Your confusion seems to be based on your misunderstanding that my stance is some sort of an idealist. I am not an idealist

I am more in the direction of a dualist. A dualist accepts both mind and matter as different substance… — Corvus

I’m confused?

But if they say, mind is not made of matter, then it is a pointless view. Because, of course it is not. In that case, they would be saying only matter is made up of matter, which is a tautology. — Corvus

You’ve hoisted yourself on your own petard.

I'm not an Immaterialist or Idealist --- in the sense of denying material reality. — Gnomon

You know I know this. You’ve told me repeatedly that you’re invested in the material, the physical, the in-between and the meta-physical. Am I mistaken in believing you think metaphysical principles immaterial yet causal, as in the case to “it from bit?” If I’m not mistaken about this, then you need to show how metaphysical principles “enform” matter with attributes only known in the abstract a priori.

It won’t due talking about potential energy as causal potential somehow manipulating matter. Such a description is too vague to be of use to anyone but you in salesman mode promoting your Enformaction Theory.

But the significance of what he calls abstentials is that while they have physical consequences, they're not physical in nature. — Wayfarer

I think this is a simplification. Constraints that create absences that, in turn, strategically constrain forward towards emergent properties, such as minds with brains, involves a complex of nested, mutual constraints and emergent properties. There are no abstentials acting as end-directed agents without physical constraints imposed by dynamical processes.

I seems to me this complex of physical_absential satisfies quite well your claim to desire a spiritualism sypatico with modern science.

…you misunderstand me… by confusing "void" (that's metaphysical, not just "physical") — 180 Proof

Let me read carefully what you’ve written: a) “…you misunderstand me…” So, I get your intended meaning wrong; b) “… by confusing ‘void…’” So, I blend together physical and meta-physical in my understanding of what you’re saying about “void.” c) “that is metaphysical, not just physical…” So, I equalize “void” with being both physical and meta-physical; In this instance, I don’t see any error of interpretation of what you’ve written because the verb “to be” and the adverb “just” directly identify “void as having both attributes .

I'm not "saying" the atomists' void is a "higher-order" anything (that somehow transcends the physical). — 180 Proof

You mis-read me when you ascribe to my intended communication that a physical thing i.e., “void,” in possessing a higher-order attribute (foundational), transcends the physical. Just as higher-order logic doesn’t transcend logic, higher-order ontic status doesn’t transcend the physical. Higher orders of a mode expand the range of domain within it; they don’t transcend it.

Mind causes matter to change, move and work. A simple evidence? I am typing this text with my hands caused by my mind. If my mind didn't cause the hands to type, then this text would have not been typed at all.

Mind is immaterial substance. Although I know it is in me, and works for me in being conscious and perceive, think, feel, intuit and imagine etc, I cannot see it, touch it, or measure it. The mind has no physical or material existence, but it works for all the actions of humans as they please or want their bodies to perform or act according to their wills. — Corvus

If your brain were removed from your cranium, would you be using your hands to type messages to me?

Without body, the mind evaporates. Where the mind goes to is still a mystery. But one thing clear is that, mind is not body itself, and mind is not material. — Corvus

Our conversation here is specifically concerned with the location, structure and functioning of mind in relation to body. If you think we’re wrong in our thesis that mind emerged from matter via upwardly evolving, dynamical processes, then you need to specifically address that claim by pointing out its flaws.

I am not familiar with the idea you tells, but I quickly scanned the internet search of the term. It sounds like teleodynamics of the ententional sounds like a type of evolutionary theory. I am not sure if evolutionary theory has strong grounds for its claims. It seems to have some interesting points but also many vague parts in the theory too. Anyhow, my standpoint for it is that matter alone, and evolution theory alone seem to have some problems in explaining fully on the mind / body problems. — Corvus

I think you should deepen your investigation beyond the level of quick scans on the internet. Doing so might empower you to more specifically address perceived flaws in the proffered explanations of the mind/body problem.

materialism, via absential materialism, offers an explanation how these supposed immaterial phenomena are really higher-order, emergent properties still grounded in lower-order, dynamical processes that are physical. — ucarr

Suppose I amend my claim: ententional things, such as computation, “reference to” and meaning emerge from and remain grounded in lower-order, dynamical processes that are physical.

