I thought it interesting that it’s blue because according to the Berlin–Kay color term hierarchy theory blue is the latest primary color, or maybe to think of it differently, the least important primary. — praxis

Really! What on Earth do they base that on? That seems to fly in the face of evolutionary biology. We have three receptors in our eyes and one is specialised towards blue light which control our cycadian rhythm.

Are you in favour of substance dualism then or something? If so you cannot really explain the gap between the mental and physical acts. If not then I would be interested to see where you are coming from in order to understand what I am talking about i snot just about the words people use in day-to-day chit chat, I am talking about the dificulties of the philosophical jargon involved and how the Mental Act is conflated with the Physical act without underlining how these differ and shift (or not) depending on the philosophical approach.

A Substance Dualist would surely have to say there is a problem if we are moving from one substance to a wholly different other kind of substance - given that one of such substances is beyond empirical verification. A strong physical reductionist may state that all is physical and that the Mental Act is a kind of Physical/Material thing so the use of 'causation' is identical and it is just a matter of arbitrary demarcation - which then leads to the problem of how and why such Act are divided?

Do you see what I am getting at now?

Does mental to mental causation present itself to anyone like physical to physical causation does. I would say no. It does not. You can have a desire and think up a plan. Such mental acts have no existence to anyone else, or relevance, if they are not physically acted upon.

Petitio principii. — Leontiskos

All philosophical positions do. In this area the Hard Problem is called that because no one can solve it - and perhaps it cannot be solved and the approach is faulty (but no one can prove that either).

Are you suggesting something like linguistic relativism is going on when it comes to differentiating what a painting is compared to a drawing? Sounds interesting.

I have mentioned before that I believe there is cultural relevance in the distinction depending on how we use the tools in day-to-day life (the pen or the brush).

Language does affect what a person is conscious of. — RussellA

Makes them realise how LITTLE they are actively conscious of more like ;) Such focus shows how limited our active visual perception is. It still blows my mind to think that the vast majority of what I think I can see is just a patchwork of previous experiences knitted together to form a coherent whole.

Numbers, Love, Annoyance, Or, Gravity, Yesterday, Next Week, etc.,.

In terms of this thread and Philosophy of Mind items like Desires and Beliefs are framed as Mental not Physical States. If you did not understand this mayeb I should have pointed it out more explicitly in the OP, but this is a philosophy forum and when talking about Mental to Physical causation most people who have reasonably braod understand of philosophy know what I am talking about.

So, that is the best I can give you I reckon? If you are asking if I believe in substance dualism, I do not. That said, I am more or less interested in the arguments surrounding this whole topic as none provide a conclusive answer.

I've spoken to many Russians about this and they call blue blue.

There is an exception with a group in Africa. Cannot recall their name/location, but they discern "colour difference" more between shade than tone. So it could be said that they perceive shade as we perceive colour and colour as we perceive shade (although I think this is mostly, if not entirely, between the common mismatch of blue and green).

Orange used to be just a shade of red. Language does play some role in here and some have even posited that without language there woudl be no colour experience!

In particular the focus here is on the use of Mental Acts and Physical Acts in terms of Philosophy of Mind. I think there is still worthy groudn to cover within more a more focused scope.

As I have noted previously the demarcation I am highlighting is the use of 'causal' between nomological and metaphysical approaches (to throw in the technical jargon). This is where I see a mistake that may go some way towards identifying pitfalls when trying to articulate ideas around the Hard Problem.

@Leontiskos To use technical jargon I am more or less approaching this as a mistake where the 'causal features' in a nomological approach are being equated with 'causal features' in a metaphysical approach. This is a faulty approach.

Otherwise, what I see is an endless word game being played. — jgill

A very common judgement I make for many philosophical arguments. I think sometimes philosophical machinations can be so reductive that they fall prey to becoming so abstracted from any real life scenario that the crux of the matter is lost. That said, it is certainly worth while exploring extreme imagined cases in order to sift out problems that were initially unseen.

Balancing between these extremities -- of real world, severe abstraction and analogy -- is something every philosophical approach struggles with (and so it should!).

