I would have thought that the law of identity, a=a, is central to logic and meaning. 'a' is not similar to 'a', it is the same. That's what '=' means. — Wayfarer

What light does this shed on the point in question? Or is this more "skating"?

The law of identity merely expresses the logical form of judgments of identity. It doesn't inform any such judgment. It doesn't tell us whether any two items introduced into conversation are identical or nonidentical.

For instance, the law of identity doesn't by itself determine for us whether, or in what respect, something we call a thought in my head is identical to something we call a thought in your head. At first glance, it seems there's good reason to call these two things nonidentical, though they may resemble each other in various ways.

But, whether something is 'the same' or 'similar', in both cases, the faculty that makes that judgement is essential to the matter. That is the faculty of abstract judgement. You and I, as rational beings, are able to make such judgements; it is the source of such judgement that interests me. That's why I included the long quotation from Steve Pinker in this post. He is confident that 'the computational theory of mind' accounts for such judgements; he tries to give a materialist account of how this works, in terms of 'bits that are arranged to bump into other bits'.Whereas, I'm arguing (not very well, perhaps) for a dualist view: that the symbolic and the physical are ontologically distinct. Also, I argue that even if computers are analogies for the processes of thought, that is only because humans have specifically manufactured them for that purpose, so the fact that they reflect the operations of human thought, doesn't explain the nature of thought. — Wayfarer

I'm inclined to agree that artificial simulations of human intelligence are not adequate to explain human cognition, as Searle for one has argued. It seems AI designers produce increasingly accurate simulations or representations of human thinking. Simulating or representing is not the same as explaining, though representations may be of use in various explanations.

You may recall my favorite take on ontology is that "there is no privileged ontology", as Rorty puts it. We use different ontological models for different purposes.

What is the "faculty of abstract judgment"? Isn't that just a term of art for our capacity or power to make abstract judgments? Isn't it a philosopher's high-level placeholder, that provides a way for us to refer to a human capacity without making assumptions about what in the world the capacity is grounded in?

I take it talk about a "faculty of abstract judgment" is compatible with a view that physical bodies in a physical world are the source of that capacity, and compatible with a view that angel's whispers are the source of that capacity, and with diverse other views. An attempt to isolate such cognitive powers and analyze them at an abstract level leaves no necessary path back from abstract representation to "real source". The abstraction will be multiply realizable in principle, and compatible with an infinite range of views of what the world may be in fact if it contains such minds.

The same goes for abstract theories or formalizations of signs and language, and for computational models of mind and information. The abstract formal representation is no explanation or reproduction of the real system it represents or simulates. You and I agree with Searle and disagree with many cognitive scientists in this regard: Even if computational models of mind may yield perfect simulations of human intelligence, it seems there's no reason to suppose they'll ever explain human consciousness or produce real sentient beings.

Symbols and language are the province of semiotics and linguistics, respectively, and they're enormous disciplines in their own right; to become conversant with them takes considerable study. That's why I admit to 'skating over' a lot of major issues. It's a very general and high-level argument based on a single observation. — Wayfarer

So much skating, it's hard for me to tell what connection your claims have to the rigorous disciplines you cite. It's as if you suggest your skating is informed by these disciplines, but so far as I can see, the only connection is that you borrow a few of their words and phrases, then point to the disciplines as if they are justifications for any claim you make with those words and phrases.

What's gained by that sort of gesture but confusion?

It seems you have yet to clear up your own thoughts on what "symbol" and "information" mean in your own discourse, but before you think that through, you rush into proofs that "information is not physical" and that the "symbolic and physical are ontologically distinct".

What is the "single observation" that informs your argument?

No, but it's the widespread assumption of e.g. Steve Pinker above. I would say that the cultural mainstream is generally physicalist in its orientation to these issues. I think that the account of 'how the mind works' is generally a lot nearer to Steve Pinker's view (that was the title of the book I quoted, by the way) than anything I am likely to advocate, and that it's probably a much less contentious view than my own. — Wayfarer

In this case you used the claim in responding to me, not to Pinker, and you put the claim in my mouth. That's just one example of the way you seem to conflate the views of your interlocutors till you wind up skating circles around straw men. At least, I often feel that you've mistaken the claims of a skeptical naturalist like me for the claims of an extreme materialist.

I am addressing what I see as the issue at hand. I don't regard that as a process of stereotyping but of analysis of the implications of the physicality, or otherwise, of ideas and symbols, in the context of philosophy and history of ideas. Now the fact that you will characterise yourself as a 'thoughtful, perceptive and introspective animal', is, I think, significant - incidentally, you are extremely thoughtful and highly perceptive, not to mention articulate, so let's put that aside - it's the 'animal' tag that I'm questioning. Rational animal, yes; animal, no. And it's a difference that makes a difference. — Wayfarer

Isn't a rational animal a sort of animal? I recall we've spent some time trying to distinguish our use of terms like "rational", "intelligent", and "sentient" in our conversations, for it seems we have different dispositions in the use of such terms. In my view, traditional English translation of Aristotle's zoon logikon muddies the distinction between language and rationality. Humans are the only full-fledged language-users we know of, and our capacity for language seems closely associated with our distinctly human practice of reasoning, of "giving and taking reasons". But it makes most sense to me to say that many nonhuman animals are rational, intelligent, and sentient, like human beings.

What are the "implications of physicality"?

We may distinguish i) conversations that proceed from the assumption of some metaphysical or theological dogma, such as materialism or idealism, theism or atheism; ii) conversations in which no such assumption is granted, while one or more such assumptions are contested; and iii) conversations in which no such assumption even comes into play, where discourse remains consistent in principle with a wide range of conflicting metaphysical biases external to the conversation.

For many years now, I prefer to have conversations of the third sort. Engagement with interlocutors making metaphysical claims of any stripe tends to drag me into conversations of the second sort. Occasionally I'm induced to play along in conversations of the first sort by granting the required assumption hypothetically.

I might say the reason I prefer the third sort of conversation is that I've become agnostic about metaphysics in general. I say this agnosticism is not a metaphysical point of view, but an epistemological point of view on metaphysical claims. My agnosticism about metaphysics is one feature of a broader epistemological skepticism that's closely aligned with methodological naturalism and with a phenomenologically grounded conception of nature and the physical.

In keeping with that point of view, I say there is no "implication of the physical" that we may firmly grasp, that clearly points beyond the physical. Though we may imagine anything we please in a logical space we call "beyond the physical".

Right - are the issues being discussed here empirical in nature? Is the basic question one for empiricism at all? — Wayfarer

Do you mean the question, "Is information physical"? I ask again, what would it mean to deny that information is physical? If information is not physical, then what is it, and how do we come to know of it, and how do we determine that it is not physical?

Clearly we pursue empirical investigations that inform us increasingly about cognition, including about perception and speech. Clearly we construct and analyze formal models of language and communication that abstract away from physical contexts, but the fact that we jot abstract representations in a notebook is no evidence that those symbols correspond to abstract "entities" that exist somehow independent of the physical instantiations they're designed by us and taken by us to represent.

I make the same sort of argument with respect to concepts of number and symbolic representations of numerical concepts.

This, incidentally, is why I provided that excerpt from the article on the 'indispensability of mathematics'. That article likewise notes the incorporeal nature of number, as I have done with 'information'. It says that the non-materiality of mathematical objects is very difficult to reconcile with the fact that 'our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects'. And why do 'our best arguments' do that? I suggest it's because they're empiricist in the sense you are defending. The difficulty is, that rationalist philosophy indicates the reality of rational truths that are not justifiable on solely empirical grounds. So the whole point of the argument is 'an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight'. (My emphasis. By the way, I can't help but find this conclusion ironic, considering the degree to which empirical science goes on about 'reason'.)

I am not going to come to any conclusions on this point, but I think it's worth considering why such an argument has to be made, in the context of modern analytical and empirical philosophy.

(Now, also, I acknowledge that my attitude is tendentious - I was accused of that as an undergraduate, and it's probably true. And I know it goes against the grain. I am trying to have these arguments, therefore, in a fairly detached manner, so they're not directed at persons, but ideas. And also that these are difficult questions - especially yours.) — Wayfarer

I do find your arguments tendentious. I suspect they'd be more clear and persuasive for me, if you'd spend more time bearing down in small spaces to tighten up your discourse before reaching out to synthesize whole disciplines in quick runs around the rink. But you put it together with intelligence, imagination, creativity, and passion. It's challenging and enjoyable exercise for me.

If my line of questioning is difficult, it may be in part because I try to speak carefully and to avoid biting off more than I can chew, and in part because I'm more sympathetic to your point of view than you're inclined to suppose.

Why should the idea that the existence of the world is not independent of first-person experience conflict with the observation that the world continues when other animals sleep? — sime

I don't think the two views conflict. They seem compatible to me, but one seems supported by experience and the other doesn't.

We can imagine a wide variety of metaphysical scenarios compatible with the evidence that the world continues while other animals sleep. The fact that they're compatible with this evidence, and the fact that we can imagine them, is no reason to suppose that they are true depictions of how things really are in the world.

Why the single-standard assumption that what is true to say of the third-person must also be true to say of the first-person?

Why the prejudice against solipsism? — sime

It's not an assumption or a prejudice.

The preponderance of evidence suggests that, in general, what is true of others is also true of me, and vice versa. If you want to make the case that you're so very special, the burden's on you to provide a warrant for the claim. The fact that we can imagine things being so gives no such warrant. We can imagine things being so, and we can imagine things being otherwise. Imagination is not enough. Possibility is not enough. Logical consistency with the evidence is not enough, because the contrary claim is also consistent with the evidence, and arguably far better supported by the evidence.

I just mean that the world as we value and know it as humans is only here while we are. If an asteroid wipes us out, the substratum will still be here. But I can only think or say this while I'm here. Where was the world before I was born? It was here, of course. But only because I arrived to think the world before my birth. To my knowledge, the human world (the world I care about) is only experienced first-person. — t0m

I would say the world "as we inhabit it", or "as we experience it" is only here while we're here. But there's no reason to suppose that the world as we inhabit it is "the whole world". We only get a glimpse of the world, even while we're here. That's all. Or so it seems.

What this doesn't acknowledge, is the role of not knowing in religious philosophies. That is also not something that is understood by many religious fundamentalists, who are similarly ill at ease with an unknown God. But many religious practitioners are sharply aware of what it is they don't know; so faith, for them, is not an assertion regarding 'a proposition for which there is no empirical evidence', as it is invariably misconstrued, but a sense of an unseen source of order, and the belief that it might be possible to draw closer to it. And that's why symbolism plays such a role in the religious imagination; the subject matter doesn't yield to precise description and quantitative analysis, as does that of the empirical sciences. It's generally 'through a glass darkly'. — Wayfarer

I'm often struck dumb at the way most theists seem to neglect this aspect of theology where it counts. They use it as a charm to wave off doubts in the face of the problem of evil, for instance, but never seem to wonder if it may apply as well to their own prejudiced conceptualization of mystical experience.

