The relevant difference between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of rocks is the expressive ego; something that is presumed as the base of sentience. It's not. — Shamshir

I don't understand 'expressive ego'.

Consciousness doesn't denote expression.
Just like how the body is constantly conscious, even during deep sleep, but isn't expressive without commands from the ego. — Shamshir

OK, I think I might know what you mean. Consciousness is necessary for expression or behaviour, but expression/behaviour is not necessary for consciousness. Is that the idea?

The consciousness of rocks is no different from the consciousness of the dreaming man; aware but non-controlling. — Shamshir

Maybe. I favour a version of panpsychism in which all behaviour is caused by will, although much behaviour is a mechanical emergent of many wills interacting. Indeed the behaviour of a rock would be such a mechanical emergent I think, so the whole-rock-consciousness may indeed be as you say, I'm not sure.

The better question, and the one I assert, is why would I think that? The onus seems to be the one on making the claim. — Hanover

That's a perfectly good question, and one we could discuss if you want. I've gone over it many times on this forum and the old one, and I can do it again if you like, but I suggest starting another thread so we don't derail Unseen's too much.

However, that's not how this conversation got started. If you remember, I asked a question of Unseen, specifically, "Why do you think a nervous system is necessary for consciousness?" to which you gave an answer that raised further questions, which you find uninteresting and are disinclined to answer.

It's ridiculous to assert that maybe rocks have experiences, — Hanover

Why? Is it just the burden of proof point? Is it that you perceive that you have no odd claim to defend, and there is no case to answer until I make the case for panpsychism? Is that all?

If we tweak a car's engine it will affect its motion. This does not mean that things in motion are dependent on combustion engines. — Coben

Yes, that's not a bad analogy to show some of the fallacious reasoning, I think. Need to think about it a bit more.

To offer an answer to the OP (apologies for not doing so before), from my panspychist perspective, we are conscious beings because consciousness is a fundamental property. Everything is conscious, so we are as well. Not a terribly interesting answer. There is the follow-up question, 'Why is everything conscious?'. I don't know the answer to that. It just is, like any other fundamental property or force, there comes a point where there are no further layers of reality to appeal to for an explanation.

It is based upon the false premise that you cannot decipher a meaningful difference between rock behavior and my conversation with you here and that has somehow caused you to wonder whether rocks are thinking, conscious things. — Hanover

Is it? You could always try asking me rather than assuming what I think. I can, of course, decipher many important differences between you and a rock. And I certainly don't think a rock can think and experience the kind of things that you can. But that's not what is at stake. We're not talking about differences of content of experience, we're talking about the difference between some experience and no experience at all. And that, it seems to me, is a harder line to reasonably draw. And it seems you have no appetite to attempt to draw it, even though you seem to take this view on a philosophy forum and engaged me in conversation about it. I'm not sure what you are doing here or why you answered my question to Unseen if you find this stuff uninteresting.

Are you suggesting you don't know you're communicating with a conscious being and wonder if I might be a rock? — Hanover

No

Since you can decipher my behavior from a rock, why not use the distinctions you recognize to answer your own question.

I can't. The differences in your behaviour from that of a rock do not allow me to make any general conclusions about consciousness, as far as I can tell. But you may have noticed something I have missed. That's why I am asking you (and Unseen if s/he cares to answer).

What is the relevant difference between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of rocks, such that you attribute consciousness to the former but not the latter?

As I noted, the only reason I believe any object other than myself has consciousness is by observing its behavior. — Hanover

OK, so what is the relevant difference between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of rocks, such that you attribute consciousness to the former but not the latter?

Because alteration of an organism's nervous system predictably affects its consciousness. — Hanover

It does, but what follows from that? That's perfectly consistent with the idea that alteration in the functioning of a plant, or a rock, or a cell, or a plastic bottle, or whatever, likewise affects its consciousness.

The lack of a sufficiently evolved nervous system—or the total absence of one—makes believing lower organisms might be conscious nevertheless borders on a religious belief. — Unseen

Why do you think a nervous system is necessary for consciousness?

