Breakthroughs in medical science seem to have been historically rare until we began to use microscopes (or the hypothetical-deductive method seriously) and thus learned about microbes etc.

Across place and time, is creativity a reaction to a primal need? — Jerome

Or a consequence from the fact that by drawing pictures on the walls of caves etc some of the more human-like primates could preserve and accumulate knowledge, which eventually increased their fitness. I think creativity is basically something that an animal (including human) does in order to solve problems and invent things in order to increase its fitness. However, in many human cultures creativity is oppressed, demotivated, or redirected by distractions.

Speaking of cosmic inflation and the idea that things are either extended or unextended... Consider Roger Penrose's suggestion that the universe expands and eventually reaches a state in which all matter is dispersed so that there is practically no difference between things being extended hundreds of billions of light years away or unextended in the here and now. A sort of collapse of spacetime, which causes all of the universe's energy and forces to explode as yet another big bang, followed by yet another spacetime expansion etc.

On this account, physical monism may describe the existence of a state in which spacetime has no practical meaning, and the world is practically unextended and simple (in terms of "things", "types" and "number").

Yes, but we are both appealing to evolutionary processes. You're positing billions of physical things, I'm positing one mind. In terms of simplicity, my theory assumes less than yours. — Clearbury

No, I posit a physical world in which things evolve (including minds). You posit a mental world (the mind of the solipsist) in which experiences and patterns evolve. Neither is more simple than the other. Just think about it, it would take billions of experiences to evolve a mental world in the solipsist's mind. Unlike my appeal to evolution, you just assume that a mind exists without reason.

There are two types of thing possible: immaterial and material. That is, extended or unextended. If you think there's a third, then you need to tell me what you're talking about, as those seem to exhaust the logical space available. — Clearbury

That's a false dichotomy. A physical monism is not limited to descriptions of "extended" matter but also energy, time, space, information, processes, emergence, consciousness, intentionality, words etc. It makes little sense to categorize everything as either "extended" or "unextended". Do you understand this?

We're talking about 'things'. Types of thing and number. You're either positing more kinds of thing than I am (if 'electromagnitism' is a thing - which it isn't, of course) or a greater number of one kind of thing. Either way, you're theory is more complex than mine — Clearbury

The most simple world is one that contains practically nothing. A solipsist with an empty mind is a very simple "world", I grant you that. But also the physical world in a maximum state of cosmic inflation is simple in the sense that nothing happens, until it bursts into yet another big bang.

Appealing to evolution is not going to do it, as I am appealing to that too. My account is an evolutionary one. — Clearbury

We don't appeal to evolution in the same sense. Your appeal to evolution omits the mind, as you just assume that it exists, and that experiences appear in it, and from then on you describe an evolution of experiences.

I will use the traditional terminology of materialist monism and immaterialist monism. — Clearbury

Skip the old terminology, because physical or neutral monisms do not only describe matter.

Perhaps this is what the materialist monist can do too, though it is hard to see how given that their whole story depends on material objects interacting with another. So it looks as if one needs at least two to get things going. — Clearbury

Electromagnetism, gravitation, and the weak and the strong nuclear forces are not discrete things that "get each other going". They're ubiquitous and continuous.

So immaterialist solipsist monism does seem to me to be simpler, and thus rationally to be preferred. It posits one instance of one kind of thing, not many instances of one kind of thing. — Clearbury

You forget the many instances of experiences that appear and evolve and form patterns in the solipsist's mind.

It can also be noted that what it posits - a mind, one's own - is a thing of a kind we know for certain to exist. By contrast, material objects are speculative. — Clearbury

It's speculative only for those who assume that they never see the world, only their own mental representations. Yet we don't usually doubt what we see. Under ordinary conditions of observation, I've never found a good reason to doubt the existence of what I see, nor the experience in my mind when seeing it.

..positing that there is something more basic that my mind is made of is to go beyond the evidence. — Clearbury

If you're interested in a physicalist account on the mind, try Searle on why he is not a property dualist in this online PDF.