I think this claim hues closely to Deacon’s central thesis. His subtitle is: “How Mind Emerged From Matter.”

Deacon is proposing a way of thinking about nature that is very different from previous forms of materialism - is it still materialism? — Wayfarer

My understanding of Deacon is that he’s not leaving entirely the naturalist, physical_material category. He’s an evolutionary biologist.

MORPHODYNAMIC WORK

Thermodynamic orthograde processes are vastly more likely to appear spontaneously in the universe than morphodynamic orthograde processes. Correspondingly, examples of spontaneously occurring morphodynamic work are rare in comparison to thermodynamic work, and are also easily missed because their form is unfamiliar. To help identify them, we can begin by defining our search criteria by considering some thermodynamic analogies and disanalogies.

Any change of state is ultimately a thermodynamic change, but some thermodynamic changes are more complex than others. In describing forms of work that are more complex than thermodynamic work, we are not implying the existence of some new source of energy or a form of physical change that is independent of thermodynamic change, and certainly not an ineffable influence. Higher-order forms of work inevitably also involve—and indeed require— thermodynamic work as well.

So, surprisingly, this view of self shows it to be as non-material as Descartes might have imagined, and yet as physical, extended, and relevant to the causal scheme of things as is the hole at the hub of a wheel. — Terrence W. Deacon

It’s clear to me Deacon rejects neither material absence nor material presence in his thesis about how mind emerged from matter.

I don't know if your interpretation of Deacon does justice to that element of his work. It seems to me you're intent on using it to defend the very kind of reductionism that he is seeking to ameliorate. — Wayfarer

You seem to misunderstand the definition of emergent property, as in the case of mind emergent from matter. Emergent properties have radically different agendas from their lower-order substrates, to which they remain bound and without which that could not exist. This, by definition, is not simplistic, material reductionism. It articulates a mutually constraining symbiosis. I think the mental constraints upon physical things is what you refer to when you credit such restraints with being examples of mental causation controlling empirical phenomena. Neither causal mind nor causal, material substrate is excluded.

I think you’re the one trying to bias Deacon towards immateriality. I don’t think he’s biased in either direction. He pays heed to immateriality, not because he prioritizes it over materiality, as you do. Instead, he pays it heed in order to bring it back into balance with materialistic science, which he eschews no more than he does immateriality.

Since, by now, it should be clear I embrace Deacon’s thesis, it should also be clear neither do I prioritize one over the other.

Energy works by Potential-to-Actual transformation, as in E=MC^2. For example, Invisible causal Photons (lightning) convert into mathematical Mass, which our senses experience as tangible Matter*1. — Gnomon

We don’t experience mass by seeing matter.

We experience mass as momentum, the tendency of material objects to either remain at rest or remain in motion.

*1. Energy Transfers and Transformations :
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transferred and transformed. There are a number of different ways energy can be changed, such as when potential energy becomes kinetic energy or when one object moves another object. — Gnomon

All of the above: energy, mass and matter are material_physical. Your job, as immaterialist, involves showing the structure of the immaterial making causal contact with the material.

Is the following narrative something you can accept?

Higher Teleodynamics of Mind - Incomplete Mind, Terrence W. Deacon

The locus of self-perspective is a circular dynamic, where ends and means, observing and observed, are incessantly transformed from one to the other. Individuation and agency are intrinsic features of the teleodynamics that brains have evolved to generate, because of the dynamical closure, constraint generation, and self-maintenance that defines teleodynamics. However, the neurologically mediated self exhibits a higher-order form of teleodynamics than is found at any other level of life. This is because the teleodynamics of brain functions that evolved to guide animals’ locomotion and their capacity to physically modify their environments inevitably must model itself. The self-referential convolution of teleodynamics is the source of a special emergent form of self that not only continually creates its self-similarity and continuity, but also does so with respect to its alternative virtual forms.

Thus autonomy and agency, and their implicit teleology, and even the locus of subjectivity, can be given a concrete account. Paradoxically, however, by filling in the physical dynamics of this account, we end up with a non-material conception of organism and neurological self, and by extension, of subjective self as well: a self that is embodied by dynamical constraints. But constraints are the present signature of what is absent. So, surprisingly, this view of self shows it to be as non-material as Descartes might have imagined, and yet as physical, extended, and relevant to the causal scheme of things as is the hole at the hub of a wheel.

