So you say. But good luck with a psychology which is not focused on a structure of distinctions as opposed to your panpsychic pixels. — apokrisis

I guess I will give a similar response to Willow.. How is the panpyschist that different from a pragmatic semiotic theorist if both take experience as a brute fact? Or does Willow describe your position incorrectly? Semiotics, body, and mind are not the brute triad facts that interact and make reality?

Logical realm-- things of the same type which are connected and interact. Sort of like either "mind" or "body" in substance dualism. Or "material" under materialism. Only it has a triform--logic (semiotics, symbols), body (objects) and mind (experiences). — TheWillowOfDarkness

But these three things are given as brute facts then, and are not explained except as "just there" and essentially this conflates to panpsychism but apparently a panpsychic trinity instead of a strict monism or dualism. Either way, if panpsychists say that matter is mind, and that this can be logically configured and measured using semiotic methods, how is the panpsychist different from the pragmatic semiotic theorist?

Sensation "just is" part of the same realm of logic and everything else, rather than being "just not" of the same realm under mind/body dualism. Sensations aren't separate to the world and logic. They are all part of the same system. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sensation and logic are what then? The same part of what system?

Strictly speaking, sensation isn't logic exactly, but rather dependent on logic. Our experiences and feelings are the result of many systems constraining in a symbolic way. Sensation has a structure of logic. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Then same response as Apo.

So if the world is logically structured, then that is the structure sensation needs to develop to be aware of the world.

And the world itself must be logically structured as how else could it arrive at an organisation that was persistent and self-stable enough for there to be "a world", as opposed to a vague chaos of disorganised fluctuations? — apokrisis

I notice you self-justified "Logic" with "logic" and moved the topic away from sensation. You said: "So if the world is logically 'structured' then that is the structure sensation needs to develop to be aware of the world'. Well, that is not sensation, that is the structure in which sensation works within, not the sensation itself.

The "myth" is not that it's all pointless, that nothing is worthwhile, but the idea we were ever aiming for anything except our own existence-- up-to and including our own death. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, I am not saying we were aiming at anything except our own existence. Who said that? We are always just maintaining to maintain. Some people get the endorphins high but never the existential clarity of instrumentality.

Sensation and experience were never separate to logic or the world in the first place. They don't need to turn into anything to be there. If logic has always been the terrain, it doesn't need to shift from a map to terrain. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't get how logic is sensation then. I'm all ears.

On the other hand, many immaterialists and anti-realists don't like it because it subsumes logical meaning into the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How about that it is constantly pointing to a map and not the terrain? If the logic was the terrain.. then please let me know how logic magically turns into sensation and internal experience. I know, I know..it's just my piddly dualistic thinking..

Unrest, agitation, need, want, not getting, getting and needing and wanting more or more of the same is one level. Striving-for-nothing is another level.. It's like getting a runner's high from running a certain distance.. feeling really good from the endorphins and then realizing that the instrumentality in doing to do to do to do and leading to a more existential understanding that it is all striving-for-nothing. Building strength to build strength.. Maintaining to maintain..

Let's be clear about this: either neither of us are committing an "is-ought fallacy" or we both are. Please stop superficially attempting to make your own position appear to be stronger. — Sapientia

Actually I guess we both agree that no one "ought" to do anything so that is not necessarily the case. However, your justification does in fact lead to suffering, whether you mitigate it with other explanations or not, that is simply a fact- baby w/bathwater, splinters, and all other justifications aside. Mine effectively, whether too heavy-handed or not, prevents it. That again, is a fact.

You, on the other hand, appear to have no sympathy for alleviating suffering in order to make the most out of life - which, I shouldn't have to point out, is contrary to seeking the extinction of life. That isn't humanitarian, that's anti-humanity.

In a sick twist, you seem to actually believe that you're on the side of humanity, and that you have compassion on your side, and that you get to take the moral high ground. This couldn't be further from the truth. — Sapientia

I am not on the side of humanity, that is correct but rather a particular instance of a potential human that has the ability to occur and thus ability to experience the world's sufferings. Whether or not good is also in the world matters not to that which never was. Even if they go about exclaiming life's greatness retroactively, this does not have any ethical implications where it does seem true that preventing suffering would be ethical. No one usually feels sympathy for that which might have existed but did not get to experience joy.. People are more likely to feel sympathy for the suffering that one would experience than the deprived joy that they may not.

