I am saying we shouldn't do it because it doesn't usually end well. I am not judging someone. — Echarmion

Fair enough, I was being a little facetious and did get the distinction you were making really.

I do seriously think that armchair psychoanalysis gets an unfairly bad rep though. It rarely yields solid answers, but then few 'armchair' activities do. Our motives (including hidden and subconscious ones) are a massive part of our interactions and the way we form beliefs and concepts. If speculation about them is too early ruled 'out of play' then we're going to miss most of what's going on. I think abandoning it is excessive, just taking it with the very large pinch of salt all armchair analysis requires is sufficient.

Because it's usually done in a dismissive manner and amounts to little more than an ad-hominem. — Echarmion

I thought we were avoiding judging worth by hasty generalisations?

It seems like the best strategy is to avoid using hasty generalisations like that in the first place. It's not like you cannot debate the pros and cons of a behaviour without engaging in armchair psychoanalysis. — Echarmion

Indeed. Although a bit of armchair psychoanalysis might be thrown in for good measure...after all, we're doing everything else here from the armchair here, why not psychoanalysis too?

The great thing about arguing over virtue signalling is that we get to waste time arguing instead of ... ah fuck it, I'm going to watch Netflix — Marchesk

The great thing about just saying "ah fuck it I'm going to watch Netflix" is that you get to go and watch Netflix...or is that the bad thing about it...?


I'm not really involved in this whole mask/non-mask issue being semi-retired anyway and living rurally, but as a bit of armchair psychoanalysis...

Masks look cool (pace Hong-Kong protests), they make a strong permanent visual statement and they can be profited from. There's also debate about the usefulness, yet they're being widely adopted and politicised.

Hand-washing doesn't look cool, it makes you look like an OCD-suffering nerd, it's usually done in private and it cannot be profited from. There's virtually no debate at all about how absolutely vital it is, yet It's being far less well adopted than it should and with very little political support.

So which aspect seems likely to be responsible for widespread adoption and politicisation?

The great thing about dismissing the 'labelling of behaviours as virtue signalling', is that you get to ignore the problems with virtue signalling whilst maintaining your ability to gain the social advantages of doing so.

We could go on...

I wrote a long convoluted answer to you, and then realised that what you say is simply not true. — unenlightened

So you're not going to either "[ask] me for expansion, justification an so on", nor "[admit] [y]our fallibility", nor "treat others as equals by laying things out clearly, and giving explanations and references as appropriate", nor "[be] willing to reconsider in the light of the discussion".

Just going to tell me I'm wrong in a single sentence. We're three exchanges in to our disagreement and already you're either breaking your own rules or you've decided that I'm so outside of the pale that I'm not worth engaging with in the spirit of resolving conflict.

I disagree that most people are self critical (effectively so), Whilst I agree that some people are more fair-minded than others, I disagree with the implication that our judgement of this property is sufficiently objective not to just create our own echo chamber. I disagree that simply flagging up the danger is sufficient to illustrate how it can be overcome.

So how do we proceed to resolve those disagreements if you're already at the stage where potentially mutually-respectful in-depth answers are already being discarded in favour of unsupported declarations of what is and is not the case?

I'm not clear on which part you disagree with, perhaps we could start there. All I'm saying is that if everyone agrees with 'the rules' and yet there are still invoked as evidence of unreasonableness then 'the rules' must underdetermine. Are you disagreeing with the fact that most people agree with the rules, or are you disagreeing with the fact that they are regularly invoked as evidence of unreasonableness?

Well you treat me as an equal by quoting what I say, and asking me for expansion, justification an so on. I treat you as an equal, hopefully, by taking your comments seriously too...
We treat each other as equals by admitting our fallibility. I could be wrong about this... you might know more than me... let's try and find out...
if I have some expertise, I still treat others as equals by laying things out clearly, and giving explanations and references as appropriate, and by being willing to reconsider in the light of the discussion.. — unenlightened

Yes, but all parties here have arguably done all those things (except admitting fallibility - I don't see much of that from either party). I'm not supporting Harry's position here (I disagree with it quite strongly in fact) what I'm interested in is that way in which generalities about rules of engagement seem to massively underdetermine. Everyone agrees with them, and yet think their interlocutors are the ones not adhering to the rules, it's always the other party being unreasonable. So 'the rules' do not, in fact, manage to specify anything useful, they're still nebulous enough for everyone to consider themselves to have met the required standard and if we could magically enforce them (by means of self-reporting) it would make virtually no difference at all to the progress of most disputes.

