...might in fact be the right interpretation of the proposition... — javra

This I believe is the key phrase toward understanding javra's position on this matter. We must consider "2+2=4" to be a sequence of symbols requiring interpretation, to abstract meaning. And, there is always some degree of subjectivity which enters that process of interpretation. So, when two different people produce two different descriptions, (interpretations) of the meaning which they each abstract from the phrase "2+2=4", we can judge one as a better interpretation than the other. And, if we leave the possibility open, that we can always find a better interpretation, then the question of "the right interpretation" remains unanswered.

Goodness is a value and as far as I can see values can exist only in, be held by, minds

Langauge and the rules of interpretation in semantics don't make any sense unless you have something to fix them beyond your mental states. So "goodness" , like "rationality" isn't just a value inside your mind , it's meaning and truth conditions are determined by both your mental states and that which is external to it (other minds, universals, particulars, God etc)

This is why if someone comes up to me & claims murder is good because that's how he imagines it inside his head, then I would have no problem explaining to him why he has made a mistake here. That's not how we understand "goodness". If he still doesn't get it, then we will just consider him to be suffering from some mental impairment, just as we would for someone who claims 1+1=3 , despite repeated efforts to correct this mistake.

Aye, I don’t want to turn this thread into one of epistemology. But to answer …

I’m sorry but I’m one of those stodgy old-fashioned types who believe that 2+2=4 is true in all possible worlds. I can’t see how a world would hold together if it were not. — Wayfarer

And yet we live in a world where some people, some more fervently than others, believe that a certain 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 (often termed the Trinity) and that it is only due to this state of affairs that the proposition of 2 + 2 = 4 can possibly hold true. Put a philosopher’s or a mathematician’s hat on and one might see a blatant logical contradiction here. At any rate, I take this world where the Trinity is taken to be factual (and hence were a certain 1 + 1 + 1 does equate to 1, rather than to 3) to be one such possible world.

How could 2+2=4 be wrong ? Our mathematical knowledge is more certain than any philosophical argument you can bring against it. If a philosophical view requires us to doubt 2+2=4, then I would rather abandon that philosophical view, than allow uncertainty into mathematics. — Sirius

I've already given reasoning for 2 + 2 = 4 not being an infallible proposition. What you're here addressing is not the reasoning but the conclusion and how you'd react to it. But, as to the conclusion, that there is a possibility - irrespective of how minuscule - of X being wrong in no way entails that X is in fact wrong. Furthermore, just because X can be rationally evidenced fallible rather than infallible does not in any way warrant that one then doubts X. What reason is there to doubt X when X exhibits no inconsistencies - this despite X being fallible nevertheless?

This I believe is the key phrase toward understanding javra's position on this matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, it certainly is pivotal to what my argument for global fallibilism consists of.

But, again, I find no reason to doubt the truth of 2+2=4 in the absence of inconsistencies. And 2+2=4 is certainly consistent.

I disagree with you, but I acknowledge that no logical argument can prove you wrong. It also seems to me that our difference on this point is vanishing small- as small as the possibility that "2+2=4" is false.

I disagree with you, but I acknowledge that no logical argument can prove you wrong. — Relativist

I understand. Although don't we here then embark into areas of faith, rather then those of belief which can be justified.

It also seems to me that our difference on this point is vanishing small- as small as the possibility that "2+2=4" is false. — Relativist

Yes, I can agree, hence why I consider my belief that 2+2=4 to be categorical - despite it yet being, technically when philosophically appraised, fallible rather than infallible.

Why would you create duality between subjective & objective means ? If God does exist, then his being qua being would both be nondelimited prior to manifestation and delimited via manifestation in the mental & physical world (assume both categories are relative to one another). — Sirius

The subjective/objective difference is simply that an objective means is demonstrable - it can be shown to be true to others. If someone believes they've personally experienced a God, that can help justify his belief to himself, but it has no power to persuade anyone else.

The trick is to stop looking for God and understand he has not only always been with you but he is identical to your reality. — Sirius

I hope you understand that this statement can't possibly persuade anyone that a God exists- and that's because it depends on the premise that a God exists.

People seem to think God is like a pseudo object which exists apart from the universe, which is just superstitious & baseless.