And this thesis is simpler than supposing that there exists a mind-external physical reality in which evolution by natural selection is occurring. — Clearbury

The idea that only one mind exists is not simpler than the idea that only one substance exists. Any monism is simpler than the dualism assumed in a "mind-external physical reality".

But is mental monism simpler than physical or neutral monism? The latter two seem far more plausible, because of the genetic evolution required for background capacities to arise before anything resembling a mind could begin to identify objects and states of affairs.

The problem may be that political leaders lack wisdom or any vision based on philosophy. — Jack Cummins

Lots of politicians use philosophical visions (e.g. socialism, liberalism, conservatism, fascism) as means for their political ends. They may also use wisdom whenever it servers their will to power, but when it doesn't they'll be quick to relativize or revise the meanings of their philosophies. When their main goal is power, anything goes, including war.

Why should one do that which is good? — Hyper

Because it's good, an end in itself. However, to exploit goodness as a means for other ends is not so good. Lots of people want to be good, or appear good, as a means to hide or compensate for whatever bad that they have done.

No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so. Please input into this conversation with your own takes. — Hyper

If it's in your power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then you're morally obliged to do so (e.g. Peter Singer).

because we can't prove that they exist as anything other than concepts. — Hyper

Yet you grant them physical presence as neurons in the brain. Whence the reluctance to grant the concepts physical presence as money and paper?

The assumption that money and paper are concepts, and that the target of those concepts is also a concept, is circular. Under a circular assumption it is, indeed, futile to prove that things are anything other than concepts. But that's just because of the circularity in the assumption.

Well, it's open to read what you say: that paper and money exist as concepts, and that the target of those concepts also exist as a concept, and that they have physical presence as neurons in our brains.

But why limit the physical presence of concepts to neurons in the brain? Evidently money and paper have physical presence as market events and cellulose fibers. Talk of everything as concepts adds nothing but a veneer of old and crusty philosophical sounding jargon.

I am saying that since both exist as concepts, they both exist. — Hyper

What you're saying seems to vacillate between the circular statement "concepts exist as concepts", and the compositional fallacy "since concepts exist, then also what the concepts are about exist in a sense."

Yet things exist more or less regardless of concepts. For paper to exist, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to have a concept about paper. The existence of money does not depend on a concept about it but on the actual agreements and events on markets.

When we think or talk about things that don't exist, such as 'square circles' or 'nothingness', it is not the case that the things exist in a sense. What exists is our thinking and talking about them.

even though both bills can't be used for transactions, they still both exist. — Hyper

Sure, both exist as paper, but only one of them exists as money. A distinction between fake and real paper would be meaningless, but the distinction between fake and real money is meaningful.

What sorts of things should we think are more or less real than other things? — Srap Tasmaner

Balance is a relation that seems to arise and exist in degrees. Relevance and significance are other examples.

Things that aren't real aren't meaningfully different than things that are real.
What I mean by this is that we draw a false distinction between that of real and fake. — Hyper

The paper of a fake bill is real, but that doesn't mean that the bill is real. Real money is meaningfully different from fake money.

The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense. — Hyper

Everything doesn't exist in the same sense. For example, money is made of social agreements, paper is made of cellulose fibers. They exist in very different senses.

An original work of something is produced in a particular context, a plagiarized version is produced in another context in which the producer has knowledge of the original version. A fake is always different from the original (regardless of practical distinguishability).

If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper

All the same, the electric events in a computer are real in one sense, but the simulation in the computer is real in another sense. You conflate the two different senses in which they are real, and get a fallacy of composition.

We don't need to live our lives via electronic screens, and lots of people don't. There are many interests and professions in which one does not work via electronic screens. Meet real people, animals, the natural world is far more interesting than electronic simulations.

Also lovers of truth and wisdom lie whenever it helps them stay afloat on a sinking ship (or perceived as such). On a shrinking job market, supposedly civilized professionals use their elbows instead of merits. Moreover, many intellectuals claim that there are no truths, not because it is true but because it is a way for them to relativize or arbitrarily dismiss the truth of the words of their opponents. In sports, most participants respect truth. In wars, however, truth is the first victim. People on opposed sides fear truth more than they fear each other!

