Good description, and you're right, there is no analogous method in philosophy. However, there are analogous shifts.

For example, philosophy used to be the general name for various sciences, but when these sciences specialized there was a shift in philosophy towards questions that didn't concern the sciences, such as ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and some left-over questions from psychology. Then with the linguistic turn there was a shift towards the nature of language.

Analogous shifts occur also in the arts (not to be confused with traditions or fashions). For example, before the invention of photography most of all graphic and sculptural art were more or less used in a scientific manner for depicting the natural world. When photographs became useful for that, there was a shift in the arts towards symbolization of whatever couldn't be photographed, i.e. invisible phenomena, mental or abstract objects etc. later a lot of art became conceptual.

I don't think they know the causes of psychosis or even claim to know. It's like they are sure it must be physical but they can't show the mechanism. — Mark Nyquist

Let's compare psychiatry with cosmology. Currently only 5% of the known universe is sufficiently explained by the standard cosmological model. It might seem like a bad result, but the subject matter is huge, and partly beyond reach. Under these conditions 5% is probably a reasonable result, and now the James Webb telescope might help us improve that result a bit. I don't know if some non-physical approach could help, but some say that the universe is fundamentally mathematical.

The treating professions are biology oriented and drug treatment oriented and often do horribly at treating these patients.

On the subject of physicalism, I take this as an example of physicalism gone wrong.

So in trouble shooting psychosis cases the professions should be looking at this relation between physical brain and mental content. ... — Mark Nyquist

Are mental content oriented treatments doing any better? I'm asking, because I don't know psychiatry.

I scrolled through this article at SEP. Seems that committment to an underlying physical structure is not so important after all. And why would it be important? Treatment of mental illness is a practical matter, no?

Regarding the relation between brain and mental content, the term 'mental content' is, arguably, misleading, because far from all content is mental.

For example, when you see a tree, there is a brain event in your head that really is the seeing, but the tree that you see is not inside your head. Your brain is not constructing a mental replica of the tree. Nor is the brain event sufficient for seeing the tree. There has to be a tree, and from its appearance in your visual field arises the conscious mental state of seeing it. The brain event is constitutive for having that mental state, but it is not constitutive for what happens to appear in your visual field.

The assumption that your brain would somehow construct mental replicas of every single thing that happens to pass by the visual field is obviously false, yet surprisingly common. Perhaps because there are other kinds of things that the brain does construct, such as imagined trees, or fictions composed of memories or fantasies or hallucinations.

One more thing regarding numbers and mathematical structures. As potential things they're arguably not physical. But when they actualise in thought and application, they appear not so unlike the actual things that pass by one's visual field.

Must an unknown number preexist in the same sense that, say, an unknown galaxy preexists before its discovery? The galaxy is actual, the number is potential. Both are objects that we can discover, but they have different modes of existing.

Is this something that you think you can demonstrate? — wonderer1

Perhaps, see below.

Numbers existing outside of brain state?...does that have a defense? — Mark Nyquist

We could start with the intentionality of conscious states. A thought is not just a thought, it is about something, which means that there is a reference relation between the thought and what is about. We can think about anything, regardless of the nature or ontological status of those things. We can construct fictions as well as facts, but we can also discover abstract things and facts.

Granted that some things are dependent on thought. Money, for instance, has a mode of existing that depends on our beliefs, and in this sense money supervenes on the physicality of out beliefs. Money is a human construct, but numbers are arguably discovered.

From the fact that thinking is physical it doesn't follow that all of the things we think about are physical.

Whether you're a physicalist or not, what do you think the best arguments for it are? — frank

The argument that everything is or supervenes on the physical is arguably falsified by the fact that things have different modes of existing.

For example, abstract objects such as numbers and mathematical structures have a mode of existing that is different from the physical mode in which thought exists. Thought is supervenient on brain events, but numbers are not.

So, I am asking to what extent does the existence of 'God', or lack of existence have upon philosophical thinking. — Jack Cummins

Well, the existence of god would obviously settle the question whether god exists. So, it would no longer be a philosophical question, and that's one effect it would have on philosophical thinking.

Another effect might be that if god is omniscient, then philosophy would disappear. The explanatory power of arguments would be replaced by the authority of god's omniscience. Eventually we would forget how to think.

If god doesn't exist, then it's business as usual. Philosophical thinking thrives on argument.

