Probably because the opening post was too bare of thought. Also, there's been a shitload of threads on free will (as on any philosophy forum).

I like the not-really-definition of physical time proposed by Zinkernagel:

The time-clock relation: There is a logical (or conceptually necessary) relation between ‘time’ and ‘a physical process which can function as a clock (or a core of a clock)’ in the sense that we cannot – in a well-defined way – use either of these concepts without referring to (or presupposing) the other. — On the physical basis of cosmic time

(See the chapter "The meaning of time" in the paper for a good discussion.)

Here is another example. You want to skate on a lake and inquire if the ice is thick enough. Other skaters tell you that the ice becomes thinner towards the center of the lake. What this means is that the part of the frozen surface of the lake that is in the immediate vicinity of whoever is skating on it (and hence affords support to that person) is thinner when the skater is nearer to the center of the lake. — Pierre-Normand

So, if someone wanted to state it more precisely, they might say that the ice thickness changes with the distance from the center. In ordinary speech we rarely have to resort to such precisifications, because the meaning can be inferred from the context, but in scientific writing it is more common. For example (from a random paper): "a screening that changes both with charge carrier doping level Q and temperature T."

This argument that you are having over the ordinary meaning of the word change is bizarre. What it clearly shows though is that change as a definition of time is of no use. The specific meaning of change in this context is change-over-time, which of course cannot be understood without already understanding what time is.

I thought I would butt in here to clarify some things. Would you agree with the following? Our ability to act ethically with others evolves as a function of cultural development. To use an analogy, not too long ago it was assumed that animals had no emotions or cognition and did not feel pain. It s hard to act ‘ethically’ toward a creature when you dont see them as having any of these capabilities. Another example : we used to think that infants were a blooming, buzzing confusion. Now we know that they have all sorts of perceptual and recognition skills, including being able to empathize with others. Again, without such an appreciation of the infant’s perspective, ethical treatment of them is limited. I would argue the entire history of culture involves the growth of insights into how others unlike ourselves think and feel. — Joshs

A day-old infant has very limited cognition skills. So, by your logic, ethical treatment of very young infants should likewise be limited.

Reductive ethics is scary.

One could call a percept a "quale", but Chomsky doesn't. A percept means a moment of experience, such as you reading this sentence as you currently are. Or looking at the window and seeing green grass, or hearing a car zoom by, etc.

I'm unclear why this is confusing, outside of the terminology itself. It's been overwhelmingly taken for granted up until the 20th century, when it suddenly became a problem to a small group of people. — Manuel

percept is usually understood as the product of mind's interpretation of sensory stimuli, the awareness of an object or event, such as grass outside your window or a car zooming by. This is distinct from the stimulus or the raw sense data (if that's a thing). And it is again distinct from the "what-it-is-likeness" of experience, which is what Nagel, Searle, Chalmers, etc. put forward as the phenomenal experience, or qualia, the thing outside the reach of physical accounting (unless we wave our hands and invoke something like "panpsychism"). (If all this seems confusing, then I've made my point.) Chomsky doesn't engage with any of this. He mentions the "hard problem," but he doesn't actually talk about it. Whatever his "mysteries" are (he never clearly and consistently articulates what they are), they aren't that.

I thought the whole argument was meant to show that experience isn't necessary for a human being to exist as they do. But I also do not see the force to this argument, nor understand the attention given to it. — Manuel

Well, what the argument means to show is that phenomenal experience (which p-z's hypothetically lack) cannot be accounted for by materialism/physicalism as presently understood, and therefore materialism/physicalism is false/incomplete. (How it does that is what I don't quite understand.) Again, Chomsky doesn't engage with any of that. As far as he is concerned, materialism has been dead since at least Newton, but not for any reasons having to do with the "hard problem." For his definition of physicalism he picks that horn of Hempel's dilemma which anchors it to present-day physics, and he associates materialism specifically with pre-Newtonian natural philosophy, thus defining it into irrelevance.

Sure. No problem. I don't agree with Strawson's panpsychism either, though he's pretty clear with the terms "experiential" and "non-experiential". — Manuel

I don't find terms like "qualia" or "experiential" all that clear myself, and I haven't seen where Srawson added anything useful in that regard (but I've only seen his "Realistic Monism"). I've read a couple of papers that try for a more critical analysis of these concepts (including one by Stoljar), but the matter remains murky in my mind.

