Do you think that our species will be extinguished in the next 500 years? — Bitter Crank

We arose from a world without us, so if we all die, then chances are we'll arise again, on this planet, or other planets. Perhaps we already have cousins on other planets.

I think you have to elaborate as to how "right makes might", since in my experience might can take many forms — dclements

Sure, for example, when the explanatory power of an argument trumps someone's will power, then right makes might.

If might makes right, then even wrong is "right" if might makes it so: anything goes.

Unsurprisingly it can be in the interest of the mighty and their lackeys to make everyone believe that might makes right, as a means to maintain their might.

Another kind of might, however, is the might of being right: when right makes might.

Thanks, and nice mountain view (Y)

So then where is the color we experience? Is it identical with some biological process, or does color supervene on the entirety of visual perception? — Marchesk

Neither.

What constitutes your colour experience is located in your head: a firing of neurons. But the colour that you experience is located outside your head, in the physical processes that reflect, transmit, absorb or emit light.

So, the experience is not just a firing of neurons but reaches out to the external objects and state of affairs that set the content of the experience. The internal experience that you have is, in this sense, inseparable from the external object or state of affairs that you experience.

A physical pigment of what, though? I take it you don't think rocks have color experiences. That would be panpsychist. — Marchesk

A pigment

..is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. — Wikipedia

If in the future we fully simulate vision, would the software have color experiences? Is there a way of arranging the bits such that they are conscious? — Marchesk

Who knows? If we can make artificial hearts pump blood, then perhaps in the future we can make artificial brains that have colour experiences, and their experiences would then be just as intrinsic and ontologically subjective as for humans. So, in this sense you might as well redefine us humans as "biological machines", and our visual systems as "software" that "simulate" colour vision.

A rearrangement of the syntactically arranged bits in a computer, however, won't make it conscious. Computers have no semantics, and as long as their instructions are observer-relative (e.g. programmed to mimic the behaviour of a conscious human) then I don't see how they could have any experiences of their own.

How many violins can you build out of a pile of bricks? Does it depend on the size of the pile? The quality of the bricks? Brick technology? Some yet-to-be discovered brick? — Wayfarer

Bricks? :-}

Well it would have to be a problem in principle: that subjective reality in principle can't be reduced to objective reality, that this is a category error. — Cavacava

What is a "subjective reality", and who says anything about reducing it to an "objective reality"? In your use of the words 'subjective' and 'objective' dualism is assumed, so no wonder that there arises a "problem in principle" for you.

I don't think there are two realities, and the problem does not arise as I use the terms 'subjective' and objective' in the following way: an experience exists in a subjective domain in the objective reality, and as speakers we have the possibility to communicate our subjective experiences with the help of epistemologically objective descriptions.*

* On the distinction between ontologically subjective and objective, and epistemologically objective etc.. check out Searle, for example on YouTube.

The argument is really simple, actually. Physical concepts are objective. Conscious concepts are subjective. — Marchesk

Lol that's simply an assertion of dualism in which the distinction between the physical and subjective amounts to dualism.

It really goes back to Locke and his primary/secondary property distinction. If you use only the primary properties to describe the world, your explanation will leave out the secondary ones.

You don't get color, smell, etc from shape, number, etc. This isn't a problem until you need to explain the mind, since it's part of the world.

That's why it's a problem for physicalism. — Marchesk

Only under the assumption of property dualism: the dubious idea that the colour wouldn't be a physical pigment for instance but some mysterious entity lurking inside your consciousness. Hence the appearance of a "hard problem" of consciousness.

But it is simply false to say that it would be a problem for physicalism, for not all physicalists are property dualists.

he thinks every single version of physicalism fails, which is why he says he was led to endorse a form of property dualism. — Marchesk

Looks like he was "led" from assuming dualism to endorsing dualism.

Chalmers isn't like a theist arguing for God. — Marchesk

But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? He even looks like a christian rock musician O:)

On my first computer that I bought back in the 1990s I got to play with a fractal generator that would generate drawings of a type called "Drunken Architect".

Sure, and Chalmers discusses several versions of physicalism. Physicalism might be the case, but questions of consciousness and intentionality still remain puzzling. — Marchesk

:-} Chalmers is a dualist, recall, and the alleged puzzle arises from taking dualism for granted.

You don't get to talk about a hard problem of consciousness with people who don't take dualism for granted.

One more, an unfinished proposal for a market hall in Sweden. Lots of triangles in this one o.O

Here's another, a proposal for a chapel to an old church in Sweden.

Here's a photo of a project I did at architecture school some years ago, a theatre on a piazza in northern Italy.

