It is fine to not find it interesting. One can be more interested in revisionism than what the actual concepts are. Such projects can be both useful and interesting.

Still, I was responding to Truth Seeker's first question:

Is right and wrong just a matter of thinking something is right [...] and something is wrong[...]? — Truth Seeker


That question is about what "right" and "wrong" are and to answer that it is important to understand what they mean. Semantics is important in that regard. If one uses a different meaning, one is answering a different question. Dismissing semantics abandons that project. — GazingGecko

Of course, but the point I was trying to make was that the question of cognitivism vs non-cognitivism is an analytical question that does not really get at the substance of the OP's query. It hinges on philosophical positions on truth, properties, beliefs vs attitudes, etc. With the right combination of such positions, one can be a cognitivist subjectivist (or perhaps even a non-cognitivist objectivist).

I take a relaxed, commonsensical attitude towards truth, which inclines me towards ethical cognitivism, but not in any robust sense that an objectivist might wish for.

You keep referring to "crude subjectivism" - what is that, and who propounds it? — SophistiCat


Roughly: x is right = I have a positive attitude towards x. And similar translations for other evaluative terms. — GazingGecko

It is worth putting "x is right" in some context, because this is a common source of misunderstanding. The subjectivist position is that when someone says "x is right," what they mean is "I have a positive attitude towards x." The statement is indexed to the speaker and reports on their mental state, in contrast to syntactically similar sentences, which report on something in the common domain ("the cat is on the mat") or expresses common knowledge. Understood in this way, even this "crude" position puts to rest easy charges of logical inconsistency. If A says "x is right" and B says "x is wrong," there is a controversy, but not a (logical) contradiction.

Still, this statement of crude subjectivism leaves something out. Emotivists or expressivists accept other, uncontroversially non-propositional functions of moral statements, such as exhortation or signalling. (As an aside, such uses of moral statements might be counted in favor of moral non-cognitivism. However, moral statements are far from unique in this regard. Natural language is rich and quirky, and there are plenty of instances of seemingly assertive expressions that can function as something other than assertions.)

And why do you think that it does not adequately address the open question challenge? — SophistiCat


Because if the crude subjectivist theory is correct about our moral concepts, the meaning of the sentence (O) "I think abortion is wrong, but is it wrong?" would translate to (T) "I think I have a negative attitude towards abortion, but do I have a negative attitude towards abortion?" which makes that kind of reflection seem trivial, like "I think I'm hungry, but am I hungry?" — GazingGecko

The only reason I can see for why this might seem like a serious challenge for subjectivism is if one has an objectivist presupposition at the back of their mind. Absent such presupposition, what could a question such as "I think abortion is wrong, but is it wrong?" mean? I believe it would be reasonable for anyone, subjectivist or not, to interpret it in ways that I have suggested: reflection, self-doubt, open-mindedness. The subjectivist goes further in stating that that is all there is to it. There is no objective truthmaker against which to evaluate the answer.

"I think I'm hungry, but am I hungry?" would be more like "I think it would be wrong to push that little girl into traffic, but is it wrong?" No one in their right mind would ask such a question. The questions that are actually being asked are not so easy to answer.

Brainwashing is not a good counterexample. A brainwashed subject is a morally impaired subject. — SophistiCat


I don't really see why it is not a good counter-example. What do you mean by a "morally impaired" subject? That is not clear to me. Otherwise, it risks seeming like an ad hoc fix. — GazingGecko

In your thought experiment, a person is brainwashed to have certain moral attitudes (and they know about that in advance, but this is not important to my point). This is not a fair counterexample, because a person's moral agency is suppressed or compromised, so that they can no longer be considered to be the same moral agent at a different time. If that is not clear, I am not sure what else I can say.

As an aside, edge cases and pathologies are not very illuminating in philosophy, and I wish analytical philosophers would abuse them less. If they are good for anything, it is to counter simple and rigid frameworks, which are brittle by their own nature. But subjectivist metaethics is not like that, I would think. Nothing is simple or rigid where human psychology is involved.

The Dying Omnivore. Adam is sitting on his porch, reflecting. Adam is a deeply self-aware person that is well-attuned to his attitudes. Tomorrow, Adam has chosen to die due to inoperable cancer. Still, he is clear-headed. In that moment on the porch, Adam asks himself, "I believe and will always believe that buying animal products is right, but is it right?" and then continues, "I'm certain I have a positive attitude towards buying animal products and that I will always have that positive attitude towards it, but is it right?"

