So why should we insert this image into our discourse it those who assert it is there are unable to produce it or even point to it? — NOS4A2

Every experience arises from stimuli, whether that be the bird you experience or the freedom you feel.

Where is the freedom you experience? Point to it, since you've taken the impossible stance that every experience is equivalent to its referent, even though it is not a necessary property of nouns that they have a referent.

Vision is just one sense that informs us of reality and it happens to be a human being's primary sense, but my visual stimuli received of the bird is no more the bird than the sound of the rustling of its feathers is to my cat, who goes into attack mode when she hears a small animal scurrying about.

If we stipulate that a "substance" distinction between two objects means the two objects are incapable of acting upon one another, then the mind/body interaction problem is logically unresolvable if we claim minds and bodies are composed of different substances. Logic 101.

To salvage dualism and maintain the explanatory power it provides in separating conscious states from ordinary objects, the typical response is to assert the mind and body are different enough entities to require they are to be categorized separately, yet admit they share a common physical element that allows for interaction.

This approach is known as property dualism as opposed to substance dualism, but, in terms of the actual difference between the two approaches, it's hard to meaningfully decipher because the essence of the "physical" is undefined. That is, if one asserts the mind and body are greatly distinct, but both ultimately physical, then scoop me a sample of whatever that shared substance is so I can see it under my magnifying glass.

This is to say, all this talk of physical monism versus physical/non-physical dualism should require someone explain what it means to be physical and what it means to be non-physical.

What I think is going on here is that "physical" is being used to designate those objects that are able to interact with other objects also designated as "physical."

Ergo, what makes minds and bodies similar is that they can interact with one another, but I'm not willing to commit there's actually a physical similarity beyond that (that you can put under my microscope to see). That is, the shared "property" of minds and bodies is that they can interact

We do not need to insert some image between that which sees and that which is seen — NOS4A2

It's a scientific fact that we experience an image as the result of some sort of stimuli. I don't understand your use of the phrase "we do not need to." Need to for what? In order to offer a coherent explanation of the bird even if that means denying an obvious scientific fact?

You and your dog see the same bird, but in different ways. — Banno

3 things here: (1) what I see, (2) what the dog sees, (3) the bird.

Describe each for me so I know what you're talking about. Tell me about the sort of feathers each has.

What if someone says, flat-out, "I hate New Agers" or "New Agers are stupid, worthless people"? — baker

Here

For example, if a poster were to express a very negative view of, say, New Age, would that make them a New-Age-phobe, and thus, bannable (instantly)? — baker

As a general matter, we don't render declaratory judgments, meaning there must be an actual case in controversy for us to rule. That means we don't entertain hypotheticals and then declare some sort of binding precedent. What we do is when there is an actual case, we read the rules and we interpret them, relying to some extent upon the way they were interpreted before.

To do otherwise would result in our continually responding to "what ifs," which we don't have time for, and which often wouldn't be helpful anyway because actual cases have all sorts of nuances that have to be considered.

Disturbing but compelling.

Here's wisdom: One who looks out for thier own interests at the expense of others is, quite literally, an idiot. — Banno

This is awful. And by awful, do I mean filled with awe (its ancient use) or that it's terrible (its modern use)?

Must the OP have a point (an important meaning) to have a point (a sharp end, like on a pencil)?

Homonym equivocation games, right? My point being that the etymology of words doesn't command meaning, but usage does. What words mean in one time period or context can be different than in others.

Other words that have changed dramatically over time: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/10-english-words-that-have-completely-changed-meaning/

I wonder whether Descartes ever read Buddhist philosophy, specifically the part where it talks about anatta (no-self). The self, as per Buddhists, is an illusion. Therefore, Descartes' argument is invalid: — Agent Smith

Illusion/delusion is central to Descartes' analysis. Logic dictates that to be deluded or to experience an illusion requires that there be an entity so deluded. He very specifically asked if he could be deceived of being deceived, but he could not. That fact proved he existed as a thinking thing.