(Chomsky doesn't say much about the subject in this essay, except perhaps where he brings up Mary's Room puzzle. But here, as elsewhere, he just writes down some notes and quotes, adds that he disagrees with some influential analyses of the problem, and leaves it at that. The relevance of this discussion to the rest of the essay is unclear.)

Panpsychism is just glorified magical thinking, in my opinion. It's not the exoticism of the concept that bothers me, but its explanatory nullity.

The zombie argument isn't particularly convincing, I don't think, I mean, we essentially have very similar examples in people who sleepwalk, or so it seems to me. — Manuel

I just don't understand the argument, i.e. what it is that conceivability actually implies and why we should care.

People who sleepwalk are not examples of P-zombies, because they don't behave like conscious people in all outward respects.

Yes, Stoljar is interesting, but I've mainly focused on Strawson. So I can say less about him than others. — Manuel

Read Stoljar's precis - that didn't help much... Probably because I am still having difficulties with qualia ("experiential truths") and the zombie argument ("conceivability argument"). Stawson & panpsychism don't interest me, to be honest.

Here is Stoljar's precis of his book Ignorance and Imagination, which Chomsky appears to endorse. Will read that later.

Thanks for the explanation, but to understand how this ties in with the present context, I would need to have a deeper understanding of the topic, and I cannot commit to that at the moment.

Why? Because I am not taking your side against Dennett?

I didn't see much of a consistent agenda behind these rambling notes; I think people read into them whatever prejudices they happen to hold already: about materialism, philosophy of mind, Chomsky himself...

I've read the rest of the essay, and frankly I am still not sure what to think of it. That is, the impression that I got after reading about a third of it is still the same: these look like notes on things that Chomsky has read, written down without any plan, flow-of-consciousness style. The themes that he mainly deals with are: (1) 18th century natural philosophers and their struggles with reconceptualizing the physical world in light of Newtonian physics; (2) the mind-body problem as though of by those 18th century philosophers, especially Priestly, plus a few later philosophers, mainly Russell, Strawson Jr. and Stoljar in the end, with some notes of his own concerning language.

The essay is by no means a survey of the themes that it touches on. Compare, for instance, Chomsky's notes on physicalism with Stoljar's SEP article on the same: you will find the latter far more comprehensive and objective. Nor did I find much in the way of an original insight. Chomsky indicates where his sympathies lie: reductive physicalism, monism, opposing Strawson panpsychism and endorsing Stoljar's physicalism, but doesn't add much of his own. I couldn't make much of the brief note on language tucked in at the end, but that's because I have no familiarity with linguistics and Chomsky's work.

Where I encountered difficulty (other than the brief discussion of language) was in the end, in notes on Stoljar, but this could be best remedied by reading Stoljar himself.

This answer seeks to smuggle a specific position on metaethics into the very definition of the subject matter — SophistiCat

And this specific position is? — hypericin

This:

What it is is a codification, elaboration, ossification, (and in some cases, perversion),of innate concepts and feelings of fairness and justice that are inborn in most of us, and in most social species. — hypericin

This doesn't just tell us what the subject of ethics is, but states a thesis about what ethics is (emphasis in the original). This thesis may be right or wrong - I am not going to argue about it here - but it can't be right or wrong by definition - that would be cheating.

No, it isn't. That's not were Keen went. — Banno

This is because economists made their own predictions of damages, using three spurious methods: assuming that about 90% of GDP will be unaffected by climate change, because it happens indoors; using the relationship between temperature and GDP today as a proxy for the impact of global warming over time; and using surveys that diluted extreme warnings from scientists with optimistic expectations from economists. — Keen

So, you are saying that Keen's points have nothing to do with elementary thermodynamics, and that smug rant at the beginning of the video was just a strained metaphor? OK. I'll take your word on the soundness of his criticisms, as economics is not my forte.

The first few minutes of the video show how standard economic theory fails to take thermodynamics into account. — Banno

This reminds me of this classic:

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it. — Creationist who almost discovers the sun

Well, credit where credit is due: this "radical economist" is one step ahead of the creationist-who-almost-discovered-the-sun: he did notice the "giant outside source of energy" up in the sky. Now if he could also spot the giant outside energy sink, he would be golden.

Is waste heat produced by human activities important for the climate?