..the term "qualia" can play no role in the "language game" (in this case, the language game that is philosophy) - it is irrelevant and can be cancelled out. — SophistiCat

Right, one might add that Dennett and his opponents are therefore not even wrong. :D

Experiences are, indeed, qualitative, they are what things are like under such and such conditions of observation. An experience exists 'here and now' for the observer, which amounts to an ontologically subjective domain of the objective reality. But little prevents the observer from making his/her experiences accessible via epistemologically objective descriptions.

Well let me ask you if... ..your experience of a red firetruck is a passive affair, that its givenness is the content of your experience of it... — Cavacava

It is hardly passive, nor is a 'red fire truck' given as its content.

What constitutes the visual experience is, as you probably know, a firing of neurons in your head when your eyes get exposed to the electromagnetic radiation that is reflected by the truck. The content of your experience, i.e. the coloured shape that you see, is set by the truck's design and pigments as they absorb and reflect certain wavelengths of the available electromagnetic radiation. Within an interval of 700–635 nm they are, under ordinary conditions of observation, experienced as red.

How we talk about the experience, however, is learned. For example, that the colour is called 'red', and the shape is recognized as a 'fire truck' and so on.

..the red firetruck is your representation of what is out there, and any statement such as 'it's a red firetruck' is the only content of that experience, that we are in fact responsible for how we take things? — Cavacava

It is typically in our interest to take things for what they are, and for what there is to see, and not explain it away as an illusory representation of something invisible out there.

To say things are separate/independent of the mind, I think is problematic, since a mind is needed to posit them. — Cavacava

What our statements refer to don't necessarily need minds. Likewise with experiences. From the fact that we perceive objects with our minds it does not follow that the objects would somehow depend on our minds. An overwhelming amount of the objects that we perceive are real, not hallucinated.

A reductive physicalist account of biology would mean that biological facts aren't fundamental. — Marchesk

What is an example of realist or physicalist / materialist literature in which the reality of biological facts would be rejected?

Which doesn't address the question of whether physics is the correct ontology of the world as physicalism claims. — Marchesk

What ontology would do that? I suspect you are talking about some ideology passed for "physicalism".

The hypothesis was that the ancients did not have blue pigment to color things, and blue is only rarely found in nature, with the exception of the sky or water on a clear day. So maybe they lacked the color discrimination for blue. — Marchesk

Lapis Lazuli was the blue of antiquity.The ancient Greek temples and statues were coloured in blue and red like so:

Matter is all there fundamentally is has been replaced by physics, which means that matter-energy, fields, spacetime is all there is. — Marchesk

Being complex and of no interest to fundamental physics isn't a failure to be "real" (Hilary Putnam).

Studies of people, born blind, who then suddenly become able to see (such as those who undergo cataract surgery), suggest they have to learn how to interpret what they see,.... — Cavacava

Interpretation is a use of language, recall, and unlike language you don't learn how you ought to see things. You see what there is to see, and retrieving a previously lost or reduced capacity to see is quite different from learning how to interpret what you see. Unlike different interpretations the object that you see is the same regardless of whether your capacity to see it is reduced or not.

A child has to learn that the toy truck is red, just as Mary has to learn that what she is experiencing is red, — Cavacava

What exactly do you expect them to learn? Would they be seeing a grey toy truck until they learn to use the word 'red'? :-} I don't think so.

Mary should already know that what she is experiencing is called 'red', and she would probably use her colour meter out of habit like we use our direct experience.

For example, I've never been on the moon, but I've learned indirectly to know what it's like to be on the moon by reading other people's descriptions, seeing pictures and so on. On the moon I would hardly need to learn how I ought to experience what it's like to be on the moon.

would any amount of indirect facts tell us what bat sonar experience is? — Marchesk

It is simply the experience of the location of objects that reflect sound. You don't have to be a bat to know what that is, and the experienced location of objects is the same for humans and bats. Some blind people navigate by echolocation, and they use sounds that are easier for humans to produce and hear.

If we don't perceive color as an objective property of light or objects, then there is a problem for physicalism, since all the physical facts leave out the color experiences. — Marchesk

Experiences are biological facts. Talk of physical facts tend to leave out things which are not so relevant in physics, such as biological facts. How is that a problem for "physicalism"?

What Mary lacks is not the knowledge of what it’s like to see a particular colour but the possibility to acquire that knowledge by seeing it directly. She can still acquire it indirectly by other means, via our division of linguistic labour, a use of colour meters and so on. That's how we get to know what things are like in places we haven't experienced ourselves, and a lack of direct experience is no good reason to reject the knowledge.

Is it possible to have consciousness if there is no external reality? — Purple Pond

External to what? The possibility to have consciousness is already assumed in talk of reality being external or internal to consciousness.