IOW, you don't consider the God of your belief to exist apart from the universe. OTOH, I see no reason to think that anything like a "God" exists in any objective sense. I'm fine with you embracing your belief. I'm certain I couldn't possibly convince you you're wrong, even if I wanted to (which I don't). I hope you are sufficiently open-minded enough to understand why I don't share your belief.

If you want to know God, you just need to think differently of him, or to put it more succinctly, you need to stop thinking of him, as he is beyond concepts and experience as well.

I admire your passion. I hope your belief helps you to do good.

Yes, it certainly is pivotal to what my argument for global fallibilism consists of.

But, again, I find no reason to doubt the truth of 2+2=4 in the absence of inconsistencies. And 2+2=4 is certainly consistent. — javra

There is more to truth than consistency, there is also the matter of correspondence with reality. This is why interpretation is pivotal. To judge whether 2+2=4 is consistent we need a statement to determine 'consistent with what'. The "what" here forms the basis of the supposed reality which we will judge correspondence with.

So for example, in basic arithmetic we might interpret each "2" as signifying two objects, the "+" as signifying an operation of addition, the "=" as signifying equivalence, and "4" as signifying four objects. But more sophisticated mathematicians might interpret "2+2" as signifying an object, and "4" as signifying an object, and "=" as signifying "is the same as". The "reality" which "2+2=4" corresponds with (is consistent with), making it true, is determined by the principles (axioms) which the interpretation is based in.

There is more to truth than consistency, there is also the matter of correspondence with reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks for that, and I by this am not in any way disagreeing with your reply.

In the part I've just quoted: I find consistency and correspondence/conformity to reality to be deeply entwined. This in so far as reality, whatever it might in fact be, can only be devoid of logical contradictions (for emphasis, where an ontological logical contradiction is a state of affairs wherein both X and not-X both ontically occur simultaneously and in the exact same respect). For example, if reality is in part tychistic then truths will conform to this partly tychistic reality in consistent ways - thereby making some variant of indeterminism true and the strictly hard determinism which is currently fashionable among many false.

It's a whopper of a metaphysical claim that realty is devoid of logical contradictions - although I so far find that everyone at least implicitly lives by this conviction. But, in granting this explicitly, then for any belief to be true, in its then needing to conform to reality to so be, the belief will then necessarily be devoid of logical contradictions in its justifications (which, after all, are justifications for the belief being conformant to reality, or else that which is real). So if a) reality is consistent (devoid of logical contradictions) and b) truth is conformity to reality then c) any belief which is inconsistent will not be true.

As to the truth of numbers, their relations, and what they represent:

If physicalism, maths can only represent physical entities and their possible physical relations (otherwise it wouldn't be physicalism). If non-physicalism, then the numbers made use by maths could in certain situations represent incorporeal entities, such as individual souls or psyches. In the here very broad umbrella of the latter, one could then obtain the proposition that "one incorporeal psyche added to another incorporeal psyche added to another incorporeal psyche can via assimilation converge into one possibly grander incorporeal psyche" - thereby holding the potential of producing the 1+1+1=1 proposition, which will contradict the 2+2=4 proposition IFF the numbers of both equations are taken to represent the same corporeal and hence physical objects. Otherwise, within at least some non-physicalist worldviews, the question which is so easily ridiculed from physical vantages can emerge: how many individual incorporeal beings, such as angels, can fit onto the tip of a pin? With the answer being indeterminable due to the very incorporeal nature of individual beings addressed - creating a deep equivocation of sorts.

The basic general point to all this tmk being in general agreement with your post

So as to not overly focus on Chistian beliefs, I should maybe add that the non-physicalist understanding of numbers as I’ve just outlined it pervades popular culture at large: from the notion that (non-physical) being is one (as in the statement, "we are all one," or the dictum of "e pluribus unum") to the notion that in a romantic relationship the two can become one. With all such beliefs being disparate from the stance that 1+1 can only equal 2 in all cases.

But none of this is to deny that in physical reality 1+1 can only equal 2 - and, by extension, that 2+2 thereby equals (and can only equal) 4 when it comes to physical entities.