One can treat a 3-year-old as an equal, it's a matter of respect of the individual, mainly. — unenlightened

This may just have been a rhetorical device on your part, but it's so rare to hear this kind of attitude and it's one close to my heart so I wanted to acknowledge it with a "hear, hear!"

Communism has been tried. — Marchesk

I wasn't talking about Communism, but yes, it's been tried. So's capitalism. Rising inequality, unprecedented suicide rates and it looks like we might very well make the world uninhabitable in the next 100 years...so where does that leave us?

By "at the moment", you mean the history of civilization? — Marchesk

Not entirely what I meant, but even so it would be a fraction of human history.

We're not ants, as someone once said regarding socialism. — Marchesk

Well, I'd be interested to discuss what empirical support you'd be using for any argument that our desires are not heavily influenced by our culture.

Good luck with that. I can see Northern Europe style socialism/capitalism. I can't see the full blown thing becoming mainstream in places like the US. — Marchesk

They said the same about democratic parliaments, abolishing slavery, religious freedom, emancipation of women... Basically every major societal change has been preceded by a chorus of "that'll never work, society will crumble/rebel/regress" from the conservative old guard. What makes you think community ownership is any different?

I think it was more of what worked as a survival strategy for hunter-gatherers. Either way, I don't think using hunter-gatherers as a guide for of a high tech economy in a world of 7.8 billion people and global trade is very useful. — Marchesk

I wasn't suggesting it as a guide, merely pointing out that the idea of humans "just being" some way or other is wrong. We are mostly whatever our culture makes us, change the culture, you change who we are.

But I was more thinking about the short term chaos of declaring all property public. — Marchesk

I don't think it need be chaotic, we have infrastructure which can handle complex multinational trade, armed conflicts, domestic security... Why would economic transition suddenly be irredeemably chaotic, it's not significantly more complex than other aspects of government.

A lot of people will not be in favor of that, for starters. — Marchesk

As per above. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for the idea that humanity as a whole are 'into' any set thing. People are 'into' property ownership at the moment because we have a culture which marks it as a symbol of status (among other factors). If we change that culture there's no theoretical reason why people would not be in favour. There'll always be dissent, but there's dissent now, domestic security handles it perfectly adequately.

you'd have arguments over how to fairly divide everything up, and what happens to all the former capitalists. And you'd have the poorer people who think it's their turn to own shit instead of sharing the wealth. — Marchesk

Again, how are these not issues society already deals with. We already have disagreements about how resources should be allocated, we vote or reach consensus on it. We already have people who think they should own what's not legally theirs, they're called theives and the police deal with them (sort of). None of this is more challenging than what we already deal with, we're hardly living in utopia.

What's not good is deciding I should have no estate, because it all belongs to the community. If you want to wreck an economy, that's a good way to go about it. — Marchesk

You'll have to spell that out. I'm not an economist but I don't think it would wreck the economy, and I'm pretty sure at least a few people who are economists agree, so apart from saying "no it won't" I don't have much to argue against unless you detail the way in which declaring property to be owned by the community would bring about this economic disaster.

Which I would say is a good thing in general, because people want to own their own shit. — Marchesk

If modern hunter-gatherer communities are anything measure of how we used to live (which is, of course uncertain) then for the vast majority of human history we did not particularly "want to own our shit". Again, as I said in my earlier post, capitalist institutions have dominated influence over our culture for hundreds of years. Either you'd have to argue that such influence has no effect whatsoever (which would be quite a radical argument) or you have to acknowledge that "what people want" is not a fixed factor and is to a greater or lesser extent, determined by the the very institutions who benefit from those desires.

if you are not prepared to admit me to that status as well, then we will be talking at cross purposes at best. Without the equality and mutuality of equality. 'we' does not exist. — unenlightened

OK. This intrigued me as it seems like a thread common to many disputes. Can you be more specific about the practices which constitute 'admitting one to the status of an equal'? I'm particularly interested in how you avoid simply enjoying your own echo chamber (by declaring all opposition as simply not treating you as an equal); also in how you treat those who are not your equals - you wouldn't expect to be treated as an equal contributor to a discussion about all topics regardless of your expertise on the matter, so what approach delimits such interactions (again without simply declaring opposition to be non-expert)?