If I am using the term Artwork I do not see how we can refer to a mountain as a Work of Art. Other than that, I am with you. My only qualm being in the specific instance of referring to something created as a work of art.

Obviously, you could argue that something created long ago may not have really been viewed/created as a piece of art (say a piece of furniture or a device for learning), but here we can appreciated the aesthetic quality of it and look upon it as a work of art (it was still made by someone).

I find nature beautiful for sure, but barring a belief in some Creator I do not view a mountain as Artwork.

It depends what you mean by 'physical'. Plenty of people happily refer to subjective feelings as non-physical entities (qualia and such).

Then there is the question of what you mean by 'exist'. Numbers do not exist and nor does love (physically), and there is a vast array of abstract concepts that have no physical existence too.

Also, historically, phenomenon regarded as non-physical in the past is now called physical - such as time and gravity.

We can only experience causation physically so it seems presumptious to assume that causation is a matter of fact beyond physicalism. The very term becomes problematic at micro and macro levels.

Even if it is the case that mental operations are purely manifest in the physical, rather than instigated by physical acts, then I see no reason to also propose atemporality as part of mental acts.

If the mental is simply an unknown physical phenomenon then I see a possible problem with causation depending on the phsyical scale we are likley having to talk about.

When it comes to mental and physical I also see an issue with a conflict between evidence and proof. Meaning, propositional attitudes are tied to mental acts rather than to physical acts.

So when I say that Mental to Mental causation does not exist I see this as stating something akin to saying the rock had an attitude and so rolled down the hill. So if we are talking about the philosophy of mind we need to keep in mind that physical and mental acts are probably not best clumped together under a singular use of the term 'causal'.

I guess I could simply ask what kind of difference (if any) people see between physical and mental causes. If there is a difference then surely when we talk about mental acts causing physical act, or vice versa, then terminological use of 'causal' would necessarily have to shift?

I am asking what you think. You sound like you are buried in the physicalist reductionist camp. What flaws are there with this position?

So I think you have an enormous burden of proof to show that mental causation does not exist and that "causation is a physical term." — Leontiskos

If causation is the same for mental to mental as it is for physical to physical how can this be proven? There is physical evidence for physical causation but not for mental causation. Physical reductionism either ends in everything being physical or some point where physical acts move to or from mental acts.

The burden of proof is essential the Hard Problem. This is a problem for 100% of people not 0.1% last I heard.

From there I build a theory which is absolutely a work in progress, but I can't get anybody to go deeper than the initial premise because most just want to talk about human morality. — Philosophim

Where?

EDIT: nvrmind. Found it

Much like the proposition of the Language Instinct I think the same can generally be said about having an Art Instinct. Such instincts may be no more than biological spandrels but irrespective of this they have come to possess meaning for the subjective human life -- where perhaps we live in nothing more than a room of smoke and mirrors!

If you want to feel free. I have been in the same position before whenever I mentioned Husserl I felt like I was banging a drum for him or something. Get it out of your system :)

- The physical causes the mental but not vice versa - epiphenomenalism — bert1

One thing that may explain a lot is that Language is an epiphenomenon and we use it to explain its own existence and practically everything else.

Not sure if you get what I mean, but hope to start another thread on this one day once I have hashed it out more thoroughly.

@Leontiskos What are your views on Mental to Physical and Mental to Mental causation?

My interest does extend beyond philosophy of mind, but would like to keep things related to this area if possible.

Cop out! :D

Yet, we are aware of things that do not exist for us through abstractions. We are 'aware' of abstractions.

I think there is nothing particularly faulty in planting yourself in a strong physicalist position, but at the same time there are limitations to physical reductionism. No knowing something still leaves the possibility of something.

By this I mean that our concept of the 'physical world' has shifted with broader understanding across human history -- and pre-history no doubt! the physical world used ot be something more about Mass, but now Fields and such have altered what it is we are referring to as 'physical'.

It could be imagined that someone could make the faulty assumption that all white powder is the same because it is white simply because they have yet to discern any difference beyond aesthetic appearences. Once interacted with consistently people can slowly but surely come to understand that beyond appearances things are not always what they seem to be.