If crude subjectivism, even with the added dimension of degrees of belief, is correct about the meaning of "right" and "wrong," it appears like the two questions by Adam should sound like trivial, settled re-asks akin to "It is snowing today, but is it snowing today?" One would probably suspect that the person was confused if they asked such a question. But Adam's questions sound coherent and substantive rather than obviously confused and trivial. So crude subjectivism probably gives the wrong account for the meaning of "right" and "wrong." — GazingGecko

Well, simultaneous assumptions of certitude and doubt would not sit well in any context, so perhaps your framing here is flawed. But I guess that is not what you wanted to highlight with this example, but rather the practical near-impossibility of changing one's mind. In that respect, this is a better thought experiment than the brainwashing one, since (morbid setting aside) it does not push into the pathology territory. Still, I don't think that this is much of an argument against subjectivism. We are asking a hypothetical question, and hypothetical questions invite counterfactuals, where some things are held fixed and others are left open. So, the question is not "will Adam ever change his mind?" but "would Adam change his mind?" Here we would want to hold fixed Adam's moral character, but the particular circumstance of his fatal illness seems to be irrelevant.

if moral utterances are not propositions, then, trivially, they cannot be contradictory in the logical sense. — SophistiCat


I agree that it would be a trivial point if emotivism is assumed as the correct account of morality. — GazingGecko

No, that is not what I am saying. What is trivial is that according to non-cognitivism, moral statements do not have truth values, so, of course, sentences expressing moral sentiments cannot be logically contradictory, since they cannot be formalized into logical propositions. But that doesn't mean that they cannot be understood as contradictory (conflicting, antithetical, etc.) in an informal sense.

My point here was that moral discourse behaves like propositions, while emotivism predicts they would not. Since emotivism goes against the linguistic data, it does probably not capture what "right" and "wrong" means. — GazingGecko

I think you are making too much of this. First of all, if moral statements did not behave like truth-apt statements, the question of cognitivism vs non-cognitivism would not arise in the first place. The non-cognitivists' position is to bite that bullet. You are not telling them anything they don't already know.

Second, morally flavored statements are commonplace. Who is to say that they must fit into the same linguistic mold as non-moral statements, rather than form a distinct class?

First though, what kind of emotivism is it you have in mind? Talking in terms of "beliefs" and "moral propositions" suggests you take moral language to be truth-apt. Emotivists typically deny that. Are you some other sort of non-cognitivist? — GazingGecko

When asked their opinion on an ethical question, non-cognitivists do not literally say "boo!" or "hurray!" do they? In any event, whatever language they choose to express their attitudes, they do have such attitudes - pro or con or noncommittal, same as the rest of us. And when they are called to act, their actions are motivated by their moral attitudes, same as the rest of us. To be sure, non-cognitivists maintain that moral utterances are not, technically, propositions, but so what? If all you are saying is that theirs is a tortured semantics, I would tend to agree with you, but at the same time, I don't find this issue to be interesting or important enough to argue.

Also, I think your response comes at the open-question-challenge from a direction that, while more sophisticated, misses my main concerns. Sure, one can have different degrees of attitudes towards moral propositions. The point I'm pressing with the question, "I believe the death penalty is wrong, but is it wrong?" is that crude subjectivism struggles with the semantic data. I don't think your re-interpretation of the question in theory-laden terms really fixes that problem.

A further problem is that it undermines deliberation. It seems like I'm asking myself a substantial question when I question my belief in such a manner. With the crude subjectivist reading, it would trivialize that deliberation. — GazingGecko

You keep referring to "crude subjectivism" - what is that, and who propounds it? And why do you think that it does not adequately address the open question challenge?

Any moral question worth asking is, by that very framing, not a trivial question to answer, even for a subjectivist (perhaps especially for a subjectivist). Introspection in such matters is not as easy as reading a number off a gauge. Nor does one need to be satisfied by the first subjective impression.

I doubt that your current appeal to psychological prediction of possible change in attitude helps. Suppose I know a dystopian state will brainwash me into having a positive attitude towards the death penalty tomorrow. Your re-interpretation makes "I think the death penalty is wrong, but is it wrong?" map neatly onto that prediction, yielding an obvious "no" because I know my attitude will change tomorrow. But even in that scenario, the question appears more substantive than a trivial "no." So it seems like your re-interpretation struggles to capture what that original sentence means. — GazingGecko

Brainwashing is not a good counterexample. A brainwashed subject is a morally impaired subject.

Sure, you can give an account for how emotivists could want to press the convergence of attitudes, saying something like: "Everyone, disfavor the death penalty!" That helps explain morally inspired conflict.

My problem with your response to disagreement is that it does not appear to solve the issue I have in mind. In genuine disagreements we aim at contradiction. Crude subjectivism predicts we shouldn't experience the exchange as a contradiction given what it says that "right" and "wrong" means, yet linguistically we do.