I'm talking about humanity as a whole, which is of course composed of numerous individual humans. There is nothing unreasonable about addressing the consequences to humanity. Consider it a shorthand. — Sapientia

Humanity is a genus and a human is a particular. You cannot conflate the two. The species is one level up from the individual.

For starters, given our many discussions on this subject, you should know by now that "must" and "have to" have no place in my view about procreation. — Sapientia

Yes, good to know. So there is a start. We both agree, no one "has" to do anything, although I am making the claim that it is worth looking into as to whether procreation really is the best choice even under the "best" of circumstances. I just think it is not necessarily as justified as you claim.

I find it odd or perhaps convenient that you choose to bring up the is-ought issue now, on this particular topic, regarding what you take to be my views, when it is a general problem which applies across the board to virtually anyone... and you are no exception. — Sapientia

Except that under my views the "ought" leads to no negative consequences and in your is-ought fallacy it leads to callousness- essentially "The world has a mix of suffering and thus since people are able to deal with it, it is justified for future people to deal with it". (I must make a non-sequiter here and point out that negative consequences does not happen to a species or an ideal, but rather to individuals, so any point about negative consequences to the species or to human experience seems moot and is only lamented by already-existing individuals whose attachment to this idea would subside or at the least would die out with them. To suggest the "pain" of a lost species trumps any individual pain of a future human would be indeed falling into the error of putting an "X" reason for someone else's suffering). I believe I brought this up many times in the past, and OglopTo has just brought it up, presumably independently, again here (meaning it is a glaring objection that multiple people can independently find in your argument..not that that in itself means something, just wanted to point that out).

Sure, there are varying degrees of pain and suffering that we experience from time to time, and there are also varying degrees of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness and contentedness which we experience from time to time. That's life. I don't somehow jump from that to the absurd conclusion that extinction would be best. — Sapientia

But, you presume extinction is a real issue. Antinatalists, by and large are not thinking about "extinction" because they don't think about ethics in species-wide terms when it comes to the consequence of antinatalism. No one would be around to mourn a lost species and the mourning itself is misplaced as, it is the individual suffering which is prevented. You are projecting a future without humans (which will happen anyways) and then retroactively saying that this terror you feel trumps suffering of individuals. This seems misplaced at best.

I don't agree with all of that, and it's clear that your intention is to ridicule, but I think that it's still a better alternative to pessimism, especially when coupled with anti-natalism, which is far more ridiculous than stoicism. — Sapientia

Well, the ridicule is that there is this pretty hefty plan in place called stoicism as a model which is being purported in the philosophy community. It could be any other virtue-based system really. It is very much this regiment that is to be followed and apparently, this to these people, is to be enculturated by all humans who want equanimity and good judgement. Besides my natural aversion to such high-mindedness (and yes that would be subjective bias), presumably this path is a pretty hard one to fall in line with- otherwise it would be followed by everyone. I also go back to my own objection a while back that, it seems pretty odd that the stoic principles themselves (for those who believe in them) become the X reason a child needs to be born. Again, all this effort for what end, if really the end did not even need to be attained in the first place. No one has to be born to experience the enlightenment of the saints. So a) the efficacy of getting to this place may be very limited if it even exists (and not just hollow bragging by ancients who thought they had the keys to a good life), and b) the actual goal itself seems unnecessary when the alternative is no need to overcome anything, nor experience the suffering itself which needs to be overcome.

Does the world contain empirical aspects and non-empirical aspects? — darthbarracuda

One non-empirical aspect is the "what-it's-likeness" of an individual organism. It is only empirical in that the individual person is the only who can access their own experience. At what point is experience not a part of the world? Can experience itself (the basis for empirical observation, imitation, connection-making, inference-making, synthesizing, analyzing, and memory-storage, etc.) have ever been non-existent in total or was it always there in some way as a product of how particles/forces/molecules work? When does experience pop in the picture? Amoeba? Multi-cellular life? Clusters of neurons? If it is one of these bags-of-chemicals- what makes those bags of chemicals different from previous ones where a "what-it's-like" experiential phenomena is entailed with its very nature. If it did come about at a point-in-time and not there all along, what is this big explosion of experience like to come on the scene from non-experience? Can the idea of having no-experience what-so-ever then having one instance of experience exist even be truly comprehensible?

new, frightening, wonderful and countless other emotions. — Sapientia

So why does this tragicomedy have to be carried out in the first place? Why must there be someone to live out the "journey"? This seems like a hidden is-ought fallacy: because people live a mixed tragicomedy life of good/bad this must be carried out by future generations. Add to this the idea that we posses an overabundance of consciousness whereby we must try to forget that existence itself is simply instrumental striving-for-nothing (ya know- planet spins, sun goes up and down, we are always in a state of unrest and deprivation: we must kill time and survive by trying to get at any cultural/survival/entertainment goal we are lacking at any given time, all the while using mechanisms of distraction and achoring to try to cope.) Even if we see our condition for the vain striving that it is (when seen in its pure form), it does not stop the Will from willing. Not only this, but all the instrumentality plays out whilst experiencing varying degrees of intrusive and unwanted pain. Thus instrumentality at the core of our existence and unwanted pain eating away at the contingencies of our existence are thus two type of suffering that exist for the human animal.