Is it possible (conceptually) to be aware of your own awareness, and nothing else? — bert1

No, but you can acquire knowledge of your awareness, and be aware of what you know.

What aspect of what we are aware of will not be an aspect of our own minds? — javra

Awareness is detachable in ways that what we are aware of is not.

For example, we can easily detach our visual awareness from the marks of this text by shutting our eyes. As soon as we open our eyes, the awareness is resumed.

Awareness is also dependent on what we are aware of.

For example, if I change some of these marks to bold or CAPITAL, we don't continue being aware of regular marks as if nothing changed. What we are aware of are these very marks, and their visible features determine our visual awareness of them.

Awareness is causally self-reflexive: we're aware of x, because x is the case, and the fact that x, causes our awareness of x.

Epistemological anti-realism seems to be based on mistaking awareness and its objects. As if these marks were made of our awareness of them, or of our socially constructed ways to use words such as 'mark'. 'letter', 'word', etc. Thus omitting the biological nature of awareness.

"Something from nothing" at the start of the universe is problem inherent in our understanding of linear time — Paul

I'd say the problem is not in our understanding of time, but in our application of causality. Causality is applied as a relation between discrete events ordered in time, hence we expect everything to have a start. Yet gravitation, electromagnetism, nuclear force etc. are continuous and pervasive. Furthermore, our expanding universe may reach a state in which causality is practically absent because things have become too distant, diluted, or inflated to interact with. When nothing is kept together nor apart, the universe may collapse into a point, effectively starting another big bang.

..a fundamental state of awareness that transcends the ordinary subject-object duality of experience. — Wayfarer

It's ordinary because it's necessary. The duality arises from the fact that awareness is awareness of something. Even a self-reflexive awareness has two logical levels: awareness (subject) of itself (object).

I get it, but one might want to consider the fact that even bacteria are aware of their existence. How else could they discriminate between cell population densities, good and bad environments, or how to protect themselves against antibiotics etc. Awareness of existence seems pretty ubiquitous among organisms, not only fashionable primates who can talk.

does a species of animal(s) that has the ability to conceptually "know" that it exists, entail anything further, in any axiological way? — schopenhauer1

Well, it entails a life. Any living organism is aware of its environment, which includes the organism. It is causally self-reflexive in the sense that it responds to its environment, and the fact that there is an environment causes its response.

ergo your claim that God is not real to you because you don't expect God to be real. — Corvus

That's not my claim.

You didn't explain why you expect God to be not real. You just claim that you don't expect God to be real. — Corvus

That's another misrepresentation. Let's take a look at what we said:

But how do we experience the real God, souls and spirits?
— Corvus

If they are real, then we can experience them systematically, also by those of us who don't expect them to be real. But since we don't, there's little reason to assume that they're real. — jkop

The negation "don't expect" means that we don't have the expectation. Yet you say that I "expect God to be not real". You omit the negation and thus misrepresent my claim.

Because, I don't see jkop, but I only see what jkop wrote in text on the computer screen — Corvus

RIght, when we're looking at this webpage, we see our texts (not our bodies).

Now returning to the topic of this thread. Since we have this empathic ability to use our knowledge of what it's like to experience objects, we can watch pictures or read literary descriptions of some non-existing (or remotely existing) object, and have immersive experiences of it regardless of its location or ontological status.

You seem to suggest that there are different type of "real" objects in the world. — Corvus

It's a fact that there are different types of real objects in the world. Molecules is an example of natural objects, money is an example of socially constructed objects, and Casper is an example of fictional objects. They're real in different ways.

Why Casper, the friendly ghost is real while the other ghosts are not? — Corvus

I didn't say that. All ghosts are real in the sense fictions are real: i.e. pictures and descriptions possess real and recognizable properties that exemplify the fictions. But in the sense natural objects are real, ghosts are not. Your question uses one sense of being real for Casper and another sense for the other ghosts, which is a fallacy of ambiguity.

