As long as honesty is not mistaken as bad manners I generally agree. Meaning, I would rather someone was honest and impolite than polite and trying too hard not to upset anyone.

The biggest problem of dialogue on these forums is the lack of ability to read emotions. I have managed to have a couple of video chats with people on this forum and it seems far easier to get the emotional intent across but not so easy to articulate in the moment.

Both have benefits. Hopefully one day I will be equally competent in both forms of communication.

It has been shown that our use of tense in language does influence how we appreciate time and plan ahead.

Whether more detailed media sources provide more lived exposure to historical events is certainly up for debate. I am sure there have been studies done on something related to this.

The example shows a logical case. Much like with the Trolley Problem the likelihood of the situation arising is not that important. It is the unlying reasoning we are concerned with.

I good give another example of someone inventing the Car and then someone else also inventing the Car completely unrelated to each other. If we are then to ask Who invented the Car? it is perfectly fine to say two people rather than one. The genuine inventor is both people, yet it is highly likley someone will accuse another of fraud and call them a Fake.

This is a different use of the term Fake though, but it is just an example of how the assumption of one genuine creator of an object/idea is not necessarily true. If taken to a more realistic level it is likley that someone is accused in Art of 'copying' someone else's style and therefore the style they use can be considered Fake as it is not their genuine style -- this is especially the case if the person replicating someone else's style does so with the intent of pretending this style is their own.

There is no true antonym of 'fake' so there is no necessary negation of it. Double negatives are only about Not Not Fake, rather than Fake Fake where the context can shift the meaning.

Not Fake is not a double negative, whereas Not Not Fake is, but I have seen people making this mistake simply because they construe a term that seems negative (such as fake) as a true Not.

What are you talking about?

Or, as I just stated, a genuinely original piece that just so happens to look identical to the other piece (maybe two artists even name the painting in the same way too).

So now, what makes a fake, a fake? I think it must come from the perceiver, not the thing in itself. Only a perceiver could say the plastic decoration was the same thing as the organic plant, or that it was related to the organic plant at all intended to be a fake version of it. These are born in perception. — Fire Ologist

There is the direct logical view of viewing this as a double negative too, or assuming the a fake fake, a fake, or a fake fake fake fake, are always Fakes, of some sort or they would not be called fakes at all.

A white and black, black and white guitar are both white and black. A genuine fake is a perfectly acceptable term, but a fake genuine is not.

There is also something to be said about different types of antonym and how people disagree about categorisation -- I guess this is something of an obsession of mine!

My point was that this can mean different things as how the meaning is interpreted is not set in stone.

A fake fake could be something that is original yet coincidently looks identical to something else. Here there is a reasonable case for saying that both are Genuine, Original and Identical, but neither are copies as it only appears that one is a copy of the other.

If i created a work of art, such as a painting, and then gave you an atomically precise printed copy of it, would you consider it art or not? Or, if i wrote a book and gave you an atomically precise copy of it, would you regard that copy as a work of literature? — punos

I guess this is part of a discussion in another thread. There is the experience of making Art and the experiencing if Art. With a replica I am still experiencing the Original Work even if I look to the finest level.

The regard for experiencing the original is identical on an aesthetic level. We can somewhat understand the distinction better when considering music. A song can be listened too in different ways, but the recording is still authentic to the original sound assuming one has an excellent sound system. A live recording misses out the atmosphere of the live experience but the sound is genuine.

When it comes to AI writing novels I find a problem with what I am saying regarding how I frame the term Art, but that is another matter. Artifical Art I guess? Which makes it Artistically appreciated but not Artistically Created.

Can you clarify what you mean by “demarcating what something is or is not due to the subjectivity of experience”? — punos

As in the kind of idea people have that how something is genuine matters to them more even when the sensory experience is identical. The Hard Problem of consciousness.

Is that Artistic Value though? i would say no. As an object of Art there is a further arguments to be had ...

If it was literally #D printed top teh atomic level there is no human touch, so it woudl not be Art. We find difficulties in these areas and this interests me a lot as it is here that logic fails to demarcate what somethign si or is not due to the subjectivity of experience.

