Am I forgetting something? — Zelebg

Yep.

The human rational agent has but one thought at a time.

If you believe only the (human) brain can be conscious, you are applying anthropomorphism. — ovdtogt

Correct. But I don’t. So I’m not.

read up on studies into animal psychology. — ovdtogt

Yeah, I will. Just as soon as it is apparent to me, that the mental explanatory gap in an animal with 2B neural connections per mm3*, 16B in the most paradigmatically distinguishing section**, can be bridged by animals with 7B in his entire brain.
*Penrose, 1998
**Herculano-Houzel, 2009

Hey....it’s a free country. Think what you like.

A photo-receptor cell is 'conscious' of light. A cochlear hair cells is 'conscious' of sound...etc — ovdtogt

What wayfarer said, plus.....(shudder) ......anthropomorphism: attributing congruency between being conscious of and being merely reactive to.

If you give 4 peanuts to one monkey and only 1 to another, that one will get pretty pissed off. — ovdtogt

Hmmmm....yeah. If it can’t be proven the one was pissed because he understood “3 more than me” as opposed to just recognizing “that sorry sack of elephant droppings has got my damn peanuts”.....then it cannot be said he was doing math. Even if we grant monkeys the capacity to recognize relative quantities, which isn’t that far-fetched, we haven’t explained that his anger is because of it. Maybe he’s just selfish. Or worried what his ol’ lady will say if he don’t bring home the......er.....peanuts.

And if everything in Nature uses math, and if the math everything in Nature uses isn’t the same as the math we use, where does that leave us? Maths are different depending on who is using it? And if we can’t prove it is the same math, how do we know it is math at all?

Something to think about.....

As for me, consciousness - as in "that which is aware of" - is itself other than information - as in "that which informs". The former is informed by the latter. — javra

Seems pretty simple to me. If “redness” is the state of being red, “fitness” is the state of being fit, why shouldn’t consciousness be the state of being conscious? And if the state of being conscious is the condition of our attention (that which is aware of) with respect to the information presented to it, why wouldn’t that be “consciousness”?

So....all we need is a meaning, or an understanding, of what that “information” actually is.

Oh. And of course, what is meant by “attention”. And what does that “attention” belong to.....

AAARRRGGGGG!!!! Too many notions, too few facts.

I do consider mathematics as a kind of fundamental law of nature independent from human experience. — ovdtogt

Lots of folks would follow suit.

I rather think that Nature has its intrinsic relations, which we observe and explain to ourselves by means of mathematics, specifically developed for that purpose alone. We also create the laws, but the laws represent the principles under which Nature seems to operate, at least as far as humans are concerned, and also at least as far as we can tell.

Events in Nature occur in succession, which is independent of human experience, but only humans call that succession “time” and only humans recognize “cause and effect” from it, which are hardly independent of human experience.

If you think math is independent of human experience, how would you explain how we came to be in possession of it?

For all practical purposes (science), what we perceive as concrete objects and physical effects is what is Real. But for theoretical purposes (philosophy), our perceptions of those objects are mental constructs. So discussions about Consciousness must make that distinction clear, or else, by reifying Consciousness, we run into the paradoxical "hard problem". — Gnomon

Yep. Paradoxical indeed: we think consciousness as that which that belongs to us because of our nature, then attribute to it qualities we can’t figure out how it has.
——————-

what Einstein was talking about in his Theory of Relativity. What's real depends on who's looking. — Gnomon

Exactly right. In Einstein (1905), the simultaneity of relativity depends for its direct explanation on a third observer for the two participants in the events relative to each other. The relativity can only be immediately witnessed by an observer outside both, even if each participant can afterwards compare information.

Good stuff. Fun to think about. ‘Preciate the references; mine would be different, but close enough to see each other.

Pardon me If I’m being nosey, but.....what do you use for reference material?

Could one argue that abstract things have their own independent existence? — 3017amen

Depends on how far one wants to obfuscate the relationship between word and meaning. If one considers basketballs as an exemplar of existence, then of course abstracts do not. If one considers that which reason constructs of its own accord as existing, then abstracts exist. But it absolutely cannot be both, equally and without contradiction.