You just say somethings are real, while others are not. But you need to give reasons for what makes something real. For instance, you say money is real, but ghosts are fiction. But who is to say the ghosts in fiction don't exist or is not real? — Corvus

The reasons are open to read on this page.

At the time, was money real? What are the properties / qualities which makes something real? What is the real real? If something is real to me, then is it real to you too? — Corvus

You can read about the history of money elsewhere, but you might want to consider the fact that many social animals have a division of labor, exchange gifts and services. The maggot that a bird gives its mate is a gift in its social sense, but a maggot in its natural sense of being real.

What makes something real typically depends on its use / how it is being used. Your question "What is the real real?" assumes two realities. I think one is enough, and that things can have different ways of existing in it.

So, what is an example of something that is real to you but not to me? In what sense are you then using the word 'real'?

I'd say my visual experience is real to me when I have it while it's not real to you, obviously, when you don't have it. But like now when we both see this dark coloured text, then we both have the same visual experience, i.e. the object that we see is the same.

When you say ghosts are not real, does it mean that there are the real ghosts? — Corvus

No, I said that ghosts are fiction. For example, Casper the friendly ghost is real in the sense that some pictures or descriptions have the recognizable properties that refer to the fiction. That's a different way of being real than the ways in which molecules, money, or colours are real.

how do you know ghosts are not real? — Corvus

By knowing the sense in which ghosts are real, and that when we use a different sense, e.g. the sense in which molecules are real, we get the negation, because ghosts and molecules are not real in the same sense.

To know "not real", you must know "real". Would you agree? — Corvus

No, it is sufficient to know in what sense a particular thing is real, and avoid confusing it with other senses.

When you say "they are real", what do you mean by that? What do you mean by "we can experience systematically"? — Corvus

Some things, e.g. molecules, exist independent of us. So, for example if we humans go extinct, and in a couple of million years some new life form emerges and investigates our planet, they can rediscover molecules.

Other things have modes of existing that depend on our beliefs, habits, or sense organs. For example, money, doesn't exist in nature unless we believe that certain pieces of paper, metal coins, or numbers used in certain contexts is money. The reality of money depends on our systematic use of coins, paper bills, number etc. which in turn depend on our belief that these things represent money and not only metal, paper, or numbers.

The reality of colours is disputed, but I think their reality depends on our eyes and interaction with the wavelength components of light. The wavelengths in the visible spectrum fix our colour experiences so that we see colours systematically. It means that we can identify, discriminate, discover resemblances and talk about colours consistently and meaningfully.

Imaginary, nonexistent, or nonactual things such as ghosts are not real in the sense that molecules are real, nor in the sense that colours are real. Ghosts are fiction. But similar to how we construct money, we can construct pictures and descriptions that exemplify a fiction, and some fictions are as recognizable as money. However, our use of fictions is different from our use of money. We don't get paid in ghost stories, and there's little sense in constructing models of fictions like we construct models of financial transactions. Nevertheless we get exposed to fictions, experience them, and sometimes we confuse their mode of existing with other modes. Hence some believe, incorrectly, that ghosts are real in the same sense that colours, money, or molecules are real.

However, it's tough to predict where it's headed. — Carlo Roosen

These Apple researchers just showed that AI bots can’t think, and possibly never will — LA Times

City-states had governments. — NOS4A2

Sure, but those were states and governments on a different level of description. You can call a family-home a state, and the parents its government. All the same, there's nothing magic in the words 'state' and 'government' that makes arbitrary rule and never-ending wars become fixtures of governments and statism.

The proto-italian population had to endure centuries of wars until a more powerful alliance could unite the different special interests that fought each other. Partly by being more powerful than any of them, partly by offering a more stable society in which trade between the cities and elsewhere could thrive. The stability enabled long-term planning, and the united diversity enabled cultural growth, accumulation of knowledge etc.