In the part I've just quoted: I find consistency and correspondence/conformity to reality to be deeply entwined. This in so far as reality, whatever it might in fact be, can only be devoid of logical contradictions (for emphasis, where an ontological logical contradiction is a state of affairs wherein both X and not-X both ontically occur simultaneously and in the exact same respect). For example, if reality is in part tychistic then truths will conform to this partly tychistic reality in consistent ways - thereby making some variant of indeterminism true and the strictly hard determinism which is currently fashionable among many false. — javra

The point I was trying to express, is that reality is what we make it to be, as in the the op, mind created world. So to correspond with reality means to be consistent with the principles we state as being those which describe reality. This puts logic in a sort of awkward place. We might say that reality is such that it is devoid of logical contradictions, but what this really means is that this reality which is devoid of logical contradiction is the product of a desire to maintain the law of non-contradiction. Ontologies have been proposed in which the law of non-contradiction is not necessarily true. This would mean that these principles give us a different reality.

It's a whopper of a metaphysical claim that realty is devoid of logical contradictions - although I so far find that everyone at least implicitly lives by this conviction. But, in granting this explicitly, then for any belief to be true, in its then needing to conform to reality to so be, the belief will then necessarily be devoid of logical contradictions in its justifications (which, after all, are justifications for the belief being conformant to reality, or else that which is real). So if a) reality is consistent (devoid of logical contradictions) and b) truth is conformity to reality then c) any belief which is inconsistent will not be true. — javra

So this is where things get difficult. Let's say that we assume a reality which allows for logical contradictions. Then, logical contradictions may be consistent with reality. Therefore a true belief may be logically inconsistent. But remember, we create reality by naming the principles which describe it. So if we think it's a better reality, we can insist that contradictions be avoided. Aristotle for instance saw a need to allow for violation of the law of excluded middle to create a reality including potential and possibility, but he insisted on maintaining non-contradiction.

If non-physicalism, then the numbers made use by maths could in certain situations represent incorporeal entities, such as individual souls or psyches. In the here very broad umbrella of the latter, one could then obtain the proposition that "one incorporeal psyche added to another incorporeal psyche added to another incorporeal psyche can via assimilation converge into one possibly grander incorporeal psyche" - thereby holding the potential of producing the 1+1+1=1 proposition, which will contradict the 2+2=4 proposition — javra

This is sort of what Platonism does. A numeral represents an object known as a number, so one object plus one object equals one object. However, the objects each have different values, and the value is represented by the numeral, so we do not have 1+1=1.

So as to not overly focus on Chistian beliefs, I should maybe add that the non-physicalist understanding of numbers as I’ve just outlined it pervades popular culture at large: from the notion that (non-physical) being is one (as in the statement, "we are all one," or the dictum of "e pluribus unum") to the notion that in a romantic relationship the two can become one. With all such beliefs being disparate from the stance that 1+1 can only equal 2 in all cases. — javra

Platonism pervades mathematics. We learn in school the difference between a numeral and a number. The numeral "2" signifies an object, which is the number two. Then what is important is the value assigned to the object. So two really does become one, but that one has a distinctly different value from what the other two each have. And in a fundamental way it is consistent with the physical approach in the sense that the values indicated are the same. However, there is a non-physical object which is added in.

The point about shape, with boulders and cracks, has to do with the relative size of mind-independent objects, and these relative sizes will hold good whether or not they are measured. It must be so if boulders treat cracks differently than canyons whether or not a mind is involved. — Leontiskos

I have thought again about your objections since you raised them again recently. I don't believe they actually refute the points made in the original post. As it is a defense of idealism, I'll refer to Schopenhauer and Berkeley.

Schopenhauer would argue that both shape and color belong to the realm of representation (Vorstellung), which is inherently conditioned by the subject. Shape, while less obviously subjective than color, still relies on spatial and causal relations that arise from the mind’s structuring of sensory data. A boulder rolling into a canyon is a phenomenon, an appearance - and, as such, dependent on the forms of perception (space, time, and causality) that the mind imposes on the raw data (which Schopenhauer designates 'will'). When we say the boulder "has dimensions that are such and such," this statement itself relies on a conceptual framework — one that includes notions of measurement, spatial relations, and causality. A boulder, after all, does not possess or conceive of its own dimensions. It is we perceivers who bring to it the ideas of "shape," "size," or "falling into a canyon." As said in the essay, take away all perspective, any awareness of shape, size and position, and what exists? Again, to point to the so-called 'unperceived boulder' is itself a mental construct, relying, as I said, on an implicit perspective.

