how would you attribute meaning to an experience without a description of its conditions? — Mww
...the candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must be capable of attributing meaning to different things.
— creativesoul — Mww
I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. No experience is possible at all, without the coordinated systemic process incorporated in human intelligence. — Mww
If meaning is a relation, wouldn’t the relations need to be describable in order to comprehend that they belong to each other... — Mww
Bottom line….in examining meaningful experience the first thing to be done is to eliminate instinct, or any condition that could be attributed to mere instinct. And the best, more assured way to eliminate instinct, is to ground the necessary conditions for experience, as such, in reason alone. — Mww
I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it.
— creativesoul
Oh, absolutely.
— Mww
How do you square that with your minimum criterion presented earlier which demanded being able to describe the conditions of one's own experience in order to count as meaningful experience?
You see the problem?
— creativesoul
There shouldn’t be one. I said describes even if only to himself. To describe conditions to oneself, is to think; to think is to synthesize conceptions contained in the conditions into a cognition. — Mww
Idealism as I described and as entertained in the article I linked is completely consistent with external objects beyond your immediate experience so the idea of external objects is completely consistent, they just happen to be mental or experiential. — Apustimelogist
I think your notion of idealism is far narrower than most people seriously entertaining idealism today. — Apustimelogist
The idealist would agree and then they would say the physical simply does not exist so there is no problem. There is no need to reduce the mental to the physical because the physical just doesn't exist. All there is are experiences. Consciousness doesn't supervene on the physical because consciousness is all there is. — Apustimelogist
Once you formulate an idealist universe as identical to a physicalist one except that everything is made out of mental stuff — Apustimelogist
There will always be some point where it just doesn't have an answer - we don't know why things exist or don't exist. — Apustimelogist
The problem of why experience exists would reduce to exactly that problem for an idealist. — Apustimelogist
So the hard problem doesn't exist for the idealist and this is probably one of the major advantages amy idealist will give you to their theory. — Apustimelogist
The reply is saying that a dualist reality where there is a metaphysical divide between the mental and physical is unfounded. It has no basis in science — Apustimelogist
Now I can also say that I have experiences but the fact that I say I have experiences doesn't entail that there must be some other physical substance which is profoundly metaphysically different and from which experiences arise. — Apustimelogist
We have no idea about the intrinsic nature of what we scientifically observe beyond our experiences ..... there is absolutely no reason why we should be able to have any tangible access to some fundamental metaphysical nature of how the universe is, whether from science or perception. None of this comes from a particular realist viewpoint which I think is probably key. — Apustimelogist
But then again, neither the notion of "structure" or "what it is like"(experience) have any substantive definitions that let me pick out anything metaphysically or scientifically meaningful, — Apustimelogist
let alone any dichotomy between experience and the physical which would only lead to an incoherent type of epiphenomenalism. — Apustimelogist
Epiphenomenalism is counterintuitive, but the alternatives are more than counterintuitive. They are simply wrong, as we have already seen and will see again. The overall moral is that if the arguments suggest that natural supervenience is true, then we should learn to live with natural supervenience — Chalmers(1996)
I don't think you have said anything here that distinguishes realism about scientific theories from that about objects of perceptual. — Apustimelogist
seems to me just as much a concern — Apustimelogist
The question of "why the universe is the way it is?" is the same for any kind of metaphysical position because you can imagine the universe in a vast number of different — Apustimelogist
just as arbitrary — Apustimelogist
So too you can have an idealist universe where even what you are thinking of as non-experiential cognition is still experience or consciousness — Apustimelogist
Personally I don't believe in some strong distinction between "conscious" and "non-conscious" cognition in the way that I believe you are thinking about it. — Apustimelogist
The problem of consciousness is only in contrast to the metaphysics of the physical and functional. — Apustimelogist
I think it's important to draw a distinction between what's important for the creature and what's important to the creature. The sun is very important for the survival of all creatures on earth, for instance. So, in that sense the sun is significant, it affords the creature the ability to live, etc. However, it is not necessarily the case that the sun is meaningful to the creature. — creativesoul
Meaningful experience requires….. — creativesoul
We must first have an experience as well as the ability to reflect upon it prior to being able to describe the conditions thereof/therein. — creativesoul
The candidate….must only be capable of drawing correlations…between different things in order to attribute meaning to different things. — creativesoul
The language less creature has no inkling of just how important a role the sun plays in its own existence. — creativesoul
Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences? — Mww
insofar as I see no reason why the human cognitive system in itself, in its synthesis of conceptions to each other, have not in effect described the conditions by which an experience is given, without ever expressing a single linguistic representation of those conceptions or the cognition which follows from them. — Mww
No so called lesser animal (a label which I dispute) has any hope/fear of having meaningful experience because meaning is precisely what distinctly human mind constructs out of its incessant and autonomous dialectical processes. — ENOAH
The primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else if they were to similarly construct meaning….. — ENOAH
Part of the evolution of that system of signifiers involved meaning. — ENOAH
So that it seems like they are not expressing a single linguistic representation. But they are. If not the words….. — ENOAH
That this seemingly silent apprehension, is in fact, yet a subtle description. — ENOAH
….indirect realism gets my vote. — ENOAH
Meaningful experience requires - at a bare minimum - some things to become meaningful, a biological creature/agent for things to become meaningful to, and a means/method/process for those things to go from being meaningless to being meaningful to the biological creature/agent. — creativesoul
I agree with all that, which means I accept your general argument, perhaps while disputing the minutia of the grounds for it. — Mww
In my world, apprehending the conditions for(one's own experience), manifests in the same mental process as drawing correlations between. — Mww
The language less creature has no inkling of just how important a role the sun plays in its own existence.