Pretty dumb, actually, to require reason to not contradict itself in its constructions, then turn right around and contradict ourselves in the use of them. It is not contradictory to say abstracts are real and empirical objects in spacetime are real, as long as it is understood spacetime objects to us are phenomena given by intuition and abstracts are not phenomena, being given to us by conception alone. Then we are allowed to claim the former are conditioned by existence while the latter are not, but are none the less real.

The ultimate rendition of......stay in your own lane.

You seem to be confusing subjective concepts with physical objects. In the typical bar magnet illustration of a magnetic fleld, you never sense the field itself, only its effect on iron filings. — Gnomon

On the one hand, fields are real and modeled mathematically:

"The fact that the electromagnetic field can possess momentum and energy makes it very real ... a particle makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and the field has such familiar properties as energy content and momentum, just as particles can have....”
.....A “field” is any physical quantity which takes on different values at different points in space....
.....There have been various inventions to help the mind visualize the behavior of fields. The most correct is also the most abstract: we simply consider the fields as mathematical functions of position and time....”
(Feynman lectures, (CalTech, 1956), in Vol. II, Ch 1.5, 1963)

And on the other, fields are completely abstract and quantitatively incommensurable directly:

“....We now take it for granted that electric and magnetic fields are abstractions not reducible to mechanical models. To see that this is true, we need only look at the units in which the electric and magnetic fields are supposed to be measured. The conventional unit of electric field-strength is the square-root of a joule per cubic meter. A joule is a unit of energy and a meter is a unit of length, but a square-root of a joule is not a unit of anything tangible. There is no way we can imagine measuring directly the square-root of a joule. The unit of electric field-strength is a mathematical abstraction, chosen so that the square of a field-strength is equal to an energy-density that can be measured with real instruments. The unit of energy-density is a joule per cubic meter, and therefore we say that the unit of field-strength is the square-root of a joule per cubic meter. This does not mean that an electric field-strength can be measured with the square-root of a calorimeter. It means that an electric field-strength is an abstract quantity, incommensurable with any quantities that we can measure directly....”
(Dyson, EuCAP, 2007)

All that to say this: While it is true we never sense the field itself, I’m not sure that qualifies fields to be purely subjective concepts. I think perhaps we abstract the reality of fields from demonstrated characteristics of real physical objects. It follows necessarily that abstractions are immaterial, for the simply reason they are themselves irreducible to mechanical models, but nevertheless, that which is immaterial is not thereby merely a subjective concept.

Still, I suppose all concepts originate in a subject, but calling them subjective concepts implies they have no use outside the subject that originates them, which is far from the case. The only purely subjective concepts are space and time, insofar as nothing causes time or space in the same way as physical objects cause fields. QFT refutes this, of course, but......one thing at a time, right?
—————-

As an aside.....Kant didn’t know about fields, his natural science having to do with forces alone, without the conception of field associated to them.** So I wonder if he would have considered a field as a thing-in-itself, given what he actually did consider that way of things in general. I suspect not, for things-in-themselves are real objects of sensation to which our representations relate, but fields in and of themselves have no such reality of that phenomenal nature, in as much as their representations are actually representations of something else that is phenomenal, such that the conception of them becomes empirical. And, as we understand, representations of representations, are more commonly known as abstractions.

** See M. P. N. S., 1783, Pt II, Prop. 5, 6

In other words, we see reality in the form of as-if ideas, not as-is matter & energy. — Gnomon

I see some logic in that, insofar as we do not mentally operate in the same terms we prescribe to our composite elements as the means for them to physically operate. I suppose science will eventually describe our mental machinations in terms of C, N/m/s, or other physical designator, but I refuse to relinquish my humanity for it. But....I’m too old already, so....good luck to the rest of ya!!! (Grin)
——————-

so the reality of the objects absolutely must be different.
— Mww
That's why I make a pragmatic distinction between Reality (sensory) and Ideality (mental). — Gnomon

As well we all should. Neither is complete in itself.