Compare with a truth-apt domain:

A: "The Earth is flat!"
B: "No, the Earth is not flat!"

B is negating A's declarative statement. Both can't be true.

Moral claims appear to frequently function the same way:

C: "Abortion is wrong!"
D: "No, abortion is not wrong!"

D seems to be negating C's apparent declarative statement. Once again, both can't be true.

Here are my attempted translations inspired by your comment:

E: "Boo to abortion! Everyone, disfavor abortion!"
F: "Yay for abortion! Everyone, favor abortion!"

or (another attempt):

G: "I have a positive attitude towards abortion. Everyone should have a positive attitude towards abortion."
H: "I have a negative attitude towards abortion. Everyone should have a negative attitude towards abortion."

There is no literal contradiction between E & F or between G & H, where as there seems to be between C & D. That gap is semantic evidence against crude subjectivism (and some non-cognitivist flavors). So I believe my original objections stand (for now). — GazingGecko

I am not sure what point you are making here, if it is not just the truth-aptness point - is it? Yes, if moral utterances are not propositions, then, trivially, they cannot be contradictory in the logical sense. But is this really important? They are opposite, contrasting, or what have you - for all intents and purposes, other than logical formalism, it comes to the same thing, doesn't it?

You are right, this is a very personal list. Not even a recommendation, more like a fact of Calvino's biography. For that reason, it doesn't sit well with how Calvino himself describes classics in your quoted passage.

I largely agree with Calvino's characterization, except that I would probably strike out "individual." Classics are very much a collective canon; "individual classics" is an oxymoron. Nor should classics be idealized as an objective distillation of the best and most important works and authors. What forms the canon is contingent on history, culture and politics. A work that was, perhaps unjustly, overlooked in its time is all the less likely to ever enter the canon (though there are exceptions). On the other hand, the classic status is self-reinforcing, so that once something is enshrined in the canon, only a large cultural or political shift can dislodge it from there.

You mentioned Calvino's bias towards Italian authors. Each culture will have its own version of the literary canon, and if that culture does not lack in great literature, then it is quite understandable that its canon will reflect that. What's more interesting is that even foreign classics vary across cultures, to the point where an author long forgotten in their own land and language culture may be feted as a classic somewhere across the world.

Here is an amusing illustration from Nabokov's novel Pnin, whose eponymous protagonist is a Russian émigré, a middling intellectual who settled in America some time after he fled the Bolshevik revolution:

... he entered a bookstore and asked for Martin Eden.

“Eden, Eden, Eden,” the tall dark lady in charge repeated rapidly, rubbing her forehead. “Let me see, you don’t mean a book on the British statesman? Or do you?”

“I mean,” said Pnin, “a celebrated work by the celebrated American writer Jack London.”

“London, London, London,” said the woman, holding her temples.

Pipe in hand, her husband, a Mr. Tweed, who wrote topical poetry, came to the rescue. After some search he brought from the dusty depths of his not very prosperous store an old edition of The Son of the Wolf.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that’s all we have by this author.”

“Strange!” said Pnin. “The vicissitudes of celebrity! In Russia, I remember, everybody—little children, full-grown people, doctors, advocates—everybody read and reread him. This is not his best book but O.K., O.K., I will take it.” — Nabokov

If, like Nabokov's sales clerk, you are racking your brain: “London, London, London,” you obviously did not grow up in Russia, where Jack London was regarded as a classic long after he slipped into obscurity in much of the rest of the world, surviving even the Russian revolution and the enormous cultural shifts that it brought. No doubt, London's Socialist sympathies helped him garner an endorsement from the new authorities (while many other authors were suppressed and forgotten), but he was not simply imposed on an unwilling populace: he was genuinely popular. The vicissitudes of celebrity, indeed.

I will take the claim to be:

X is right = I have a positive attitude towards X.

I think this view of 'right' is incorrect (and the same for 'wrong'). When discussing ethics, that simply does not seem to be what is meant by the terms.

For instance, it makes sense to hold the thought "I think death penalty is right, but is it right?" Under the view above, this would translate to: "I think I have a positive attitude towards the death penalty, but do I have a positive attitude towards it?" This makes ethical reflection seem trivial, when it does not seem to be trivial. So that is a problem for the theory. — GazingGecko

I think emotivism can meet the open question challenge. A straightforward response would be to cache it out in terms of degrees of belief. That is to say, one can have a strong, dubious or indifferent attitude towards a moral proposition. In any event, one can be humble (as you yourself advise) and keep an open mind. "I am strongly opposed to the death penalty, but I might be persuaded to change my attitude, or perhaps some future life event could effect such a change."

