Hilariously, I initially wrote the post this way:

You continually mistake 'state of affairs' for 'moral fact' and respond with Emoji's when this is pointed out.

I await something interesting from you. Given your constant need to deride those you think are incorrect, isn't it just delightful that you're wrong.

You're not, though. You're just asserting certain values/disvalues not based on anything.

I've put forward: We have biases towards other humans (as opposed to cockroaches, in your account). This is rational.

You now need to either point out why it is irrational, or give a more rational reason to try to lose the bias. You haven't attempted either.

Probability still has a truth to it. — BitconnectCarlos

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but probability seems to be the functional and rational response to Hume. Unsure how that plays out here, as Im not entire getting what you're trying to do.

I'm just running with your version of truth here. — BitconnectCarlos

You're not. Because I didn't put one forward. Everything you've responded with is a little bit out-of-place given what i've posited. The bolded above is all that should be responded to, here. I suspect your appeal to Divine sacredness is what's underlying the resistance. Happy to be wrong, if you're willing to actually elucidate..

I agree with that. I wouldn’t say unfortunately. It’s more like, unfortunately, we humans ruminate about and dramatize every little spark of the nervous system. — Fire Ologist

My inability to sleep due to hairs standing on end, dust landing on my eyelids, the tiniest excitation of my ear drums, a skin cell detaching etc.. says "fucking yes dude, this". LOL. It's an awful reality.

Pain need not have anything to do with God, and need not be seen as better or worse than any other state - pain is change measured by the one undergoing the change. — Fire Ologist

I think I/we may have misinterpreted what Vera was doing/saying in those exchanges - but I would say she simply made up a lot of the context, in that regard. Nevertheless I am quite sympathetic to her position. Just htink her discussion here betrays a lack of focus (and perhaps a faulty commitment to an emotional response).

Nothing in this is moral. You continually mistake 'state of affairs' for 'moral fact'. It will be an extremely interesting post when you come up with something non-circular to support the morality part of the position.

Sorry I missed all this - It wasn't in my notification list!

feel like you have this strong preconception that any kind of phenomena is necessarily internal to some kind of external physical things, because you are dualist. But I don't see how this view is strictly necessary and how other kinds of views of phenomena as ontology are not at least conceivable. — Apustimelogist

I have explained why (it is irrelevant what Kastrup or Chalmers think - though, as far as I;m concerned you are seriously misunderstanding what is entailed by 'mental only' and perhaps not reading that into the theories presented. Or, i could be wrong.

So if physical theories are defined purely functionally or relationally and say absolutely nothing about the intrinsic nature of what is beyond our personal experiences, I think you have to give an argument to rule out the idea that what is beyond our personal experiences can conceivably be more experiences and nothing else. — Apustimelogist

I have. "What are the experiences of" is a good enough question to at the very least, put the position you're driving at on the rocks, if not infer a position that requires externalities (in a 'proper' use of the word - not the economic one) to inform any type of experience. Otherwise, we have infinite regress - at what point would content be involved, if it's experience all the way down? Seems a massive gap here.

Again, we have established that you have no idea about the intrinsic nature of what is going on beyond your immediate experiences so I don't see what standard you are using to judge that what is going on beyond cannot be experiential — Apustimelogist

Its incoherent, on my account. You don't need a standard. It's logically unsound..As noted a couple of times, and apparently ignored: Experiences must be OF something(if you do not accept this, we may be at an end of the road we travel together). Sure, an experience can be of another experience, on (the surface of) an idealist account but this cannot explain anything about content. That we have experiences of 'things' that must have come from somewhere, even if it isn't 'actually there' in any particular instance (given regress is a fine method for establishing this, to a point). The basis for its invocation cannot be a further, necessarily empty, experience.

What we think of as physical objects can still exist, just they have to be made of phenomena. — Apustimelogist

IN.CO.HERENT. I'll leave that there, adding that I think this ridiculous claim is why Kastrup is alternatively considered a genius, and a total idiot.

I haven't seen justification. — Apustimelogist

You have.

what physical things intrinsically are? — Apustimelogist

not-mental. This is the exclusion you seem to just straight-up ignore. Something cannot be physical and mental at once. Mental objects do not exist outside of mind, by definition. What's not getting through?

The question of "why do experiences exist?" would be no different from the question of why any other different kind of intrinsic stuff were to exist — Apustimelogist

You seem to have completley ignored that this raises the exact same problem of 'why experience'. All you have done is removed the difference between 'why anything' and 'why experience'. They are both still live questions in an Idealist world. This is not displaced by the removal of physical objects in an account. We could equally say, in a world with no mentation whatsoever(obviously, this is metaphysically impossible) "why does anything exist?" "why isn't anything conscious"? The latter is not irrelevant, in the discussion we're having.

There have been absolutely no discoveries in science that suggest some kind of inherent metaphysical separation between mental and physical stuff in any sense. Such a dualism is incoherent. — Apustimelogist

We cannot explain plenty of non-physical phenomena, and the fact that apparently the expectation of a physical explanation is the only way to get past this just ignores the problem. The explanation wont be physical. And given we have absolutely failed to do anything whatsoever with our physical theories to explain consciousness, I'm just not interested in ignoring that problem. Discovering that the consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical is a discovery that literally discounts a fully physicalist account of mind (if it holds).

The problem is that consciousness is rendered causally irrelevant not only to our behavior but to our own knowledge of consciousness. The absurdity suggests that dualism is an illusion and that there is no dual-aspect. — Apustimelogist

This is not a problem, and it does not suggest this. I would recommend reading all of Chalmers, if this is where you're going.

I think this is less mysterianism than the fact that if you endorse kinds of scientific and metaphysical deflationism / antirealism, then the need for inherent dual-aspects is not pressing. — Apustimelogist

Not for scientific reasoning, but for understanding consciousness it remains the central issue. I wont address your other Chalmers-related comments other than to say he's predicted them and responded to them. He wouldn't agree; you're right. He would posit that nothing you've said changes the fact that Consciousness is irreducible. In that sense, property dualism is almost a given (whether hte premise holds is the big Q).

Because this view doesn't rely on falsifying phenomenal experiences — Apustimelogist

Property dualism doesn't either. Can you explain why this would have any weight in displacing the (potential) property dualist account?