As for the universe’s existence prior to minds, Schopenhauer would agree that the world exists as Will, but he would deny that the world as we can ever conceive it — as an ordered totality of objects in space and time — could meaningfully exist without a subject. To speak of such a universe is to again to reintroduce the forms of representation. The universe prior to life, in Schopenhauer’s terms, would be an undifferentiated striving will, not the structured cosmos we now perceive.

Berkeley would agree that minds can know real properties but would reject the assumption that these properties exist independently of the perception of them. What you call "realism" — the belief in mind-independent objects — requires positing an unobservable substratum that supports properties like shape. Berkeley would argue that such a substratum is unnecessary and unintelligible; all that we perceive occurs to us as ideas, and these ideas are dependent on perception. Berkeley doesn't deny that objects behave and appear to be material in nature, but emphasises the 'appears to be', and denies that they exist in some sense externally to that.

None of which is to deny the empirical fact that boulders will roll over cracks and into canyons, and even fetch up in places where Samuel Johnson will be able to kick one of them. ;-)

The universe prior to life, in Schopenhauer’s terms, would be an undifferentiated striving will, not the structured cosmos we now perceive. — Wayfarer

Really good post, but one point I’d add is he did have Platonic forms in there too as “objectified Will”. From how I have interpreted it, the subject is basically the Fourfold PSR, and the forms impress upon the subject. Subject and object, however are two aspects of Will. You might have a different interpretation. Either way, what you write is a good summary of Schop’s position.

Thanks. Further to which:

Materialism… even at its birth, has death in its heart, because it ignores the subject and the forms of knowledge, which are presupposed, just as much in the case of the crudest matter, from which it desires to start, as in [the case] of the organism, at which it desires to arrive. For, “no object without a subject,” is the principle which renders all materialism for ever impossible. Suns and planets without an eye that sees them, and an understanding that knows them, may indeed be spoken of in words, but for the idea, these words are absolutely meaningless.

On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge… The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time. — WWR p38

Bolds added.

Points to note - even though Schopenhauer and Kant are categorised as idealist philosophers, therefore 'anti-realist', here Schop. clearly acknowledges the reality of evolutionary development from inorganic to vegetative to sentient etc. He clearly has a realist view in empirical terms. His criticism is aimed at the hidden assumption of empiricism, not at its veracity in its operative domain. That's why I think the term 'anti-realist' needs to be carefully understood. Schopenhauer's approach bridges the empirical and metaphysical without reducing one to the other. His critique of materialism doesn't reject empirical science but reveals its limits: it describes the world of appearances while remaining silent about the thing-in-itself. This distinction ensures that his idealism is not a denial of the empirical world but a profound analysis of its deeper ground.

The point is that Schopenhauer's so-called 'anti-realism' is better understood as a critique of naïve realism—the assumption that the empirical world exists as ontologically independent and self-sufficient. This critique underscores why I stated in the OP that 'existence' is a complex idea. It rests on a conceptual foundation that has been built and refined over centuries, shaped by philosophical reflection and inquiry. In contrast, the 'mind-independent' stance typical of realism assumes the existence of objects to be unconditional and self-evident, often finding itself perplexed by any challenge to this assumption.

You have to admire Schopenhauer's writing here. Clear, but insightful. This eye opening passage is one I have pondered a lot before, as it is one of the hardest concepts to wrap your head around. We tend to think of the world as somehow independent, but yet Schop's notion is "object has always needed a subject" -object does not precede subject. Thus, as you indicated, all collapses to a unified Will that is fundamental to all of it. There's a lot to unpack, but as far as I see the subject-for-object simply is Will. Perhaps I am mistaken, but one way his view is anti-theological (though certainly speculative and not material), is that Will is not, as far as I can tell, some "primary" force, but is simply the unified concept of the principle behind the subject-for-object. In other words, "denying the Will", is not the same as achieving "some fundamental state". Rather, it's the ultimate negation of all states (thus denial of Will not achievement of Will. Will is what one is negating, not "going back to in some fundamental state".