When governments fight each other, multinational alliances emerge for the same or similar reasons, because societies plagued by constant rivalry and wars are not good societies.

The arbitrary rule of competing gangs and never-ending wars are fixtures of government rule and statism. — NOS4A2

How is that possible before there was a government to rule those medieval gangs and city-states?

..centuries of rivalry and infighting between city-states left the peninsula divided. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Italian economic importance waned significantly.

After centuries of political and territorial divisions, Italy was almost entirely unified in 1861 — Wikipedia on Italy

Right, when the government is corrupt or incompetent it is like an absent government, and instead of a ruling government open to scrutiny, you'll have the arbitrary rule of several competing gangs, and never ending wars like in the medieval cities in what later became Italy.

I think all forms of government are unjust. — Clearbury

The absence of unjust forms of government won't prevent forms of unjust governance from emerging out of the relationships between individuals. Some gangs thrive on being embedded within a population where they can avoid scrutiny and terrorize individuals, neighborhoods, and entire regions as a long as there's no government acting on behalf of the common good. Perhaps that's why all modern countries are ruled by forms of governments, and why anarchy has remained a half-baked idea for adolescents who don't like being told what to do.

If time is not an object of perception, how do they know today is a Saturday night? — Corvus

They experience days and nights following previous days and nights, not the time in which they follow each other.

If space is not an object of perception, how do they know where the Eiffel tower is located? — Corvus

They see the Eiffel tower, its extension and relations to other buildings, not the space that its extension and relations occupy.

But how do we experience the real God, souls and spirits? — Corvus

If they are real, then we can experience them systematically, also by those of us who don't expect them to be real. But since we don't, there's little reason to assume that they're real.

What exists for us to experience of God, souls, spirits etc. are our own and other people's descriptions, pictures, sculptures, plays performed by actors, movies with special effects, churches or art museums designed specifically with an ambience that tends to evoke sacred or otherworldly experiences.

Time and space may not be objects of perception, but we can use our knowledge of descriptions and theories of them in order to evoke relevant experiences of duration, extension etc.

Via symbolic language as I understand and define it we can explicitly understand ourselves to be whatever it is we take ourselves to be. We can understand ourselves to be possessed of symbolic language on account of being possessed of symbolic language for example. Do you believe there is any evidence that any other animals can do that? — Janus

Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest.

Bees, for instance, are interested in flowers, and benefit from having a specific symbol system (waggles) for sharing the direction and distance to flowers. Bees can identify their own and each other's functions and symbolic behaviours.

However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language.

Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.

↪mcdoodle The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might. — Janus

The true test for whether other animals have symbolic language is not empirical but depends on what is meant by 'language'. Other animals don't seem to have anything that resembles our verbal language, but they may have other kinds of languages, and so do humans.

All animals use signals or symbols in the basic sense that a symbol is something that stands for something else. For example, an insect identifies a scent or sound or gesture, which symbolizes the presence of nutrients, mates, predators etc. Animals who live in groups benefit from shared symbolic labor, hence the evolution of genetically wired and socially acquired symbol systems.

There are many different kinds of symbol systems, also among humans. Human language is a verbal symbol system which has some syntactic and semantic properties that distinguishes it from non-verbal systems such as pictorial or musical or gestural that we also use.

So we might agree that other animals don't have a symbolic language in the sense that the language has the kind of syntactic and semantic properties that human verbal language has. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that they have other symbolic languages. I find it uncontroversial that I'm using symbolic language based on gestures and sounds when I talk to my cat.

So your experience of hitting your thumb with a hammer is the same as my experience of seeing you hit your thumb with a hammer? — Patterner

Sure, but notice that you ask whether our experiences (plural) are the same experience (singular).

The former (plural) is a use of the word 'experience' in its constitutive sense (i.e. having the experience). The latter (singular) is the use of the same word in its intentionalistic sense (i.e. what the experience is about). What our experiences are about is the same.