Whether another tradition denies some substantive component of the self will have no bearing on the logic of the cogito or of his argument.

That is to say, Buddhism poses no challenge to Descartes' logic here. That isn't to say there are not some who argue his logic is flawed (in that it is tautological), but that argument isn't based upon Buddhism.

What effect does it have on the mind, body and spirit when practicing it? — TheQuestion

Death.

This has nothing to do with liberals. Any systematic analysis should reveal that. People busted windows, beat up police officers, destroyed and took things like podium's out of the house, and all with the aim to stop the election from being certified. Thank goodness people in congress got out. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had been caught? Can you imagine if someone had brought bombs, or a foreign spy had tagged along and found this to be his opportunity?

Conservative, liberal, or independent, it should be condemned by everyone. — Philosophim

The left has gotten carried away with taking their hyperbole literally and now has lost even further credibility. They are trying to use this riot as their best evidence of a right wing world gone crazy. Theat narrative serves only to reinforce their position and get ignored by the right.

What is an insurrection? That's when legislative bodies break away from the nation and artillery is fired upon a federal fort. That's a good description, If you want to know what civil war looks like, we have a great example to look at.

The insurrection the left speaks of never was. At no time was the US in jeopardy of a coup or overthrow. What happened is that Trump lost, but he didn't want to cede power, so he scoured the great land for someone to give him the power he lost, from Governors, to local elections officials, to Secretary of States, and most notably to the courts. Over and over and over he lost, until the final day arrived and there was going to be an official change of administrations. Even his loyal VP wouldn't play along, and so as a final desperate act by a desperate man, he summoned his most gullible, comprised of a ragtag group of misfits, and they rallied upon the Capital, some more malicious than others, but all generally inept. If that is what revolution looks like, I feel safe.

None of this excuses Trump. He's a piece of shit and has repeatedly spread his lie that he won the election he lost. The capital riot was an outgrowth of a terrible human being putting his own ego over the democracy he was supposed to represent and trying to ignore the citizens who rejected him.

It wasn't an insurrection. It's laughable to call it that. The left has figured out a way to overplay what should have been a hand that couldn't be overplayed.

My understanding of the basic theology is that humans were born into sin as the result of violating God's command in the Garden of Eden, so God, through his infinite grace, sacrificed his only son to save mankind from the consequences of that sin, with the only requirement for that salvation being faith.

Heaven therefore is fairly easily obtained and hell the consequence of sin, not the consequence of lack of faith. Salvation is the gift, the solution to The Fall, obtainable through faith.

I don't hold to this theology, so I won't defend it, but the responses to theodicy questions are involved theological discussions, which would require delving into the various positions taken by the various Christian denominations.

Do you really want to, for example, learn of the Mormon response to this and debate its consistenty and coherence? Would that be at all interesting to you?

I find generic attacks inaccurate caricatures, treating religion as this monolithic belief system, as if they are all the same. Some religions largely reject the literalism you find so repugnant, denying the literal eternal damnation you attack.

That is, if your atheism is the result of the evil you find in the God you describe in the OP, you might be better served to find a more suitable religion for you. It's not as if religion must rely upon the sort of God you describe.

Do you think he believed in the Demon, and that he had no hands, or eyes and all else he said was entailed by the Demon's illusion? — Ciceronianus

I think he believed it possible he were so deceived.

Intentionalism is a form of direct realism. While other direct realists might say one sees a cup, an intentionalist would more accurately say that one sees it as a cup. — Banno

This is pure Kantianism as I read this.

If the intentionalist insists upon drawing a distinction between "it" and the cup, but references only what he sees, the phenomenal obtains description and the "it" remains a descriptionless indescribable entity. This is classic phenomenal versus noumenal talk, just dressed up in a more palatable way.

On the other hand, if the referent of the intentionalist's "it " is simply the cup, it would be superfluous to say "I see the cup as the cup." He might as well just say "I see the cup," and stop repeating himself and making vague references to an "it."

