It is this visual and auditory imagery that informs our intellectual considerations, not whatever distal causes are responsible for such imagery. — Michael

Different thread, same issue. What are the steps that the visual and auditory imagery take to inform our intellectual considerations? Do they do so directly, straight from the "I see a post box" cortex to the "I think I'll put my letter in it" region?

You seem to think that the hidden states' steps (light scattering, retinal stimulation, occipital modelling...) mean that the connection is indirect, but the steps that the visual image takes to our response (hippocampus re-firing, working memory channel, sensorimotor inference, proprioceptive cascade...) are direct. Why? Both processes seem to have steps. There are a number of steps between object and model. There are a number of steps between model and response. Why are the latter steps direct and the former indirect?

I don't think it creates conditions. — Tzeentch

So what does?

You seem to be deliberately trying to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. I won't play that game. This obviously isn't about the English language. — Tzeentch

How can you and I discuss what is moral if you think you can just make up what the word means on a whim?

Morality is a set of principles that guide behavior — Tzeentch

So do the rules of chess. So what distinguishes morality from any other set of principles which guide behaviour?

The conditions didn't change until one had finally made up their mind and turned their intentions into physical actions. — Tzeentch

So did someone else force your physical actions, like a marionette? Because otherwise you're just being pedantic to avoid the point. The point is that you created the conditions in question. If you want to say they were created when you walked away, or the moment you did something other than build the house, then fine. The point is, you created them. By your non-interference (by doing something else instead of helping) you create the conditions in which it is impossible to build a house and all the harms which go along with that.

Why? Because we voluntarily created a situation in which we cause harm if we aren't to take said responsibility. — Tzeentch

But why is that immoral? Can't I just say that I've decided it isn't, using my rational logic?

Plato and other thinkers alerted me to the fact that my previous conception of morality was unexamined and muddy, not unlike yours. — Tzeentch

What is the goal of the examination?

That’s really not true. — Xtrix

Really? I did caveat the claim with 'in the Western world'. Do I move in such restricted circles. I can't think of a single person I meet who would look at me with puzzlement if I asked what we ought do about climate change. If there are exceptions they're few and far between.

Of those who do, I think the problem is powerlessness and hopelessness. — Xtrix

OK, interesting. Can you say more about what makes you think that?

If you can prove the existence of an object like the Higgs particle then you can logically prove the existence of a larger object that we humans refer to as "an apple" through the same methods of testing and using instruments that bypass our perception. We can provide all the data about the apple that confirms it to be that kind of an object, based on how it correlates with what our perception tells us. — Christoffer

Right. So we tell the machine how to distinguish an apple, and it does so. How does that prove that aliens would also distinguish apples? The machine only did it because we told it to, and told it how.

So what's the question again? — Wayfarer

Why you consider the conclusion of cognitive science to place no constraints on what one can believe metaphysically about the mind, but the conclusions from physics do place a constraint on what one can believe metaphysically about the world.

What has physics got that cognitive science doesn't?

It seems an awful lot like cherry-picking. You've found some results in the sciences which support your pre-existing beliefs so you bang that drum. When results from the sciences do not support your pre-existing beliefs, you claim science has no place in philosophy.

The only definite fact in all of this is that quantum physics undermines realism. — Wayfarer

No it doesn't. I have a book on my shelf about many worlds in which the intro reads "All the chapters start from the point of realism". It's by Simon Saunders a professor in the philosophy of physics at Oxford.

His position is that of structural realism. The SEP describes it as...

... the most defensible form of scientific realism

I would not presume to have a favorite interpretation of a subject in which I am not qualified — Janus

I definitely have favorite interpretations of subjects I'm not qualified in, can't seem to help it. But I certainly attempt to approach discussion of those subjects with a little humility, especially when speaking to experts on it.

I admire your nonpartisanship, but I don't always manage it.

why not take it to the negotiation table? — jorndoe

You mean take 15 points of concession to the table?

As opposed to only 3 of those points which were requested by the Russians back in December as a solution to the Ukraine crisis which would avoid war? Refused by the US.