No. The sun provides almost 10,000 times as much energy to the Earth’s surface per time unit and unit area, namely 342 Wm-2, as we emit into the atmosphere or waters through industry, transport, housing, agriculture and other activities by using fossil fuels and the nuclear fuel uranium (0.03 Wm-2). — Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie

What it is is a codification (and in some cases, perversion) of innate concepts and feelings of fairness and justice that are inborn in most of us, and in most social species. — hypericin

This answer seeks to smuggle a specific position on metaethics into the very definition of the subject matter. This is all too common in discussions such as this.

It is not the definition of moral theory I am after. Note how this "definition" puts the burden of analysis on the "target", then proceeds to defer to psychologists, anthropologists and the rest. — Astrophel

No, you got the wrong idea. Read on.

Good question, but it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that it's been given some attention already.

The topic of this entry is not—at least directly—moral theory; rather, it is the definition of morality. Moral theories are large and complex things; definitions are not. The question of the definition of morality is the question of identifying the target of moral theorizing. Identifying this target enables us to see different moral theories as attempting to capture the very same thing. And it enables psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and other more empirically-oriented theorists to design their experiments or formulate their hypotheses without prejudicing matters too much in terms of the specific content a code, judgment, or norm must have in order to count as distinctively moral. — The Definition of Morality

I'd heard some of Andy Akiho's percussion music before, so I didn't dismiss this as a gimmick, and boy was this rewarding!

Andy Akiho: "Ricochet" (Ping Pong Concerto)

I've only ugly-cried twice so far this listen through: — Noble Dust

I haven't been digging ambient music until now - it just seemed like pleasant but thin muzak. This might change my mind... a little :)

If you have a more specific question, maybe I can help out. But I think the point here is to show how we've had to lower the standards of intelligibility in human enquiry, because we know much less than we thought. — Manuel

Thanks. I don't find any specific passage particularly confusing - I just don't see the big picture yet. So far it looks like preparatory notes for a future article or book (or two), rather than the finished thing.

The purpose of this thread is to (hopefully), get a few people interested in reading this very important article by Chomsky: — Manuel

I am reading this essay (?), and finding it pretty frustrating. Not because it's difficult, but because it reads like unstructured reading notes interspersed with meandering musings. The themes and books that he touches on are interesting in their own right, but so far I don't see what this essay accomplishes, other than giving us a glimpse of Chomsky's intellectual interests.

But what about relativity? Isn't it built on thought experiments that were later verified? At least some of our native reason works? — frank

Yeah. Einstein understood that Newton's laws could only go so far, it had problems it could not account for, such as the orbit or Mercury.

So Einstein's theory is better for many aspects of astronomy, including say, GPS. Though Newton's laws work pretty well for objects here on Earth. — Manuel

I think you are missing Frank's point. Einstein wasn't fiddling with Newtonian mechanics in an attempt to fix a discrepancy in the orbit of Mercury. It wasn't then thought of as a problem with Newtonian mechanics. Astronomers - quite reasonably - hoped to find a new celestial body that would account for the discrepancy. That GR would eventually solve the problem was entirely unforeseen.

The received view to which, I think, Frank was alluding is that, rather than searching for a best fit for some specific empirical observations, in developing his Special and General theories of relativity Einstein's thinking was motivated by very general philosophical intuitions, which he illustrated with his famous thought experiments. The result of which was a more thoroughgoing application of the principle of relativity (or general covariance) than the Galilean relativity that was at the heart of Newtonian physics. (But see John Norton's review General covariance and the foundations of general relativity: eight decades of dispute for a more nuanced analysis.)

I'm curious to hear what people think are the actual and meaningful limitations of the metric, and what benefits or value (personal or social) it provides.

Am i asking for factual information that is easily available here? If so, I'm not aware of where to find it, or I would have done so. Rather than pointing out my failure, would you be so kind as to point me to a source that will answer my request? — Reformed Nihilist

OK, sorry, I wasn't being fair in putting the blame on you. The questions that you ask are substantive, and the answers are not straightforward, not exactly settled facts either. However, these questions are addressed in psychology and social sciences - they aren't simply matters of opinion or contextless philosophizing.

I am not putting myself forward as an expert. I have read something, heard a talk with a specialist, but this isn't a particular interest of mine. The most I can say for myself is that I know better than to jump to conclusions based on scant knowledge of the subject. Anyone who wants to know more should do their own research. There are books, articles, even the wikipedia will do for a start.