But supposedly certain schools of thought have a solution! We can 'overcome' our suffering by diminishing our own bad habits so as to live in accordance with Natural Reason. In this advanced mindset, we simply accept life in order to bare through it to the point of not even thinking about the suffering as suffering.. If we can build a warrior mindsets that can withstand bad, or not even look at the situation as bad, we can henceforth conquer the bad. Thus, the story goes, the "saintly" methodology of those who have cultivated virtuous lives will show the rest of humanity by virtue of their virtue the veracity of this mode of thought through diligent self-restraint, discipline, and practice. The true warrior Way is manifested as the adherent increases his power to master his own mind and become indifferent to that which unnecessarily causes pain. Overtime, that which seemed harmful to the warrior will not even be considered a harm. The long, arduous path of the disciplined saint will be deemed worth the effort, as towards the end equanimity of mind and the cultivated judgement of a good character will ensue... Or so the pipe dream ideal goes.

Why someone has to go through this warrior path of the disciplined virtuous saint in the first place is not explained other than it is good in and of itself which is of course begging the question. Rather, it does nothing to counter the many examples here of how people suffer, how people have to go through this "saintly" path in the first place just to get to a place so that harm supposedly makes little impact on a person.. All this work to "overcome' when it could have simply been avoided. The much more elegant and justified answer is antinatalism. There is no arduous journey to have to master, there is no unwanted pain, there is no instrumentality (whether just living it, (or even worse) the self-awareness of it.. ).

Maybe it's because we have a lot more parties to chose from in the Netherlands that party loyalty isn't a big thing but I was rather flabbergasted at some comments from Republicans I read about whether they'd vote for Trump or not. The senators' comments in some cases boiled down to "at some point you're going to have to stop wondering what's best for the party and instead decide what's best for the country". (I'm paraphrasing)

I found that a surprising outlook as it suggests those senators think political power for their team is more important than governing the US in good fatih. The discussions we've had with the US possibly defaulting on their debt comes to mind where they seemed to do just that. What's the experience of US forum members in this respect? And are the Democrats any different? — Benkei

The problem is one of changing a system run by the very people whose interests would be frustrated by its demise. So, if an organization is committed to keeping its position, there is no way that a third party, fourth party, or what not will make its way in.

Also note that in the U.S. it is really a state problem not a federal problem for the election design. Each state can make laws making it easier or harder for ballot access. If a state wanted to do a run-off election and not continue the current system of "first-past-the-post", it could do so. A run-off would make third candidates more viable.

Also realize that brand recognition is a huge psychological force. One does not go with anything new simply because it is untested or simply unfamiliar.

Also note that once people have been inducted into the work/family world of middle-age adulthood, fringe ideas and beliefs that one holds as a youth look scarier as it would possibly disrupt the current system that is keeping one afloat. Democratic and Republican decisions are basically in the middle ground of their respective ideologies (granted that Democrats seem to be more so than Republicans these days). Therefore, they can easily court voters who are not looking for disruption but maintenance and slight changes when needed.

Also realize that debates, the most marketable events for candidates, are run by committees that are essentially going to let as few people in as possible. The 15% mark has to be reached but who counts it, how it is counted, and all the forces keeping the third party from getting in that I mentioned prior (voter psychology, state election laws, etc.) would keep the third parties away from popular attention.

Weself-move; as biological creatures, we self-relate; we not only sustain ourselves metabolically, we seek ways to sustain that metabolism; movement being an evolutionary strategy to help organisms do exactly that (one imagines - my evolutionary history is fuzzy - that it begins in the sea, with the development of fin-like structures to regulate movement in water currents, before taking off from there). — StreetlightX

I understand what you are saying about movement being an evolutionary development that "helped" survival, however I am having trouble understanding how self-moving creatures (flagella one-celled organisms let's say) actually = sensation. Is there something in the "self-moving" and "evolution" concepts that I do not get that entails sensation?