Oh, maaannn.....this isn’t the ol’ “we’re all stardust” argument, is it? Say it isn’t so, Mr. Bill!!!

Nahhhh....I wouldn’t go so far as to say consciousness evolved from mindless, purposeless forces. Consciousness evolved because we are capable of thinking it. If one wishes to say that because we are comprised of physical constituents, then everything about us has to do with those constituents, including our capacity for thought, then he wouldn’t be wrong as much as his explanations for it would be insufficient. And it is only insufficient because our knowledge is limited.

We think we possess consciousness and we deem ourselves self-aware because we haven’t figured out any other way to explain how it appears that way. We are only allowed to theorize our own internal condition because science can’t yet prove otherwise. And if it should be the case science is incapable of proving the complete physicality of our rational system, then our proper theories with respect to them are at least legitimate, without claiming to be true.

I’ll go with the former, indifferent cosmic drama. Nice wordsmithing, by the way. I guess I should say I don’t consider myself anything all that special, especially on a cosmic scale. Doesn’t matter that there’s only one of me when there are 7B pretty much just like me right now, and several billion in total.

Besides.....we’re not doing anything Nature hasn’t allowed us to do.

Science is correct enough, in saying, given the right conditions, objects like us would be inevitable. But the infinitesimal minutia of those necessary conditions is unfathomable, so given all that, how could we NOT be here. So saying we’re inevitable doesn’t say much.

Be really cool, though, to get to a similar eco-system, evolved from a similar set of conditions.....and see no evidence of life at all. In which case, I guess we would indeed be special. Slightly less cool would be a similar eco-system evolved under similar conditions and find an entirely different kind of life. Then we go back to being not so special.

you need to explain what do you assume the word “existence” means by specifying your definition — Zelebg

Oh fercrissakes, no I do not. I don’t give a crap how existence should be defined, in order to show the concept “existence” as it is already defined, or at least understood, adds nothing to the conception “experience”, in a synthetic a priori logical judgement.

This represents a long-standing principle of basic epistemological metaphysics, at least since Aristotle.

And as my ol’ buddy Forest said......and that’s all I have to say about that.

Scientists typically try to limit experience to Empirical or A Posteriori Knowledge gained from sensory impressions. But Philosophers and Theologians often include Theoretical or A Priori (tautological) knowledge in their discussions of Consciousness — Gnomon

Good point, although I would add that a priori knowledge is not necessarily tautological. That is, synthetic judgements afford knowledge a priori, but are not tautologies, re: mathematics.
——————-

The confounding problem here is that human beings are capable of acting as-if concepts that exist only in the mind (e.g. fictional characters) are real. — Gnomon

Hmmmm.....I’d suggest the confounding problem is humans treat acts of the mind that are real as actually existing. Thoughts, ideas, intuitions, concepts are real, but only to the mind, and not to sensibility. And real to the mind only as hypotheticals in a speculative theoretical epistemology. Sensibility is impossible without objects that impress it, and thought is impossible without objects that impress it, but the impressions are different, so the reality of the objects absolutely must be different.

One man’s semantic quibble is another man’s logical consistency, n’est ce pas?

You: Existence of experience is what defines the difference between conscious and unconscious human

Me: Experience is what defines the difference between conscious and unconscious human

(Sigh)

Mww
There’s no profit in thinking experience is something that exists.

Can you summarize what argument you are having...... — Zelebg

I’m assuming the comment I was responding to implied that experience has some kind of existence. In the proposition, the logical judgement, “experience is something that exits”, experience is the subject, exists is the predicate. The argument countering that implication is grounded on the premise that....no matter how I cognize a thing, even to the completion of it so that my cognition represents the thing exactly as it is, in this case experience, I add nothing whatsoever to it, by stipulating “existence” to be the concept contained in the predicate.