Say we have common agreements about some set of ideas {x} and we can thus discuss the disagreement about the nature of subset {xi, xii}. What's to stop us from simply declaring that we can only have a reasonable discussion with those who agree with us about set {xi} ("those who believe in set {xii} are simply not worth arguing with " ). So we limit our discussion to those who agree about set {xi}, and we happily engage in our disagreement about sub-subset {xia, xib}. Until we decide that those who agree with set {xib} are simply beyond the pale and cannot be reasonably engaged in discussion...

Do revolutions start at the beginning? Because as it stands, we're already in the middle, with people owning lots of various things and having different amounts of wealth. How would you change that? — Marchesk

That's the point of revolution (by which I mean a radical structural change, not necessarily 'up against the wall' red tides). It is because we are 'in the middle' that we cannot simply tweak things here and there. If, for example, current patterns of property ownership are simply accepted then existing power relationships will never change.

This is where the question of force comes in for a Marxist revolution, because you can't start over at the beginning without making everyone give up their possessions. — Marchesk

I think @StreetlightX dealt with this perfectly well so I'm not going to repeat the whole thing. Force is being used to maintain ownership of possessions as they are. If I set up camp in a corner of your estate the police would force me off. And as @fdrake has already said, force need not be bloody. Just increasing top-level taxation forces people to give up their possessions. No guillotines needed.

Would the revolution be a generation thing where the restructuring of society is to ban inheritance? I'm not sure that's enough, because in the meantime you still have tons of capital at play — Marchesk

Probably not enough on its own no, but I'm broadly in favour of 100% inheritance tax (above a reasonable threshold). I think it would be a start.

Say I decide to start a business. I purchase the land, have the building constructed, and buy the equipment. — Marchesk

You've started in the middle. From where did you get the capital to purchase the land, building materials and equipment? By what right did the person selling them to you own them?

Structural decisions determine who owns what, so to start with you owning capital (or land) assumes a certain structure - one, for example where male children inherit, where property is owned by the first person to till it (or steal it by force of arms), where shared assets can be exploited without compensation (such as air and water), where exploitation (such as slavery) is not compensated even when later recognised as such. These are all capitalist structural aspects by which you acquired the capital in the first place. That's why some, at least fundamentally, revolutionary act is required to remove these structures and their effects.

We see the stores of the bourgeois parts of town (& the newly-gentrified ones too) and say that we want that shit and even more — StreetlightX

I don't think I agree with this. One of the ways capitalist businesses distort the market is by deluge advertising and flooding the media. Nike don't secure a high profit on their trainers because people all rationally decided that's what they wanted. If that were the case advertising need do no more than simply infrequently display the qualities of the product. But they don't, they saturate the media with messages designed carefully to generate demand (I know there are a few studies indicating that advertising doesn't work so I'm not declaring this as gospel or anything).

As such we're left with two options of the author. Either they're claiming an, as yet, undeserved ability to remain unaffected by the influences us lesser mortals succumb to (such that their own desire for material goods is independent of their capitalist culture), or they're claiming that such market distortion doesn't take place (or is insignificant) and Nike trainers sell so well purely because they really have tapped into some primal desire for a particular style of footwear. I don't buy either.

If removing the structures of capitalism is essential (and I think it is) then we have to at least acknowledge that huge sections of our culture have been defined by the dominance of capitalist institutions over the media. We could 'take ownership' of such cultural elements and go from there, but I don't see any compelling reason why we should.

I'll try and explain it better another day. — bert1

I'm taking a little break from the forum for a while, but I would certainly read (if not respond to) such an explanation when you have the time. Just to clarify though as there seems to be some confusion from other respondents - I'm not looking for a critique of my position. I'm quite happy with it, I'm well aware that there are alternative positions and I'm also well aware that there are arguments against them, this has all been played out by our epistemic peers (if not epistemic superiors) in the papers and books on the philosophy of mind. As yet it remains unsettled, so I doubt reference to a Wikipedia article or a three paragraph post by any internet forum member is going to resolve it to the extent that I'm compelled to change my mind.

