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.

Does it however explain the difference between a live cell and a dead cell? — Samuel Lacrampe

It explains that the difference between a living cell and a dead cell is not fundamental.

It makes no sense to classify swarms of atoms as dead or alive. Whether it makes sense to classify a chemical compound as organic or inorganic seems to depend on the context.

On a molecular level carbon atoms, or hydrogen and oxygen atoms etc., may interact in various ways depending on the circumstances. A change in the environment, for instance, could cause an imbalance in the polarity of the water molecule, which in turn might cause irreparable imbalance or damage on the possibility for other non-living components in the cell to interact with each other. When they cease to interact it makes sense to talk of a dead cell.

"spirit or soul" and the more scientific "set of capacities", and then figure out which one is closer to truth. — Samuel Lacrampe

As far as I know the debate on vitalism had more or less dissolved by the 1930s, when there was genetics and a more refined understanding of bio-chemistry.

The synthesis of urea (and other organic substances) from inorganic compounds was counterevidence for the vitalist hypothesis that only organisms could make the components of living things. — Wikipedia

biology, the study of living organisms, does not apparently have a clear definition of the concept of life. — Samuel Lacrampe

The concept refers to many things with different definitions. Hence the lack of one clear definition.

It used to refer to an assumed essence, élan vital, or spirit, that would fundamentally distinguish living things from dead things. But nowadays it is more often used for a set of capacities which arise from the mechanics of bio-chemistry and characterises organisms which can respond to the environment intentionally. Life can also refer to our given time, as in "My life", and as such include my experiences and effects on the world. Unlike the given time of dead things such as rocks my time is probably shorter, but unlike the rocks I can use them intentionally for constructing buildings or sculptures etc., tokens of life.

You can have economic democracy in a company (owned by its workers) operating in a capitalist market. Likewise you can have a capitalist market in a society ruled by a socialist government (eg China). The market is not the whole of society, just the activity of trading goods and services.

But it seems as a technical person you have to be much more rigorous and its alot more challeging to solve problems compared to music. — rohan

Some decades ago there used to be a misconception about black jazz musicians that they would only be improvising, playing by ear and so on instead of studying music theory and history. But you don't get to play like Miles Davis, compose like Charles Mingus etc. without the knowledge and skills you get from rigorous study of theory and practice. John Coltrane honed his skills every day for 17 years before he could begin to make a living as a musician.

Competition is cut-throat for musicians, it pushes the best of them to be rigorous on the border of insanity. Life as a technician is easy in comparison.

Here's a link to a musician's take on practice and learning.

The concept 'happiness' does not arise from there being another concept, 'suffering'. Happiness is an experience, recall, a biological phenomenon. That's what the concept refers to.

The value of happiness arises from the effects of being happy, e.g. its benefits on your health, fitness, and ability to interact socially. Neither the presence nor the absence of suffering is necessary for the value of happiness.

Could happiness exist without suffering? — MonfortS26

Yes.

Happiness can be derivative from identifying that suffering has diminished or disappeared, for instance. But it is not necessary to suffer in order to be happy. Nor is a lack of suffering sufficient for being happy.

Perhaps it has to do with the society that nurtures the artist. — Cavacava

What society has ever nurtured artists? How could anyone invent anything valuable if the values would be predetermined? Allegedly John Coltrane played his instrument for 17 years with few if any other rewards from it than what he himself could hear. His art emerged from practising the necessary skills, not from predetermined cultural values.

If you would do art primarily for applause, as a means to satisfy other interests, like being modern, then that's probably all you get. You don't have to love art, nor be interested in art, to be a modern artist.

So what made Rimbaud assert the necessity to be absolutely modern?

I think it is fairly clear that art is an end in itself, many artists wouldn't care less whether Society expects their art to be modern. We produce and consume art primarily because of its real qualities that we identify and enjoy, regardless of whether they satisfy the ideology of being modern.

Outside modernised societies it is easy to find art which is not modern, but also inside modernised societies you can find contemporary art which seeks to be eternal rather than fashionably transgressive or whatever it means to be modern.

"It is necessary to be absolutely modern" has always held. — Cavacava

It is not necessary to be a Hegelian, nor a Modernist.

no one acknowledges the inevitable flow of how art evolves with consciousness. — Noble Dust

19th and early 20th century historians of art and architecture did, but they were wrong. For example, Wölfflin, Schmarzow, Gideon and others worked under the dubious assumption that art evolves with consciousness from, say, something simple to something advanced.

The tiny space inside ancient Egyptian pyramids, for instance, was explained as the expression of a less developed consciousness than the interior of the Pantheon in Rome. The most advanced consciousness was supposedly exemplified in the austere modern designs of the modern architects for whose organisation Gideon was the secretary. His "operative historiography" of architecture made the consciousness of the members seem to be the most evolved in human history. Megalomaniacs.

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The ancient Egyptians depicted what they knew, not what they saw. As far as I know it was not until the 19th century when the very idea of art began to orbit around the latter idea, that art would only be what an artists sees from his/her subjective point of view. The idea of art as something objective was covertly banned.