As opposed to only five of those concessions requested by The Russians just three weeks into the war? Refused by the US.

As opposed to the now 15 point plan proposed way back in March to which the US response was to talk about war crimes and chemical weapons, the French response was to claim Russia were lying...

---

The points you're now pretending to be surprised about have been live issues since 2014. It is resoundingly the US and NATO who have refused to negotiate on any of them. Hence the war. The war that's making one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the US extremely rich. The war that's positioning the US to better fend off the threat from China...but I'm sure that's just coincidence. Maybe Russia didn't speak loudly enough earlier, I'm sure that's it. Maybe the US were distracted by a noise outside, or perhaps they had their headphones in... all much more sensible explanations than that the world's most powerful nation, known for manipulating events in its favour, is manipulating events in its favour.

Better, drop the notion of direct and indirect and just say we see the tree. — Banno

By far the best solution. The matter of how we see is being confused with the matter of what we see.

Folk seem confused by the idea of active inference into thinking that the subject of perception must therefore be in the mind, but this could not be further from what active inference is saying. It is, quite literally, predicated on the idea that the subject of our inference hierarchies (the process of seeing being one such) is the external hidden states, not the internal ones. The entire mathematical structure of active inference - from Fokker-Plank equations though gradient climbing formulations to the famous Bayesian model error functions - would simply fail if it were not assumed that the external world were the subject of the process. There'd be no gradient to climb (no external world forces to resist the decay to Gaussian distribution from).

So does the double slit experiment constrain metaphysics or not?

Here's a couple if examples of what I mean about the way you use the double-slit experiment.

here we are dealing with 'things' (loosely speaking) that have various 'degrees of reality'; when the particle is observed, it is 'actualised' by the observation. And we don't like that because it undercuts scientific realism

Realism wants to say that what is being observed would exist regardless whether observed or not - and in one sense that is true. But it's not true in any ultimate sense. And that is what is thrown into sharp relief by physics

So their existence is not un-ambigious, which is what is the real problem for physicalism and realism.

Realism wants to believe that there are particles which exist whether or not the measurement is taken; this is what is thrown into doubt by the double-slit experiment

...and my personal favourite...

the inconvenient truth is that the hardest of hard sciences, namely physics, has now torpedoed this [naive realism] beneath the waterline.

What's going on here? The double-slit experiment doesn't constrain (or free-up) our metaphysical notions at all, yet you dedicate entire threads to the consequences, you consider the results to have "torpedoed" realism?

When the builders come to ask the conditions are that four people are available.

When I make my intentions known that condition hasn't changed. — Tzeentch

I asked about neither of those occasions. I asked about the occasion of you changing your mind.

opinions vary greatly on what is reasonable and what isn't. — Tzeentch

No they don't. No one thinks reasonable behaviour is a bus. The word means something determinable.

why I should value your opinion over someone else's. I need reasoning and logic. — Tzeentch

Did you learn the meaning of 'reasonable' from me? No. So it's not my opinion is it?

How on earth could reason and logic tell you what the word 'reasonable' means? Are you suggesting a non-English speaker could 'work out' what reasonable means by a process of rational inference?

I determine it on the basis of reason and moral principles. — Tzeentch

So if you didn't speak English you could just 'work out' what moral means using reason?

In the context of our example it sure seems that way. Remember you have also claimed that changing the conditions causes harm, so now you're implying that by internally changing your mind, you're causing harm. Seems absurd to me. — Tzeentch

So you intend to help. The conditions are thst it's possible to build a house. You change your mind and walk away. The conditions are now that it's impossible to build a house.

If you changing your mind didn't cause the conditions to change, what did?

They voluntarily bring about the conditions in which a child will rely on them for survival. — Tzeentch

Yep.

That's when it becomes the parent's responsibility. — Tzeentch

Not if it's voluntary. They just decide it doesn't.

You're now claiming that responsibility is not voluntary, that some actions bring about a non-optional responsibility. Why? And why only some actions? Why doesn't, for example, your benefitting from the protection of your community not bring about a responsibility to help with the housebuilding?