What I'm really interested in is how you personally have arrived at your belief. As @javra answered earlier "for me, it’s not a fundamental axiomatic belief, but a fundamental known regarding what is. The "how is it so" is tangential to its so being.". That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Is it axiomatic for you or is it derived from some other belief? How certain are you of it? etc. I may have poked about a bit to get at the meat of your beliefs, but it's those I'm interested in, not the persuasion either way. If that's OK with you.

This distinction @Pfhorrest made of 'phenomenal consciousness' seems very useful to this end. It's exactly that that I want to understand your beliefs about. It's not a distinction which makes any sense to me, not something distinct which requires a name, so I'd like to know how it seems that way to you. As I said, I shan't reply, but I will read with interest at some point.

In other word, there is "somewhere" this comes together. — schopenhauer1

What comes together?

At some point there is experiential processes. — schopenhauer1

Repeating it doesn't make it so. I've just explained how what you're calling 'experiential processes' can easily be thought of as a series of mental activities each of which is not only explicable in terms of neural activity, but is watchable and even in rare cases transferable directly to another mind or cluster of neural cells. You still haven't explained what it is about this 'step' that different from any other step in the explanatory process. All explanations are of the form A causes B and within that one can ask "but how does A cause B?" and expect a more detailed explanation, in the form A causes Bi, then Bii...and so on.

This is no different. Neural activity causes the sensation of awareness. The more detailed explanation is that inputs from sensory and interioception nerve endings, trigger both positive and repressive feedback loops within neural circuits to build various models whose output either forms the input of some higher level model, or some behaviour. The behaviour and it's effect them become the input and the cycle starts again - part of the this modelling is what we call things like logging data to memory, forming sentences, initiating physiological changes and initiating action.

you may be making several category errors when you say "inference calculation", and "modelling". — schopenhauer1

Well if I 'may be' then you should be able to expand on that, yes?

OK,

I am saying, as per the OP, my emotional state probably has nothing to do with risking my life to save another, i.e., I do it because it is the right thing to do. — Sam26

This is just a repeat of what you said before. The argument consists on nothing but "It is so!" - and you accuse my reasoning of being childlike?

So far I've provided four scientific papers (not to mention my nearly two decades of research experience) and you two have offered "No it isn't"

If you both think that our actions are motivated by something other than desire, then I'm genuinely interested to hear about it, but in a grown up conversation, not an series of baseless assertions and ad homs about how my argument is childlike, dim or invented. This isn't the quality of debate I'm interested in.

If you're interested in exploring the idea of actions motivated without desires then you'll need to have;

1. A Plausible mechanism - for example how the action potential reaches the hypothalamus to prepare the body physiologically for action but somehow bypasses the valence areas of the pre-frontal cortex.

2. Some empirical evidence that such a mechanism is required - for example experiments done to control for emotion (such as those with damage to the pre-frontal cortex) who nonetheless carry out heroic action.

3. A mechanism for the cultural or biological embedding of such a network - what maintains it through the process of adolescent neural pruning without being in regular use.

If you have any of those I'd be really interested to read the research. If not then I've really no interest in how you 'reckon' the brain works. I've had enough of that from my first years, and even they had the decency to have read it in some pop-sci fad rather than just make it up.

I have yet to see the least justification, except the endless invention of secret or unconscious motives, and the bald declaration that unselfishness is impossible. — unenlightened

Oh, OK. Here you go.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002598

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0131

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/18/6190

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763416301270

It's a joyless lonely world, and I am glad I don't live there. — unenlightened

And it's better to live in a world where people act out of cold rational calculus without any feeling? Each to their own I suppose.

Those things you describe all encompass experiential phenomena. — schopenhauer1

Well each of those things are completely non-mysterious activities of the brain. The whole 'what it's like' awareness mystery dissolves if you break down what constitutes an experience into its component parts. Light hits my eyes, the message is relayed to my occipital cortex, several layers of inference calculation take place, a message gets sent to other parts of the brain dealing with modelling, sensation, interoception etc. Each infers a likely cause of the input by way of selecting an output to send on. Eventually some behaviour results, alters the environment and the process starts again. Where's the mystery there?

