The Hedonic Question: Do things have value because they make us happy or do they make us happy because they have value?

If things have value because they make us happy, hedonism is vindicated - happiness is the be all and end all in a manner of speaking and we should be, as hedonists recommend, doing everything possible to achieve happiness, nothing else matters. Life is essentially a saga of happiness. If such is true, things that have no happiness associated with them are valueless and not worth anything at all. — TheMadFool

Whichever way you look at it, it seems to me like you’re trying to justify a value system because it’s a value system. I’m not sure that’s very effective. You’ve already assumed that this hedonic value system exists. It’s like asking: does ‘God’ exist because we look for him, or do we look for ‘God’ because he exists?

I think @Joshs was spot on when he said that “The ways in which we make sense of our world are inherently affective and hedonic”, and @baker was onto something when he said that both sides of the question (happiness and value) rely on a sense of a priori.

However, give some thought to the fact that, whatever else happiness and suffering are, physically speaking, that which is pro-life (e.g. sex) causes happiness and that which is anti-life (e.g. physical injury) causes suffering. I say this with some reservation of course as I suspect there are exceptions to these generalizations. That said, there can be little doubt that sex, one of happiest activities for many, is pro-life and bodily harm (cuts, bruises, fractures, etc.), a painful experience, is anti-life. — TheMadFool

Your reservation is well-founded. There are so many exceptions to these sweeping generalisations that they lack any sense of accuracy. The experience of sex being “one of the happiest activities for many” is an example of this. Yes, sex can be a momentarily happy experience, but no more so than life in general. It can also be, has been and is, a painful and/or harmful experience for many - and may even be both happy and harmful.

These are not outliers - your rubric is inadequate. Your proposed structure of pro-life or anti-life is qualified by the limited perception of your life. I think I can safely assume that sex is necessarily a happy experience for you, otherwise it doesn’t qualify as ‘sex’. I don’t mean to get personal here - I just wanted to point out that there can be more than a little doubt.

The idea that either things have value because they make us happy, OR things make us happy because they have value, is an oversimplification that attempts to isolate an attribution of value from our limited understanding of reality. Even the simplest explanations of value that may be considered ‘objectively’ accurate have a triadic relational structure at minimum: they are inclusive of an unquantifiable system qualification (‘us’) whose perceived capacity arbitrarily defines or qualifies the upper and lower limits.

So, while we commonly describe value structure as either a plane or a linear range, we need to also account for the qualitative limitations of the system. Pain or harm that threatens the consolidation of life is a qualitative limitation of our organic system, and everyone’s pain threshold varies. Pleasure, too, has an arbitrary upper limit, beyond which any perception of ‘self’ dissolves. But this dissolution of self is not in the same linear range as our pain threshold, qualitatively speaking - and any attempt to reduce it to a single value range (ie. happiness) is fraught with subjective uncertainty.

A thing and its opposite are not necessarily symmetrical. Symmetry is spatial—you may be talking about balance. And yes, balance is essential in ethics. But it’s not about balance between good and evil—I think that’s where you might be confused. Good is balance. — Adam Hilstad

Symmetry is not exclusively spatial - although, again, this is a common misconception. It’s a structural quality of invariance that can also be temporal (in mathematics), and even potential (in physics). Symmetry refers to invariance in the relation between a system and its iterations.

Balance refers to an apparently stable relation between limited iterations of a system. It’s about focusing attention and effort to consolidate localised systems of low entropy.

The way I see it, the difference between symmetry and balance in aesthetics is between understanding and appearance. You can create the appearance of balance by limiting perception (by ignoring, isolating or excluding information), but you can only demonstrate symmetry by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with reality - by interacting with knowledge and experience beyond appearances.

So your statement ‘good is balance’ is a limited perception of reality, an artificial normalisation that arbitrarily qualifies both sides of the equation. It is an example of limited imagination in relation to both understanding and judgement.

There’s nothing wrong with this iteration as such - it just has no claim to certainty or objectivity in relation to truth.

Ethics - the study of principles for behaviour - is not about defining the ‘good’, but about the notion of value in relation to human behaviour, intentionality/desire and judgement.

Aesthetics - the study of principles for perception - is also not about defining ‘beauty’, but about the notion of value in relation to human perception, conceptual knowledge/experience and understanding.

Logic/Philosophy of Religion - the study of principles for belief - rounds out the three, and is not about defining ‘truth’, but about the notion of value in relation to human belief, faith/mathematics and imagination.

It is a common misunderstanding of aesthetics that it’s all about the judgement of beauty or ugliness. But I can see how aesthetics understood this way is imagined to be a subset of ethics.

