is whether ...

Sensing and knowing — Dfpolis

I did not say sensing and knowing, I said seeing and knowing.

Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment upon my article.

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not my premise. I agree with your observations in one way, and disagree in another, more relevant, way. I agree that any distinction of one thing into two aspects may be called "dualistic." I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying Cartesian dualism with dualism in the first sense equivocates on "dualism." Aristotle does not see the psyche as necessarily thinking (res cogitans), or even as a thing (res). Thus, he is not a Cartesian dualist.

Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection. — Metaphysician Undercover

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental.

we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction — Metaphysician Undercover

We can, as shown by the fact that Aristotle does in De Anima, as I and others have noted.

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way.

you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, we do not represent token observations?

The context of these remarks is methodological, not ontological. I am saying that the objection that introspective data is inadmissible because it is private is misguided. It misunderstands the methodological requirements of science. There is no requirement that observations be public, only that they be type-repeatable.

The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.

And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not discuss the basis of the type-token distinction in this article. So, it makes no such claim. If you want to see what I think about the relation between universals and instances, see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10, no. 4 (October–December 2021): 847–891 (http://gilsonsociety.com/files/847-891-Polis.pdf). There, I discuss the relation of the species concept (a type) to individual members of that species (tokens) (pp. 849-63).

The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I address that in the article I am currently working on. I have fundamental problems with Aquinas's rational psychology. I think his notion the agent intellect does is flawed. I see the passive intellect as neural representations (the phantasm) being understood.

he agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception, — Metaphysician Undercover

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content.

And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power."

So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly! He also insists that the phantasm, a sensory, and so a material representation, is necessary to thought.

Thank you for your informed and intelligent comments.

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. — Dfpolis
It doesn't, the mind does. — Fooloso4

That is my point. Categorization cannot be a sensory function, and mind cannot categorize without first knowing, so Kant's theory is incoherent.

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori. — Fooloso4

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism.

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism. — Fooloso4

Okay. I am not concerned with understanding Kant, but with understanding reality. So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality? If not, let's not waste more time on Kant.

I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple". — Fooloso4

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words.

It should be: The question is whether ... — Fooloso4

Okay. But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article.

Right, and but that is smuggling in value statements as if they were objective fact about what comprises what. — schopenhauer1

That value statement lies on objective criteria.
Pseudo Philosophy is:
1.Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion
2. and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises.
3.isn't corrected when discovered.
(https://www.richardcarrier.info/philosophy.html)
Chalmers's claims tick all three.

It does not (at least now, possibly never because the answer might never be empirical) tell us how it is that emergent phenomena supervene on its constituents. — schopenhauer1

-Again you are asking a "why" question in disguise. This is what emergent features do! This is why we classify them as emergent in the fist place. Just because you constructed an answerable question that doesn't make it a serious question and No....made up magical substrates do not qualify as an answer.

Facts of reality render that claim wrong. — Nickolasgaspar
Which are based observationally. Convenient. — schopenhauer1

-Observations are the foundation of our evaluations. You can not go around it. If you do then you will need to lower the standards and accept Every claim out there.

No the analogy of a container is wrong since Diachronic Emergence wouldn't be possible. (persistence after the causal mechanism ceasing to exist). — Nickolasgaspar
Still doesn't bypass it. You are assuming the consequent again. — schopenhauer1

-Your comment is irrelevant to the fact of Diachronic Emergent phenomenon (Where the low level system ceases to exist but the Emergent property persists).
(i.e. Photons even when the electron is at its resting state.)

Yep they are observable indeed. And I did not say "ghosts" but "ghostly" big difference in what I am conveying. — schopenhauer1

And I didn't say you said ghost. You said ghostly and I pointed out that the phenomenon doesn't share the same ghostly qualities.(or the other way around to be fair -"Ghosts do not share the same qualities.".
Either way the phenomenon is observable , measurable and predictable to a huge degree allowing us to develop technical applications.

Rather, what is the nature of this emergence from its constituent parts? — schopenhauer1

It depends what "nature" you are looking for. If you are looking for its contingency then its nature is physical and its taxonomy is Strong Emergence.
If you are looking for "why this emergent property is possible" then there is no question...its a pseudo philosophical questions that pollutes the well.