This is to say you haven't found a comfy middle ground between direct and indirect realism. You must pick your poison

Some examples of crimes against society: — L'éléphant

What you say here is true, but I'd go further and say all crimes are crimes against society. Should I assault you, the court caption would not read "Caldwell v. Hanover," but it would read "The State v. Hanover." If a federal offense, "The US v. Hanover." My lawyer would be whoever I hired, but you wouldn't have one because you're not a party. The state would be represented by a prosecutor.

That's not to say you wouldn't have a private right to sue as well, but that would be a civil action and not a criminal one.

Society has the right to enforce its laws is, I agree, a basic and fundamental notion for the preservation of that society.

The tension to these assertions arises when an unjust law is passed. The idea arises that the law itself must answer to a higher authority to be considered just, but injustice alone will not unravel a society. What will unravel it is the loss of power of the government over the governed. Injustice alone in free societies offers a basis for enough pushback by the public to change the laws. That isn't so in less free societies, where only forceful overthrow would be effective.

I'm with Peirce when it comes to Descartes — Ciceronianus

I don't know what you mean by "pragmatism", — Ciceronianus

From Wiki:

"Charles Sanders Peirce (/pɜːrs/[8][9] PURSS; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism"."

You're quoting the father of pragmatism yet aren't sure why I'd be interpreting your position as pragmatism?

if we in doing philosophy claim to doubt what we do, and are, and think, and believe, and confirm every day of our lives, we're pretending to do so, as as our own conduct, our own lives, establish that we don't doubt that at all. — Ciceronianus

Is the point of using this strained meaning of "pretending" to disparage the position to imply an intentional dishonesty? I get up every day expecting the sun to rise so that I can go about my day. I act just like it rises and greet the rising sun as if it had risen, totally pretending as if it rose.

It turns out the earth is spinning and the sun is sitting still. Sometimes things aren't as they appear. Who'd have thunk? Maybe I should question other things, or would I be accused of pretending?

How's this then: They claim to have no hands (or eyes, etc.) or to doubt they do, despite the fact that the see them, feel them, use them, and in every way act as if they know they have them and do not doubt that they do. But perhaps you don't think they acted as if they had hands or believed they had them. — Ciceronianus

The question hinges upon the correlation between the perceived and the actual, so your questioning how hands, eyes, and any other object you might choose exists is ambiguous without clarifying which worldview you accept. If you accept the view of the direct realist, the two are the same (i.e. the hand you see is the hand there is). If not, you don't (i.e. the hand you see is distinct from the hand there is). Unless you are a direct realist, the question of doubt that exists between the perceived and actual remains critical and it for that reason you have a good number of philosophers who inject the skepticism you object to. Your objection arises entirely because you reject their worldview, but that does not make them disingenuous in their skepticism.

Your last sentence is a shift away from metaphysics insofar as you cease attempting to decipher the nature of reality and instead turn toward pragmatism. Again, I think that shift just ignores the question of what the composition of reality is and it instead asks how do we react to certain stimuli.

Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

That we don't engage in such extreme doubt in every day matters doesn't mean that asking such questions in other contexts doesn't yield important distinctions and understanding. It is conceded that no one delays their day to day interactions in order to reconfirm their corporeal existence, but that again is a reference to pragmatism. That is, the fact that attorneys don't try to reestablish reality as a foundational matter before asking more specific questions doesn't make me pause and wonder whether Descartes, Hume, Berkely, Locke, and Kant really had anything meaningful to say.

He had reason to doubt he had hands, eyes, blood, senses (though using them all to write that he doubted them — Ciceronianus

Yes, and not just him. Berkeley, Hume, Locke, and Kant did as well, some to more degrees than the other, just to name a few. If you'd like, I could create a long list of philosophers who have conteded that the hands, eyes, and blood they see aren't as they appear to be.