But the bigger philosophical point here is the naive realism that Schop decries. It is simple to fall into the notion that what is perceived is what is the case "out there", without humans. I always use the example of "scale" to make this point. At what scale would a universe be without perspective? Is it the atomic level? Is it the universal-all-at-once level? Is it the sub-atomic level? That is to say everything then seems to both collapse and encompass everything all at once. You can say that it's "relational" in some way, or "processional" in some way, but what this really "means" without a subject or a knower, is hard to imagine. And to assume otherwise, is indeed the "naive" in naive realism, I suppose.

It is simple to fall into the notion that what is perceived is what is the case "out there", without humans. I always use the example of "scale" to make this point. At what scale would a universe be without perspective? Is it the atomic level? Is it the universal-all-at-once level? Is it the sub-atomic level? That is to say everything then seems to both collapse and encompass everything all at once. You can say that it's "relational" in some way, or "processional" in some way, but what this really "means" without a subject or a knower, is hard to imagine. And to assume otherwise, is indeed the "naive" in naive realism, I suppose. — schopenhauer1

This is why I keep referring to the recent essay and book on the blind spot of science. The blind spot essentially arises from the emphasis on objectivity as the sole criterion for what is real. It is the attempt to discern what truly exists by bracketing out or excluding subjective factors, arising from the division in early modern science of primary and secondary attributes, on the one hand, and mind and matter, on the other. So that looses sight of the role of the mind in the construction (Vorstellung) of what is perceived as 'external reality', along with the conviction that this alone is what is real.

(Personally, my way into Schopenhauer and Kant was via a book I often mention, T R V Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. It contains detailed comparisons between Kant and Nāgārjuna, the seminal Buddhist philosopher often described as the 'second Buddha'; see reference. I've been chastized on the Buddhist forum for praising this book, as it's nowadays regarded as euro-centric and romanticized, but making the connection between insight meditation (vipassana) and Kant's constructivism opened my eyes. In practice, vipassana cultivates direct awareness of how sensory input, mental formations, and perception interact to create what we experience as 'reality.' But that's not as dramatic as it might seem. As I said in the OP, it requires a perspectival shift, something like a gestalt shift. This intermediate realization—seeing how mind creates world—is echoed in Schopenhauer’s ‘world as representation’ and Kant’s 'epistemological limits'. It's to do with enlightenment, although realizing it doesn't make you an enlightened being. )

This is why I keep referring to the recent essay and book on the blind spot of science. The blind spot essentially arises from the emphasis on objectivity as the sole criterion for what is real. — Wayfarer

I don't understand this because I see no reason why materialism necessarily eliminates the subject. The subject and subjective experience can be considered to be material without losing either, Subjective experience is just as real as anything else, but it is obviously not an object of the senses. Why should that make it any less material or real? That is what I don't see any argument for either coming from you or in general. To me it simply seems like some kind of category error.

I don't understand this because I see no reason why materialism necessarily eliminates the subject — Janus

You've been telling me you don't understand it, ever since I first posted an OP on it, linked to the Aeon essay in 2019. Maybe you should review the essay and quote some passages and spell out why you think it doesn't make the case that it's claiming to make. Otherwise, I will conclude that the reason you keep saying you don't understand it, is because you don't understand it.

When we look at the objects of scientific knowledge, we don’t tend to see the experiences that underpin them. We do not see how experience makes their presence to us possible. Because we lose sight of the necessity of experience, we erect a false idol of science as something that bestows absolute knowledge of reality, independent of how it shows up and how we interact with it. — The Blind Spot

It's Phenomenology 101.

I have a huge 'to read' list and it's not all that important for me. It's not that I didn't understand what the essay says, but rather that I disagreed with its conclusions and did not find a compelling argument there to support them. I would rather hear you make a case for why we cannot usefully or fruitfully think of the subject and subjective experience as material.

In other words, I would like you to tell me why you think your attitude to the nature of the subject and subjective experience, to whether it is material or immaterial, is crucial to your understanding of the human existential situation and the mindful living of your life. Does it have something to do with the idea of afterlife, with this existence not being "all there is"?

If you can't be bothered trying to understand it, I can’t be bothered trying to explain it to you. But it’s absolutely nothing to do with ‘the afterlife’.

When you finally get around to trying to give an explanation you'll find out whether I can be bothered to try to understand it. I can assure you I will. But I won't guarantee not to critique it. Or... right you actually have no explanation. I get it...I can assure you.

