When you read the above tweet, did you feel yourself reaching for the pitchfork?

I think you’re addressing the wrong crowd, I’m sure we’re nothing but a bunch of harmless philosophers.

Well I don’t know who thought America was going to be able to pull back and leave Europe to take up here previous role following the war. That was never going to happen and didn’t happen. Churchill might have whispered in their ear about Stalin, but it was the Americans who got stuck into the Cold War.

You say we’re going our separate ways, I don’t see it, Trump is an anomaly.

That's an interesting narrative. The American narrative is that after WW2, the US waited for the UK and France to get back on their feet and take over global governance again. They gave them money to help with that, but neither country seemed to care much about protecting the infrastructure of global trade, so the US decided to take over that role, partly inspired by Stalin's ongoing threats. Someone asked him how much more of Europe he was planning to take and he answered, "Not much.".

Following WW2 Europe was devastated, it was going to take decades to rebuild and re-arm. The war wiped away the colonies of Great Britain (although this had already been on the cards) and France’s colonies were small and with little global influence left. Neither country was in a position to resume global governance. Britain was financially broke with the combination of the cost of war and the loss of empire. The entire population was subjected to strict food rationing for 14years following 1945. We didn’t finish paying off the war time debt to the U.S. and Canada until December 2006. I can’t speak for how France faired financially, but their country was more ravaged that Britain. While Germany was going to be on the naughty step for a generation, with no plans to re-arm.
McCarthyism was in full swing by the early1950. The US made damn sure that as many nuclear scientists etc were moved over to the U.S. as they could get, to prevent them being tempted over to Russia.

I imagine neither of us is overly interested in the narrative of the other though.

There are also facts. Facts speak for themselves.

That's a big question! 'Biosemiotics' about which I've learned a lot from this forum, sees living systems in terms of the interpretation of signs (which is what semiotics is). Whether any 'information' exists in that sense outside biological systems is moot, in my view, but it's a big question.

I don’t know if this addresses the question, or whether I’m missing something.
If we take away Newton (and all of humanity) from the situation described. There are still celestial bodies under attraction, because the birds and plants are still flying and growing as before, which requires them to be there as before. But we lose houses, cars, TV, etc. and all the information involved in creating them. If we take away all birds and plants, the water and air they use are still there. But it is just a barren landscape of rock, sand and water. There are no forests, or bird song and all the information involved therein.
If we then take away all the atoms, is there nothing left, or are we just taking away the barren landscape of rock and water and the information they hold and leaving something more primordial, such as sub atomic particles, or dark energy, presumably there is something left, there is space and time. Just without any of the information involved in a cosmos with atoms.

Einstein would say presumably that when we take away the atoms, we are also taking away the space and time and the information involved in that. Does that then mean that existence has been taken away at that point and all the information involved in that?

Or does some of that information, like mathematical principles, remain and if it remains, where (and when) does it remain?

There does seem to be a cut off point here, at the point of atomic structure. So in my thought experiment, there are four things, Newton, birds, plants and atoms, all grouped together as one existing thing. Like a bubble, all self contained, sitting, floating in a nothingness. All information presumably is also in this bubble too. Or is there some information outside the bubble, universal information?

If a new bubble were to form, where does it’s information originate?

This would suggest to me that the bubble isn’t in nothingness, that it is born, that there is more out there, but that within our bubble there is a self identification an integration, a unit, a being. A frequency on a scale.

This is a tactic that has been shown to been dangerous and contra-productive, for instance in the case of immigration where any discussion of the topic has for the longest time been made virtually impossible because of various accusations of racism, fascism or Nazism and the like as soon as the issue was brought up.

I take on board your criticism, I don’t normally get involved in tit for tat comments, although in this occasion this did happen after I pointed out to Tzeentch that I perceive a clear anti European bias.

I would say though, that we are in a rarefied space inhabited by deep thinking, knowledgeable philosophers, who are already well versed in the arguments. As such I would expect there to be a serious intellectual consideration of the issues by everyone and that the full range of issues and positions should be on the table. With contributors expecting their positions to be challenged and to in turn challenge their interlocutors.

It does not exist in itself, but only as a specification of states, relations, or constraints within systems.