Your latter definition only accounts for direct realism, not indirect realism. Also, scientific realism is not about positing an external world per se, it posits that our theories about the world are true. Doesn't seem very different from the idea of perceptions being true representations or giving true access to the world. — Apustimelogist

I'm beginning to think you're confusing yourself. It applies to both, but you must reverse the onus of the sentence. Your final sentence betrays the failure of your attempted delineation.
You would need scientific realism to hold to ever establish this position. This is because they are relevant to separate questions, as noted.

Bold: Do you know any idealist scientific realists?

The difference between "conscious" and "non-conscious" cognition essentially comes down to differences in this flow of experience. — Apustimelogist

But we know, for sure, that cognition happens sans any experience. How could you posit that experience is included in non-experienced cognition?

I had extremely little to work with. You can't blame a man for the tools he's given.

Mocking doesn't happen on this forum. — Shawn

To the end above, avoid Banno and 180Proof :P Great guys, but they do like to mock here and there.

My question is....are there any stupid questions?? — Gingethinkerrr

Not to me. But I am probably scantly above the level you're espousing you're at. Perhaps I have a bit more confidence though.

The value of a single human life? — Gingethinkerrr

Value, seems to me, a construction. I don't think it makes any sense to ascribe brute value.

Ah okay, fair enough. Thanks. I am back to following the exchanges now :P

(aside) you may be interested in a book called DMT: The Soul of Prophecy. You can disregard the intention of the book, as its subtext - and simply read a psychiatrist's take on Jewish Patriarch's hallucinatory experiences ;)

Can you outline what you intend to be up for discussion?
I have thoughts, but your thread appears to sort of engineer its own success. Not much room to discuss here...

No.

Thanks Carlos - I would have disagree prior to this post, that you're discussing it. Onward...

It's like if I were to say "well humans naturally have confirmation bias, what's the problem?" Well, we naturally try to unlearn that to get our thinking more in line with objective reality. — BitconnectCarlos

Why? What's the basis for unlearning it? (i realise this is now not at all a religious discussion, so happy to leave off if it feels too out-of-place in the thread). This is why non sequitur has been invoked. If there's no rational reason for the bias, there's no rational reason to try to remove it (though, in reality, it is rational to have an in-group bias. That doesn't require an objective basis for such and I would content it irrational to try to unlearn the bias. If you ahve to make that effort cognitively to overcome your actual reality (hehe, below..) then you're not doing God's work or employing rationality, on your terms).

I seek to act in accordance with objective reality and if that gets you mad then anger is derived from an irrational source. — BitconnectCarlos

This, once again, entirely and completely refuses to engage the question:

What bloody objective reality are you talking about? The one in which we actually have biases towards other humans??. Sounds like you're literally trying to overcome reality.

It's coherently and consistently dismissive of the idea of intelligent design by a benevolent deity. — Vera Mont

I can smell your farts from here, Vera :) Not too bad.

but someone who is dominated by their emotions is to that extent not an agent at all

we are simultaneously agents and patients; the emotivist excludes the former — Leontiskos

Could you maybe elucidate this? I think this is a completely wrong statement. I see nothing in it.

Emotivists (to my knowledge) don't claim that you are beholden to your emotions to act. Just that emotions inform moral proclamations. One can simply act against their emotions. I do this constantly. To me, one of the biggest benefits of emotivism is that it explains moral disagreement, even intrapersonally. I can have conflicted moral standpoints, because the views done rest of logical predicates (i.e confirming/disconfirming conclusions regardless of their valence).

If our natural pro-human bias is not accordance with reality — BitconnectCarlos

It is reality. I have asked you to put forward something that either discusses, or displaces this.

You have failed to do so. So, once again, can you please attempt this? Otherwise it just plum seems you're just pretending to have an opinion, which reduces to a blind belief (as noted). I would genuinely like you to attempt to either discuss the bias, and why you reject it ("not reality" does nothing for me. Support it. If your "Reality" is to immediately jump to your religious views whole-sale, I can do nought but chuckle. That isn't an answer to this query).

Predation, parasitism and disease are. — Vera Mont

Yes. And, ecologically, these, prima facie, have great functional value. (I should be clear - I have no religious position and do not intend to defend one. I just find your line of reasoning chaotically dismissive).

hat pain causes growth or that all growth is accompanied by pain? I'm not sure I actually get a point about either, but I know that the first is untrue and the second is it is not always true. — Vera Mont

Hmmm. This may be a misunderstanding. I did not intimate either of these positions, to my mind. I said, in regard to (i think it was actually bone growth, but Im pivoting here without losing any relevance)

The pain is required for the growth to accrue(as an actual fact of the universe in which we live. — AmadeusD

This was a discreet example, pointing out that pain is required in various circumstances to achieve the benefit you're wanting without to get without the pain. Fine. But we live in the universe as it is.
Unfortunately, to adequately grow muscle, muscle fibres must be destroyed and that hurts. This has a dual nature. In injury, we need to know this is happening to address it adequately. While I hear your gripe, I just don't see what it has to do with the potential 'nature' of a God. It does it's job well.
(The same pain can be psychologically satisfying in situations of non-injury too(I'm thinking here of perhaps after nine rounds of Jiu Jitsu I cannot fucking move for the pain- but i am happier than heck). )
Additionally, I do not think the variability of pain is relevant. That's a function of it as-is. We tend to think people who do not adequate feel pain are, in fact, defective.

Additionally, again, I think it is entirely coherent to just say 'well, if God exists, you're wrong and misapprehending your reality'. A cop-out that the religious like to fall-back on - but there's no good reason to reject that at this point in the discussion. You not liking shit doesn't make the above illogical despite my sincere sympathy (and in other examples, I'd say the problem of Evil is live. Just think this one fails).

Whether fortunately or otherwise, Amadeus, THIS world came about through natural forces and evolution. Which accounts for why the design isn't all that intelligent. — Vera Mont

These are conclusions. They do nothing for the discussion.

