There's a lot here I can agree with. But pursuing all that would result in scattering of time and attention. So I've tried to identify what is at the heart of what you say.
But I can't resist answering your question:-

And this (fool) very educated man deigns to suggest that it's enacting is easy? — Chet Hawkins

No, he certainly did not. He found it all very difficult indeed, and didn't make things particularly easy for his readers. His early work certainly emphasized analysis, logic and structure. But he changed his mind! (Shock! Horror!) His later work moved away from all of that.

Three quotations seem to set out your map:-

Fear is all order, all thought, all analysis, all logic, all structure. I am not saying it represents those things. It literally IS those things. Likewise, desire is all freedom, chaos, becoming, etc. — Chet Hawkins

The axis of good and evil is unlike the other one. With order and chaos, balance is the right way. That is ... understanding, wisdom. But there is no BALANCE in the axis of GOOD and evil. It is actually only rising amounts of GOOD, so evil is nothing special, only less GOOD. — Chet Hawkins

Anger demands you stand to the mystery. Desire pulls you towards perfection and only a living universe can respond, so it is alive, and it does. Evolution towards greater moral agency is a law of the universe. — Chet Hawkins

All very neat and tidy. But it looks to me like a large-scale sketch - too large scale and too sketchy to be much help. Possibly you have more to say, but you seem to be in a great hurry to get everything settled.
I'm saying that concepts here are much more complicated and ambivalent than you recognize.

Fear can underlie the search for order and certainty. But it can also produce panic and chaos. What it means to say that "anger demands you stand to the mystery" is not clear to me. Desire certainly can pull you towards perfection, but it can also pull you in the opposite direction - even against your better judgement. Order can be oppression and restriction, but it can also be opportunity and freedom. I can understand evil as the absence or opposite of good, but what is good or evil depends on the context; the same is true of perfection. (And perfection can oppress and imprison just as surely as it can liberate). From where I sit, the universe is completely indifferent (not hostile, I grant you) to my desires and emotions. I'm not at all sure that wisdom, understanding and intelligence, though admittedly related, are clearly enough defined to be of use in whatever you are trying to say about them.

You remind me of Plato's journey of the soul. But he gave huge importance to love, which seems to be missing from your sketch. I miss it.

.. and H. acknowledges only three modes of being, one of which is true of everything that is. (Is that the right word to use here?
That's makes it all clear enough. Take it or leave it. — Ludwig V

I am not really certain of what you mean by that. — Arne

My summary was badly expressed, so my meaning was entirely obscured. There are the modes of being, so we need to understand, not only the three modes, but what they are modes of. We have existence, ready-to-hand, present-at-hand and being. The last of these is common to the other three, perhaps in the way that colour applies to all the colours, and yet every colour is a specific colour, or perhaps in the way that wood is common to everything that is made of wood, and yet every wooden object is a specific object or something else?

Existence is constitutive of Dasein much as roundness is constitutive of a circle. You cannot add existence to Dasein any more than you can add roundness to a circle. Existence belongs to Dasein much as roundness belongs to a circle. Dasein is a unitary phenomenon rather than a collection of parts. — Arne

"Constitutive" is an interesting idea here. Aristotle draws a distinction (I don't have a reference ready to hand) between components of something that have an independent existence and can actually be separated out - laid on a bench beside each other, for example - and components that cannot be separated out, except "in thought". So, we can think of a single shape as both convex or concave, and we cannot think of a concave shape, without also thinking of a convex shape. I can see the relationship between existence and Dasein in the latter way rather than the former. Does that capture what you are saying?

For example, it you examine his description of Dasein and recognize yourself in it, then why in the world would you not keep going? — Arne

Because Dasein seems more like a point of view than a subjective view. A point of view is impersonal and objective. Yet it can be occupied or adopted by an individual, but in now way recognizes individuals as such. Recognizing myself just means recognizing the possibility of adopting that point of view. I can, as it happens, recognize Dasein as a possible point of view, but not myself in it.
What I find much more helpful is his conceptions of Ready-to-hand and Present-at-hand and some of his remarks about rivers, bridges, temples in a landscape. Yet even there, I have difficulty. I don't quite see why everything that exists must be one or the other.

But Heidegger did choose the phenomenological method because it is descriptive. You can decide whether you agree with Heidegger by looking at the description he gives to the phenomena he describes. — Arne

Many philosophers would complain that because he does not indulge in argument as such, he is dictatorial, or rather oracular (echoes of Popper's Open Society. But I don't dismiss him on those grounds. Wittgenstein is not dissimilar, in that he presents examples and comments, leaving it up to his reader to think through what they mean. (It is an idea that is found in a few other philosophers at the time, such as Anscombe)
Nonetheless, if you describe what Heidegger presents as a description, you allow the question of truth or falsity to arise. I suggest it would be more helpful to describe him as presenting an interpretation, which avoids the question of truth, since variant interpretations may be valid or appropriate at the same time. Of course, it demands a wider tolerance of variant views than philosophers are comfortable with. But it may be more realistic for our actual situation.

Nobody has to choose between philosophers. And being internally consistent does not make a philosopher any more or less correct than any other philosopher. But it does make it easier to understand what they are saying. — Arne

In one way, you are right. But in another way, we all make choices in everything we do. No-one can read everything, and so we must decide what we pay attention to. That decision is much more difficult than it seems, because it must be made without knowing what we will find when we pay attention to something. Our choices are dictated by the environment we find ourselves in and how we respond to that we find there.

And besides, it is more important to understand what Heidegger has to say than it is to agree or disagree with him. And as difficult as it may be, it is worth understanding what Heidegger has to say. — Arne

I agree with that. Not that there is ever a point at which I can sit back and say that I have now understood Heidegger or Wittgenstein or .... Perhaps it is enough, given that we cannot find the end of philosophy, to understand the answers that have been found worth taking seriously.

What I mean is that the difference between "arbitrary" (as you put it) and "subjective", IMO, is the difference between nihilism and existentialism, respectively. — 180 Proof

I can see that.
It seems to me that the difference between nihilism is that the nihilist is committed to not being committed and the existentialist is not yet committed, but will be. Would that be right?
There seems to be a difference between Kierkegaard and Sartre/Camus. Kierkegaard bewails his inability to make the leap of faith, which suggests that when the leap is made, it is a voluntary action. But whether one can make that leap does not solely depend on whether one wants to or not. Sartre and Camus don't seem to recognize that ambivalence - their heroes don't bewail their uncommitted status, and Mathieu's final commitment seems to happen to him without his co-operation or resistance. Would that be correct?

Applying any predicate to any entity not having the characteristics of Dasein will not cause that entity to "exist." — Arne

I think I understand the rest of what you say. But this suggests to me that applying any entity having the characteristics of Dasein will cause that entity to exist. ???

Existence is Dasein's and only Dasein's mode of being. — Arne

.. and H. acknowledges only three modes of being, one of which is true of everything that is. (Is that the right word to use here?
That's makes it all clear enough. Take it or leave it.

Assuming we allow every other philosopher the same license, it seems that each philosophy exists in its own silo. How does an outsider choose between them? On grounds of internal consistency? Is that enough?

Imagine a mind that could look up at the sun and believe it to be a God, unfettered by a massive cultural embeddedness and a high school and college education. — Astrophel

I grant you that the ancient people who thought that the sun was a god were unfettered by our culture and upbringing. It would seem that we have developed a culture that can free us from their cultural limitations. Consequently we can, to some extent, imagine ourselves in their place. But that does not mean that we are not ourselves limited in other ways. But they were surely fettered by their culture and upbringing. Unless culture and upbringing are not simply fetters but are the conditions of the possibility of thinking at all.