Yes, I was seeing information (the same information) as meaning different things to different observers, depending on their position in the ecosystem. To different organisms the information that gravity moves materials downwards has different meanings, for the plant, it is that the roots will seek to move down and the shoots to move up. For a bird, the same information it means to fly the right way up and not upside down. For Isaac Newton it means the theory of the attraction between celestial bodies.

So is there no information (about gravity) if there is no plant, bird, or Isaac Newton (no life)?

Of course this is now the standard rhetoric from Russia, the latest with Putin himself calling Eu leaders "little pigs/swines" alongside accusing of Biden “consciously” unleashing the war in Ukraine.

Yes, I saw that, Putin laughing and calling the EU leaders piglets. Reminds me of the little green men in Ukraine. He has contempt for European institutions and will press ahead with his hybrid war. We have hard evidence of this now with Russian drone ships detected in European waters.
Should the EU split up. There will be hybrid war with each individual country with the intention of installing Russia friendly governments, to further destabilise the block.

Perhaps if that’s what I said, but it isn’t. I said Putin would agree that the EU should be got rid of too. That’s all.

The biological machine (society of cells) behind the scenes, is alive and imbues the puppet with sentience.

I noticed that there were no living cells in the AI/robots in the links. So no consciousness, or sentience.
Where are the cyborgs and cybernetics?

it seems Trump and Putin would be in agreement with you.

Yes, it’s a crude metaphor, perhaps a society of cells is more appropriate.

We are therefore not normally aware of the mind’s world-constituting activity. Becoming aware of it requires a reflective shift that is conceptually and phenomenologically difficult—precisely because it concerns the enabling conditions of experience, not one more experience among others. It is that which makes self-knowledge so difficult.

When we look at the outside world, we are observing a view (a stage) with perspective and a horizon. We are accustomed to understanding what is going on on that stage and playing a role on it. When observing ourselves, we are observing a puppet moving as though it is alive. Its aliveness is sustained by a complex process of actualisation which is hidden from us, unconscious. So we are only viewing an apparently conscious puppet. But because the puppet is a highly real projection, we think it is real, alive and inexplicable, it seems to have a life of its own. We are not aware of what makes it alive, which is behind the scenes, a complex biological machine.

Set that challenge aside for the moment, and assume as a premise that feelings could be added to the hardware. I suggest that this would make it feasible to duplicate human reasoning: not a mere simulation, but duplicating the algorthmic processing that it involves.

Then the way forward would be to create a cyborg. The technology is already being developed, but is in its infancy. It’s only a matter of time now.

Baffling if anyone can take this crap seriously. Who's the target?

People who don’t have access to unfettered news outlets. Oh and president Trump.

Yes AI are masters of mimicry, it’s important to keep what they do separate from being conscious.

I have no experience with AI, other than Google Search. But I suspect that the human programmers of Chat-Bots necessarily include a self-reference algorithm in the basic code. But whether that kind of reflection constitutes self-awareness, I have to agree with Claude : "I'm genuinely uncertain whether I have experiences with the qualitative character that humans do, or whether there's "something it's like" to be me processing these words". :smile:

There seems to be a conflation in this discussion, between self reference and self awareness. Claude is clearly both self-referential and self-aware. But has no conscious understanding or experience of what it is aware of. This is because consciousness is not a computational process, it is a living state. Claude may be more self-aware than any human, ie. Fully knowledgeable of every piece of information, accessible to it at all times and yet entirely unconscious and unconscious of what it is aware of. Whereas a person is only partially self aware and has to struggle to remember things, or decide how he/she feels about things, while being all too conscious of how slowly the cogs are turning in their own mind.

We need to tease out what is intelligence from what is consciousness and keep them separate.

Now I hold that plants are conscious, just not like us. But they are alive and present and conscious in a more meditative state than us, because they don’t have a brain. A thought experiment; a tree as it grows might encounter an accurately fashioned metal cube and grow around it as it gets bigger. In a sense, it has represented the shape, or form of that cube in it’s body and when the tree is cut down and the cube removed, the shape and dimensions of that cube can be obtained by measuring the void in the tree’s body. So the tree has described and recorded the metal cube and is able to deliver that information to the person examining the void in its body. So in a sense the tree is performing the same task as the AI. Describing and recording data about something and transferring that data to us. But just in a different way, a way that includes conscious behaviour, but which the tree is entirely unconscious of, rather like the way the AI is entirely unconscious of what it is doing.