— creativesoul
I submit that kind of creature has insufficient rational capacity to apprehend the conditions by which the sun attains its role in a necessary relation to said creature’s existence, from which follows the only creatures known to function under such criteria, is the human creature. — Mww
Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences? — Mww
Scientific realism posits there is an external world we can accurately measure. Perceptual realism posits that we, without measurement, can directly access an external world — AmadeusD
What's your take here, then? Pure curiosity. To come to table, 'cognition' doesn't seem to me something that is the same as experience. So, all cognition is 'conscious' but barely any cognition arises in experience — AmadeusD
I want to know to what it is reducible, such that THAT is irreducible, hence, primordial. — Mww
Before they become words, they are schemata, that which as a multiplicity of minor conceptions, is subsumed under a major. You touched on it with your “image-ing”, which I hold as a requisite component of human intelligence, in that we actually think in images. But we cannot express an image, project it beyond ourselves, so we developed language to do just that. — Mww
The very notion of mental implies internal, in the sense of residing/existing/happening completely in the brain/mind, body, etc. I've a more holistic approach that makes the most sense of meaningful experience as neither exclusively internal nor external, but rather - consisting of both….. — creativesoul
My own view (….) allows much simpler iterations/forms of human experience than yours can. — creativesoul
Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences? — Mww
what is it about a candidate that experiences, such that he must consider something, the negation of which is impossible.
Answer: he must consider himself as subject. He is that to which all representations, all objects of consciousness belong, such that there resides an implicit unity in the manifold of all rational/intellectual doings. — Mww
formerly a positive paradigm shift in philosophical thought but now in somewhat diminished favor. — Mww
feel like you have this strong preconception that any kind of phenomena is necessarily internal to some kind of external physical things, because you are dualist. But I don't see how this view is strictly necessary and how other kinds of views of phenomena as ontology are not at least conceivable. — Apustimelogist
So if physical theories are defined purely functionally or relationally and say absolutely nothing about the intrinsic nature of what is beyond our personal experiences, I think you have to give an argument to rule out the idea that what is beyond our personal experiences can conceivably be more experiences and nothing else. — Apustimelogist
Again, we have established that you have no idea about the intrinsic nature of what is going on beyond your immediate experiences so I don't see what standard you are using to judge that what is going on beyond cannot be experiential — Apustimelogist
What we think of as physical objects can still exist, just they have to be made of phenomena. — Apustimelogist
I haven't seen justification. — Apustimelogist
what physical things intrinsically are? — Apustimelogist
The question of "why do experiences exist?" would be no different from the question of why any other different kind of intrinsic stuff were to exist — Apustimelogist
There have been absolutely no discoveries in science that suggest some kind of inherent metaphysical separation between mental and physical stuff in any sense. Such a dualism is incoherent. — Apustimelogist
The problem is that consciousness is rendered causally irrelevant not only to our behavior but to our own knowledge of consciousness. The absurdity suggests that dualism is an illusion and that there is no dual-aspect. — Apustimelogist
I think this is less mysterianism than the fact that if you endorse kinds of scientific and metaphysical deflationism / antirealism, then the need for inherent dual-aspects is not pressing. — Apustimelogist
Because this view doesn't rely on falsifying phenomenal experiences — Apustimelogist
Your latter definition only accounts for direct realism, not indirect realism. Also, scientific realism is not about positing an external world per se, it posits that our theories about the world are true. Doesn't seem very different from the idea of perceptions being true representations or giving true access to the world. — Apustimelogist
The difference between "conscious" and "non-conscious" cognition essentially comes down to differences in this flow of experience. — Apustimelogist
I've a more holistic approach that makes the most sense of meaningful experience as neither exclusively internal nor external, but rather - consisting of both; as neither exclusively physical nor mental, but rather - consisting of both; as neither exclusively objective nor subjective, but rather - consisting of both; as neither exclusively material nor immaterial, but rather consisting of both.
— creativesoul
I’m never going to be happy with that approach. — Mww
Experience is an abstract conception, is entirely a mental construct, hence exclusively internal. — Mww
...something we know so little about we are forced to speculate if we wish to say anything at all. — Mww
Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out.
— creativesoul
I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. — Mww
My own view (….) allows much simpler iterations/forms of human experience than yours can.
— creativesoul
Mine doesn’t have form at all — Mww
I’m never going to be happy with that approach.