That’s not to say that they aren’t connected, mind you.

Aesthetics is inclusive of the sublime - the capacity we have to appreciate that which we fail to understand, which is ‘naturally’ distressing, confronting or threatening. Aesthetics is not just about creating beauty, but about what attracts our attention beyond logic and understanding, and beyond the ‘right’ or the Good.

I disagree that aesthetics is subservient to ethics, although as humans we do normalise the subservience of Beauty to the Good. This is artificial, and stems from assuming (preferring) an intentionality to all action/creation. Kant refers to a purposiveness without purpose - the quality of experience that attracts attention and effort beyond our current understanding. It is at this level that our faculty of imagination is crucial - and where the logic of language breaks down.

Much of today’s modern art challenges this artificiality. We judge ‘ugliness’ by our own limited capacity for imagination or understanding.

I believe that rationality is a capacity. But as thinking beings, we also have another capacity for self-deception. This is where philosophy (for me) really gets challenging, both as a personal and a social project.... — Pantagruel

:up:

In my mind, the idea that the non-normalized is more natural, at least in the context of human understanding, is a product of irrational cynicism. Once the process of normalization is truly catalyzed, it becomes entirely natural. — Adam Hilstad

I am still reading, and I think I follow what you’re saying - under your qualification of ‘human understanding’. I’m not suggesting that the non-normalised is particularly natural for humans, but that it points to a more universally natural perspective from which we can critically examine and refine our reasoning and conceptual structures. I think Kant’s notion of the ‘aesthetic idea’ and the fourth moment takes us into this space, at least.

As for your label of irrational cynicism, I had to laugh. Being accused of ‘cynicism’ is a new experience for me. I don’t think we are naturally motivated as humans by rationality, and I think you do recognise this. Your use of metaphorical terms such as ‘hope’, ‘faith’, ‘intuition’ and ‘love’ suggest that there is more work to do here in understanding the process from idea to action, that’s all.

I’m not saying I have answers - just drawing attention to an area where I think most ‘worthwhile’ philosophical systems continue to fall down. We’re reluctant to transcend this normalised conception of ‘human understanding’ without grounding the process in an assumption of ‘correct’ logic, and I think it’s holding us back from our capacity to restructure and improve it based on a less anthropomorphic idea of ‘natural’.

This is an interesting philosophy. I haven’t read all of it yet, but at this point I’d agree with Pantagruel, in that un-normalised seems to me a more natural state, with abstraction being limited by artificiality.

"It is only if we are not conscious of the artificial abstraction from the existential relativity of this structure to life and of life, in turn, to spirit, that the illusion is created that this structure is valid for the absolute reality of the world."

There isn't any way to completely abstract from the lived-experience of the life-project, which is fundamental; more fundamental than the notion of some abstract objective reality, which is an illusion. If there is a higher logical order, it is being created through moral action, I would say. In which case, belief-systems and life-projects are indispensable. — Pantagruel

This, I think, highlights the same issue I have noticed with Adam’s philosophy so far - the assumption that an abstraction is absolute. Perhaps a natural, un-normalised state of understanding may be the key to examining this...

Would you be happy with "affect is primary and is located in the brain stem"? — Daemon

Not really. Affect is probabilistically located at best - it refers to a core ingredient of all mental states that is “at once, tied to a person’s interoceptive sensations from the body and exteroceptive sensations from the world”. Affective circuitry is in the brain stem, but it’s also ‘located’ in a number of other areas of the brain, and is characterised by degeneracy. I suggest you read the article.

He draws on his experience with patients who lacked any cerebral cortex, observing that they are nevertheless able to experience emotions. He notes that while the absence of cerebral cortex allows "feeling" to exist, the removal of only a few cc's of the brain stem causes irrevocable unconsciousness.

His take is that "emotion" is primary, and is located in the brain stem, a more "primitive" part of the brain. We've been looking in the wrong place. — Daemon

These efforts to locate ‘emotion’ in a more ‘primitive’ part of the brain may be outdated - recent research in neuroscience and psychology shows ‘emotion’ to be a whole brain process linked to the construction of concepts and language development. There is, however, an aspect of this process - referred to as ‘affect’ - that is nevertheless considered a fundamental correlate of consciousness.

The circuitry within the neural reference space for core affect binds sensory information from the external world to sensory information from the body, so that every mental state is intrinsically infused with affective content. — ‘Affect as a Psychological Primitive’, Lisa Feldman Barrett and Eliza Bliss-Moreau

It’s important to point out, though, that what is referred to here as ‘core affect’ or feeling is NOT ‘emotion’. The article quoted above gives some relevant details, and argues that “emotion is just one class of affective feeling”. It is also pointed out late in the article (in section 6.2. ‘Core affect as a fundamental feature of conscious experience’) that “affective circuitry offers the only path by which sensory information from the outside world reaches the brainstem and basal forebrain” - which sort of ties in to what Solm is saying.