Edit: I just picked up on the unintentional pun of "entails" :D. I also realize that movement may cause sensation or be the effect of sensation but how movement + concepts of evolution + concepts of survival = sensation eludes me.

We are striving for nothing precisely because meaning is infinite, invincible, undoubtable to anyone who is paying attention. Far from the nihilistic failure you and Wayfarer (and even some of the wider philosophy Nietzsche) ascribes, eternal recurrence alludes to how striving for meaning is impossible-- meaning is infinite, so it's never lacking such that we could strive for it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Too bad life as we perceive it is not eternal.. Just because we can make thought experiments does not mean that our humans-as-lived experience becomes that thought experiment. Actually, that might be my gripe with many religious/spiritual pipedreams that there is any other mode of experience than the usual ones we are used to. Perhaps there are people who have aptitudes/goals that lead to athleticism, or calm/meditative, or brilliant with music, but it all falls within the normal range of experience- no nirvana, no mystical union, no invincible eternal recurrence. Whatever the metaphysics that may or may not be true, the actual life as we feel it does not change.

I interpret such ideas as the realisation of being trapped in an endless cycle of repetitive and pointless actions, so it is actually the soul's yearning for release. — Wayfarer

I call this concept "instrumentality". It is the idea that we are striving-for-nothing. I mean that in two ways:
1) We are striving-for-nothing meaning there is no definable goal that we are striving for except the mini-goals we pursue in order to stay alive (in our cultural/linguistic milieu), and to turn boredom into goal-seeking and pleasure to stave off angst and ennui.

2) We are striving-for-nothing. We are alive and experience unwanted pain and deprivations, but we simply do this to do to do to do but we keep this going without much pause for reflection as to why. Instead of taking it to its logical conclusion, the idea is surrounded with all sorts of cultural mainstays (the hope for unity with existence/God, family, pleasure, knowledge, beauty, discovery, recognition, virtue, entertainment, community, etc.).

The way we swim through the world is the way we swim through ideas. — apokrisis

Poetic, but where's the sense in it? Get the pun :D.

Linear and amplitudinal qualities obviously describe spatial aspects of movement; tensional and projectional qualities obviously describe temporal aspects of movement, what we recognize as the felt intensity of our moving bodily energies and the felt manner in which we project those bodily energies — in a sustained manner, for example, in an explosive manner, in a punctuated manner, in a ballistic manner, and so on. — StreetlightX

we are already the kind of bodies that are sensate bodies thanks to evolution and our ability to feel the world that is not only necessarily 'around us', but that we in some ways are. To leave you with another quotation, consider Brian Massumi's words on the subject: — StreetlightX

"When I think of my body and ask what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It moves. It feels. In fact, it docs both at the same time, It moves as it feels, and il feels itself moving. Can we think a body without this: an intrinsic connection between movement and sensation whereby each immediately summons the other? If you start from an intrinsic connection between movement and sensation, the slightest, most literal displacement convokes a qualitative dif­ference, because as directly as it conducts itself it beckons a feeling, and feelings have a way of folding into each other, resonating together, interfering with each other, mutually intensifying, all in unquantifiable ways apt to unfold again in action, often unpredictably. Qualitative difference: immediately the issue is change." — StreetlightX

So what makes movement in humans or animals different than movement elsewhere?

If we have the correlates in question, existing experience and an existing brain together, we have a full account of the cause of consciousness. — TheWillowOfDarkness

We have a full account? We have two things without the actual thing trying to be explained- the correlate itself between the two.

For the Hard Problemer, even the world outside language is meant to be given in language. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I just do not think this is what Hard Problemers believe. Language may be an imperfect vehicle, but things can be explained in language. Look at Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy. He has tons of neologisms, not presumably because he likes being obscurantist but because to explain metaphysics that is beyond simply reiterating the object-side (scientific-mathematical mode) of expression is inherently hard to produce. Therefore, language is always in the equation- just perhaps, very hard to understand language.

You have to remember they view models as only approximate. Using models, for them, means to only approximate what's happening, rather than describing the world. They think we can't give descriptions of the world at all-- that knowledge is only about our ideas rather than stuff that's occurring outside our language. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But often metaphysics are explained using the models and thus are a step removed the matter at hand. They are in the realm of causes assumed to be explanations of the events themselves. In other words, they confuse what we epistemically test/predict as the ontological event.

