↪frank
You are dodging the challenge to your challenge in relation to reduction in regard to you saying, "whether a theory of consciousness is possible." — Paine

Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.

Why does it have no bearing when the question of what can be reduced to a function is the center of both enquiries? — Paine

Function can be reduced (explained) by neuroscience. This is Chalmers' "easy problem."

Neuroscience has been pretty successful here.

That article is behind a paywall. One of the theories mentioned in the abstract is IIT. Chalmers has offered his thoughts about the pros and cons of that approach, specifically what he thinks it would need to accomplish it's goal. At present, it's only a broad outline. I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make.

Yes. How do you see that against the background of the essay presented by DF Polis? — Paine

His article argues that functionality can't be explained by examining the physiology of the CNS. Whether or not this is true has no bearing in whether a theory of consciousness is possible.

Both, I guess. He has not presented a theory to explain consciousness, but he is saying there could be one.

Isn't that what is being sought after or abandoned as a hopeless cause? — Paine

There are those who argue that a theory of consciousness isn't possible. Chalmers believes it is possible.

Yes. Are you posting that to agree or disagree with me?

Right, he does not have a scientific theory, that is, one that has stood the test of time. — Fooloso4

He's never proposed to have a scientific theory of consciousness. One would have to be almost completely ignorant of his work to think otherwise.

If you mean he declares it true then you are right, but he does endorse it in the sense of give support to it. — Fooloso4

He's arguing that it should be on the table in our quest for a theory of consciousness. He has also praised Dennett's ingenuity as the type of creative mindset we'll need to begin creating a theory. In other words, he doesn't think there is any viable theory of consciousness at this time. Therefore, there is none to endorse.

Toward this end, I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic.

Yes. Again, this is what he thinks is required in order to lay the groundwork for a theory of consciousness. It isn't a theory in itself. You've misunderstood his intent if you thought so.

I have.

How can it be said the meaning is a property of the expression—its use, its context, its syntax, its content, its whatever—if Y could not derive from it its meaning, and if Z has not expressed anything? — NOS4A2

Some would identity meaning as an abstract object called a proposition.

I utter sentence S in order to express proposition P.

P isn't a property. It's an object in its own right. This approach has the advantage of starting the analysis from where we are instead of trying to build up to it from a location we can't occupy.

There's very little difference across the filters. Even Continental Europe scores 75% realist, 7% idealist. — Banno

Since the alternative appears to be some sort of solipsism, I think you'd get the same answer if you had a time machine and could go back through the history of the human race.

Chalmers doesn't endorse any particular theory of consciousness.

You're right. I was just taking the "lean toward" as being less than committed.

Setting the filters to all responses and all regions the percentage of respondents who endorsed realism exclusively was 76.37, hence only 1.5% endorsed realism and some other option. — Banno

Are you sure you're reading that correctly? Some chose "accept or lean toward" exclusively, some chose it inclusive of something else.

But I understand these are merely short quotations, though there seem to be quite a few along these lines. They strike me as a bit gloomy. But I don't mean to characterize all of his work. — Ciceronianus

Sure. Beware of people who are all clowns and balloons. There's likely something hiding in the shadows there.

And as I pointed out above, of greater significance is the fifty percent who would not commit to one of skepticism, idealism or realism. — Banno

In the article the majority voted for "accept or lean toward ". Lack of commitment is perfectly acceptable in a good philosopher.

Declaring the failure of reductionism seems premature. — Fooloso4

Could be. I think the prevailing view in philosophy of mind is non-reductive physicalism due to multiple realizability (there's no way to match up x-mental state to y-physical state).

know little about that VERY Melancholy Dane, Kierkegaard, but he seems more a theologian or commentator/apologist for religion than a philosopher. — Ciceronianus

He wasn't melancholy. He had a fearsome, biting wit, and his works are energized.

His most famous works are about identity.

:up:

I thought it was really cool of you to share it.

I just am not certain what part is completely external and what isn't. Quite hard to tease apart. — Manuel

:up:

It's fun to give the psyche it's own location, like it's in another dimension or something, but that dividing line isn't present in the content of experience.

Well, as portrayed by Aristophanes — Ciceronianus

He's hilarious. It's weird thinking of people being that funny so long ago.

before we became devotees of angst. — Ciceronianus

I see you're a big fan of Euripides. Because of all the angst in his plays. I'm being sarcastic. But in a friendly way.

In old-fashioned psychological terms, one needs to establish an unproblematically robust ego first, before considering a philosophy that negates or transcends it. — unenlightened

I can see that, and I agree. I've always admired people who have unproblematically robust egos. I'm not on a journey to get one of those, though. There's just no way to get there.

The brutal coldness of behaviorism and eliminativism is basically the same thing as the death of God. Waking up to a pile of myths in a world of floods and holocausts.