I think the hard part of philosophy is determining if it is at all possible to say that there is something that is not language, not a construct, with neither a long historical lineage, nor a brief personal one. — Astrophel

If it is not possible to say that already, it never will be.
Philosophers can say "let's free ourselves from all assumptions" and think that the thing is done in the saying of it. As if you could draw a picture without drawing a first line or, better, play/sing a tune without defining the notes. The preliminaries do not restrict us, but enable these things to be done.

What is a world without all the thinking? — Astrophel

Whatever it is, it is not the world that we know. Once you have developed the skill of making pictures or making music, you cannot go back and unmake it. One of the distinctive features of the sub-atomic world is that we have to acknowledge that the act of observation disrupts the objects we observe. We cannot go back and unmake our existence and intervention in the world.

Science's Jupiter is first a phenomenological construct, and science sits like a superstructure on top of this essential phenomenological structure. — Astrophel

One does this by making the phenomenological move: what is there after we eject all of the superfluous thinking? Science does this with its regions of inquiry, the same rigor here. — Astrophel

Here's what really bothers me about this. We talk of "phenomena" as if they existed independently of reality. But an appearance is always an appearance of something. When the sun appears from behind a cloud or the moon or rises, as we say, above the horizon, there are not two things, the sun and its appearance, but one thing, the sun appearing. When we are confused by the bent stick in water, there are not two things, the stick and its appearance, but one thing, the stick appearing to be bent. So the entire project of phenomenology rests on a specific ontology, which is taken for granted; this way of thinking about things is part of the preparation for the project, so cannot be lightly abandoned. But other ways of thinking are available.

I'm not saying that phenomenology is wrong, just that it is not the only game in town. We remain free to choose which game to play and when. Language, knowing and thinking are not complete and consistent wholes and so they afford us opportunities as well as imposing restrictions.

In some sense and for existentialists, existence is the predicate. — Arne

I'm clutching at straws here. At first sight, you may be saying that existence is the "is" in any predicate.
Do you mean something like "existence is the possibility of attaching any predicate to something" or maybe something along the lines that if you apply any predicate to something, that something exists.

In turn, existence is that mode of being that belongs to Dasein and only to Dasein — Arne

Does that mean that Dasein is the only thing that exists? I suppose if Da sein means something like "there is", that would make some sense. "exists" is a bastard concoction, and I wish it could be abolished in favour of "there is". But it would make it a lot harder to formulate a lot of philosophy. Perhaps that's a good thing.

How do we relate meaning to the physical world? It does seem clear in the interactions, but not the ... essence ... of the physical world. — Chet Hawkins

Perhaps it is enough to understand the interactions.

You are ONLY saying for us (or Wittgenstein and you, less me as a dread assertion) these training wheels of 'safe frictioned ground' are still needed. — Chet Hawkins

Not quite the intended meaning. Wittgenstein was saying that the ideal world seems more comprehensible, but that is largely illusion. In order to make progress, we need resistance, and that requires the rough ground. For him, it is the ideal that has the training wheels, and the rough ground is where the work gets done.

The seeds of moral agency are not amenable to the arbitrary science that in its failing cannot explain why the universe is alive. I mean science admits that SOME parts are alive. But in understanding unity and belonging, the real understanding is that anything IS anything else in the final sense. — Chet Hawkins

I can sort of follow the first two sentences here - except that the reason science cannot explain why the universe is alive is that not all of the universe is alive. But the fact that science cannot explain something doesn't tell us very much at all. The last sentence here is beyond my understanding, as is the rest of the paragraph. I can see that you are arguing that wisdom is more than intelligence. I wouldn't disagree with that. But I don't see where it gets us.

How about 'subjective commitment' instead? — 180 Proof

I'm not sure what you're getting at. But it's not about the commitment, thought there's plenty to say about that. It's about which of three/four possible commitments to make and what would be good reasons to prefer one over another.

No, indeed, I am never so prosaic as that. — Chet Hawkins

I can see what you mean in what you write.
"Prosaic" is a complex idea, and quite annoying for those in a poetic or transcendental state of mind. Those are much more exciting.
Nonetheless, what is ordinary, everyday, and commonplace is what we start from and will return to. More than that, what is extraordinary and exciting, if prolonged, will become prosaic. We cannot do without poetry and we cannot do without prose.
I would rather say that I find it necessary to keep my feet (or at least one foot or toe) on the ground. You say: -

So defining that non-physical realm of Plato's forms is much more important and essential, than our keen grasp of the obvious insistence on practical physical matters in the world today all about us would easily show. — Chet Hawkins

But Wittgenstein finds that the ideal, logical forms are indeed perfection and consequently are like a smooth, frictionless surface. He observes:-

"We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!" (Philosophical Investigations Section 107).

The ONLY thing in all of existence, including physical matter, is the state of free will, inflicting every particle in the universe with the burden of choice. — Chet Hawkins

If you had said that every particle in the universe was free, I could have more or less followed you. What it means to say that every particle in the universal is burdened with choice escapes me entirely.
Communication requires a shared context. Given this starting-point, I'm afraid that we have a serious communication problem.

Profuse apologies.

I'm afraid I haven't understood properly how the software the works when one quotes a quotation.

In any case, "being-in-the-world", "freedom" and "will-to-power" do not seem to me, according to primary sources, either synonymous with each other or equivalent to "existence". — 180 Proof

Of course you are right. But that leaves me with three possibilities and no way of choosing between them or assessing which of them is correct. Actually, I expect that all of them are correct on their own terms. But that doesn't help very much. I'm just trying to work out how to deal with that. An existential (arbitrary) commitment doesn't seem very satisfactory.

That's why I said that they are inter-related. What I meant is something like this. Freedom is nothing without the power to do what you want. The power to do what you want is what makes freedom real. Both pre-suppose a world as the possibilities and hindrances that you choose from and act within.

The notion of essence as qualities grafted on to existence is a rationalizing of moral agency in a light we consider most favorable. — Arne

There is a great deal packed into this sentence.
It does seem to me that the Humean separation of fact and value should really be considered more carefully. It seems inescapable that fact and value, although distinct, are interwoven in language in order to serve human interests and capacities. What would be the point of language if that were not so? It does seem that it would be more helpful to articulate the ways in which they interact rather than simply trying to separate them into separate discourses.
The notion of essence as qualities grafted on to existence is a metaphor that applies a model that may work quite well up to a point, but can seriously mislead us. We need to resist the tendency to apply the same model to all concepts and to be much more alive to the differences between them. for example, I've always wondered whether the Kantian claim that existence is not a predicate is consistent with the way that we talk about essence and existence in the context of existentialism. I can't believe that either Heidegger or Sartre were unaware of Kant. Are they contradicting him?

Heidegger says our existence is our essence and Sartre misinterprets Heidegger as saying existence precedes essence and now we all proceed as if if "existence precedes essence" is an existential given. — Arne

That's quite true. Though perhaps it is more true in Anglophone philosophy than elsewhere. I've encountered the claim before, but somehow I've missed the argument that shows that it is true. I feel I'm left with a blind choice, so I'm not happy. Thinking about it, I'm inclined to understand Sartre's "precedes" as a metaphor; but he doesn't seem to give us much to interpret it. Since the concept of bare existence seems incomprehensible, Heidegger's formulation seems more plausible, so I'm inclined to go with that. But I don't believe that I really understand either concept.