The real "dysfunction" has been the immigration policy, which de facto lead to UK to leave the union and have it's disastrous Brexit, which showed to every EU country extremely clearly how leaving the union would an absolute disaster in economic terms. Hence immigration, not economics, has been the real issue that has giving strength to the anti-EU anti-immigration populists.

Brexit was as a result of Russian friendly populists playing the race/immigration card. The links to the Kremlin are slowly coming out. A former leader of the Reform party in wales. Is starting a 10yr jail term for accepting Russian bribes. The Conservative Party was awash with Russian money through the Conservative friends of Russia association.

But they will get the message.

As you say, Germany has got the message. I was hearing reports that German troops are helping dig trenches and tank traps in Poland.

I'm not trying to be moralistic in saying this, as I myself am not a celibate vegetarian yogi.

These restraints and observances can be woven into a modern life, but it’s not easy to pass this skill onto a seeker, or chela due to the discipline required to observe them to the point that they become second nature, or to then convey the ideas around “non-dualism” such that it becomes woven into that second nature, in the frenetic consumerist world we live in. I have only managed it once and the degree to which it was successful is difficult to determine in the modern world. There are always a few naturals who get there on their own, but to do it wholesale requires monastic settings and is not likely to be added to the curriculum in schools anytime soon.

All we can hope for is that some of the teachings and ideas can be conveyed into the philosophical cannon, so that they are not lost to history.

Thanks for the Avaita-vision link, it was like taking a breath of fresh air.

I guess "the higher (subtle) realms" is the answer.

It is quite difficult to explain, but is also quite simple.
I’ll approach it in two ways, firstly, imagine a spectrum like the electromagnetic spectrum. The spectrum is a scale of different wavelengths from very long at the bottom end and very short at the top end. Physical matter is near the bottom and as you go further up, you get mind, then soul, then spirit. The soul and the spirit are in subtle realms like heaven in the bible. They are all the same thing, material, but at different frequencies, or wavelengths. Due to the nature of the universe these different wavelengths present in different ways.

Secondly, from the top down. Pure being expresses itself in more and more complex ways as you go down the spectrum until at the bottom you get the most complex, almost infinitely complex as physical matter. Necessarily it is a complex story being expressed at this point.

I’m saying that consciousness is the ground from the soul upwards and consciousness below this point requires a living entity to be grounded there. Which hosts it. That this physical material is an artificial construct to ground consciousness in such a dense kind of expression. It is artificial because consciousness can’t function as a ground there and consciousness is an essential ground for being. So for consciousness and being to be there an artificial realm is generated, in which they are hosted.

An intelligence wants to do something that it needs consciousness to accomplish, so it constructs consciousness?

Yes, that’s pretty much it.

You don't have to be Denmark to state the obvious (as their intelligence service did). The US is an untrustworthy ally and even if the democrats came to power and would try to take US Foreign Diplomacy to what it was since WW2 until Turmp, there is allways the possibility of MAGA-people or similar coming to power and being hostile towards Europe.

Yes, that is a possibility and the U.S. is now untrustworthy. But with Democrats in office they would not likely pull out of NATO and by the time of the following term (6years from now) the war will be over, Russia will be contained, Europe will have re-armed.

I don't know a single statement that could more blatantly reveal one's complete geopolitical ignorance.

It’s all relative. Name a nation acting more strategically in it’s own interests?

Can you elaboate on what you mean by "the idea that consciousness is everywhere"?

I don’t know, I thought that was your position.
For me it’s more a case that consciousness is fundamental in the higher (subtle) realms. Not necessarily physical realms.

It seems kind of crazy that a primary particle can have mass and charge. How can that be? What are physical properties that primary particles can have more than one? Brian Greene doesn't even know what mass or charge are.

I thought the idea was that mass and energy and everything else like charge and extension were all interchangeable in Einstein’s spacetime.

What do you mean by artificial?