You are making an odd antagonism. Most philosophers are not denying empirical claims. Functionally, the science carries on, no matter what the argument behind the metaphysics and epistemology is, so not sure what has got you so annoyed besides just general incredulity over and over. — schopenhauer1

Wrong accusations are not philosophical arguments.
I am using the topic of this thread to inform people on the latest epistemology from relevant scientific fields so they can inform their premises. This also allows me to let them know how to demarcate Philosophy from pseudo philosophy.(meaningful from useless philosophy).

mind cannot categorize without first knowing — Dfpolis

That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact. According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories. There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. It is no more or less incoherent than Aristotle's claim that the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, the activity of the unmoved mover and God according to Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10 or possibly but not definitively human according to De Anima. Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting.

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism. — Dfpolis

It's not. It is an attempt to clear up your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Kant.

So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality? — Dfpolis

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes.

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words. — Dfpolis

Here is what you said in context:

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions.
— Fooloso4

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing — Dfpolis

But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article. — Dfpolis

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect.

Second, this discussion has not been limited to the article. If you make claims about Kant or Spinoza or anyone else then those claims become part of the discussion.

no progress has been made toward a physical reduction of consciousness. — D. F. Polis

Why am I not surprised? :smile:
Good reference, BTW. :up: (Although I disagree with a few things.)
Here's the link for thos who want to read more: https://www.jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/download/1042/1035. It's a PDF.

There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. — Fooloso4

Kant's categories were adapted almost verbatim from Aristotle, according to this entry.

The mind’s a priori conceptual contribution to experience can be enumerated by a special set of concepts that make all other empirical concepts and judgments possible. These concepts cannot be experienced directly; they are only manifest as the form which particular judgments of objects take. Kant believes that formal logic has already revealed what the fundamental categories of thought are. The special set of concepts is Kant’s Table of Categories, which are taken mostly from Aristotlewith a few revisions — IEP, Kant's Metaphysics

.

mind cannot categorize without first knowing — Dfpolis
That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact. — Fooloso4

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge -- for categorization is a judgement, <a is an instance of b>. As Paul Churchland pointed out, there are no neural structures corresponding to propositional attitudes.

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories. — Fooloso4

This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism.

There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. — Fooloso4

It is not the existence of categories that is incoherent -- that is merely an baseless conjecture. It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent.

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic.

Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting. — Fooloso4

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal? In my view, we need more premises to reach that conclusion.

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes. — Fooloso4

Aristotle argued that two millennia earlier. Aquinas concurred. So, what of value did Kant add?

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words. — Dfpolis — Fooloso4

I wrote "simply neural signal processing," meaning nothing more than neural signal processing, not that neural signal processing is simple.

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect. — Fooloso4

I have given my view of what the agent intellect does. If you think my view is wrong, please say why. If not, we need not continue in this direction. I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view. So, what Aristotle actually thought about the agent intellect is not relevant, unless it provides an argument against my view.

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge - — Dfpolis

So you've said. As if that settles the matter.

for categorization is a judgement, <a is an instance of b>. — Dfpolis

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it.

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories.
— Fooloso4
This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism. — Dfpolis

First, a statement of Kant's position is not an argument in favor of it. Second, if one is a Kantian then what one claims must be supported by Kant. Just as if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle.

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian.

It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent. — Dfpolis

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions.

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic. — Dfpolis

So, your questionable claims about Kant do not relate to the topic of your paper. So we can move on.

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal? — Dfpolis

You are starting to face the problem. Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us.

So, what of value did Kant add? — Dfpolis

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us.

meaning nothing more than neural signal processing — Dfpolis

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity.

I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view. — Dfpolis

You are doing more than that. You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.

After setting my previously expressed peevishness aside, I became curious about your thinking in terms of periods of time. Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy?

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it. — Fooloso4

Only potentially. The intelligibility of a must include notes that elicit the concept <b>, as I explained in my paper. It is because of need to elicit <b> that we must be aware of a to categorize it as an instance of b.

if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle. — Fooloso4

If Aristotle deserves credit for my position, I try to cite him. I do not cite him as an authority.

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian. — Fooloso4

Quite true. It is citing Kant as an authority against my position that makes you seem a Kantian.

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions. — Fooloso4

No matter what you call the categorized content, the act of categorizing is an ace of judgement, requiring awareness, and hence knowledge, of those contents. Different sensory processing (e.g. of visual vs auditory signals) is not categorization. Only judgement of type is categorization.

Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us. — Fooloso4

So, you conclude that our intellect is immortal. I think the conclusion requires more reflection.

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us. — Fooloso4

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing." As far as I can see, Kant's position is unjustified. It is certainly irrelevant to my paper unless you wish to use Kant to attack scientific knowledge -- saying that science cannot study reality.