Beginning Logic, E.J Lemmon

Intro to formal logic.
I enjoyed the exercises.

Oh, that specific. Do you come across a lot of such questions?

this kind of question — StreetlightX

What kind of question is it? You've clearly perceived this as an example of something general, and I'm interested in that general category.

Logic is the capacity of consciousness to relate two or more ideas at once, it seems to me.

We get our percepts from the world, and then we order them, build concepts, theories, models, which we then apply back to the world from which they derived (making predictions mostly I guess), sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I don't think it is logic that fits the world, because logic says nothing about the world. Logic is our ability to relate and order what the world gives us.

Logic is essentially about relationships - differences considered together. Validity, for example, cannot apply to one premise, you have to have at least two and to relate them simultaneously to perceive if the conclusion follows.

You're the one quoting "Rorty;" loser...stop wasting our time. One cannot be both a philosopher and an anti-mystic. those who aren't mystics and call themselves philosophers are just playing pretend. — TheGreatArcanum

This reminds me of the great mystic Al Ghazali:

"Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual, loser" ~ Al-Ghazali

Why would we bother to counter theistic arguments with metaphysical themed arguments if history, anthropology and cosmology more than suffice? — Izat So

Because religious claims are metaphysical, and you can't disprove metaphysics with anthropology. It would be analogous to a genetic fallacy "An idiot and Hitler said 2+2+4, therefore not 2+2=4". Similarly "Someone believes in God because of historical and psychological context, therefore there is no God." It just doesn't follow. A study of anthropology and psychology etc might undermine someone's motivation for believing in God and generating a metaphysic to rationalise their belief, but that rationalisation remains logically distinct and is true or false on its own merits.

What’s the reasoning behind progressive taxation? — tinman917

I don't know. This is less ignorance on my part, and more a reflection of that fact that reasons vary depending on who you ask.

On the face of it, it seems to be obviously a good thing. It assists the most vulnerable in our society and that kind of thing.

That's one reason, and I agree with it.

But then, on the other hand, it seems grossly unfair because we are saying to some people: “you have to pay more to get the same service as other folks who are paying less than you”. (It’s like going to buy food at the store and the prices depend on how wealthy you are.)

Yes, it is unfair in one sense. But it is fair in another, because one could argue that a cabbage should cost 3% of your daily income. That way everyone would have equal access to cabbages, regardless of income.

Or are we saying to wealthy people we think they should pay more because we think that their wealth has not been fairly acquired?

I don't think so, for the reasons you give. I suspect most people in favour of progressive taxation would think the correct remedy for this would be stronger regulation and enforcement, and progressive inheritance tax, rather than progressive income and corporation tax.

You say: “not everyone enjoys making money, but everyone should have enough money to participate in most areas of life reasonably equitably”. So is that two lines of reasoning then? First: wealthy people should pay more because they enjoy making money. (But then what about the ones that don’t?) And second: poorer people should pay less because they have a right to “participate in most areas of life reasonably equitably”. Can you re-write your post more clearly? — tinman917

What I'm getting at is that what we enjoy doing is not wholly in our control. Imagine two people are born in roughly equal material circumstances, and due to genetics and environment, one of them grows up with a passion to act in the theatre, and the other a passion for manufacturing cars and managing a large workforce. They both follow their passion, the actor is extremely poor and suffers a lot, and the wealthy car manufacturer has a great time. It's not realistic for people to say "But that's fine, they both had equal opportunities. If the actor wanted more money he should have chosen to be a car manufacturer." I don't think the actor realistically had that choice. Lets say he did somehow decide to manufacture cars. First, he'd hate every minute of it. Second, he'd likely be shit at it and fuck it up. He doesn't really have the choice to be the car manufacturer, because it's just not his thing. Progressive taxation solves this problem because the car manufacturer will effectively be subsidising the actor. That's fair in one sense but not in another. However, I don't think we should get too hung up on fairness as the highest value (although it may still be somewhat important). I think the highest value here is allowing and supporting people to flourish, and to do their thing, whatever that turns out to be. That way we get good cars and good theatre productions, and no one is made miserable or thwarted in the process.