Heidegger, Sartre, and Nietzsche are saying that existence is our essence, i.e., being-in-the-world is our essence, freedom is our essence, will to power is our essence. — 180 Proof

Intuitively, I feel that there;s a good point here. These do seem to be inter-related concepts, But we need to think of essence as dynamic, constantly changing. The difficulty here is that if we regard essence as what endures through change, which, if I've understood correctly, was what Aristotle was after - in oder to reconcile Heraclitus with Parmenides. But it seems entirely appropriate, not only to the Heraclitean river, but also to human life.

Free will and choice are the only essence in existence. — Chet Hawkins

I assume you mean "in the existence of humans as people".

Thank you for this. I need to think about how to reply.

Then you also do not understand what causal link is -- and this is what the BIV theory is pointing out. — L'éléphant

I wouldn't claim to understand what a causal link is. Tracking back our exchanges here, I realize that we have both been indulging a favourite trope in philosophy - accusing the other of not understanding what something is because the other has a different philosophical idea of what it is. It isn't at all constructive.
My current favourite examples is Searle:-

I think we all really have conscious states. To remind everyone of this fact I asked my readers to perform the small experiment of pinching the left forearm with the right hand to produce a small pain.

New York Review - Searle vs Dennett
Which begs to the question.

But we're also trying to respect the topic of the thread, so we're a bit trapped.

On the BiV, I had the impression that the Putnam's intention was to point out that Descartes' nightmare is an empirical possibility and that the causal theory of reference was presupposed. But I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about that.
The basis of my scepticism about what the BiV establishes is the private language argument (Stanford Encyclopedia)

I agree that reference is established by some sort of baptism ceremony (ostensive definition), though what that might consist of in practice is very flexible. We can think of two ceremonies. One establishes the public use of the term (think of the public naming of a ship); the other establishes the use for a specific speaker. In either case, there needs to be some sort of historical story that connects the ceremony with each occasion of use. Whether that amounts to a causal link depends heavily on one's definition of causality.
In addition, what one says about the BiV depends on whether what is referred to by a given term depends on the intention of the speaker or on the publicly established use of the term. Both theories are viable, in the sense that there are some philosophers who accept each of them. I think each has its place.

Right sentiment, wrong example. — L'éléphant

I wasn't happy with the example when I wrote it down. I was writing in haste and couldn't think of anything better.
But there is a problem. I am reminded of the paradox in the Meno about how one can recognize new knowledge when one is looking for it. Here, the paradox is that I must know something about the item I am referring to if I am to refer to it. So in one sense, I must know what a mule is when I refer to it. At the same time, it seems just obvious that I can refer to my mule (who is called "Freddy") without knowing that it is, by definition, an animal whose mother is a horse and whose father is a donkey. Perhaps you can think of a better example? (Though there may be more than one way.)

our "difference" is not challenged, but the way this difference is expressed in language remains contextually bound. — Astrophel

Yes, that's the possibility I was getting at. In addition, I was hinting at the possibility that the "truth" or maybe just something deeper (whatever that means) might lie in the totality or intersection of the different ideas that have been presented (assuming that each of them works in its own context). That's not really a particularly exotic idea.
So how might we proceed? Let's start by identifying where we agree.

it is impossible to affirm an ontology without affirming an epistemology simply because it is, after all, an affirmation, and this is an epistemic idea. — Astrophel

Yes. I want to add that language is an essential part of knowledge, at least in philosophical discourse, so we need to bear that in mind. Also, what an affirmation is may turn out to be complicated. Not all affirmations are the same. For example, affirmation of God's existence is not simply an empirical scientific hypothesis - or so I believe.

Any attempt to talk about 'material substance," say, as foundational ontology apart from epistemology has no basis in observation and is just bad metaphysics. Observation here is meant in the most general sense: something must conform to the principles of phenomenology, which is to say, it must "appear". Appearing is the basis for being. — Astrophel

Yes, Berkeley had to amend his slogan to "esse" is "percipi aut percipere", thus allowing that inference from an appearance to an unseen reality was not always illegitimate. That enables him to allow not only that he, as perceiver, but also other people (minds) and God exist. (He classified these additional entities as "notions" rather than "ideas", so that his principle was, he thought, preserved.) This seems to me to undermine his argument somewhat. But you only assert that appearance is the basis of being. So I think you could accept adding "capable of being perceived" to the slogan. (My Latin lets me down here.) I can accept that, though I might be more generous than you in what I consider what might appear to us or what might count as the appearing of something to us.

what is there in experience makes religion what it is, grounded in the world rather than in the extraordinary imaginations religious people. — Astrophel

I agree that the conventional dismissal of the existence of God is not the end of the discussion and that an understanding (explanation) of the phenomenon (if you'll allow that word to apply in this context) is desirable and should be available. But whether that is possible without taking sides in the argument is not at all clear to me.

Other words can also express this theme that distinguishes phenomenology from all other sciences: demonstration [monstration], disclosure, pure manifestation, pure revelation, or even the truth, if taken in its absolutely original sense. It is interesting to note that these keywords of phenomenology are also for many the keywords of religion and theology. — Astrophel

I'm puzzled about the "epoche" which I would have thought was meant to distinguish phenomenology not only from all other sciences, but also from religion and theology. Also, I would have thought that "demonstration [monstration], disclosure, pure manifestation, pure revelation, or even the truth," were also keywords for science. I must have misunderstood something. Perhaps I haven't understood "monstration" which I think quite specifically means the display of the host to the congregation. I don't see how that can be clearly distinguished from the display of an experiment to its audience.

Exactly. :smile:

Why does it strike you as narrow minded? — frank

Because it doesn't recognize the complexity and variety of the things that we do.

Compare the Watsonian behaviourists who analyzed everything that we do into stimulus and response. It has a sort of rough and ready plausibility, but it doesn't get near to analyzing what people do. Skinner improved things because he added the idea that conditioning starts with spontaneous actions. Still it doesn't get near to understanding because we do some things for a purpose.

The utilitarians are so called because the first formulations of the theory proposed the we should maximize utility. Now, they talk about benefit because they had to recognize that not everything that we value is "useful". That is better, but still not comprehensive enough.

Aristotle was the first to recognize the hierarchy of action and purpose. I put down my book in order to get up from the chair in order to walk to the kitchen in order to open the fridge door, in order to get out a beer, in order to open it in order to drink it. At the end of the chain, there must be, Aristotle says, something that is done "for its own sake" and not "for the sake of something else". It's far from perfect, but something like it is clearly correct.

Sometimes people go for a walk for pleasure and specifically not for any purpose (useful). Hedonists and Epicureans say that we do everything for pleasure. The pleasure is not necessarily anything we do in addition to the walking as when we walk and talk; but often the pleasure is the walking. Is pleasure useful? What for? But pleasure is too narrow to capture all the things we do "for their own sake" unless you stretch it to include all the really important things in life, which are done for their own sake.

That Wikipedia article has a nice example of the confusions here:-

Mead theorized that human beings begin their understanding of the social world through "play" and "game". Play comes first in the child's development. The child takes different roles that he/she observes in "adult" society, and plays them out to gain an understanding of the different social roles. For instance, a child may first play the role of police officer and then the role of thief while playing "Cops and Robbers", and play the roles of doctor and patient when playing "Doctor". As a result of such play, the child learns to become both subject and object and begins to become able to build a self. However, it is a limited self, because the child can only take the role of distinct and separate others; they still lack a more general and organized sense of themselves.

There is no distinction drawn here between the child's motivation and the result of the child's behaviour. No child ever plays in order to "learn to become both subject and object" even though that's the result of the play and evolution no doubt exploits that result. Some people seem completely unable to recognize that anything can be without purpose, so we get long explanations about art and morality (and even science) that seek to reduce them to something "useful".

I hope that helps.

I wouldn't know about that. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention Heidegger.