You make decisions based on the best information available to you at the time. — Baden

The comment I took issue with was declaring New Zealand's strict approach to be an indicator of the right course of action, without caveats. "The lesson is that if you lockdown early and lockdown hard, less people die. And you don't fuck up your economy as much." There's absolutely no need to learn lessons using the best information available to you at the time. We learn lessons using as much good quality data as possible, and where we know data is missing or inadequate we repair that problem before declaring what the lessons are.

The best information available has been that in the absence of the type of voluntary cultural reaction (due to experience of previous pandemics) and track and trace mechanisms (not to mention the highly focused outbreak) that applied, for example, to South Korea, locking down hard and early is the most effective option available to save lives in, at the very least, the short term. — Baden

Where's this coming from? Which expert (or group of experts) has declared that 'the best' explanation for Sweden's similarity to other harsher lockdown is its cultural response? Which have said that 'the best' explanation for South Korea is the focus of the outbreak? I've heard these suggestions being discussed. I haven't heard anyone declaring them 'the best' explanation.

I've got an open mind on it, but I think it's right to bat for the most likely approach to save lives rather than dither in the pursuit of an answer that isn't yet there — Baden

Again, the comment I took issue with was about lessons learnt, not justification of responses made in real time.

faced with arguments void of reason from extremes of the opposing side. — Baden

I've been arguing consistently for a less panicky response. I'm not counting, but I'd be surprised if less than half my comments contain papers or direct quotes from experts in their field. The arguments opposing aspects of the approach from my position have not been 'void of reason'. Just because a bunch of gun-toting rednecks want to defy lockdown it doesn't make all arguments in that direction void by association.

While other nations announced lockdowns to deal with existing crises, Vietnam enacted one to prevent one. — Baden

So as to avoid any potential for accusations of being 'void of reason', I'll leave this one directly in the hands of the experts...

the current figures are not at all directly comparable between countries, currently we have a huge bias in the numbers coming from different countries – therefore the data are not directly comparable.... What we need to really have valid and comparable numbers would be a defined and systematic way to choose a representative sampling frame

- my bold. Dietrich Rothenbacher, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry at the University of Ulm in Germany.

you might feel smug, until you realise how selfish you are and then you feel both selfish and foolish (and cold). — unenlightened

You might do, yeah. Generally, if you were to repeatedly feel that way you'd probably stop rescuing damsels from icy lakes. If your imagined (predicted) reward never shows up you learn not to repeat that behaviour. Indeed, in societies which do not punish selfishness (in the public sense), we see more selfishness. The key here is that not everyone stops to think how their bravery was ultimately motivated by a desire to feel good, so mostly this doesn't happen.

seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that one might rescue damsels from icy lakes because (one imagines) damsels in icy lakes need rescuing, and not be all that concerned whether one is going feel something or nothing. — unenlightened

If you feel something needs doing, and then that something gets done, that provides a level of satisfaction, a positive feeling. What is the feeling that something 'needs' doing other than a feeling of displeasure that it isn't done.

If you're concerned about society suddenly becoming too self aware for altruism to function, then be reassured by one of the many other good feelings that result from one's icy feat of gallantry. One no longer has to experience the unpleasantness of seeing someone in distress (or of imagining it later, having walked on by). One does not have to experience the unpleasantness of ridicule or anger from one's peers at one's cowardice. Neither of these are vulnerable to evaporation in unexpected self-awareness incident.

one can imagine other things than one's own pleasure. — unenlightened

Yes, but not one of them can motivate one to act.

This explains why people can die for their country and stuff. — unenlightened

How? They imagine England overrun with Nazis but don't actually have any negative feelings about that situation at all. This then somehow motivates them to risk their life?

The only reason one would know one thinks is due to one’s experience of engaging in thoughts — javra

I'm not sure how. Thoughts are a publicly defined concept. A child has no idea what 'thoughts' are until they are introduced to the term, so you'd need at least two reasons; 1) having an experience of thoughts, and 2) being embedded in a culture which talks about such things.