But any conclusion that ‘emotion is primary, and is located in the brain stem’ seems to me a misinterpretation of the research. I would argue that it isn’t ‘emotion’ that is primary, but affect.

I see what you mean when you talk about the possibility of only having 20 hours a week available to work, but Im talking about a situation where you're able to work 40 hours a week. We know that making $400 will take patience whether you work 20 hours or 40 hours a week making $10/hour but the question is, does it take more patience to work only 20 hours a week when you can work 40? Assuming Im able to work 40 hours a week, if I choose the option of working 40 hours a week, am I being less patient than if I work 20? — HardWorker

Only you can answer that. Are you choosing to work 40 hours a week because you can, or because you’re unwilling to wait? Personally, I don’t think anyone’s in a position to morally judge someone else as ‘less patient’ in this situation. If they do, it’s a relative judgement, based on their own limited understanding.

I don't disagree and I generally don't think there is a hard problem of consciousness, but I can't deny seeing the movie in my head. You calling that a "construction" doesn't change the fact that the movie feels like something. Some people think the experience must have a fundamentally different cause than the brain processing — T Clark

Yes, there is something - this is what I mean about the difference between talking about consciousness with (faculty) and consciousness of (capacity or content). We can talk about an electron in terms of what it does and any evidence of such, but not what it is. Likewise with energy. We’ve come to accept that this is what we mean by the terms, even if it’s only an aspect (our current perspective) of what the terms really mean.

Consciousness is objectively indeterminate as anything other than a faculty, a possibility or idea. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, but that its capacity and its contents are variable. When you define consciousness as, say, the experience of a movie running in your head, you’re referring to your capacity to construct what feels like a movie running in your head (complete with soundtrack and script) from what consciousness is.

To say that this experience or consciousness is ‘caused’ by the brain processing is like saying that heat or energy is ‘caused’ by friction. Yes, but not really. Potential energy exists even if no friction occurs. And energy exists as a possibility even if no one intentionally manifests heat potential by arranging matter so that friction can occur. Likewise, consciousness is a faculty that exists even when we’re unaware of, or unable to fully manifest, its capacity. I’m inclined to believe that your consciousness consists of more than a movie running in your head, but that you construct this experience using language as your best approximation of information processed by the brain - that you’re aware of.

I’m also inclined to believe that while the brain processing information seems essential to human consciousness, it is not essential to consciousness, and does not explain it anymore than friction explains what energy is.

This doesn’t really help us to define consciousness, except to recognise the context of what we’re doing when we define it. What we can say about consciousness will always be an aspect of consciousness, limited by our own capacity to experience, and to reconstruct that experience from language.

I'd like to believe that. It would make my philosophical and psychological position on this question easier to defend. The problem is that I do recognize my own personal experience. There's a movie playing in my head with sound and a script. I'm also here talking to myself about what is going on and what I think about what is going on and what I think about my experience of what is going on. — T Clark

Interesting that you ‘recognise’ experience as a movie playing in your head. You do realise that this is a construction and not a recognition as such. So is talking to yourself about what is going on - it’s a probabilistic construction using the logic and qualities of language as an approximation.

So in my example in my other thread where I talk about working 40 hours per week as opposed to 20 hours a week, where you're making $10/hour and you have a goal of making $400 what you're saying is that working 20 hours a week and taking two weeks to reach your goal does not take more patience than working 40 hours a week and reaching your goal in one week?

Now in both cases, its going to require some patience of course since in neither case are you making $400 instantaneously, but the question is whether or not working 20 hours a week takes more patience than working 40 hours a week since doing so will take you an extra week to meet your goal. — HardWorker

Patience is always relative. Yes, it requires patience to make $400 working for $10 per hour - whether you achieve the goal in one week or two. If someone started one week later on a job that would only pay for those two weeks, would working 40 hours in that one week be considered impatient?

If only 20 hours work is available each week, then more patience would be required by someone with the capacity or willingness to work 40 hours per week than someone working to their capacity at 20 hours per week.

I agree with @Banno in that entering a discussion with no background understanding of the topic in a wider context than your own opinion makes it almost impossible to engage meaningfully with the discussion. But I have to admit that sometimes we don’t recognise just how little we understand until we’ve already entered the discussion. I guess I’m a little more tolerant of ignorance because I still remember what it feels like. And I’ve entered many a discussion here only to recognise that I’m in over my head, and stepped away with some recommended reading.