It does not. It's a mental construction we use to model reality, but such mental constructions do not necessarily exist in reality. — Tzeentch

No inaction is a word we use to describe neutral action opposite to the action in question. You're always performing some action really. You breathe, digest, look about...

How did you learn what the word 'moral' means? — Isaac


By reading Plato I suppose. — Tzeentch

Plato decided what the word moral means? You didn't know how to use the word until you read Plato? People who haven't read Plato don't know what moral means? This just gets weirder and weirder.

Before the builders ask my help the condition is that there are four people available. After I have made it clear I wish not to get involved, there are four people available. — Tzeentch

What about before you change your mind and decide not to help (having previously planned to)?

Reasonableness isn't a part of my argument. — Tzeentch

Then why are you disputing what is reasonable?

reasonableness as you are using it is very subjective and in my view unusable. — Tzeentch

I'm just saying that some behaviour is reasonable and some behaviour is not. You learnt how to use the word 'reasonable' in this context. You know what it means. You did not determine what it means. Others did.

In my "community" ideas vary wildly about what is moral, and many of those ideas I would consider clearly the opposite. — Tzeentch

When you were learning the meaning of the word 'moral' we're you shown examples of torture, genocide and slavery to help you learn its meaning? No. So those behaviours are not moral. It's not what the word means.

So it's not possible to change your mind? — Isaac


Sure I can. — Tzeentch

So when you change your mind, what happens to the conditions? Do they change or not? You change your mind, the conditions change. You don't change your mind, the conditions don't change. Are you seriously going to claim you changing your mind doesn't bring about a change in conditions?

If you scroll back through this discussion you'll see the intentions of the parents are not what's being questioned. — Tzeentch

I know, but the intentions of the non-involved are. You're applying your approach to morality inconsistently. You said both intentions and consequences matter.

When one has voluntarily taken upon themselves the responsibility to care for the person in need.

For example, a parent cannot let their child starve, because the parent voluntarily created a situation in which the child depends on them to fulfill their life needs. — Tzeentch

That's not an example of the case you've given. If it's voluntary then a parent might choose to have a child but not take on the responsibility of caring for them. Or they might decide to then change their mind.

Because things that do not exist in reality do not have consequences. — Tzeentch

Inaction exists. Otherwise what are we talking about.

Well if you're interested in my approach to morality, you're in luck because I've already been sharing it with you over the last few pages. — Tzeentch

Not your approach. The meaning of the word. How did you learn what the word 'moral' means?

The reason I post on this forum is to test my ideas. — Tzeentch

How?

What was proposed before was that my availability was already decided, and that to dissent was to create conditions and harm. — Tzeentch

I don't recall making any mention of it being 'already decided', but regardless, you admit that, in deciding, you create the conditions for harm.

Reasonableness isn't decided by majority decision, as we've already established. — Tzeentch

Then by what? How did you learn how to use the word 'reasonable'? Why do you not apply it to the act of making pottery, or use it to refer to a bus, or the colour red? You know what 'reasonable' means because you've heard people use it. Use it to describe certain kinds of behaviour. Those people unarguably then, determined what 'reasonable' means. You didn't. You learned the word from them.

There were never going to be five people available to build the house. — Tzeentch

So you were born unwilling to help? All your decisions programmed from birth?

that there are and were only four people available all along. — Tzeentch

So it's not possible to change your mind? Weird in, weird out.

Some do, some don't. — Tzeentch

I didn't ask about some I asked about your community. When you were learning the meaning of the word 'moral' we're you shown examples of torture, genocide and slavery to help you learn its meaning?

Me having ideas about morality does not mean I believe individuals shouldn't be free to make their own choices — Tzeentch

So your moral rules don't apply to others. What exactly are you arguing for then?

I don't see what that has to do with individualism, nor what part of our discussion this is relevant to. — Tzeentch

I have reasons for having children. Do you assume they are good reasons?