“I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty — javra

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? For me, I can break down my experience of, say, drinking a cup of tea, into sensations, the presumed cause, memories, desires, converting a lot of this mentally into words and 3D models. Maybe I even experience experiencing those things. But that can just be broken down into more sensations, memories, desires, words, models... I never seem to run out and end up with something fundamental, indivisible.

Any ontology which needs or seeks to eliminate the occurrence of experiences in order to be cogent will first need to evidence to me, either logically or experientially, that me being while I am aware is in fact a falsity – including the falsity of me being while aware of the evidence that is so presented. But then, if I am aware of this evidence and thereby experience it, then I am that which experiences the presentation of this evidence – which in turn nullifies the evidence against my so being. — javra

This all hinges on the idea that awareness is a simple, an indivisible event or property. I don't think it is. I think what we call 'awareness' is a collective term for the mental processes which go on in response to some stimuli. That's how it feels to me anyway.

Is not all evidence something which one or more people either directly or indirectly experience and are thereby aware of? And don’t we know about neural firings and related phenomena due to such evidence? — javra

Yes, I think it must be. I'm not sure how that prevents us from postulating a model for how it works based on the presumption that those experiences have real-world correlates.

humans are sufficiently irrational to make such a calculation, but if one is somewhat self-aware, one is liable to notice that doing something in order to feel good about oneself is not the unselfish act that one would feel good about being the author of. — unenlightened

Exactly. So long as one gives it little thought, one is fine. The moment one tries to examine one's motives one becomes tied in knots. None of which has any bearing on what actually is the case. Reality has not arranged itself conveniently to accommodate our psychological hang-ups.

This theory only explains the unselfish acts of the terminally dim. — unenlightened

Knowing it and acting according to it are not the same. Knowing that you're acting in such a way as to benefit yourself in the long run is not sufficient to undo decades of neural priming creating a strong desire to act in such (apparently) noble ways, nor the reward mechanism for having done so.

I know why I drink more tea than is strictly good for me, it's the effect of caffeine on my dopamine circuits. Doesn't stop me from wanting my next cuppa. Doesn't make me 'terminally dim' for not being 100% in control of my desires.

My wife knows why I buy her flowers, doesn't prevent her feeling good when I present them.

I think he's suggesting they'd feel rather cold. — unenlightened

Indeed.

And yet 'cold' does not encompass all that is subjectively bad, nor exclude any other feeling of subjective 'goodness'. Hence the example does not demonstrate that "doing the right thing has nothing to do with how you feel".

Hyperbolic discounting is the standard way of approaching reward. Even that tempting slice of chocolate cake on my kitchen table offers only a future reward at the immediate cost of having to get up out my armchair to get it.

It may not feel good to jump into ice cold water to save another person's life, but you do it in spite of how it makes you feel. — Sam26

Are you suggesting that someone who just jumped into ice cold water to save another person's life mightn't feel at all good about themselves? That they might just do so robotically, because it's the right thing and remain dispassionate in the face the praise they later receive (either from others or from their own self-appraisal)?

What examples do you have of these times when it might not ever feel good to have done the right thing?

Now we have Corona they rely on the specialists again, indeed they follow the advice from the experts. — Punshhh

Really, though?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/uk-to-name-scientific-advisers-on-emergency-coronavirus-group-sage

Just because the government happen to be carrying out the very broad recommendation (to have some kind of lockdown), I wouldn't confuse that in any way for a shift in emphasis to a reliance on experts. Experts vary a lot (even those within SAGE) on the details and Cummings will, without doubt, be steering the whole thing in favour of his preferred option - his presence in a expert advisory panel is disgraceful.

Yes, the stark nature of the crisis has set more constrained parameters than otherwise, but I think we can be sure that within those parameters, it's business as usual - select the scientist telling you what you want to hear, dismiss the rest.

It would seem to me to be a sad thing if people just pursued those things that made them feel good. — Sam26

So what would guide people's behaviour if not making them feel good, doing what's right? How does it make you feel when you 'do what's right'? Most people report a pleasant, warm glow of satisfaction when they have 'done the right thing'. Most people are proud of themselves when they stick to their diet/exercise regime. Most people are pleased to consider themselves honourable for upholding the law. Are satisfied, proud and pleased not versions of 'feeling good'. I certainly can't think of giving them any negative valence.