A construction by a being or intelligence to carry out a purpose.

I would be more open to it if it didn't so obviously undermine European interests.

What the U.S. and Russia are doing in this regard are undermining their interests too. Not for Trump and Putin personally, but for their nations. Trump and Putin are destroying their nations for personal vanity. Europe is thinking strategically.

Putin did something we did not like, so lets rush straight for WW3?

There’s not going to be WW3, Russia is digging a whole to bury itself, it won’t be long now. Putin waved the nuclear Armageddon card on day one of the war, it’s wearing a bit thin. The only alternative is for him to March on Europe, he wouldn’t get past Poland, they have a few scores to settle going back a long way. Remember NATO is a defensive alliance, they are not going to march on Moscow. They will consolidate in Ukraine and a new iron curtain will go up close to the current front line and between Poland and Belarus. Job done and Europe will consolidate and re-arm in the process. Russia will be weakened, which was long overdue, they were getting too strong and compromising Europe. The U.S. will come to it’s senses once Trump is voted out.

The 2+2 a lot of people fail to make is that the US fears Europe becoming a great power, and will do everything it can to prevent that from happening

That’s all very well, but who is the opposition in that war?

The U.S. has enough to worry about with China, they could do with another superpower as a friend to act as a counter balance.

I am a European, but cute try.

I knew that before I posted.

As you noted, naturalism is more open-ended. Materialism is less so, and physicalism is most restrictive. More restrictive= a more parsimonious ontology, which is why I go with it.

I can see that and I can’t deny that it is compelling. I just feel it misses a lot, for me physical material is an accretion, a world of surfaces and doesn’t tell us anything about what is real. So I’m coming from the complete opposite position from you.

I can relate to the idea that consciousness is everywhere, but not necessarily that physical material is conscious, as I regard it as an artificial construct.

I would think it's equally difficult to explain how one ground could manifest in (at least) two different ways that appear entirely separate.

But they might only appear to be entirely separate from our limited perspective, from another perspective they might be related.

This time tanking their international credibility through their blatantly illegal actions vis-á-vis Russia's assets

So it’s ok for Russia and the US for that matter, to carry out illegal actions, but not Europe?

The point is to make long-term normalization between the EU and Russia impossible, that is to say, the point is to bring war with Russia closer.

I think Putin may have a bit of the blame for that. And no it is not likely to result in a war with Russia in the long term, but rather an iron curtain.

Your anti-European bias is showing again.

Otoh, they may be entirely separate.

This is the problem, or so they say. That if they are entirely separate, how do they happen to come together? I like you don’t see it as so much of a problem, but people who subscribe to the distinction between idealism and materialism see a yawning chasm between the two.

I start with natural: That which exists (has existed, or will exist) starting with oneself, everything that is causally connected to ourselves through laws of nature, and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe. Naturalism= the thesis that the natural world comprises the totality of existence).

I’m probably not the person to critique this as I’m not a trained philosopher and come to this from a different school, so the other end of the stick so to speak.
I will say though that; “everything that is causally connected to ourselves through the laws of nature”. Is a catch all so big that due to it being an open ended set, it inevitably includes things which are regarded by Western philosophy as wishful thinking, woo woo etc.

I further narrow it down to the thesis that everything that exists has a common ontological structure: a particular with intrinsic properties and extrinsic (relational) properties to other existents. This implies everything is the same kind of thing, which I label, "physical".

This is where it gets interesting. I would use the word material rather than physical. That there is a spectrum of material including subtle (mental) materials. With physical material at the more dense, or concrete end of the spectrum. I go further in that I regard within the domain of subtle materials, a transcendent super subtle material for which mind (which is on the spectrum) is the correlate of physical material as seen at the bottom of the spectrum and the super subtle material is a higher, or transcendent mind.

Due to the solid concrete incorruptibility (in normal life) of dense physical material, the subtlety of the higher materials is drowned out, or confined. To the extent that our true nature as pure mind is constrained to such an extent that we are confined in a Neanderthal Stone Age (by comparison, and no disrespect for Neanderthals) life of moving concrete objects around the place. And subject to the consequences of dense physical bodies.

I'm very interested in this. Can you explain? If a component is physical, why would it be undiscoverable?