I would like you to tell me why you think your attitude to the nature of the subject and subjective experience, to whether it is material or immaterial, is crucial to your understanding of the human existential situation and the mindful living of your life. — Janus

OK, I've gone back and looked at your response to when I first linked that article. You said you can't see any point to it at the time, whereas I still think it was an important article. It was associated with a conference on the topic at Dartmouth at which the authors and others spoke, and is now published as book by MIT, which I found to be an excellent book. But, hey, maybe we should just agree to disagree on that.

Looking at the question you raise above:

The subject and subjective experience can be considered to be material without losing either, Subjective experience is just as real as anything else, but it is obviously not an object of the senses. Why should that make it any less material or real? — Janus

Subjective experience is certainly real, but how can it be considered material? I don't understand how you can think that.

This is why I keep referring to the recent essay and book on the blind spot of science. The blind spot essentially arises from the emphasis on objectivity as the sole criterion for what is real. It is the attempt to discern what truly exists by bracketing out or excluding subjective factors, arising from the division in early modern science of primary and secondary attributes, on the one hand, and mind and matter, on the other. So that looses sight of the role of the mind in the construction (Vorstellung) of what is perceived as 'external reality', along with the conviction that this alone is what is real. — Wayfarer

If I was to connect this to some modern theories, I guess one can relate back to informational theories. The divide, crudely, is between "inside" (subjective), and "outside" (objective). Scientific-pursuit in regards to consciousness, at its broadest philosophical import, is about how the "objective" can sufficiently become a persistently recursive enough set of events to "become" subjective.

To parse this out though is tricky:
"Recursive" would be doing heavy-lifting here. How does it not fall into the homuncular fallacy trap?
What is this "becoming subjective" as opposed to prior to becoming subjective?

Cells differentiate into specialized organs of sensory input and nervous system that seems to both specialize and become generalized in its processing. If Gerald Edelman is right, the neuro-processes work in a neural darwinistic fashion, not too dissimilar to how antibodies form.

The problem is always the same though. It's what Schopenhauer laid out about the first eye opening. That is to say, these materialist accounts of correlation of neuronal activity with subjective experience, presupposes the very subjective experience, and it's hard to get out of that loop, and hence, the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" is persistent and hard to shake.

But, hey, maybe we should just agree to disagree on that. — Wayfarer

:up: To be fair though, I must acknowledge I haven't read the book, only the article.

Subjective experience is certainly real, but how can it be considered material? I don't understand how you can think that. — Wayfarer

These are just words, just definitions. I could say that subjective experiences are not something different than neural events in the body. even though they may not seem to be. Even in their seeming they are felt as changes in the overall state of the body and the perceived world. In another sense they are material insofar as, being real, they matter, even oif they don't seem to matter, no experience is immaterial in the sense of not mattering. And I cannot imagine any other sense in which I would want to say they are immaterial.

If I was to connect this to some modern theories, I guess one can relate back to informational theories. — schopenhauer1

From the original essay

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. And although the unified nature of our experience of this ‘world-picture’ seems simple and even self-evident, neuroscience has yet to understand or explain how the disparate elements of experience , memory, expectation and judgement, all come together to form a unified whole — even though this is plainly what we experience⁴.

The footnote reference is to the problem of the subjective unity of experience, part of the neural binding problem. That problem is how to account for the way in which the brain combines disparate kinds of information, such as size, shape, location and motion into a single unified object. While a lot is known about the various sub-faculties that perform each of the specialised tasks, no faculty can be identified that can account for the unified sense of self. That paper acknowledges that this inability corresponds to Chalmer's 'hard problem' and Levine's 'explanatory gap', meaning that at this time, how the brain does this remains 'a scientific mystery'. This has been interpreted by theistic philosophers of evidence for the soul, although I wouldn't frame it that way, as again it tends towards treating the soul (or mind or self) as an object, which it never is.

I don't know if you recall, but the other week I was wondering if the self might be understood in terms of Terrence Deacon's absentials. I ran that by ChatGPT and got the following response:

That’s a fascinating connection! Indeed, Deacon’s concept of *absentials*—things defined by what is absent or by constraints rather than by tangible, present entities—applies beautifully to the Neural Binding Problem and the elusive nature of subjective unity. In Deacon’s view, *absentials* represent phenomena that aren’t located in specific material structures but emerge through relational patterns or constraints, shaping the outcomes without being directly observable.