Do you think mind holds causal force over material things? Is so, can you articulate the structure of the handshake linking immaterial to material? If not, can you justify your belief mind is immaterial?

If you say mind operates in domains clearly not material, such as: abstractions, generalizations of tokens to types and computation, then materialism, via absential materialism, offers an explanation how these supposed immaterial phenomena are really higher-order, emergent properties still grounded in lower-order, dynamical processes that are physical.

Can you counter this argument with one that debunks Deacon’s teleodynamics of the ententional, a category that includes: sentience, meaning and purpose.

You misunderstand me (re: Spinoza's substance / being) by confusing "void" (that's metaphysical, not just "physical") with what I wrote about "spacetime" (i.e. a physical structure analogous to "an infinite mode of the extension attribute ...") — 180 Proof

In saying void is both physical and meta-physical, are you saying it has a higher-order dimension lying beyond the scope of the physical in the form of the physicality of the physical, which is to say, an abstract, generalized attribute approached only a priori?

If so, consider that any common material thing populating everyday human experience possesses, like void, a higher-order, abstract and generalized attribute as, for example in the case of a hammer, utility, also presumably only approached a priori.

How is void, in its higher-order, meta-physical dimension, categorically distinct from hammer?

…if they say, mind is not made of matter, then it is a pointless view. Because, of course it is not. In that case, they would be saying only matter is made up of matter, which is a tautology.

If they say, even mind is made up of matter, then it is an incorrect view, because there are clear evidences that it is not.

Therefore it is either an incorrect view, or a tautology. — Corvus

…if they say, matter is not made of mind, then it is a pointless view. Because, of course it is not. In that case, they would be saying only mind is made up of mind, which is a tautology.

If they say, even matter is made up of mind, then it is an incorrect view, because there are clear evidences that it is not.

Therefore it is either an incorrect view, or a tautology. — ucarr

Does anyone think these dueling bookends, who end in stalemate, make a sound argument for the equal truth of each bookend? Goethe said something about the best arguments being those with both sides speaking truth.

Materialism has the easier task because it’s monist. It doesn’t have to address the cosmic transition point: the structural handshake transitioning immaterial into material, or the reverse.

Immaterialism, being dualist, carries the burden of illuminating the handshake whereby things immaterial have causal force upon things material.

What about the inflection point when non-life quantum leaps into life, a supposed, abiogenetic, spontaneous phenomenon? Might that be, albeit irrationally, the structure of the transition?

Isn’t the gist of immaterialism that spirit acts as the catalytic go-between linking the two cosmic states?

If so, then the gist of the immaterialism argument might be that non-life is immaterial as spirit until spirit transitions into material. That would be a proposition describing the structure of the inflection point.

However, conversely, spirit as non-life bespeaks noumenal materiality, not vital immateriality.

The Conflict: Immaterialism can’t accept reductive materialism as the mechanical catalyst into life and materialism can’t accept idealist immaterialism as the spiritual catalyst into life.

What’re we gonna do ‘bout this barnburner?”

“Hey! Somebody needs to articulate the structure of the cosmic inflection point transitioning non-life into life, for it might be a clue to resolution of the mind/body problem.”

If materialism is a belief that even mind is matter, then it is an addlepated belief. — Corvus

Okay, this is a start. What’s your next move?

Consider the aggregates of atoms in the material things populating the daily world of human experience. Are they also aspects of void?

Describe how immaterial energy connects with the material things it changes. For example, explain how, when lightning strikes a person and kills them, the lightning transforms into a material thing.

As I discern the difference, "void" is a speculative supposition of fundamental reality (analogous to Spinoza's substance (or being)) whereas "spacetime", according to various formulations of quantum gravity, mathematically describes only an emergent physical structure (again, analoguous to an infinite mode of the extension attribute of Spinoza's substance (or a being)). — 180 Proof

I understand you to be saying “void” is more fundamental than “spacetime.”

Since you say “void” is analogous to Spinoza’s Substance, I understand you to be implying “void” is physical_material and of infinite extension.

…brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. — ucarr

That expression conveys an incomprehension of Platonism in my view. — Wayfarer

As I said already, I think Deacon is one of those developing an extended form of naturalism, recognising the limitations of lumpen materialism ('atoms and the void'). — Wayfarer

But I don't know if I will continue with it (Incomplete Nature), or this thread. — Wayfarer

If you do sign off from this conversation, before you do, I hope you’ll elaborate some details of your judgment that “brain-in-a-vat Platonism” conveys an incomprehension of Platonism.