Oh, no - I've heard ans understand all the excuses and apologetics. I just don't respect them. — Vera Mont

You clearly do not understand what I have just put forward. It stands, and there is literally nothing you could say that would defeat it. It may be the case that you're incapable of understanding divine reason (as would every other person in existence, rendering your objection moot).

his commandments — Vera Mont

Not his reasoning. You've done well to defeat your own point here :P

No, I'm just an ordinary mortal who can smell it when somebody tries to sell her two fish well past their sell-by-date. — Vera Mont

If you're an ordinary mortal almost all of your claims above are pure nonsense. :) That was my point. The smell of your own farts notwithstanding

This makes no sense to me.

Reality is that humans are biased towards humans because we're human. You've provided literally nothing else to support any other position. Which is odd, because I had asked for what causes you to think something other than the above.

Could you attempt?

I think life is a lot more than suffering. I am unsure anything displaces the centrality of suffering, though.

We just have that bias because we're humans but it's not grounded in anything objective. — BitconnectCarlos

I agree. However, it doesn't seem to me a non sequitur to reject this reasoning because it's not objective. Perhaps this is why I have more comfort with it.

You're mkaing some utterly preposterous leaps. What I said was a non sequitur was this:

Accordingly, we generally leave those decisions to a power beyond ourselves. — BitconnectCarlos

(have fixed the formatting, though)Which has nothing to do with my opinion or feelings regarding the importance of human life. It is a clear non sequitur with absolutely no logic to it.
Your suggestions above are further non sequiturs to avoid the clear gap between the (possible) fact we do not grasp 'life' properly, and that we then simply give up our faculties to a (never even close to proven) supernatural entity in blind trust. Risible.

Who's to say humans are worth more than cockroaches? — BitconnectCarlos

Without invoking God, tell me why you'd think otherwise? Or is the case that you are encased in a religious framework to such a degree that you cannot fathom other thoughts?

In nature, yes. In intelligent design, not so end of. — Vera Mont

Unfortunately, yes. If the world is designed such that pains indicate, very well, what to avoid, then its still end of. Excesses aren't exactly attributable to design.
That said, not sure why you're reducing hte discussion to allow for restrictive points?

No, it isn't. It is a side-effect that does not invariably occur. — Vera Mont

Point to me a situation in which my point is violated? Unfortunately, Vera, we live in THIS world in which my statement is completely true.

If that is a 'given', it was given by that same loving god. — Vera Mont

Yep. I see no issue other than your discomfort here. Which is reasonable. Just doesn't bear.

God had an idea that something very unpleasant and sometimes fatal was a good idea. I suspect that a kinder omnipotence would have found a better way to achieve those good ends. — Vera Mont

And you may simply be unable to comprehend reasoning beyond Human reasoning. Not sure why you'd think you could - or, at any rate, apply human reasoning to the (claimed) omnipotent designer. Seems totally ridiculous to me.

If it's deliberately inflicted, it's at least morally questionable. Or would be, if done by a mortal. — Vera Mont

Bingo. I'll leave that there.

unless invented and inflicted by an omnipotent creator, in which case that creator is not deserving or praise. — Vera Mont

Ah. So you're the omniscient one. Nice :)

I reject this.

But I disagree if the quote from Amadeus means the good never forms. There is an object, a definition, that forms, from our experience, called “good.” — Fire Ologist

There is not. I defy you to point at it.

Can be this, can be that... are not valid reasons for a loving god to torture the innocent. — Vera Mont

You've inserted several bits of fact-specific information in your objection that don't exist in the claim.

Much pain is beneficial. End of.

Rapid growth of bones may cause pain, but it's not the pain that causes growth. — Vera Mont

This is prevarication. The pain is required for the growth to accrue. Given we are pain-perceiving creatures, anyhow. So, either hte position is God imbued us with Pain, and sometimes that's a good thing (it is one way to know we are progressing physically, for instance, or to avoid otherwise deathly scenarios such as high or low temperature exposure) or it is that Pain is a moral wrong, in and of itself.

Why would you not assent to the view that pains can be arbitrary or not?

God tells us life is sacred. Remove God and life can lose its sanctity quickly. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes. Life isn't sacred. Sacred is an invented concept that applies to nothing without a mind apprehending that invented concept and applying it, to assuage some existential gripes.

Your premise is absurd and unsupported, even if it turns out true. Such is the way with religious thinking. Nonsense.

Next to nothing -- only that it is inevitable. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing, could be neutral. [uAccordingly,[/u] we generally leave those decisions to a power beyond ourselves. — BitconnectCarlos

It is quite clear that this is a complete non sequitur. Even more so considering the(only) underlined direction you've taken it. This is the exact lapse in reason that leads to the utter insanity of apologetics.

The problem wouldn't be that these beliefs are arbitrary, but rather that they are determined by a biology, social and personal history, etc. that can be completely explained without any reference to "goodness," e.g., for the eliminitivist/epiphenomenalism, an explanation entirely in mechanical terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think I would conclude that this can be distilled into 'arbitrary'. We use that term in reference to basically 'unchangeable' characteristics elsewhere, so it seems apt here to me.I think that even on what you quoted, this still fits if you insert your description in place of arbitrary, and the flavour, for me, remains the same. But, this is all to say i more-or-less agree intuitively ..just in this context, anything but some external moral influence of some objective nature (whcih, I don't believe exists) is required to defeat the arbitrary label.

So, it seems that the truth value of a proposition can be more or less independent of beliefs about it. In some cases, they seem like there will be quite a bit of interdependence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with this. This might be what you're, in general, outlining, but it seems to me nothing moral at all to accept this.

I think it does though. My criticism is that P1 begs the question. — Lionino

I think the moral subjectivism will outright reject that very first premise. — Lionino

The discontinuity here is what I was 'agreeing' with. Not many subjectivists would accept that premise. This, to me, indicates it doesn't capture the position well. Perhaps this is just bad wording.

you would have to transform moral judgments from “one ought to X” to “I believe one ought to X”. — Bob Ross

This appears to be the only rational case in terms of encapsulating moral claims. I think it is simply ignoring, for convenience, the first two words, that has caused much of the debates. Obviously, to me, this precludes any moral realism, but that's by the by in terms of discussing this point.
But, even if some moral P is true in virtue of it being veridical in some weird, unascertainable metaphysical way, one's belief simply has no connection with that fact (by definition, here). The belief is still essentially a best-guess guised as a belief.
EDITED IN THE NEXT DAY: I see you, Bob, have noted this elsewhere. Sorry for repeating.