It would not be reasonable in my estimation to state that both are the original, because even if structurally identical they have two different paths within spacetime. Although for practical purposes in most cases i suppose it shouldn't be a problem. — punos

Agreed, to a point. I think I would say 'practical' with a bit more force. If the physicality of a painting is primarily what matters (and I would argue that it is), then both would be indistinguishable. The history of the painting is much harder to construe as 'physical' as a painting -- in terms of aesthetic quality -- is not determined by its historical journey.

This would dovetail into why I do not view most 'conceptual art' as Art.

Exactly.

I am sure everyone has heard of the analogy taken at the atom level too where a painting is replicated down to the atomic level? If we then accidently mix them up do they both become the original to us?

And if so what is there to say against them both being Original if they are indistinguishable by every other trait other than their existing history (which is unobservable physically)?

Just saying everything is mental may in some sense be simpler than materialism or dualism, but I don't think it provides any deeper insights or amelioration to these issues. — Apustimelogist

You are missing the point. Husserlian Phenomenology is not at all concerned with material existence as it is focused on the experience of consciousness. It is not merely sayign everything is Mental it just does not care about material measurements -- the aim being to figure out an approach that can better ground science in subjectivity.

Husserl started as a physicist so he was not against empirical data at all.

What we are talking about in phenomenological terms is understanding how when we look at any given object of perception it is necessarily 'pregnant' (to use his term) with unseen aspects -- volume, back, bottm, side etc.,. When we look at other phenomena the same makes itself known to us, like with sounds. We cannot think of a sound that has no volume, nor a song that has no melody.

To Bracket Out the general material view we are used to allows us to reframe our experience and categorise it differently. This can then be used once we readopt material data and seek clues to how our subjective experience maps onto neural networks or not at all.

Replacing combination with emergence does not really solve much because they are similar issues. — Apustimelogist

Yes. It is no better than stating something like "I don't know how it works, therefore aliens!" The issue becomes one of reductionism -- something else Phenomenology puts its hand to.

We are talking about consciousness so it makes sense to start at the source rather than shift to what our consciousness constructs (that is a representation of other in the idea of something being something). The question of how we obtain a pciture of a World is where conscoiusness is most readily at work. My conscious being appreciates physics not the other away around.

The first-person reality of consciousness doesn’t appear as an object in the world; it manifests as the point of view from which the world is experienced. — Wayfarer

This is precisely why I favour Husserl's approach to a science of consciousness. He was not at all concerned with the 'existence' of physical objects and bracketed out any difference between a unicorn and a horse. Both are 'objects' of consciousness.

His phenomenology -- whilst problematic -- does offer an interesting way of approaching the problem of articulating consciousness without direct concern with empirical objective measurements.

Maybe because we can learn by doing rather than relying on something to constantly correct our mistakes (which is laziness) ;)

Here is something else: Property Dualism

How so? — Philosophim

Because you are obsessed with not being labelled a Physicalist when I am not labeling you as a physicalist. Every post you seem to do this.

I am labelling the arguments put forward in this particular area of philosophy of mind as physicalist because they are.

You're trying to occupy a non-physicalist position while affirming physicalist conclusions about the mind.
— I like sushi (chat gpt)

No. I'm not a physicalist, as they believe everything is physical. I simply conclude that the brain and consciousness is physical due to years of scientific results that indicate consciousness seems to be physical, while little to no evidence of it being non-physical. Concluding that consciousness is physical does not make you a physicalist. Believing that all of reality is physical and that there can be nothing non-physical does. — Philosophim

Take it up with Chat gpt. Not my words.

All I can suggest is exploring this site further Stanford and beyond the opening paragraph.