…philosophical idealism requires something like a perspectival shift, very like a gestalt shift, which cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms. — Wayfarer

Do you mean comprehension of Plato’s Ideal Forms requires a systemic transformation of a person’s perceptions, thoughts and beliefs?

You say philosophical idealism cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms. Are you saying it shares common ground with ineffable dimensions of spirituality?

PS___ Your characterization of ↪Wayfarer & Gnomon as "immaterialists" may provide a clue as to where your strategy is coming from. — Gnomon

Are you suggesting my language characterizing you and Wayfarer is actually a more apt description of me?

No. I was not talking about storage of invisible energy in tangible chemistry, but about Potential as a Principle, as Aristotle defined it. The Map is not the Terrain ; the Potential is not the Chemical. :smile:

Principle in philosophy and mathematics means a fundamental law or assumption. The word "principle" is derived from Latin "principium" (beginning)

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Principle — Gnomon

I know that an abstract principle may have truth content and some level of application to the phenomenal world. How may it have realizable potential? Does such realizable potential evolve over an interval of time of positive value? If so, how is this time interval pertaining to an abstract principle measured?

PS___ I asked ↪ucarr for a graphic representation of Interacting Gravity Fields to help me understand his analogy to Absential Materialism. — Gnomon

Your arcane language is over my head, so I was hoping you could provide a graphic representation of your overlapping field concept : a picture is worth a thousand words ___Henrik Ibsen :smile: — Gnomon

Picture the moon in earth’s skyline, with the ocean at high tide. This is an interaction of two celestial bodies with gravitational fields: earth holds the moon in its orbit and the moon raises the ocean tides.

Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness. — ucarr

:shade: :shade: — “Lionino

Consciousness is an aggregate of nested sub-routines of reflection. We start with the thing-in-itself noumenal state; next, we have reflection: Aha! There’s something out there! We don’t know this; it is sensed, sub-consciously; next, we have reflection upon reflection: “Now I, the self, make my appearance. I will have the future state of things be such and so, I declare!” Next, we have philosophy: I think that you’re thinking about your thinking is fatally flawed.”

I feel, in some as yet vague way, the recursion of machine learning is the heart and soul of socializing and society. Consciousness is inherently social. Brains in vats are merely consciousness potential.

For this reason, the earth with its orbiting moon is a good example of consciousness. These orbiting, celestial bodies aptly model the entangled selves and selfhoods of conscious individuals.

As for action at a distance, after our conversation, I carry off some of you with me into the next room.

My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). — Gnomon

For that matter, just what is 'materialism'? Let's see some definitions:

Brittanica: Materialism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation? — ucarr

I think Deacon's notion of absentials and constraints challenge those forms of reductive materialism. — Wayfarer

Herein, I will attempt to profile Gnomon and Wayfarer philosophically: You’re trying to plot a course midway between reductive materialism at one extreme and brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. In so doing, you must affect a dalliance with materialist science without becoming infected by it. You’re both involved in the game of double-agentry. I’m surmising dancing with science-nuanced-cum-philosophy presents as one of the major strategies of today’s savvy immaterialists.

This absent-self idea comes from Heidegger but Sartre insisted on bringing back the Cartesian subject and freely willing consciousness as the basis of the self. — Joshs

Thanks for weighing in, Joshs; I’ve been missing your input.

What a knot of complexity here! The absential self, on which Cartesian freedom depends, effects its intention_design control of what-will-be, apparently in absentia, and thus the mind/body-problem puzzle of apparent duality.

I’m at pains here in this conversation to argue and persuade correspondents about the innate physical materiality of in absentia design.

How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void? — ucarr

I'm confident they would say existence (i.e. being); however, I prefer to think of "void" as the real (i.e. the ineluctable exceeding, or encompassing horizon, of both (human) effability and rationality). Another way of putting it: there are 'dynamics' in every sense, we say, only because void fundamentally affords 'changes, combinatorials, contingencies, chance' – or, in contemporary terms, universal computability (re: D. Deutsch, S. Lloyd, S. Wolfram, M. Tegmark ... Spinoza ...) — 180 Proof

How is your above definition of void ontically different from spacetime (and its virtual particles)?