But he does seem to have had some views that are vaguely reminiscent of him - and that are interesting for this thread (first tenet):-

Pragmatism is a wide-ranging philosophical position from which several aspects of Mead's influences can be identified into four main tenets:
1 True reality does not exist "out there" in the real world, it "is actively created as we act in and toward the world".
2 People remember and base their knowledge of the world on what has been useful to them and are likely to alter what no longer "works".
3 People define the social and physical "objects" they encounter in the world according to their use for them.
4 If we want to understand actors, we must base that understanding on what people actually do.

I wish pragmatists would find something less narrow-minded than "useful". This is also of interest:-

Three of these ideas are critical to symbolic interactionism:
1 the focus on the interaction between the actor and the world;
2 a view of both the actor and the world as dynamic processes and not static structures; and
3 the actor's ability to interpret the social world.

It's very odd. There seems to be a lot of activity around this topic now.

You may be right that it was just something that was in the air at the time.

I tracked the idea of role theory in sociology back to George Herbert Mead - Wikipedia. Nothing earlier.

Brilliant! But has there not been anything vouchsafed for the fly, that is, embedded IN the delimited world of fly existence. Not the sky that summons like an impossible "over there," as the fly conceives the over there from the "in here" that establishes the distance to be spanned. It depends on the details of the carry over of meaning from the metaphor to the relevance at hand, which is our metaphysical quandary. A Buddhist would say the distance between fly and exit is no distance at all. We are always already the Buddha! Wittgenstein would agree, but in his own way. We should be silent about that which cannot be spoken, but only to leave the latter unconditioned by interpretative imposition, that maligns and distorts. For Witt, he says briefly, the good is the divine. Language has no place here. — Astrophel

Thanks. But your subsequent comments opened up lines of thought that I have not explored before. Thank you also for that. I settled for the opening up of language beyond truth, falsity and description, the recognition of human knowledge as not necessarily entirely a matter of propositions and human life as more than knowledge as penetrating the Tractatus silence. But this (and this thread) is something else.

As to "But has there not been anything vouchsafed for the fly, that is, embedded IN the delimited world of fly existence. Not the sky..." I can't really grasp the viewpoint of the fly, but watching the behaviour of the insects caught in this trap does give some basis for some sort of empathy. Their behaviour is uncomprehending, furious, frustration and incredulity, expressed in repeating the same futile attempt to batter through the obstacle. (I did once walk straight into a glass wall that I had not noticed, and it was indeed completely bewildering, so I deeply sympathize with them.) Their eventual escape seems to be the result of a strategy - to back off and try again, - but each new attempt is random and eventual escape is the result of pure luck. They do give the impression of being delighted by their success and it is easy to empathize with that. Since one doesn't know why they are trying to get out through the window, it's hard to guess how they conceive what lies beyond it. As you say, it isn't the sky. Perhaps freedom is enough.

But the point, and the delight, of the metaphor lies in the difference between their understanding and the more comprehensive human view. So one point of it lies in the limitations of a specific point of view and the better understanding that can be gained from a different one - changing the game, so to speak. Pedestrian as it is, that certainly seems to apply to the problem of this thread.

In connection with that, the futility of the insect battering itself against the glass reminds me of the futility of our battering ourselves against the circle that language points beyond itself and yet there can be nothing beyond itself. I'm not convinced by any of the candidates for breaking this down. They are all suggestive in some way, but all seem to involve yet more words. Perhaps we need a change of viewpoint.

I don't say that Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Buddhists are all just plain wrong. Perhaps they are right, or partly right. Perhaps.

But, just for fun, here is another possibility. We approach this question by distinguishing language and world, epistemology and ontology, and then trying to work out how to get beyond the first to reach the second. But language also has its place in ontology (language exists). So if language is part of the world, perhaps we needs to understand it, and knowledge, by starting with the world and working out the place(s) and ways that they exist in it, taking their origin from it.

He stepped beyond the very line he drew explaining the way out. Russell called him a mystic. Wittgenstein then walked away, for he knew they, the positivists, had missed the point: it wasn't about the lack of meaning in the world. It was about language's inability make statements about logic wouldn't allow (in the Tractatus). This frees meaning rather than inhibits it. — Astrophel

I see two different representations of the issues at play in this. They are often confused. The context in which Witt. talked about silence in the Tractatus, was a very narrow, restrictive notion of language. He (and Russell) approached everything in the context of logic - i.e. truth and falsity, the use of language to describe, the project of theory. So, in the Tractatus, what you and I would say were other, non-descriptive uses of language were not saying anything - silent - and were therefore meaningless. So when Russell called Witt. a mystic, he was not wrong, because Witt. did use the word "ineffable", but was not using it in quite the traditional sense of the word. But this generalizes the narrow, technical disagreement between them so that other issues appear to be included in its scope and, because Witt. is so hermetic in the Tractatus, it is very hard to be sure what scope he thought his ideas actually had/have.
Having said that, whatever exactly is going on here, he was indeed at least pointing to, or showing, something beyond the limits of what he thought language is and that does, in a way, free meaning, as you say. This leads us to meaning beyond language, language pointing beyond itself. Which is where we came in.
How far this issue is still in play in his later work is very hard to discern, except that he certainly doesn't work through arguments with premises and conclusions. He is much more interested in presenting examples and cases and letting us work things out for ourselves. How far he was imitated is another question.

Indeed, I came upon it a bit later, in the late 1950s, and it became popular among young, adventurous men - particularly from California - looking for a path forward that was new and exciting. — jgill

Yes, a new and exciting path forward was very much the theme at the time. I was aware of it in the late fifties and early sixties. Without realizing it at the time, my existential choice was made in the late sixties when I abandoned a conventional career I had started in favour of philosophy. It was a quite revolutionary step in my life, but was not consciously based on existentialism. I jjust hated the social environment I was working in. I didn't look seriously at existentialism until some ten years later when I found myself teaching Being and Nothingness to undergraduates. That was quite an eye-opener for me, and it has remained influential even though I never signed up, as it were. The intellectual influences in the late sixties were indeed different; that's a complicated question.

Existentialism starts with a separation between the role you're playing and some other amorphous thing: call it Being, spirit, etc. The point is that you have a choice regarding the role you invest yourself in. — frank

Yes. It's an important idea, at least in Sartre. This is where the tricky ideas of bad faith and authenticity come in. (I don't know the others well enough to be sure how they deal with this. I'm sure you are aware of the difficulties about these ideas. I would have included it in my post, but, to be honest, I felt it was long enough already and I was a bit short of time.

Part of that was the Nuremberg trials in which Nazi soldiers were asked to explain their actions. According to folklore, they said they were soldiers, and they were doing as they were told. — frank

There's much I don't know about Nuremberg, but they did choose to concentrate on the highest officials. I don't know whether they just didn't bother with the rank and file, or felt it would have been unfair to regard them as being as much responsible for what went on as the those in command. I do know that Eichmann tried this defence when he was tried in Israel and it was rightly rejected.

I agree that the distinction between the role I'm playing and who I am is very important here. But I don't think it was specifically based on existentialism, though it's more than likely that Hannah Arendt would have discussed it in her writing on Eichmann's trial.

The entire paper is one hypothesis. There are not more that I am aware of. — noAxioms

I wasn't sure whether to call the three numbered propositions you quoted hypotheses or axioms or what. I see that you call them possibilities, which is fine by me.

I posted his definition of 'posthuman', which is, in short, a level of technology capable of running the numbers he underestimates, and far worse, capable of simulating a posthuman set of machines doing similar simulations. — noAxioms

You did indeed. I didn't pay enough attention. Sorry. On the other hand, I'm not sure that it really matters very much whether we classify a civilisation with that technology as post-human or not.