An emphasis on profound ignorance is a keystone of many great religious traditions which, having filled the peasant's imagination with colorful dramatic tales, warn those who can hear it against the natural hubris of the finite mind, the dangers of clinging to intellectual abstractions like the avaricious clutch at precious jewels. This keystone shows a juncture at which theism is consistent with skepticism, a compatibility the early modern Christians put to use as soon as they discovered Sextus.

I count experiences like the "sense of an unseen source of order" you mention as prima facie reasons for a wide range of beliefs, including theological, mystical, or metaphysical beliefs, among others. I say they are items of empirical evidence. They are phenomena. They are among the appearances that inform us about the world on the basis of experience.

The appearance is not the same as the judgments we make about it and the inferences we draw on the basis of those judgments. The appearance does not settle all disputes involving conflicting accounts of the appearance and its connection to the rest of the world.

You and I point to the same phenomenon and give different accounts. Each of us may have more or less faith that his own account is more apt. Each of us may nonetheless acknowledge the limits of his own point of view, and grant that his account may be more or less incorrect, as a matter of rational principle, regardless of the intensity of his faith.

The phenomenon does not settle such concerns, or disrupt the compatibility of rational belief and rational doubt. The skeptic acknowledges that the appearance of his own faith, his own belief, his own expectations are not evidence of the correctness of his opinion. The dogmatist who claims that the intensity or character of his belief make it impossible and inconceivable that his opinion is mistaken, seems to stray beyond the bounds of reason and break the path to rational conversation. It's hardly more reasonable to claim that the power of my belief is itself evidence, if perhaps inconclusive evidence, of the truth of what it is I believe: "I believe it" is no warrant for the claim "It's true". The experience of faith is not itself an account of faith, and is not itself an account of what one believes by virtue of his faith. The experience of faith does not interpret itself. Subsequent description is compatible with a wide range of conflicting interpretations.

Metaphysicians of various stripes dispute each other with no definitive criterion, no conclusive warrant, to settle the dispute. Metaphysicians who align their discourse with skepticism acknowledge there's no resting point for that carousel of metaphysical speculation, and make the most room for ignorance and mystery while they pursue their inclination, as it were hypothetically.

Metaphysicians who think it's possible to finally halt the carousel at the point of their own precious speculations want less mystery, not more.

I suppose. But Dennett does call himself an 'anti-philosopher': — Wayfarer

It's an apt turn of phrase from a skilled rhetor.

McDowell is a warm and fuzzy naturalist compared to Dennett. My impression is McDowell intentionally aims at the sort of engagement I've been indicating here, for reasons similar to those I've indicated. McDowell's brand of therapeutic philosophy aims to set heads straight by relieving them of unwarranted philosophical anxieties rooted in outmoded intellectual prejudices, where Dennett is more imperious, aggressive, and bare-knuckled in his push to "knock heads and straighten people out". Different temperaments, different rhetorical styles, different discourses, different appeals to different market segments. But I'd say every effective philosopher tends to "straighten people out", beginning with himself, no matter what doctrine he prefers and no matter what style of engagement he adopts. Philosophy is a sort of intellectual exercise or therapy. There is such a thing as philosophical fitness or unfitness. To aim at fitness in our discourses is to pursue right views.

As a matter a fact, I agree that the notion of mind as 'substance' is completely mistaken, but there is an error involved which I think ought to be made explicit. And it's a crucial error. This is derived from the fact that the use of the word 'substance' is completely different in philosophy than in normal discourse. The Aristotelian term which was translated as 'substance' was 'ousia' which is much nearer in meaning to 'being'. So if Descartes' original dualism had been described as the distinction between two kinds of 'being', extended being and thinking being, then it would be nearer the mark. — Wayfarer

It's hard for me to resist temptation to proceed by exploring the concept of ousia. I expect that would take us rather far afield.

I gather this turn is relevant to your conception of what counts and what doesn't count as "philosophy". I think I've said enough already about why I reject that sort of posturing. But perhaps you'd like to press the issue more explicitly: How does the dispute you've brought to our attention, between Dennett and Descartes, or between Cartesian dualism and eliminative materialism, inform our view of the boundaries of philosophy?

One may prefer Aristotle's conception of ousia, or more inflated variations from Neo-Platonists, Islamic and Christian theologians, or classical Western Cartesians and rationalists. One may favor Heidegger's beautiful romantic interpretations of pre-Socratic fragments, or one may find it more reasonable to dismiss the whole jumble as outmoded and misleading confusion. I see no reason to call any position in that range of attitudes unphilosophical.

Because the topology between 'inside' and 'outside' at stake here is different: it's not just that there are 'organisms' on the one side and 'oxygen' on the other; it's that epigenetic and environmental influences are already 'on the side' of life, or rather the organism, to begin with. That's the whole point of focusing on networks: whether the nodes in a genomnic network are biotic or abiotic is a matter of sheer indifference from the point of view of the network, which can only 'see' relations, topologies, and threshold values. While it's true, as others have pointed out, there is a kind of specificity provided by the spatio-temporal dynamics of the cellular environment itself, this only serves, as I've argued, to worsen the ambiguity because those dynamics themselves also cannot be neatly parsed along biotic/abiotic lines.

The problem is that life traverses both 'sides' in the manner of a mobius strip or klein bottle, where the distinction between inside and outside cannot really, be made: — StreetlightX

I still don't see what difference you're suggesting.

So far it seems perhaps you're mistaking an abstract mathematical representation of some interactions in a physical system, for the physical system itself.

It's a matter of indifference, "from the point of view" of a geometrical abstraction, what the abstraction is an abstraction of. It's no surprise if a geometrical representation of complex physical interactions omits a great deal of information, and no surprise if distinctions that are relevant to us in some contexts are not relevant in the framework of that geometrical representation.


The organism ends at its own fuzzy boundary, but the environment does not. Organisms are interwoven with their environments, and are entirely composed of material from their environments over time. The material we're made of is only borrowed for a while.

That material is organized into a physically coherent structure in space and time, so the organism is distinguishable in its environment according to principles of biological organization; but it remains in constant physical interaction with a local physical context, in a continuous exchange of matter and energy.

Given a particular "set of genes", which may be characterized physically; and a range of possible environmental factors, which can be characterized as distinct sets of physical factors; there corresponds a range of phenotypical outcomes, which can be characterized as distinct sets of physical states or physically determined capacities or "traits" of the organism. The organism, its genes, its environment, and its traits all have concrete physical existence in space and time, and can be distinguished accordingly.

Now you say some mathematician comes along to represent those concrete physical relations abstractly by sketching beautiful geometrical topographies in his notebook. And in that abstract mathematical representation, perhaps, "it is a matter of indifference" whether the nodes are biotic or abiotic.

Does that mean anything more than that, once you abstract from real physical context, and represent complex physical features of an environment as mathematical "nodes", you may lose sight of the complex physical features, and forget to look back and forth between the enchanting sketch and the real world it is designed to represent?

Depending on what sort of representation we're discussing, I suppose it may also be a matter of indifference whether the organisms and traits and environmental factors represented in the diagram are actual or only possible -- such maps may represent relations of sets of possible genetic codes, possible environmental factors, possible traits -- and not a single real thing in the world. In fact there's a difference between my genes, my traits, and the environments I've actually passed through over time, on the one hand, and all the environments I could possibly have passed through in a mathematician's dream, and all the traits I might have had if things had gone otherwise, on the other hand.

That may be "a matter of indifference from the point of view of the representation", too. But it's not a matter of indifference to real organisms that suffer real environments.

Suppose as given a phenomenon we wish to explain. Ockham's razor is a widely recognized heuristic for choosing between competing explanations: choose the one that makes fewer ontological commitments.

Why this should be a reasonable principle is difficult to explain. I don't have an explanation, but a way of framing the issue that might lead to one, or might just kick the can down the road. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not sure I understand your way of framing the principle as an auction.

I suppose the simplest explanations would explain everything in terms of a single, simple principle. What could be simpler than "God wills it", for instance?

A knack for wielding Ockham's razor, traditionally associated with the fragile custom of methodological naturalism, balances the principle of parsimony against the principle of "explanatory power" or "predictive power", or some such counterweight.

Use of the razor is thus related to the view that "theory is under-determined by data". Given the same batch of data or phenomena, the same record of observations, "competing theories" somehow give different accounts with equivalent "predictive power".

You can take any useful theory and add "... and Zeus wills it", and now you have two accounts with the same predictive power. You can take the latter account and add "...and Apollo wills against it, but Zeus trumps Apollo", and now you have three accounts, and it's clear we can proceed this way indefinitely.

Since our time is limited, and since cognitive and social resources are limited, it seems more reasonable to prefer the simplest account, all else equal.


Now I suppose if more "currency" than required is printed -- more entities posited and more theoretical complexity constructed -- to purchase an explanatory model with the same predictive power, there's a devaluation of the currency relative to the "real value" of the model as expressed in terms of predictive power.

Unfortunately, not all use-value of an explanatory model lies in its predictive power. If you can persuade more laborers to work harder for you by paying them less with your devalued currency, and if you can get more consumers to purchase more of your goods at higher prices, just because they like the brand of your inflated story better than a more efficient story -- you might think it's in your own self-interest to propagate that story, devalue the currency, and reap the benefits.


I suppose those benefits must be weighed against the costs of inefficiency, which may vary from one case to the next.

But my particular interest in this thread is to explore the notion of intersubjective consciousness, if anyone is up for it. And the particular thing that I want to keep to the fore, that I take from all the above, is the way in which the manner and tone as well as the content of our contributions actively shapes what I have elsewhere indicated as our morale, but here will call the intersubjective consciousness we are and will be constructing. — unenlightened

Good to see the second-person perspective getting some play in that de Quincey essay. I hope to give it a look sometime.

Meanwhile: I think it's a great idea to focus on one's own comportment in philosophical conversation, as in every activity. My pursuit of mindfulness is informed by encounters with Stoic, Buddhist, and Christian philosophy, for instance. I say the capacity to maintain psychological and emotional poise in a wide range of interpersonal situations is an important component of well-being and personal responsibility. That's one of my motives and aims in conversation: It's an opportunity to practice mindfulness, sincerity, and compassion.

It's also an opportunity to engage other human beings in a sort of shared trance, much like playing music, or dancing, or sparring together.