I don't really understand what you mean with this discussion where the subject concerns factual matters that anyone interested can learn simply by perusing widely available sources. Instead you are soliciting and receiving uninformed opinions, prejudices, grudges and personal anecdotes.

psst! It's the same serially banned crackpot under yet another name. Don't waste your talents and your time on him.

"Random" can mean different things. Rigorously defining randomness can be problematic - see this SEP review for starters: Chance versus Randomness.

One important distinction is process vs. product randomness. Very roughly (the above linked article goes into details), process randomness is produced by a random process. What that means is... complicated. Product randomness is something that just presents itself as random. What that means is... no less complicated. Product randomness is often cached out in terms of frequencies, such as the normality criterion, to which I will return in a moment.

I've read that it's impossible to produce a truly random series of numbers. — Tim3003

This likely refers to process randomness, with the assumption being that no process is truly random. This is true at least for ordinary digital computers not equipped with a quantum random number generator (QRNG).

I've also read that the sequence of digits of irrational numbers like the square root of 2 are totally random. — Tim3003

This may refer to the product, or frequency sense of randomness. There are some intuitive criteria of randomness as applied to number sequences. On their own, none of them is perfect, i.e. no single criterion guarantees that every sequence that satisfies the criterion will be perceived as random.

For example, the criterion of normality requires that none of the digits occur more often than any other in the long run. But a number like this, while obviously non-random, would satisfy this criterion:

0.1234567890123456789...

Some numbers have been found to satisfy all popular empirical randomness tests, and this is perhaps what you have heard. Not all irrational numbers would fit the bill though. For example, this number is irrational but clearly non-random:

0.1001000100001...

If I touched a hot stove with my bare hand, I would know my subjective experience.

If I see someone touch a hot stove with their bare hand and instantly jump back exclaiming, I can understand what I have objectively observed, but I can never know what subjective experience that person may or may not have had. — RussellA

It is trivially true that you can only experience what you can experience, but your thoughts and attitudes can be directed at either yourself or at others - and that includes your own and other people's state of mind.

The difference between the self or subject and any object of knowledge whatever is precisely that the self or subject is never an object of cognition as a matter of definition. — Wayfarer

Ah well, that's that sorted out then :roll:

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil. — Bertrand Russell

If I want to understand the nature of the mind, I cannot look at the minds of others, which will forever be closed to me, in that I could never discover what beetles others have in their individual boxes. — RussellA

I don't see why not, unless you have very specific methodological requirements for such understanding. Taking "mind" in its ordinary sense, we certainly can have insight into other minds. Without that we would not have been able to relate to and interact with other people. Psychologists even have a term for this commonsense understanding of other minds: Theory of Mind.

I have no problem with the concept that my mind can think about something outside itself, such as the range of the Cybertruck, but I have a problem with the concept of my mind thinking about itself. Does it mean that my mind is thinking about my mind thinking about my mind thinking about my mind, etc. As Schopenhauer wrote: “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of” — RussellA

I really don't understand this problem with "mind thinking about itself." Isn't this what self-consciousness is? Perhaps you have some unrealistic expectations of what thinking should be like? To think about something is to have some idea, a few reflections about the object of your thought - not an instant and complete knowledge of the thing "as it really is" at that moment.

If I say that "I am my mind", then I am speaking as an inside observer of my mind. But this leads to the problem that the mind is discussing itself, leading to a circularity, in that the statement becomes either "I am I" or "my mind is my mind".
The statement "A is A" may be logically true, but it gives no information as to what "A" empirically is. — RussellA

I would understand "I am my mind" as saying something about your concept of personal identity, i.e. "'I' (my self) is nothing other than my mind (whatever that is)".

We can discuss the mind without ever knowing whether it exists or not
If minds don't exist, we can still discuss them as we can discuss unicorns
If minds do exist, then the mind would be discussing itself, leading to the problem of circularity, meaning that the mind would be unable to determine the truth of its own existence. — RussellA

I don't see a logical problem here.

Also, we should clarify what it might mean to deny the existence of minds. One can intelligibly argue that most traditional philosophical concepts of "mind" are defective, or that simpleminded (heh) folk concepts of "mind" are inadequate. What else?