There are no dinosaurs (which, unlike humans, is a collection of species). The vast majority of those species were simply ousted. They have no descendants. But some do, and the alligators and birds are their descendants. They are not dinosaurs because none of them is sexually compatible with any species that was around when the asteroid hit. They are post-dinosaur. — noAxioms

You are right. I think that's a better articulation than mine. I reckoned that picking a specific species would have the same problem as dinosaurs, since there can many sub-species of a given species, not to mention varieties of species and sub-species.

Prediction of what? A simulation of history makes no predictions. A simulation of the future is needed for that, hence the weather predictors. — noAxioms

Yes. This is muddled. Sorry. I was thinking of Bostrom's predictions.

To guess at the question, no simulation of any past Earth state will produce 'what actually happens', especially if that simulation is of evolutionary history. There is for instance no way to predict what children anybody will have, or when, so none of the famous people we know will appear in any simulation. Again, Bostrom seems entirely ignorant of such things, and of chaos theory in general. — noAxioms

Yes, that is what I was after. Thanks.

One can imagine the machine race actually getting curious about their origins, and knowing about humans and presumably having some DNA still around, they might run simulations in attempt to see how machines might emerge from that. — noAxioms

They might, and they might not. Imagination is a great thing. However, I can imagine several different scenarios. It seems to me quite likely that we will fail to control climate change and fail to adapt sufficiently, so either reverting to a pre-technological society or dying out. Or we might develop effective space flight and colonization and leave Earth. Or some idiot might starts an all-out war - atomic, biological and chemical. Or we realize the threat from the machines and destroy all the machines that might threaten us before they can take over. Or aliens might arrive and knock heads together until sanity is established. The possibilities are endless. I'm spoilt for choice. Like Buridan's ass, I need a reason to choose which to take seriously.

It seems to me that the person who would seek to disprove the second premise would need to prove that consciousness can arise in a simulation of something much more simplistic than the world we find ourselves in, or that it will be a routine matter for a post-human civilization to take all of the matter in a big solar system, and use it to model a smaller solar systems. — wonderer1

I didn't pay enough attention to "extremely unlikely" in this hypothesis/axiom/premiss. That can't be verified or falsified in any of the usual ways. Your arguments are suggestive in support of it. But I can't see them as conclusive.
I agree also that a claim that consciousness can arise in certain circumstances is probably unfalsifiable. But it can be verified, if we find a case where consciousness does arise in those circumstances.
The contradictory of this proposition is "any posthuman civilization is certain to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)", which is not meaningless or self-contradictory, so "any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)" cannot be a priori.
So I classify the proposition under discussion as empirical.

Philosophical discussions often start so many hares that I find myself trying to juggle several different lines of thought at the same time. Back to the matter in hand is a very good idea. I had looked up the original idea, but had little idea about how to tackle it. This was very helpful. Thank you.

I take your point about the limitations of what we could ever do. So, this being philosophy, I try to take the argument a little further.
Sticking to the question of what is practical, for the moment, couldn't one adopt the kind of approach that the weather forecasters (and, I believe, physicists trying to work out fluid dynamics, which is probably the same problem) have adopted? It seems to work, within its limits. Of course, it doesn't raise the scary possibilities about our individual lives that we have been discussing, but it could provide evidence for or against Bostrom's hypotheses.
Comment - this possibility high-lights for me a question about Bostrom's first two hypotheses. They seem to me to be empirical. But I don't see how one could ever demonstrate that they are true or even plausible without some sort of evidence. Without that one could never demonstrate any consequence of them as sound, as opposed to valid. En masse simulations could provide such evidence.

That would require us to define what is meant by "post-human" and "extinction". Then we would have to deal with the difference between two different possibilities. We may go extinct and be replaced (or ousted) by some other form of life or we may evolve into something else (and replace or oust our evolutionary predecessors).
Problem - Given that inheritance is not exact copy and the feed-back loop of survival to reproduction works on us just as surely as on everything else, can we exactly define the difference between these two possibilities? They say that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and that mammals took over as dominant species from dinosaurs. Which possibility was realized for dinosaurs? Both, it seems.
Another problem. Given that a feed-back loop is at work on these phenomena, can prediction ever be reliable? (This is the same problem as economics faces, of course).

The third hypothesis suffers, for me, from recognizing that it is very hard to see exactly how to draw the distinction between living in a sim as opposed to living as we do. (I mean the proposition that we are already brains in a vat.) One difference is, that we seem able to distinguish between reality as it is and reality as it seems to be - and it is our experience that enables us to do so. (That means recognizing that our experience is not a complete and consistent whole, but presents itself as inconsistent and incomplete.) The brain-in-a-vat scenario not only assumes that our experience is a complete and consistent whole, but imagines a different and wildly implausible actual reality - though not one that is in principle undiscoverable - without a shred of evidence.

The function of Existentialists values is to liberate humankind from craven fear, petty anxiety and apathy or tedium. Existentialists values intensify consciousness, arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies — Rob J Kennedy

I assume this quotation is from Hazel Barnes.
It gives me a a starting-point to explain my attitude to existentialism.
The quotation suggests that it belongs alongside Stoicism and Epicureanism (and perhaps Scholastic Christianity and Buddhism) in that basing a way of life on a philosophy of life. I realize that the distinction is a complicated, but it enables me to articulate my own attitude.

As a way of life, existentialism had and has considerable appeal. Despite its tendency to atheism (though there are or were Christian Existentialists and Kierkegaard), it has the classic elements of a religion - a diagnosis of the human condition and a recipe for escaping it. (The escape, of course, is explained by Hazel Barnes' quotation "Existentialists values ........ arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies." This recipe is more or less content-free so differs from full-on religions.)

This explains, I would think, why it became so influential across so many fields. The, as it were innate, appeal, was surely reinforced by the post-war world and the coincidence that Sartre and de Beauvoir appeared on the scene at that time. It captured and reinforced the liberation experienced by many people as WW2 ended. (After thought - It would be quite wrong to think that the end of WW2 in any way influenced Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or Heidegger or Sartre. The development of existentialism must surely have been influenced by the nineteenth and possibly the early twentieth century. I'm only saying that the end of WW2 affected the reception of it.)

I think it deserves to be up there with Stoicism &c and so to be a serious contribution to the philosophical tradition. But no, I'm not going to sign up.

Why?

I don't intend to try to find fault with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre all at the same time. But here's one fundamental issue I choose to discuss. I think it is clearest in Sartre, though I could be wrong.

The starting-point for Existentialism is our being "thrown" into the world and life. So it is hard to understand why Sartre's Being-for-itself turns out to be something so abstract and more or less instantly recognizable as a Cartesian subject. (Heidegger's version is, to my mind, even more abstract and even more puzzling.) But the greatest issue with this very attractive idea is that it presupposes that our lives start as conscious, reflective beings - more or less, as adults. But we start our lives either at birth or shortly before. We become reflective beings some years after that - and we don't have any choice in the matter, or perhaps better, we are incapable of meaningful choices for some time after our lives begin. Though it is true that the world that I am part of and which makes me what I am is a not a matter of choice, but of chance, in a sense.

The idea is that, as subjectivities, we are radically free. Existence precedes essence. If I wanted to be picky, I could expatiate on the point that to exist requires an essence. But I get the point, I think. Roughly, we create ourselves in our interactions with the world - or does the world create us by its interactions with us? Both.

The complete last sentence of Hazel Barnes' quotation is "Existentialists values intensify consciousness, arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies." A promise of relief from the real pains of anxiety in a meaningless world and also a promise of trouble and fear. But perhaps that's just me. Either way, we are born as embodied beings with instincts primarily directed to survival and reproduction and a drive to seek patterns in the world and a tendency to respond to reward and punishment appropriately. Not quite Sartre's (or the empiricists') blank sheet of paper.