My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). In other words, Aristotelian Potential is unreal & immaterial & meta-physical, and not measurable in terms of thermo-dynamics. Potential is knowable only in hindsight by reasoning, or by mathematical calculation of statistical Probability for a future event. — Gnomon

I think your use of “potential,” a stored-energy, material phenomenon, connects Absence/Void to other material things. Think of a battery.

The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism:what is not yet but will be. — ucarr

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in it? — Wayfarer

Ententional: A generic adjective coined in this book for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic. This includes function, information, meaning, reference, representation, agency, purpose, sentience, and value. — Terrence W. Deacon

Absential materialism is merely my wording for Deacon’s “Ententional.” I’m not proposing anything different from what from he expounds in Incomplete Nature.

The nine items listed above as examples of ententional things are, in my own words, distinguished by their action-at-a-distance causality. This means they cause resultants distributed away from them across space and time. When America’s federal reserve bank raises the cost of money, they are an agent seeking to achieve something non-intrinsic to their location: reduction of inflation via reduction of spending. Intentional reduction of inflation, a cerebral-material action, nonetheless distributes across spacetime, a material medium, This cerebral-material action, although absent via distribution from the federal reserve bank, absentially constrains spending by agents unknown personally.

In the context of evolutionary biology, a phenomenon that features mind’s emergence from matter, let’s look at two examples of absential materialism in action.

Through nested dynamical metabolic contraints on cell generation with genetic variations included, the favoring of a big brain over a strong, hairy body occurs. One of the resultants, distributed across spacetime, primes intelligent humans for reduction of hunting and gathering of food in favor of developing agriculture. Another resultant of the same dynamical metabolic constraint primes humans to cover their naked flesh, first with animal pelts and then with woven plant fibers and onward further towards development of the fashion industry.

Absential materialism utilizes the long reach of spacetime, a material cord binding together material things in accordance with planning.

how does this "absential materialism" metaphysically differ from Democritean-Epicurean atomism (i.e. swirling atoms in void)? — 180 Proof

Classical atomism is monist – atoms are aspects (à la density differentials) of void, not separable from, or transcendent of, void – so no "dualism" — 180 Proof

How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void?

…how does this "absential materialism" metaphysically differ from Democritean-Epicurean atomism (i.e. swirling atoms in void)? — 180 Proof

There is no binary of material/immaterial. Instead, there are only material processes moving upwards along a continuum of higher-order, dynamical systems.

In consequence, the grammar of these materialist processes is, morphologically speaking, monist, not dualist.

Is this the way forward in philosophy - to create new expressions or words, then debate them? Actually, it resembles math in this respect, other than math defines the expression clearly. — jgill

Philosophy should meet the same standard of clarity met by math.

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in i — Wayfarer

Your question is important — ucarr

Does it have an answer? — Wayfarer

From my limited reading of Deacon I don't recall ever mentioning that phrase. Nor do I think he describes his work as materialist, rather as challenging the materialist paradigm, but within a broader naturalist framework. In other words, a form of extended naturalism. — Wayfarer

Are you saying the natural world stands some degree apart from material things?

Are you acknowledging the immaterial realm is a part of the natural world and therefore is not supernatural?

Are you aligning the immaterial world with top-down causation?

In terms of constraints in physics, these can ultimately be traced back to the fundamental cosmic constraints associated with the cosmological anthropic principle, without which complex matter and living organisms could not have formed. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation?

Are you saying the natural world emerged from immaterial causation?

Let's just call Absential Materialism a "novel pairing" with seemingly paradoxical implications. It's oxymoronic only in contrast to Materialism as here & now Realism. — Gnomon

Good.

my main interest is in the "bridge" of which you speak. — Gnomon

My metaphor of the bridge is meant to express the theme of unification across upwardly evolving dynamical systems essential to upwardly evolving life forms. Establishing linkage between the levels of end-directed behavior aimed at maintaining the far-from-equilibrium metabolic processes is the central goal.

This bridging over the material/immaterial duality strives to render it inconclusive.