Non-interference can be immoral, however it is not so by default. — Tzeentch

Agreed. Took an inordinate length of time to get there. So...how do you judge when non-interference is immoral?

Inaction does not have consequences. To argue such would be a typically human but erroneous way of representing causality. The drowning man doesn't drown because I did not help him, but because he could not swim and somehow ended up in the water.

The apple doesn't fall on the ground because I wasn't there to catch it.

etc. — Tzeentch

All that's just restating your assertion. Why does inaction not have consequences?

I imagine that someone in the Middle-East who is about to stone a woman to death for adultery would come with a similar argumentation. — Tzeentch

I imagine they might, but I'm not talking to someone in the middle east. I'm talking to you.

It would be more accurate to say I would not ask you to conform to my ideas of morality. — Tzeentch

Then why are you telling me them?

But we have. We're currently in the middle of a surge, in fact. At least in the US. — Xtrix

Well then problem solved. Good job... Cup of tea?

Lots of propaganda against unions. — Xtrix

True. So remove the propaganda? But that seems obvious too, I'm sure activists have already thought of that. So why haven't they been able to. What's in the way?

The fact that something hasn't happened (which is somewhat untrue) means that the problem is with the "idea"? Says who? — Xtrix

No, the problem isn't with the idea (read my quote again). If everyone already knows the idea but isn't doing anything in accordance with it, then something else must be in the way. Just telling them the idea a second time clearly isn't going to do anything.

Everyone already knows about climate change. everyone already knows we should use electric cars, solar panels, less in general, go vegetarian, plant a tree... They just don't. So what's stopping them? Clearly it's not that they haven't been told what to do.

Higgs particle is something we cannot perceive but is detectable in a repeatable fashion by equipment built through theories backed up by mathematical logic. — Christoffer

Good example.

The perception of science data does not render the science data wrong just because we perceive the result of those tests. They have no correlation with each other. — Christoffer

I agree.

...but we were talking about apples. I'm not seeing the logical link between the Higgs Boson being identified by purely mathematically programmed machines and apples.

Your claim was that...

if we and a bunch of aliens, with extremely different perceptions, were to analyze the apple, even with different types of tools, it would still confirm the existence of an object that we could apply definitions to that are descriptive of what we define as an apple. — Christoffer

...that even a machine, an alien, would confirm the existence of an apple. You've shown that machines see Higgs Bosons, but not apples. Apples are collections of these mathematical constructs (quarks and gluons, and all the others I don't know the name of). The properties of fundamental particles are mathematically determined (as you said) the idea that some collection of them ends there and not over there, is not mathematically determined, it's determined by our form of life, our activities, they way we treat and interact with these collections of particles. I don't see an argument that aliens would see the same boundaries as we do when their form of life might be entirely different.

I'm not in control over the ideas in other individuals' heads for which I may or may not be available. — Tzeentch

You either decide you're available to help with the housebuilding or that you're not. It's not someone else's judgement. If I ask you to help build my house and you say "no" and walk away, I'm not subjectively judging you unavailable. You deliberately and knowingly made yourself that way.

Those activities aren't reasonable at all. — Tzeentch

Then you've misunderstood the meaning of the word reasonable. How many people in your language community have you heard use the word unreasonable to describe fifteen minutes of relaxation time?

I did not create that condition. I've already given you multiple examples as to why that would be absurd — Tzeentch

And I've already refuted them (seeing as we're playing the "I've already done that" game).

Remember when a few comments back I asked you why you felt people were entitled to another's action?

You denied that you were. I wouldn't be so sure of that. — Tzeentch

It's got nothing to to with 'entitled' Five people are needed to build a house. You create the situation where there are only four by walking away. You created the situation in which it is now impossible to build a house from one where it was possible. It doesn't require that anyone be entitled to your help. It's simply an fact that by denying it you create a situation in which the house cannot be built. It would be exactly the same if the four definitely weren't entitled to your help. If they were really mean and you'd only just finished helping them all loads, they wouldn't be entitled to your help then. you'd still, de facto, have created a condition in which it is impossible to build a house out of one where it was possible.