I appreciate you disagree with them, but to the extent your disagreement rests upon your claim that they were simply disingenuous, there's no proof of that, and the argument is entirely an as hom.

don't think it can be said a hypothetical situation is one in which we're asked to assume that everything is an illusion. What would be the hypothetical situation in that case? There could be no situation at all. He's doing more than asking a hypothetical question.

Imagine yourself asking this question in court. "Doctor, assume that your patient didn't exist. Would it be your opinion in that case that he had sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

But your first paragraph here shifts from the second. In the first, you ask about illusions, in the second, you ask about existence itself. You can hypothesize about illusions, but not of existence. Existence is not a property that can be hypothesized about without entailing a contradiction.

To clarify between a meaningful hypothetical and a meaningless one:

Meaningful: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder was a hallucinating paranoid schizophrenic, do you still believe him?

Meaningless: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder didn't exist, do you still believe him?"

Come now. Are you seriously claiming this is comparable, or analogous, to saying this? — Ciceronianus

Isn't the nature of a hypothetical that we assume something for the sake of argument, regardless of truth? Hypotheticals themselves appear in the subjunctive, indicating they are not statements of fact, but are, as you say, "pretend" (e.g. "If I were you" versus "If I was you.").

When we have no reason to doubt, we pretend to doubt. — Ciceronianus

We all have reflexive reactions to things that upon later thoughtful reflection we realize might not have been valid. Those who are most reflective and thoughtful are generally the ones we go to when we have a difficult problem. That something might seem immediately obvious should therefore not be a reason not to look closer. This matches well to Hume's distinction between the "vulgar view" and the "philosophical view," with the former being what is immediately accepted without consideration and the latter what has been arrived at by thought.

Your attack here was upon Descartes, but it would also be against Hume, as his result was to say that neither the direct realist view (i.e. the vulgar view) nor the indirect realist view (the philosophical view) are correct, but the truth lies in pure skepticism of the external world.

I'd also point out that your position is also opposed to Berkeley, who concludes there is no corporeal world. That is to say, the idea of skepticism and questioning what might seem at first glance to be indubitable is part of the fabric of philosophy generally, and good examples could be given in scientific inquiry as well (e.g. Ptolemy versus Copernicus or Newton versus Einstein). It is through doubt of the seemingly obvious that we arrive at new theories.

In any event, Descartes did have reason to doubt. He set out his reasons very clearly in the Meditations.
http://eddiejackson.net/web_documents/Descartes'%20Meditations%20on%20First%20Philosophy.pdf Saying he had no reason to doubt hand waves past all his arguments to the contrary. I'd think to make the argument that his reasons were not valid reasons would require actual laboring with the text.

In any event, I take the thrust of your objection to be that you don't believe Descartes when he says he had doubt, and you suggest he's dishonest at some level in having asserted the doubt he did. Your objection is therefore an ad hom because it hardly matters whether he specifically did doubt what he says to have doubted. The only question is whether the things he doubted were arguably doubtable. I don't follow how it's illogical to question the validity of the senses.

Since your objection does not rest on logical invalidity, it must rest upon some type of pragmatism, where you just don't think this matters at a practical level. That might be, but I don't see an objection that something might not have an impact on my life critical to the question of what is the truth about the world.

Man, Hanover’s stuff hasn’t received any credit. — javra

I know, right?

The evolution of humanity is toward greater life expectancy, less hunger, less strife, less war. I extrapolate from what I see a trajectory toward perfection, not destruction.

Demonstrating again that you address the argument you want to hear, not the argument I am making. — Banno

Yep. Is there someone here who does that? — Banno

An existence of which we can say nothing doesn't count. — Banno

And pretending like the cup is indistinct from the perception of the cup is just pretending to speak of the cup.

join Hanover in failing to commit to the red flower's existing. — Banno

I commit to its existing. I've not argued for idealism.

shows that qualia are not widely accepted in the professional philosophical community. — Banno

The OP asks how useful a discussion of qualia are, and I can't say much time has been spent by me on the topic. I'm open to figuring our how all these hairs are split among the differing choices in the philosopher poll, but I see representationalism entailing some degree of acceptance of qualia. If we admit to a (1) a world and (2) an interpreted phenomenal world, we must admit that phenomenal world has composition and then we must describe those properties some way. What else to call those things and those properties within the phenomenal world other than "qualia"?