…Absence/Void is the not-yet-real pool-of-Potential from which Actual material things and immaterial properties may Emerge. — Gnomon

If Absence/Void is active and causal, as in the case of grounding emergent material things, then its energetic_material, not absential. The absential gaps are due to constraints imposed by dynamic metabolics upon the universal, thermo-dynamical tendency towards equilibrium and inaction. Life arises from dynamic metabolics that constrain the tendency towards equilibrium on behalf of far-from-equilibrium, vital organisms.

Highly ordered material things, such as living organisms, don’t arise from a void. Instead, they arise from a thermo-dynamic equilibrium constrained upwardly towards ever-more complex
and individualized states of being.

I notice that you spell "intentional" with an "e", as I do in my own thesis, following Deacon. — Gnomon

Ententional: A generic adjective coined in this book for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic. This includes function, information, meaning, reference, representation, agency, purpose, sentience, and value. — Terrence W. Deacon

Deacon’s term encompasses an array of attributes associated with cerebration within a set of end-directed processes.

Absence may play the role of causal Energy… — Gnomon

Energy, even as a waveform, is a presence.

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in it? — Wayfarer

Your question is important because absential materialism has a knack for looking like immaterialism without being such. In a parallel manner, the moon’s gravitational field looks as if it has no presence on earth. This appearance is dispelled by understanding earth’s ocean tides are much affected by the moon’s gravitational, action-at-a-distance influence upon the ocean tides and thus upon the weather.

I read it as suggesting that reality is exhaustively characterized by manifestations of matter and the absence of matter, eschewing the idea of anything transcendent of matter. Matter is able to manifest its own absence, a material absence that matters. not an unknowable immaterial presence. Makes sense to me. — Janus

Yes. Deacon goes into great detail with his elaborations of the multi-step ladder of dynamical processes that progressively organize what we see in nature, including the mind and the thinking of humans. As the dynamical processes become end-directed, they create strategic constraints that compel emergent properties to organize around what is not yet but will be. In so doing, these emergent properties operate within boundaries radically different from their substrates. These radical differences in boundaries give rise to radical differences in functions. The upshot is the appearance of causal forces divorced from material things. Although functionally independent from their material substrates, they are, in fact, still rooted in them as emergent properties.

I assume the paradoxical & oxymoronic term is of your own coinage. — Gnomon

Yes, the pairing of the adjective with the noun is my own doing. Deacon’s use of absential as an adjective in Incomplete Nature introduced me to the adjective form of “absent.” For this reason, I don’t think my pairing rises to the level of a new coinage. More importantly, I’m inclined away from characterizing the pairing as oxymoronic. I see the main thrust of the pairing as an expression of the bridge across the matter/immaterial divide. Mind entails a non-local materialism that should not be confused with immateriality. Paradoxicality lays too much stress upon an undecidable material status.

…I'd appreciate an abbreviated definition of "absential materialism" that distinguishes it from "immaterialism", and identifies why the term is needed for philosophical intercourse. — Gnomon

Here’s how I say it in terse language:

The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism: what is not yet but will be. This is the heart of an enduring self who lives via enactment of intentions. Selfhood wraps itself around the nullity, or absence, of about-ness, which is the set of individual intentions. — ucarr

Thinking in abstraction from immediate sensory interaction with environment is ententional behavior towards a future and desired state of being; here I try to express as Deacon might do. The non-locality of ententional mind is not transcendence of our natural world of material_physical things. Instead, it is gravitational manipulation of spatio_temporally extended material things.

Consciousness, as I understand it, concerns itself with action-at-a-distance design of desired future states of being as mediated by gravitational fields. It confers onto organized mind an interior/exterior interface, or complex surface that multiplexes the location of conscious beings. As I say above, we humans are mostly local and locatable, but not entirely so.

When we walk about, does our consciousness travel with us? Yes and no.

I can't understand his mathematically-based arguments, and a lot of what he says is over my head. — Wayfarer

My understanding of Penrose, as influenced by Gödel, says that Incompleteness Theorem tells the mathematician that math proofs exemplify the consistency achievable within math-as-language morphology (math grammar), but that such internal consistency is not the whole story. Since a foundational set of axioms for a particular math will generate equations unprovable by their axioms, beyond consistent morphology, there lies the experience of understanding these changes of form by a person. Even in the face of math proofs there is judgment of computational consistency not itself computational. Generalizing from this insight, there is a consistent POV that is concerned with the aboutness of things rooted in the absence of its own aboutness.