I'm not sure what's meant by "intersubjectivity", and I'm confused by some of the terminology in the passages you cited.

This one makes good sense to me:

Trevarthen’s careful observations of parents and infants demonstrate that the original human experience of dialogue emerges in the first days of life, as parent and child engage in an exquisite dance of mutual emotional attunement by means of facial expressions, hand gestures and tones of vocalisation. This is truly a dialogue: the child’s actions influ- ence the emotional states of the adult, and the adult, by engaging, stimulating and soothing, influences the emotional states of the child.

That sort of attunement is a fact of life. It's not limited to parent-child relations, it reaches us everywhere.

We're tuned by the garbage they feed us on television, the angry talking heads gnawing on the same three talking points all day. We're tuned by the voices we encounter in online spaces like this one. The more balance we bring to our interactions, the better off we'll all be for it. These interactions accumulate in collective trends that wash across the whole planet now in waves.

The internet connects us at a distance. Some of us tend to get riled up and belligerent in these online spaces in ways we wouldn't in up-close and personal interactions. It's similar to the way some drivers fly into road rage. It's similar to the way some hurried walkers are frustrated when they're impeded on crowded streets.

Every experience of frustration is an opportunity to practice patience and release. Every confrontation is an opportunity to practice sincerity and compassion.

Every waking moment is an opportunity to practice mindfulness.

That's the sort of trance I prefer to get into with my interlocutors.

Now, what's philosophically interesting to me about all this is that, if I understand the implications correctly, it throws into question the specificity of life itself, or rather what does and does not count as 'alive'. That is, if we think in terms of networks, how is it possible to think the specificity of life itself, insofar as the dynamics of genome networks are defined as much by extra-biological factors as they are biological ones? Because extra-biological factors are as just as important as biological factors in the process of gene expression, it becomes very hard to draw any kind of hard diving line between the two. This also follows, as a matter of principle, from the fact that networks are simply indifferent to the 'content' of the nodes which constitute them: it's all just a matter of the organization and threshold levels. — StreetlightX

How does this issue have implications for our thoughts about "what does and does not count as alive"?

It's not news that organisms like us need oxygen to stay alive. That gives us no reason to speak as though oxygen is alive.

The fact that the boundary between an organism and its environment is fuzzy and permeable doesn't mean there's no difference between the organism and its environment, and doesn't mean there's no difference between animate and inanimate objects.

There seems to be a great deal of the feeling of 'melancholy' in reading any philosophical piece from the greats of philosophy. This seems particularly true in continental philosophy, the existentialists, strangely enough even in the philosophy of both early and later Wittgenstein, and evident particularly in Aristotelian logic. I would dare say that most continental philosophy is imbued with melancholy.

Now, to ask the less esoteric and more direct question.

What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

What sort of melancholy is evident in the philosophical work of Wittgenstein and in Aristotelian logic?

For the sake of clarity, I'll note my inclination to distinguish ancient Hellenic philosophy, like that of Aristotle, from Western philosophy, including the so-called "continental" tradition; and I'll emphasize Wittgenstein's association with the so-called "analytic" tradition that runs from Austrians and Germans like Frege through anglophone philosophers from Russell to the present day.

Sharing that you were sexually harassed or assaulted in the workplace is part of the solution but the other half is to try to make sure that no one else is put into that situation again, with this same harasser.
Thoughts? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I was never assaulted in a workplace and I was never sexually harassed by a superior in a workplace.

I'm not sure whether I've been sexually harassed by a colleague because I'm not sure where the line is between harassment and flirtation. Does it count as harassment if I enjoyed it or if I didn't mind?

I don't mean to be flippant: I'm asking seriously, how do we distinguish cases of harassment from cases of flirtation? Is the distinction drawn one way in the workplace and another way out of the workplace, or is it drawn the same everywhere?

If any unwanted sexual attention counts as harassment, I suppose I've been harassed on at least a few occasions in a workplace. In one such instance, a young female administrative assistant employed by a temp agency I used to get work from persisted in flirting with me and asking me on dates. She would follow me into the stairwell when I went on smoke breaks to engage me where no one else was around. I tried to make it clear I wasn't interested without being mean about it, but she wouldn't take the hint.

If an unwanted kiss in a bar counts as an assault, then on at least one occasion I was assaulted in a bar. I was standing between a young woman I was interested in and a rough older man who told tales of an adventurous life. He turned out to have a thing for younger men and started hitting on me. He wouldn't stop despite my repeated and increasingly firm indications that I wasn't interested. His advances became increasingly aggressive, till at last he grabbed me by the neck and planted a hard wet kiss on my face. I stood there, kind of stunned, kind of grossed out, and pretty well drunk by that point. I'm not sure what would have happened if the girl to my right hadn't told him to f*** off before taking me home in a cab.

Paradise island is surrounded by shark-infested waters. But we need a few wild boars in the jungle to keep things interesting. Just don't break Piggy's glasses. (I'm regretting this metaphor already.) — Baden

I'm cracking up. But I'll leave it alone.

He's not the only scientist to dismiss this question, either. Tyson did so at the end of an otherwise very likable interview. I think they can't help associating it with religion. Any hint of mystery is suspicious. "We must know. We will know. "

Also funny that Dawkins would talk about all the fascinating entities that are here to non-fatously wonder at. As if "why is there something rather than nothing" didn't include every such entity. He can't really mean wonder at the existence of such objects. He must mean wonder at their structure or their way of existing. But the philosopher is amazed that they exist in the first place. The "how" is admittedly a more practical and objective concern, and that's probably why he shifts toward the how. — t0m

I'm not sure such dismissals are motivated merely by practical concerns about the utility we might expect from pursuing such questions.

I think it's wrong to speak as if all philosophers ask such questions, as if all philosophers think such questions are useful or meaningful, as if all philosophers think such questions can be answered informatively. Clearly many of them do not.

This is one of those lines, where naturalistic philosophers will tend to say the question is out of bounds, and spiritualistic philosophers will tend to say the question is in bounds. Of course it doesn't clear up anything when people on one side point across the line and say the others aren't "philosophers".

I say the question is in bounds, and the answer is out of bounds. Or rather, the answer is an answer about the boundaries, about the limits of rationality. Of course the question is meaningful, it makes sense to ask. It seems there's no reason to expect that minds like ours have the capacity to provide a definitive answer to the question in the sense it's intended. But we'll never come to recognize that limit if we don't ask the question in the first place and spend some time thinking it through.

Such questions twinkle for all time on the horizon of reason, eternally accessible to anyone who speaks an ordinary language. As free speakers, we can fill in the blanks mapped out by those stars with exercises of rational imagination, but in the end it seems there's no way to prefer any one of those dreams more than the others.

To me that sounds like the most mysterious alternative: The question makes sense, and it's destined to remain mysterious for all time. Supernaturalists who reject this point of view tend to want less mystery, not more. They want to superimpose their favorite fantasies on the heavens to quiet once and for all the rational doubts we recognize in common.

Much - if not all - of what goes on in these forums is mere knots in language that can be readily straightened out; understanding psychoceramics is important because some crackpots get elected. — Banno

Well put. I strongly agree about the political and cultural value of the art. That justification makes it entirely practical, and also gives a standard by which to assess the success or failure of the institution.

Perhaps there's no better justification and characterization of the art of philosophy than Plato's Gorgias.

Dennett is an 'eliminative materialist'. His strongest statement of this radical position appears in his book 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea'. This book argues that the 'acid' of the idea of natural selection 'dissolves' traditional ideas about the nature of freedom and the meaning of human life. One of the casualties of his criticism is, in fact, the subject of philosophy itself, as understood and practiced by its advocates from the time of Plato forward. Dennett wishes to show that humans are not really agents in any meaningful sense, and that the mind itself is an illusion, generated by and explicable in terms of the activities of organic molecules. So what I mean is that he deploys the techniques and rhetorical skills of philosophy to argue against the very possibility of what has always been understood as 'philosophy'; he's literally an anti-philosopher. (It is of note that one of his earlier books, 'Consciousness Explained', has been satirically titled 'Consciousness Ignored' by his many critics including John Searle and Thomas Nagel.) — Wayfarer

A rhetorical call to radically reform the practice of philosophy sounds like philosophy to me. What a social practice "used to be" is not an authoritative or definitive guide to what it is, what it shall be, what it should be.

Accordingly, I reject the claim that Dennett is not a philosopher.

I also reject Dennett's eliminative materialism, insofar as I understand it. I much prefer the discourse of Nagel and Searle.

I would like to put this a bit more strongly. I would require that a philosophy department not hire charlatans. To translate this to our community, any post or thread that is not removed gains the status of being deemed at least worthy of consideration by the community. What we as a community refuse to give house room to, is more definitive of who we are and what we stand for than anything we do consent to argue about. — unenlightened

I agree with your stronger formulation of hiring policies. I also agree that our decisions here about what discourses to exclude are most definitive of the character of our community.

I like to say there was a tendency among mainstream 20th-century philosophers, exemplified in the work of titans like Quine and Wittgenstein, to make it seem as though any discourse inconsistent with strict materialism, or inconsistent with a naturalism barely distinguishable from strict materialism, were "irrational" or "meaningless".

I think there's a repressive or negligent tendency in that sort of philosophy. It's irresponsible, in that it shuts down engagement with too many segments of society. It marginalizes itself and makes academic philosophy irrelevant to the people. What's at issue here is not inclusivity for inclusivity's sake, it's not merely a matter of respect. When you choke off engagement with so much of society, you cease to make yourself responsible to and responsible for the hearts and minds of the people. When the experts in reasonable discourse cease to have influence on the public conversation, the zeitgeist spirals out of control and becomes unreasonable.

Rorty's variation on the tendency is more negligent than repressive, and he makes his policy explicit. He just won't talk about some things, and he'll tend to associate with discursive communities that share the same dispositions to ignore and decline conversations. That negligent disengagement with alternative points of view is divisive. It erodes the foundations of democracy and undermines the coherence of public discourse.

I suggest we're paying the price today for a few generations of philosophical repression and negligence. If they won't do it in the schools, I guess a free and open space like this is the next best thing.

I might argue that trend of disengagement delegitimizes the whole enterprise of academic philosophy as a social institution. If the professors refuse to shape the hearts and minds of the people, then what the hell are we paying them for?

I do. I observe that academics is a business onto itself and it's designed around what can be taught in a classroom. Philosophy can only be learned outside of a classroom by experiencing and observing life as it unfolds. This is something that can be discussed post-graduation, but by this time the academics are so ingrained that people are unwilling for unable to change the habit. Philosophy takes lots of work and time as the ancients practiced it. — Rich

One day when I was still a boy, I went to see a professor in his office to ask for an extension on a Hegel paper. By way of reply he told me, "Philosophy is about enhancing your power to question. Only life will give you answers." Which was his way of saying, just write the thing and move on, young man.