Solving the "hard problem" would be to state in language that which is outside language. If I could give an account of "experience," that was "experience" rather than a mere description of it, then the supposed issue would be resolved. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well, yes it would wouldn't it. Of course, all we have is language so we have to make do.

Nope. They are just a bit more honest than the other Hard Problemers. They realise the argument of the "hard problem" requires consciousness to beyond understanding and so make that argument. This understanding is just as true for any other Hard Problemer, it's just they haven't realised it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think you are confusing "beyond understanding" and "beyond language". Yes, metaphysics may be beyond language, but not beyond (at least a good approximation) of our ability to (at least mostly) understand the matter at hand.

Whatever we say will be "just a model" and so a failure, even our description of our own extension beyond language. Instead of understanding what we are, beings who are more than language, they treat us like we are a mystery-- "We don't really know what we are.Wooooo." — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't know where you get that from. You are saying really contradictory things. First you said that hard problemers only look at descriptions (models?) and now you admit that they don't do that but instead quite the opposite, that it is beyond mere models. However, Hard Problemers do seem to posit plenty of ideas that are descriptions but realizing that descriptions can only approximate what is happening, using imperfect language.

When I say they do not understand Being, this is what I mean. They view our inability to give full description of ourselves as a failure of knowledge. Supposely, to resolve the "mystery," we would have to detail the nature of us, in language no less, as "more than language." — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't know what you mean that we would have to detail the nature of us, in language, as more than language. Language is being used to convey things that are metaphysical- pretty heady stuff, so yeah, it's going to probably involve more than just a straightforward scientific description (if that's what you even mean by "more than language").

Fundamentally, they cannot accept we are more than language. When confronted with our extension beyond language, they say we don't make sense, that we are logically impossible, rather than realise that existing means to be more than language, so we actually make perfect sense. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Are you perhaps discussing New Mysterians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_mysterianism ? This particular set of adherents may fit the description you say, but they seem to only be a subset of hard problemers. Not all hard problmers are New Mysterians. It is only one subgroup's response to the hard problem.

The point is there is no catergory error. Experiences are physical states. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How?

A proponent of the "hard problem" does not agree. They view the world to be of their experience rather than experience to be of the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's not necessarily true. That is a false dichotomy. Hard Problemers just do not make the category error of explaining experience by simply referring to causes when we are looking for correlates (how it is that physical things are experiences).

The reason they struggle with Being is because their position is trying limit existence of anything to their description. Deep down they cannot understand the world is more than what we say about it, for they view our world to be limited to our experience. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Actually many probably think quite the opposite- that the world is more than our descriptions and hence why they say that the descriptions (the material causes) do not seem to answer the "hard question".

This is why they say "doesn't make sense" whenever that which is more than language-- identity, causality, meaning-- is spoken about-- they foolishly think the world only extends to their experience. For the world to be more, to be a person who is more than what is said or thought, is thought to be impossible. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again, I don't see how you are getting this. Indeed, I think it is quite the opposite- that Hard Problemers are willing reach for answers beyond mere descriptions in models.

It's like trying to explain what the word 'here' designates; 'here' is a kind of performance in space and time, an ostensive act, a gesture towards a spot; sensation analogously is a kind of 'life-performance', you 'need to be there' to 'get it' as well - but to 'be there' is to be the kind of being that can in the first place. — StreetlightX

I agree with you about the idea that sensation cannot be simply stated and have it understood without the context of being a fully embodied being who already has sensations that could understand its context. However, to me that is simply a given. It is almost a tautology, though I guess it could be differentiated with some philosophies that may say that this is not the case. Anyways, I think this is simply begging-the-question because your answer to my response of how is it that we can explain sensation otherwise "it exists as a brute fact" is that we need to be a (proto or actual) organism to know what sensation is. That really only answers "what" can explain this, but not "what" sensation is, What essentially this translates to is this scenario:

Person A: "Sensation is X, Y, Z physical phenomena."

Person B: "Well, that is just a description using a model. The actual sensation needs to account for the actual "feeling" of the sensation."

Person A: "Well, you need to be an organism to know this feeling, so when I say "heat", you as an organism that can feel heat, just "knows" what it is".

Person B: "But how is this an explanation? You simply stated the obvious that sensations are what people feel and can relate because they intuitively understand the concept from firsthand experiences. This does not explain how it is sensation exists from non-sensation. This internal feeling of the organism.. the external and internal, the evolutionary trajectory, these are all descriptions similar to your x, y, z, but does not provide the actual understanding of how it is that there is this completely new form of reality that is different from previously. To deny this is a "different form of reality" is to state 1) That the form of reality existed previously or 2) To have no explanation really- simply question-begging.