While I understand the appeal of commitment as an escape from anxiety and that values become valuable 0nly when human beings adopt them, the process puzzles me because in itself, it seems as random and meaningless as everything else. This, if I remember right, is what we are presented with in Camus' Outsider. But, again from memory, Mathieu's commitment in the third book of Sartre's Roads to Freedom is actually very similar; it doesn't read like a choice made in an enthusiastic moment of decision; or that's how I remember it.

Finally, looking back at the first sentence in Hazel Barnes' quotation - "The function of Existentialists values is to liberate humankind from craven fear, petty anxiety and apathy or tedium." - I notice the powerful rhetoric that she chooses to attach to "humankind", "fear" and "anxiety". This is not existentialist cool at all, is it? Her commitment here is to rouse people from apathy and tedium, in ways that seem to me now strongly reminiscent of the rhetoric that many existentialists wanted to escape from.

we are the simulated people — noAxioms

So I have to imagine myself as being a sim - and hence not a person - and not knowing it?

The Turing test was never intended as a test of consciousness. — noAxioms

So what was it intended to be a test for? (I assume you mean "intended by Turing"?)

Because the people implementing them didn't think about all the cases. There are usually edge cases they didn't think of, or interactions between features they didn't plan for. — flannel jesus

Yes. But how realistic is it to set out to think about all the edge cases and/or all the interactions between all the features?

A heart cell has a certain set of rules it follows, and when it fails to execute those rules it is faulty. When a video game, like the one you mentioned in the OP, Diablo, is facing a bug, its following the rules just not the expectations involved in its design. — 013zen

Yes. But I find it very hard to state the point clearly. I think we have to distinguish them this way. When my heart fails to fulfil it purpose - what it is "designed" to do, the fault is not in the design, but in the execution of them. When a bug arises in a program, there is a fault in the design of the game/program, not in the execution of the rules.

I see the basic issue of the thread as something like this:- How is it possible for the rules that describe a game to be wrong? and the underlying issue is about the way that a set of rules can produce surprising (counter-intuitive) results.

Here again, the quoted comment concerns the Turing test, not the simulation hypothesis. — noAxioms

Quite so. But I notice that you don't disagree with what I say. My argument is that if one starts the Turing test by specifying that the subject is a machine, the test cannot provide evidence to the contrary and this is the version that I have most commonly seen. But if one did start by specifying that it is a person, one would not get any evidence to the contrary either. (If the responses from the machine seem to be intelligent or sentient or whatever, we have to decide whether the responses really are intelligent or sentient or whatever.) Knowing what the subject of the test is governs one's interpretation of the replies, which consequently can't provide evidence either way. That applies also to your version, in which one doesn't know whether the subject is machine or person (and to a version I've seen that provides two subjects, one machine and one human)
The point is that it is not a question of evidence for or against without a context that guides interpretation of the evidence.

If there was, much of the p-zombie argument would be immediately settled by some empirical test. — noAxioms

Quite so, and the set-up specifies that there can be no empirical evidence. But then, the argument is devised as a thought-experiment with the aim of persuading us to accept that there are qualia, or some such nonsense.

The whole point of the term 'conscious' is that it is always defined in such a way that is immune from empirical evidence. — noAxioms

Quite so. That's why the attempt to distinguish between the two on the basis of empirical evidence (Turing test) is hopeless.

I've even been charged human health insurance rates for a diagnosis provided by a machine, and I protested it at the time. — noAxioms

That's capitalism for you. But it might turn out that the machine is more successful than human beings at that specific task,

If it does, it is probably already considerably more intelligent than humans, since it requires far more smarts to imitate something you are not that it does to just be yourself. — noAxioms

I think that a machine can diagnose some medical conditions. Whether it can imitate diagnosing any medical conditions is not at all clear to me.

I am a moderator on a different forum, and one job is to spot new members that are not human. — noAxioms

I frequent another forum which developed criteria for sniffing out AI. However, I may be wrong, but I don't think there is any follow-up on whether people's judgements are correct or not. Do you get confirmation about whether your "spots" are correct or not?

The entity is not human, and to imitate human responses, especially those involving human emotions, would require superior ability. — noAxioms

Parrots imitate talking. Are they smarter than human beings?

There are only fully simulated people inside 'the system', — noAxioms

I thought you said that there were people inside the system. Now I'm really confused.

Progress would not be measured by fooling people, but by showing there are processes that work like our brains do. — Relativist

Yes, the appeal to how things work inside is a popular refuge in these uncertain times. But we don't (can't) rely on our limited understanding of how we work to establish what is the same and what is different. Even if we could, I would not be persuaded to rule out the possibility of personhood simply on the grounds of different internal physical structures. The output is what counts most.

Yah, like in Nietzsche's, Heidegger's, Sartre's et. al. call for self actualization or authenticity. — ENOAH

Yes. But they are all philosophers with a mission. Although, thinking about it, I'm not at all sure that the distinction really stands up.

Yes. The actual, not the becoming (of Mind and its empty, fleeting attachments; its incccessant workings out); but the Being (of the human Organism, and its breathing etc.). — ENOAH

Yes. But then I remember that some fleeting things are worth attending to and that I sometimes wish that some non-fleeting things would flee. I'm a bit of a contrarian, I'm afraid.

Contrast this with the medieval ideal vis-a-vis the trades. Yes, it was good to be profitable, to grow and train others. However, "being a great tradesman" was far more likely to be defined in terms of the quality and beauty of the products, not simply growth and volume. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's no doubt that there are important - and oft-neglected values here. They struggle to be seen or heard in the world as it is.

I don't love Marx, but the part about people becoming alienated from their work seems all to true. And once that happens, income becomes the obvious measuring stick for success. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's right. The first question when you meet someone for the first time - politely disguised under the question what one's employment is.

After the Black Death, there was a shortage of labour (because so many people had died). So workers tended to move to where they were better paid. The aristocracy were outraged by this, and by their demands and tried hard to prevent them (without paying them any more). It didn't work very well. It wasn't until much later (18th century) that employers realized the great advantage to themselves of employing free people for a wage, namely, that they had no responsibility for them beyond the work (e.g. welfare, health and safety) and could simply dismiss them when they weren't needed. Workers took great exception to this (rightly). (Luddites &c.)

This may not be quite what you had in mind:-

‘Our Gross National Product now is over 800 billion dollars a year. But that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armoured cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts . . . . the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.’

Robert F. Kennedy, Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968

It shows how deeply embedded the thinking in terms of money is and how damaging it is. Yet it is not just a question of compiling a happiness index. There's no getting away from the need to prioritze and allocate resources accordingly; the money measure is quite helpful as a way of doing that.

People misunderstand what communism, as opposed to state socialism, is all about and what Marx thought was the culmination of his revolution:-

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Die Deutsche Ideologie, Vol. 1, Part 1.

Though this can be taken in many ways. Maybe he under-rates the value of specialization.

Thinking traps the philosopher, like Kierkegaard, who was too smart for his own good, I guess. — Astrophel

You remind me of Wittgenstein's fly trapped in a bottle. Or this:-

FLY
A fat fly fuddles for an exit
At the window-pane,
Bluntly, stubbornly, it inspects it,
Like a brain
Nonplussed by a seemingly simple sentence
In a book,
Which the glaze of unduly protracted acquaintance
Has turned to gobbledly-gook.

A few inches above where the fly fizzes
A gap of air
Waits, but this has
Not yet been vouchsafed to the fly.
Only retreat and loop or swoop of despair
will give it the sky.