I don’t yet, however, go so far as to totally deny all objectivity of the self. This I say because, obviously, the self is aware of itself.

What do you make of this?

Boxers, like debaters, engage in a battle. When the bell rings, signaling the start of a new round, the fighters leave their corners and enter into the middle of the ring. The new round commences shortly thereafter and the punches start flying.

Debaters, using words instead of fists, throw punches by asking questions. When the battle is engaged, the questions start flying.

If, on the other hand, only one of the fighters enters into the middle of the ring and just stands there awaiting engagement with the other boxer until, finally, it’s clear the other boxer will not leave his corner, it’s universally understood that that fighter has conceded the fight.

I’ve answered your questions over and over. As a recent example, I’ve responded to your citation of Hume with a quote from him that supports my position. As another recent example, when you attempted to distance concept from impression, I cited a dictionary definition that establishes their similarity along the axis of non-physicality, a central element within our battle.

You, however, have lately been refusing to answer my questions. You’re like a boxer who refuses to leave his corner to engage with the other boxer.

Your avoidance began with this question:

Does this correct version of his impression, that was previously operational within his head, but now is not, still exist somewhere outside of his head? — ucarr

You’ve avoided it three times. You’re still talking, still asking questions, but you’re doing this over in your own corner, where the fight cannot continue.

The correct impression in husband’s head is either damaged or destroyed. Does this correct version of his impression, that was previously operational within his head, but now is not, still exist somewhere outside of his head? — ucarr

——————————————————————————————————————————————

You’re claiming numbers and their relations are understandable a priori, regardless of age, situation, and personal experience?

Do you, or anyone you know of, have knowledge of a human society that does no counting of material things whatsoever?

Do you, or anyone you know of, have knowledge of a human society with children who can’t see the difference between one lollipop and two lollipops? — ucarr

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. — https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki

Number has both mentality and physicality. — IP060903

.

In your opinion, do these two attributes of number bind abstract numbers to physical things and physical things to abstract numbers?

The correct impression in husband’s head is either damaged or destroyed. Does this correct version of his impression, that was previously operational within his head, but now is not, still exist somewhere outside of his head? — ucarr

——————————————————————————————————————————

Well, the idea of the statue is from the external object, and the idea of number is from the mental concept, so you are talking about totally different ideas in nature... — Corvus

Impression - an especially marked and often favorable influence or effect on feeling, sense, or mind. — Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

Regarding the statue as impression from the external object and number as impression from a concept, are they both non-physical contents of the mind?

Humean impressions are not associated with knowledge, judgement or concepts. They are passions, emotions and feelings viz. sensations in nature. — Corvus

Have you directly observed passions, emotions, feelings, and sensations? Mind you, this question is very specific. I’m not asking if you’ve directly observed humans (or other animals) experiencing passions, emotions, feelings, and sensations. I’m asking if you’ve directly observed passions, emotions, feelings and sensations divorced from humans (or other animals) experiencing them?

…you can have an idea of a number without having to see any external objects… — Corvus

You’re claiming numbers and their relations are understandable a priori, regardless of age, situation, and personal experience?

Do you, or anyone you know of, have knowledge of a human society that does no counting of material things whatsoever?

Do you, or anyone you know of, have knowledge of a human society with children who can’t see the difference between one lollipop and two lollipops?

We have been talking about the nature of numbers. — Corvus

We have different mental impressions in our heads. This variety includes: grocery list items, images of statues observed, numbers learned in grammar school now being used to count grocery list items.

Do you acknowledge that in order to check the truth content of the husband’s first mental impression of the statue, he had to return to the site and try to verify or revise that first impression — ucarr

Of course, you need to go back and see the statue to confirm what it is. Therefore it proves, even of your memory is unreliable, things exist as they are, be it physical or mental. Just because your memory is unreliable doesn't mean that mental objects become physical. Even if you memory becomes bad, numbers are concepts in the mind. — Corvus

We’ve been talking about mental objects. This category includes numbers as well as other mental objects as, for example, the memory of the statue.

Of course, you need to go back and see the statue to confirm what it is… — Corvus

The correct impression in husband’s head is either damaged or destroyed. Does this correct version of his impression, that was previously operational within his head, but now is not, still exist somewhere outside of his head? — ucarr