Just by cognizing experience as subject in the first place presupposes its possibility, to which my conceptions describing it, belong. Otherwise....how could I be cognizing that thing? That in itself is sufficient reason to claim there is no profit in granting “existence” as a predicate in a logical judgement. It’s the same argument for the conceptions “necessity”, “possibility”, and any other pure a priori conception; none of them add anything to the subject.

“Experience is something that is possible”. “Experience is something that is necessary”. Big whoop, right? Tautological truths, but affording no information whatsoever for supplementing my understanding of experience in and of itself, which, when it comes right down to it, has no business being thought of as a thing anyway.

........and what is the point you're making? — Zelebg

And the point is: Nope, no way...not on even a good day in hell...can a category be used to underwrite a cognition not originated in sensibility. We can think whatever we want about “experience”; we just don’t gain anything by saying it exists. Furthermore, given that ontology is the doctrine by which existence is studied, and existence is not a necessary condition for experience....what does that say about ontology itself, with respect to the human rational system, which is the sole determinant factor for what experience is?

if I experience something that you don't, how then do I know it exists (...) Said another way, how does one know if that experience exists if one doesn't experience it himself? — 3017amen

So you’re asking:
.......how I would know the thing of your experience exists......
(By experiencing that thing myself, which makes no promise on agreement as to what the thing is, except that there is a thing)

........or are you asking how do you know the thing of your experience exits.....
(From the experience itself. It is impossible to experience that which does not exist.)

.....or are you asking how do you know experience exists?
(The existence of experience is a nonsensical notion. Experience is the termination of a particular rational process, and not an existence qua existence. Existence is a category of modality by which all sense objects are conditioned, which make experience possible.)

......or are you asking how does one know someone else’s experience exists without the one having the same experience as the someone else?
(Wouldn’t matter; false dichotomy. I can’t ever know anyone’s experiences. The very best I can do is judge it impossible he had no experience whatsoever, given the same set of empirical circumstances for the both of us.

There’s no profit in thinking experience is something that exists. Existence is a condition only of sensible objects, and experience is very far from a sensible object.

Granted, but still raises the question.....why would we care about what we are not?

Existential Phenomenology: what academics do now, because Kant didn’t bother then. Not that there’s anything wrong with that......

If you insist, so be it.

Either you are misusing probabilities or you are being unreasonable. — SophistiCat

I don’t think so. All I was asked was......

Do you believe him based on that message? — Wheatley

......and the message was merely informing me he won the lottery. I wasn’t asked to determine an answer based on any conditions. Pretty simple really: he said he won, do you believe him. So I do or I don’t, and it makes no difference whatsoever which it is. It can only be one or the other, from which follows the probability of .5 for the answer (my belief), conforming to the fact contained in the question (he won).

Subsequently, if asked why I responded with I do or I don’t believe him, then I would have to condition that answer with other beliefs, but those beliefs would necessarily be based on what I know about the man, not what I know “....based on that message”.

If anything, I’d be unreasonable, indeed irrational, to read stuff into the original query, such that I’m answering questions that weren’t even asked, or, I’m answering under conditions not given in the question that was asked.

Good.

Why couldn't we just not assign probability in that case? Leave it as an unknown probability. — Wheatley

We could, and most likely would. But there was a question asked, for which an answer is called.

Probability of 1 is certainty. Only he has the certainty, thus only he knows he won or is lying about winning. If he just tells me he won, I do not have the certainty of knowledge, so I do not have the probability of 1 (he won) or the probability of 1 (he is lying). The very best I can do, without the facts, is split the difference. Splitting 1 in half gives probability for me, of .5.

Not sure if we can estimate the probability that your friend is lying — Wheatley

Sure we can; he is lying or he isn’t lying. No such thing as a partial lie. The probability is exactly .5.

As to whether I’d believe him, I guess I would. I mean....he’d look pretty stupid if he told me he did, but couldn’t prove it. So if I believe no one intentionally wants to make himself look stupid, I’d also have to believe he wasn’t lying. But he could have won and then disappeared, so I wouldn’t know either way anyway.