“Valuation as a real psychological occurrence is part of the natural world; but what we mean by valuation, its conceptual meaning, is something independent of this world; is not part of it, but is rather the whole world viewed from a particular vantage point” — River

It seems to be the dubious assertion that what we mean by 'valuation' would not be set by us, nor its real occurrences in the natural world, but some otherworldly "conceptual meaning" that suddenly arises by viewing the whole world from a particular view point.

what's wrong with fascism? — Question

Many things, but I'll mention two: anti-intellectualism and violence. WW1 and socio-economical unrest pushed people to embrace fascism. But where did fascism come from? The ideas of the ideology didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere: they have a history, and they appear elsewhere too, in philosophy even.

The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s, and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time. The theme was based on a revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society and democracy. The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism and vitalism. The fin-de-siècle mindset saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution. The fin-de-siècle intellectual school considered the individual only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as an atomized numerical sum of individuals. They condemned the rationalistic individualism of liberal society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society. — Wikipedia

Hi, I don't think we debate whether absolute truth exists. If you look at the premise of the archaeological method, there is an assumed ground for thought beyond logic, grammar, and beneath consciousness. I question whether such a ground for thought exists. What conditions satisfies its possibility?

Absolutism is hypocritical in the sense that it asserts its "truth" regardless of what is true. It is indifferent to sufficient reason to believe x. Instead there "I want x!". That's not so scientific.

One Foucault's major points is that an argument (or discourse) is itself an expression of power. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure, but powers beyond grammar, logic, and awareness are not part of, nor do they necessarily influence, the grammar, logic and truth of words from which the explanatory power of an argument arises.

When we argue a case we do violence to other ideas, cordoned them off, make them unacceptable, believe they are meaningless and cause other to reject or denounce them within their own thoughts-- it's the ground of thought which sets-up the violence committed against particular people (e.g. the mentally ill, the criminal), to a point where it cannot even recognised as an act or violence and power), such as thinking the punishment of a criminal is just "inevitable" or that someone with a mental illness cannot make truthful (or "reasoned" ) comment or have honest motivation.

It's this awareness of power you are struggling with. Your problem is really not that Foucault somehow rejects truth. . . — TheWillowOfDarkness

He also sneaks in powers beyond logic and grammar, recall. I doubt there exists a "ground of thought" of powers beyond or beneath thought. If it exists, would we not still be free to veto the outcome of our supposedly power-induced thoughts?

The myth of The Truth no longer functions. We are cursed (blessed?) to recognise what our understanding, culture and actions do to others in the context of power. The blindness to the violence which accompanies our understanding of others and the world around us is lost. — TheWillowOfDarkness

One does not have to explain away truth as a myth in order to understand and avoid bad effects of power, ignorance and so forth.

All along you have been accusing Foucault of taking aways the relevance of truth — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, but I never said that he was terrible, nor that he was just reducing argument to discourse. He did many things, and perhaps he was a great guy. I'm neither attacking the person, nor all of his work, only that premise of his method, from which it seems possible to infer something that to me looks like a philosophical disaster. I hope I'm wrong..

Why would a widening of what we understabd to be argument 'dilute it's significance' rather than amplify it? — StreetlightX

Well, you neither amplify nor widen the explanatory power of an argument by adding the power of physical violence, for instance. We might be exposed to many different powers. But violence won't change the truth of words, their conclusion, nor the explanatory power which arises from a conscious use of grammar and logic.

Now suppose Foucault's premise is correct, that an argument consists not only of its explanatory conscious use of grammar logic, but also other powers beyond them, such as violence. Then we are not only exposed to many different powers, but we are helplessly infuenced by them, as well as our conscious use of grammar, logic. That's how the power or significance of the truth of words is reduced or diluted to a point of homeopatic nothingness. In effect a sneaky covert way to replace true argument with his own version: discourse.

Again, this is not an argument made by Foucault — StreetlightX

And again, it is inferred from the premise of his method.

More than half of your posts attempt to intimidate and diagnose my alleged ignorance. That's low quality argumentation. Someone who is confident about a subject does not usually behave like that. I think we're done.

No, you circumvented my inference by saying that Foucault's focus on power would entail "a widening of what an argument is". That's effectively a dilution of the significance of argument, hence my reply:

The explanatory power of the argument is thus made less significant. . . . Hence Foucault sneaks in his own version of "argument": discourse. — jkop

Furthermore, you obsess about how critics tend to misread Foucault, but I never said that he opposes truth with power, nor argument with discourse: it is trivially true and uncontroversial that we are exposed to many different kinds of power.

What I think is controversial, however, is the belief that powers beyond or beneath an argument would somehow compromise the argument or its outcome, and thus render the truth of words insignificant... simply put: anything goes, and its deplorable effects.

You're a hypocrite who insists on truth while thinking that you can exempt yourself from it's standard when it come to your unstudied dismissal. — StreetlightX

Again you attempt to merely diagnose my criticism from a superior vantage point, and assert that I'm ignorant of details in Foucault's work. What's the benefit of that?

If you know better, then why don't you engage with that premise of Foucault's method which I found problematic. I explained why I find it problematic.

Moreover, isn't Foucault and his own claims susceptible to the alleged powers beneath our consciousness and beyond logic? Can we not discuss this on the ground, without superior vantage points, intimidation, and so on? I mean, that sort of behaviour also a good reason to not read a writer.