For those actually interested the Causal issue here is a snippet from Davidson expressing something akin to what I am getting at:

The first principle asserts that at least some mental events interact causally with physical events. (We could call this the Principle of Causal Interaction.) Thus for example if someone sank the Bismarck, then various mental events such as perceivings, notings, calculations, judgements, decisions, intentional actions, and changes of belief played a causal role in the sinking of the Bismarck. In particular, I would urge that the fact that someone sank the Bismarck entails that he moved his body in a way that was caused by mental events of certain sorts, and that this bodily movement in turn caused the Bismarck to sink. Perception illustrates how causality may run from the physical to the mental: if a man perceives that a ship is approaching, then a ship approaching must have caused him to come to believe that a ship is approaching. (Nothing depends on accepting these as examples of causal interaction.)

Though perception and action provide the most obvious cases where mental and physical events interact causally, I think reasons could be given for the view that all mental events ultimately, perhaps through causal relations with other mental events, have causal intercourse with physical events. But if there are mental events that have no physical events as causes or e ects, the argument will not touch them.

The second principle is that where there is causality, there must be a law: events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws. (We may term this the Principle of the Nomological Character of
Causality.) This principle, like the first, will be treated here as an assumption, though I shall say something by way of interpretation.

The third principle is that there are no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained (the Anomalism of the Mental).

From Mental Events by Donald Davidson

Apologies for jinky copy and paste (Might be a word or two missing cut so let me know where and I will Edit as needed).

As I mentioned way, way back I was trying to look at the disparity between nomological and metaphysical positions.

And this is often a problem I have with broad generalized terms. The general definition of a physicalist is "One who thinks everything is physical." But I don't. — Philosophim

Misrepresetnation of what is being said.

Also agreed. But they should be an assistance to understanding the argument being made, not something we try to fit the argument into. Its why when asked if I was a physicalist, I'm not. — Philosophim

and again.

Sometimes I am not of course, and I'll try to adapt and learn where I can. But what I am almost never aware of in a conversation is how other people define the terminology. I have learned that many people rarely use the formal definition of complex philosophical ideologies or terms. — Philosophim

They are not 'ideologies'. Such is to adhere to a form of Idealism.

People on philosophy forums do occasionally actually use philosophical terminology. You can say until you are blue in the face that what you are expressing is not a type of Physicalism, but it is. Just like someone going around killing random people can claim they are not a murderer, it does not stop everyone else from blatantly disagreeing. The murderer could argue that "being a murderer is not eveyrthing I am!" but they cannot rationally argue that they are not guilty of murdering people.

I hold to physicalism in some situation and not others. I can be liberal about one political problem and conservative about another. Neither rigidly defines me as either.

Because you are unwilling to accept that what you are saying adheres to some sort of argumentation from some form of physicalism, and instead repeatedly revert to 'I am not a physicalist!' like it is some harsh insult, you completely miss everything.

Maybe chat GPT can do a better job? Here is its take on your reply:

"Certainly. Here's a clear explanation you can give to this person regarding the philosophical problem they seem to be having—namely, the confusion caused by adopting a position that seems to commit to physicalism while denying that label, and the consequences this has for coherence in the philosophy of mind debate:

Hi [name],

Thanks again for the discussion. It seems to me that the issue you're running into is a classic one in philosophy of mind, especially when navigating between physicalist and non-physicalist frameworks. Here's the core problem, as I see it, and I hope this helps clarify some of the points raised earlier.

The Philosophical Tension:
You've said you're not a physicalist, because you don't think "everything is physical" in the broad, metaphysical sense. However, you also say that consciousness is physical, because that's where the science is pointing. That sounds like you're committed to at least token physicalism about consciousness (i.e., each instance of a mental event is identical to some physical event in the brain).

But if that's your view, then you're not rejecting physicalism — you're accepting a form of it, even if you're uncomfortable with the term.

So the tension is this:

You're trying to occupy a non-physicalist position while affirming physicalist conclusions about the mind.

That does raise confusion because labels in philosophy matter, not to stifle thinking, but to track arguments, commitments, and counterarguments. Without clear reference points (like physicalism, property dualism, emergentism, etc.), discussions risk talking past one another, as seems to have happened here.

The Supervenience Problem:
Now, if you're affirming that consciousness is physical — but still not reducible to physical states — that’s non-reductive physicalism, which relies on supervenience (i.e., mental states depend on physical states such that no change in the mental without change in the physical is possible).