(I hope that's clearer, but it may not be. I welcome your criticism as it has made me thing a bit harder. I find philosophy about practical matters like this much harder than very abstract metaphysical stuff.)

My apologies, tinman917, I will write a better post when I have a moment, probably tomorrow.

I'm in favour of progressive taxation because not everyone enjoys making money, but everyone should have enough money to participate in most areas of life reasonably equitably.

I don't have data on this, but anecdotally it seems that people who make a lot of money do so not particularly because they want a lot of money, but because they enjoy the whole process of getting it, or they enjoy running a business and having lots of money is a consequence of that. Most of us, on the other hand, hate doing all the tedious things you have to do to make money. But we should be able to do the work that we do enjoy (e.g. caring for others, art, physical work) without the attached stigma, stress, ill-health and disadvantage of being crushingly poor. It doesn't have to be totally equal, just a heck of a lot more equal than it is now. And it's not that the poor have the option necessarily to just follow the example of rich people and get rich themselves if that's what we want. With wealth comes power, and with power comes the ability to restrict the opportunities of others, and keep them working at low wages. Wealth can also buy government policy. Most of us savages don't have the ability, energy, interest or will to fight against that as individuals, and need government to do it on our behalf. (We need a global tax system though so wealthy organisations can't take advantage of differing local tax systems.)

3-ish for me.

This one's very sexist:
7. Was your mother or stepmother:
Often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her?
or
Sometimes or often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard?
or
Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?

It implies some kind of rational process amenable to enquiry on a philosophy forum. Do you really see no disconnect between the evidence and the conclusion you drew from it?

Is that addressing my question? — Terrapin Station

Yes

First off, I'm not forwarding anything in the manner of a deductive argument. Why would you be reading it that way? — Terrapin Station

I thought you were trying to say something, offering evidence for a conclusion.

The premises do not mention consciousness, yet consciousness appears in the conclusion.
The conclusion is a general statement about consciousness, but the premises are all about experiences in humans.

What you have is:

A subjective experience of one of the 42 concepts is reliably correlated with brain event A
Brain injury affects subjective experience in humans in systematic predictable ways
Drugs affect human experience in systematic predictable ways
Therefore, consciousness is a property of our brains

...there's too much missing. I'm not insisting on a strictly deductively valid argument, but I'd like to see some of the gaps filled in.

You could try something more precise, for example:

Brain event of type A is necessary and sufficient for subjective experience of type a in humans
Brain event of type B is necessary and sufficient for subjective experience of type b in humans
and so on, for C, D , E, F etc
Therefore, all subjective experiences in humans are dependent on and necessitated by corresponding brain events

The conclusion there has a clearer connection with the premises. We've moved from the particular to the general in a reasonably transparent manner.

But even that doesn't tell us much that's interesting about consciousness, apart from that at least one thing in nature is conscious, namely, brains. It doesn't get us anywhere nearer to figuring out if, say, a rock is conscious, or not.

EDIT: typos fixed

Why isn't that enough? What else are you looking for? — Terrapin Station

It's not enough for a more general conclusion, such as the one you give:

We know from a lot of evidence that consciousness is a property of our brains. — Terrapin Station

Are you fishing for certainty with regards to "needing a principle" to make inferences about where consciousness is located? — numberjohnny5

Not necessarily certainty, a tentative hypothesis would be fine. It's the obvious question to ask someone who thinks that we can infer consciousness in other brains, but not in rocks.

Other sorts of examples include people ingesting substances that have effects on their consciousness or thinking, brain injuries having effects on the same, etc. — Terrapin Station

Of course no one would deny these well established facts about the relationship between human brain function and human experience. What I'm struggling with is what you can conclude from these, other than such and such experience in humans is dependent on such and such brain function in humans. Can you spell out your conclusion with the reasoning?