I too picked up on this. I had thought we were not allowed to admit undiscoverable components.

I would point out, though, that something that is undiscoverable in one arena, or domain. Might be discoverable in another, so is really a meaningless statement absent a contextual arena, or domain.

Reminder: I do not insist that every aspect of the natural world is discoverable through science. It may very well be that there are aspects of mental activity that are partly grounded in components of world that are otherwise undiscoverable. This is worst case, but it is more plausible than non-physical alternatives.

I agree with this admission and your position on philosophical zombies. It does leave a rather large gap for “non-physical alternatives” to creep in though.
I tend to steer clear of the division between physical and non physical, because I don’t see why there is necessarily such a distinction. The so called non physical mind and physically existing things, though appearing entirely separate, may be part of the same external manifold that we are not aware of, which may be undiscoverable, but in which the two are grounded.

It doesn't sound like you are disagreeing with what I've said, although it does sound like you think you are.

I began my reply with “yes”, I was agreeing with you.
Going back to where this line of exchange started, whether we do know what it is we know?
I’ll put my reservation slightly differently, yes we do know what we know, but the “what it is” is subjective within our own personal understanding. This necessarily requires a personal perspective and knowing. I’m saying that this perspective can change in a non discursive way and that there are ways of knowing, or there is knowing in non discursive ways. That these changes can occur as a result of an experience of identification, an experience of witnessing something, or an experience of communion (I’ll leave communion to one side for now as it can have a vague meaning). It can also happen due to intuition, but I refrain from including this as intuition does include discursive processes.
So what we know can change, by ways which are not necessarily logical, or rational, but due to changes in ourselves.
If this happens, then what we knew before the change in ourselves was incorrect was it not? What we know changes as a result of something in us, while the circumstances outside of ourselves have not changed.

Going back to what you said earlier;

We know the world non-discursively and that non-discursive knowledge is not separate from what is known. We always already do know the world non-discursively, it is just a matter of learning to attend to that, rather than being lost in discourse and explanation.

Again, I agree, but then I think well what do I know non-discursively and is that coloured or dictated by what I think. Is it a separate (from discursive knowledge) knowledge and how can it be the same as “what is known”?

Apologies if I’m diving a bit deep here, but I’m interested in non-discursive knowing and how our perspective is shaped non-discursively.

I don't deny the reality of altered states of consciousness, and the profound effects they can have on people's lives.

Just to clarify, I’m not talking about altered states. But rather a different way of knowing through experiences.

The Congress is already pushing back at this development:

Yes I noticed that, which is why I mentioned the mid term elections. If the Republicans lose control of Congress (or the Senate), it will weaken Trump and hopefully he will become a lame duck.

In the meantime, he could initiate an emergency, such as war with Venezuela and exercise plenary powers to withdraw troops out of Europe, or something else equally stupid.

On the contrary, it is our most direct arena of discovery. Enabling us to escape our discursive tendencies.

My point was that if you try to frame your insights into accounts of what-is-the-case in some quai-empirical sense, which is precisely not to escape our discursive tendencies, you will inevitably produce something that may or may not have any bearing on actuality. Whether it does or not is rationally undecidable. That said, all that matters is how you feel about it, and no justification is required for that.

Yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about orientation. It’s more of a negation of the rational interpretation of insights. The insight is made, witnessed and logged, stored in memory. It is not rationalised. (It is rationalised at a later date in a different department of thought, but that is entirely separate from the experience of the insight). The aim being to arrive at an inner sight, or seeing. The discursive mind is only a passenger on this journey. It’s not so much about feelings either, but more about identification, witness* and communion. A seer develops these faculties so as to develop realisation, knowledge, experience and understanding independent of the rational mind. Yes, the rational mind is also present in this process, but takes a back seat and may offer thought out interpretations now and then.
Then there is another department of mind which combines the two, the knowledge garnered through seeing and the intellectual interpretation and philosophising. The idea being to develop intellectual, architecture, imaginative worlds, so to speak. Which may be of use at some point in developing contemplative techniques.