Many philosophy professors would agree that book learning is only one way to approach philosophy, that much academic work is more of a distraction than a help, and that our civilization suffers from its inability to cultivate an integrative and enduring practice of philosophy as a way of life.

I think of Pierre Hadot in this connection. Works like his What Is Ancient Philosophy? and Philosophy as a Way of Life show they way in which concern for practical philosophy, personal well-being, and spiritual community can be integrated into academic work.

A rather different approach with an arguably similar tendency is found in the work of Alain de Botton.

That's about where we are. Clearly we allow posts and OPs that question or do not adhere to academic orthodoxy, but academic norms are also clearly relevant here. There is a lot of space between those two poles in which to maneuver, it's true, and that may result in some uncertainty, but no set of guidelines of reasonable length is going to explicitly and unambiguously cover every moderating context anyway. The feedback forum comes into play here in helping both to clarify and guide our decisions as does our own mod forum and discussions like this one, which are welcome. — Baden

Glad I'm not beating a dead horse.

I've said before, I think the moderators do a fair job, and I'm personally satisfied with the balance in application of community standards, at least from what I've happened to catch wind of.

I expect many potential participants are turned off by the balance we happen to strike in conversation. Among those who stick around, the margins of dissatisfaction with our current balance indicate various segments we're boxing out. I know some people who would be more inclined to participate in a forum like this if we were more open to traditional religious dogma; others if we were more open to free-wheeling new-age possibilities; and others if we were less tolerant of such tendencies and more in line with academic norms.

If that's right, then it's reasonable to expect that who we are and how we behave has some influence on the direction of change in our community over time. The character of our discourse is appealing to some and unappealing to other prospective members.

I think it's preferable to face that fact responsibly by addressing the issue explicitly. And I think that conversation hinges on questions like "What is philosophy?".

We used to invite professors to the old philosophy forum I spent time around in. It was a great way at gearing the audience (informed) towards posting some prominent questions in regards to some philosophical thought experiments. I wish we could revive something like that here if possible. — Posty McPostface

I recall seeing two or three such exchanges on the previous site.

I'm sure the unruly way we carry on in these spaces is a prima facie deterrent to the participation of prominent experts and anxious adjuncts alike. But it's not hard to imagine a custom in keeping with which an expert could lead by example, engage the whole group, then delegate most of his responsibility in the conversation to a couple of his students, as Gorgias passes off conversation with Socrates to hot-headed Polus and clear-thinking Callicles.

Professors could encourage or require their students to participate in public spaces like this one. Departments could institute rotations whereby professors take turns directing departmental engagement with the online community in free and open online spaces.

If it's happening already, I haven't caught wind of it. It seems the academics prefer to perform in spaces they control. That's squandered opportunity, as I've suggested, especially if conversations in these open spaces are among those the professors most sorely need to rehearse. Their withdrawal arguably diminishes rather than preserves the authority of their institution.

As I see it, the "deep" philosophy transcends mere institutions. For me philosophy is almost the essence of being human. If the academy "hardens" so that it excludes what might criticize it, that's not much of a surprise. Institutions are constituted by exclusion, one might say. It's like the church regulating talk of God. — t0m

"Constituted by exclusion", now there's a turn of phrase.

I might call a speaker's discourse more "inclusive" if it's arranged to account for a greater diversity of views. Of course you don't need to believe all the views you take into account, you only need to engage them, or to position your discourse with respect to them.

I wouldn't require that a philosophy department hire every sort of charlatan before I counted it "inclusive". But I think it's irresponsible for philosophy departments to neglect engagement with the populace, even by way of the discourse of charlatans. The English department at Harvard offers a course on writing TV pilots with a focus on serial comedy. Philosophy departments should train students in an analogous way, to make speeches relevant to wide popular audiences. I expect there's already a shift along those lines, and that's a trend I would encourage.

What else could they be for if not to stamp "genuine" on some philosophy or theology? In theory, for "pure" teaching and learning. But the medium is the message. Grades must be made so that careers can be obtained. It'sbusiness. Inauthentic whatnot is always going to haunt it.

On the bright side, we can and even must "wrestle with the angel" personally. The institutional stamp of approval or the participation of employees of those institutions means about as much as you think it does. The "people" who aren't already wrestling with the angel aren't going to hear what the wise professor has to say. And the people who are truly wrestling with the angel will take the professor as one more wrestler, whose job, admittedly, provides certain advantages and resources. — t0m

Why do institutions take the trouble to legitimize some discourses and delegitimize others?

I don't think it's just "business", and I don't think it's just a scramble for privilege and esteem. It seems to me that many of the people who influence or seek to influence institutions, and many of the people who work within organizations constrained by profit motives and institutional norms, believe that hearts and minds are at stake, that the order and direction of our society is at stake, that the future of humanity is at stake.

Some of those people are paid speakers, professors and pundits, who imagine their speeches make a small contribution to the general trend; and some of them acknowledge a sense of obligation to make that contribution to the best of their ability.

So we comment here on ways in which they might best discharge their duty.

Are you talking about philosophy in general or this forum — T Clark

I'm talking about philosophy in general, philosophy in the academy, and philosophy in this forum.

This forum is much less of a ‘cult’ than many academic philosophy departments. — Wayfarer

I agree. Our community reflects a wider range of philosophical biases than any philosophy department I'm aware of.

I think that's for the best. I hope this sentiment was clear enough in my initial remark.

What you’re referring to is ‘meta-philosophy’, one’s attitude towards what philosophy ought to encompass, what kinds of questions and assumptions it ought to consider and include.

Perhaps the reason there’s a sense of friction or controversy, is because in asking meta-philosophical questions, we’re exposing deep assumptions that each participant makes about what is considered normal or real. And that engenders controversy, at least in part, because of the collision of multiple perspectives - something which is obviously precipitated by the Internet, but is also a conspicuous feature of modern culture.

Consider that up until very recently - by that, I mean a couple of hundred years - one’s culture was homogenous, only the learned knew languages, and there was a corpus or shared pool of accepted wisdom, which set the boundaries of what was acceptable to think. Back in the day, heretics were dealt with very firmly. And actually, the word ‘heretic’ is derived from ‘opinion’ or ‘view’. Now everyone is a heretic to someone else! ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’.

Academic philosophy has its own way of throttling down the chaos of competing claims of what is real or normal. It recognises and validates a particular set of such guiding assumptions, even though within those guidelines it allows for a wide range of opinion. But within it there are some views beyond the pale; these are then characterised as fringe or essentially ostracised. Also the professional practice of philosophy is extremely exacting, in that recognition by peers and a record of successful publication is made a very difficult things to achieve. And I suppose that is as it should be, but throughout there are ways of ensuring that the overall consensus is maintained. — Wayfarer

What does it mean to use the prefix "meta-" that way? It seems to me that conversations about the purpose and character of philosophy can be philosophical conversations, and arguably should be central to the practice of philosophical discourse.

I agree that persistent disputes about what counts as "appropriate" philosophical conversation tend to implicate controversial framing assumptions. Divergent attitudes toward these assumptions indicate distinct philosophical conversations and distinct discursive communities. Many who philosophize feel much is at stake in their conversations about reality, truth, meaning, value, and so on.

Diversity of opinion has always been a feature of cosmopolitan culture, say in ancient Alexandria, or anywhere that diverse streams of culture have collected in the same pool. The internet has decentralized media and communication in our time. In some respects our global cosmopolitan conversation perhaps more closely resembles conversations in the ancient agora than conversations in the more tightly controlled communication environments of the West in the mid 20th-century or the middle ages.

I suggest it's in the interest of the professors to adapt their manner of engaging in discourses accordingly.

Here on a public forum the only controls are moderation, and people are free to write as they wish, which they plainly do. — Wayfarer

People are free to write as they wish, and the moderators are obliged to moderate in keeping with their own interpretations of the forum's guidelines. Which means that sometimes people who wrote what they wished get censored or banned; and then sometimes people complain about the ruling.

Hence this conversation about the boundaries of our discourse.

I raise the question of the relevance of current academic norms for our community standards, largely because many of the complaints raised against posters who write what they wish, sound to me like complaints that those posters have strayed too far beyond current academic norms.

It's not clear to me that running afoul of academic norms is sufficient reason for censorship in our community, and I wouldn't support such a policy. Neither is it clear to me that current academic norms are entirely irrelevant to our community standards, and I wouldn't support that policy either.

It's a mystery to me. What explicit guidelines do the moderators employ?

(By the way, Dawkins is by no stretch a philosopher, and the fact that Dennett is considered one, is an indication of the decadence of the subject in my view.) — Wayfarer

Dawkins is a scientist and public intellectual who has sought to fill the void left open by professional philosophers. Intellectuals like Dawkins have to pick up the slack in the public discourse left drooping by the neglect of professors in the humanities.

Dennett perhaps marginalizes himself by pursuing a multidisciplinary discourse and by engaging in popular conversations. I'm not sure what you mean to suggest that he's no philosopher. He's a gifted student of Ryle's. You and I might disagree with their points of view, but that's no reason to say they're not philosophers. What's gained by that sort of flippant prejudice?

Perhaps you have your own ways of throttling competing claims.

Communication relies on the fact that language has common meanings. I can't see how that is contentious. Of course, the fact that we both understand 'apple' to mean the same thing, is culturally determined, and arguably biologically determined, but I don't understand how that supports the point I took issue with, namely, that: — Wayfarer

The point you took issue with was the point that our thoughts don't have to be "identical" but only sufficiently "similar" to support communication and mutual understanding. So far as I can see, you have yet to support your bold claim to the contrary.

The fact that language involves "common meanings" is not contested here. What's contested is the characterization of such common meanings.

I can't see how whether our thoughts are the same aside from what can be communicated symbolically is even relevant to the argument. It is about the communication of ideas. — Wayfarer

Do you mean to say the only relevant conversation about communication is conversation about the symbols we use to communicate? Even if that were so: What is the symbol, how does it symbolize, how do we understand it? Aren't these relevant questions? It seems this is close to what you were asking at the outset, in your own way.

You ask how information could be physical, if each of us has "the same information" about an apple on the basis of perception, or grasps "the same meaning" of an utterance or waving flag. My answer is that it is not identical information, but similar information in similar heads.

I can understand why you might think this conflicts with your position, but I can't imagine how you could possibly think it's not a relevant concern for your position and for the theme you've introduced.