:ok: :ok: :ok:

Bull. Shit. — Vera Mont

Not at all. That you deny all of the suggestions he put forward is extremely perplexing. Swathes of pains are beneficial for various reasons. I am telling you this, from experience. It's not deniable in these terms.

How do we judge the giver and taker of life according to human standards who operates outside of nature? — BitconnectCarlos

This is one very, very good reason to ignore the concept of religious morality from a personal God. Its completely impossible to reconcile it with anything we know about suffering and death. The only thing what you've pointed out seems to make implausible is a personal God making arbitrary decisions about lifespans.

Well, I dropped some acid in my youth, but all I saw was the Void looking back at me. — Vera Mont

Try Psilocybin or DMT.

The seriousness with which people take the Stormy Daniels situation is utterly bizarre. It's the lowest level bullshit one could worry themselves with.

"the greater good" seems tenable only on a Consequentialist notion. Otherwise, there is no way to extend one's concept of 'Good' to 'greater' or 'lesser'. Consequentialism allows you to just run the calc and (I would recommend one engage probability here) act in accordance with that. If some die, so be it. It follows that the greater good is the desirable outcome, regardless of the act.

This would support your response about hte dog, but commit you to several very strange bullet-biting exercises I think. Such as cold-blooded murder of Baby Hitler and Baby Stalin(there may be better ways to achieve a 'greater good', but this one is infallible with regard to preventing the mid-20thC's spectacular suffering through fascism).

1. A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the truthity of a proposition; and
2. Beliefs make moral propositions true or false. — Bob Ross

I would agree with Lionino here, that this isn't capturing the position very well.

The concept of truth is not veridicality here, so the same types of objections don't hold. I've not thought long on this though. I think there is a much stronger problem with these arguments though:

Moral facts are 'truths about what we Ought to do'. These exist solely in the minds of those who can choose to act (ignoring determinism). One's belief in what one 'ought' to do is true in vitue of the fact that one believes it. This does, as Lionino point out, make it entirely arbitrary. I don't think many people would moral anti-realists would have much problem with this. The motivation to hold beliefs can be explained many ways that aren't veridicality (or expected veridicality anyway). If someone holds moral belief X about what one ought to do, then that is a true statement. They do believe that. That 'one' very much 'ought' do what they believe to be moral seems true too. This argument would work on any subjective-type theory, including mind (emotivism - though, I've added this where I do not think the position itself holds it). In this way, I just don't see any inconsistency. It's just somewhat unattractive to try to claim 'truths' which are literally about your beliefs, but somehow make your belief true. That certainly seems wrong - but I don't think that's what's being said. The 'truths' are not considerd 'objective' so its hard to note where the failure could be for those facts to then not obtain.

Idealism as I described and as entertained in the article I linked is completely consistent with external objects beyond your immediate experience so the idea of external objects is completely consistent, they just happen to be mental or experiential. — Apustimelogist

But do you not see - this IS incoherent? If everything is mental, there are not external objects. That can only appear external. There is nothing to be aware of, outside of mind as you've stipulated a mind-only universe. So this simply is not a consistent notion. If what you're driving at is a reading along the lines of 'transcendental idealism' i think perhaps you're not doing justice to what you're trying to get across. You've posited that this theory holds everything as mental. If that's hte case, there cannot be anything with extension - nothing can be external on that account. That's just not allowed by the theory, on it's own terms. You might need to
elaborate to make sense of how everything could be mental, yet 'something' has extension to be aware of?

I think your notion of idealism is far narrower than most people seriously entertaining idealism today. — Apustimelogist

I seriously., seriously think you're reading into utterances about it more than is intended. Perhaps you're thinking of some type dualism as analogous? Idealism is necessary precluded from including extension on it's own terms. It deny's the physical. Idealism is a narrow conception. Formal Idealism simply is not idealism, in any proper sense. It's just the same as a Kantian reading, which is actually fundamentally not idealistic. Its a form of mysterianism about perception. It's merely a description of our access to knowledge and not a metaphysical theory of what is available to be aware of.
In the alternative, where I am entirely wrong about how these things are being put forward in current times, I would just say given what I've described in these replies my position is: They are plainly wrong, and there's not really any grey areas to canvass. They are misusing words to maintain incoherent positions. Ryle would be proud.

The idealist would agree and then they would say the physical simply does not exist so there is no problem. There is no need to reduce the mental to the physical because the physical just doesn't exist. All there is are experiences. Consciousness doesn't supervene on the physical because consciousness is all there is. — Apustimelogist

And this position entails all i've said(you'll note this does fatal damage to the position, as above). I do apologise, but this is becoming very much an exercise in trying to understand how you're confusing certain concepts.

Once you formulate an idealist universe as identical to a physicalist one except that everything is made out of mental stuff — Apustimelogist

"made of mental stuff" is literally incoherent. If there is extension, there is matter. Either everything is internal, seemingly external(mind), which is entailed by a 'mental-only' Universe (A'), or we're looking at a world in whcih there are things, proper(A - apparently, the actual world). To put this more clearly, if there are only experiences there are no things. There just isn't, on the theory's own terms. Again, I'm having trouble understanding how you could posit a universe that is 'only mental' yet has 'objects'. Objects have extension. Mentation does not. Is the theory just more speculative, in that the mental can in some peculiar way extend, or something similar, in that Universe?

There will always be some point where it just doesn't have an answer - we don't know why things exist or don't exist. — Apustimelogist

I think this is a little bit of a cop-out - but there are clearly some base-levels that wont have a further explanation. So, yes, i agree with this statement, but I don't think this question is one of them. Either there are physical things, or there are no physical things. 'Why' is literally irrelevant. But that's like.. my opinion man. LOL.