Remember that book that said the ego is the part of you that thinks you're all alone? For humanity, the death of god is the first step into the bright light of the human Ego. In eliminativism, the light goes out.

It occurs to me that a person with a strong ego may not be aware of the cold darkness because they're walking around with a hat with a bright spot light on it, illuminating the world with Nietzsche's anathema: hope. Thus the Marxism.

I guess that means you're going to ban me. All I can say is that I really didn't understand why.

Likely. I will generally interpret someone telling me my perspective is "cold and brutal", without invitation or further comment, negatively. Perhaps if you used more words, I would have understood you. — fdrake

I've been practicing that lately. I find myself saying the same thing over and over in different ways, hoping that the meaning will get through somehow.

Have you said something about yourself and I missed it? — unenlightened

I didn't. I had a dreamlike childhood during which I saw the sights and sounds around me as a kind of veil with something more real behind it.

I think this was probably a childish translation of the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses I grew up around. They rejected this world and expected it to all be replaced by a perfect world. To me, my only access to the real world was down in the woods playing in the creek. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay there and I became suicidal in my teens.

It's like a gorge opened up between the real me and the me who deals with the world of people and the dramas they create. For me, philosophy is part of my quest to find the bottom.

Just out of curiosity - is this some kind of accusation that I'm "cold and uncaring" because I "don't believe in minds" and "don't care how individuals are treated"? — fdrake

Not at all. It was an invitation to talk about the psychological dimensions of eliminativism. The way you reacted struck me as defensive, as if you're emotionally unstable. Or maybe we don't understand one another at all.

don't think so. But that's off topic. So I'll leave it. — fdrake

Eliminative materialism is obviously a kind of nihilism. It's psychologically precarious. That appears to me to be on topic, but I agree we should leave it. :grimace:

Why does it sound that way to you? — fdrake

Eliminative materialism and methodological behaviorism? It's a kind of nihilism, isn't it?

Nah — fdrake

It does sound that way to me. I take it you don't experience it that way.

That all sounds kind of cold and brutal.

Funny thing is: it doesn't make sense to call a world "external" unless you think there's an "internal" somewhere. :razz: :razz: :razz:

So a woman is raped in a nation where the positive law permits it because she is the possession of the man who has committed this act.

Was this "act" a violation? If it was a violation, what was it a violation of? — Hanover

The people in that nation might be appalled that Americans let women with children languish in poverty, working multiple jobs trying to make ends meet until they end up in the emergency room with pneumonia, panicking because they can't stay home in bed. Is this neglect a violation?

The question ends up depending on what sort of foundation you put under your morality. How do you look at that?

That is an irrelevant example.
Albert's thought experiments ARE NOT claims about facts of reality....the keyword is "thought experiments"
His work was not on QM and the Nobel awarded model of Quantum fluctuations came much later.
Absolute void is NOT possible (according to our current data) in our universe. Quantum foam is everywhere. — Nickolasgaspar

What you're doing is using scientific theory to lay out what we mean by words like "existence." Wouldn't it be better to just look to how we actually use the words? Einstein's thought experiment depends on it being at least logically possible for a person (or one dimensional point if that helps) to exist in a void.

Logical and metaphysical possibility often informs the way we use words. This means that as long as there is no logical contradiction in the idea of a void, it's going to make sense to talk about it. You know what I mean by "void" whether you agree that there is such a thing or not.

The fact that we can meaningfully talk about a thing existing in a void (in spite of believing that there is no such thing) means that "existence" means more than an interaction between items. See what I mean?

(absolute)void has not been proven possible within our universe. (Quantum Fluctuations). So we constantly observe interactions in every scale of the universe. — Nickolasgaspar

You, alone in the void. That's the beginning of one of Einstein's thought experiments. Did he make a mistake?

This is what defines existence....interactions between elements and entities — Nickolasgaspar

How does that work if you're in a void?

first heard about it in a great book by Carolyn Merchant "Autonomous Nature - Problems of Prediction and Control from Ancient Times to the Scientific Revolution".
Theories like "Chaos Theory", Scientific Emergence, Quantum Biology, Mechanics, Chemistry and many methodologies that use statistical probabilities are part of Complexity Science. — Nickolasgaspar

That sounds fascinating. Thanks!

I expect it will be two or three more Presidential elections before "Republican primary voters" throw up a nominee – man or woman – who will have an even chance to win enough of Independents and former-GOP voters to get back into the WH. — 180 Proof

I think it just depends on who looks the best on tv. The reason I'm keeping my eye on Haley is that she managed to be elected governor of SC, but at the same time doesn't show up as a complete sycophant or psycho.

I'll admit that it's also because DeSantis makes my stomach turn, he's such a slug, and Biden definitely looks weak.

Makes sense.