I do not recall any claim in Aristotle or Aquinas that we know the object beyond its relation to us. In fact, Aquinas is quite clear that we do not know the essences of things, except indirectly. Further, both insist that knowledge comes via sensation, which is to say via our physical interactions with the object.

So, again, what did Kant add of value?

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity. — Fooloso4

None of that says neural signal processing is simple. Further, I did not say "conscious is not the result of neural activity" without further qualification. I said that the contents of consciousness are neurally processed, but that such processing does not explain our awareness of those contents.

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his. — Fooloso4

Do you have an example in mind? Note that not stating his entire position is not abusing his terminology. To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction.

Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy? — Paine

I did not understand that claim either.

↪Joshs
After setting my previously expressed peevishness aside, I became curious about your thinking in terms of periods of time. Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy? — Paine

You could be right. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying — Dfpolis

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism. You say it in the op, "The article rejects dualism as a framework...", and you claim it in the opening page of the article, "Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism". I'm sure that if you meant that Aristotle's conceptual space provides the means for replacing a simple Cartesian dualism with a more complex dualism, you would have said so.

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible. If your intent is to reproduce and understand Aristotle's conceptual space for the purpose of applying it to some of the problems of modern science, that's one thing. But if your intent is to find principles for a rejection of dualism, which induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing and pretend to reproduce his conceptual space, that is a completely different objective.

The reason I'm so critical on this point, is that in our prior discussions you and I had disagreement as to what Aristotle says about where the form of the object comes from, when a natural object comes to have material existence. I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation.

It is an important difference, because by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter. This allows you to deny dualism, and cling to emergence. However, to claim that Aristotle supports this position is simply wrong, because it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality. Therefore form must be prior to matter, and come from a source other than matter.

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental. — Dfpolis

Aristotle's principal demonstration of the concept of "potential" is provided in his biology, "On the Soul", and he uses this concept to describe the powers of the soul, self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection. The secondary explanation of "potential" is in his "Metaphysics" where he works extensively to establish the relationship between potential and matter. As such, he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental. That the concept of "matter" is used as leverage against sophists who argued that change is not real, indicates exactly the opposite of what you claim. The concept is pulled from the subjective self, as the principle of continuity and identity, and applied to the physical, to validate the intuitive notion that a changing thing can maintain its identity as the same thing, despite changing. The sophists who would deny the reality of change would insist that at each moment the changing thing is a new thing, instead of allowing that the thing remains as the same thing, while its properties change.

quote="Dfpolis;784638"]The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.[/quote]

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism. It is actually the only real argument against dualism which you provide in the article.

[quote=Denis F. Polis, The Hard Problem of Consciousness
& the Fundamental Abstraction]What is at stake is replicability. Since science seeks universal knowledge, data must, with few exceptions, be replicable by competent observers. Replicability is a type, rather than a token, property. We can never replicate a token observation, only the same type of observation. It is as absurd to reject replicable introspection because its token is private, as to reject Galileo’s observations because he made them in solitude.

Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue. Since humans
are psychophysical organisms who perceive to know and conceptualize to act, physicality and intentionality are dynamically integrated. Ignoring this seamless unity, post-Cartesian thought
conceives them separately – creating representational problems. The Hard Problem and the
mind-body problem both arose in the post-Cartesian era, and precisely because of conceptual
dualism. To resolve them, we need only drop the Fundamental Abstraction in studying mind.

Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism.
Properties depend not only on an object’s nature, but also on how we conceptualize it. For
example, we can justifiably think of an apple as red, or as having a certain spectral response.
While the intentional and physical theaters of operation seem disjoint, our abilities to know
material objects and to will physical acts spans them. Thus, a conceptual rather than an
ontological partitioning of human nature underlies both the Hard and mind-body problems.[/quote]

The statement that each instance of observation is particular, unique, and cannot be replicated is an ontological principle. That the truth and reality of this ontological principle produces a representational problem is another issue. It does not make the ontological issue into a representational issue, it just shows a representational issue which manifests from the ontological issue. To reject the FA, and deny the ontological separation between the representation and the thing represented, as the means for rejecting both ontological and property dualism, is just an imaginary fiction. It is not based in reality at all, therefore it serves no purpose toward a philosopher's seeking of truth.