From another perspective I understand the relative nature of perception - that you and I will see things differently, due to all kinds of factors. So if you're saying that, then I wouldn't disagree, but I don't see how it has a bearing on the OP. — Wayfarer

I said that we have nonidentical, but similar, perceptions of the same; and that this is an instructive analogy for the case of speech. A point you seem to be wriggling around without addressing.

You're aware it's common to speak of perceptual "information", and you began our conversation by asking about information and about the claim that information is physical. Is there some reason perception is not relevant to this theme?

I recall you started out by talking about waving flags and other signs we interpret on the basis of sensory perception.

The idealist response: that 'the physical' is itself a matter of judgement, a way of categorising the data of experience. A certain range or kind of experience is categorised as 'physical' and then this is posited to comprise the fundamental, what truly exists, what is real, etc. As you yourself say: 'to all appearance'; but appearances are always interpreted by a mind. — Wayfarer

Did I say "the physical is fundamental"?

I say I'm not sure what it means to say that something is "not physical"; and I say it seems, to all appearances, that minds and their abstractions are grounded in the physical. I'm open to the abstract possibility that there is something that is not physical -- I don't think the very idea of something nonphysical is a logical contradiction -- but I see no reason to suppose that anything I've encountered, even in speech or thought or dreams, is not physical in the way I mean.

Your idealist has not helped to clear up the matter, and he hasn't made the case for his own point of view.

How is the fact that we make judgments of the form, "x is physical", "x is not physical", "x is mental", "x is not mental"... relevant here? It seems to me that's exactly what we're evaluating here, our judgments, the judgments of these two sentient animals.

I do know, in saying this, I'm skating over a huge topic, but it's a forum, and time is limited. But I'll try and spit it out regardless - our conception of 'the physical' is underwritten by the theories of stellar formation and biological evolution, which we suppose provides an account of how we got here, what our capabilities and attributes are, in physical terms, as understood by modern science. That is what 'physicalism' means. In this picture, 'the mind' is the product of this process, and to all intents, only appears in the last micro-seconds of terrestrial history. There's even arguments about 'why it exists', nowadays. — Wayfarer

Now I'm sure you're not addressing me, but rather some stereotype of a physicalist who stands between us, obstructing your view of my position.

As you're well aware, traditional discourse about physis and nature far predates the recent scientific theories you mention and the technologies that have enabled the investigations that inform those theories. My conception of the physical is informed primarily by my own experience as a thoughtful, perceptive, and introspective animal. I don't need an "account of how we got here" to support my conception of the physical, though to all appearances, the accounts provided by current empirical science seem among the most reliable and useful answers to that question.

You may recall I'm inclined to say empirical science is just a rigorous extension of ordinary empirical investigation and ordinary experience, a careful phenomenology of nature that does not entail any metaphysical views.

It may be that empirical investigation cannot provide an answer to questions like "why the world exists". It may be that definitive answers to such questions are impossible, and I see no reason to suppose that such answers are forthcoming. I'm no more inclined to be perturbed by that silence than I'm inclined to find contradiction in the thought that "bad things happen to good people".

You're so concerned with relevance to your own OP: How on Earth is the question "Why does the world exist?" relevant to your OP?

So the whole point of this OP is to try and show that if information is not physical, then there is something central to the entire physicalist account which is not, itself, physical. — Wayfarer

I take it there's a difference between an original post and the thread that originates from that post. Was it your purpose, in your opening post, merely to "show" that information is not physical, or rather to initiate a conversation on that topic, and to invite reflection and comment on your speech?

I expect the physicalist and I have two different views, but he'll have to come here and tell me what his view consists in before I can make up my mind, unless someone else will speak for him.

I'm not arguing on behalf of the physicalist, but on my own behalf. Whatever your purpose may be in attempting to establish the claim that "information is not physical", that is the claim I am challenging here, while you gesture repeatedly at your own initial intention and confuse my claims with the claims of others.

It is the argument that ideas are not merely 'something that brains do' ('as the liver secretes bile'.) In other words, this is an argument that ideas/information/meaning is real in its own right, and not as the product of a material process. So indeed it is an idealist argument. When people complain that 'naive idealism' is the same as 'naive materialism', I am pretty sure they don't grasp the import of idealism. — Wayfarer

Feel free to continue that argument in light of what I've actually said so far.

I think you're right. I should have included fairness along with compassion. In a way, fairness is more basic. If responsibilities, benefits, and costs are apportioned fairly, it's in everyone's interest that people get treated kindly. — T Clark

I'm inclined to say fairness and compassion are more basic than a conception of "rights". I might also say that compassion is more basic than fairness: Arguably, in order to have a genuine sense of what's fair in each case -- apart from abstract rules and laws and customs -- you must have compassionate insight into each party to the case and a feel for human nature. Along those lines, fairness may seem to depend on and be motivated by compassion.

Perhaps fairness is more complicated than compassion. You can be compassionate without taking a stance on right and wrong, on proportionality or equitable distribution; without adjudicating disputes, without assigning rewards and punishments, without predicting or aiming to alter consequences. Arguably full-blown compassion requires that you stand back from such discrimination. One has compassion for the offender as well as the victim.

I generally share this phen. grounded approach. But I think it's fair to add that the physical is also grounded in the mind. The world disappears when we sleep dreamlessly. We might speculate that this inspired the whole problem to begin with. Privately mind grounds matter, but publicly matter grounds mind. We experience the world after the deaths of others but seemingly not after our own. — t0m

Perhaps a solipsist may find some way to argue consistently with his principles that the world disappears when he sleeps. I'm a skeptic, not a solipsist. It seems to me that solipsism of the present moment indicates a point of maximum certainty from the first-person point of view, but I see no reason to suppose such certainty is required for knowledge.

It seems my view of the world is grounded in my mind. But I see no way to support the claim that the whole world is grounded in my mind, or in anyone else's mind. I see no way to support the claim that the world disappears when any one animal goes to sleep; nor the claim that the world disappears when any one animal dies.

Of course anything's possible. But it seems that very little of what's possible is supported by the balance of appearances.

To join you in speculating about the history of ideas: I prefer to imagine our problem has its roots long before the advent of abstract conceptions of isolated subjectivity, in the animist impulse that seems to come natural to human beings, an impulse we share perhaps with other animals who jump at shadows and howl at thunder.

As much reason to take the fantasy of mind emerging from "physical" seriously. — Rich

Can you support your claim that there's equal reason to take the opposite sort of alternative seriously? I've been unable to find a satisfying argument along those lines, but I'm interested in reasonable suggestions.

When I say that to all appearances, minds emerge in the natural, physical world, I mean something along these lines: It seems to me I have a concept of the mental that's informed primarily by my experience of myself as a thing that perceives and imagines, remembers and intends, believes and doubts, thinks and speaks and moves in the world it appears to inhabit; as well as by my experience of others like me, who seem sentient in about the same way. So far as I can tell, all the sentient creatures I've encountered are living animals with nervous systems.

That much seems about as evident as anything, and about as evident as the fact that each such sentient animal is born and dies. Each such organism emerges in the world and endures for a while; and its nervous system emerges and grows and develops in the world and endures for a while. These are familiar observable phenomena, not controversial claims.

It's equally evident that the mental activity, or mind, of each such organism, depends on its body and on other physical states of affairs in familiar and predictable ways. If you call my name and wave, and I look up and see you there, you change the content and character of my experience. If you clap my shoulder, pluck out my eyes, or stimulate regions of my brain with electric current, you change the content and character of my experience. When a sentient organism's brain is damaged by injury or disease, its power of sentience is altered. When a sentient organism dies, there is no sign of sentience persisting.

Accordingly, I say the claim that minds emerge in the natural world is no more controversial than the claim that organisms emerge in the natural world. As I understand them, these claims are neither fantastic nor metaphysical, but phenomenological and empirical, and I'm not sure what it would mean to deny them without denying the whole world of appearances.

I'm aware there's a great variety of claims made by many people in various times and places, about things called minds and souls, spirits and ghosts, demons and deities, said to exist somewhere beyond the natural world of our experience, or somehow independent of anything like an animal organism. I suppose some of these views are consistent with my claim that minds emerge in the world. But so far as I can see, none of them is supported by the balance of appearances. And if that's the case, what reason is there to take them seriously?

I have no idea what you mean by physical things doing mental things. Are they little humanoids? — Rich

I'm not sure I follow.

Are the cells and organs of your body little humanoids? I expect not. Nevertheless, it seems all the functions of your body, including its mental activity, depend on their good work.

Anyway, was interested in whether other people have studied feminist philosophies and such. What's your take on feelings such as care or love be the guiding force to moral decisions? Is it overly simplistic or elegantly simplistic? — Posty McPostface

I've read a little feminist philosophy here and there, and I've had philosophical conversations with many people who call themselves feminist.

Cultivating love and compassion is about the best thing one can do to be a moral human being and to promote morality, well-being, and justice in the world. Nonetheless, no matter how much cultivation we engage in, human animals will remain less than perfectly loving and compassionate. Accordingly, I suppose compassion may not be enough, perhaps especially in adjudicating disputes involving one or more selfish, uncaring, or unresponsive agents.

I think of compassion and fairness as two basic and cooperative moral principles that seem to come naturally to human animals and other primates.

So far as I can see, an ethics of compassion and fairness is consistent with the "ethics of care" characterized by Gilligan. I strongly agree that the negative language of rights and tolerance is insufficient to inform a moral worldview. I agree that a moral outlook that involves an "integration of rights and responsibilities" is preferable to one that neglects either rights or responsibilities. I agree that moral responsibility implicates a conception of individuals as interdependent, not independent.

For that matter, I suppose any moral outlook implicates a conception of human agents as interdependent in some sense or other. You don't quite have your rights unless others agree to respect them. I'm inclined to say that a conception of moral responsibility grounded in compassion and fairness is more basic than a conception of "rights".

I'm not sure the language of rights and tolerance was ever meant to serve as a complete moral theory. It seems more like a framework within which people of diverse opinions, attitudes, and lifestyles can agree to disagree while they live together and participate in the same society. I have the impression this framework was one result of an attempt to liberate large segments of society from the oppressive authority of governments, institutions, community leaders, and communal norms.

Arguably a critique like Gilligan's is an extension of the same tendency.

I'd say the moderation is about right. It's hard to assess, since I'm unaware of most of the cases of censorship. Perhaps the moderators could maintain a record somewhere on the site, or collect exemplary borderline cases in an annual anthology.