But I don't know that this mannequin is not you. When seeing it, I believe it's you. — Patterner

Right, you can easily stipulate conditions under which it is impossible to know whether the object that you see is genuine or counterfeit. But questions on certainty concern your belief about your experience, not your experience per se. The belief is closely related yet different from the experience.

For example, you can't see something without having the conscious awareness of it, but you can believe that something is the case regardless of whether it is the case. Thus, the belief can be right or wrong, but the experience is just what it is, a presentation of something in your conscious awareness.

do you think what it's like for me to experience seeing you is the same as what it's like for you to be you? — Patterner

What it's like for you to see me hit my thumb with a hammer is pretty much what it's like for me to be me in that situation. The experience that you have is me hitting my thumb with a hammer.

Well, that's not a direct but transitive relation. You can see what I'm like by way of seeing what the mannequin is like. But the object of your experience in that case is not me but the mannequin (or photograph, or mirror image, drawing etc).

If I see you, would you say my experience of you is like what you are like? — Patterner

The short answer is: yes, as long as I'm the object that you see.

One might add that the seeing is a presentation in your conscious awareness of some visible parts and properties of me as they appear in your visual field under conditions of satisfaction (e.g. under ordinary light conditions, with trichromatic eyes etc.)

I think I am missing every important quality/aspect of what you are like when I experience you. — Patterner

Granted that some parts are currently hidden from view (e.g, my lungs), but I wouldn't call them missing. A visual experience is about what's open to view. One can of course mistake things, such as in optical illusions, or even miss things when attention or interest makes one disregard some things while focussing on other things. But they're not missing in an absolute sense. You can always check again or look closer.

As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. — Janus

.

.research offers the first evidence that parrots learn their unique signature calls from their parents and shows that vocal signaling in wild parrots is a socially acquired rather than a genetically wired trait. — P. Bennetch, Cornell Chronicle

the subjective experience of knowing one is seeing things in the world, including knowing one is seeing oneself. — ucarr

That's several different experiences and objects stacked on top of each other. What could that be like?

What is the cat like when it is not being seen? — Patterner

More or less like it is when it is seen (disregarding Schrödinger's cat). :smile:

Notice that there is no need to assume dualism between the cat and what it's like to see the cat: the experience is the cat.
— jkop

Do you claim a cat seen via the virtual viewing of imagination is no less physico_material than a cat seen via the optics of the eyes? — ucarr

Well, no. I claim that when you see the cat, then the relation between your experience and the cat is direct. Basically, the experience that you have is the cat that you see. What your experience is like is what the cat is like (e.g. cute, hairy etc).

When you imagine a cat, however, there is no relation between the experience and a cat (neither physical nor mental cat). What you are experiencing then is your own creative use of memories and beliefs with the intent to figure out (by what it feels like) what the cat is like.

The visible properties of the cat fix what it's like for you to experience the cat. Your use of memories and beliefs about cats fix what it's like for you imagine the cat.

Language open to more than one interpretation falsely suggests two objective and parallel modes of being? — ucarr

Language is and must remain open to more than one interpretation. We can use a word in different senses, but to use it ambiguously between different senses makes no sense. Fallacies of ambiguity are deceptively simple but pernicious when they remain unnoticed and get entrenched into our linguistic habits and assumptions (e.g. dualism).

A literal interpretation of the term 'mental image' is a fallacy of ambiguity.
— jkop

I see the redundancy; I don't see the ambiguity. — ucarr

We invent 'mental images' by using the verb 'see' ambiguously between an intentionalistic sense of seeing (as in seeing a visible object), and a constitutive sense of seeing (as in having the visual experience). That's like inventing 'Casper the friendly ghost' by combining properties which are immaterial in some sense and material in another.

You're saying the HPoC stems from an ambiguity of language without a referent ambiguity in nature? — ucarr

Right. Chalmers assumes that an experience is accompanied by a property of what it's like to have the experience. That's property-dualism.

As if seeing the cat consists of two experiences, one of the cat, and another of what it's like. Separately or somehow coalesced. I find the dualism implausible and redundant. I believe that seeing is the experience, and what the experience is like is what the cat is like.