Brains are made of different materials than rocks, and that is one good reason why rocks don't "experience" consciousness relative to brains. Brains are composed of particular materials interacting in particular ways relative to other stuff in the universe. And we only discover consciousness at the locations where brains are present. — numberjohnny5

The only place we discover consciousness is in ourselves. Or more strictly, the only consciousness I can discover is my own. The consciousness we 'discover' in others involves inferences from observed behaviour in others, the assumption that similar effects have similar causes, and the knowledge that our own behaviour is caused by our experience, and the conclusion that they must therefore have consciousness too. So if we are allowing these assumptions that opens a can of worms when it comes to deciding what behaviour is sufficiently similar to our own to validly infer consciousness. Sure, we are maximally similar to other human beings, but we are also similar to rocks in a whole load of ways. We still need a principle to tell us when we can make the inference and when we can't. Do you have a way to decide?

Thanks, that's interesting research. I'd be interested to know what the 42 different elements of human thought are. I'm not sure what general conclusions about consciousness we can draw from it though. Let's charitably assume that these brain events are both necessary and sufficient for the corresponding subjective thoughts to occur. That does not entail a more general conclusion, though. It doesn't follow that all subjective experiences are dependent on a functioning brain, for example. A rock's experiences are presumably similarly correlated with its own internal processes. We have not discovered what it is about brains that entails that only brains can have experiences, and nothing else can. We may (or may not) have discovered that a human brain can only have experiences if it is intact and functioning in the normal way, i.e. it is verily a brain, but likewise we can say a rock can only have experiences if it is, verily, a rock. How do we make this split? Can more examples help?

We know from a lot of evidence that consciousness is a property of our brains. — Terrapin Station

Could you give an example of the evidence?

Do people that think this believe that consciousness is inherent in carbon atoms but not silicon? If so are hunks of coal conscious? Can anyone please explain logically why B, C and D are true or not? — khaled

I think that typically, the line is drawn somewhere between B and C (or perhaps C and D for some) not because of what the systems are made of but because of what they can do. Functionalists typically say that thinking, knowing, feeling, perceiving, are things that brains can do but other kinds of systems cannot. Their evidence for this seems to be that when we knock out certain functions in the brain then corresponding subjective capabilities disappear, for example, we lose consciousness altogether when whacked in the head. The IIT theory of consciousness draws the line in a different place. It says a system is conscious and is only conscious if it integrates information. Brains integrate lots of information, and so are the most conscious systems. Simple atoms and molecules integrate minimal information, and so are minimally conscious. If there were a system that integrated no information, it would not be conscious.

However,

To assume that these biological machines are conscious whereas mechanical ones are not seems downright unreasonable to me. — khaled

...I agree with you. I think attempts to draw lines (either sharp or fuzzy) in nature separating the conscious from the non-conscious involve conceptual errors.

I don't have time to think of a rhyme, bur for all the Painted Jaguars on the forum:

Premises and conclusions are true or false
Inferences are valid or invalid
Arguments are sound or unsound

A sound argument has true premises and valid inferences
Some unsound arguments may have true conclusions.

If the premises of an argument are true, and the inferences are valid, the conclusion MUST be true.

EDIT: sorry, made a mistake. Fixed it.

One of the outstanding characteristics of the privileged is their inherent inability to see their privilege. — Banno

I think that's probably right. However it applies to everybody. Men have difficulty perceiving their own privilege, where it occurs. But so do women, where it occurs. Same for white, black, brown, disabled, non-disabled, and so on for all identities.

The converse is also true. People have difficulty perceiving the unprivileges of 'others' (i.e. categories one doesn't apply to oneself). Male babies are unable to unionise and form an anti-circumcision movement, so we don't generally perceive circumcision (with no or inadequate anaesthetic) as the horrific abuse that it is.

Regarding privilege generally, it seems to me the most important example of privilege relates to money, class and power (which are increasingly overlapping categories) rather than the various identities normally referred to.

Regarding the MRM, I think Karen Straughan is perhaps the strongest and most radical anti-feminist (while remaining articulate I hasten to add), well worth a look. Warren Farrell is another persuasive person in the debate, but he is less extreme than Straughan. There's plenty of youtube videos of them both.