But if you reject supervenience (or leave it vague), you fall into interactionist dualism, and then you're stuck with:

The causal closure problem: How does a non-physical substance cause anything in a physical system?

The pairing problem: Why does a particular non-physical mind interact with this brain?

And yes, the supervenience problem again: If mental states don't supervene on physical ones, then how do we explain regular, lawlike mind-brain correlations?

So even if you don’t want to use the term “physicalist,” your statements imply physicalist commitments. And that matters because the moment you say “consciousness is physical,” you enter territory with well-mapped problems, arguments, and consequences.

Let me know if you'd like this reworded more diplomatically or conversationally — but the goal here is to help your interlocutor see that clarifying terms isn't a pedantic game, it's part of responsibly navigating conceptual terrain."

Property Dualism in a nutshell? It does get confusing when people use differing terms to describe the same idea.

Another example would be physicalism and materialism. People tend to use this as synonyms while others do not. What is important is to clarify your position and use of terminology.

What does that make me? — Philosophim

In regrads to the problem at hand you are expressing an idea contingent to physicalism. That is a VERY broad category though.

Regarding this particular problem I would place myself on the side of physicalism as things stand regarding scientific evidence. The thing is this is a Philosophy forum and while it is certainly worth pushing that those partaking in discussions on Philosophy of Mind -- beyond a mere navel gazing -- have a pretty expansive understanding of the cognitive neurosciences. That said, the reverse is also true. One can have a pretty decent grasp of the neuroscientific evidence and yet be completely oblivious to what the Philosophical side of this is trying to tackle.

This problem is probably most pertinent in regards to questions of consciousness as it is here where the neuroscientific experimentation can provide evidence for differing approaches, but this is not by a long shot anywhere near a logical proof.

A good number of scientists and philopshers alike point out that they are doing one or the other and that it is a category to combine the two. Physical Evidence is not an Abstract Proof and an Abstract Proof is not Physical Evidence. When it comes to questions involving consicousness it is pretty easy to confuse one for the other.

Here is a basic rundown of how things work in terms of the terminology involved >

If an argument denies substance dualism this does not necessarily mean it adheres to physicalism. It does necessitate some form on Monism for the position though!

Physical Monism may be what you are getting at, but this is generally regarded as a kind of Physicalism.

Panpsychism? I do not think you have expressed this at all as far as I can see.

Eliminativism? As you strongly deny what you are expressing is physicalism we have to rule this out. This basically describes Mental Terms as misleading (I am sympathetic towards this approach despite its faults).

Neural Monism is a kind of physicalism too, so we have to rule this out.

Non-Reductive Physicalism would mean you have to face the Supervenience Problem.

Epiphenomenalism would be another option possibly? You in for that?

From all you have said a kind of Reductive Physicalism or some kind of Eliminativism are what you have expressed. This is simply a fact. The issue is you seem to have expressed quite ardently that your approach is not physicalist yet both of the above approaches ARE physicalist and you have said you dislike the reductive approach.

I have no problem with someone holding to contradictory positions regarding more complex problems like this, because the reason it is so difficult is because we are met with contradictions as we follow through on the logical reasoning. I am labelling the general schemata of the ideas being expressed.

Being able to label certain positions and highlight where you do and do not agree with them helps people navigate the discussion and argumentation involved. My exploration was an attempt to focus on the Causal nature of Substance Dualism (which we cannot say much about if anything!?) but which could help to further distinguish faults aroudn the Supervenience issue or Property Dualism.

I can only assume you do not really know the appropriate terminology and therefore this entire miscommunication is due to you not knowing the Philosophical terms being used (not uncommon here, and I have been more than guilty of this myself over the years).

Life expectancy has gone up and your book sales have gone down. Is this why philosophy has falied, because you cannot sell your book!?

:D

Why you are still allowed to continue this I find strange. Have flagged several times now as at every opportunity you are trying to flog your book.

To be fair it is quite a subtle problem and many people miss it.

@Philosophim Perhaps this will help show the difference?

