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.

You might want to add the possibility that ideas and fictions are descriptions. Descriptions are actual material objects. Some descriptions denote other material objects, other descriptions denote nothing yet possess recognizable features that exemplify such and such ideas or fictions. How else could we identify different ideas or genres of fiction? There are different kinds of explanations of what a fiction is. Goodman's theory of symbols is where I began. There are others.

..language has causality. I would like and appreciate it if you could elaborate on this. — javi2541997

The causality and the division of labor that I refer to are used in arguments for semantic externalism.

In the case of Fosse's speech one might want to say something about the nature of metaphors as he describes (metaphorically) his experience of writing as if sitting in a place inside himself. He refers to the poet Hauge who (metaphorically) compares being a writer to being a child building leaf huts in the forest where the writer sits feeling safe. Talk of places and meanings inside the mind is fairly common in the arts, especially in the romantic and modern traditions.

The metaphorical meaning of a word is causally constrained by some property that its literal meaning has. For example, the inside of a literal hut is detached from its outside, and that's a property it shares with the metaphorical hut in the mind of a writer. Arguably there is no hut inside Fosse's head, yet it is a useful way for him to describe how he experiences writing.

Writers withdraw from busy social activities in order to think, observe, and write, and one's use of language might then, perhaps, acquire a "silent" or "listening" quality. To find out whether there is such a quality, or whether the description is meaningful is not obvious to me, but it seems to be a meaningful description for Fosse as he titled his speech 'A Silent Language'.

With my plot and my characters, only I exist, but this self-awareness seems to need some connection with the rest, and this is why Fosse speaks about sharing culture. — javi2541997

I agree, and would like to add that the nature of our languages is such that it connects its users with what the words or its uses refer to. Language is based on shared labor, causal constrains and such, not whether an individual user happens to be alone.

I don't know to what extent it is a social activity. — javi2541997

To the extent that one can experience social life by writing about it. A writer constructs, discovers, reconstructs and in some sense participates with the characters that he or she writes about. Also when writing about oneself.

I'd say writing is a social activity that one can practice privately. In this sense it can benefit the introverted or socially isolated. It can also benefit the readers and our society to understand what it's like to be introverted or socially isolated. More on social activity and mental health: Social activity can be good for mental health.

Do you think this is a better way to confront suicide and fear? I mean, thanks to the act of writing by yourself? — javi2541997

For the same or similar reason many people are drawing, painting, dancing, exercising, playing music, socializing etc. Some need professional help. I suppose Fosse discovered that writing is for him.

Is there reason to believe that philosophy has become irrelevant?

Philosophy is similar to art regarding relevance and how it changes through history.

The antique roman architect Vitruvius writes that the education of an architect takes a long time because it is necessary to know so many different things. Beside engineering and drawing he mentions music, medicine, economy, history, theory etc.

In modern times when the production of many buildings is highly industrialised there are many architects who hardly know how to construct buildings, because they don't have to. Yet the quality of buildings and places remains a relevant subject, and the relevance of architecture is reinvented like the relevance of other forms of art.

Painting, for example, was relevant when skilled artists could depict what is visible. After the invention of photography modern painters found less reason to depict what is visible. Instead they symbolised things that are not visible, such as psychological phenomena, abstract thought, spiritual experiences etc. Hence reinventing the relevance of painting.

Likewise, as philosophers specialised into separate fields of science the remaining relevance of philosophy was saved by thinkers like Hume and Kant. Hume writing about psychology and Kant about an abstract thing in itself. Later as such philosophy seemed to collapse by its own weight philosophy is reinvented by logicians, ordinary language philosophers and so on.

While scientists study and produce representations of the world philosophers study and sometimes clarify the representations.

Who knows what's next?

What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?


A kind of disinterested pleasure that arises when one acts according to the known facts, regardless of special interests, biases, desires, preferences and so on.

Speech or gestures associated with honesty are sometimes used dishonestly, and, conversely, suspected for being sanctimonious or political. Cynics are quick to ridicule anyone in public who appears to be honest.

I suppose the honest mindset has little interest in how it appears, or whether it is associated with honesty.

Pretending to be stupid is a variety of stupidity that is sometimes passed for intelligence. Also when one is truly stupid one can pretend to be an intelligent who is merely pretending to be stupid.

Goodman started project Zero
https://pz.harvard.edu/who-we-are/about

Perhaps our interest in the world is not in recovering pre-existing features from it but in enacting a world in felicitous ways. Only such an enacted world can speak back to us in our own language. — Joshs

I'd say our interest in pre-existing features arises from our curiosity regardless of whether it is felicitous or serves other interests. However, we have reasons to be curious.

For example, we discover relations between language and the world that are asymmetric. Words can denote any feature, whereas features exemplify words that already denote them. New or discovered features can and are often defined ostensively, regardless of verbal languages.

I suppose we can know that there was a big bang, and that its possibility requires something rather than nothing
(or an instable kind of "nothing" a la Krauss & Co). Penrose's idea of cyclic eons seems interesting but I suppose it is too soon to pass it for knowledge.

Some monkeys happened to have the enzymes required for breaking down the alcohol in rotten fruit. So they had more fruit to eat than others who could not eat rotten fruit. The mind altering effect might not have been that significant in those days (millions of years ago?)

You might want to look up compatibilism. It is basically determinism with the insight that there are many causal chains, and those that enable us to identify objects and states of affairs are not necessarily determined by others. For example, seeing the presence of two cold beers provides you with an opportunity to pick one, both, or none of them. Being thirsty or an alcoholic etc. may increase the probability to pick at least one, but you are still free to veto the desire. Even if you'd hate beer you are free to try it despite it. Imagine if we were total slaves to only one causal chain, we'd never go against a desire, never try new tastes and so on. We'd never start living in the first place. Free will is a necessary feature of living organisms.

Would that be better — Question

No, because dreams are neither sufficient evidence nor arguments for the truth of 'idealism'.

We could, of course, discuss the nature of dreams, whether they have anything to do with the nature of reality and so on...

The audience has a somewhat easier job. — Thinker

Listening to the Portsmouth Sinfonia is not so easy ;-)

A proof is the sufficient evidence or argument for the truth of a proposition. Dreams are neither.

I'm talking about 'logical' type reasoning for believing in 'God', if such a means even exists. — dclements

The reasoning should be valid and sound, i.e. 'logical' type reasoning is not enough, the premises must also be true.

Sweden? Doesn't get involved in wars. . . . — T Clark

:-} Sweden is one of the largest arms manufacturers and exporters in the world per capita. We also like to condemn the military acts of others and market ourselves as morally superior experts on peace and stability.

What makes something beautiful? — River

I'm not sure whether beauty is made. It seems fairly clear, however, that beauty is found under various or varying conditions. Sometimes regularly, such as when there is symmetry, but regular beauty can fade away, as in becoming redundant. If there ever was a 'what' that made someone or something beautiful yesterday it might not succeed today nor in the future. But beauty can always be found, and re-discovered.

(1)I see a beautiful person and become attracted to them.
(2)I see a beautiful architectural structure and praise its form.
(3)I see a beautiful sky and revel in its hues and clouds.
(4)I see a beautiful flower and am entranced by its colors and shape. — River

Their beauty is not made by your experiences, you find their beauty by experiencing them. The reason that you see, become attracted to, or entranced by someone or something is their beauty.

Probably one of the first punk bands.