If you object that this is not what the question is asking, that you want to know whether it is "really" right or wrong, then you are begging the question against the anti-realist.

It also fails to handle disagreement. If I disagreed with the previous speaker, and said: "No, the death penalty is definitely wrong", it seems like I tried to contradict them. However, this would not be the case if I'm just reporting my own attitude. To illustrate:

A:"I have a positive attitude towards the death penalty!"

B:"No, I have a negative attitude towards the death penalty!"

A and B are not making contradictory propositions. Both can be true simultaneously. But in these exchanges, we are often trying to contradict the other person. So there is something problematic with the subjectivist theory. — GazingGecko

Most moral propositions are more-or-less universalizing. When I say "I oppose the death penalty," I am not just talking about my own value judgment. To hold a moral proposition is to believe that everyone ought to hold it as well. Accordingly, an emotivist will hold concurrent attitudes towards moral agreement (positive) and disagreement (negative).

I'm a panpsychist, so I think that everything possesses some degree of experience. When I say that my consciousness was elevated from commonplace matter into sapience, I literally mean that. — Dogbert

OK, but I don't see how this follows:

Sapient life is incredibly rare, so naturally, me becoming human is an unlikely event. — Dogbert

What do you mean by "me becoming human"? Before you were born, was there Dogbert protoconsciousness inhabiting non-Dogbert matter? And then somehow it was transferred into your Dogbert body? I don't think panpsychists conceive of personal identity like that - this smacks more of theological dualism (but I am by no means an expert). Even still, there is not enough to go on here to conclude anything about likelihood. We haven't been told anything about how or why this embodiment occurs.

Given that you are holding a glass, is it an amazing coincidence that the glass is filled with water and not, say, burning lava? As I said before, the key to any likelihood question is what we take as given, and the answer will be nothing more than what you have already assumed.

Likelihood, in its usual sense, is the probability of something being the case given a theory of how things work. So, for instance, the likelihood of a winning bet on a coin flip, given the assumption that the coin has equal chances of landing heads or tails, is 1/2. This part after "given..." is key here, as you rightly intuit in your first paragraph. There is no free lunch here, no stone soup: whatever you assume at the outset will determine your answer.

So, it is crucial to critically examine your assumptions. What exactly are you assuming? What does it mean for your consciousness to be "elevated from commonplace matter into sapience"?

If you make very general assumptions about the world, or even no assumptions at all - just that something exists - then it is hard to assign any likelihood to any particular event. The best you can do is to try to avoid bias by making it even odds for anything that can happen under these assumptions, and that of course will give you a likelihood of any particular outcome as "practically zero." But that's no revelation - it is just a straightforward consequence of your ignorance. And besides, the conclusion holds for anything, not just the one question that you are asking here.

The question in the OP is much too broad to be interesting, since the word "system" has multiple meanings, and those meanings are in turn quite general without further qualification.

The meanings of "system" that have been largely left out of this discussion (except by @Srap Tasmaner) are, for example, system as a theory ("Kant's system"), method ("Dewey decimal system," "gambling system"), rules of behavior ("system of discipline").

Within the material context, some definitions that have been given are too restrictive. @Baden's is mostly about differentiating a system from its environment, but in some contexts, environment is irrelevant for our purposes and can be left out of consideration. The only internal differences required of any system are those between the whole and its parts. Stability and rigidity also do not always apply: systems can be dynamic in their composition and form, although it could be argued that some essential features of a system must be invariant within the scope of consideration for it to be recognized as one system. But that is true of any named entity.

@T Clark and @punos gave good general definitions of a material system, and it is pretty clear that not much more can be said on the subject without getting into specifics of particular kinds of systems, such living organisms or ecologies. If we stay at the most general level of a "system," then we are just doing amateur lexicography.

Both are valid concerns, but I'm more inclined to focus on how our predictability is being exploited. I'm not saying social physics isn't useful, but I'd prefer to see applications that go beyond profiting from our behavior. — Alonsoaceves

Well, as I said, "social physics" may be a new discipline, but the phenomena that it studies and the uses to which it is put are as old as society itself. We, social animals, are attuned to patterns of behavior exhibited by other members and groups, and we use this knowledge to cooperate, compete and exploit. We have done this since well before computers, before mathematics, before language itself.

It is not clear to me what your worry is: is it simply the fact that our choices can be predictable, or is it that this predictability can be exploited? The former is an old worry about the supposed conflict between freedom and determinism/determination. The latter is also as old as human society (or any society).

I was just citing a perfect cipher as a proof of concept. Regardless of the intention of the sender, when all you have is a single message, it is entirely possible that the message is indecipherable in principle. And that means that there is no way to prove, or even offer a reasonable conjecture, whether the message in the OP scenario is gibberish or carries a meaning.