If you hold an Eliminativist position then Supervenience is almost irrelevant. If you see no instance of one thing supervening another then you are holding an Eliminativist position. There is still an issue here regarding how we intuitively seem to experience one item (Mental Act) supervening another (Physical Act) regardless of there Substance.

This is not a term of insult it is just a fact of the philosophical terminology. Knowing your position helps people better understand what arguments therer are against it and for it.

Edit: I myself am more than a little sympathetic with the Eliminativist position!

Should I continue to? — Philosophim

No. I think not.

It is your job to point out the contradictions in what I'm stating and demonstrate why. I see only accusation, no articulation why. "You're wrong because I say so," does not work. — Philosophim

The problem is I have articulated why twice.

If you hold to there being a difference between Properties of items under discussion AND hold that there is no Substance Dualism then it doe snot logically follow that you can have this both ways due to the condition of Supervenience -- if two causally related items are connected one supervenes the other. In this case the Physical of the Mental Property supervenes the Physical Property. Even if you frame both from a physicalist stance (it is all physical stuff) there is still the matter of Supervenience to explain. Herein lies the contradiction of which the only way out is to opt for a kind of Eliminativism -- the denial of any significant difference and to frame a thought as purely physical while intuitively appearing otherwise in terms of basic day-to-day causally subjective experience.

You cannot have your cake and eat it. EVERY position has this problem.

Do you understand now? This is the third time I have tried to articulate this better. It seems like you are reading what is written but not really READING it. Forget what you believe to be the case and pick out the problem of logical reasoning.

I am assuming you have not solved the Hard Problem ;) ?? Excuse me for being a tad impatient here. It is the nature of this kind of online discussion. All too often one can assume people understand X when they have never heard of X before > That is why I suggested looking at the terminology involved, just like throwing around terms like Neural Priming, Inhibition of Return, Top-Down or Bottom-Up, Libet's Experiment and such may not mean all that much to those with a passing interest mistaken as a full understanding.

I suggest you not pull a fast one and try to label a poster as holding a position they clearly do not hold without explaining why. — Philosophim

Look it up. I am not stating you hold this rigidly (at least I hope not). The point is you need to understand the counter arguments involved.

I am not here to teach you the terminology involved. I have been helpful enough to demarcate your general thoughts into the appropriate area.

If you are just going to get all defensive because you do not understand the contradictions you are articulating -- even when pointed out multi times by myself and probably others too -- then please do leave the thread and start your own.

The label not wanting to be owned here is Physical Eliminativism. @Philosophim does not believe there is a Hard Problem. Daniel Dennett is another example of this kind of thinking.

I suggest you use this term (Eliminativism) to describe your position in the future and perhaps look it up and address the arguments against it.

To be clear, there is no clear concensus on this. There is no proof of any of the positions put forward. We just do not know. Some appeal to different people depending mostly upon their intuitions (experience) not merely Evidence (that can be called 'mere' when we are doing philosophy).

We've seen the results from property dualism, now you want to imagine IF substance dualism exists. I already mentioned that there is absolutely nothing we could glean about causality because we don't know what the properties of something non-physical would be. Would it appear to interrupt physical causality? is it the same? We don't know. — Philosophim

This is the problem for Substance Dualism. As I also demonstrated the same kind of disjoint appears for Property Dualism where we hold to physical reductionism without the need for another 'Substance'.

Many fall into the error of reframing Mental States as a kind Brain State but this still tells us nothing about the distinction of the experience of having a brain state, to a brain state causing another state (the Slap example).

For Supervenience -- focusing on the physical stuff of Brain States causing another State -- the problem is the distinction made for different States, with The Mental/Brain State (Idea to Slap) supervenes the Physical State (Motion of Hand to Slap). This means that one state changes the other but not vice versa.

So either the Brain State plays no causal role in this OR this is physical reductionism > Judging your words up to now.

Do you think there is a good reason to distinguish between me moving my hand and me thinking about moving my hand? If your answer is yes, then we have Property Dualism and it needs explaining.