An interesting question is whether it's possible to return to a previous paradigm. — J

Yes, for example a return to a paradigm* before Descartes proposed a separation between mind and body. A lot of philosophy has since then been obsessed with explaining away or trying to bridge the assumed gap between mind and body or other objects of knowledge.

But philosophy is not a science — Banno

Right, it's different in many respects, but it is also similar. Science, philosophy, and art are activities that challenge and sometimes increase understanding.

*edit

What are such paradigm shifts in Philosophy? — SpinozaNietzsche

The linguistic turn might be an example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn

It’s common sense to believe what we observe is real but anything common sense is worth questioning. — Tom Storm

I agree, but the questioning of common sense realism is often limited to a superficial or willful rejection, perhaps because it just seems too banal or mundane for an intellectual to take seriously.

Allegedly Hume rejected naive realism by poking his eyeball so that the object in his visual field was doubled. But since the object had not duplicated itself he rejected naive realism.

almost all of us behave as realists the moment we engage with what we know as the external world. Even the idealists. — Tom Storm

Right. Many live as realists while defending anti-realim or the relativism or nihilism that follow from it. Kant's transcendental idealism is probably one of the most impressive attempts to solve the skeptical challenge, but his solution is complicated and arguably inconsistent. He too rejected naive realism :cool:

The colours we 'know' are created by our biology. Other animals see different colours, less or more than humans. Or none. If this realism, it is not external to human experince. — Tom Storm

Some are born blind even, but that's no good reason to reject the reality of visible things. Colours are partly created by the biology of various visual systems, and partly by the properties of the light or the surfaces that reflect it. For example, a clear sky in daylight is disposed to be seen as blue by any animal with the appropriate visual system, because of the causal relations between the wavelength of the light and the biology of the visual systems. Granted that some lack the ability, but again, that's no reason to reject the reality of the conditions under which the sky is seen as blue.

Is it possible that there is something logically unsound with the following proposition – a proposition that some skeptics embrace?

“We can never know anything about an external world because all we have when we make such an assertion is our perceptions ... .” — Thales

One thing that is logically unsound is when the word 'perception' is used ambiguously between two different senses: (1) for the object that you percieve, and (2) for the mental event in the brain that is constitutive for having the perception.

(1) provides us with the perceived object, but there is a lot of philosophy and science telling us that we never see objects as they are, but only (2) our own seeing somehow (or sense-data). Hence skepticism.

The philosopher John Searle says that such skepticism is one of the greatest intellectual catastrophes in modern philosophy (starting with Descartes and onwards). He identifies the argument from illusion as being the main cause for the rejection of seeing objects as they are, and he thinks it's a bad argument.

Well, skeptics often use optical illusions to show that there is a difference between what you see and the object that you see. For example, you get to see a straw that looks bent in a glass of water, and from this you're expected to conclude that you don't see the straw as it is. That's a bad argument, because it is the real straw that you see, including the optical effect of the refraction that makes the straw appear bent. That's exactly what you should see under those conditions.

Hilary Putnam is another philosopher who defends perceptual realism. For example, from fundamental physics one might want to conclude that colours don't exist, it's just electromagnetism, so the colours that we see must be illusions or hallucinations. Yet being insignificant in physics is not a failure in being real in biology where colours are significant. Hence colour realism.

Beside perception you mention reasoning, which is also a set of events inside the brain in one sense, and in another sense about things external to those events. Failures to distinguish between the two senses lead one to choose between a banal kind of naive realism, or being stuck inside the head. But no deep thinker wants to appear banal, hence the popularity of skepticism in philosophy.

What Searle and Putnam and others show is that there are sophisticated versions of naive realism that are neither banal nor lead to skepticism.

Plato: Only philosophers can sense what's beyond the shadows.
Aristotle: (imagines)

You can investigate anything scientifically. But you cannot scientifically answer questions that are asked incorrectly. — Wolfgang

I agree :up:

Many believe that one can combine the first and third person perspectives of consciousness simply because they are the same term, consciousness. But both have nothing to do with each other, they are completely different levels. — Wolfgang

Not only is the term 'consciousness' used in two different senses but also 'perspective'. A first person perspective is indeed a perspective, but a third person perspective isn't. There is no such thing as a third person perspective.

You cannot objectify qualia, therefore you cannot examine them scientifically. — Wolfgang

Wait a minute. We epistemically objectify mental phenomena all the time by talking about them, studying behaviors etc. despite their mode of existing (first person) which makes them ontologically unavailable for other kinds of examination (third person).