I’m here as an alternative to university - I came in with a ‘philosophy’ that has developed and changed and is finding a place in the wider philosophical context. I’ve had to do a lot of reading along the way, and come face to face with my own ignorance more than a few times.

Reading serious philosophy is hard work. So you have to push yourself to do it, it's like training. Academic training can be useful in that it makes you articulate your thoughts and consider objections and different points of view.

The other thing is to read thematically and synoptically. Philosophical literature is so vast in extent that you could read full-time and barely scratch the surface. Find some key themes or ideas and explore them through the history of ideas. Reading synoptically means reading the better secondary sources, especially useful for extremely complex works like Kant's. They will often provide an overview of the structure and intentions of a work which makes it much easier to comprehend. — Wayfarer

I have found all of this to be very helpful advice. I think we need to be prepared to have our ideas challenged when we read, and to relish it. Reading only those works with which we think we’d agree only trains us to be ignorant. We can be quite protective of our own thoughts when we read.

One thing I’ve learned from my reading is that many of the most influential philosophers throughout history have one or both of two interesting characteristics: they are notoriously difficult to understand, and/or their philosophical position is far from static. This has been a comfort for me.

perhaps the important point becomes how we understand this shift from awareness with to awareness of.
— Possibility

I want to say that the experience is not central, since we mostly know consciousness or awareness by observing behavior. As I noted in an earlier post, there really is only one experience in my universe - mine. Anything else is inference. Maybe even anthropomorphism. Or maybe T Clarkpomorphism. — T Clark

The content of your own experience, too, is constructed from inference, as is the ‘you’ who experiences. What we can be certain of is the faculty of consciousness - awareness with. Anything else is inference.

Once you realize that the ‘you’ who experiences is always a slightly different ‘you’ , you can recognize other persons as having their own constantly changing subjectivity. If your own subjectivity is not a pure in-itself because of its constant contamination from its world , then the barrier between your own subjectivity and that of other people no longer seems so impermeable. — Joshs

:up:

We use consciousness...
— Manuel

Oooo I have a problem with that.

Perhaps we are conscious before saying anything...

Consciousness isn't used; it is what uses... — Banno

I think perhaps the notion of knowing or being aware with rather than of is being overlooked here. Being aware of refers to using consciousness, but being aware with refers to what uses.

It seems to me that the meaning of ‘conscious’ or ‘consciousness’ originally referred to the qualitative idea or faculty of awareness.

But consciousness is recognised by empirical evidence or observations, and more recently defined as a perceived/known capacity or potential - in self and in others. We commonly refer in these instances to an awareness of certain aspects in experience or what is evident, rather than to the faculty itself.

We use the terms ‘conscious’ and ‘consciousness’ in reference to all three levels, and we struggle in our discussions because our prediction of consciousness based on observations doesn’t always align with reality. A human being is ‘conscious’ in the sense that we recognise the faculty, but we each have a limited ‘consciousness’ in that our capacity for awareness is developed (or limited) by the complexity of our experience. Plus, we are not always recognisably ‘conscious’ in the sense that we can be observed as evidently aware from moment to moment, which takes nothing away from either our current capacity or overall faculty of awareness.

We know that organisms are further limited in their capacity for awareness by their physical and cognitive evolutionary development, and we have recognised this through empirical evidence or observations. And although a rock clearly has no capacity for awareness, there is nevertheless some empirical evidence of awareness occurring at a molecular level. All of this relates to the unconsolidated idea or faculty of being aware meant by ‘consciousness’, but is limited by any definition of ‘conscious’ as an arbitrarily consolidated minimum value in one’s perceived capacity for awareness.

I’m just thinking out loud here, and it may not make a lot of sense - but if we try to bring this back to @T Clark’s discussion of the ‘experience’ aspect of consciousness, then perhaps the important point becomes how we understand this shift from awareness with to awareness of.

I think Descartes would disagree with you. — Mr Bee

Perhaps. But his first step was to doubt everything, and then arbitrarily select the possibility that he exists in time as his zero point energy, so to speak.

If we expect it to be neatly packaged into our language and logic and presented to the world whole, then I’d say any absolute ‘answer’ will elude us.
— Possibility

The answer doesn't have to conform to our language. It just has to exist, at least that's my point. — Mr Bee

What form would you like the answer in, then? Personally, I’d say the answer is pure possibility. Most wouldn’t consider that a satisfactory answer, though, because it’s meaningless in itself. But that’s the point.