The mind exists only as a part of language, not as part of the world — RussellA

How would your analysis differ if its object was (what is usually thought of as) a physical entity or process?

Criminal law takes the first person perspective, I experience free will, so assume you do too. — Tobias

I took a very straightforward interpretation of free will as my point of departure. There are others of course. The most sophisticated I have seen is the compatibiism of P.F. Strawson. — Tobias

That is more-or-less the ordinary language meaning of free will, and it is how P. F. Strawson, A. J. Ayer and some of the other compatibilists interpret free will as well.

Not quite sure I'm understanding the distinction you're trying to make. Can you expand? — Reformed Nihilist

Well, you yourself used the word foundation (or ground - same thing). That foundation doesn't have to take the form of an indubitable fact, like Descartes' cogito. It can be a system, a method. The important thing is that, according to this view that you question, the edifice of philosophy must have one and only one foundation.

Then again, it might also be the case that in simply having a perspective, intelligent species cannot, as it were, get out of a perspective to view nature from a "view from nowhere", as Nagel puts it, to see how things are without an interpreting mind of some kind. — Manuel

The flip side of having a perspective - shaped by one's temperament, living circumstances, life experiences, exposure to ideas - is that this perspective forms the ground of our being and our knowledge, whether or not we are aware of it and can articulate it as a philosophy. So perhaps, dither as we might, we can't help but gravitate towards some center, like a person stranded in outer space can't move away from wherever their center of mass happens to be.

Is this a fool's errand? — Reformed Nihilist

I am sympathetic to this line of thought, although I think that ground - ground of all being, or ground of all knowledge - would be a more appropriate word here than certainty. (Of course, those who plump for some such ground will disagree, like @Joshs with his phenomenology.)

It could be both, couldn't it? But to answer your question, yes, I think this is a legitimate criticism. If mind is truly apart from the corporeal world, then it is difficult to find a place for it in the world as we know it without denying or subverting the premise, or straying too far from the ordinary sense of the word.

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were. — Mww

What Descartes' precise beliefs about mind-body interaction were is still argued over by scholars (which suggests that said beliefs were far from precise), but Descartes doesn't own dualism (whether or not we accept the premise that he was the first dualist), and Cartesian exegesis is not a prerequisite for discussing modern-day dualist positions. Whatever Descartes said or didn't say about the issue of interaction, the issue still exists as a unique challenge for any form of dualism, and that is where attacks on dualism, including the one cited in the article, are often aimed at.

It's just the way it is. — Raymond

Ah, I see that I've mistaken a statement of personal belief for an argument or a proposal. Carry on then.

The article stipulates, “...Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things—physical stuff and mind-stuff....”, and that, “...for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false...” — Mww

[Descartes ...]

All that says nothing of other subsequent renditions of the stated dualism, but it’s always best to start from the beginning. — Mww

Of course not. But the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions. Did you read any further than that opening sentences? (I wouldn't blame you if you didn't - it's pretty blah.)

It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things. — Daemon

That's not dualism then, but identity.

As this can only happen if we are conscious, all physical stuff, by scientific necessity, has an unchanging ingredient or charge, which, when they massively and structured combine in our brain and body, give rise to consciousness. How else can it be? — Raymond

Um... Not that? Are you seriously suggesting that the only possible way that something can emerge is through aggregation of minute quantities of its basic ingredient into a lump of a particular size and shape? So I suppose round shapes are only possible because all matter that composes them has a bit of irreducible roundness in it?

I don't disagree. I do think that what I am trying to do in this discussion is just the kind of due diligence you are talking about. — T Clark

I don't see any evidence of that in your OP, nor in most of the discussion.The thread follows the dismal pattern of all such free will discussions, where the subject is obscure and people talk past each other. (@Tobias at least has a definite idea of the sense of "free will" that he is talking about, but is this what you had in mind? I don't know, and I get a sense that you don't know either.)

I hate discussions of free will. The same old arguments over and over and over with no resolution ever. — T Clark

You know why that is? Because people who take part in these discussions fail to do the most basic philosopher's due diligence, like asking themselves what free will is, why it is that and not something else, and how it is relevant to whatever they really want to talk about, because, as in your case, what they really want to talk about is something else.

If we come to a satisfactory conclusion, it may be possible to dispense with any future such discussions. Ha. — T Clark

Nope. See above.