*This math example is incredibly contrived, I should note: having a sense of spatiality - itself derived from being a moving body - is foundational when it come to being able to understand mathematical concepts. — StreetlightX

Actually, I agree with you, hence why I realized using math was not a good idea because you would think that I was saying that math can be recognized by non-organisms, when, in fact, I am saying that math, like sensation needs to have organisms with moving-body, internal/environmental relations (in other words sensations). I was just trying to say that it seems quite obvious that just like explaining sensation, explaining math needs someone with similar embodied experiences (i.e. people who also have sensations).

Not at all; I listed some quite specific conditions that need to be met for anything of the kind to occur: spatio-temporal and bodily differentiation, as well as self-other (environmental) interaction, primarily in the mode of movement; bodily differentiation itself is generally the result of phylogenetic developmental trajectories (i.e. evolution), with motility also being an evolutionary development in the service of sustaining a metabolism. The panpsychic thesis can go... do bad things to itself in the butt. — StreetlightX

(1) To account for certain observable phenomena, we need the concepts of organism (in the Kantian sense of a self-organizing and immanently purposive whole) and autopoiesis. (2) The source for the meaning of these concepts is the lived body, our original experience of our own bodily existence. (3) These concepts and the biological accounts in which they figure are not derivable from some observer-independent, nonindexical, objective, physicochemical description … To make the link from matter to life and mind, from physics to biology and psychology, we needs concepts such as organism and autopoiesis, but these concepts are available only to a bodily subject with firsthand experience of its own bodily life.” (Thompson, Mind in Life). — StreetlightX

This last sentence seems to not say much. In order to know life, there needs to be another life form that understands what it means to have firsthand experience? Well, isn't that with every concept, even beyond biological concepts? In order to understand math, you probably need to be a being that can derive, invent (or discover if you wish), use, and understand math- basically a living being that has the capacity to do this. Or at least one that has the capacity to make a computer that can do this.

Edit: I guess perhaps I'm trying to say that how is it that saying "In order to know life, you have to be life" saying much? Maybe don't use the math example, but I'll keep it in there since I had it posted.

"There is now very strong evidence that essentially all of our cultural, abstract, and theoretical concepts derive their meanings by mapping, through metaphor, to the embodied experiential concepts we explored in earlier chapters ... By linking abstract language to embodied knowledge, we are able to tap into all of our rich experience of the world and social systems as the basis for inference." To the degree that bodily - that is, affective - knowledge is our 'first' source of knowledge, language itself is built off of this primary fund of corporeal meaning: " Each primary metaphor is directly grounded in everyday experience linking our (often sensory-motor) experience to our subjective judgements. For example, the primary conceptual metaphor Affection is warmth arises because our earliest experiences with affection correlate with the physical experience of the warmth of being held closely." (Feldman, From Molecule to Metaphor).

This is what it means to speak of language as a 'superior form of sensibility', and what I mean when I say that symbols regulate matter to the degree that they are of the sensuous. It's simply not enough to speak of symbol and matter without taking into account the absolutely crucial role that sensibility plays in language. Sensibility is the very condition by which symbols affect changes - that is, communicate, regulate. So to bring it back around, I imagine that cells, to the degree that they both are and exist in less differentially structured environments, and possess a smaller range of interactive possibilities, would similarly inhabit an affective world of far lower intensity than, say, a human, without simply being a material vehicle for semiotic manipulation (a hylomorphic formulation, which, like all hylomorphisms, ought to strike one as immediatly suspect). — StreetlightX

This is getting close to panpsychic ideas. Although, sensation itself is not explained without being self-referential or just saying as a brute matter-of-fact "sense exists, now let's build from there".

Knowledge doesn't work that way. To describe doesn't require being. It just needs an awareness. Descriptions don't need to be what they are describing. Indeed, that's exactly what characterises a description: a state of representation of something else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't disagree with you here. Again, no reason to get upset or overreact.

"Your experience (you are really referring to the being who experiences)" being more than any description of it cause (e.g. brain) or even description of your experiences (e.g. sadness, knowledge of this forum, happiness, etc., etc.) is to be expected. This doesn't mean descriptions fail. Or that what is described isn't part of the world. It merely means any person is more than any description or them. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again, I do not disagree, and again your implications with the word "fail" is moving back to strawmaning the position to saying that descriptions "fail". But I know the "sense" in which you mean fail so I will not hold you to it too much.