I think we have to be satisfied with an incomplete form that is relative to an aspect of reality we can fully embody, such that our ongoing relation to it IS the answer. This is what I think Lao Tzu constructed in the Tao Te Ching.

But you can certainly see from your own point of view that you exist. And from your POV there are states of yourself that you were and have yet to become. That's just a fact as much as the cogito is one and surely that must mean something, right? It's hard to see what that could mean to exist in a "relative" sense. It's almost as if you're saying that we're all Schrodinger's cats in a sense. — Mr Bee

But I have to admit that I ascertain this existence only in relation to what is not me. Hence my existence is relative. In a sense, yes - we are all Schrödinger’s cat.

Then doesn't that make the answer pointless? Philosophy in general is all about determining the true nature of reality. If there is no such thing then why do we engage in these debates as if there is one instead of just acknowledging each other's different ontological views and leaving it at that much like we do on matters of orientation or motion? — Mr Bee

That depends on what we expect the true nature of reality to be, in an absolute sense. If we expect it to be neatly packaged into our language and logic and presented to the world whole, then I’d say any absolute ‘answer’ will elude us.

I was not defending anything, but just noticed that your choice of the words "isolation and exclusion" was very negative. Anyone who can speak English will tell you that. It is not even in any philosophical books or schools unless you are talking about some pessimistic "Existential Philosophy" describing destitute human condition or fate, because they will all die in the end.

Denying that or saying otherwise, I would take it as pure dishonesty or you don't know how to use some basic English words. — Corvus

You didn’t just notice it, you felt the need to mention it, and seem bothered that I’m not acknowledging the affect you believe is inherent in these terms. Why do you think that is?

Isolate: 1. cause (a person or place) to be or remain alone or apart from others.
2. identify (something) and examine or deal with it separately.

Exclude: 1. deny (someone) access to a place, group, or privilege.
2. remove from consideration.

Yes, my choice of words can have negative connotations. But I think it would only bother you this much if you believe that what you’re doing is inherently good. Because you ARE identifying faith and reason and examining or dealing with them separately. And you ARE removing aspects of reality from philosophical consideration. And you have probably always seen this as something good, following in the noble tradition of famous philosophers...

Drawing lines on the mental faculties, or boundary of the senses and reason, is perfectly philosophical expression which had been used for long time by many famous philosophers. — Corvus

That doesn’t make it right or good or proper or even authoritative. It just makes it institutional, like the Nicene Creed. I don’t expect you to recognise this anytime soon. I think I can roughly relate to where you are, though.

At this point, one may get the sense that everything is relative, but that can't be the case right? Surely there have to be some absolute facts about the world. For instance, I exist and you do too (otherwise how else are you reading this) and that's just a basic fact. In addition, questions about the nature of reality on matters such as determinism, the mind, and free will should be ones that have definite answers to them. Indeed, despite the varying opinions that people may have on such matters, and the fact that we cannot empirically settle them one way or another, we engage in heated debates under the implicit assumption that one position or another is the true one. — Mr Bee

We can establish that you and I exist relative to each other, but that doesn’t make it an absolute fact that either of us exist. In a galaxy far far away, you and I are yet to exist. Likewise, we can ask a question about the nature of reality, and determine an answer relative to the question, but this answer cannot be absolute.

It would be reassuring if we could be absolutely certain about something, but I’m inclined to believe that the absolute is at best a possibility...

Credentials aren’t necessary
— Possibility

I suppose you're right. Are you or any of your family suffering from any ailments? I could prescribe medication or even, if I feel like it, perform surgery. — TheMadFool

There’s no need to be facetious - credentials aren’t necessary to recognise the flaws in your understanding here. And if I need someone to treat my family, I won’t come to a philosophy forum for expertise, that’s for sure.

Your version of shock is amusing, astoundingly inaccurate, but entertaining. The digestion system will slow to crawl, the peripheral circulatory system will shutdown next, hence cold fingers and hands, as the body shunts blood to the more critical systems in the core (central nervous system, heart, lungs etc). Then the kidneys will shutdown, liver, etc. So pretty much exactly the opposite of what you said. Thanks for coming out. — Book273

:up:

Credentials, if any? I happen to know something about physiology - took a course back in college quite a long time ago. Something, they say, is better than nothing :rofl: Plus, did you read the NCBI link I provided? — TheMadFool

Credentials aren’t necessary - this is a commonly held understanding of how stress, injury, shock and the eventual process of dying affects the body, generally speaking. But I maintain that it varies according to conceptual structures. Sure, some people will pass out long before any of these other system shutdown processes can be observed or measured, but not before they are enacted. Others will continue to appear lucid and be able to communicate important information as needed - they have not lost consciousness - yet they retain no conscious memory of the event.