From Libet's we can see examples where in physical causation someone believes they make a decisions at time B but an observer of their brain knows their decision at a prior time A. If we are looking at this form a phsyical reductionist perspective it looks a more like Epiphenomenalism is a reasonable explaination of such Mental States.

Ok, so that leaves us with 'a different kind of causality'. — Philosophim

Well, this is where the line of thinking takes us. We cannot say on the one hand Mental Acts are no different to Physical Acts (Causation with one Substance) AND also say that Physical States are indentical to Mental States because one supervenes on the other. There is a difference whether you frame this froma purely physicalist perspective or not.

This is the Hard Problem. My aim is to tryand clear up the language by focusing on the term Causal in order to divulge something that may strengthen the Phsyicalist position a little more and leave the Substance Dualist position more wanting in some ways.

No, they're both physical states. So they can affect each other. There is no logical reason they wouldn't. Now IF they are two substances, who knows? Maybe its only the mental substance affecting the physical, and its a meat puppet being strung along from something we don't fully understand. Maybe the physical has a one way influence on the mental instead. We don't know. We wouldn't be able to tell because we don't even know how these two substances would interact. We need more. — Philosophim

No. I meant them as both Physical the naming can change to suit you if you wish though. So Physical States supervene on Brain States (or whatever you want). Property Dualism is not Substance Dualism. Here we are talking about Property Dualism only. The Substance for thinking (Mental State) about slapping someone in the face and slapping (Physical State) someone in the face work in the same Physical Substance.

No, I don't think that's the way it works. Physical interactions always affect what is being interacted with. — Philosophim

Well this is the philosophical argument that shows this contradiction. The only way out of this is to deny that there is anything special about consciousness and mental states compared to other phenomena. It is to deny the Hard Problem as an illusion (like Dennett).

Now this is cleared up, the point I am making may possibly get around taking some kind of Eliminative argument to avoid this contradiction (Possibly). So put aside any disagreement with substance dualism and put some thought into what this could mean for the problem at large in terms of different types of causality or the absense of causality. How does this strengthen or weaken more physicalist positions?How does this reframe the problem?

And focus on the above well-known argument is that if we assume a different kind of something then we are met with a problem of not being able to understand Causation as we have one unknown entity interacting with another without knowing anything about its basic workings.

To jump into highly speculative territory the mental stuff could be atemporal and therefore to talk of 'causation' would make little to no sense.

Causation requires an understanding of consistent and repeatable logical states. — Philosophim

There is no logical reason why there may not be two substances (Substance Dualism).

In terms of Property Dualism you seem okay with this as you say it makes sense to demarcate between a slap in the face and the desire to slap someone in the face as two different states.

The question is then what makes a Mental State different to a Physical State?
If you say nothing and also say that they are different in terms of Properties only we enter into the issue of Supervenience.

It would then follow that you are saying mental states supervene over phsyical states, meaning if the physical state changes so to must the mental state, but not vice versa.

It then follows that these mental states (you refer to as physical) have no causal effect. So now we have a physical state (neural state of mentality) that is non-causal.

Is there something else you were trying to get at? I feel like there is and I'm missing it. — Philosophim

Get it now?

It'd require it's own thread. — Banno

THIS is the thread for it ;)

I am familar with this area. Go for it. No need to dumb-down.

Donald Davidson who has been mentioned and about whom Banno knows a lot, is an example of non-reductive physicalism. — Wayfarer

I have a decent grasp of Davidson's approach. If @Banno has something to add regarding the possibel descrepencies with the term Causal between Physical and Mental acts I would love to hear. Donaldson's position is especially relevant here so would be nice to hear from someone who has a better indepth understanding of his points.

I am not interested in how scientific approaches woudl have to readjust. My concern is with the Metaphysical question of Causation.

You do seem to be conveying a Dualist approach in term of Properties, meaning you have stated that there is a good reason to distinguish between Physical and Mental Acts. So maybe looking at this metaphysical delineation would help in expressing how Causation could differ?