The difference between being (existing) and describing (representing) always means there is more to the world than any description, no matter how accurate. Even if I were to spend hours stating what you'd done in life, it would still only be a description. The world contains more than just my description: you. Not a failure of description, but the truth that more than my description exists. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again, we do not disagree. The question is, how does one get to being without committing a category error of always referring back to the physical causes?

Most likely disagree. I'm saying this who think there is a "hard problem" are fools concerned with worshiping ignorance-- when we know something about the world, they say it's impossible. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think you are building a strawman against the "hard problemers". They are not saying knowledge of models are useless. They clearly predict things that can lead to other conclusions that follow predictable patterns, etc. No one ever stated that the models are not a (very good) approximation of the causes of events. It may even be the full and complete picture- it would not matter. The point is the models themselves are not the reality. The models are the descriptions of reality. So, no one is nasaying the efficacy of the models, but simply claiming the models are not reality itself. My experience is not x,y,z physical descriptions as propounded in a number of academic journals (or all the ones related to the phenomena I seek to understand). That may be the causes behind the experience, but the experience itself is not the descriptions.

I don't know about that.... — Thorongil

You can feel intense physical pain in the background and laugh at someone's joke, so I tend to agree with this claim.

then alternative routes should be taken, namely: nothing-ness. — darthbarracuda

What is nothing-ness in this case? Suicide or simply lack of any concern/pain?

Well, that's actually the problem. Models are considered to have nothing to do with the world, so no casual description will ever make sense.

Since causality is understood as symbolic but not worldly, no description will ever make sense to them. No matter how much we describe, the cry will always be: "but you've only describe a model. The world being like that doesn't make sense." According to them, we can never know the world. Knowledge doesn't make sense to them. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Who is them in this case? I can't tell if we agree or disagree.

but what you seem to miss is that they can only ever do so on the condition of them being sensible — StreetlightX

Those who believe the hard question to be legitimate would then ask how it is that sense exists without committing a category error of replacing the phenomena itself with simply a model of physical cause(s) (i.e. the reason for sensation are these sound waves are hitting these neuroreceptors which cause x, y, and z, and so on..use any physical model to the zillionth degree of detailed explanation and it is all the same category error). No one doubts the cause which can be adequately predicted and verified by physical models, refined with further research and so on. It is the equivalency of the models with the phenomena that is at question.

And so reductionism is going to be at its best when taken to its epistemic extreme as it is in scientific reasoning - when experience is fully structured in being fully broken apart into formal concepts and answering acts of measurement. — apokrisis

It's when models cannot be made near the fringes of thought that the models break down.

This is an appealing idea, but maybe it's an unavoidable result of the nature of philosophy. The very practice of philosophy is a performative repudiation of the messy, sticky world--unless, I suppose, the philosopher is aware of this. Maybe if philosophy can be said to have progressed it's to the extent that it developed this self-awareness. — jamalrob

We can rail against philosophy's tendency to reduce everything to some very basic "X" substance. But just as mistakenly, philosophy has a tendency to reduce everything down to "X, Y, Z, and the kitchen sink" explanation of a phenomena and think that by being more detailed in its explanation, it has actually gotten to the root of anything metaphysical, when it actually did not answer anything metaphysical, simply physical or rather simply a model of the physical.

It's not useful to speculate upon just-so stories like that. — StreetlightX

I edited the quote above so it has a bit more explanation. Don't take the analogy too literally. It is just an introduction to a larger point. The actual 1-1-1 of the analogy (obviously it is just simplified version of what happens) does not mean the broader point has no merit. Don't pay attention to the computer analogy part if that is what trips you up.

Ironically, I suspect those who want to save the idea of spirit or other mystical woo would prefer if science is the reductionist project of the 18th century, if only to carve out a little breathing room for their own immaterial phantoms. — StreetlightX

Not a bad little rant against reductionism. How do you solve the problem I posed earlier in thread regarding the hardware and the software? Hardware on a computer can eventually run software which can then cause pixels to appear on a monitor which in turn appears in the existence of a human point of view. Where then does the human point of view appear or project into? It is obvious that we can say neurochemistry and environmental inputs (in part) cause consciousness, but where do the mental aspects of a particular organism "project" onto? "Where" or "what" is this mental? It's as if materialists are saying material "things" are secreting some sort of mental realm (a dualism of sorts). "What" this mental realm is, is never explained except by referring back to the material causes.

