And when does one call a living thing conscious? — Benj96

When you think it is capable of experience.

Part of the difficulty lies within developing a concrete definition of “life” or “living systems” in the first place. — Benj96

Yes. 'Life' is a example of redefining a concept so it becomes amenable to your preferred method of investigating it. Investigating consciousness empirically is problematic, so strike that from the definition of 'life' but retain things that are more amenable, such as reproduction.

I would take this to suggest that even if something like smallism is true, it will nonetheless require some sort of major paradigm shift that allows for some sort of "emergence-like" phenomena to occur to resolve this impasse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Smallism I think is probably false for this reason, and others.

It was in the context of explaining the Advaita doctrine of manifestation or emanation, by which Brahman manifests as the sensible world. — Wayfarer

"All new things come from prophecy." Not exactly the same idea but similar.

I'm getting larger by the week.

As Plato's Euthyphro implies: morality and laws cannot follow from the decrees of "God or gods", javi — 180 Proof

We create our own values, therefore we are gods, although small.

On the one hand, given that the brain is itself, it should have no trouble knowing itself. In practice, there are a number of problems with that notion. — Malcolm Lett

If consciousness was a brain process, then I would agree with you, the brain knowing itself would be riddled with opportunities for mistakes, illusions etc. I'm just pretty sure consciousness is not a brain activity.

Our perception of consciousness is equally subject to the same perceptual hallucinations as all other perceptions. — Malcolm Lett

There is a difference, it seems to me. Perceptual hallucinations are complex, we construct a model which turns out to be contradicted by further data. Loads of stuff going on, plenty of room for error. But consciousness of consciousness is maximally simple, no? It doesn't specify any particular experience. We might be wrong in perceiving a lion in the grass, it might just be a patch of grass. But we can't be wrong that we have experienced something-or-other, i.e. a world. And to go one step further, when we turn consciousness on itself, in experience of experience, where the subject is the object, there is no gap for a mistake to exist in.

You can rely on wikipedia for information and I will keep on thinking through the presuppositions and implications of philosophical topics (e.g. 'panpsychism = animism'). — 180 Proof

This is insane. You provided the wikipedia link as part of your post! You invited people to read it!

EDIT: But never mind. We don't have to rely on wikipedia. Perhaps you could offer your own conceptions of animism and panpsychism so we can see if we we are talking about the same ideas. For example, you said that panpsychism is reductionist. I am interested in what you mean. What x does it assert is nothing other than what y?

Oh, I'm a panpsychist. There are several reasons for that, but the overall reason is that it's the least problematic option. The worst theory of consciousness apart from all the others. At the moment, I think the least problematic option is to suppose that every arbitrarily defined object whatever has its own unitary consciousness, but the vast majority of these entities are conscious of almost nothing at all. Humans (and brainy animals generally) are unusual, not because they are conscious at all, but because of the wide variety and complexity of what they are conscious of.

Oh, sorry, I just skimmed the conversation and missed context.

Do you think panpsychists are committed to souls? I can't think of any time I've read a contemporary panpsychist talking about souls.

'panpsychism' is metaphysically indistinguishable from Stone Age
animism — 180 Proof

That's just innacurate. Most academic panpsychists I am aware of are a mile away from animism. My own views are somewhat closer to animism, but they're not captured by the wiki article either. You don't have to educate yourself on what panpsychism is if you don't want to of course.

There are a variety of panpsychists, but my guess is that most contemporary panpsychists are of the second kind you mention - the ones that think that consciousness is fundamental alongside other properties such as charge or whatever. I am in that group. The former kind of panpsychist I would guess would be idealists, although their motivation and arguments might be different from traditional idealism. Some panpsychists arrive at panpsychism via idealism, Timothy Sprigge for example.

Regarding the combination problem, you make an interesting point. However I think the analogy with other properties may not work. The combination of entities with physical properties does not necessarily entail the creation of new wholes - one could be merelogical about it. However the merging of conscious entities is typically assumed to create new wholes, which raises difficult question: What happens to the individual consciousness of the parts? Does that remain, so we have a multiplicity of consciousnesses, perhaps in a hierarchical relationship? Or does the consciousness get 'pooled' somehow, and prior individuals are lost? How does that work exactly and why? What triggers the merging? Mere proximity? Functional relationships which entail new powers/abilities of the new entity? And so on.

Israel are creating Hamas

thanks! I'll try the short stories i think. Crash never appealed to me a concept.

:up: Looks pretty good to me. I'm fairly new to political/.economic thought. Sortition would be fab.

The economic system we have divides all adult citizens into employers and employees. — Vera Mont

There are sole traders of course, self-employed individuals with no employees, but broadly you are right.

Short of a massive rethinking that you are inviting, I think a quick fix to this current capitalism (which seems to be reverting back to a feudalistic system) is a substantial wealth tax coupled with some kind of proportional representation (in the UK and US - many other countries already have it).

Can you recommend some good Ballard? I really liked Concrete Island.

Things without a mind are not conscious/aware. — Lionino

Sure, but there are no things without a mind.

In that case , aren't non-living things' consciousness different nature to the living things consciousness? — Corvus

I don't think so. Their consciousness is exactly the same type. Both are aware of something. What is different is what they are aware of. In the case of dead things, not very much.

All non-living things are conscious as well as living things.

You can keep calling it “genocide”, but you have no sentence from an authoritative tribunal that supports such an accusation — neomac

For that to happen someone has to bring a case. The process of gathering evidence, making arguments, hearings, and all the rest of it takes ages. And that doesn't stop people reading the law, looking at the facts, and applying the law to the facts themselves, and coming to a reasoned opinion.

You mean that since Israel is disproportionately stronger than Hamas and can erase Hamas from Gaza, then Israel must yield to Hamas’ demands? — neomac

I can't speak for Punshhh, but I don't think Israel should ever yield to Hamas' demands. What Israel should do is the right thing, regardless of Hamas demands.

I love the line of “Hamas could end this war immediately,” as if every innocent child Israel murders, deliberately and intentionally, is really the fault of Hamas. — Mikie

Indeed, but it's standard rhetoric for aggressive acts. I remember Tony Blair saying something like "Saddam, by his actions, chose to be invaded." A weird denial of agency.

Well, that's a proposal; what do you propose Hamas and the Palestinians do for their part? — tim wood

Give the hostages back once Israeli have undone as much of the harm as they can, got all settlers out of West Bank, etc

But until the hostages are released/accounted for, their being kept seems to me a carte blanche for the Israelis and their IDF. — tim wood

What about the reverse, until Israel stops occupying Palestinian territories, withdraw from Gaza and rebuild all the buildings they've knocked down and paid compensation to the families of all the dead, isn't that carte blanche for Hamas to hang on to the hostages?

Who could object to that, and why? — tim wood

Crucially, Netanyahu, because he doesn't want peace with the Palestinians until they're permanently displaced.

Yup. Netanyahu co-opting persecution of Jews cheapens it horribly.

It is a philosophical point. One theory of mind is that mental states are brain states. Arguing against that is philosophy. What's your point, philosophical or otherwise? Are you smelling a decaying God in the cupboard or something? I think I smell you smelling something.

I think the argument in the OP is unsound, but it's philosophy.

I don't consider myself an adherent to any religious system or practice, nor do i belong to any religious communities. But i think some claims which are often considered religious are true, for example, consciousness is ubiquitous, consciousness (but not self) continues after death. I also think creation myths should be taken seriously but not literally. I do wonder if they might reflect the phenomenology of the early universe in some way, or the psychological development of life, or something. I find the gospels to be extremely rich in valuable ideas. Likewise with other religions to the extent i am aware of them, which isn't much. So I'm not sure if in religious or not. I suppose i have beliefs which do affect my attitude to life and death, and how i relate to others, which are based on the ubiquity of consciousness.

In my experience, in the middle and south of England there is a tweely conservative monarchy-loving ultra-parochial cake-baking mindset which might be compatible with community feel but which I find quite horrible (but I guess that’s because I’m a rootless cosmopolitan, mostly Scottish and a bit prejudiced against the English). They're certainly not socialist, but I guess they do like the NHS (which I imagine counts as socialist to a North American). — Jamal

Ditto.

I lived in Suffolk. Very conservative. Ignorant, insular. Of course you can find your tribe anywhere with a large population, but you'll have to look, and probably drive. I hate England even though I'm English. There are pretty villages in Suffolk if you can stomach the culture. It is probably drier and sunnier on average in east Anglia generally, rain gets dropped on the Western hills. The fens (Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire) are flat and also conservative, but somehow a bit more relatable for me. Anyway. I live in Scotland now. Somehow i managed to end up in one of the only two conservative counties in Scotland. Still like it better than England, class is a bit less of a thing in Scotland in general. Still there of course and wealth matters obviously. Edinburgh has a marked class divide though it seemed to me, less so than the Highlands.

Oddly enough I've always wanted to move to Canada, less population density. Lots of wilderness. Tough winters though i guess. But no country needs a philosopher or social care lawyer.

I don't know if you mean that literally or not, but if you do then I pretty much agree with you. Physical models predict her behaviour as best they can, but she does what she does because she wants to. It just happens to be regular and predictable from our perspective.

The reason I don't talk about Kant is that I studied it about 30 years ago and I can barely remember anything about it, apart from that I thought it was probably nonsense. I don't want to inflict my vague recollections on the good TPF readers, and certainly don't want to give the impressionable among us the idea that I know what I'm talking about.

Yes, not heard of that one but I've come across the idea in a few places.

We should never have invented agriculture. I think we're fucked. We have outpaced our environment, and our DNA, disastrously. Amish-style is a good workable compromise I think.

@ButyDude Your OP introduces a lot of 'culture war' topics, which naturally excite some of the less moderate responses. To mitigate this, it can be helpful to pick one aspect and focus narrowly on it and ask a specific question ending in a question mark. Your OP does not clearly tell the readers what kind of response you are looking for, and a more hierarchical top-down approach might help you here, as @unenlightened says, we like to be told what to do. You present a very cursory characterisation of feminism and offer your rebuttal of your own characterisation (inviting accusations of 'straw man'). We are invited to insult you by confirming your own (correct) suspicion that you are waffling. Consider:

The women’s studies and historical women’s studies are mostly concerned with the idea of “power.” From the gender perspective, or basically the women’s feminist perspective, society is interpreted as a hierarchy of “power structures,” ranging from government to gender roles. I will offer a rebuttal to this interpretation of society. — ButyDude

Quoting a seminal feminist work here would be useful, to get a horse's mouth concept you can then attack. The second sentence here is very unclear. What is a 'gender perspective'? The 'feminist perspective' is not the same thing as the 'women's perspective', there can be male feminists (or can there? - a topic for a thread perhaps). Is there a perspective that all women share? If so, what is it? How do you know what it is? You set yourself up as disagreeing with (your characterisation of) the feminist perspective as interpreting society in terms of 'power structures', yet you seem to be endorsing that very view, that society very much is comprised of power structures. Are you therefore a feminist?

There is a lack of agreed definitions in your OP which would help focus the responses, I feel. @Banno says you are full of rage, which I gather from his own angry responses to you he approves. Similarly, @Banno thinks definitions are not helpful in philosophy discussions, so again, despite appearances, he seems to be your friend in this thread, and I your enemy.

EDIT: Here's a question I'd be interested in someone answering for me (I can't be bothered) "Are all feminist views anti-hierarchical?" Even that's probably way too broad and blobby a question to tackle.

You make ethical claims on a philosophy forum and then don't want to discuss ethics.

Go away. — Banno

Banno, isn't it customary to regard the OP as defining the scope of discussion in a thread?

I'm actually interested in the OP, but this thread seems to be going the way of all flesh. I don't know what the answers are, and I'm interested in hearing the arguments.

One persons misconceptions are another person's blindness.

One person's blindness is another person's wilful ignorance.

One person's exit is another person's entrance.

Is this about the British empiricists? Locke, Berkeley, Hume?

Do we infer the unperceived existence of what we perceive from the nature of our experience? If so, how? If not, why not? — OwenB

I'm not overly keen on the question. I'd need to know what the course material was to ensure I understood what kind of answer they want.

'Do we infer...' is different from the usual philosophical question of 'Can we validly infer...' Answering 'do we' isn't really philosophy is it? That's some kind of social science. Although maybe in the context of Hume, maybe 'do we' is appropriate, as he is interested in that as well.

@OwenB what is the context? What material has led up to this question?

If Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, they're remarkably bad at it. — RogueAI

October 7th was the first realistic chance they had to go full-on genocide. They couldn't have done that under the gaze of the rest of the world without a really good bit of provocation. And they got it. Makes me wonder if they knew. Anyway, they've been doing as much as they can get away with before that anyway, what with the settlers and land-grabs. Not that I can remember the details now.