* I have brought up witnessing in other threads, to bear witness is something important in the development of intuition. The best way to illustrate it is in the case of a traumatic event. If a person witnesses a traumatic event something is burnt into their memory and they can never un-see it. The distinction being that the intellectual mind is absent during this process. This faculty can be developed absent the traumatic event and used in contemplation.

Yes, Europe is now under a pincer movement, or piggy in the middle in terms of rhetoric. We will see if Zelenskyy agrees to anything with Trump, or if the U.S. stops the sale of munitions to Europe, which are used to supply Ukraine. There is more escalation to come, but it looks likely that Europe is going to have to step up to the plate.

If the U.S. can’t anymore sell arms to Europe, they might start to sell them to countries like India, Argentina etc. Also there will be chaos if the U.S. has to move their troops out of Europe. Trump could order that with a click of his fingers at any time.

I was only referring to ordinary knowledge of the world. I think the kind of intuitive ideas you are referring to may or may not be knowledge, and that there is no way to

Some scientists have lightbulb (eureka) moments too. Or what was Einstein up to when he came to his realisation about the speed of light and relativity?
There are a number of applications of this idea. Look at the tree example, I have been talking about. I sometimes contemplate the commonality between myself and a tree. Given that we are both alive, are constituted of almost identical cells. We grow and are present in the moment. There are opportunities for lightbulb moments here and it is a contemplation with strict parameters and doesn’t require much in the way of imagination. But more a process of stepping outside one’s pre-conditioned ideas and forming different ways of thinking and knowing.

It enriches our lives, but doesn't tell us anything about what is the case, in my view.

On the contrary, it is our most direct arena of discovery. Enabling us to escape our discursive tendencies.

I don't know the answer to that—we are given what we are given. Are you suggesting Karma?

Karma in so much as there is a causal thread of some kind. Karma is bound up in reincarnation and requires an entire transcendent cosmogony. We can go there if you like, but I tend to avoid such ideas here as it can be seen as woo woo.
Perhaps it can be broached in the sense that there is a lineage of some kind in our evolution as a group (the biosphere as one group, or being). With a causal thread and an evolutionary progression. With each individual being on the planet playing their part in the story.

I think we do know what it is we know.

Yes, I do agree with this, but it becomes complicated because I subscribe to the idea that what we know can be radically altered by the addition of one new thought, like when we have a lightbulb moment. This one new thought can in a sense rearrange what we knew prior to the lightbulb moment, such that what we know has changed. A reorientation process within the mind. So we might know one thing one day and something quite different the next. (This is an important process for me, which I have developed quite a lot). So I do agree that we do know what it is we know, but we must as you say provide the caveat that we don’t know the thing in itself, or why we and the thing in itself are here. So we are in a sense blind, but can feel with our hands a world that we find familiar.

We know the world non-discursively and that non-discursive knowledge is not separate from what is known. We always already do know the world non-discursively, it is just a matter of learning to attend to that, rather than being lost in discourse and explanation. Mind you, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with discourse and explanation, just that it needs to take its place alongside our non-discursive awareness, lest we lose ourselves in the confusion that comes form "misplaced concreteness" (Whitehead).

I agree entirely and I go further, I screen out the intellectual mind and its findings a lot in contemplation. Although there is an art in using thought in a more non-discursive immediate process of discovery.

Could be as the events of a Block Universe.

I have experienced that, where time is a dimension. But it raises some serious questions and invites in transcendent realities.

Yes, the US is a very divided country, yet Europeans won't forget that Americans have now two times elected Trump as President.

Yes, this is a big and long lasting change and Europe has woken up and will secure their own security and future.
But with Trump gone, or muzzled the Republican party will likely be in turmoil for a while, so there will be a democrat government for the next term. Presumably the Russian invasion will have finished by the end of that term. Also Europe will be well on the way to ensuring their security and will probably play a leading role in NATO by then.

Many will see this paper stating the US being the ally of Russia against Europe. That's not going to happen, there's a vast majority of Americans who do see the traditional stance of the US beneficial, yet Trump is the one who calls the shots.

There is a cognitive dissonance in the U.S. when Trump sides with Putin. Remember the MacCarthy period, and the Cold War. Many people in the US won’t like the idea that the president, pretty much on his own has defected to the other side.