Your NCBI link throws a blanket conclusion over blood-flow redistribution under shock aiming to protect ‘survival functions’ rather than ‘higher brain function’... based on studies of sheep. This is vastly inconclusive in relation to a self-conscious subject with highly developed conceptual, language and societal structures. There is no reason at all to assume the same distribution pattern would be employed.

You’re getting defensive again. I’m not saying that isolation and exclusion are ‘bad’ or ‘negative’. I would say that they can be seen as ‘positive’ aspects to a model of truth. But I also think they’re no more important than the ‘negative space’. It is the quality and significance of this negative space - what we experience yet cannot attribute with a truth value - which enables us to ‘do philosophy’ in the first place. But our aim is not necessarily to attribute a truth value as such.

It is not arbitrary boundaries. The boundary had been drawn since time of Kant. And that was a part of his mission in Philosophy. I thought you did read Kant's Critiques. — Corvus

Sure - but that doesn’t mean they’re not arbitrarily drawn in a wider context. A large part of Kant’s mission was to determine the conditions for human knowledge. He drew the line and then explored its limitations as a boundary, recognising that reason is nevertheless informed by conditions beyond reason - that phenomena in human experience cannot be bracketed out simply because they don’t conform to reasonable concepts, but point to a wider context of ideas and feeling.

Drawing boundaries is not isolating and excluding, because it is saying that you go, and investigate the topics of out of the boundary of reason via faith, meditation or whatever other means that requires for you to get to the knowledge or truths you are after. — Corvus

...just remember to leave it all behind at the boundary to ‘Western Philosophy’? Would you say that ‘Western Philosophy’ as you understand it, then, is not seeking a complete, accurate or practical model of truth, but ONLY what ‘Western’ language and logic can assert to be true within reason?

Without an inclusive approach to truth and its negation that traverses the boundary of reason without penalty, you’re unable see how the human faculties of imagination, judgement and understanding can be restructured to interact in a working model of truth that is accurate both within and beyond this ‘boundary of reason’.

My position here has never been that your approach is ‘wrong’, only that it is narrow. You don’t seem willing to acknowledge this.

Reason, which is universal to human being's mind will authorise you to do that, if you follow proper guidelines and apply the right methodology to your truths seeking process. Surely that is not isolation and exclusion, but it is just a part of the right procedure in truths yielding. — Corvus

But you cannot prove your claim of ‘right’ or ‘proper’ without appealing to an arbitrary authority of Western ‘tradition’. Do you recognise the dogmatism here?

I’m not convinced that it’s the first to be switched off, though.
— Possibility

Sorry, you're wrong. — TheMadFool

You won’t convince me with that argument, I’m afraid. So far, the illusion seems to be yours. If you remove the brain from the body and expect the body to continue living, then you’d be mistaken. That consciousness isn’t necessary for life is plausible. That the brain isn’t necessary seems ridiculous, and you have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

I’m thinking you might need to be clearer with your use of ‘brain’, ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’. Your argument reads like:

Consciousness is the first function to switch off in a crisis.
Therefore,
The brain is the least important organ in the body.

Sorry, try again.

All I can say is that we zonk out and to tell you the truth, it doesn't even matter which part of the body consciousness resides in; the point is consciousness is the first to be switche off and that implies, it's of least importance. — TheMadFool

I’m not convinced that it’s the first to be switched off, though. I think we notice more readily when consciousness switches off. But there are a number of functions which may already temporarily shut down before we reach this level of crisis. These may include our digestive system, bowel and bladder control, circulation to extremities, temporal orientation, etc.

I was drawing lines between subjects that can be dealt with reason, and subjects which is out of boundary of debate with reason. I cannot understand why you must be negative and keep saying "isolating and excluding". — Corvus

Topics that are out of boundary of reason should be left to the faith and mysticism, because you cannot come to concrete truths or conclusion by reasoning. So boundary has been drawn on the reason and faith. It is not isolating or excluding. — Corvus

Drawing arbitrary boundaries and lines, declaring what is in and out - please tell me how this is not isolating and excluding. There are no boundaries except those we draw in our own limited perception. I’m not expecting truth to be concrete or conclusive - that doesn’t mean it can’t be both accurate and practical.