There is a radical break between matter in various processes and arrangements and observers/internal states/feeling/awareness. — schopenhauer1

So you declare dualism in your definition and then claim that physicalists have failed to answer the question you set within your non-physicalist framework?

I'm assuming there's no radical break between matter in various processes and arrangements and observers/internal states/feeling/awareness. So, just for now, don't assume there is, I'm asking how you've arrived at the conclusion that there is. If it's just axiomatic for you that there is such a break, then there's no argument to be made. It's not surprising physicalists (eliminativists) reach a different conclusion to you, they have a different axiom.

What I'm trying to get from you and @bert1 is how you got to that point (assuming it isn't just axiomatic).

How do you know that what you're calling an 'experience' is, in fact, anything at all.

The barter system. — A Seagull

So how did the seller get the item they're bartering?

the lesson is that if you lockdown early and lockdown hard, less people die. And you don't fuck up your economy as much. — Baden

For a start you've got two variables there with no indication of which one is responsible for the effect (early or hard, or both).

Secondly, no one's controlled for any of the other variables we know affect the course of epidemics - connectivity, isolation, average age, prevelence of health issues, testing regime, testing methods, case reporting methods. You yourself brought up some of these when talking about the differences between Ireland and Sweden.

Finally, the effects in the short term are not really in question. I don't think anyone serious thinks that doing nothing will have less of a short term impact than lockdowns. Those people who are concerned (and serious people are concerned), are concerned about the long term effects of various approaches to lockdown.

It's vitally important we get this right for next time, a sustainable, repeatable response. Analysing the situation critically and open-mindedly will get us there. Looking for early opportunities to say 'I told you so' will not.

Missed this , sorry. — Chester

It's not a problem... Really.

Population growth combined with smaller family units (single occupants etc). — Chester

No. Speculation on the property market, financialisation of property through banks offering lower threshold mortgages, government incentives to support homeowners as opposed to renters.

It's fairly standard economics.

From the LSE report put together with Migration Advisory Committee .

"the impact on house prices of the accumulated increase in Tier 2 type immigrants over a five-year period is likely to be well below 1%. This might generate some transfer of properties to the rented sector but the effect on total new supply is likely to be very limited."

Or should I ask some taxi drivers....?

'Consciousness' is impossible to define except by appeal to consciousness, unfortunately. — bert1

Nonetheless, I appreciate the effort.

Attend to an object. Then attend to your awareness of the object. — bert1

Here I get stuck. How do I know I've successfully attended to this 'awareness of the object' if I don't know what it is I'm looking for? I could be attending to absolutely anything, how do I know it's an 'awareness of the object'? I can convert the properties of the object into words, recall images of similar objects, I get a desire to act sometimes (if the object is desirable or offensive), sometimes I perceive changes in my physiology in response to it. Pretty much all of these things can also be observed (in a rudimentary way) in the brain. I'm not getting anything particularly difficult to explain yet. Is any of that what you're calling 'awareness'?

The activity of neurons is the activity of neurons. Sentience is sentience. If you want to say that, despite definitions, these too things are, in actual fact, the same thing, you need a theory that connects them. — bert1

When we interfere in any way with one we get a corresponding effect in the other. It's not conclusive but I think it's pretty sound theory as to why we might consider the two are the same. It's either that they're the same, or that they're linked intricately. The former theory can exist within the rest of science, the latter requires a whole universe of forms, concepts and features which would otherwise not be required. What would possibly stop us from presuming the simpler explanation for now?

and guess what causes the cost of housing to go up? — Chester

Speculation on the property market, financialisation of property through banks offering lower threshold mortgages, government incentives to support homeowners as opposed to renters.

Very little to do with overpopulation as new home-building coupled with renovation has almost completely kept pace with population growth.

philosophy percolates through social science that again most people ignore, and from there into think tanks, and so to political rhetoric and media headlines. — unenlightened

Ha! I wish.