The message need not even be nonsense to be indecipherable. There is such a thing as a perfect cipher, e.g. a one-time pad.

It occurred to me that there is a parallel here with some realist and anti-realist positions in metaethics. One influential but controversial position is that of the error theory. Error theorists about ethics are realists, i.e., they believe that ethical propositions say something about objectively existing entities or properties. They also maintain that no such entities or properties exist, which makes ethical propositions erroneous.

I think @Mijin (and perhaps @flannel jesus) are error theorists about personal identity. My position (and @Fire Ologist's?) would be more akin to anti-realism.

Both of you make really good points, but I'm not sure if the transporter issue is totally resolved by this. Do the two of you think that a shrunken down interval of time could exist such that the mental processes responsible for our continuity of identity could be totally invariant over that interval? — ToothyMaw

To my mind, identity is a concept with fuzzy boundaries, but at the same time, invariance over time and space is an important part of it; identity is the key word here. Me five minutes ago is not just someone very similar to me now: we are one and the same person. The same is also true for other things: the chair on which I now sit, the city in which I was born. The very idea of an identifiable person or object implies and requires such invariance.

But this idea of endurance of identity can come under strain. As things change, it becomes harder to maintain it. Paradoxical thought experiments can also strain this idea, but for reasons that I explained earlier, I find this unsurprising and, frankly, not very interesting (they could become interesting and relevant if they ever become reality, but we will cross that river when we get to it).

Again, the metaphysical challenge to identity arises only if you are committed to the idea of sharp-edged essences of things. They are not that challenging if identity is constructed. But I admit that that in itself can be a hard thing to swallow.

We all go through an imperfect transporter, literally every moment of our lives. Your body is not physically identical to itself from one moment to another: it evolves continuously in time. And yet, we customarily consider our personal identity to be invariant, at least over reasonably short stretches of time.

Over longer stretches, the invariance of personal identity is more dubious, though. Am I the same person at fifty as I was when I was five? (Or, to put it in your stark terms, did I survive the process of aging?) Legally and conventionally, I am considered to be the same person, but physically and mentally, we are so far apart as to make such an identification almost meaningless. But if I am not the same person as my past self, is there a precise boundary in time between the two identities? Or is there a precise number of microphysical or psychological differences that delineates such a boundary?

To sharpen the issue even further, consider that a stroke or dementia can alter a person's memory and personality much quicker than normal aging, so that people close to them note that they are literally a different person from the one they remember.

So, what does that imply for personal identity? If you hold to a view of an identity as something objectively existing atomic entity, then you must bite the bullet and maintain that there is a fact of the matter in each of these cases about whether the identity survives or perishes in the transition, even if no amount of reasoning or observation will allow us to nail it down.

But if you view personal identity as conventional and constructed, then the problem is dissolved. On that view, there isn't an objective fact to be nailed down. This view also suggests that paradoxical thought experiments, such as the transporter or the replicator thought experiments, are uninformative precisely because of their exoticism. If our understanding of personal identity is shaped by convention and intuition, then we should expect our understanding to break down in scenarios that break with convention and intuition.

Not what I asked.

"Fake" is not a negation. The negation of "is a painting" would be "is not a painting," rather than "is a fake painting."

What does "fake fake" mean, anyway?

So at this point I can see that in your opinion we can never ask, "What accounts for the ice's existence?," — Leontiskos

In fact, we never do ask such a question. That's not a speculative thesis, but an observation about actual causal talk.

• Under normal conditions, ice forms at 0C
• The window iced over because it is poorly insulated
• She likes her whiskey neat [that's negative causation, in case you are wondering]
• ...

You could continue this list ad infinitum, but what would be the point? Causal questions are only sensible and tractable when they are asked for a reason.

Don't feed the troll spammer.

But aren't Aristotle's four causes attempting to answer questions such as, "Why a duck?" — Leontiskos

I think that's the question that Aristotle and Darwin were attempting to answer, if in different ways. — Leontiskos

First of all, Aristotle and Darwin were not answering the same question. Aristotle was offering a broad and rough classification of different types of explanation, whereas Darwin was proffering a specific answer to a specific question.

Second, explanations, causal or otherwise, are always sought and given within a specific context. The various examples of "explaining a duck" that I gave are not complimentary. Each would separately make sense in its proper context, but this would not make sense at all:

The explanation for a duck will presumably include why it is in this locale, why its plumage is of a certain color, and what its evolutionary history (and genesis) is. — Leontiskos

There is no such thing as the cause of a thing, simpliciter, with no context of who is asking and for what purpose. This is why the so-called PSR is a nonsensical exercise, language on holiday.