Take a moment to consider the phenomenon some unlucky folks experience in their lives viz. fainting/syncope. The usual circumstances in which people faint/have a dizzy spell/lose consciousness are those that involve an insult to the cardiovascular system, in layman's terms blood loss. The body, physiologists say, responds by diverting the diminishing supply of blood away from, here's where it gets interesting, nonessential parts of the body to the vital organs. In other words, insofar as the body is concerned, the brain/mind is a nonessential i.e. it can be and is shut down in times of crisis. — TheMadFool

I think you may be incorrectly assuming that the entire organ shuts down, but we commonly lose consciousness without losing all brain function. It is consciousness, then, that can be determined a non-essential function in times of crisis, not the brain. But I think it also depends on the crisis, and on individual conceptual structures. Some would determine ‘non-essential’ functions to include consciousness as a whole, others would retain an immediate appearance of consciousness (able to communicate information or move away from danger) but would process no memories during this time.

An affect isn't the explanation for our action, just a consequence. — Marty

The brain distributes attention and effort (energy) based on interaction between an ongoing interoception and conceptual prediction of affect (valence and arousal) in relation to allostasis. So, no - not just a consequence. Affect refers to the internal language and logic of action.

I wouldn't treat mysticism, religion and any other non philosophical subject with the philosophical methodology. If I am interested in a mysticism (which I am not in real life), then I would just go and read up about the mysticism. I will not try to bring mysticism under philosophical methodology, unless such situation had risen for some some peculiar circumstance, which I doubt. — Corvus

But you ARE treating them with your philosophical methodology by isolating and excluding them from any critical discussion of truth.

Could you please explain in detail on your saying "its own serious problems with reality and appearance, language and meaning etc"? What serious problems are you talking about here? — Corvus

This:

OK, there are problems with reality and appearance, and whether what you see or hear were correct etc, but that is another issue and it is about skepticism. This is I feel, a separate issue. — Corvus

Bracketing out skepticism from a discussion of truth or reality is just a way of avoiding uncertainty. So, we can make these assertions about reality IFF our underlying logical assumptions and the meanings we attribute to language are true about reality. That we cannot use reason alone to verify this is a serious problem with the methodology in relation to determining an accurate model of truth. But you’re not after accuracy or correctness, only an illusion of certainty. And you’re willing to ignore, isolate or exclude any human capacity to access truth beyond reason in order to retain that illusion.

My claim was not reason is the only and best tool, but rather, I was saying for Western Philosophical tradition rationalism has been dominating trend, and I follow the tradition. — Corvus

It sure sounds like it’s your claim:

Still the best tool human has for the verification and validation is 'reason" and logic. If one doesn't see, or agree to this, then I have no other way to convince than tell him to meditate or pray for the truths he is after. — Corvus

You keep oscillating between assertions of dominance and obedience to ‘tradition’.

I think another conclusion you can reach is that empirical evidence underdetermines our actions, and empirical evidence can never give us justification for how to reason correctly about ethics. — Marty

Sure, but this doesn’t change the fact that reason cannot determine our actions free from affect. So reason alone can never give us justification for how to reason correctly about ethics.

I'm not sure what you mean by "determining the truth of this system." And why that has to be done after the fact. If I'm acting based on ethical reasons, then the good will enables me to act on those reasons. Why should we smuggle in a motivated reason retroactively? It seems perfectly fine to imagine that I help someone out who I dislike, and after doing it, I feel unpleasant because I just didn't like them. There could be no possible prior incentive to help the person outside of my ethical vocation. And that may have been enough to act.

I'm also not sure why I'd reduce human agency to causal explanations alone. — Marty

Determining the truth of an ethical system is about the relation between how we should act and how we do act. It seems perfectly fine to imagine any possibility at all in terms of how anyone might feel about what I could do, and to make ethical judgements based on this. What determines whether an act is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is the track record of affect in our relative experience, both directly and indirectly informed.

How do you think ‘the good will’ enables you to act on ethical reasons? What is enough ‘ethical vocation’ to act? How does knowledge translate into action? There’s more to this than causal explanation alone - there is a predictive distribution of attention and effort based on a perception of potential and/or value.

Perhaps that's where our difference lies. To me, knowledge and truths beyond reason are in the realm of religion or psychology or whatever, but they are not philosophy. What cannot be said, sensed, talked or verified is not subject of philosophy. They are mysticism. — Corvus

Yes, this is where we differ. Because if you’re going to judge the validity of a particular model of truth (ie. a religion, mysticism or philosophy), then you need to understand how its methodology differs from your own traditional ‘Western Philosophy’ model - keeping in mind that your traditional model has its own serious problems with reality and appearance, language and meaning, etc.