I recall this site's predecessor had rules that gestured at the relevance of contemporary academic philosophy and the Western philosophical tradition for our community standards. If we have any rules like that here, I haven't seem them. The site guidelines are not very explicit. Nevertheless, I find conversation among us today more reasonable overall than conversation in that prior forum. I've often wondered if that's due in part to a shift in policies of moderation.

In philosophical conversation I aim to thoughtfully and carefully approach good sense and mutual understanding in a spirit of goodwill. To pursue that aim, I must limit my action far more narrowly than the raw principle of "free speech" would allow.

I expect the action of like-minded interlocutors is guided by a similar principle, no less than the action of moderators in a community of such interlocutors.

Perhaps it's easier to agree on the sort of behavior that belongs in a community like ours, than it is to agree on the sort of subject matter, or the sort of point of view, that belongs in a community like ours?

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all.[...] — Pierre-Normand

It seems perhaps extravagant to suppose that there's a finite list of clearly distinguished human values that belong to human nature, or to suppose that each agent must have a definitive list of such values at any given time. Accordingly, I'm not sure what to make of the thesis that having all virtues is required for having any one virtue. For it's not clear that there is such a thing as "having all virtues".

It seems a fine idea that there should be balance and harmony among the values of a rational agent. It makes sense that excess or deficiency in one value may correspond to excess or deficiency in other values, and that the most virtuous agent is one who most often strikes a fair balance.

The ideal of perfect balance among values is a useful heuristic, but I suppose it's unlikely that any real human agent is perfect in the way you've indicated. To say nobody's perfect is not to say nobody's modest or brave. In a given instance of action in context, an excess of bravery might correspond to a deficiency of modesty. I'll agree this instance signals an imperfection of both bravery and modesty in the agent. That doesn't entail that the agent utterly lacks bravery and modesty, but only that the agent is imperfectly brave and modest (in this instance).

Moreover, to agree that bravery and modesty are linked in this way is not to agree that bravery is linked in an analogous way with each other virtue. Can we call such a link a relation of "countervailing", or is there a better or more conventional term for it? More generally, the fact that some values "countervail" each other would not mean that each value countervails all others, nor that any one value countervails all others. Allowing that some values countervail each other in some cases does not establish a full-blown "unity of virtue". I don't expect it's an easy task to demonstrate that each value is connected to every other in the relevant way.

If true virtue in bravery entails perfect moderation in every context with respect to bravery and with respect to every value that countervails bravery, then it seems reasonable to expect that no real human being is truly brave. If true virtue of character entails perfect moderation in every context with respect to every conceivable value, then it seems reasonable to expect that no real human being is truly virtuous. Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to speak of bravery among us, and to call some people more brave than others, and the others more cowardly or more rash. Likewise, it seems appropriate to speak of virtue among us, and to call some people more virtuous than others, and each of the others more excessive with respect to some values and more deficient with respect to other values.

I might agree that reason "mediates" among an agent's values and "unifies them in practical deliberation". But I'd take care to distinguish between special cases of conscious deliberation, judgment, and reasoning that conclude in intentional action, on the one hand, and ordinary cases of intentional action, in which the agent gets down to it with little or no conscious reasoning. I prefer to say it's a sort of metaphor by which we use phrases like "deliberation" to characterize the subconscious or nonconscious cognitive activity underlying ordinary cases of intentional action. Of course we make judgments about the rationality or reasonableness of an agent's intentions, regardless of whether the relevant intention-setting processes operate in part above or wholly below the fuzzy boundary of introspective awareness.

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. — Pierre-Normand

Perhaps there's no contemporary philosopher whose work I've enjoyed more than McDowell's.

I see he's got a response to Wiggins on akrasia in essay four of The Engaged Intellect. I don't read much nowadays but maybe I'll give it a look.

But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. — Pierre-Normand

The ideal of a wholly virtuous agent is a useful role-model. One may aim to be wholly virtuous, as one may aim to be Christ-like or Buddha-like. I reckon there are few if any wholly virtuous agents among us; most of us act sometimes like the wholly virtuous agent, sometimes like the enkratic, and sometimes like the akratic. Sometimes we don't even know what's good for us. At least some of us sometimes don't give a damn about doing what's right.

I'll agree that enkratic and akratic actions or agents are among those less than ideally virtuous and less than ideally wise.

The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. — Pierre-Normand

Does the phrase "seems to know" here suggest that the akratic does not in fact know what it is she ought to do, that her seeming good judgment is in fact something like an illusion of good judgment?

I'd say that's false insofar as, by definition, the akratic knows what sort of action she ought to perform, and has a motive to do what she ought. In that respect she resembles the wholly virtuous and enkratic agents. She has additional motives that conflict with her good judgment -- the sum of her motives is "discordant" with her better judgment -- and in this respect she is like the enkratic and unlike the wholly virtuous agent. She does not have the strength to resolve discordant motivation in keeping with good judgment, so she chooses a wrong action, one which conflicts with her good judgment, and in this respect she is unlike the enkratic and quite unlike the wholly virtuous agent.

There's another sense in which the akratic does not know what sort of action she ought to perform. For she does not know how to align her volition with her own best judgment and thus to do what she thinks is in her own best interest. She does not know how to force herself to prefer what she believes she ought to prefer -- what she would prefer to prefer -- in a given context.

By contrast, the enkratic specializes in preferring what's right even in the face of strong opposition from competing motives; while the fully virtuous agent's motives are so robustly aligned with her judgment of what's right, that for her there is no contest.

It seems to me the relevant difference concerns in the first place a sort of knack or skill or competency, a capacity or power, that is not aptly characterized as a knowing-that or a judging-that.

It seems clear enough that the akratic acts unreasonably. But if we go so far as to call his action irrational, I'll suggest this is a weak sense of "irrationality", for it seems there is nothing strictly illogical or absurd in the form of akratic action.

But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action. — Pierre-Normand

I'm not sure I follow.

How does this arrangement of the terms "practical wisdom" and "practical judgment" inform an account of the similarities and differences of the akratic, enkratic, and wholly virtuous agents?

What does it mean to call a capacity for practical wisdom "flawed" or "intact"?

In which case, you and I would never be able to converse! If you say 'apple' and I think 'banana', then it's game over for communicating. That's why language and reasoning are essentially universalising activities - they rely on our grasp of types, of generalities - when you say 'apple', any English-speaking person should know what you mean. Given that, it is of course true that we will 'see things differently'. But we have to have something in common to begin with, for language to even work - that is the store of language with all of its subtleties and depths. — Wayfarer

Can you support your bold claim that we must "have the same thought" in order to communicate, instead of merely "similar thoughts" as I suggested?

Must we also "make the same utterances" in order to communicate in language, or merely understand the same utterances; and do we have identical, or merely similar understanding of the utterances we use? Do we also need to have the same intentions, or is it enough to understand each other's intentions; and do we have identical or merely similar understanding of our intentions when we communicate? It seems to me that similarity is all we need, and by and large all we can get.

The reason you and I have quite similar thoughts associated with the English word, apple, is that we have similar bodies and live in the same world and have had similar experiences of things called apples. The similarity in the ordinary meaning and use of the word is grounded in the similarity of ordinary experience.

I'm sure you'll agree, the further we get from ordinary experience, the more divergence there is in the use of words and in opinions about the meaning of words or the truth of assertions. The power of communication doesn't flow from the universality of the word, it flows from the commonality of experience that informs our use of words. The farther we stray from that common ground, the more room for confusion, and the less basis for agreement and understanding, until at last it seems there's nothing but a spray of speech associated with vague thoughts and emotions.

The word itself is a typical or generic pattern of linguistic action that emerges and changes in history. I'm not sure what it adds, apart from confusion, to speak of "universality" in this context.

When two competent dancers dance freely together, there's a sense in which they understand each other, and a sense in which they understand each other's dancing. When they dance "the same dance", say a minuet or twist, they don't make identical movements, but similar or complementary movements that conform to a generic pattern, an abstract rule or type.

It means bad news for materialism. — Wayfarer

Same old song and dance.

I remind you I count myself a wholehearted epistemological skeptic. So far as I can see, metaphysical materialism and idealism are equally futile doctrines, like every other pretense to metaphysical knowledge.

I have a phenomenologically grounded conception of the natural, physical world. To all appearances, minds belong to bodies, and mental activity is an activity of physical things; and what we might call products of mind (including concepts, abstractions, types, words, numbers, possibilities) are products of the physical things that engage in mental activity. To all appearances, it seems the mental emerges from and remains grounded in the physical.

Of course it's possible to imagine any number of "metaphysical" scenarios in which minds and their abstractions exist in some nonphysical world independent of the physical world we seem in fact to inhabit. But it's not clear to me why we should take any of these divergent and often conflicting fantasies more seriously than the others, and I'm not sure there's any basis on which to select among them. It seems more reasonable to avoid such indefinite speculation.

(Actually I read an interesting comment the other day on the etymological between 'idiosyncratic' and 'idiot'. An 'idiot' wasn't originally someone who was intellectually disabled, but someone who spoke in a language nobody else could understand.) — Wayfarer

I've heard a different story: http://www.etymonline.com/word/idiot

We'll have to argue on what ''inadvertent'' means but I accept that a person definitely wants to avoid contradictions. — TheMadFool

By "inadvertent self-deception", I mean to suggest that the self-deceiver has not clearly acknowledged for himself that he is deceiving himself. In this respect he is unlike the liar who knows full well that he speaks falsehood.

I raised this point in rejecting the claim that the self-deceiver "willingly" believes falsehood. For it seems to me that in order to say he willingly believes falsehood, we should require that he believes that he believes falsehood, and my position is that he does not believe this in the relevant sense.

In speaking this way I mean to implicate something like an account of the "subconscious", which presumably conflicts with traditional Cartesian biases about the transparency of the ego to itself, or however that old story is supposed to go.

The self-deceiver will continue to avoid contradiction in his speech, to avoid making contrary claims. We may say there is a contradiction "in him", for instance a conflict between what he says and seems to believe, on the one hand, and the gnawing feeling in his gut that something's not quite right, or the fleeting detours from his story during moments of stress and self-doubt, or other signs in his behavior.

I suppose we learn much about this sort of state from the first-person point of view, when one of us realizes that he's been deceiving himself, or that he had not fully acknowledged some troubling fact until now, or that he has long been denying something "he had always known, down deep" was true... or that he had somehow or other been evading a firm recognition of his own bad faith.

That brings us back to the beginning of your post - Life is a contradiction. Can we, in that case, even with the utmost deliberation, avoid contradictions? Again, we see the role of rationality, trying to arrange reality into neat compartments with clear boundaries. I think this enterprise is a fool's errand. — TheMadFool

What does it mean to say that life is a contradiction? I'm inclined to reject the claim. What "categories" and "compartments" have led you to that strange assertion?