To have consciousness is to have the capacity to identify things in a network of things to be conscious of. We can call this network 'reality', and say that it includes things "external" to consciousness (e.g. the things we discover in our shared environment), as well as things "internal" to consciousness (e.g. thoughts and perceptions of things).

That doesn't answer the question. — Wayfarer

Right, it dissolves the question, since it makes little sense to ask "How do you get from ions being passed across synapses, to meaning?" when meanings are elsewhere.

We don't know what any other organism sees or does not see. — SteveKlinko

Your skepticism arises from the assumption that each organism would see their own sensations instead of the objects in our shared environment.

But if it is a Conscious type of seeing then there is a Big Explanatory Gap that needs to be filled even if the organism has a more simple Brain. — SteveKlinko

All seeing is conscious.

Again, the idea of an explanatory gap arises from assuming dualism or representational perception. Not so with direct realism.

Ok forget Dualism, how exactly does seeing arise from biochemistry? — SteveKlinko

Ask a biochemist or neuroscientist. It's not a philosophical question. The philosophical question is as far as I know whether seeing presents objects in your conscious awareness or represents images of what you don't see. If the latter, then your skepticism would be entailed.

:-} By assuming that religion would be an integral part of the human psyche it is unsurprising that it appears to "win". But religions are cultural constructs, recall, systems of worship. To psychologize it, or describe established habits or methods in science as similar to religious rituals is not only exaggerated and seditious but false. Atheism, for instance, is not yet another religion.

How do you get from ions being passed across synapses, to meaning? — Wayfarer

Meanings just ain't in the head! — Hilary Putnam

Relatively simple and small organisms can see, recall, so it should be fairly clear that the conscious awareness that is the seeing doesn't require "a big process in the Brain function".

Whatever is left to explain on how seeing arises from biochemistry is not the big explanatory gap that arises from assuming dualism or representational perception, because a direct realist does not make the latter assumptions.

You can't just say it's true without an explanation. — SteveKlinko

It is called 'direct' because there is nothing by way of which the objects are seen, neither a process nor a mechanism, so there are no such things to explain.

The seeing, however, is a causation of biochemical processes in the brain, and that's the short explanation of how the capacity to see works. Its detailed explanation is the subject for empirical research.

I think the 'truth' of the Bull has been drastically changed by the additional of the "Fearless Girl", at least as long as she can hold her ground. Do you think the ontological of the Bull provides the power behind the "Fearless Girl". — Cavacava

I think the bull is superfluous, because it is just a metaphorical description of what is already present at Wall Street: a bunch of aggressively enterprising animals.

Also the girl refers to them, but unlike the bull she does not merely describe them but prescribes a protest against their intimidating aggression by exemplifying innocence and fearlessness. She would do that with or without the bull.

The main problem with Direct Realism is that there never is any explanation of how we directly experience things. — SteveKlinko

When the appearance that you see is the external object that you see there is no gap to explain.

The gap arises by assuming dualism, it was invented by dualists, and it is incoherent to speak of a gap under the assumption of direct realism.

That said, there are neuroscientific questions to explain, but they are not philosophical questions.

It's time to start thinking in different ways. — SteveKlinko

Right, so why are you stuck in dualism?

Direct realism is a better assumption as defended by Searle, or Putnam.

Perception has no interface between the brain's causation of becoming aware of what you see, and the causal chain to what you become aware of; the latter sets the conditions for what you will perceive.

The visual system does not produce a "result" that would be "looked" at by some inner homunculus. Instead it produces the looking-part of the experience, whereas the present features of the external object sets the conditions of what the object-part of the experience will appear like. For example, if a door is open, then it will be an open door that you see. Looking at some result of your own brain events would amount to blindness or hallucination.

Regardless of whether we call it an organ or inner light, what signals does it use? If it is using the same signals as the visual system, then whence the addition of "inner light" that is supposedly "looking" at the alleged construction or "result" of the visual system?

I agree. It is indeed unsurprising and expected that states of the mind produce effects in the body. By thinking of a cold beer, good food, or beautiful people one can easily evoke stimulating effects in the body. States of the mind produce effects on the body as well, such as facial expressions, movement of arms, legs, or the whole body. Via these our minds can have major effects on our environment.

According to Searle experiences exist in an ontologically subjective domain in an ontologically objective reality. In this sense experiences are ontologically irreducible to physical states. But that does not exclude the possibility that they are causally reducible to physical states. Unlike a video recording the experience is a causation of brain events whose content is set by the object's present features. Many people may experience the same object, but seldom the exact same set of features, and never with the same brain.

The visual system uses Nerve signals from the Retina to construct the scene we are looking at with our own internal Conscious Light. — SteveKlinko

What organ is that? What signals would it use?