Of course the onus is on non-physical positions to help physicalist positions rethink what 'physical' means now and coudl mean under a cognitive paradigm shift.

Maybe.

I know that might sound unfairly dismissive, but I also believe there's at the very least a big dose of truth in it. — flannel jesus

The current paradigm is the current paradigm. As long as we are not going backwards.

There is a reason I get aggravated when discussing philosophical ideas and people seem wholly unaware of scientific evidence that can help them refine or rethink the question/s they are playing with.

Note: Philosophically physicalism (as a rational position) does not hold all the answers and it is more than reasonable, in many ways, to take other positions seriously even if they are also left wanting. I am not really in favour of a utilitarian approach that clumsily weighs abstract proofs against physical evidence. I think it this issue that causes the biggest misunderstandings across all fields of human knowledge.

supervenience — J

Yes please! Complicated concept but a could be well worth getting deep into here :)

Both are abstract contents that only have meaning in the physically embodied world.

Basic Kantian stuff ;)

I was not aware Russell had said that. Thanks :)

Quote from book or essay?

How do you contend with arguments against physical reductionism and elimitivism?

Basically I am asking what convinces of this?

It is not my intention to cause any disruption to your thread, so I will not take this any further. — T Clark

I reject it too. Not that I claim to be a philosopher, it is just something I have had doubts about via my understanding of physics from an early age; and has since been reinforced by whimsical musings and more profound ineffiable experiences too.

I have yet to find any means of framing this in a rational context though :D

Please extrapolate. That is ONE work of his I have not read through cover to cover yet.

I think you are probably approaching this in a similar manner to me.

I think there is an issue of language use invovled in what we are saying. When I read philosophical arguments involving the issue of causation, they terms are always framed in a specific manner -- often highly abstracted -- so as to be almost non-appliable to daily human life. Such framing makes perfect sense when it comes to the hard sciences that do not involve biological messiness, but less so when we talk of subjective experience and individual acts.

What bothered me was a reading a while back regarding how a mental state causes me to move my arm. The author framed the mental act as effecting the muscles, yet this is obviously an arbitrary point in the chain of events, as we could instead say 'No! That is too far down the line. The mental act to physical act begins at the neuronal level where the muscles received the signal," and then someone else may say "Wait a minute! The mental to phsyical act happens in the Brain".

The phsyical reductionist argument obvious suffers and it seems that a kind of elimitivism makes more sense from a physicalist perspective.

As for Mental to Mental, my position is we cannot say anything about such as it does not realy exist other than by way of using physical sensory data to progress the thought (real or imagined) as in the case of believing it will rain or not.

My view is that when people talk of Mental to Mental causation they are really talking about some mental state (physical or otherwise depending on your philosophical perspective) connected to another mental state by physical states.

To use a loose ananlogy, as Gazzaniga talked about split brain patients showing that the hemisphere effectively communicated in the physical world through sensory perception completely unbeknowst to the subject of the brain. If you are familiar?

Yes. What do we do about this? Ignore it or throw darts into dark and hope to hit something?

That is an interesting approach. Not sure I buy into it though as there is evidence enough that one physical event leads to another (physically) and this is quite easily observed.

If you push your view to the point you are I feel you are effectively end up arguing for solipsism?

What is an example of such an idea? Who holds that there is such a thing? — Wayfarer

Many people.

A general outline could be someone holds a belief (1) and has an intentional response (2) to said belief.

The most common examples of this are A Believes (mental state) it will rain, does not Desire (mental state) to get wet, and so intends (mental state) to take an umbrella when they go outside.

A Mental State being a non-reductive state: As Nagel and Chalmers put forward.

There are differing approaches to this position obviously. Eliminitivism (something liek Dennett) and Dualism (something like Descartes) are two other different perspectives.