That is, it just seems some overlap is necessary among the representationalists and qualia folks.

One of philosophy's greatest mysteries, even more mysterious than the hard problem, is the mystery of how Daniel Dennett ascended to prominence in anglo-american philosophy — sime

I found his book Consciousness Explained useless, as in not making any useful points.

For good measure, here's a measure:

From the PhilPapers Surveys
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

Other 393 / 931 (42.2%)
Accept or lean toward: representationalism 293 / 931 (31.5%)
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory 114 / 931 (12.2%)
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism 102 / 931 (11.0%)
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory 29 / 931 (3.1%) — Banno

"Representationism, also called Representationalism, philosophical theory of knowledge based on the assertion that the mind perceives only mental images (representations) of material objects outside the mind, not the objects themselves. The validity of human knowledge is thus called into question because of the need to show that such images accurately correspond to the external objects. The doctrine, still current in certain philosophical circles, has roots in 17th-century Cartesianism, in the 18th-century empiricism of John Locke and David Hume, and in the idealism of Immanuel Kant."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/representationism

How does this survey result help your position?

If that were right, then there is no point in introducing them into the discussion.

Your reason for supporting the use of qualia is your odd insistence that we only ever say things about our perceptions, and never about the everyday objects that make up our world. It is a symptom of your failure to commit to reality.

And that's my reason for rejecting talk of qualia: it leads to bad philosophy. — Banno

And your problem is that you believe understandable philosophy is the goal as opposed to dealing with the reality that there are experiences of things, which means we have (1) experiences and (2) things, which means we now need to offer descriptions of the (1) experiences and of (2) the things.

It's just an unfortunate reality that reality is composed of two things and this pesky dualism can't be dispensed with simply because it leads to confusion within our philosophical systems, namely that we can best describe our (1) experiences, but not (2) things. That problem is most significant under your construct because the things you hold most obvious are the least obvious. Experiences are the most obvious, and, actually, the only thing we actually know...

I bump into something: an experience. The experience has properties? What is the nature of the properties? Are they experienced? Are they part of the experience itself? Or part of something else not the experience itself; e.g., the experience of reflecting on the experience? And then do we reflect or experience the reflection, & etc., etc., etc.? Or I feel happy (or whatever): an emotion. Or is "emotion" simply a name for a certain kind of experience? And does one know of such things directly or mediately?If directly - immediately - then how? Or if mediately, then what actually and exactly do we know and how do we know it? — tim wood

Asking what properties qualia has is no different from asking what properties an object has. You bump into a cup, what properties does that cup have? It has color, shape, and all sorts of other things.

You have an experience, you can then describe all the properties within it by listing properties you experience, like how you feel cold, anxious, tired, all the while seeing, hearing, and doing all sorts of things, all being a part of your single phenomenal state.

Under this analysis, all perceptions would be held unified under a single moment of consciousness, which is what you bump into. See, Kant's transcendental apperception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_apperception

Not having put out milk last full moon doesn't justify a belief that fairies exist and cursed his cabbages.

Whereas seeing something that looks like a cow in his field may justify his belief that there is a cow in his field. — Michael

To one subscribing to internalism, a justification is valid if one's internal subjective reasons are considered sufficient to hold to a belief.

To one subscribing to externalism, a justification is valid only if there are external facts considered sufficient to hold to a belief.

As to your first statement, I would hold that justification invalid to an internalist. It is incoherent. As to the second statement, the justification is valid to an externalist.

All you never wanted to know on the subject: https://iep.utm.edu/int-ext/

How about books or blacks? — baker

They affect parts of me, not my knees, but probably my emotions, my intellect, my knowledge. Somewhere between my hat and my neck.