I think the thread is about 'mental causation' - can mind, if it is non-physical, cause physical effects? — Wayfarer

It is actually about the use of Causation across two different domains and how this may aggravate the Hard Problem even further. I know because I started this thread :)

Look here:

Which is why its much simpler when you realize its just a physical act. — Philosophim

This is besides the point. It is an IF question. That is, if we assume that physicalism is actually wrong (I know you are familiar with IF questions) and there is something else going on, then the Causal relation between Mental and Mental Acts compared to Physical to Physical may very well be quite different. If so then obviously there is a problem when then framing a Physical to Mental or Mental to Physical causal stream.

Understand? I am not saying I one is or is not correct. I am putting forward a potential problem that has been overlooked.

Absolutely not interested in a back and forth argument about how this or that point of view is right or wrong (no one knows). I am asking people to assume Mental and Physical Acts are quite different and that this could possibly play a part in dissecting The Hard Problem a little further.

So the OP is addressing that IF there is some other obscure substance -- non-physical -- then assuming Causal Acts are the same for both substances could be a mistake. Therefore when talking about Mental to Mental causation we can only assume they play out as and when they manifest experientially, rather than physically (Libets experiments and other like it) which shows a disjoint between Acts where the Physical appears to be a precursor to Mental.

Perhaps the OP was too severely lacking in detail as to where I wanted to take this. I usually do miss things out just to see if someone comes up with something else interesting.

Yes, I imagine informational objects, so do many. — hypericin

Can you imagine a non-informational object?

Anyway, I misrepresented what I meant. No problem. Back to the matter that concerns me :)

Are informational objects causally related in the same sense that physical objects are? If so, how. I not how so?

Don't. Just address my arguments. — Philosophim

What arguments. I have provided examples of what people refer to as Mental Acts: Desires, Beliefs, Propositions etc.,.

I created this thread to talk about the different perspectives regarding Physical and Mental Acts and how I believe there is a problem when using Causation at a micro and macro level as well as between nomological and metaphysical positions.

I clearly told you I don't associate with the physicalist position. — Philosophim

Yet you cannot express what position you lean towards. Physicalism is a not a dirty word. What I meantr by it not being a religious doctrine was that actual philosophers Explore other philosophical perspectives not bang a drum about their own particular point of view. They provide Proofs not Evidence and this in and of itself leads to problems. It is around this area that I was hoping to examine Causation as an example of how they differ in Proofs and Evidence.

Proofs are based on abstractions (not overtly concerned with spacio-temporal matters) and Evidence is based on empirically measureable events (more overtly concerned with spacio-temporal matters).

Both have differing forms of Causation built in to them as we operate as spacio-temporal human beings that intuitively appear to be grounded in the physical world.

Back to Causal Acts ...

From a physicalist perspective (to repeat, only crazies are dogmatic physicalists in a philosophical sense) the problem lies in infinite reduction unless it shifts to something like Russellian Monism -- but that is spectulative and a cohesive thoery has yet to be crafted there.

Then there is Substance and Property Dualism. The list goes on ...

Just to be explicitly clear. Many of the exmaple and analogies you have given lean toward a physicalist perpsective. You are obviously open to other possibilities and I am still struggling to discern where it is you are coming from (Russellian Monism?), while also trying to guide this back to the OP and question of Causation.

I already stated a problem I see in the OP. A fake fake could be construed as something Fake and as something Genuine. It depends on which 'fake' we prioritise perhaps?

1) A FAKE fake seems like it should be considered a fake.
2) A fake FAKE seems like it should be considered genuine.

1 is concerned primarily with the item being fake, whereas 2 is concerned with the negation of fakeness.

Bearing in mind that this is supposed to be a forum page about the logic and philosophy of mathematics, should we consider the original post as a fake question? — alan1000

Maybe it is just that simple :) It was more of a curious musing that I thought might create some interesting back and forth.

Costume jewllery are most certainly real fakes. So if in that case the jewllery is assumed to be fake but is actually genuine, then fake fake means genuine.

Fake means not genuine/authentic.

My point is that is seems like with some terms the usual double negative rule does not necessarily apply.

What is a "fake, fake painting" and how would that differ from a "fake, fake, fake painting?" Can such a concept continue ad infinitum? — Outlander

Yes it can