There is no way to guarantee immunity to contradiction or self-contradiction. But we can make more or less of an effort to speak and think clearly and consistently, with emphasis on the discourses in which clear and consistent speech seem most valuable and appropriate.

There are many contexts in which speaking is of no use at all, or is contrary to some purpose. There are many contexts in which poetic, metaphorical, or fictional speech have priority. There are many contexts in which loose talk is more appropriate than careful conversation.

I'm not sure this is one of those contexts.

Reason has two domains of application in Aristotle: theoretical and practical. Practical reason is in good order when a rational being has acquired practical wisdom (phronesis) and virtue. (practical knowledge is an excellence of the ability to know what to do in particular situation, while virtue is an excellence of character). Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; this is a consequence of the unity of virtue and of the analysis of the process of practical deliberation. Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements. Nazis don't have either of those, arguably. — Pierre-Normand

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort?

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean?

How do the unity of virtue and the analysis of practical deliberation entail that practical wisdom and virtue "go hand in hand"?

I might say that when we deliberate we reason; that most of our activity is not deliberation and is not guided by deliberation, but the activity of rational agents (or virtuous-phronetic agents) is typically consistent with results that would have obtained if deliberation had occurred. I suppose this way of speaking indicates some sort of view of the relation between rationality, action, and reasoning. Is this consistent with an Aristotelian view?

What is theoretical reasoning, according to Aristotle?

What is it that theoretical and practical reasoning have in common?

Good point. Life, taken as a whole, is exactly that. Yet, people have a tendency to make this dichotomy. Optimists fail to see the shadows, pessimists fail to see the light, etc. So, if this dichotomous view is an error then I'm not alone. Why do you think people are prone to this mistake? — TheMadFool

I don't think it's a mistake to recognize a significant opposition in experiences of pleasure and pain or in their roles as motives. But it is a mistake to oversimplify. I wouldn't say the opposition of pleasure and pain is a false dichotomy, just a slippery one.

I suppose the reason people are prone to oversimplify is that it's easier than putting in the time and effort to carefully think things through, especially when we see no value in the task or its result.

I have the impression that most people don't spend much time engaged in philosophical conversation about pleasure and pain, or about happiness and truth; and most of the philosophizing we do engage in on these topics is casual, not careful.

Methinks it's got something to do with our way of thinking, specifically rationality. Logic, if we're to use it effectively, requires sharply defined categories with no room for the possibilities you point out (situations evoking both pain and pleasure...life in general). — TheMadFool

I agree that rationality is at issue here, that ways of thinking are at issue here. But I don't think rationality is the source of the problem. I'd rather say the fact that people aren't rational enough, and don't have time or inclination to sort out their thoughts and experiences, leads them to many errors and confusions, including an oversimplified view of pleasure, pain, and their relation to action and happiness, for instance.

I'm not sure that logic requires sharply defined "categories", but it does require clearly defined terms. I'm not sure what to make of your suggestion that "the possibilities" I've pointed out are somehow not accommodated by "logic", for it seems to me that all my discourse here has been in keeping with good logical form. Is there something illogical in my speech that I've missed?

When I was still a boy, around the time I started smoking, I was outraged by the Law of the Exclusive Middle. It didn't take many years for me to see the error in my ways. Logic doesn't inform us about what's in the world. It doesn't show us what exists and what doesn't exist. It doesn't tell us what concepts to use to speak about what exists and what doesn't exist. It's only a set of conventions for speaking and thinking clearly about what is and what isn't the case, and thus a useful guide in concept formation and in conversation.

If you think the facts and the evidence don't line up with our concepts and accounts, don't blame logic. Blame our concepts and accounts. Then try changing the concepts and accounts to fit the facts and align with the evidence. It seems there's always a way to do this -- always many ways to do this -- while conforming to the norms of logic.

When your stories line up with appearances and conform to the norms of logic, your discourse is rational.

I think to be happy a person has to abandon rigid reasoning. — TheMadFool

I suggest there's a difference between rigid reasoning and rigorous reasoning. Rigorous reasoning may be as flexible and fluid as required by any subject matter, given a fluent reasoner with adequate information and time sufficient for the task.

A dog can be happy, at least for a while, without much rigorous reasoning, and so can a human being. Such reasoning as we do engage in must be sufficient for our purposes and circumstances, as you and I have agreed, in keeping with winks and nods from Rorty and Davidson.

It seems to me that on balance, good information and good reasoning tends to increase the range of purposes and circumstances with respect to which we may be fit and satisfied and happy.

The extent to which that's true depends in part on communal norms. In communities in which people are rewarded for irrational speech and action, or for traffic in fictions and half-truths, the link between objectivity, rationality, and happiness may be far weaker in a wide range of contexts. But not in every context, no matter what they say.

I was clear (at least I tried to be) that a thought, one of which is a pegasus, is not nonexistence. A pegasus is an idea and exists in the mental world. It may have no physical correlate but a pegasus exists in the mind. So, no, I don't think a pegasus is NOTHING. — TheMadFool

What is a "mental world"? How many mental worlds are there? What does it mean to say an idea or concept or fictional object "exists in the mental world"?

I agree that an actual thought, idea, concept, or fictional object is not a nonexistent entity, regardless of whether it has a "physical correlate" in the sense indicated. I agree that we have concepts or ideas of Pegasus, we have thoughts and tell stories about one or more fictional objects called Pegasus.

NOTHING is not a concept. I believe we can have concepts OF things but the concept is not equivalent to the thing we have a concept of. This part is still unclear to me but my reasoning is that NOTHING, being defined as nonexistence, can't be a concept because concepts exist in the mental world. So, I think we have a concept OF NOTHING and this concept is something similar to a road sign pointing to NOTHING without itself being that which it points to. — TheMadFool

I agree that, at least typically, a concept is not identical to the thing it is a concept of.

If nonexistence and NOTHING are not conceptual, then I'm not sure what we're talking about here.
It's beginning to sound as though you're saying that NOTHING, aka nonexistence, is a thing that exists, that is not merely conceptual, and that does not exist merely in the mental world. Is that the ballpark?

Zero is, to me, the quantity of NOTHING. If you have 2 dogs and I buy them both you're left with NOTHING, or in other words, zero dogs. Nobody will question my math. However, I do agree that NOTHING is prior to zero. — TheMadFool

But I'm not left with NOTHING when you take away my dogs. I'm left with plenty, but no dogs. Likewise, when you take my dogs, I'm not left with ZERO, but with zero dogs. Similarly, I don't "have TWO", but I have two hands and two feet.

I do indeed object to your use of mathematics -- not the abstract calculation, but the neglect of units.

Zero is the number of dogs I'm left with when you take them all away. Zero is the number of lots of things, just like any number is the number of lots of things. In each case, the number is a function of a concept, like "Dogs of the Cabbage Farmer at time t", and with respect to number we may call this concept a unit.

It seems to me that whilst the representation is physical, the idea that is being transmitted is not physical, because it is totally separable from the physical form that the transmission takes. One could, after all, encode the same information in any number of languages, engrave it in stone, write it with pencil, etc. In each instance, the physical representation might be totally different, both in terms of linguistics and medium; but the information is the same.

How, then, could the information be physical? — Wayfarer

This seems like the same type/token distinction we've encountered together before.

I suppose the answer depends in part on what we mean by "information". Each of the various token representations comes with more information than the bit that's relevant in the example. For instance, information about the flags or the ink, information about the agent's waving or handwriting, information about the light and atmosphere in which we perceive those signs, information about the state of our eyes.... Is there any information that comes to us by way of perception without some such extraneous features?

What counts as "information" in this conversation, or perhaps especially among information theorists or information scientists? The abstract repeatable type, or the concrete physical instantiation, or perhaps both?

What does it mean to say those outward signs "represent the same fact", or that the inner physiological processes of each relevant perceiver lead him to "grasp the same fact"?

I see no reason to suppose the type is anything but an abstraction, a convenient rule for thought and action, whose real basis lies in the similarity of tokens, not in some putative metaphysical identity of types.

You and I see the same apple, but we don't therefore have the same perception. You and I grasp the same fact, or refer to the same entity by name, but it's only a misleading convention that leads us to say we thus "have the same thought". It seems more fitting to say that the thoughts that run through our heads when we grasp the same fact or refer to the same entity, are about as different as the perceptions that run through our heads when we see the same apple.

When we enjoy adequately similar cognition of the same objects, we might say we have the same "type" of cognition, but to speak accurately and modestly, it seems this only means that we have very similar cognition of the same.

However we choose to tack verbiage upon these appearances, it seems we tend toward harmony, conformity, and agreement in perception, speech, and action, by waving flags, scribbling marks, or uttering noises.


What does it mean to say that something exists but is "not physical"?

In my OP I presented some ideas I have been working on. They addressed the problems entropy, using new ideas about the shape of the universe, time, gravity to shed light on life and universe at large. I thought my reasoning was sound. Topics on entropy and hierarchical systems have been discussed a lot recently, and it follows on from my own investigative train of thought.

I do not see how my OP should be changed.

What do I do now? Do I repost it some where for people to look at and decide? — MikeL

Do I understand correctly: The problem is that one or more forum members, including one or more moderators, have told you that your OP doesn't belong here, that it fails to meet criteria stipulated in the rules somewhere for philosophical conversation in this community?

That's an interesting problem.

As I said in the shoutbox, it's bizarre arm-chair science. And talk of gravity and time being enemies? That's bizarre pseudo-philosophy. — Michael

It's clear that MikeL's OP has been singled out not merely because it is bizarre pseudo-philosophy, but more specifically because it infringes on the jurisdiction of empirical science.

It seems to me that many OPs and replies in this community slip by the censors, full of bizarre claims in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of language, even logic... far out of whack with fashion in the schools and deep against the grain of common sense.

If that's right, will someone make it clear why an OP like MikeL's runs foul of our community standards, when it seems he's only applied his power of speech and imagination in the same way that others here do, except that he lets free reason roam across the boundary of empirical science.

I raise this question in expectation that there are good answers, as one who enjoys the public space held open in the wilderness by our community standards and by the moderators who interpret and enforce those standards, and with a sense that the ruling feels somehow arbitrary in the present case.

Seems so, yes. Before even getting to a stage where I'd be coming up with my own ideas to present, I would make sure that I knew the subject inside and out. And, before presenting my own ideas, I would first ensure that the prevailing view is properly dealt with, which would entail addressing evidence and going into complex detail where necessary. — Sapientia

This seems a fine personal preference, but quite excessive as a general rule of procedure here. I reckon very few of us have the sort of expertise you indicate, and I reject the suggestion that expertise is a prerequisite for genuine philosophical activity. Or what do you mean by "knowing a subject inside and out"?