I can't think of a single occasion where any of the work I've done, nor that of any of my colleagues has been either informed by philosophy, nor had the opportunity to determine headlines and political rhetoric.

The politicians sometimes come asking for an opinion. If they don't like the one you give, they find someone else.

The problems I see is the physicalists (presumably elimitavists/functionalists) are often switching the causes of mental states with the explanations of metaphysical equivalence of how physical states are indeed mental states. — schopenhauer1

What I'm struggling to understand is the distinction you're both drawing between A causes B and 'a description of of how A causes B'. What does 'a description of of how A causes B' contain that is not just more A causes B type explanations?

If I asked what causes a car to go, someone might say "give it some gas and release the clutch". If I asked how that caused the car to go, they'd say "the gas enters the chamber, explodes, causes the crankshaft to turn, which connects to the gears, which drive the axle which turns the wheels". It would still be a series of A causes B type propositions.

I could say "but how does the turning of the axle turn the wheels?". I might get something in terms of friction causing neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum.

"But how does friction cause neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum?". I might get something I probably wouldn't understand about the inter molecular forces, but nonetheless...

"But how does the-thing-I-don't-understand-about-molecular-forces cause neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum under friction?"

... And so on.

How is the issue of conciousness any different from any other investigation. Why the need for 'the hard problem' epiphet, dualism, panpsychism, all these ideas which require us to add totally new, otherwise unjustified, concepts to our world-views.

If, not understanding how clouds cause rain, I postulated an entire realm of existence, or suggested we rethink what it means to 'rain' to include all effects clouds have, I think most people would accuse me of over-reacting.

Sentience — bert1

That doesn't help, I'm afraid. It's not more clearly identifiable than 'conciousness'. You said it's not a behaviour, so it needs to be identifiable something else. Giving alternative words for it which are equally nebulous isn't going to get us there. If we're going on a hunt for the cause of something we're going to need to know what the something looks like, otherwise anything and nothing might be causes.

If I said "the activity of neurons is Sentience" you'd want to deny that, right? So on what grounds, that's what I'm trying to get at.

awareness — bert1

As in 'appears to respond to stimuli'? Still sounds behavioural to me.

the capacity to feel — bert1

Feel what?

the capacity to experience — bert1

And 'experience' here means? Is it the same as awareness? Does a rock 'experience' being dropped from a cliff? I'd say it doesn't because it is not aware of the event, but you offered this in addition to awareness, so I'm guessing you mean something more?

It will be far easier for us to form trade deals with smaller nations than it will be to get a sensible one with an empire that is more concerned with preserving itself as a post-democratic political entity than the well being of its citizens. — Chester

Probably would, but the issue with that proposition is not the conditional itself but the existence of the entity to which it refers.

Because consciousness, as a matter of definition, is not behaviour. — bert1

OK, so what is the definition of 'conciousness' then, if not behaviour?

According to this we have a trade surplus with the rest of the world and about £28 billion more over all trade ...so don't intimate that I'm a liar. — Chester

The 2017 figures (your Wikipedia source) have not yet been summarised by the ONS and so may require interpretation. If you prefer up-to-date figures over analysed ones, then the figures for 2018 show a 37,000 total trade in favour of the EU. No-one is calling you a liar (as in knowingly propagating things which aren't true). People are - quite patiently and understandingly, given your provocation - pointing out where you are in error, or where you could be better informed.

Now can you explain why we're comparing the EU to the 'rest of the world'. We don't make trade deals with 'the rest of the world'. I'm sure if we compared EU trade to trade with Alabama, there'd be a substantial imbalance too. So what's this supposed to show with regards to the economics of brexit?

Where have I lied? Point my lies out to me or shut the fuck up. — Chester

I'm not going to repeat all the work @fdrake and @Benkei have put in trying to help you understand the economics. I will, however link you their posts to help.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/407677

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/407923

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/407955

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/407964

But just to help you with the last one.

In reality the UK trades more with the rest of the world than we do with the EU — Chester

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/internationaltrade/articles/whodoestheuktradewith/2017-02-21

UK imports
EU 318 billion
Rest of the world 243 billion

UK exports
EU 235 billion
Rest of the world 284 billion

So net trade, we do trade 26 billion more with the EU than the rest of the world.