I don't need to list the countless atrocities committed throughout history by collectives that were unable to discern right from wrong. — Tzeentch

And your community doesn't think they were wrong?

The degree to which you lean towards individualism is a) inconsistent - it appears to only apply to inaction, not action, — Isaac


Explain. — Tzeentch

You don't think individuals should be left to their own devices to act as they see fit (such as procreation). You don't argue that their reasons for action should be assumed to be good.

Because one cannot be judged for something one isn't involved in.

I argue that not getting involved is acceptable by default. — Tzeentch

You haven't argued, you've just declared it. I asked for a reason. If you can judge someone's action to be immoral, why can I not judge your inaction to be immoral? Whether you're consequentialist or deontologist, inaction or action can both have consequences or be a dereliction of a duty.

of course you fence with notions of reasonableness - fair enough, but if you get to apply your notions of reasonableness then everyone does. — Tzeentch

They're not 'my' notions of reasonableness. I haven't just plucked them out o thin air. I've been living with other humans using the word 'reasonable' for nearly 60 years. I have a pretty good idea of what 'reasonable' means that's considerably more than just me making it up. Otherwise, why don't I think it refers to pottery?

It's a judgement, not of a person, but of an action and/or the arguments that support it. — Tzeentch

I see. So it's OK for me to be immoral?

Must the thread really be reset ever so often (⇒ repetition)? — jorndoe

Well I thought probably not, but here you are popping up at random to remind people what we knew by page 10. That Russia are invading Ukraine, that the Russian line is this is a special operation with specific, justified strategic goals, and that Ukraine and it's Western backers think it's a land grab.

What exactly do you think your latest round of propaganda brings that's new?

from an empirical pov the OP question is meaningless - it goes without saying that there’s an external material world — Wayfarer

Yet you've raised the apparent consequences of the double slit experiment in this very thread. Are you suggesting that wasn't an empirical observation? Or are you suggesting that, for example, a naive materialist need take no notice at all of that empirical result because empirical data need not constrain our metaphysics? Is materialism rescued after all? The main evidence thrown against it is from quantum physics.

I do know that it’s a different subject to cognitive science. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. But can you seriously claim that nothing you've learnt about the world empirically has informed any of your metaphysical positions? Would you be of the same worldview had you spent your life in a cave as you are having spent it in the world?

All I'm trying to do here is bring what I know (cognitive science, psychology) to the discussion, together with the consequences I think that knowledge has for our options with regards to metaphysical positions.

If you believe that metaphysical positions are completely unconstrained by empirical observation, then I can see that this sort of approach is not for you, but I don't think it's in the least bit an odd position in philosophy to consider that results from the empirical sciences inform our metaphysics.

You yourself frequently cite discoveries in quantum physics in support of your idealism. Should we levy the same complaint against you. Philosophy is not quantum physics!

I don't see it as a competition — Wayfarer

Yet you're judging philosophers by a much less stringent standard than scientists. Scientists are marked down for actually having unexamined preconceptions, whereas philosophers can merely claim not to have any (having apparently examined them all) and you require nothing further to take that as gospel.

you don't really see how it could be anything else — Wayfarer

I'm very fond of empiricism in many aspects of life. I don't see how that leads to me being unable to see how the alternatives could exist. I just don't prefer them.

It's like me saying that because you don't like heavy metal, you don't see how anyone could. It's not the same judgement.

I can see perfectly well how alternatives to empiricism might exist. I don't find them persuasive (in those contexts where I prefer an empirical approach).

I'm no expert on philosophy, not by a long way, but I don't think that my disagreeing with certain philosophical approaches is, alone, evidence that I've not understood them.

what, challenging "the west" to shoot it out on "the battlefield"? Boasting military prowess? Walking out on a top meeting? Shutting down talks? All the while bombing the Ukrainians and announcing a larger "special operation"...? :D Get real. There's been comments in the thread already. — jorndoe

Are you seriously suggesting that it's a mysterious concept to you that newspapers can give a biased impression of events without actually lying?