Some materialists it seems, think that with a wave of the hand, they can eliminate that which they look to explain (the mental) as being "really" some sort of illusion (which is itself is never explained except by its material causes, thus begging the question). An illusion is actually not used correctly here it seems. Rather, they are simply giving a non-intuitive account of how the causes work to create the mental, but the unitary-what-its-like aspect is really not being explained. There seems to be a category error of getting at one phenomena with another. Unfortunately, reductionists cannot use the usual means of reducing one category to another, as the underlying ground of a point of view is always assumed in every other phenomena (things "emerge" in something), but this is the limits for emergence as this particular phenomena (the mental that is), is not emerging in any larger point of view. Therefore, it keeps running into a loop whereby it must constantly refer back to its causes with no room for it to emerge into something.

It seems like some models of materialism posit that the brain secretes consciousness, but into "what" I don't know. It is as if people have a hidden dualism whereby the hardware is turning into software (or whatever shows up on the monitor). The physical brain stuff creates this mental software (monitor) stuff. But there is no monitor for the mental software to project to. Unlike a computer where there is a monitor to project the information (and the monitor itself exists within an observer's point of view), there is only brain stuff doing stuff, but never in any "outside" observer's point of view. There is no "monitor" for the hardware of the brain to project into. This leaves the hard problem of consciousness.

So my desire for ice cream is more of a disease-desire, since it's not going to really make me happier in the long run. But my desire to, say, understand Nietzsche, will make me happier in the long run. — darthbarracuda

I'm not sure anything fits so nicely into good or bad desires. How is reading Nietzsche happier, because it satisfies or quells some "spiritual" desires? Perhaps, but things keep moving, and you must keep satisfying something otherwise you are probably unconscious. I don't disagree that we make do with the best we can though.

Social interaction with friends/intellectuals and reading topics that move the mind, does seem better than just having a good meal. These too are liable to change or not being fulfilled. In fact, nothing provides permanent satisfaction. Newer and novel things must be dealt with. The body, and keeping an equilibrium in one's surroundings have to be dealt with first or at least alongside these more interesting pursuits. So with this attainment comes a lot of upkeep.

We have plenty of sustainable technology. We lack the social organisation to make the change. — apokrisis

I guess social technology might count too, eh? But even if we don't stretch that to fit my criticism, the main point of the criticism still stands without technology- mainly that sustainability may be a priority but suffering (the "Western" unwanted pain kind, and the "Schopenhauerian/Eastern" instrumentality kind) still remains.

Now again, there are the two ways to escape such egocentricism. Wayfarer speaks for the value of making a connection to a spiritual level of being. I would speak instead for a realism of nature - an ecological level of personal equilibration. It feels right that if society as a whole were founded on sustainable principles, then everyone would live much more happily as a result.

And yes, having any personal influence on society in this fashion feels like an impossible task. It is a Romantic vision as things stand. Which is why my response is to take the analysis a further step and consider how the current consumerist/neoliberal settings of the world are entirely natural as a response to a cosmic desire to burn off an unnaturally large store of buried fossil fuels.
From this perspective, things really are shit for humans. We have a biopsychology (a biology that includes all our general social organisation settings) that was adapted to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, but it is a biopsychology that is quite poorly adapted to the entropic explosion that is the modern industrial era.

So we can point to a source of suffering which is new and imposed upon us as modern humans. But what is then the proper response - throwing up your hands and whining with learned helplessness, or treating it as a really big speedbump in the human story? We need to find a better adaptive balance - or indeed suffer a mass extinction event around 2050.

So I don't deny something is deeply out of kilter right now. But it is not a cosmic wrong. It is just a question whether we have the resources to make an adaptive shift back to some better biopsychological balance as a species. It is a local spot of bother that one way or another can't last too much longer without some form of drastic self-correction. — apokrisis

I guess I took that to mean better technology to correct the problem.

In fact, some of the time desires can be seen as a kind of disease, something that does not give back as much as it takes. My desire for a soda can be resolved by buying a soda, but the soda doesn't really make me happier, it just relieves me of the stress of having a desire for a soda. It stands that for some desires, it's better not to have them in the first place. — darthbarracuda

It's kind of like the Buddhist's 2nd Noble Truth, right?

Other desires, however, seem to lead to overall well-being. More precisely, these desires (or preferences) are those that allow us to live in better "harmony" with our environment. — darthbarracuda

I think all desires are under the first type you described. Some might lead to some sort of tranquility, but usually even these long-term goals of balance and harmony are instrumental in nature. Striving for nothing always. Actually, long-term goals for balance are the height of absurd because of the instrumental nature of any endeavor, noble or otherwise.