Doesn't causation just explain the "why" of some event or substance? We usually think in terms of efficient causation, in which one is identifying the (moving) cause that brought about some effect.

Asking, "What caused it?," seems to be asking what accounts for its existence. Thus in the most general sense you have Aristotle's four causes, which are meant to explain the being of substances. — Leontiskos

Yes, in the most general sense, "cause" and "reason" can be used interchangeably, and Aristotle's four causes are better understood as a classification of the types of explanations. Nowadays, when we use 'cause' in a more specific sense, we usually mean something like Aristotle's efficient cause.

But whether you are asking in a more general or more specific sense, the question still requires context to be meaningful. "Why a duck?" asked out of the blue, makes about as much sense as "What's the difference between a duck?" You can ask for the reason of a duck being in this place at this time (if that seems surprising), or perhaps you want to know about its plumage color or its evolutionary history or why it was served for dinner - all potentially sensible questions that can be answered in causal terms (i.e., by reference to how we understand the world to be hanging together). But to ask what accounts for the duck's existence doesn't seem sensible, because there is no way to answer such a question.

I agree with you, but that's kinda scary isn't it? It's such a fundamentally important concept, to pretty much everything in life, especially philosophy. — flannel jesus

Causation is a useful everyday notion, but it is perhaps best thought of as a heuristic shortcut, rather than a sharp feature of the world.

If you ask after the cause of a thing or an event, the question won't even make sense without some context. Why are you asking? What specifically do you want to know? What do you intend to do with that information? Causal analysis is very much an applied, pragmatic practice.

The idea that there is such a thing as Mental to Mental Causation is an overliberal use of the term 'Causation'.

The term Causation is a physical term that describes types of temporal organisation. Even within the world of physics causation is a quite difficult item to deal with at the extreme ends of the micro and macro scales. — I like sushi

There are established usages of the word 'causation', both in ordinary language and in specialized domains. Capturing these usages in a single, all-encompassing definition has proven to be difficult. To my knowledge, no one definition works perfectly.

That said, we can note two things:

One is that when it comes to science, particularly physical science, causation does not have much of a role to play. Causation does not appear explicitly in physical ontologies. There is no "law of causation" to be found in our best theories. That was the basis of Russell's attack on causation a century ago, which remains influential to this day.

Where causation does play a role is in informal talk and reasoning. (Philosopher Peter Norton, whose views on causation can be characterized as Russellian, likens causation to folk science.)

With that in mind, I see no reason to deny mental causation as not complying to some pure notion of causation. Causation is very much an impure, informal notion, and mental causation fits comfortably within that informal domain. My intention to perform an action results both in mental and physical effects. Intentions are causal. Communication is causal.

Originally, I was skeptical because I thought "mass shootings" wasn't a real problem: i.e. I thought "Do people really just want to go out and shoot people they don't know, or was that 1-off?" and I grew up with weapons. — Moliere

But, really, if we can prevent mass shootings with such a simple fix I don't really care about any other argument for firearms. — Moliere

Mass shootings aren't a real problem. Well, not compared to all the other shootings. If you wave a magic wand and end all mass shootings in the US once and for all, you will hardly make a dent in the gun death statistics.

Not this (or so it says :))

that's right. by algorithmic choice I meant a decision made on the basis of cause-and-effect relationships.
modern AI in the absence of complete data make decisions based on confidence probabilities. But nevertheless, such an approach is verified objectively. that is, the path to the solution can be tracked from start to finish. — Astorre

I wonder: "isn't this exactly what creates colossal tension inside us and sets the very thirst to do something, and not to do it?" — Astorre

I think you are jumping to answers too quickly. Let us slow down and try to understand the question first.

The mark of higher consciousness (as distinguished from basic what-it-is-likeness) is the ability to introspect your own thought process. And this awareness and control over the thought process is what distinguishes "algorithmic choice" or rational choice: we consciously and deliberately follow a line of reasoning. We are aware of our beliefs and assumptions, of the rules that we follow (or break!) We can revisit and critically examine the steps that we took, change assumptions, correct mistakes, learn lessons.

All this should be considered against the fact that much of our cognition is unconscious. Even much of our decision-making is performed unconsciously. What little of which we become aware comes late in the game - sometimes even after the decision was made and acted upon! And yet, I believe that this tiny tip of the cognitive iceberg is essential to what distinguishes human consciousness from much of the rest of the animal world - and from today's computer programs as well (I won't speculate about the future).

For this reason, I think that you are wrong when you liken our algorithmic/rational thinking to computer algorithms. Even the most advanced AIs of today lack self-awareness*. Yes, the process is algorithmic, but no part of the algorithm is aware of what it is doing - the machinery for such introspection simply isn't there.