I can't believe you're so naive as to think that a selection of true and real happenings accurately represent the entirety of what's going on?

So perhaps dispense with the faux surprise that someone would call you out on it.

you don't seem to hold philosophy in much esteem. — Wayfarer

On the contrary, I think it's a very important activity. Holding an activity in high esteem does not require that I treat its practitioners with a reverence that the practitioners of equally esteemed activities are not blessed with.

Or do you hold science in low esteem?

do you see from the evidence I've provided you with, that systems theory would be a very flimsy sort of tool for modeling the true reality of things like the universe and a cell? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about.

Availability is something that exists in the mind of some other individual. — Tzeentch

Are you suggesting that your own availability is out of your control?

They're sitting on their lawn, reading books, watching tv. — Tzeentch

All reasonable activities (in moderation and depending on what else is happening around them). Rest and relaxation are demonstrably necessary.

Parents create the condition of life, and life invariably also includes harm. — Tzeentch

You created the condition where too few people were available to build the house. Homelessness invariably also includes harm.

the evidence to the contrary is so vast that I would indeed be confused if this is what you're arguing. — Tzeentch

What evidence would that be?

In the absence of objective truth we have two options: leave the individual to judge themselves (individualism) or let the community dictate (collectivism).

I lean heavily towards individualism.

But we are going wildly off-topic here. — Tzeentch

It's entirely the topic. The degree to which you lean towards individualism is a) inconsistent - it appears to only apply to inaction, not action, and b) extreme - leading to the same conclusion we always end up with - rubbish in, rubbish out.

Because procreation is an act, and not non-interference. — Tzeentch

That's just a declaration of difference. You might as well say "because act has three letters and non-interference has 15".

Why does non-interference escape judgement?

Why must we assume the reasons for non-interference are good, but not for action?

I'm not judging anyone. I'm presenting moral principles and the logic that supports it. — Tzeentch

So declaring something immoral is not a judgement? On what planet?

Are we really coming down to nothing more than that the antinatalists want to be able to morally judge others but don't want others morally judging them?

You get to judge us for our actions, but your inaction is off limits and whatever your reasons are must be assumed good.

It's a notion that doesn't exist to an uninvolved bystander. It's the person who has the desire to build a house that creates it. — Tzeentch

Right. So you are responsible for creating those conditions then, because you are responsible for your availability.

Perhaps so, but I don't agree that it is the uninvolved bystander that creates the condition, nor the suffering.

It seems to me the builders are themselves creating the conditions that cause suffering. — Tzeentch

What? The four people who are available are responsible for the fact that the fifth isn't there? What the fuck?

This idea of 'availability' is subjective. I could reasonably assume half my town to be "available" to do things for me. — Tzeentch

No you couldn't. Half the town would clearly be occupied with a ton of other reasonable tasks. You could reasonably assume half the town are available to do some things for you. And indeed are and they do.

And they don't thereby create the conditions for my house not being built — Tzeentch

Just gainsaying is not an argument. Or else... Parents to not create the conditions for harm to befall their children, those perpetrating the harm do.

And who is to be the arbiter of this? — Tzeentch

I've already answered thst several times now. The community reaches an agreement by various means. Is there something about this answer you don't understand?

People do as they please regardless. The question is whether reasoned morality is a part of that which pleases them. — Tzeentch

Mortality is not 'doing as you please'.

I don't agree that what is "easy" should in the context of morality be determined by a third party.

It is precisely what is under contention. — Tzeentch

So we all do as we please then?

whatever reason they presents is sufficient, no matter how irrational it may seem to a third party, assuming it is not malevolent. — Tzeentch

So why does this not apply to procreation? Whatever reason the prospective parent thought made it morally OK to have children must be sufficient, no matter how irrational it may seem to a third party, assuming it is not malevolent.

Once more you are just using different criteria depending on which supports your theory. Now it is that the reasons for inaction cannot be judged by a third party and must be assumed good, but the reasons for action apparently magically can be judged by a third party and are not assumed to be good.

Which is it?