The Red Pill documentary by Cassie Jaye is essential viewing for this topic.

This is hard to comment on without knowing the characters involved. I'd be interested in reading more about how you apply feminist philosophy to this situation.

It seems to me that 'love' is about supporting someone to develop and grow. Is your mum facilitating such development?

Yeah, I've always thought of Sam as the main hero. 'The Choices of Master Samwise' is the most pivotal and interesting of the chapters for me. The other characters all have a tough job, but they can confer with each other about the right thing to do, and the right thing to do is usually rather obvious (except for the fact that no one thought to enlist Gwaihir to drop Frodo off at Mount Doom). Sam's stuck on his own in a really shitty spot. I was never wholly convinced of his decision to abandon the quest and follow Frodo's dead (as he thought) body, even though it turned out to be the right thing to do for the quest. It was irrational based on the information he had at the time. Maybe that's the idea - his instincts saw past the rational analysis or something.

Aragorn is a sort of hero, but he doesn't have a whole lot of difficult choices. He just has to do what a king has to do, which he does. To make Aragorn into a more interesting character, you'd have to make him fail at that, and then redeem himself, or not. Boromir is more interesting in that way.

The Akallabeth has to be the best analogy for the rise and fall of earthly civilisations, but that's not in LOTR.

Regarding allegory, Tolkien contrasted it with applicability, and said he preferred the latter. I presume his own application of his work is to Christian myth, but I'm sure he would have been relaxed about others making other applications.

Also there is an analogy with academia. Denethor, Gandalf, Elrond (Roland, I'm only trying to help you Roland), Saruman, are University dons. Frodo's a PhD student. Merry and Pippin are undergraduates. Boromir is head of the Rugby team.

One of my best friends is black. There may not be a single pig-ape ancestor...

This seems highly plausible to me. It never felt quite right that we should be descended solely from apes. We're far too pink. When we want to insult people, we turn more readily to their piggishness than to their apishness. I don't trust pigs, not because I don't understand them, but because I understand them too well. The psychology seems a much better fit.

World government, administered online. Get everyone a cheap phone so they can vote. Public Co-option of google infrastructure to do it, perhaps.

To solve global problems countries have to co-operate to do a lot of difficult and extremely disruptive and expensive things. They won't do that, not all at once in a sufficiently co-ordinated way. It's too disparate and competitive.

Failing that, live on a boat or something.

So firstly I need to analyse what constitutes a valid philosophical enquiry. — Helen G

That's an odd thing for them to ask you for. I don't think there is a clear agreed upon answer. I suppose there are a few approaches. Of the top of my head:

A philosophical question is a question we do not yet know how to answer.
A philosophical question is about the relationships between concepts.

I've never read Descartes, but you could look at Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. They will probably also have entries on what constitutes a philosophical enquiry. Still very mean to ask you to do the philosophy of philosophy when you haven't yet done much philosophy.

As for this:

Analyse ways in which language impacts on philosophy, such as logic, ambiguity, mathematics and paradox — Helen G

..that's awfully abstract. Is that the exact wording they give? It's an odd question - again it's taking a bird's eye view of philosophy. I don't see how anyone who isn't already familiar with a lot of philosophy could really form an impression of how language impacts on philosophy.

I suppose there are plenty of confusions and arguments based on poorly defined terms... is that what they want you to talk about? But that's not confined to philosophy. Maybe sorting such confusions out is the business of philosophy.

I think it would be quite fair to ask them for further detail on what they are asking for. Or you could do the time-honoured philosophical strategy of attacking the vagueness of the question and going through all the things it could possibly mean in as condescending a way as you possibly can.

So 2050, 31 years from now is the end of times? I'll mark it on my calendar along with all the other end of times predictions that have come and gone. — Hanover

I don't know the exact date the rotten tree leaning over my house will fall. But that doesn't mean I should ignore it. I don't understand this weird smugness about other people not guessing correctly.