The problem of why experience exists would reduce to exactly that problem for an idealist. — Apustimelogist

Hm, I can clearly see the confusion in this one, and it is plainly wrong to me. The existence of 'things' and 'experience' are not at all analogous. Again, having trouble. I've been over this twice I think. The two questions are entirely different questions. The idealist has an entirely different question to answer than "why is there something rather than nothing?" because they actually hold that there is nothing. Just experience. So, why the experience? Same question. But in world A' we also want to know why there are 'things' which are not conscious, for lack of a better delineation. One does not reduce to the other. One simply disappears, magically, if you posit idealism. This is why its such a faulty, untenable position to most. It simply says 'that's not real' without a shred of good reason.
Though, this is tied to it's fundamental incoherence, You cannot be experiencing an experience. This is one point Banno has made, that I agree with *but totally ruins his take*. You can't be aware, in consciousness, of perception. Experience is of something. Perception without content is no experience. So, where is the idealist drawing phenomena from? After several hours with Kastrup (not personally) it seems totally clear this is just ignored. Though, I note that given the idealist pretends there is no question to answer about matter, they just run with it as a free lunch. But that is ... really, really dumb. We have phenomena. You can't get around that in explaining reality. Mental "objects" giving rise to conscious experience sans anything else is just dumb. You'll need simulation theory or something behind it.

So the hard problem doesn't exist for the idealist and this is probably one of the major advantages amy idealist will give you to their theory. — Apustimelogist

I agree this si what they would say - but it's stupid. It's raises even less-sensible questions, to my mind. It isn't an advantage at all. Simply saying "i'll ignore that explanatory gap by making an extreme claim that is tenuous and essentially a spiritual position" isn't helpful.

The reply is saying that a dualist reality where there is a metaphysical divide between the mental and physical is unfounded. It has no basis in science — Apustimelogist

This seems patently wrong, also. This seems more like a dogma. In fact, I am quite convinced it is a dogma. It's just uncomfortable. Property Dualism explains the data better than physicalism, currently. We have zero scientific basis to claim that consciousness is a physical thing. None. Zip. Nada. Your later quotes seem to exemplify this, on idealist terms, well.

Now I can also say that I have experiences but the fact that I say I have experiences doesn't entail that there must be some other physical substance which is profoundly metaphysically different and from which experiences arise. — Apustimelogist

Semantically it doesn't but given that the conscious does not supervene on the physical, it is a better explanation than "Muhhh.. duhh Mysterianism". It's not logically entailed, but no other doors are unlocked in that room. Either you need to posit something supernatural causing phenomena of objects, or objects.
In any case any even semi-serious dualism doesn't posit that the Mental is some separate physical substance that is a plain mis-reading. It posits that Consciousness is a fact about the physical (a property - a 'further fact') which does not reduce to the physical (you've noted this.. Makes this an awkward clarification). Natural supervenience is the term used here, as opposed to Logical supervenience. Property Dualism avoids literally all the issues you've brought up, and raises little more than doubts about its reality, not it's coherence.

We have no idea about the intrinsic nature of what we scientifically observe beyond our experiences ..... there is absolutely no reason why we should be able to have any tangible access to some fundamental metaphysical nature of how the universe is, whether from science or perception. None of this comes from a particular realist viewpoint which I think is probably key. — Apustimelogist

Agreed. This doesn't seem to have much effect on either of our positions. It just sort of points out that where we see explanatory gaps, you're happy to lean into mysterianism. Not an invalid view, But i think its premature here. Though, again, prima facie, totally agree. We may just be incapable, regardless of what theory we posit. However, I don't think your reasoning entails that position.

But then again, neither the notion of "structure" or "what it is like"(experience) have any substantive definitions that let me pick out anything metaphysically or scientifically meaningful, — Apustimelogist

Ooof. That seems like a bear trap you've put your own foot in. We can absolutely pick out metaphysical notions based on empirical/mental structure. Given consciousness fails to supervene on the physical we actually have really, really good reason to think we are currently beginning to identity some metaphysically distinct concepts. And, it only makes sense that conscious experience alone would even give rise to the question, i think. Nothing else fails to logically supervene, in some way that explains it's emergence.
Experience clearly does. It just doesn't allow you to convey it. I couldn't possibly know that you are having a profound idea about X, but you are having it, on your own account. You dont need to prove it to another mind for that to be the case. So, "scientifically meaningful' would be wrong, practically but theoretically, its actually the closest to the bone you're ever going to get - entirely removing the problem of induction(or hard sci realism) you laid out further up this paragraph (which I note seems empirically true as a limitation of knowledge and does put a spanner in having strong views either way),

let alone any dichotomy between experience and the physical which would only lead to an incoherent type of epiphenomenalism. — Apustimelogist

It does not but even where it points toward EP, it's not incoherent at all. I would recommend reading Chalmers section-long treatment of epiphenomenalism (150-160 or so) in the face of his property dualism. It is very compelling. There really is no problem here as I see it. Further work since publication seems to do nothing for either side (other than we still have no fucking clue what's going on - as Koch has had to admit). To taste:

Epiphenomenalism is counterintuitive, but the alternatives are more than counterintuitive. They are simply wrong, as we have already seen and will see again. The overall moral is that if the arguments suggest that natural supervenience is true, then we should learn to live with natural supervenience — Chalmers(1996)

I don't think you have said anything here that distinguishes realism about scientific theories from that about objects of perceptual. — Apustimelogist

I clearly have. One is about experience, and one is about hte external world. Scientific realism posits there is an external world we can accurately measure. Perceptual realism posits that we, without measurement, can directly access an external world. They are plainly different considerations. One is necessarily prior to the other in explanatory terms. Ill leave that there.

seems to me just as much a concern — Apustimelogist

It may, but it's obviously not. It simply doesn't matter in A', as an example of why they're separate. You can subtract the one, and still ahve the other open question.

The question of "why the universe is the way it is?" is the same for any kind of metaphysical position because you can imagine the universe in a vast number of different — Apustimelogist

Yes, that's right and exactly why an idealist actually does not avoid any problems entailed by this question. I may prematurely be thinking you're starting to grok it here... Onward.

just as arbitrary — Apustimelogist

Not at all, on my account. Physicalists cannot entertain the majority of metaphysical theories because they posit something over and above hte physical, or remove/re-cast the physical as something other than it is currently understood. This is one of the biggest drawbacks. Physicalism begs several questions about it's foundational tenets. The problem of consciousness seems to pretty squarely jettison the sanguine notions of physicalists.