The sense of subjective unity—our coherent, integrated perception of the world—is a perfect example of this kind of phenomenon. Neuroscience, for all its discoveries, hasn’t pinpointed a single “place” or mechanism where this unity resides because it isn’t a material structure that can be isolated or mapped. Instead, it arises from the intricate coordination of separate processes, without a single, stable neural correlate. In Deacon’s terms, the sense of unity is an *absential*: it’s defined by the coherence that emerges from the absence of a unifying, tangible structure, relying on how different parts of the brain constrain and synchronize each other to produce a seamless experience.

This interpretation enriches the Neural Binding Problem by suggesting that the solution may not lie in identifying a specific “thing” responsible for unity but rather in understanding how the lack of a centralized structure itself creates the conditions for unity. Just as Deacon’s absentials can shape the dynamics of complex systems, the brain’s fragmented but synchronized processing generates the “unity” that we experience subjectively. This approach also reinforces the limits of purely material explanations, as this unity exists in the relationships and constraints between parts rather than in any specific brain region. — ChatGPT

I have to say, this maps pretty well against both Schopenhauer and the Buddhist 'anatta' (no-self).

Neuroscience is beginning to show us that the brain/ body is unimaginably complex and interconnected. Without coordination of its cognitive processes, we could not survive. Even the overall coordination of our bodily processes of metabolism, cardiovascular and immune function are beyond our understanding. This is so even for the more complex animals and still the case to a lesser degree for even the simpler ones.
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Since we are embedded within these bodily and neural processes of which our conscious awareness and discursive understanding are only tiny fragments, I see no reason to believe that we should ever be able to achieve an overview which is more than a more or less vague sketch. Just as even the most complex computer models of the weather are still vastly less complex than the actual weather systems.

From this our position of radical uncertainty I see no justification for any conclusions about unity in any sense beyond the acknowledgement that there must be coordination in a system too complex for us to understand except in part and in terms of parts.

What could it mean to say that our subjective experience could be disunified, uncoordinated? What could it even mean to say that of the overall weather system.is not unified, coordinated. These are human, all too human concepts.

I see no reason to believe that we should ever be able to achieve an overview which is more than a more or less vague sketch. Just as even the most complex computer models of the weather are still vastly less complex than the actual weather systems. — Janus

That's what Colin McGinn says, 'mysterianism'.

From this our position of radical uncertainty I see no justification for any conclusions about unity in any sense beyond the acknowledgement that there must be coordination in a system too complex for us to understand except in part and in terms of parts. — Janus

Which conflicts with the fundamental dictum of Socratic philosophy, 'know thyself'.

That's what Colin McGinn says, 'mysterianism'. — Wayfarer

I'm not familiar with McGinn. Our experience is intelligieble to us, just as theirs presumably is for animals. Is that not enough?

Which conflicts with the fundamental dictum of Socratic philosophy, 'know thyself'. — Wayfarer

Our experience is intelligible I to us, so I don't see a conflict with Socrates. For me self-knowledge is about coming to understand the patterns of thought that we have unconsciously fallen into which lead to suffering and learning to let them go as much as possible. That is self-knowledge and even that is rare enough.

I'm not sure how emergence is understood. As I said in a previous post, at what scale does the universe take without a perspective? What are events without perspective? Indirect realism would have it that, everything is in a way "map". But what is it when everything is pure "terrain"?

For me self-knowledge is about coming to understand the patterns of thought that we have unconsciously fallen into which lead to suffering and learning to let them go as much as possible. — Janus

That's the spirit, and really not that remote from what I want to convey.

What are events without perspective? — schopenhauer1

That seems like one of the antinomies of reason, doesn’t it? In a practical sense, we can’t ‘think outside thought’. I think that's the same point that Schopenhauer makes with 'time has no beginning but all beginnings are in time'. Events absent any observer aren't simply non-existent, but neither are they existent, as 'an event' has to be delimited in time and space, comprising some elements and excluding others. Of course, from our perspective, we can discern untold events that happened prior to our own individual and species' existence. But that's still from within a perspective.

Events absent any observer aren't simply non-existent, but neither are they existent, as 'an event' has to be delimited in time and space, comprising some elements and excluding others. — Wayfarer

Even this betrays a sort of biased proto-experiential view of things. As if the event itself is the knower. Not this either.