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way. — Dfpolis

To demonstrate my point, let's assume, as you say, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle. The something known is not simply the knower, or else there is just a supposed knower, and no knowledge. Therefore we cannot know anything about knowing without reference to the FA. This is Descartes' principle. The thinking is logically prior to the being, and the point is that we cannot get access to the being without the thinking. Therefore we must address the thinking first, of which the FA is a basic part, there is something separate from the thinking, which is thought about. To proceed without the FA is to put the being before the thinking, but this renders the FA, which is very real as an intuition and a priori principle, as unintelligible. As a result the whole act of thinking and consequently knowing, also become unintelligible.

Evidence of this unintelligibility is your statement "I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way". Your method of placing being as prior to thinking has rendered the a priori as unintelligible to you, so your response is that the truly a priori cannot be apprehended by you.

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content. — Dfpolis

I believe this statement is derived from your faulty interpretation of Aristotle. What you call "prior intelligibility" is characterized by Aristotle as potential. Prior to being "discovered" by the geometer, (brought into actuality by the geometer's mind), the principles of geometry existed as potential. Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation, just like the actions of an artist described above, creating a material object. The artist works to put form into the creation, and the form is not within the matter (potential) prior to the creation. So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect. The need for the "agent" intellect is to account for the real causal activity of the intellect, creativity.

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation. So if these intelligible objects exist independently they would have to exist as potential if it is the agent intellect which acts on them. However, the cosmological argument demonstrates that it is impossible for potential to exist independently of form, therefore the reality of such independent potential is denied. Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects.

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power." — Dfpolis

But don't you see this as an inconsistency? You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space. This is the problem which the Neo-Platonists ran into, assuming The One, to be absolute infinite potential. It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful. So we need to release this idea, which gives matter special power, creating inconsistency in Aristotelian conceptual space, and respect the force of the cosmological argument. Potential (matter) on its own could have no power to act. Therefore we need to assume some source of actuality, a Form, which is independent from matter, and prior to the existence of material objects, which produces an actual material form.

The seed of this idea is found in Aristotle's biology, the definition of soul which you cited, the first actuality of a body having life potentially in it. When we look at living things, we see that organization is within the body even at the most fundamental level. The body is organized as soon as it is a body, it comes into being as an organized, living body. Further, there must be an actuality which causes the existence of the organized body. As cause of the organized body, this first actuality must be prior to the body itself.

This is the principle which is drawn out further in his Metaphysics, to apply to all natural things. A material object consists of matter and form. And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is. Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else. As in the case of the artist, the form comes from somewhere other than the matter. And, absolutely speaking, there must be a Form which is prior to all material existence, so this reinforces the conclusion that the form comes from somewhere other than the matter.

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing." — Dfpolis

No, I am not a Kantian. As I said I was correcting your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of him.

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers.

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.
— Fooloso4
Do you have an example in mind? — Dfpolis

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)'.

To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction. — Dfpolis

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting. Although, admittedly, it would take some effort to explain it. Better for you to just skip over it.

How do we experience coming to know sensible objects? As attending to, and becoming aware of, sensory contents. Thus, the agent intellect is our power of awareness – and its operation is
consciousness. Qualia are the contingent forms of actualized sensory intelligibility.

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness. You might as well say that we are conscious because we have the power of consciousness.

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step:

My article made no claim about immortality. — Dfpolis

Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy? — Paine

I don’t know what DPolis would say, but I like the way Rorty articulated the stakes. Rorty argued that Descartes “opened the floodgates to an entirely new conception of the difference between mind and body” compared with Scholastic and Greek thought. In other words, he didn’t invent dualism , he redefined its terms.

The novelty was the notion of a single inner space in which bodily and perceptual sensations ("confused ideas of sense and imagi­nation" in Descartes's phrase), mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression, and all the rest of what we now call "mental" were objects of quasi-ob­servation. Such an inner arena with its inner observer had been suggested at various points in ancient and medieval thought but it had never been taken seriously long enough to form the basis for a problematic. But the seventeenth century took it seriously enough to permit it to pose the problem of the veil of ideas, the problem which made epistemology central to philosophy.

Once Descartes had invented that "precise sense" of "feel­ing" in which it was "no other than thinking," we began to lose touch with the Aristotelian distinction between reason-as-grasp-of-universals and the living body which takes care of sensation and motion. A new mind-body dis­tinction was required-the one which we call that "be­tween consciousness and what is not consciousness…Once mind is no longer synonymous with reason then something other than our grasp of universal truths must serve as the mark of mind.”(Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature)

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, an Aristotelian approach is more than assuming an Aristotelian conceptual space.