So too you can have an idealist universe where even what you are thinking of as non-experiential cognition is still experience or consciousness — Apustimelogist

This is a plain contradiction, unless your position is that I am empirically wrong - that doesn't seem to be what you're saying, so i remain in the position that this sentence is self-contradictory and does nothing for you. If A'- (our world, exactly, but there is no consciousness) exists, there just is no experience. Nothing else changes. Cognition and behaviour remains exactly the same, but is not accompanied, ever, by an experience in S. This specifically disallows phenomenal experience while losing precisely zero about our world that we actually know in the scientific sense.

An 'idealist' universe, on your account, is pure experience. Nothing else. Not experience of anything - just experiences on experiences on experiences. So, you've baked into your notion that both your sentence must be contradictory, and that you can't take an idealistic Universe seriously - you're trying to maintain non-experiential cognition in a world of experience - not cognition - from which experience can be subtracted without a loss of form, structure or function from what we know currently about A.

Personally I don't believe in some strong distinction between "conscious" and "non-conscious" cognition in the way that I believe you are thinking about it. — Apustimelogist

What's your take here, then? Pure curiosity. To come to table, 'cognition' doesn't seem to me something that is the same as experience. So, all cognition is 'conscious' but barely any cognition arises in experience

The problem of consciousness is only in contrast to the metaphysics of the physical and functional. — Apustimelogist

While, semantically, I agree, and I wrongly formulated discussions about hte Hard Problem earlier, i'm sorry, but the question of 'why is there conscious experience' is simply live on any theory that allows for experience. Nothing in those quotes changes this. The problem of experience looms over any theory that doesn't deny it. Which is why many theories simply deny it. Idealism being one that does the opposite - denies the physical s a non-problem. They are exactly the same tactics in terms of theorizing. And both are as silly as the other, imo. If the idealist position rested on cognition which is far more coherent than resting on experience you can see that this question is just as much a problem for the idealist.

This seems self-evidently wrong.

Plum claiming we know good and evil from birth is both counter to the evidence, and is somewhat incoherent in it's own terms. What established those 'facts' as they must be on your account?

Unfortunately,the only answers that don't rely on pure, individuated intuition is either functional (not ethical) or it doesn't exist. I take the latter view, but am open to the former. Collective agreement, or co-operative functionality isn't an ethical fact (either case). Morals are developed as a result of the internal comfort or discomfort of S in the face of a moral consideration. This covers it. On this formulation, morals and ethics need no further explanation. Merely, discussion and accepting social groups as morally-aligned rather than 'right' or 'wrong'. Its bizarre that people feel the need to establish an objective moral where there isn't even a chess move open to start that discussion on the facts. It's also irrelevant. Just live among people with whom you generally agree morally. That seems to be, if we set aside what would be considered at the very least, morally unhelpful violence in order to assert one's moral view on others, what history has amount to, socially speaking. I note here, though, that religion as an absolute poison of the mind, has convinced many people that a shitty book can establish the right to carry about hte above. Think what we may, but empirically, using fictional accounts to hoodwink children seems again, at the least, morally unhelpful on any account.

That said, you may find this interesting: It's a book by a prof. of Moral philosophy at St Andrew's - but also, the head of the Phil department I'm in here in NZ.

He argues that teh way to support a purpose of the Universe is through, essentially, theistic reasoning to objective morals - and then just jettisoning the Theism as unnecessary. It would get some way to your position, but it certainly makes clear that human morals are essentially irrelevant to even a successful argument for the account.

Heidegger’s point that a science presupposes as its very condition of possibility a set of metaphysical assumptions about how the world ought to be understood. — Joshs

Unsurprisingly, another horrible point from Heidegger that doesn't capture anything about hte scientific enterprise.

That just means the good never forms without us. But I disagree if the quote from Amadeus means the good never forms. There is an object, a definition, that forms, from our experience, called “good.” — Fire Ologist

In some sense, I agree, but hte idea that its an 'object' to be passed about is, to me, incoherent even on views other than my own. Other than PLatonic Forms things like Love, Good, Apprehension - these are not 'things' they are properties of people or acts. I do not think properties can be considered objects. That said, I lean toward some form a property dualism so maybe i'll have to eat crow on this soon enough

Perceiving a tree "as a tree" only makes sense to me when we're referring to those who know how to use the phrase. — creativesoul

You may enjoy Chamlers treatment of intensions when speaking about logical possibilities. In his view, the intensions differ - so 'that tree' as a primary intension picks out hte tree you are currently looking at. As a secondary intension it would pick out 'that tree' where it obtained in any possible world. He extensively uses Kripke to establish why this is relevant for understanding some of these issues (consciousness, perception and what not).

If the cat is perceiving what we perceive, it's a tree.

Do you agree with this, namely that the notion of good in inherent in the primacy of experience — Shawn

No, but I think you're in the right ballpark. I think the notion of good is something inherently informed by experience, but its not something that arises from 'experience' already-formed. Notions are human, and they develop over the course of experience/s.

If the only thing that exists is experiences, then how are the questions different? "Why is there experience?" would be precisely the same as "Why is there anything at all?" — Apustimelogist

Hmm, I don;t think this is quite right. While I understand exactly why you've landed there, its seems entirely right to say in world A' there is only cognition. But that coginition arises as points of view which can still conceptualise (and indeed may phenomenally experience) seemingly external objects. Indeed this would be the case if Idealism is true in world A (ours). All you need is awareness of that fact for the two considerations to come apart adequately:

1. Why is there anything, rather than nothing?; and
2. Why is anything conscious, rather than everything being unconscious?

Neither is applicable without hte other as a background consideration, but they address two specifically different problems and would require very different answers. Both are given in experience, so we need not question the existence of either, so the order in whcih we address the questions is not all that interesting. It could have been world A' and that's what's at odds here because our experiences would be the same as tehy currently are (though, based on current data this simply isn't the case so we have no real basis to claim this).

You'll also note (though, it's a little cheeky doing this) that both conceptions are phenomenal experiences which still need explaining. Why anything gives rise to an experience is exactly the same question under any theory but Dennett's really. He just thinks its not even happening lol.