That said, I agree that the view presented in MikeL's censored OP seems to suffer from insufficient engagement with the physical science he purports to be considering. He resorts to nonscientific appropriation of scientific concepts, and thus equipped engages in a sort of physical speculation reminiscent of the pre-Socratics or medieval scholastic philosophers.

I suppose we must draw the line somewhere to maintain order and fulfill our purpose in this public space. I won't dissent with the judges' ruling, but only note with much hesitation that it pains me to find such thoughtful exercises of rational imagination ruled out of bounds among us, when we might instead engage the author in a free and open philosophical conversation aimed at truth and mutual understanding.

I think you've hit upon something there. I believe happiness is the contrary of pain & suffering. Is there an overlap area between happiness and pain & suffering, as your comment seems to suggest? Can we be in pain AND happy? I'd like to know what you mean here. — TheMadFool

The dichotomy of pleasure and pain is slippery. The coordination of pleasure and pain with desire and aversion is complex. The relation of affect to right action is problematic.

Many of us learn to take pleasure in things we had found painful, or find ourselves pained by things we had found pleasurable. Thresholds of pleasure and pain change over time. One may be pained in one respect and pleased in another by the same state of affairs.

Often in order to pursue a course of action deemed healthy, profitable, or otherwise desirable, one must overcome an aversion to pains associated with the action. No pain, no gain. In some happy cases, we take pleasure doing what's right, or following through the course we've chosen, and this pleasure offsets whatever pains belong to the course. Even if we don't take pleasure in the task, or not enough to offset its pains, we might hold fast in anticipation of results the prospect of which we find desirable and compelling.

Accordingly, that one suffers pain does not entail that one be in an unpleasant or undesirable state.

What is it we call "happiness"? Is it an enduring state of fitness and satisfaction, robust enough to persist through a wide range of shifting circumstances, unperturbed by volatility in the balance of pleasures and pains? Or is it a feeble, mercurial sensation of pleasure and satisfaction, collapsing at the slightest adverse change in circumstances?

I expect one like you, with such interest in fitness and survival, to agree that pain's no obstacle to the happiest, that the capacity to delay gratification and to overcome pains and aversions for the sake of future results is a capacity that belongs to happy people. It seems to be, if we assess happiness in the long run, not in one instantaneous fragment of a life.

To be happy in the long run, it's not enough to master your own impulses, your desires and aversions and reactions to pleasure and pain. You need good information, you need right views, for instance about health, about nutrition and exercise. Discipline isn't much help if you're wrong about ends and means. I suppose in some such cases, the enkratic is worse off than the akratic, turns out unhappier and farther from sophrosyne.

The only value in truth that I see is in its use for survival. We can see that in our willingness to believe falsehoods if they make us happy. Truth is lower in priority than happiness.

So, I find your claim that people value truth in and of itself unbelievable. — TheMadFool

I've suggested there are many cases in which a fit and happy person will willingly take on pains, without thereby reducing his fitness or happiness; and in some such cases, the sacrifice will tend to increase the agent's happiness over time.

You suggest there are many cases in which a person will willingly believe falsehood for the sake of happiness. But I say in the first place, this person does not willingly believe falsehood.

He does not, so to speak, believe both that his claim is true and that his claim is false. He does not believe both "I'm pretty" and "It's not true that I'm pretty" -- he doesn't "believe" such contradictory statements in the same way at the same time. He is deluded and self-deceiving, but he avoids self-contradiction.

He continues to value truth. He insists that his interpretation of reality is true and that conflicting interpretations are false. He happens to be wrong, and we give a psychological account of how he came to go wrong in this way. Our psychological account takes truth for granted. So does the judgment "He's wrong". So does the sad story he tells himself and the rest of us. So does his change of heart, if he comes round to the facts.

To say that there are various ways in which we are deluded and deceived and fall into error, is not to say that we cease to "value truth" on such occasions, even if deceiver and deceived are the same. I would say such cases of self-deception are not "willing", but rather inadvertent. Lying to oneself and lying to another are two different kinds of lying.


In the second place, if we'd fall prey to self-deception too often or in the wrong contexts, we'd be inept at living in the world. You've agreed to this point, but seem perhaps to underestimate its relevance to your views on happiness and survival.

In the third place, many of us who value truth as an ideal expect that self-deception comes at a cost, something like a cognitive dissonance or psychic strain that increases in intensity and ill-effect the longer and more widespread the habit of self-deception is allowed to fester. We say the self-deceiver is more likely to be unhappy in the long run. His misconceptions will lead him to wrong action and undesirable results. People around him will notice his delusion and count him a fool who can't tell fact from flattery. The strain of evading the truth will take its toll.

He's like an addict, confusing the instant gratification of self-deception with the enduring satisfaction of sincerity and truth. He's mistaken about the pain of facing the facts, and makes obstacles of opportunities, like one who avoids stretching tight muscles because of his aversion to the pain or irritation it seems initially to cause. Far better to delay gratification, overcome aversion, transform pain to pleasure and fitness, promote happiness by cultivating the habit of right action.

So we prefer to aim at truth, not only when it crashes through to grind down false hope, wishful thinking, and vain denial, but even when more care and self-control are required to find the mark, even in every case that comes to our attention.

That's what I mean. Truth is only valuable to the extent that it can be used to make us happy or help us survive. The moment this link is lost, people prefer lies over truths. — TheMadFool

If people judge what makes them happy only according to what feels good from one moment to the next, they increase their own unhappiness in the long run. Truth recommends itself in the fullness of time. Even with respect to survival: The more truth, the better prepared for what comes, all else equal.

But what's this link you draw between action, happiness, and survival? It seems to me that many of us rarely act for the sake of survival. Given easy enough circumstances survival comes quite naturally to most of us and we tend to act from other motives most of the time, until we're overcome by old age, sickness, or another disruptive fate.

If you have the time, can you unpack the above quote for me? How is zero different from nonexistence from NOTHING?

To me, NOTHING is nonexistence and zero is a property of NOTHING. — TheMadFool

What does it mean to say "NOTHING is nonexistence"? Do you mean that "Pegasus does not exist" and "Pegasus is NOTHING" are essentially the same claim?

What would it mean for NOTHING to have properties? At first glance it makes more sense to say NOTHING is a property some things have -- more specifically, a property that some predicates, like "being Pegasus", have. For no thing is Pegasus.

Strictly speaking, I'm not sure what a "property" is supposed to be. I have a rough idea what it means to say something like "Hardness is a property of this lump of quartz", or "This quartz has the property of hardness", but I'm not sure whether such expressions mean anything different than "This quartz is hard". We count ourselves entitled to apply the predicate "hard" to this quartz, because it appears to satisfy our standards for applying the term. We have a concept of "being hard" that is informed by encounters with various things said to be hard or not-hard.... What is the special role of the concept of "property" in such accounts? I'm not sure it does any useful work that we can't allocate to terms like "predicate" and "concept" on the one hand, and to terms like "feature" or "characteristic" on the other. Meanwhile, it seems there's a great deal of confusion among philosophers about the use of the term "property".

What do you mean when you say, "zero is a property of NOTHING"? One interpretation that comes to mind: NOTHING is a concept, and there are no things that exist that are NOTHING, in other words, there are no objects that satisfy the predicate "x is NOTHING". Accordingly, no NOTHINGs exist, and the number of NOTHINGs in the universe is zero. Same as the number of Pegasuses.

Alternatively, we might say zero and NOTHING are closely related properties of some predicates or concepts, namely, those without objects.

I'll take a whack at that little bundle you asked me to unpack:

The abstract concept of zero and the abstract concept of nonexistence are distinct from each other as well as from the yet more abstract concept of Nothing. — Cabbage Farmer

So far as I can see, the main difference between zero and nonexistence is that zero is a number concept with a role in a system of number concepts, whereas the concepts of existence and nonexistence are distinct from, and I suppose logically prior to, any concept of number.

I take it that claims involving terms "existence" and "nonexistence" here are just claims to the effect that "There is some x such that PHI(x)", "There is no x such that PHI(x)", and the like. Claims that there are "zero" of something have basically the same logical form as "There is no x such that PHI(x), except that they're linked to a system of number-concepts and numerical relations.

By contrast, the concept of "Nothing" seems a sort of confused conceptual abstraction -- the idea that there is some thing that exists, the nature of which is to be no thing and to be nonexistent... or I don't know what.

I said it's "yet more abstract" than the concepts of zero and nonexistence, because it seems to involve a sort of generalization of the logic of such negative concepts, or even a reification of some such generalization.

I call concepts of number and existence, and perhaps a fortiori the concepts of zero and nonexistence, "abstract" because it seems to me that, although we use such concepts to make objective claims about the world, there are no "things" in the world called "numbers", and there is no "thing" in the world called "existence" -- except insofar as our concepts and their relations may be counted among the "things in the world".

I'm inclined to lump numerical, causal, modal, and existential judgments together in this respect.

My question is:

1. Is truth only as valuable to the extent it helps us achieve happiness? — TheMadFool

No. Especially since you seem to have characterized "happiness" so as to make it incompatible with pain and suffering.

2. If yes, why do we search so hard for the truth, given that some truths are painful? — TheMadFool

I suggest that most of us do not search very hard for the truth, except in special cases. Nevertheless, it seems most of us find truth most of the time, and most of us value truth most of the time -- whether or not we acknowledge that we do.

3. If no, what is this other value of truth? — TheMadFool

Many philosophers, including Rorty and Davidson, seem to take it for granted that our powers of perception and perceptual judgment have been honed by natural selection to produce "mostly true" beliefs.

Along those lines, it's not necessarily happiness -- whatever that's supposed to be -- but rather selective fitness, that's secured by our grasp of the truth. The same explanation may be called upon to account for some of our blind spots, including the sort of tendency you've indicated, to neglect, deny, or rationalize painful facts of life.

We might say along Bacon's lines, that the accumulation of empirical knowledge increases our capacity for action, or in other words that the pursuit of truth in empirical investigation is a means to expand our range of action, which we might construe as power or freedom -- including the power or freedom to oppress, pollute, destroy, or annihilate by ever-novel means on ever-larger scales.

Or we might value truth as something like an end in itself, not merely for the pleasure, utility, or satisfaction it brings us, but like an idol, ideal, or guiding principle. We might characterize truthfulness as an aesthetic, moral, or spiritual value, for instance in keeping with a conception of ourselves as participants in the harmony of nature, perhaps along Stoic lines, or as illustrated by the fairy tale at the end of Plato's Gorgias.