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

An introduction cannot exhaust intentions that take a full article to elaborate. It can only indicate the direction one intends to take. The article reveals my intentions.[quote="Metaphysician

Undercover;784927"]induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing[/quote]
This is utter nonsense, and a sign of bad faith. Any article citing Aristotle must make a selection from his voluminous corpus. If you think I have twisted his meaning, feel free to say why; however, my purpose was not to interpret the Stagerite, but to credit inspiration. So, I fail to see that you are making a relevant point.

I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem not to understand analogies. The analogues are partly the same and partly different, so one has to look beyond an analogy to understand its relevant aspect. Aristotle is careful to distinguish natural processes, in which change derives from natural or intrinsic principles (physis), from artificial processes in which change is imposed by an extrinsic agent. I explained this over 30 years ago in my hyle article, to which I refer you ("A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle," Modern Schoolman 68 (3):225-244 (1991) https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC).

by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say that "the form of an object inheres within the matter." I said that, in natural substantial changes, hyle is the potential to a determinate form. What is potential does not "inhere in" anything, nor is it a property (Aristotelian accident), because it is not yet actual.

This allows you to deny dualism — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what allows me to avoid Cartesian dualism is Arsitotle's definition of the psyche as the actuality of a potentially living body instead of as res cogitans.

and cling to emergence. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confused. If the hylomorphism allowed me to "cling to emergence," I would see it in every case of substantial change. I do not. If you read carefully, you will see that my argument for the ontological emergence of cosciousness is based on far more modern considerations -- the nature of mathematical physics as limited by the Fundamental Abstraction.

it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ultimately, it is. Proximately, it cannot be, because change requires a prior potential to new form. That is why the Unmoved Mover cannot change.

As such, [t]he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is incorrect. First, the Metaphysics presupposes the analysis in the Physics and other works on nature. That analysis shows the necessity of prior potentials in natural processes. Second, nowhere does he "derive" potency from introspection. In De Anima he applies the distinction of potency and act to the analysis of sensation and intellection, based on a combination of first and third person data.

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

As the first paragraph you quote shows, I use the type-token distinction only to show why introspective data is methodologically acceptable. It is the end of a previous line of thought. The second and third paragraphs you quote do not summarize the first paragraph, as can be seen from the fact that neither mentions introspection.

There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand the FA. It is not the fact that "there is a distinction between known and knower," but the methodological choice to attend to the object to the exclusion of the subject.

we cannot get access to the being without the thinking — Metaphysician Undercover

More fundamentally, we cannot think without existing. The order of knowing is not the order of existence.

Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation — Metaphysician Undercover

"Creation" is an imprecise word. We need to distinguish between making what was potential actual, and making something with no prior potential (true creation).

So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I cannot agree. If known content came from the mind, rather than reality, there would be no reason to expect it to apply to reality. The reason prior concepts apply to new instances is that the new instance is able to elicit the same, prior concept. If a new instance can elicit the concept, it can to so even when the concept it did not already exist.

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is: our brain is informed by sensation. When a neural representation is actually understood (which is done by the agent intellect), no new representation is formed. If it were, it would not be the neural representation that is understood. It would be a different representation, the new one (which Aquinas calls the "intelligible species"). Since to understand a new representation is not to understand the neural representation, the passive intellect is the neural representation, not simpliciter, but as understood. Therefore, the passive intellect receives its content physically, and its being understood intentionally.

the reality of such independent potential is denied. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. The intelligiblity is neurally encoded in the mind.

Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not quite. Augustine had exemplar ideas in the mind of God. Aquinas reduced them to God's intention to create whatever He creates (see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10 (4):847-891 (2021) https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1005583).

You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you read my hyle article, you will find citations supporting my view.

It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful. — Metaphysician Undercover

We need to distinguish secondary causality, which is the causality found in nature, from metaphysical actualization, which is what the cosmological argument relies upon. Aristotle is clear that hyle is a kind of physis (an intrinsic principle of change), a "source of power," and that it "desires" the new form in a substantial change. Thus, it is an active tendency, and not passively receptive, in the case of natural changes. In artificial changes, it is passively receptive.

Still, hyle is not self-sufficient. Its striving for new form can be traced causally upward to the Unmoved Mover, which is its ultimate source of power.

And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is. — Metaphysician Undercover

At any moment, it is what it is. Potentially, corporeal being can be something else. It is because of this that we need a source of potentiality, i.e. hyle.

Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else — Metaphysician Undercover

Its form must be determined by a prior potential, viz. its predecessor's hyle. Also, it must be actualized by something that is already operational/actual. That line of actualization can be traced to the Unmoved Mover. Still, the form cannot exist prior to the being, because the form is the being's actuality, and it is not actual before it exists.

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers. — Fooloso4

I think I have some answers. If answers were not attainable, there would be no point in inquiry. Philosophy is not a game.

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)'. — Fooloso4

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding.

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting. — Fooloso4

True. But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover.

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness. — Fooloso4

The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics.

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step — Fooloso4

Because it is best to deal with each issue in a focused, rather than in a convoluted, way.

“The novelty was the notion of a single inner space in which bodily and perceptual sensations ("confused ideas of sense and imagi­nation" in Descartes's phrase), mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression, and all the rest of what we now call "mental" were objects of quasi-ob­servation. Such an inner arena with its inner observer had been suggested at various points in ancient and medieval thought but it had never been taken seriously long enough to form the basis for a problematic. But the seventeenth century took it seriously enough to permit it to pose the problem of the veil of ideas, the problem which made epistemology central to philosophy. — Joshs

I agree that neither Aristotle nor the Scholastics focused on issues of personal identity, and that I am concerned with them. So, to that extent, I am post-Scholastic. I also deal with modern science more than "Thomists" do.

I disagree that there is a "veil of ideas." Aquinas's concept of intelligible species was an innovation that led to Locke's absurd notion that we only know our ideas, and so, on to Kant.

something other than our grasp of universal truths must serve as the mark of mind. — Joshs

I am writing an article for the Thomist community in which I argue that intellection is not essentially universal, that there are physical representations of universals and that we have concepts of individuals. I also think that the notion of universal exemplars underpins prejudice and undermines natural law ethics.

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding. — Dfpolis

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.

But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover. — Dfpolis

If you use Aristotle's term but do not indicate that you mean by it something different than Aristotle did, then it is relevant. But it is not clear that you do mean something different. Why the obfuscation?

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness.
— Fooloso4
The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics. — Dfpolis

That is the question: what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?

You go on to say:

Consequently, consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is not a niggling anomaly that
can be ignored until explained as a neurophysical side effect, but an experiential primitive
essential to understanding human rationality. Certain concepts, such as <electric charge>, are
an experiential primitive accepted, not because they are theoretically reducible, but because they are epistemologically primitive – reflecting contingent realities that cannot be, or at least are not, further explained.

It is as if you said: "Hard problem? What hard problem? There is no hard problem. Consciousness just is. No further explanation is needed or possible."

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled. As Joe Sachs points out:

... in Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10. Aristotle again distinguishes between the active and passive intellects, but this time he equates the active intellect with the "unmoved mover" and God.
— Wikipedia, Active Intellect — Fooloso4

In addition to discussing where the activity emerges from, the agent intellect is presented as a limit to what can be called a 'personal capacity':

In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected, whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this nothing thinks. — Aristotle, De Anima, 430a18, translated by DW Hamlyn

The activity that brings our being into life is experienced through our thinking but not as something happening to us or a show we remember seeing. The activity that is immortal is not a personal dimension but is what allows all thinkers to think. What each of us experiences as thinking would not be possible without the agent. But that experience would also not be possible without the perishable individual. The perishable individual Aristotle is talking about lives in time:

Actual knowledge is identical with its object. But potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but not prior even in time in general; for all things that come to be are derived from that which is so actually. — ibid. 431a1

The things that come to be are either shaped by a process outside of them or sustained by an activity proper to their being. We particular individuals cannot know the Nous as itself, but we can distinguish between different types of potentiality:

It is clear that the object of perception makes that which can perceive actively so instead of potentially so; for it is not affected or altered. Hence this is a different form from movement; for movement is the activity of the incomplete, while activity proper is different, the activity of the complete. — ibid.431a4

From here, it is clear why Sachs says the formal cause is more than an intention like a plan to build a house before it is made.

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it. — Fooloso4

Asked and answered.

what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness? — Fooloso4

That it is not reducible to a physical process.

It is as if you said: "Hard problem? What hard problem? There is no hard problem. Consciousness just is. No further explanation is needed or possible." — Fooloso4

The ‘hard problem’ argument is aimed at a specific audience namely those reductionists who claim there is or can be a physical explanation for the nature of consciousness. It’s a hard problem for naturalism. But there is no such problem for those who don’t make that claim.

:up: