I think it's very helpful. The dictionary definitions of consciousness bring out two usages, one for content and one for the fact of awareness

Anything that helps me clarify my thinking, or even my writing. I don't know if there are ways to prove or disprove various theories of consciousness. But any theory should at least be internally consistent. Pointing out anywhere that I am not is appreciated. — Patterner

The closest I've come to a forceful proof of panpsychism is the argument from the non-vagueness of consciousness. Michael Antony and Philip Goff both make this argument. I talked about it quite a lot on this forum before. It's based on the idea that consciousness does not admit of borderline cases. Combine that fact with the hypothesis that consciousness emerges from structure and function, you generate a massive problem of trying to find a physical event that is sharp enough for consciousness to plausibly emerge in. Take the development of an embryo. When does it start feeling things? How many neurons, what function are they performing, exactly which molecule hitting which receptor is the tipping point? Etc etc. Same with waking up. If we go from unconscious dreamless sleep to dreaming, what micro-event in the brain accomplishes this, and why that one exactly? If this rules out emergence, and if I know that I am conscious, I know that there must be a continuum of consciousness right back to the big bang.

Proto-consciousness is not consciousness, as the "proto" should make clear. Still, what does it mean? — Patterner

That's a good question. I can find no coherent difference. If something experiences anything, however 'proto', it's fully and totally conscious in the phenomenal sense. Differences are always a matter of content, not degree of consciousness.

You've set out your view well. What do you want us to talk about? Anything in the OP?

'a kitten' exhibits both bodily (such as chasing string, meowing/purring) & mental (such as instincts, playfulness) properties. — 180 Proof

So does a zombie kitten

Yes indeed. I was trying to make clear an argument I have heard a few times which attempts to derive a contradiction from moral relativism or meta-ethical relativism. I can't make it work! As you say, it's just not a contradiction to hold that one thing can be both good and evil depending on the perspective.

An objectivist reductio:

1) Good and evil are relative to a point of view
2) From A's point of view, x is good
3) From B's point of view, x is not-good
4) Therefore, x is both good and not-good (contradiction derived)
5) Therefore, it is not the case that good and evil are relative to a point of view (reductio of 1)

What's wrong with that?

EDIT: there's too much wrong with it to be even remotely plausible. The conclusion doesn't depend on 1. I'll have a rethink...

It's terminological mess, and I'm not overly bothered what term I settle on. I'm a substance monist, and I think there is more than one fundamental property. So the stuff of the universe is both conscious, extended, and/or whatever properties you need to generate a universe. I don't actually know what they are except that I think consciousness has to be one of them. I am definitely not a strong emergentist about consciousness, and probably not about anything else either.

I don't call myself a physicalist because most physicalists are emergentists about consciousness - the view that consciousness is reducible to structure and function seems a central tenet of many physicalists' views. But like physicalists, I don't believe in mental ectoplasm. I think everything we observe is structure and function.

Nor would I call myself an idealist, as that has the same error as physicalism but in the opposite direction. You can't get structure and function from just the property of consciousness. @javra mentions dual-aspect monism, maybe that's me.

I've been listening to a new audio book, a so called "audio documentary" that touches on this. It's called Lights On by Annaka Harris. Perhaps not up your street because she's an unabashed physicalist, but she explores concepts of fundamental consciousness because she's become increasingly convinced that that's more the right approach to talking about experience. — flannel jesus

I've recently become aware of Harris. I'm impressed so far. Quite a few panpsychists call themselves physicalists (most famously Galen Strawson), and I'm very sympathetic to their position. I don't call myself a physicalist because people usually mean 'reducible to structure and function' by 'physical', and consciousness can't be so reduced. But I'm definitely a monist, which is part of what motivates physicalism (and materialism).

Anxiety, neurotic instability, something like that, at a wild guess. A sentient pre-big-bang substance can't cease to exist, but it can act. Not acting I suspect might be absolutely intolerable.

In logic a tautology is a statement that is true by it's logical form, such as (A&B)⊃B. — Banno

Oh fair enough. I'm wondering if I was taught slightly different stuff from others.

That's a tautology, nothing implit is made explicit (i.e. nothing new is learned after "therefore"). — 180 Proof

It's an example of the &-elimination rule, a valid inference in the simple sentential logic I did ages ago.

I don't think it's a tautology, it's not saying exactly the same thing twice. Even if it were it could still be an inference. You can conclude that "Jim is bald" from "Jim is bald". Only a dick philosopher would actually say that of course.

But I agree it's uninformative.

A conclusion does not follow from a single statement — 180 Proof

Not usually but it can do. e.g. "Water is wet and wobbly. Therefore water is wet." Not very interesting admittedly, but it is an inference.

Okay for instance i agree with your thought but lets be real if he was merciful why in the first place would he make us play such game where cruelty is a good option in various cases. If he was merciful shouldn't he have created something where we could be tested without suffering and cruelty. — QuirkyZen

Maybe. It might be that suffering is a necessary consequence of creation that God cannot avoid, if God chooses to create. Or it may be that the suffering is not God's so he's not bothered about it. There's a few possibilities.

The problem of evil is definitely a challenge to those God-mongerers who want to hold to a particular set of assumptions about God. But if one is willing to shed some assumptions, then the God concept can perhaps survive in a modified form. But I guess there's a limit to how much one can modify one's God-concept before it becomes an eccentric use of the word 'God'.

By the way you said "God might be still immoral" but brother realistically god cannot be immoral because if there is a god then morality comes from him so he realistically cant be immoral thus if we see somewhere that god is being immoral than can only mean two things. — QuirkyZen

The truth of this depends on your general standpoint in moral philosophy. I think I'm probably a metaethical moral relativist, meaning that moral truths depend on a point of view, so what is right for one person may not be right for another. So what is good for God isn't necessarily what is good for me, so I can judge what God wants (or allows) as immoral, from my point of view, without contradiction.

You have to be the one causing the suffering to show mercy, no? So it is the cruel and hateful who are in a position to show mercy. God might still be immoral for not intervening, but the intervention wouldn't be correctly called 'mercy'. I'm nitpicking I suppose.

Thanks, I didn't know most of that.

Yeah, but practically speaking such a discussion is not going to scare men off from the forum. It's not particularly toxic. It could become toxic if it escalated I guess. I didn't see the thread.

I edited the prior, but will get back to you Sir. — DifferentiatingEgg

:up:

How does that affect the argument? Could you join the dots?

Well, see, there's your problem you think people can own land, and empty land at that. What stops someone from settling empty land? The state. — DifferentiatingEgg

Yes, the state enforces legal rights in land, which rights it has created itself. And as @BC said, states enforce their own rights in land, which they themselves created. Nevertheless, democratic states are a necessary evil because the alternatives are worse. If you remove the state you just get powerful individuals or powerful groups which seize what they want and then legitimise that power and control by saying they have a right to it. They write the right down and it's alright because verily it is written, perhaps by God in some cases. Might becomes right. Democratic states are a little better than this, and some are a lot better. And it seems to me that it is hostile private interests that are keeping democratic states from improving.

If we had an infinite plane of green and pleasant land, maybe we could ditch a state. Everyone starts off at a point with a wheelbarrow, pick, shovel, axe, sword and hoe, like Minecraft. We all head off in different directions until we find a bit with enough space to make a go of it. Where two people want the same bit and start waving their swords, it's OK, because one can go and find somewhere else further out. No one ever needs to fight because there is an infinity of resources. There's still a problem though. Early settlers will soon be hemmed in on all sides, making their area finite. This might be fine until they have children and start running low on resources. So then it's time to fight. So lets modify this experiment in statelessness (or anarcho-capitalism I suppose) such that the plane itself is expanding, so that even the bounded parts of it are getting bigger. A bit like dark energy. So there we go - we can get rid of states if we have an infinitely expanding space of resources. Otherwise, I'm a Hobbesian.

As a panpsychist I'm just now wondering if dark energy might not be the will of matter to increase its sphere of influence. I'll write to the Nobel Prize people tomorrow and see what they think.

We are little more than domesticated tools for its disposal. States monopolize power away from its constituents. — DifferentiatingEgg

Well, maybe, but that also applies to private individuals, no? The rich and wealthy set up their own principalities which exert power and control over others. And those guys don't ask permission once every four or five years.

Don’t you see that you and your frienss could go to some untamed bit of land and make something of it of your own determination. Even with people at odds on this Forum, we could all just decide to get up and move somewhere... but States have us by the balls. — DifferentiatingEgg

There's not enough room! All the bits are taken aren't they? States don't own most of it though, it's privately owned. I'm not sure why you blame the state more than you blame private interests. Also dictatorship-states are rather similar to private sort of 'barons' I suppose.

Have you managed to find a free bit of land somewhere and set up your own sphere of influence there?

Well my man, that's what happen when a state steals everything from the people. — DifferentiatingEgg

What's what happens?

the people look to the state to do everything... to solve their problems... — DifferentiatingEgg

I certainly do, some of those problems that I can't solve on my own anyway. What kind of problems are you thinking of?

Mighty big contribution of you towards the end you desire — DifferentiatingEgg

Oh, I see. I think that's sarcasm! Sure, of course one vote is very little. As Churchill said, democracies are the worst system except for all the others. I do a little bit towards the bigger problems, but not much I admit. I'd like a different electoral system, first past the post is really bad.

Power relegated to voting and fiat money — DifferentiatingEgg

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by those two. What other kinds of power do you have in mind?

I can't vote in American elections, French can't vote in the UK elections, there are no global elections, there is no global rule of law enforceable by a global police force, multinationals take advantage of differing local laws to avoid taxes, people in dictatorships and oligarchies are not represented, wars are possible because there is no global rule of law, it's impossible to deal with climate change because there is no global rule of law.

Or else a global democratic nation with a multitude of states, each state with its own ethnicity, culture, sub-laws, etc., such that each state votes for what the global nation’s laws should ubiquitously be. Here, then, there would be a global enforcement of the two declarations you link to, this as would be decided upon by the states' citizens. — javra

Indeed, I'm not rigid on the details. Nations are so-interdependent now it makes little sense not to have some system of global democratic representation.

Good point. I don't defend it. I'd like to see the world being a single democratic state.

It might be wise to expand on that a little. What would you like to discuss? The accuracy of the alleged facts you present, or their significance, or both?

Applied ethically, I think educating the people and arming them is the best solution against tyranny and injustice. — Bob Ross

I struggle to imagine how that could work out well.

Oh, indeed, I agree

Tories are in power for the bulk of the time. Do you believe they are more interested in providing services or cutting public spending? I would argue that their overriding interest is cutting public spending, and they are biased by this. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I agree. But the state is more than the executive. There are tensions within a state, like the tension between a Tory government and its obligation to deliver services. It's parliament and the judiciary's role to prevent Tories completely screwing benefits in an excess of Tory classism. An elected Tory government has a mandate to reallocate spending away from benefits to an extent, but never to scrap them altogether. In a democracy, that's just tough luck on benefit recipients. Yes, there is a conflict of interest between benefit claimants and a Tory government, but managing that by providing an extra-state safeguard would be anti-democratic and indeed unconstitutional - parliament would not be sovereign. The solution is to win the policy argument.

Well, that the cat ought be on the mat is either true, or it is false... unless you have some alternative? — Banno

It is true from the cat's sleepy perspective, false from the perspective of the visitor to the house. Can you derive a contradiction from that?

The conflict of interest is too great to leave it to the state. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I know what you mean, but I don't think that actually makes sense. The purpose and 'interest' of that state is, in part, to deliver statutory services including benefits. So it isn't in the state's interests to not deliver those services. Of course it has to balance its commitments. The big failure of the state in the UK and elsewhere is the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle economic classes to the already rich.

You can't have a body independent of the state deciding how a state will spend its money - that would be a disaster.

Generally my government policy is to starve it: I'd rather give the people too much control over themselves than the government too much control over the people. — Bob Ross

But then who protects the weak from the strong? What happens to the rule of law?

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here. It seems to me that it's primarily private interests that take any 'excess of power and productivity'. States are not perfect of course for a range of reasons, but at least taxes get partially returned in some way in the form of services, infrastructure etc. The returns on private investment are lost forever to the wealthy.

I broadly agree but perhaps for different reasons. A moral system doesn't connect to behaviour. The agent has to go further and say "Yea, I will adopt that system and abide by it." And that's a matter of will and not reason. Even if you prove that murder is bad for a million reasons, a murderer can still respond "Yeah, I see all that. I just really like stabbing people, and that is more important to me than anything else. I'm going to keep going."

How come the state doesn't have enough money for public services then?

I guess you vote SNP up there in Scotland? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Yes, but I'd rather vote Green. Electoral reform and a wealth tax, in that order, are my main political wishes. Then people can start taking an interest in the big issues like climate change when their vote counts and they're not in survival mode.

Even Reform abstained, and they're no friend of people on benefits. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I suppose they are very anti-state interference, even against people on benefits.

I do wonder if this is an expensive draconian solution to a non-problem. Apparently it's nearly 4% of benefit expenditure is overpaid. Is that a massive problem compared to other problems? So 4/100 people get a bit more than they are entitled to? Compare that to billionaires not paying taxes.

There is literally no greater danger in this world than the incompetence (and occasional malice) of governments. — Tzeentch

What about private companies? The state is the only thing we have to protect us against them. Good systems of public governance are essential to mitigating both threats I suppose.

If you want to know the types of damage: evictions, suicides, children being taken away, children being never found again, etc. - people and families utterly ruined at the hands of the state. — Tzeentch

I heard about that. Sounded awful