Building strong unions — Xtrix

But we haven't, so the problem doesn't seem to be with the idea. The problem seems to be with whatever is in the way.

Doing things individually, like installing solar panels, heat pumps, electrifying one's home (stoves, water, etc) and buying other electric things (like lawnmowers) would be helpful too. — Xtrix

Again, we haven't. So the idea doesn't seem to be the problem rather than whatever is in the way.


I doubt there's a single person in the Western world who doesn't know about climate change and what they ought to do to help. Yet they're not doing it. So knowing what to do to help clearly isn't the problem. People already know and are not doing it.

The problem runs far deeper than just consumer choices or unionism. It's about the people we've become.

Right. So both scientists and philosophers actually work under unexamined cultural presuppositions, but the difference is that philosophers claim not to. Whereas almost everyone knows and agrees that scientists do.

I don't see that as a positive for philosophy. If anything it's a downside. If you're going to work under cultural presuppositions, you might as well have it out in the open.

I was never available in the first place. So that condition was already in place - I did not create it. — Tzeentch

Why, is your availability outside of your control? Did someone else force you to become unavailable?

There are only four people available. — Tzeentch

That's not the condition I'm referring to. I'm referring to the condition where there are only four people potentially available. That condition leads to suffering because five people need to be potentially available as a minimum requirement.

I don't accept that answer. Societies have agreed on terribly immoral things in the past. — Tzeentch

Right, so back to everyone doing as they please. No morality.

Tell me about those factors, and I will tell you why it is still inconsistent. — Tzeentch

I already have. The limits on mental and physical capacity, limuts on access to resources, reasonable other goals which occupy one's time...

It's a fairly common phenomenon in certain countries for people not to help out in traffic accidents out of fear for being held accountable. — Tzeentch

Right. Then they couldn't easily save them then, could they? They'd risk some psychological harm (fear of retribution). I specified "easily".

this presupposes the person in question was a participant in the first place. — Tzeentch

Nope. Merely present. I'm talking about conditions (as you are in procreation - apples with apples). The 'conditions' under which it is not possible to build a house are that there are only four people present. Before anyone has even decided if they're 'available', four is too few. So you have created a condition (too few people even potentially available) where it is not possible to build a house and so people suffer harm.

As far as I'm concerned, by non-interference one isn't creating any conditions that impact a given event. — Tzeentch

See above.

I'd argue that believing oneself to be the proper arbiter to judge who could easily save who is at least equally sociopathic. — Tzeentch

One doesn't, we rely on society as a whole to come to an agreement.

The idea that non-interference is immoral by default cannot be applied consistently. — Tzeentch

No, I can't. Are you seriously having trouble understanding the notion of taking more than one factor into account?

that belief is not universally held. — Tzeentch

Give me s counter example then. A culture, or any person considered moral (or neutral) for standing by watching a person die who they could easily save.

systems theory ontologies — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea what a systems theory ontology might be. Systems theory is a modeling tool. It makes useful predictions and sets up the parameters of useful frameworks. It doesn't bring things into existence. The cell pre-existed systems theory, which merely describes how the cell functions in statistical terms.

I've no clue what you're arguing against, but it isn't anything I've claimed.

You understand why that is implicitly empiricist? In any case, the examples of philosophy are, of course, the philosophers — Wayfarer

Are you suggesting that it can be deduced rationally that philosophers succeed at doing what they claim to do? That we can rationally determine that if a philosopher claims to study 'the unconditioned' that they succeed in that endeavour?

We're talking about cultural presuppositions here. Ideas that seem to true by virtue of common sense, but which, when examined, turn out to be merely assumptions from one's culture.

You're claiming that scientists have such unexamined preconceptions (materialism, causality, etc), but that philosophers don't have any because "they say they don't".

do the authors actually state that? — Marchesk

Yes. The entire paper is (as is stated very clearly at the outset) about our meta-model of perception - why we feel we have qualia.

inferring that something is red is distinct from receiving selective visual sensations

Yes. The author (and me, for what it's worth) consider perception indirect. The wording in this quote again could not be more clear about what 'red' refers to. "inferring that something is red". Something. Not the inference itself, some external thing.