As for mental causation, what if I were to write something that caused you to become agitated? Would that not constitute an example of mental causation that has physical consequences such as increasing your pulse? — Wayfarer

That sounds like a physical reduction argument. Some argue that all mental states are physically reducible - then we enter into the Hard Problem of consciousness.

which is characterized by heightened perceptual awareness, emotional engagement, a non-utilitarian or nonjudgmental stance, a diminished sense of self, and often a sense of emerging meaning or form. — praxis

This is the kind of definitional approach that interests me. The question then becomes are there instances of some/all of these elements in items not considered 'an experience of art'. If I view a beautiful river I would not call it Art yet the experience has all the hallmarks of what you mention.

The question for me then is if someone literally created a physical representation of a river that could be easily mistaken for a natural river then has that person produced Art? I guess for you you see no disparity other than in the creation (which does not fit into your definition of Art as an object).

So, you literally call the appreciation of natural beauty that moves someone Art but the Art 'is in the eye of the beholder' rather than the beauty?

But perhaps this isn't where you want to focus? — J

Go for it! I am kinda of the mind that they both suffer with the same underlying problem of how causation is framed.

Yes, I guess thats sums the emotional expression I am referring to. Just because I make this clear distinction it does not mean it is objectively discernable. We will have opinions on what degree of 'moving' is necessary and in what circumstances (as stated previously, I would not call a mountain Art but obviously nature 'moves' people).

We can look at a work of propaganda as possessing artistic qualities, be this through use of artistic composition or otherwise appealing to some indivdual beyond mere intellect. Just because the primary purpose of a work may be intellectual (in this case political) it can still be considered by some to possess enough 'movement' to influence the audience beyond the mere means of political/intellectual persuasion. In fact, many arguments are often dressed up in a pleasing aesthetic purposeless (or unconsciously chosen) so as to make the point hit home more cleanly. Metaphor and analogy can be put to good use in political discourse.

I see the use of art in propaganda as playing with artistic discourse/images so as to draw more appeal to an intellectual point. Of course, plenty of artwork does this too -- Banksy being an obvious case -- yet just because an artwork has a political message it does not necessarily detract from it being an artwork.

I think more confusion comes into play when art is performed rather than itemised. Going back to what I was referring to regarding the differences between static forms and temporal forms. Temporal forms of art (music, novels, plays, etc.,.) are more easily able carry political content without loses artistic significance, as they can play between 'scenes' and create interwoven narratives more than a painting or sculpture can. When Banksy shredded his work at the auction the Artwork became a symbol of a performance -- it gained a certain historical weight --- and if we refer the Act alone (the shredding) as Art we are effectively in the realm of what I would call a conceptual work NOT conceptual art.

I am curious what you think about my thoughts in the OP regarding the difference between painting and drawing? Where do you agree and disagree? Do you see much of a difference?

No. It is an element of what makes art Art. An essential one though.

The use of art includes making us feel certain ways -- but that's also the use of propaganda, for instance, which we'd not call art. — Moliere

Vietnamese propaganda posters are considered Art by some -- including myself. I think propaganda often makes use of art to portray a message. This point may make it easier to see where I am coming from in terms of conceptual art not being art. It is not that ALL propaganda and ALL conceptual art is not art, it is about the intensity of the Art elements -- one key aspect I refer to as 'moving' the subject.

Anyone dedicated knows that there are techiniques they use, intentionally or not, that play on human perception. There is always an element of 'deceit' (maybe too strong a word) in this. An instance of this woudl be how horror movies use low frequency sounds that cause all humans to feel like they are being watched. This is obviously useful if you are trying to induce a certain emotional response to the film they are viewing. An artwork has to draw the eye or ear and -- primarily -- the feelings of those exposed to it. If there is an area of sensory experience I am unsure of when it comes to Art it would be cookery. This I find hard to place within the realm of Art in the sense of Artwork. I think it is in areas like this that we have one term 'art' and another 'Art,' where the former is more in lien with the ancient Greek 'arete' rather than referring to something liek a painting. Of course, the problem is we can talk about the arete of the Art, or art of the Art. This is where I think the mongrel language of English causes confusion.

To get back to the whole issue of Drawing and Painting (got rather sidetracked there!) I do think the element of space comes into play quite substantially. A drawing is often much smaller due to the size of the tools and the application of material onto the paper. A painting has a much larger reaching scope.