From defining mental phenomena as "subjective" and science as "objective" it doesn't follow that mental phenomena is unavailable for science. ´

we cannot even explain how the taste of chocolate could be explained neurophysiological. — Manuel

Perhaps the taste of chocolate is not in the neurophysiology of the brain but in the chocolate :cool:
There is, of course, neurophysiological activity going on in the brain that is constitutive for tasting the chocolate, i.e. experiencing the taste, but the chocolate that you taste is elsewhere, not a part of the brain activity.

the can of worms known as the Philosophy of Language, which is at the heart of Philosophy of Mind — sime

:up: Philosophy of Language + Philosophy of Science + Metaphysics

As long as the philosophy of mind does not make use of a sharp and categorically clear approach to the theory of science and instead loses itself in all kinds of irrationalities, it can be called dead. — Wolfgang

The fact that Philosophy of Mind overlaps with Philosophy of Science doesn't prevent philosophers of mind from using a sharp and categorically clear approach to science. One philosopher of mind that I sometimes read is John Searle. His naturalist approach is fairly clear, I think (although I'm aware that it's been criticized for being covertly dualist.)

..all sentient beings are animals, but not all animals are sentient.

Article

A sea urchin has no nerve system, yet it can identify the presence of a predator and scoop sand and gravel on top of itself as camouflage to reduce the risk of detection. So one might ask if and how important is the complexity of a nerve system for something to be conscious?

I dance lindyhop. It's a fun dance from the 1920s-40s to swing jazz and bebop. Nowadays there are regular social dances, courses, camps, and competitions world wide. One good thing about it is that it doesn't feel like exercising, more like partying, yet a whole nights dancing (4-5 hours) is comparable to running a marathon. And it's social.

.. a) is it constructive or destructive to your mental wellbeing? — Benj96

The interaction between contemplation and its expression in text, pictures, music etc. is often reported as constructive for the mental health of writers, graphic artists, musicians etc.

b) how does one know for sure if the insights from meditation are useful — Benj96

If you want to know for sure whether something is useful, try to use it. Also inconsistent and false insights can be useful, for example, in political or religious contexts (iseful doesn't necessarily mean good).

c) ... ..boundary ... ..between introspective thought processes and extrospective thoughts meet. In essence an understanding of what the “self” In question really is. — Benj96

.
There is thought, and there are various kinds of objects that one thinks about (e.g. actual, fictional, abstract). Thought and object are separated by the intentional relation between them (one being about the other, or directed towards it). That's a two part relation, not a boundary.

If contemplation is thought about itself, the thought adds itself as the object, as if it would be like other objects of thought. But it is a construct of the thought. I don't think one could think of one's own thought in the same sense that one thinks about, say, a cat or a triangle or the effects that one's thinking has on one's wellbeing.

Likewise, one could argue that the 'self' is a name we give the assumed thinker, regardless of its nature.

Contemplation in itself is neutral, it is literally just vision. Vision is good or bad depending on the object of intentionality of vision. I have witnessed "hell" or the vision of logical contradiction, but I also have the vision of logical order. As such, this requires prudence and wisdom to do. — IP060903

One thing that separates contemplation from vision is that you don't see a visible object. The object of contemplation is thought, imagined, felt etc. but it is not intentional in the sense that a visual object is. A visual object is intentional in the sense that it is actual, open to view, like these letters on this web page that we can see. The object of contemplation is never seen, only thought, imagined, felt etc.

When I look out the window, I see the same things that everyone else does. Depending on what I'm seeing, and how others around me see those things, we might disagree on what they mean, or even what they are — Wayfarer

Exactly. One might add that we often use words that refer to perception (e.g. see, experience) in two different senses, and sometimes ambiguously, like above.

I think there's a greater diversity of dialects in Norway than in most countries. — Ø implies everything

I thought so too but then compare Norway with UK, for instance. There are no mountains or fjords that separate groups of people, yet there are many diverse dialects. Possibly because groups of people are kept spart by social barriers.

Contrary to some posts, reaction to the environment as mediated by metabolism (chemistry) is not consciousness. — Lionino

Intentionality, however, is a widely accepted property possessed by conscious beings. The property of being directed towards something, as in behavior or speech about something.