I am arguing that it's logically impossible ( driving and not driving at the same time) — 3017amen

Whoa, hold on there, mon ami. I’m arguing the logical impossibility angle. You started this free-for-all by claiming....and I quote...”I am both driving and not driving”. I wouldn’t even be here if not for that Aristotelian faux pas, which I am duty-bound to quibble over.
——————-

The A and -A issue, is occurring in one's mind. — 3017amen

Yep. It is logic in pure form only. The A means the form is without content, or, means that any content in general replacing A, that accords with the pure form, is going to be logically correct. It is an analytic proposition a priori, tautologically, therefore necessarily, true.
——————-

My question remains; how can consciousness be logically possible (?). — 3017amen

I done already told ya. At least, from how I think about it. I guess, according to you, it isn’t logically possible at all. In the immortal words of Stephen Stills....nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.

Well your point is very well taken! — 3017amen

As well it should be, dammit!!!! A guy is dealt twenty cards, the probability of him getting those specific twenty cards is exactly 1!!!! It is absolutely impossible for him to be dealt any other than those specific cards, because those were exactly what he was dealt. Semantic hair-splitting quibble.....those. Attending to that quibble immediately falsifies the original proposition as stated.

Easy-Peasy.
———————-

If A and -A holds ( law of non-contradiction/LEM ), one could reasonably conclude that consciousness is logically impossible. — 3017amen

Did you miss the part where I reasonably concluded consciousness is not logically impossible?

Within the context of “I am both driving and not driving”, the A and -A both driving does not hold. Either A is driving or -A is driving. There does exist both A and -A, but not in the same place at the same time. Or, not doing the same thing at the same time.

Easier-peasier.
———————

They are not aware that there are not aware. How can that be? — 3017amen

Damned if I know. It does seem to be the case, though. I’m never aware of daydreaming as such, until I’m no longer daydreaming. Then I can certainly tell I was, but am not now. What’s even cooler, is you can never tell exactly when the turnover occurred. I can tell I just fell asleep if I come awake soon after, but try as I may, I can never distinguish the point of departure from one state to the other.

Humans...every bit as amazing as they are ignorant.

Hmmmm......So instead of splitting semantic hairs, we have successfully compounded propositional hairs.

Be that as it may, you’ve deduced the correct answer, although you should have been able to deduce the correct answer without invoking swarming or emergence, or anything else, except what was contained in the question itself. Which is where the semantic hair-splitting quibble is to be found, and a perfect example of why sometimes such quibbling is proper dialectical procedure.

I haven't checked to see where that other thread was located. — 3017amen

To answer the question, you don’t the thread. All the context you need is given.

I would just caution against splitting semantic hairs. — 3017amen

Yeah, that is a common problem. But what about this, and pardon me, everybody, for stealing from another thread:

“When someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you the first twenty cards, the probability of getting those specific cards is extremely unlikely.”

Is it extremely unlikely?

When someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you the first twenty cards, the probability of getting those specific cards is extremely unlikely. — Wheatley

No. The probability is exactly 1. It is impossible to get any other cards except those first twenty you were dealt.

The probability of getting specific cards in those first twenty, is not the same as getting those specific cards in the first twenty.

Hence their driving but not driving. — 3017amen

Ok. Driving but not driving is very much an argumentative improvement over driving and not driving.
————————

But one does not know the difference. All the person knows is he or she is in another reality..... — 3017amen

True enough, but one doesn't have to know the difference to know there is one. And it does seem like a different reality, when it is actually quite impossible to show it isn’t just a different perspective on the same reality. If you crash while daydreaming, the car is every bit as damaged as if you’d crashed under purely accidental conditions, through no fault of inattention.

I’ll end this by stating for the record I do not deny daydreaming and the like, done it myself more than a few times, both naturally and .........shall we say, chemically stimulated (gasp)......but I maintain such mental distractions are merely reason without due restraint. Maybe like Janus’ “mystic unreason”. Transcendental philosophy seeks to bound reason so as not to cause confusion within itself, but subconsciously, the rational gloves come off and reason is allowed to think whatever it wants. And I prefer my reason to be under control, thank you very much, so while granting the subconscious its existence, I consciously allot to it no power.