An artist out to produce a work -- in any medium -- will often begin with pencil and paper; be this to write dialogue, capture a poetic moment or literally make a rough sketch. The daily use of a tool is not something we find readily in a paintbrush compared to a pen or pencil.

I think the main difference is likely in these elements. The size and scope, as well as the daily familiarity with both tools and materials used in the process. Paint can be made from many things, so there is more of a variety in terms of texture that does not readily lend itself to paintings. There is the fluidity of painting to and layering, that can be something form of ink drawing can produce but is not exactly prone to function in that way.

I do think with more impressionistic and abstracted styles there could be an argument that painters have adopted drawing techniques such as making use of hatching techniques in their own way. Saying that, more ancient forms of Art used such abstraction early on, so realism is likely the 'unusual' case historically for a number of reasons.

I hope it's clear why the 1st two statements seem to contradict the next two. — J

I see no contradiction. Simply stating that Art is X does not mean it cannot be viewed in a variety of ways within X.

The artistic eye is not Art. The audience is disconnected and connected to the piece of art. The source of the emotion is nowhere other than in the people involved. The piece of art engages this emotional response.

This is one item of what makes an artwork an artwork. Obviously a leaf on a tree can give a sublime emotion of beauty, but it is not an artwork simply because it is beautiful. Many (or rather any) items can initiate such emotional responses, but it is the intensity of them that makes something more or less one thing than another.

A rabbit is not a car. A house it not a fruit. A concept is not art. Art can express concepts though, but that is not a defining principle of an artwork. There is no contradiction I have just let a lot unsaid because there is a helluva lot to say about this subject.

I do not need intent to produce an artwork. I do express myself emotionally when I do. It is an exploration of places and times between and around. The same goes for the audience. The artwork itself is merely a vehicle that appears concrete in and of itself. The solidity of it -- in whatever medium -- is enhanced by its beauty (or juxtapostion to beauty).

A urinal can be an object of art. It was designed and made in that particular form, by someone, and most probably expressed something beyond mere functionality to some degree. There is unwrit appeal imprinted upon every human production. We can look upon every object engaged with as Art in this respect, but then if every thing we touch is Art why use the term Art when Handmade or Machinemade serfves that purpose.

I feel like we might be going off track. I am willing to keep this going elsewhere if need be?

In general, I read you as wanting to set up some criteria to divide art from non-art, based on audience response. This is a different strategy from using criteria based on the object itself (what is it made of, who made it, how difficult was it, etc.) but shares the idea that art can be discovered. — J

No I am not. This is one facet of art. My view is based on the artists intent, the audience, the effect on people who view and produce art, and looking upon items with an artistic eye.

Brillo Box can be seen as something like someone noticing something in nature and framing it is a certain way to show it to people. The primary point of Art is to make an emotional connection.

An institute is a poor example of the essence of something. It is open to nefarious political manipulation, not something in the Public Sphere. If you want to cage an animal you can it behave in very predictable ways. Art is like an animal and to frame it as some institutional item is frankly ridiculous.

I actually deleted a paragraph earlier but now I think it is appropriate to mention this straneg habit people have of using an individual lens to view nebulous ideas. I am not looking at this from ONE position. I have considered many items and my complete answer woudl be an amalgam of many things. A one view only perspective is a terrible approach when it comes to understanding anything with any reasonable depth. I have mentioned ONE primary criteria of many.

Edit: Meaning I think it is not simply about the audience or the artist, it is about both and the relations between. In some sense any institutionalisation of Art is moving the experience away from the human experience. In the Art World critics of across every medium of Art have voiced disapproval only to change their minds due to the majority. The question is then how much of this is pandering to popular opinion and how much is genuine in the critique of Art. The critique of Art is parallel to Art in general. It is a rationalisation of a highly irrational realm. This is where the problems arise in asigning value to a work as Art or Non-art.

With technologies such as photography Art seeps into other mediums. We should not confuse the variety of mediums as expressing anything other Art.

My first response to the OP was to consider the tools we use. The drawing is more closely related to writing apparatus, whilst a paintbrush is historically associated with replicating images, both realistically and abstractly.