Indeed, it is perhaps the unaware, intuitive, emotional, preference-driven decision-making that is more akin to what most computer programs are doing. We see the end result, but we don't know how we got there - because we weren't in on the decision-making process!

* The Chinese generative AI DeepSeek that made much noise recently appears to display some introspection: when asked a question, it shows what appears to be its thought process. However, we do not know whether any of that actually plays a part in generating the answer, as opposed to serving as a high-level "debug output".

Hello and welcome to the forum!

This is a meaty first post, but I would like to start with a clarifying question. Just what do you mean by a choice being algorithmic? I would describe it as a decision process that consciously follows a rule-based procedure. This would be closely related, but perhaps not identical, to what we would call a rational decision. One difference between rational and algorithmic choice is that in general, a decision algorithm need not incorporate only reliable information and rely on sound epistemic practices. On the other hand, we often take heuristic shortcuts when making decisions, though if pressed for justification, we can rationalize them by reconstructing a plausible thought process, thus justifying their rationality in retrospect. In the first approximation though, we may identify "algorithmic" choice with rational decision-making. Would you agree, or were you thinking of something different?

For those who want to argue the premise, I won't be participating. Most threads dealing with consciousness, regardless of their intent, soon turn into debates about Physicalism vs Idealism vs Panosychism vs... I obviously can't keep the thread on the track, or system of tracks, I want. But I won't be taking part in derailing it. Maybe there really isn't anything to say aside from the debate, and my lack of participation in it will doom it to a very small thread. But I can hope. — Patterner

What are you expecting from this discussion? The position that you outlined is pretty much orthodox contemporary panpsychism. You could have just written: "Panpsychism: discuss (but do not debate)."

If you are serious, what makes you think that? The source I'm quoting is SCMP: — neomac

Not sure what your wiki reference is supposed to add here. So, it's a Hong Kong newspaper with a dubious reputation. The journo is referencing anonymous sources.

What makes me say that is that diplomats don't talk like that, least of all, Chinese diplomats, who are known for their exemplary circumspection.

The comment, to the EU’s Kaja Kallas, would confirm what many in Brussels believe to be Beijing’s position — neomac

It would, yes, but the contention that China's top diplomat made such a blunt and frank declaration to the EU's top diplomat sounds extremely implausible. It seems a lot more plausible that someone in Brussels put their own opinion into Wang Yi's mouth.

Maybe we need ro know what a law of nature is in itself to find out why those laws exist. One of my philosophy professors didn't understand the question when I asked whether laws ofnature were regularities or their causes. I wondered about that because civil laws affect what we do. For example, you may need to speed up or slow down when you read a speed limit sign. — BillMcEnaney

So, what happens if nature violates its laws? Does it get a ticket?

This obvious parallel with human-instituted laws is unfortunate (and it's probably why some people like @Moliere are allergic to the phrase). Human laws are only prescriptions. They require complex social mechanisms to work, and even then they work imperfectly at best. Laws of nature were always thought of as inviolable (with the possible exception of an occasional miraculous intervention).

The remedy is to not get too hung up on words and their folk etymologies, and remember that words can have multiple meanings. Laws of conduct, laws of science, and laws of nature all mean different things.

I'd prefer to say things are useful, not true or false. This is my thesis. — Tom Storm

I know that, but I note that you keep evading the questions that challenge that thesis.

The next obvious criticism is: if nothing is true, then neither is what you said, Tom.

To that, I would agree. Saying “we never get to truth” expresses skepticism about objective or foundational truth claims, but it is not itself a universal truth, rather, I'd see it more as a useful framework for managing ideas and guiding actions. — Tom Storm

That's not the criticism, at least not from me. The criticism is that you keep saying things about the world and our relationship to it, while maintaining that the world is independent of our concepts and practices. Don't you find this contradictory?

The most reasonable move from this point of view would be to drop this mysterious "world" thing as surplus to requirements. But then, of course, in the process of expanding the world of mentation and sociation to encompass the sensible world that we inhabit, in assimilating our commonsense beliefs and scientific theories, you will end up with a construct that is isomorphic to the world of the realist, with the main difference being a more contrived language (like saying "useful" in place of "true").

Back to laws and patterns. Perceived patterns in the external world emerge through our embodied interaction with the environment. I am wondering if they reflect what human cognition projects onto experience and that they can function provisionally to produce what we call useful outcomes. — Tom Storm

Sounds like you've been listening to @Joshs :) But how does this square with your earlier stated view that there are no patterns in the external world? What is it that we perceive then?