So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving
— Mww

Mww, precisely! As far as our consciousness is concerned, we are not driving, which is why we have the potential to crash and kill ourselves. Cognitive science says that our subconscious is driving. Hence, I'm driving and not driving at the same time. Therefore, consciousness is beyond our logical understanding. — 3017amen

OK, fine. If you’re not driving and your subconscious is, then it follows necessarily the dichotomy (I am both driving and not driving) is false, because “I am driving” is contradicted by the “subconscious is driving”, while the “I am not driving” remains true. Otherwise, you and your subconscious must be identical, in the exact same way you and your consciousness are identical, which is quite absurd.

While I grant consciousness is beyond our empirical knowledge, it does not follow from being beyond knowledge that it is also beyond logical understanding. As a matter of fact, if consciousness is considered as merely some metaphysical abstraction, the only possible way to understand it at all, is from logical conditions. And as we all know, all logic needs for certainty, is identity and non-contradiction, consistent with itself. So if a theory speculates an identity and adds in a purpose for good measure, consciousness is no longer beyond our logical understanding, as long as the theory for it holds no contradictions in its construction.

If you want to attribute the impossibility of logical understanding to something, might I suggest you attribute it to the subconscious you used to justify your falsification of the Identity Law? I mean, you can always use the subconscious as a logical premise, insofar as the possible availability of something in juxtaposition to consciousness. But consciousness lends itself to theoretical speculation, whereas the subconscious cannot be the subject of a meaningful theoretical speculation because of the very quality our own rationality demands of it, without opening the door to the bane of all speculation, infinite regress.

Now....science. Do you really give a crap what science says, with respect to driving your car? Tell me the truth....do you flash on a peer reviewed paper when the phone rings and you go through the mental motions of whether or not to pick up? If not, and I certainly hope not, then how can you possibly justify negating a purely rational law (A = A) with a purely empirical doctrine (cognitive neuroscience)?

If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement (....), then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok.
— Mww

A dualism between rational thought and feeling? — Janus

That’s one aspect of duality, yes. Feelings are not cognitions, but cognitions arise from rational thought. Ergo, rational thought and feelings suggest an intrinsic duality, either in form or substance, origin, purpose, or, something else theoretically untenable. But my point was that the human system is complementary, so it stands to reason that sooner or later we’re bound to arrive at the duality of immanent/transcendent, under which we can subsume all complementary pairs in relation to each other. Then we have the total rational dualism as the SOP for humans. There may be some over-arching monism, but it won’t matter to us; we still would have to use our innate dualistic nature to understand it.
——————

our propensity for reification so easily allows to become manifest in many forms of faux-determinate transcendence. — Janus

Yeah, we do seem to want to objectify our notions, don’t we?

Driving a vehicle daydreaming and thus having an accident suggest s I'm driving and not driving at the same time. — 3017amen

Ahhh....really? So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving. While you may be behind the wheel, which is merely a relative location, you’re not conditioning the act of driving with the attributes that qualify the act as such. To condition the relative position of behind the wheel with the attribute of daydreaming, you cannot be conditioning the relative position of behind the wheel with the attributes of driving.

What’s that sound??? Oh. That? That’s just Aristotle breathing a heavy sigh of......see? Tolja so. (Grin)
——————-

I agree that there are metaphysical truths that are necessary. In consciousness examples would be our sense of wonder, intuition, love, sentience and other various forms of qualia. — 3017amen

I’m not sure this isn’t a hidden rendition of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc, or questionable cause, irrationality. It would have to be the case that metaphysical truths of various demeanor are found in consciousness, when in (theoretical) fact, all that’s to be found in consciousness is the totality of intuitions, which are always given from phenomena alone. Our sense of wonder is conditioned by experience, but wonder itself is a feeling, thus not an empirical predicate, hence not found in consciousness. Rather, it is that which is loved, or is wondered about, or to which is directed our sentience, that occupies our conscious state. We never cognize feelings; we cognize that which causes feelings, and is therefore always antecedent to them.