Well from this perspective, it isn't a true metaphysical problem which is why illusionists may be more interested in the meta-problem of consciousness instead, aiming to explain what it is about human cognition and computation that leads to these limits of explanation — Apustimelogist

I'm not quite sure I'm understand thsi reply. To clarify my statements there, I'm driving at what I get clear in my first response above - that the 'other' question simply ignores the one of consciousness - it has no explanatory power even if sufficiently answered (for clarity, the position is that htis is true of idealism though clearly true for other theories too). I think it is patently wrong to hand-wave away consciousness. Things like reductive functionalism are simply infantile theories in the face of the serious problem we have with why consciousness arises (or ingresses) from/in the physical at all. |

This is not my understanding of the hard problem. The issue is the reducibility of consciousness to physical explanations. If you remove the physical from the equation then there is no hard problem. The issue I was talking about in the quote you replied to effectively also amounts to a problem of irreducibility but between different experiences. — Apustimelogist

Ah i see waht you mean. Yes, but I think you're mis-understanding the profundity of what you've written there. If consciousness does not reduce to the physical (it doesn't seem to, at this stage) we have a serious problem akin to having to explain ghosts. If consciousness fails to supervene on the physical then we have zero notion of how it arises or what causal relationship it has with the physical world. We would still need to understand experience in terms of something else in world A' because our awareness must be of something. There is also the problem noted above, in that world A' may be phenomenally exactly like A intimating that even in an idealistic universe a 'point of view\ can consider why it's mental activity results in it consciousness apprehending whatever it is menta...ting...?LOL.

That said, you're right that it's formulated that way because we live in world A, but that doesn't change that it is a live question in world A' too. From where does consciousness come? Why is there any conscious experience. Chalmers goes over a few objections from that camp and rejects on similar grounds - that they simply ignore the core issue.

The kind of idealism I have in mind is just that everything in the universe is mental — Apustimelogist

This was what I took it to be. This entails no external objects as nothing could be non-mind. All comments hold (whether correct is in the air lol).

Can you elaborate the differences in realism for science vs. perceptual representations? — Apustimelogist

Sure. So, this is a little bit like (i think) the two questions about existence and consciousness I canvassed earlier.

One question here is going to be (or more accurately "How do we produce conscious experiences of the external world?") but another, separate and probably more profound question is "How could we know that anything in the external world is actually as-it-seems? Even if we have 'direct' perception we still have the issue of Descartes Demon and all that fun stuff - whereas the question around scientific realism addresses the problem of whether our perception is of actual things. In world A' we may have direct perceptions of things which are not actually things, for instance. It is a false perception, but its a direct relation with the mental substance that it arises from. Even in world A, we might have indirect perception yet trust that our scientific instruments are relaying the actual behind our perceptions. This is definitely open to a charge of being a bit incoherent, but I'm unsure that's entirely warranted. We bypass shitty sense perception for better data (which we trust) all the time. Principle holds here.

So in the Scientific sense, are we even metaphysically able to ascertain the world as-it-is? And for Perception its do we, humans, naturally, perceive the world in direct causal relation (regardless of whether the world actually allows for accurate measurement. You can see that one couldn't be a scientific antirealist and a DRist. That would imply our eyes were better visual organs than the trillion-frame-per-second camera in a mechanical sense.

P.S: I've just come across this article for school and the opening lines are very much apt:

Why does the Universe exist? There are
here two questions: (1) Why does the Universe exist at all?
That is, why is there anything rather than nothing? (2)
Why is the Universe as it is? — Derek Parfit

You can keep question one, and simply swap question two for the more specific version: Why is anything in the Universe conscious? To essentially outline the two distinct questions that idealism would still post. Consciousness not supervening on the physical simply doesn't explain it as the majority of cognition is not accompanied by any experience.

I’m talking about human beings, which are not vague, blurry sets of whatever. I happen to identify as one. What further facts do you require? — NOS4A2

You have essentially stated the 'further fact' (in the conceptual sense, anyhow) in this: ||

I’m talking about human beings, which are not vague, blurry sets of whatever. — NOS4A2

(A couple of examples of what some posit as the 'further fact' are immaterial souls, Descartes res cogitans (though, that's disputed I believe, as I'm positing it anyhow) or the identity of say a base-code having been input to a simulation (as unlikley as that theory is)).

Hmm, fair enough. If that is your view, then you do not think you can accept that "human being" reduces to the lower-level facts about ourselves such asbiology, mentation, cognition, environment, memory, (adapt)ability, (ir)rationality etc.. etc.. In this sense, you must hold (for your stated position to hold) that there is something other than these things in which "NOS4A2" consists(the conceptual further fact)).
What is that in which you feel you consist? You "identity" as a human being, which is merely to say you are emotionally comfortable with using that label based on your own terminology and, most likely, something akin to my above approximation in italics. Sure. We can, in that sense, allow for a human to identify as a cat, if we like the description. To be clear, what I am saying (and seems self-evident) is that the notion of human being i've italicised in my reply here is in fact, a vague bundle of seemingly weakly-connected attributes that have only a relational property and not a further coherence into some objective identity. They don't really establish any stable, temporally-relevant 'identity' without some further discussion of what identity consists in.

I should probably note that it's occurred you may be doing something I've run into a few times (and that's not wrong or bad or anything negative). If you are speaking on how one identifies then we're at cross-purposes. I am speaking on the debate around how it is that one could be the same person three years part, say. In what does identity per se exist for a human? If you're not, wonderful, that is helpful :)

I don't know exactly what you mean for experience to compliment activity. — Apustimelogist

Behaviour viz adaptation, metabolism, sensitivity (in the physical sense) do not entail experience. Yet, we have experience. It appears to be something over and above the physical facts, on it's face. This is what I mean. Experience accompanies behaviour.

If everything is experience, there is no hard problem because the problem just becomes "why are there experiences?" — Apustimelogist

That literally is the hard problem. Perhaps you have an erroneous idea of what it is? The hard problem consists in this exact question.

then this is no different from "why does anything exist?" — Apustimelogist

AS above, clearly this is not right.

And maybe people similarly-minded to Dennett actually want to turn the hard problem of consciousness into this kind of more trivial hard problem - i.e. the reasoning going something like - Why does anything exist? Can we even answer that? Do we have to make up an additional metaphysical substance of consciousness that needs its own separate answer? — Apustimelogist

Agreed, but that's pretty senseless. Its just ignoring one problem for another. Dennett, as it goes, actually denies qualia. So, that's novel, but even less coherent that ignoring hte problem, I think.

only come about in idealism when you postulate something like observers that have a way they seem to themselves, via their own experiences, which is different to how they seem from another observer's perspective. — Apustimelogist

It's very hard to see how this could matter. If one is having an experience, that's all that's needed. The framework in whcih is sits isn't relevant the Hard Problem. It is the experience per se that needs explaining.