— Mww
Individual personal happiness is not necessary. — creativesoul
Picking oranges on a rainy day is neither an abstraction nor a mental construct. It's an experience — creativesoul
Certainly, at numerous times prior to the emergence of humans, oranges were picked. — creativesoul
All abstract conceptions are existentially dependent upon language use. — creativesoul
Where there has never been language, there could have never been any notion of "picking oranges". — creativesoul
The group itself consists of all the separate instances of picking oranges. They do not require being taken account of. — creativesoul
what is entailed by 'mental only' — AmadeusD
I have. "What are the experiences of" is a good enough question to at the very least, put the position you're driving at on the rocks, if not infer a position that requires externalities (in a 'proper' use of the word - not the economic one) to inform any type of experience. Otherwise, we have infinite regress - at what point would content be involved, if it's experience all the way down? Seems a massive gap here. — AmadeusD
As noted a couple of times, and apparently ignored: Experiences must be OF something(if you do not accept this, we may be at an end of the road we travel together). — AmadeusD
Mental objects do not exist outside of mind, by definition. What's not getting through? — AmadeusD
This is the exclusion you seem to just straight-up ignore. — AmadeusD
"why isn't anything conscious"? The latter is not irrelevant, in the discussion we're having. — AmadeusD
This is not a problem, and it does not suggest this. I would recommend reading all of Chalmers, if this is where you're going. — AmadeusD
Can you explain why this would have any weight in displacing the (potential) property dualist account? — AmadeusD
He would posit that nothing you've said changes the fact that Consciousness is irreducible. — AmadeusD
I'm beginning to think you're confusing yourself. — AmadeusD
Do you know any idealist scientific realists? — AmadeusD
But we know, for sure, that cognition happens sans any experience. — AmadeusD
Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out.
— creativesoul
I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system.
— Mww
In the examination of “us” as the bare minimum form of the possibility of experience is itself a multi-layered complexity. — Mww
I’m never going to be happy with that approach.
— Mww
Individual personal happiness is not necessary.
— creativesoul
C’mon, man. Really? — Mww
Picking oranges on a rainy day is neither an abstraction nor a mental construct. It's an experience
— creativesoul
There is a physical activity understood by a certain relation; the relation is then cognized as picking oranges, and THAT is the experience. — Mww
I think all of what we call cognition is things we observe ourselves through experience. — Apustimelogist
Do you have a valid objection to what I wrote? — creativesoul
There are extant examples of complex behavioural outputs from complex reaction and adaptive cognition without any hint of anything like conscious experience. — AmadeusD
Ants, cilliates and even slime molds are examples which make the vast majority of what you're saying, which basically relies on the assumption above more-or-less moot arguments. There are extant examples of complex behavioural outputs from complex reaction and adaptive cognition without any hint of anything like conscious experience. — AmadeusD
Probably worth noting. cognition is not 'things', it is not 'experience' - cognition is the processing element of perception. thinking. — AmadeusD
Even on the reductionist account, the missing piece of the puzzle is still how consciousness arises from any level of cognition. It clearly does, though. — AmadeusD
I think my previous comments are adequate to outline my thoughts. If they are not convincing, so be it — AmadeusD
Waving it away wont do. — AmadeusD
I have made it clear in this discussion that I am not a dualist so why are you interpreting my words in a dualist fashion? — Apustimelogist
there is no way that what I have said in the last post could "explain [my] entire rationale". — Apustimelogist
Is therefore in no way contradictory to anything that I have said. The issue is you are interpreting what I have said as some kind of dualist would even though I am not one. — Apustimelogist
We can think of cognition as latent models created to explain this empirical data in the flow of experiences and behavioural responses. — Apustimelogist
So I don't see any fundamental difference between "conscious" and "unconscious" cognition. — Apustimelogist
They are both embedded in experience and have the same fundamental explanation. — Apustimelogist
perception involves our experiences and behavioural responses. — Apustimelogist
Otherwise how else you would know about these things? — Apustimelogist
experience or behaviour, — Apustimelogist
You experience your losses of attention. — Apustimelogist
I don't think my view is waving it away in any sense because as I have already said, I believe there is very good reason to think that we cannot have access to the fundamental nature of reality in any objective sense while what we perceive and the beliefs about them we come to are obviously constrained by the informational processing of a brain. — Apustimelogist
On the other hand, you seem to think the problem of irreducibility can be solved when arguably irreducibility by virtue of its meaning means it will never be solved. — Apustimelogist
Stands to reason that if dualism is true and we have a complete explanation of both "mental" and "physical" stuff, there would still be a problem of consciousness — Apustimelogist
I believe such a view is incoherent. — Apustimelogist
The basic stipulation of two substances / properties is really as far as you can get; the irreducibility hurdle cannot be overcome because thats what irreducibility means. — Apustimelogist
There doesn't seem any way to get away from Chalmers' paradoxes without getting rid of dualism — Apustimelogist
If you recall the Mary's room knowledge argument against physicalism — Apustimelogist
in principle there are reasons we think or perceive things in the way we do which are constrained by physics in the same way a car runs in ways constrained by physics — Apustimelogist
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