Christopher Reid, Expanded Universes,

Hard to simply "dock" the meditation, the thinking and the curiosity. It is like docking one's very being-in-the-world — Astrophel

Can one dock one's being-in-the-world without docking one's self, and is that possible? Philosophy often seems to me to under-rate the difficulty of such things. In philosophy, all that is needed is a flourish of words and the thing is done. That's where religion scores, because it recognizes and addresses the need for "metanoia" or conversion. Yet one can find traces of it in what is said in philosophy.

By contrast one who doesn't even know is happy in the mundane, . — ENOAH

You remind me of the conclusion of Voltaire's Candide. What's wrong with that, if it works for you? Perhaps it's as much a matter of reconciling oneself to the actual, rather than working out something else.

It is the people in the simulation that are tasked with finding evidence that they are the subject of a simulation. What we're called by the occupants of the reality running the simulation is irrelevant. — noAxioms

I think that you are not talking about the same question as Relativist. (See below). You are positing that it is people who are "in" the sim - i.e. (I assume) being fed the data.
Plus, if I've understood you, you are positing that the subjects cannot communicate with whatever is running the sim - merely they merely seem to themselves to communicate.

And if a machine passes the test (it's a text test, so there's no robot body that also has to be convincing), then it exhibits intelligent behavior. The test is not too weak. — noAxioms

Here, you are positing that you are starting with a machine. In that case, the question is whether the behaviour is really intelligent or merely seems to be intelligent. But if it's a machine, we already know that it is not intelligent. Actually, I don't think that is right, but even if the response was intelligent, it does not follow that the machine is conscious or sentient.

The Turing Test is passed by fooling people into believing there's a human giving responses in a conversation. — Relativist

I think that you are not talking about the same test as noAxioms. (See above). Plus you are positing that it is a machine that is responding, so you are begging the question. (As Turing also does in his formulation of the test.)

The fundamental point is whether we can even formulate the question without begging it. We have to identify the subject of the Turing test as a machine or a person. Whichever we say, we will interpret the responses in different ways. Whatever the machine responds, we will interpret the response as that of a machine - and that will be true. Whatever the person responds, we will interpret the response as that of a person - and that will be true. There is no magic empirical bullet of evidence that will settle the issue.

Remember, we're not worrying about what those running the simulation are calling the simulated things. We're supposing that we are the subjects here, the ones being simulated, and we (and only we) call ourselves human beings or people. That's the only definition that matters.
It is the people in the simulation that are tasked with finding evidence that they are the subject of a simulation. What we're called by the occupants of the reality running the simulation is irrelevant. — noAxioms

So how does this question differ from the brain in a vat, from Descartes' demon or from the supposed possibility that we are all dreaming?

The topic isn't about how to run a sim. The topic is about what it's like to be one. — noAxioms

So how does this topic differ from the question what it's like to be a bat?

I'm afraid I didn't realize what the philosophical background is, essentially, Bostrom. I don't find the question interesting, because if we posit that there is no way of telling, then there is no way of telling. Similarly, if there's no way to be a bat without becoming a bat, we can't know what it's like to be a bat.
The interesting question is under what circumstances we would accept that something we designed and built is a conscious being, i.e. a (non-human) person.

That's kind of like suggesting that God is unethical to have created a universe that has beings that feel bad, and yes, there are those that suggest exactly that. — noAxioms

This is the traditional problem of evil. I am one of those who think the problem has no solution and that therefore no such God exists. Of course, that doesn't prove that there are not other gods around or that it is only the Christian conception of God is wrong.

There are definitely war elements in both, but that makes it more an analogy than a simulation. The do run simulations of war all the time, pretty much continuously. — noAxioms

I wish I knew what the difference is between a simulation and an imitation, a simulation and a mimicry, a simulation and an analogy, and a simulation and a model.

A simulated person would be a person, just in a different universe (the simulated one). It's likely quite a small universe. You seem to define 'person' as a human in this universe, and no, the simulated person would not be that. — noAxioms

I describe human beings, in contexts like this, as our paradigm of a person. That's not exactly a definition - I'm not aware of any definition that is adequate. A paradigm, for me, is an example or sample that one uses in an ostensive definition. However, I think that looking for definitions is inadequate on its own, because the important feature of a people is the way we interact with them as different from the way we interact with objects.

I have to say, if these beings are to be conscious, I wish you luck in getting your project through your research ethics committee.

My question now, is why not just talk about people living in a different universe? (I'm not going to get picky about the point that the sims you are describing are clearly in the same universe as we are. I would prefer to describe their situation as being in a different lived world from us. Though even that is not quite right.)

Talking of sims, do you regard chess or (American) football as a simulation of war? That is what they say of both (only they don't use the word "simulation".)

The Japanese Buddhists I most recently had contact with were Pure Land Buddhists who sermonised against any effort to meditate as being ‘own-effort’, and incapable of producing merit. — Wayfarer

They've got a point. From what I've read, Zen encourages effort, while at the same time suggesting that it is beside the point. Typical.

at my age I can no longer assume the customary cross-legged posture that I persisted with for many years. — Wayfarer

I've seen discussions of this that do not prioritize that, or any other, particular posture. Sitting in a straight-backed chair (but upright, not using the back) and lying on one's back, - and there's always walking (slowly). Thich Nat Hanh has a discussion somewhere that suggests that anything that happens in ordinary life can be a bell, calling us back to meditation.

I’m trying to find a way back into some kind of community of practice, but it’s not easy. — Wayfarer

The crucial thing for joining a community, IMO, is turning up and trying to participate somehow - provided they will at least accept you being there.
There are a lot of people who are inclined to take meditation/mindfulness seriously, but find it difficult to work out what suits them. (I'm one of them.)

And the conservative American response to that is that it’s communism. — Wayfarer

The fact that they cling on to that defunct threat shows how much they need something to be afraid of.

The logic of cogito ergo sum is neither rationalisation nor myth, it is the indubitable fact that, in order to be subject to an illusion, there must be a subject. — Wayfarer

The analysis of Descartes' argument is a bit off-topic here, so I'll resist commenting.

I have my doubts about Descartes, in that I believe his dualistic separation of the physical and mental as separate substances is profoundly problematical and has had hugely deleterious consequences for Western culture, but as for the essential veracity of his ‘cogito’ argument, I have no doubts. — Wayfarer

But I can't resist saying that I agree with you.

I had the idea that zombies don’t feel pain, at least they never do in zombie flicks. You have to literally dismember or disintegrate them to overcome them, merely inflicting blows or wounds does nothing. — Wayfarer

Yes. I did not put my point well. I was thinking of philosophical zombies, which would (if I've understood the idea correctly) not behave like zombies in the flicks.

There's a contradiction here. People is animal. A machine is not animal. But a machine can be people? That means a machine is animal and not animal. — noAxioms

I mean, deep down, you're a machine as well running under the same physics. I think you're confusing determinism with predictability. — noAxioms

Are these two remarks compatible? My point is that there is no easy and clear way to state what the Turing hypothesis is trying to articulate.

I think you are again envisioning imitation people, like Replicants. That's a very different thing than the simulation hypothesis which does not involve machines pretending to be people. — noAxioms

Thank you for the clarification. I misunderstood what the thread was about. My apologies. It is clear now that I haven't understood what the simulation hypothesis is. However, when I checked the Wikipedia - Simulation hypothesis, I found:-

Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct).

For me, a conscious being is a person and a simulated person is not a person, so this confuses me. Can you perhaps clarify?

why isn't 'dubit' a word? It ought to be. — noAxioms

Well, since you have now used it, and I understand it (roughly, I think), it is a word now. Who knows, it may catch on and then you'll be awarded a place in the dictionaries of the future!