Furthermore, you can only see your own red that is an integral part of your virtual reality model.

Look at the part you haven't bolded.

And again here...

you cannot see my red — you can only infer that I can see red.

'Red' is referred to as a shared external property.

The paper is arguing that we model something like qualia in our meta-model of perception (not the process of perception itself) because it helps us to imagine keeping that part of the inference steady whilst changing others which helps with prediction. It's a tool in a model. Not even a model involved in perception, but in the higher order reflective models of consciousness (which would be clearer if one had read Friston's work on active inference and consciousness).

What's being confused here is the indirectness of perception and the properties of the percept. The process of perception is pretty clear (it's very well studied). Colour is determined in a stage in the iterative process that is prior to object recognition (except in cases of plain colour swatches to which we respond slightly differently). It is not possible with the current mechanisms we know about, for a person's actual perception to 'see' a red dress as an internal model. 'Red' is modeled by the V4 region (primarily) which is close to the optic nerve itself (in network terms). Our conscious awareness is several dozen steps removed and several seconds behind. For us to actually have a 'red' quale would require us to model affect directly from that V4 region, and we cannot (despite looking) find any evidence of such a process. Any affect modeling is from a red dress, or a red post box, or a red car, from which percept we later, artificially extract the 'red' as a qualia-like inference, to render prediction of, say, a green post box.

what they say there is quite straightforward non-technical English. — Michael

I asked you what one of the terms they used earlier meant and you replied that you didn't know.

What do you understand by...

free energy minimization

in the first quote?

To what do you think they're referring when they reference...

sort of neurobiological and cognitive specification that we attempt to demonstrate in this paper.

in the second quote?

What is the sense of 'model' and 'hypothesis' they mean in terms of active inference when they say...

You cannot see someone else’s red or another red because they are entailed by another model or hypothesis.

in the third quote (which also references active inference)

And we've not even touched on the theoretical framework, the context, nor the paragraphs around the ones you've picked...

Do I need to properly understand cognitive science to understand the philosophical implications of what Friston and Hobson say here? — Michael

Yes. It's a paper about cognitive science, you need to understand the terminology and theoretical context to understand it. I would have thought that was obvious.

Unless one has a very narrow (and ultimately counter-intuitive, in my opinion) definition of "causing" something (which is not the same as being held responsible for it), I do not think it makes sense to deny that one of the causes behind the man's drowning was that he was not helped. — DA671

That would be my preferred definition, but I'd be happy with at least a consistent one. What's frustrating is that causality is treated, by the antinatalists, as super-specific when talking about the harms of antinatalism "it's not my fault if I didn't directly cause it", and then suddenly becomes hyper-general when talking about the harms of procreation, where one is apparently a cause merely by "creating a situation whereby harm might come about some years later"

just empty speculations — Olivier5

...

FSB-sponsored — Olivier5

...

You write your own material, it's brilliant.

If that was true — Tate

If what was true? I asked a question. Questions aren't true or false.

I'm not using any, I'm repeating what they're saying — Michael

You're selecting bits of what they're saying with virtually no knowledge of the field and no understanding of the theoretical context, but instead of finding out what it means, you're arguing with someone who could explain it to you.

It is quite an advanced paper in cognitive science, it's embedded in a whole theoretical framework about which you know virtually nothing.

I've tried to explain it to you, but I'm not going to continue to bang my head against a wall. If you really think you can now argue positions in cognitive science after scanning a couple of papers, using terminology you admit you don't even know the meaning of, then there seems little point continuing.

What is it you understand by 'generative model posits'? What definition of generative model posit are you using?

The schizophrenic does hear voices1, she's just wrong to interpret these voices as belonging to some demon (or person, or something external to herself). — Michael

That's the point. They seem external. The authors identified the models associated with them seeming external, but they are not actually external.

People seem to have qualia. The authors identified the models associated with them seeming to have qualia, but they do not actually have qualia.