A "dead" car engine can be resurrected, not so for a dead organism it seems.

As soon as the Physical Light hits the Retina it is turned into something else as it transmitted to the Cortex. It is now Nerve Impulses and Nerve Firings. — SteveKlinko

Sure, the light hits the retina and thereby starts a causal chain of biochemical reactions. But you say more: that the light would be turned into "something else", and "transmitted" to the cortex. :-}

Is it physically possible even for nerves and neurons to transmit "something..." (what?) ..as if the cortex would be a TV?

I don't think it is necessary for an observer's visual system to transmit anything when there is the presence of an object and light that reflects its present features. Only the latter are necessary for the visual system to see something.

I think it's pretty well established that there is no Visual Experience without Cortical involvement. So what we see is the result of Neurons Firing. We don't Experience the Physical Light directly. — SteveKlinko

Sure, nobody says that there is no cortical involvement. But something is wrong when a supposedly "scientific" explanation of how we see things amounts to the not so scientific conclusion that we never see things but a "result" of brain activity. The skeptic nightmare is further fuled by your talk of light which omits the real objects that reflect or emit it, and the usual rhetoric on illusions or hallucinations.

If you rub your eye you can see Lights.because you are stimulating Neural Firings. There is no Physical Light involved in that. Also, where does all that Light come from in your Dreams? — SteveKlinko

Your arguments are bad because 1) it is impossible to see unconscious, in the dark, behind rubbing fingers, closed eyelids etc. and 2) they exploit the ambiguity of the two different senses of seeing light: the experience of seeing (constituitive), and the experience of the light (intentionalistic).

How about after Images where you continue to see remnants of the scene you were looking at? — SteveKlinko

You're not seeing any images, including "remnants" of the scenes you were looking at. But when you see the scenes and then shut your eyes you might have the experience sustained in its constituitive sense. Like pinching your arm seeing can be sustained before the experience fades. Some recalcitrance might be a feature of the biological nature of experiences.

These Lights are all internal Lights that we have in our Conscious Minds. Bottom line is that we Experience Light all the time when there is no Light there. And when we are awake the situation is the same, we are seeing our own internal Lights but now the Conscious Light we experience is correlated with external scenes you are looking at. — SteveKlinko

If we only see our own internal lights, then how could they ever be correlated to something external that we supposedly don't see? It seems inconsistent.

But there is another sense, arising from association with experiences one has with red objects. These are often social. for example, red in the USA tends to mean 'danger' or 'stop,' whereas in China it has more the connotation of 'parade' or 'party'. — ernestm

You can ascribe almost any meaning to a colour, because meanings are linguistic and social or cultural constructs. Colour experiences, however, are biological phenomena. There is no sense in which you could make us blind to red merely by ascribing it the meaning "invisible".

All we know for the Experience of Red is 1) Neurons fire in particular places in the Brain, 2) We have an Experience of Red in our Conscious Minds. Number 1 is the Easy Problem and number 2 is the Hard Problem. The problem with number 2 is that we say we have a Red Experience but we don't take it to the next step and ask Where Is That Experience Happening? — SteveKlinko

The explanatory gap arises from a failure to distinguish 'the experience of red' in its constituitive sense (i.e. the physiological events that constitute having the experience) from its intentionalistic sense (i.e. your physiology's interaction with electromagnetic radiation). Both of those different senses are disguised in expressions such as "experience of...", "awareness of...." and so on. The former is your seeing of the colour whereas the latter is the colour that you see.

Seeing is direct, not representative: you don't see your own seeing which would somehow represent a colour outside the seeing (say, an unseen colour-concept, whose relation to the experience would certainly be hard if not impossible to explain!).

If you see the colour directly, then there is no gap to explain. The colour experience is partly set by the optics, and partly by your background capacities and habits which enable you to see it.

If thought is referential, then all thought is at the very least a capacity to think of something else, and to think of something else is to imagine it.

For example, a thought of infinity might not just be the use of the word but also an evoked experience, by which infinity is imagined as something without a beginning and without an end. In this sense, I think, imagination plays a major role in thought, including philosophy and a search for truth.

What is an example of thought in which imagination does not play a major role? I'd say obscure thought or expression tends to inhibit the possibility to imagine and arrive at conclusions. It pushes you to blindly invent your own interpretations, or comply to what some alleged expert tells you to think. Some continental "theory" is covertly authoritarian in this way.

can philosophy be considered "seeking after the truth", or no? — Noble Dust

Also the nature of philosophy is a philosophical question, e.g. whether it is the search after the truth, therapeutic contemplation, or love of wisdom. I believe that the latter is the generally accepted definition.