I agree that BiV is a different kettle of fish and I don't particularly want to pursue it, but I can't resist one reply, because your remark was so incomprehensible to me. I don't expect to resolve our differences, just to clarify them a bit.

You do not understand what "refer" means, in other words. — L'éléphant

You seem to think I cannot refer to anything that I have not experienced. But the reference of a word is established in the language in general, not by what I may or may not have experienced. So when I can refer to the President of the United States even if I don't know that Joe Biden is the President.

Then you misunderstand what "true" means in statements. — L'éléphant

I agree with @noAxioms, except that I would add that it's not something it can justify on the basis of its subjective experience.

Similarly, a person (and not a brain) is what is conscious. Not even that, because an environment is also needed. — noAxioms

Yes, that's right. I agree also that persons, as we understand them, can only exist in an environment. Whether one includes that environment as part of the person or not is a tricky question and I don't know the answer. In our paradigm case (the only one that we actually know), a person is a human being, i.e. an animal. An animal is a physical body. (I'm setting aside the dualistic possibility of persons existing without a body.) Some physical structures are machines, and hence not animals, but I don't see why such structures cannot possibly constitute people.
But if they are to constitute people, they would indeed need at least to behave as people spontaneously and not because they are following a detailed set of instructions about what to do and when. They need to learn to do that for themselves. So a machine that was designed and built to behave as a person could not be anything except a sim.

It has to start somewhere, so the womb would be outside the system, an imitation womb, empirically (to the child) indistinguishable from a real mother, in every way. I suppose the placenta would be included in the system since it is, after all, the child and not the mother, but when it is severed, the sim needs to remember which half to keep as part of the system. — noAxioms

So I think you are right to argue that some such process as this would be necessary to create a machine person. The catch is that I'm not at all sure that this would be a sim, rather than a real person - especially as the process of its creation would be very close to the process of creating human beings. I think this is the same point as here:-

You said you would start the sim as a zygote. I am asking: what is the difference between this zygote and a zygote in reality? Or is the zygote you are postulating a mere simulation of a zygote? If so, that seems problematic. — NotAristotle

Irrationality is required for consciousness? A computer is rational? I question both. Deterministic is not not rationality. I do agree that irrationality is a trait of any living creature, and a necessary one. — noAxioms

Well, perhaps I'm being provoking. My point is that when people act, they do so on the basis of values that they hold, that is, their emotions and desires. It may be a distortion to call them irrational, but standard ideas of logic and reason are well recognized (since Aristotle) to be incapable of generating actions on their own.
Calculating is widely recognized as a rational activity. To me, it makes no sense to deny that computers can calculate. The catch is that such rational activities are not sufficient to be recognized as a person. Ever since the Romantic protest against the Enlightenment, emotion and desire have been regarded as essential elements of being a human person.

Sometimes. One is often reft of rational thought while dreaming, but not always. I can tell sometimes, and react to knowing so. — noAxioms

This may be a side-issue. I know that there is an issue about lucid dreaming. But I doubt whether the unsupported memory of a dreamer is sufficient to establish the phenomenon, except that I accept that the reports exist and I don't believe they are lies. But the possibility that the dreamer is dreaming the phenomenon cannot, it seems to me, be excluded.

To a simulation of low level physics, they pretty much are the exact same category, — noAxioms

I don't know what you mean by "a simulation of low level physics", but you clearly have a different concept of categories from mine.

That's (sc. Descartes' argument) a great example of rationalization. It was his target all along. — noAxioms

A side-issue. If you call it a rationalization, you have already decided the argument is invalid or unsound. But knowing that someone had in mind a specific conclusion before formulating the argument does not, of itself, show that their argument is invalid or unsound.

Would a simulation of agonising pain be actually painful? If it was, it can't really be a simulation, but as the primary attribute of pain is the feeling of pain, there's nothing else to simulate. — Wayfarer

Another side-issue, but you are presupposing a dualistic concept of pain. On that concept, you are right. But whatever exactly may be the relevant conception of pain, I think your point survives, in the sense that whatever caused the pain would have to cause real pain and not zombie pain, just as the anger would have to be real anger, etc.

If I am a BIV, I cannot make claims like "I am a brain in a vat" because I am making no reference to the "brain" and "vat". So, if I say that sentence, it is false. — L'éléphant

If I am a brain in a vat, my claim is true, even if I can't refer to brain and vat, so long as "brain" and "vat" refer to the appropriate objects in that context. Perhaps I cannot know that my claim is true, but that's different. Actually, I don't really see why a brain in a vat cannot refer to itself as a brain in a vat.

I notice that you are not arguing that my summary is wrong and I accept that there's much complication when you start considering things in more detail.

This is a consequence of modern philosophical innovations and the Reformation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, of course it is. And one should mention the revival of Ancient Greek Philosophy specifically as a way of thinking about one's way of life in a recognizably philosophical, as opposed to religious, way.

It seems like a lot of the Buddhism that makes it to the West comes from monastics, not necessarily reflecting the laity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

From my observation that's true.

I am not sure how different this really is from Buddhism as practiced by the laity. It seems like a lot of the Buddhism that makes it to the West comes from monastics, not necessarily reflecting the laity. People act shocked that Buddhists are carrying out genocides against Muslims in their lands because they think of Buddhism primarily in terms of monasticism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are indeed Buddhist monks coming to the West. Some of them are returnees. And it does somewhat slant the general impression. But Buddhism is no different from every other religion (so far as I can see). There are different strands at work, but there are common themes - fundamentalism and violence among them. What religions are (especially when they become embedded in a society and have to deal with the local power structures), and what they aspire to are rather different things. I realize that monasticism is still alive and well in Christianity, and I'm inclined to believe monasticism in Christianity shares a lot with monasticism in other religions. It's the surrounding conceptual structures that interest me here.

The Medieval uncomfortableness with commerce and the vice of "coveting/grasping" has become essentially a virtue, which casts the old homeless, impoverished saints in a new light. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I assume you know about Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees and the slogan "Private Vices, Public Virtues" (or at least Benefits). I think the genie is out of the bottle now. In any case, there was plenty of coveting and grasping going on even in the Middle Ages. It's the presentation and propaganda that has changed.

I always find it ironic when conservatives are so out of sorts at the sight of homeless people in San Francisco, their very existence, given who the city is named after. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't hear much about San Francisco, but I see your point. The rational response of anyone who is horrified by homelessness is to ensure that sufficient help is provided to prevent it occurring and sort it out when it does. One has to conclude that what horrifies them is not the fact of homelessness, but it being visible.

Yes. Christianity has a similar trope. So does Islam. My point is that in Bhuddhism the shift is not merely cognitive. It's very complicated. — Ludwig V

On further thought, although it is true that Western philosophy does not pay much attention to it, training is not treated as an important feature of its practice. But it is. Philosophers often speak as if the distinction between what is rational and what isn't, between what is logically true and what isn't is available to everybody instantly. But anyone who teaches introductory philosophy knows that it isn't so. There is a moment of dogma when philosophy's ideas (and practice) have to be taught and much philosophical discussion is incomprehensible without it.
Even empiricism requires explanation and teaching. If it were not so, "naive" realism would be the final arbiter of perception and philosophy could not rise above common sense.

But I suppose that the difference is that this initiation or induction is not thought to require a "metanoia",

It gets more complicated. Some of what Wittgenstein says about philosophy comes to close to suggesting something like a "metanoia". Arguably, that is exactly what Berkeley is looking for - but then, he is seeking to persuade us to accept Christianity.