These patterns are neither external to us, nor are they merely internal to us. The order emerges out of our discursive and material interactions with our environment. It is not discovered but produced , enacted as patterns of activity. — Joshs

We do, of course, actively discover order when we look for it, be it in our natural environment or in artificial constructs. But the other kind of pattern emergence has its place too, both in sentient and nonsentient organisms. Our DNA encodes patterns in our environment, for example, and so does our behavior.

I would say that this is how all teleology works, namely that it is a final cause and not an efficient cause. The end-directedness produces no guarantee that the end will be reached. — Leontiskos

I don't think that the question of determinism vs indeterminism is relevant to teleology. Again, if you think of the most ordinary examples, although in theory, nothing is absolutely certain, when it comes to simple, immediate actions like reaching to grasp an object or striking a key, we treat them as certain to succeed. It is still a goal-directed behavior, though. There is both intension (outward-directedness) and intent (future-directedness) in these actions.

I added a few things to that post, but what do you mean when you say that it is "indeterministic at every scale"? Is it just that it is defeasible or fallible? — Leontiskos

Yes, I meant it in the way the OP problematized the issue: "no particular outcome is necessary." A species may experience selective pressures, but its successful adaptation is not guaranteed - it may just die out instead. Some individuals carry favorable variations, others don't, and even those who do will not necessarily leave more and more successful progeny.

A favorite example of mine is astrology. People who take astrology seriously are able to do all the things you just said: Hear and respond and understand one another in a perceived orderly manner.

But I'd be hesitant to draw the conclusion that the astrologists have found order in the world. I think they've ordered their thoughts in a manner that they are able to communicate, and that their names refer to various objects in the world, and all their explanations are entirely false. — Moliere

I wonder why you picked astrology as an example, rather than astronomy? Would you consider them more-or-less on the same footing, and if not, why not?

How does it help if these connections are only in our head and have nothing to do with the environment in which we live? How could we even exist in and of a world that lacks any order? For that matter, how do you come to any conclusions about the world, even such skeptical conclusions as you make? — SophistiCat

I am suggesting a constructivist view. Even the notion of "order" itself is a contingent human artifact. My instinct is that our knowledge, meaning, and order are contingent products of human interpretation, language, and culture. The world exists independently but is indeterminate or (as Hilary Lawson would argue) "open in itself"; order and meaning don’t exist “out there” waiting to be discovered but arise through our way's of engaging with the world. — Tom Storm

I understand that this is your view, and this is what prompted my questions above (and likewise, @Patterner's questions). Do you have any thoughts on that?

So, in this view (which I think has some merit), we never arrive at absolute truth or reality; everything we hold is contingent and constantly changing. We don’t really have knowledge that maps onto some kind of eternal, unchanging foundational truth. — Tom Storm

Well, this is all lovely and banal even, but one does need to be a constructivist in your sense to hold such views.

A model can be useful even if it isn't true. For instance, the miasma theory of disease turned out to be false — Tom Storm

Did it now? How? I mean, if we apply your outlook consistently, then all our beliefs are almost certainly and irredeemably false, being that the world is independent of them, and they are independent of the world. But how then do we prove or disprove anything? What meaning can such words have?

How can we make sense of the indeterminate, beyond knowing it is indeterminate? — Patterner

And how can we even know that it is indeterminate? This, too, would be a construction that has no purchase on anything outside our cultural practices.

I would go further and say that natural selection is itself a teleological explanation. It is a teleological explanation that covers all species instead of just one (i.e. a generic final cause).

The common objection would be, "But natural selection is not consciously seeking anything." The response is, "It doesn't have to. Such a thing is not required for teleology." — Leontiskos

Evolution by natural selection is a good example of a teleological explanation that is indeterministic at every scale. It is teleological because evolution is directed towards a future state of greater fitness. However, success is not guaranteed, and many do fail, at species, population, and individual level.

I think it’s perfectly accurate to describe that the way I did - as the future, reaching back to influence the past. — T Clark

Can you specify a mechanism other than God that could establish a goal or purpose for the universe? — T Clark

Again, a bizarre non sequitur. Even accepting your caricature, what does this have to do with establishing a goal or purpose for the universe?

I’d guess that humans are pattern seeking, meaning making machines. We see connections everywhere and this often helps us manage our environment. — Tom Storm

How does it help if these connections are only in our head and have nothing to do with the environment in which we live? How could we even exist in and of a world that lacks any order? For that matter, how do you come to any conclusions about the world, even such skeptical conclusions as you make?

Are you saying that something in the future reaches back and causes something in the past? — T Clark

That's not what teleology is.

As I see it, the only way to make teleology plausible is to assume there is a God. — T Clark

This is a non sequitur, even to your own caricature of teleology.