Same with metaphysical truths, per se: the principles of them may be found in reason a priori, and the possible objects given from those principles may be exemplified by experience, but that is not sufficient in itself to allow truths of any kind to reside in consciousness. Truth is where cognition conforms to its object, and no cognition is possible that is not first a judgement. Therefore, it is the case that truth resides in judgement, and if there is such judgement we are then conscious of that which is cognized as true.
————————

The closest we get to a posteriori truth 's in this context, is once again, the synthetic a priori; all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

All judgements of experience, from which are derived a posteriori truths, are synthetic, yes, but not necessarily a priori. Synthetic a priori judgements, which we understand as principles in propositional form, such as “all events have a cause”, and that ubiquitous 2 + 2 = 4, always involve necessity, which cannot be a ground for empirical conditions, which are governed by the principle of induction.
(If it was necessary that a foundation be the cause of a building to be upright, we cannot explain why earthquakes topple buildings even when the foundation is unaffected. Upon reductive examination, it shall be found that the uprightness of the building is contingent on the forces acting on it, and if the forces are sufficient, and the building falls, necessary causality of the foundation is negated, and anything susceptible to negation cannot be necessary)
———————-

What is true nature of consciousness (?). — 3017amen

Why would it have one?

Don’t mind me......I ramble a lot. Sorry.

it behooves us to acknowledge that the map or model is not the territory — Janus

Yes indeed. Just as Kantian noumena requires a sense of intuition not belonging to us, so too does map/territory infinite accuracy require a comprehensibility that does not belong to us. Neither can be claimed as manifestly impossible; just impossible for us, because of intrinsic contradictions we can’t find our way around.
—————-

allow for the mystic tides of unreason. — Janus

Yeah, well, if you do that, you immediately acquiesce to a dualism. If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement, which is the natural condition of the human agency, then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok. But you still can’t be a monist and be human at the same time.

Beware the transcendental illusion!! Don’t let it come up and bite you in the hindquarters!! (Grin)

I'd say we cannot prove anything at all, except in relative contexts. — Janus

You’re correct, of course. (I fixed it)

We can’t actually prove anything, given the singular nature of our objective reality. I mean.....what do we compare it to? We can, as you say, compare and thus prove conditions within it, relative to each other, but nothing more than that.

I think it’s even more unrealistic to posit no duality at all. A human being has to operate from a duality in order to theorize he isn’t, using a logic that shows he’d be contradicting himself by trying.

Nothing against folks thinking far downstream, though.

Yeah, I get it. I read Tegmark, 2007, when it first came out, where he argues, “....that, with a sufficiently broad definition of mathematical structure, the former (ERH, external reality hypothesis, your concrete structure) implies the latter (MUH, mathematical reality hypothesis, your mathematical structure)...”

Sound right?

I’m not equipped to counter-argue the thesis, but it doesn’t float all that big a boat, seems to me. Little too far outside the box for my comfort zone.

So at least one abstract, mathematical object is definitely real: the concrete, physical world. If that's the case, then like with modal realism, which addresses why the actual world exists instead of some other possible world by assuming all possible worlds exist and "the actual" world is just the one we're in, likewise we can dissolve a lot of philosophical questions about why the concrete world follows the mathematical laws that it does by assuming that all mathematical structures exists, and "the concrete" world is just the mathematical structure of which we're a part. — Pfhorrest

Lot of stuff in there, all predicated on the possibility of a 1:1 representation/existence correspondence. Disregarding the logical impossibility of perfect replication still leaves us with a hyper-reality, where the mathematical structure and the concrete structure are the same thing, so how would we know we’ve even cognized ourselves as belonging to one or the other?

If we can’t tell the difference, we’re losing nothing by leaving ourselves with the duality we already acknowledge, rather than assume a fringe duality only a few can wrap their heads around.

Just a thought.........