How much do you expect and or fear that a strong fascist moment could be organized within the next 5 years? — BC

Certainly possible, but not so probable, because a (too) strong fascist (or other political) movement is a threat to the ruling business movement. :cool:

There will be fascists fighting liberals fighting socialists, and postmodern professors and activists relativizing away knowledge from being taken seriously.

the intermediate steps remain obscure, despite centuries of attempts to construct an empirical explanation. :smile: — Gnomon

Granted that little is known of the brain's mechanics, but the seeming obscurity regarding experiential quality is perhaps not so empirical.

As soon as we assume that one never sees things directly but only one's own representation of things (interpreted by the brain etc), then we have a relation between representations and things, and it is primarily this mysterious relation and its supposedly unknown mechanics that has remained obscure for centuries.

One might suspect that its true explanation is not empirical but conceptual. Hence my previous reference to direct realism (the philosophy of perception, recall, not social psychology).

According to direct realism, there is no representation in the brain, because we sense things and their qualities directly. The process in the brain is what constitutes the sensing, and what is sensed are the things and their qualities.

When I see a colour, for instance, the process may evoke something that I can identify (reflexively) as the experiential quality of seeing that colour. So, I see the colour, which in turn has a physiological effect that I can identify as a quality in seeing that colour. Not unlike pinching my arm and feeling its effect. Depending on my sensitivity, previous exposure, habit and so on one and the same pinch can be experienced somewhat differently at different occasions.

How the nerve signals transform to my conscious experience might still be a great challenge for empirical sciences, but it seems less mysterious if we ditch the assumption that the experience is a representation, or model, or translation etc.

The translation may be merely a physical Phase Transition, whose meaning is Metaphysical knowledge. — Gnomon

Direct (naive) realism? Perhaps depending on how we use the words 'code' or 'translation' or 'transition'. In any case it is not the process of seeing that one sees but the objects that emit or reflect visible light.

The sort of experience/hallucination proposed in the OP has no real-world equivalent, we have not collectively assigned a word to it yet. — hypericin

The simulation is indistinguishable from reality, recall, yet the experience "has no real-world equivalent"?

To be indistinguishable from reality means that the simulation is experienced as reality. In this sense the experience has a "real-world equivalent". But this sense is switched into another sense when you talk of the experience as having no real-world equivalent, since it is not reality that is experienced but a simulation of reality.

By vacillating between these two senses of what is experienced we are promised that one could be fully immersed in a simulation, and thus experience only simulation and no reality. Like a brain in a vat. But I think the promise is based on a fallacy of ambiguity.

"Hallucination" denotes that the experience originates from within the brain, probably from some temporary or permanent brain disorder. Whereas the "experience" of the computer game, or the OP's simulation, arises externally from the brain. Whether it is veridical doesn't matter. — hypericin

What could "..externally from the brain." mean?

Let's say the proposed future brain-computer interface (BCI) has replaced your eyes, so instead of seeing things the BCI stimulates the brain to evoke the experience of seeing things that the computer constructs, like the things we see in computer games.

But when you play a computer game the things that you see, e.g. real light, real screen, real images (that simulate the optic features of things), are not inside nor connected to your brain's perceptual system. What you see is external to the process of seeing. In this sense your experience of the computer game is veridical (it doesn't matter if the real images that you see are images of fictional things).

But when you skip the real light, screen, and images, and replace your eyes with a brain-computer interface, then the relation between brain and computer is basically the same as the relation between brain and a mind-altering drug or decease. Hence 'hallucination'.

By vacillating between the sense in which a computer game is being experienced, and the sense in which the experience is a process in the brain's perceptual system, we are offered the promise that in the future the computer game could be played inside the brain. But that's because the word 'experience' is used in different senses.

Why does it matter under what conditions they rise? Experientially, according to this thought experiment, they are identical. — hypericin

In the veridical case beer is experienced whereas in the simulation no beer is experienced. Yet we suppose that also in the simulation beer is experienced. How come? One plausible explanation is that the word 'experience' is used here in two different senses. In one sense it refers to the beer that I experience, and in the other sense it refers to the experience regardless of the beer (e.g. brain states)

In the thought experiment we are supposed to vacillate between these two senses, for if there is nothing more to an experience than the brain state, then one might as well replace the experience of beer with artificially produced brain states, i.e. pure hallucinations.

Yet the distinctions we make between hallucinations and veridical experiences are not so dependent on whether one can spot experiential differences between two supposedly identical experiences. What distinguishes hallucinations is that nothing is experienced, hence the word 'hallucination'. To call it 'experience' is a fallacy of ambiguity.