Obviously, this construction has an inherent indirect aspect to it in the sense that there are experiences out in the world and then your own experiences which seem to be about those experiences but are not the same - they are separated. — Apustimelogist

This is hte empirical notion of how perception produces experience (and leads to the problem this thread has instantiated. Using hte word 'perception' for both the experience and the process it arises from is ridiculous).

At the same time, without indirect mediation I feel like there would be no need to identify brain processes and experiences or distinguish internal experiences from external stuff. — Apustimelogist

I think is true, and is weakly entailed by my positions on the above passages of yours. Indirect causal processes result in experience. That much is known in experience. We can't access anything other than experience, so it seems were stuck with the Hard Problem however we slice it. The indirect nature of perceptual awareness is just another spanner for the likes of Banno who are deathly afraid of being less-directly acquainted with objects than they'd like to be.

So I think in that sense hard-type problems in idealism do presuppose indirect realism (including external objects to be realist about which are qualitatively different from internal perception). — Apustimelogist

An idealist rejects that there are external objects. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're getting at here.

So it appears you already anticipated the answer I gave about why idealism doesn't necessarily have a hard problem of consciousness. — Apustimelogist

It isn't clear to me - what I was doing with that passage was cutting off, at its base, the chess move you tried to make earlier in the post around an Idealist holding that external objects exist. They don't, but this has nothing to do with teh Hard Problem. Is it the experience per se that needs explaining.

For instance, if realism is a concept that can be attributed to mathematical scientific theories, why can't it be attributed to the representations and models built in machine learning? — Apustimelogist

Because you're misattributing what 'realism' stands for within each framework. Perceptually indirect/direct realism is not the same debate as that among scientifici realists/antirealists or moral realists/antirealists. You could be a scientific realist, and just deny that we have adequate acces to the world for our experiments to mean a huge amount. Or just take the probablity response to Hume hook line and sinker.

I agree that this “perception of a perception” is confusing and unnecessary. It’s a large part of the reason why I am not an indirect realist. — Luke

As was pointed out several times in the first 20 pages of this thread, this is purely a mistake in terminology.

If we, instead, actually f'ing do our jobs and improve our tools, we can use terms like the below:

1.The act of turning ones eyes: To look at -->causes
2.The act of processing visual data: To perceive --> causes
3. Having the resulting conscious experience: To see.

These aren't airtight as more specific terms could be invented, but if we use them, we can see that the debate is actually not a debate. Being a Direct Realist is a position which requires that (2.) is (3.) which is patently is not, and can't be explained in terms of. The conscious experience is simply not reducible to either of (1.) or (2.).
Hand-waving aside, there has been no response whatsoever in this thread that even tries to solve this problem in Direct Realist terms. Hell, literally hte best-known and respected proponent of Direct Realism has to (literally) hand-wave away the problems of perception, claims to be a Direct Realist, then gives an intentionalist account of perception, while utterly and completely overlooking the lack of connection between object and experience. It isn't even touched.

(ala Searle above, is the reference to make sense of this part)Ironically, one of his biggest arguments is the exact same as mine above - except he is so obviously wrong in his own terms, its hard to understand why this book is around.

"The reason we feel an urge to put sneer quotes around “see” when we describe hallucinatory “seeing” is that, in the sense of intentionality, in such cases we do not see anything. If I am having a visual hallucination of the book on the table, then literally I do not see anything."

This is him making the mistake he's arguing everyone else makes.

"This shift is to move from the object-directed intentionality of the perceptual experience to treating the visual experience itself as the object of visual consciousness. I do indeed have a conscious experience when I see the table, but the conscious experience is of the table. The conscious experience is also an entity, but it is not the object of perception; it is indeed the experience itself of perceiving. [...]"

This is not only counter to what actually happens in perception, it is clearly an attempt to escape from the problem of conscious experience qua experience and instead substitute in it's place the 'perception of an object'. Which is not an experience, and he admits is not a constituent of experience - yet advocates speaking as if that's the case.

Then your position is entirely incoherent. Unless you hold a further fact view, your position rests on denying what is required for it's coherence viz. if a further fact does not obtain, then necessarily identity consists in a bundle of vague, blurry sets of intensions/intentions and memories.

I have provided adequate counter in each of my replies. It is not that interesting to see you deny them, and it is an out-right red flag that you would introduce a line like this:

I don’t really care about your fee-fees. — NOS4A2

Neither my feelings being in play, or your misapprehension of their presence bears here. My objection goes through, currently as you have not even attempted to address it. Please refrain from random underhanded Twitter insults. When you prevaricate, it is hard to converse. This has nothing to do with my feelings, and i'd appreciate you rising to the level of a decent interlocutor, if you're going to respond.

I have genuinely no clue how you could possibly grok this from my rejecting an actual source, based on its track record of being a steaming pile of shit with no import for anyone but its captured audience - has anything to do with 'tribalism'.
It used to present some good journalism. It no longer does.

Your response just tells me how tribal you must be at-base.

and yet there is no trace of anyone 'programming' or 'guiding' us anywhere. — jasonm

I'm unsure this is an argument. It may also be empirically wrong, and we misdescribe, or mislabel the evidence of such.

Similarly, why don't we sometimes notice violations of the laws of physics? — jasonm

A huge number of people claim this is so. I can't possibly vet every claim. So, it's an open question.

Are we talking about computers that are bigger than the universe itself? Is this possible even in principle? — jasonm

I'm not sure where the intimation comes from. In principle, there is no reason why we couldn't produce simulations either larger, or more complex than our own. Seems implausible, though.

Nevertheless, I think the best answer comes from Occam's Razor: "Explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more." — jasonm

I am not entirely convinced this is the best Razor to use when it comes to speculative cosmologies. It seems fairly clear that if anything other than materialism via random distribution at the big bang is true, it must necessarily be a theory which Occam would reject, prima facie.

Rabble Rouser. Youtube.

It's hard to deal with this level of sheer prevarication.

Do you hold a further fact view about agents/identities/persons?