You don't impose it, you are subjected to it; that's just what it means to be a subject. — Janus

This confusion arises over how we are referring to the person. I have all along held that a person is composed of a variety of organs, each with their own function. That might seem obvious, but there is a trend within this thread to hold that it's the entire organism that experiences as a single holistic entity. So, it is accurate for me to say that my eye caused me to see the cup (as evidenced by my closed eye no longer seeing the cup). So, yes, I am subjected the image of the cup, but it might well be from another part of my body that I am so subjected to it, including a memory portion of my brain.

There is the belief that the homunculus objection overrides my claims of varying organs having different functions or, more specifically, that certain areas of the brain have particularized functions. The truth is that they do, which protects the homunculus concept from being a fallacy, unless you hold to the incorrect proposition of infinite regress.

An interesting wiki article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus

All of this is to say that there is an "out there," which I don't take to be another world, but the same world, just different objects within it. The "out there" affects me, a conglomerate of parts in many different ways. The cold affects different parts of me in different ways and there's no reason to speak only in the singular "me" as if cold makes me shiver. It does, but it also makes my nose run and my eyes burn.

My nose allows me to smell, which is me doing something to me, which is a thing, and which is not complicated or unusual.

And I know you've not said things to the contrary to much of what I've said to have elicited such a response. I'm just responding to everything right now, sort of as a summation of sorts.

I pointed out that experienced properties of the object are not imposed by us (that is, are not subjectively imposed), then you cited the genesis of non sensorially produced phenomenal states by drugs, brain stimulation, tumors and brain dysfunction, and I pointed out that those are not imposed by us either.

So I was just purporting to refute your claim is all. — Janus

My position is that you have an experience, and it might be caused by a variety of things, but the sensation itself ultimately was caused by your brain, or some such internal faculty that experiences. It's like asking what caused the blip on the radar screen. The wave bounced off the object, did this, did that, and then a blip. A malfunctioning screen might also create blips as might a blip appear if we stick a probe in the circuitry. What ultimately caused the blip is a causal chain question like any other. We can look to first initiating cause or last cause, much like what caused the billiard ball to fall in the hole. Was it my muscle contraction, the cue, the slope of the table, the resiliency of the various other balls, etc.?

What are the chances you'd be able to do it if you weren't experiencing the same words on the screen? Even if you copy and paste the words you'd still need to interpret the scribbles, "copy and paste" the same way I do. — Harry Hindu

I don't think either of us disagree with whether we are speaking to one another intelligibly. The disagreement is whether there has to be a common point of reference in order to do so. I don't see why there must be, considering we speak of pain to one another, yet there is no pain outside the phenomenal state to point to to be sure we're speaking of the same thing.

We both look at a cup and we may have no idea what part of the cup is descriptive of the cup and what are things we impose in order to better navigate our world. It's likely we see the cup the same way, but not necessarily so, and it's not required in order for us to speak of the cup.

well done apocalypse (as opposed to a half-assed piece of rubbish) raises this unpleasant question: If our light of the world could be so easily extinguished, what earthly good were we in the first place? A lot less than we like to think. — Bitter Crank

Don't be clouded by the apocalyptic visions of Christianity, That is but one vision, which lacks the unrestrained positivity inherent in other traditions.

In the end everything will be perfect. If things aren't perfect, it must not be the end

The generally positive trajectory of civilization, with decreased suffering, greater cures for ailments, increased prosperity, and an overall improvement in all important measures, would indicate the end of the world would be a vision of no war, and no suffering.

The end here, unless one has a literal messianic vision of the rising of the dead, would be metaphorical, as a new age of universal cooperation is ushered in.

Those are also imposed on us though, aren't they? — Janus

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Every event has a cause.

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not. — Janus

I've acknowledged it's causative, but there other ways to evoke phenomenal states other than perceptual input, like chemicals, electrodes in the brain, tumors, mental dysfunction.

The noumenal certainly doesn't seem very helpful but have you ever heard any of Kant's jokes? — Tom Storm

There's a very small audience for such jokes, right?