Suppose that in the future immersive simulations... ..indistinguishable from reality — hypericin

I think it would still be fairly easy to distinguish between, for example, drinking a glass of beer and a simulation of it. The conditions under which the two experiences arise are radically different, and beer drinking is certainly more than the experience. I prefer the real thing.

I suppose chat bots can be useful, but when a chat bot gives us almost instant access to answers, we learn nothing from the process of getting it.

By slowly wading through encyclopaedias, text books, online articles etc. we accumulate knowledge.

Pointing them out doesn't seem to have done much. — jorndoe

It got a lot of finger-pointers beaten, jailed and killed. — Vera Mont

Arguably, it was fin de siècle political culture in late 1800s Europe that gave rise to fascism/nazism, marxism, psychoanalysis, modernist art etc. A terrible tangle of ideologies, trends, new sciences, crumbling institutions, and power mad strongmen whose radicalised adherers fought each other as well as those who dared to point a finger or refer to reasoned argument.

Perhaps not as extreme yet in our current postmodern culture (?), but the recurring disregard for reason and objectivity in times of political unrest won't help us resolve disputes, errors, or injustices in civilised ways. Hence the strongmen and increasing acceptance for radical or violent solutions.

If we both use the same description, which set of physical events is the description?
— Pneumenon

Any actual set that exemplifies the description.
— jkop

Circular definition.
Again, it's not gonna work. — Pneumenon

What definition? Above I reply to your question.

Likewise, we recognize these words that we type by some (but not all) features that they possess and that we refer to as we reply. Any physical instance of a word is an example of the word. Is this not supposed to work?

I get what you're trying to do – reduce the abstract to the concrete. It ain't gonna work. — Pneumenon

What exists are the actual elements and properties of things, including texts and pictures, of which we can construct abstract things. That's construction, not reduction.

If we both use the same description, which set of physical events is the description? — Pneumenon

Any actual set that exemplifies the description.

Words says what they mean, and no more. Otherwise, words cannot be used in Logic or Science.

Symbols are looked at, and their meanings are not precise, but one has to imagine, guess or relate to the real world objects, activities or lives. Symbols are also used to be looked at for religious meditations.

I would say they are totally different form of carrying and delivering meanings. — Corvus

The symbols used for logic are not imprecise, scientists are not guessing when they use symbols for chemical compounds etc. The word 'symbol' is also used for something visual or vague as in dark magic cult ritualistic symbols. But that's no reason to exclude words from being symbols.

How is a symbol more than the marks, sounds, gestures, of which it is made? — NOS4A2

Well, unlike the mark on a page, which can be found meaningful for its own sake (e.g. beautiful, surprising etc) its usability for symbolization gives it additional or more meaning. The former might be located in the properties of the mark that arise relative to an observer (biology?).

Words are not symbols. Words are container of meanings. — Corvus

There are many kinds of symbols, you know, verbal (words) and non-verbal (pictures, gestures). They refer to things in various ways, but their primary function is identification. I don't know of a good reason to exclude words from symbols. Do you?

are words more than their symbols? — NOS4A2

No, words are symbols, which is more than the marks, sounds, gestures etc. of which they're made.

This year I've been listening a lot to the young great guitarist Pedro Martins Here's a video of his version of a famous tune by Ravel

Pictorial or gestural languages are better than verbal languages for some of the signs we encounter in public places such as traffic.

Some languages seem to be better for constructing long words:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_words

The audience members are allowed freedom to explore their own imaginations not being constrained by the words of language, but the freedom is kind of illusionary as it only occurs within the boundaries already created by the activities which, which are a product of the author's mind in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover

I get that the author's activities and pauses can evoke a kind of freedom for us to imagine unwritten meanings. But what do you mean when you say that words constrain imaginations? I think that a true description of an imagination is constrained by what one imagines.

Words increase mutual understanding whereas in the case of silence, unspoken expectations or suggestions the relation is not so mutual, as in manipulation.

So the silent language opens up a huge realm of possibilities to the author, by allowing the author an entrance into the minds of the readers by finding a way to employ those minds for the development of meaning, rather than relying solely on one's own mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are pattern seeking creatures, and normally strive to make the most charitable interpretations of what there is to interpret, also when there is nothing to interpret but silence. But when less is said, our interpretations become more susceptible to whatever the context suggests. In this sense the meanings are not developed by the readers' minds but a context such as a romantic or modern tradition in which meanings are assumed to be hidden all over and in our minds.