It just seems to me as if you’re judging the validity of other models against a methodology that is itself limited in relation to truth. Your claim that reason is the ‘best’ tool for verification and validation (ie. an illusion of certainty) is argued within a tradition that dismisses other tools as ‘not philosophy’ because they don’t follow this tradition which claims (arbitrarily) that reason is the ‘best’ tool... It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, an imaginative ‘what if’ that ‘worked’ consistently enough to be consolidated into a formidable institution - rather like Christianity, or geocentrism - and now fights for ‘survival’ by beating back all but the most ‘pure’ fundamentalism.

I agree that reason is an effective tool in determining an accurate model of truth - to a point. Arguing from reason that reason is the ‘best’ tool is simply measuring against itself. The only way to verify this claim is to find a methodology for parsing ANY and ALL models of truth: religion, mysticism, science, philosophy, subjective experience, etc. To do that, philosophy needs to include discussions of human experience beyond reason. And it needs to accept the possibility of a more accurate model of truth that destabilises human reason from its central, static position around which experience revolves. Another ‘Copernican Turn’, to borrow from Kant again.

appreciate reason is most significant foundation in Western Philosophy. — Corvus

Again, I’m not denying this - my point is that this foundation does not then define what Philosophy is or should be. Philosophy that ventures beyond the capacity of reason does not cease to be philosophy. And methodologies to determine a model of truth without approaching it from (or deferring to) a Western foundation of Reason should not be excluded from the practise of philosophy.

Experience: the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time. Practical contact with and observation of facts and events. Any event or occurrence that leaves an impression on someone. Empirical evidence.

I want to be clear that I am not defining the whole of Western Philosophy - I am defining the practise of philosophy as I understand it. I find it amusing that you consider my approach to be too narrow simply because of the words I’ve used, yet ‘extracting the common denominator from the tradition’ and the ‘prevailing attitudes’ of Western Philosophy to define all philosophy is not narrow? It’s a bit like defining ‘humanity’ by extracting the ‘common denominator’ from patriarchal tradition and the prevailing attitudes of men.

The reference I made to Kant was to counter your suggestion that my definition was formed outside of philosophical discourse - a ‘layman’s definition’, I think were your words. Regardless of the terms, the methodology behind them marked the beginning of a shift in both common denominator and prevailing attitudes for many philosophers, opening Western philosophy up to influence from art, literature and Eastern traditions, among others, and enabling philosophers to critique the foundations of language, the structures of logic and the supposed ‘essentialism’ of experience. But I imagine these influences were considered to be diluting the ‘purity’ of an orthodox Western focus on the primacy of Reason. Perhaps these influences were tolerated only insofar as philosophers attempted to assimilate the discussion within Western philosophical discourse, concealing their ‘otherness’ lest they offend the sensibilities of purists such as yourself.

In Kant, experience and truths is only possible, when you allow the inherent reason and sensory experience are combined. He distinguished different kind of reasons - Pure Reason (for general perception and mathematical perception), Practical Reason (for ethical and aesthetic judgements). These reasons are inborn, and universal. They are transcendental and categorical. It is the foundation for all human knowledge. — Corvus

You’re only making it clearer to me that you’re unfamiliar with his third critique. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

OK, there are problems with reality and appearance, and whether what you see or hear were correct etc, but that is another issue and it is about skepticism. This is I feel, a separate issue. — Corvus

Separate from philosophy?

Just a few rushed comments. I’ll try and address the rest at a later time...

they have no privileged place over experience that limits the methodology, and thereby access to truth.
— Possibility

Could you give some examples on this? I am not sure what experiences you are talking about here, and where it came from. — Corvus

Well, that was badly worded on my part - sorry. I was trying to say that methodology is limited when a privileged place (over experience) is given to reason and logic. When all experience must be logically structured and filtered through reason, then you begin the process of thinking with a limited access to truth.

The use of ‘the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement’ comes from Kant.
— Possibility

They make sense, when one is reading the book "Critique of Pure Reason" with the context, but when someone is just saying it or written down out of blue without telling where it came from, then it can cause confusion. Kant has been talking about them in his grand scheme of human understanding how they all work.

But when you just say it, one will wonder, what imagination, understanding and judgement? Because they are always imagination of something, understanding of something or judement of something. How can you just talk about empty imagination, understanding and judgement without any contents or objects? It just sounded abstract and empty and meaningless. — Corvus

I’m not ‘just saying it’, I’m employing the discourse of Western Philosophy to define Philosophy. And I’m not talking about any contents or objects, but the faculties themselves. This is a common error that originates with the translation of Kant’s ‘Kritik der Urteilskraft‘ into English, and the failure of many philosophers to even read this third critique. He’s not referring to the actual ‘judgement (urteils) of something’, as in CofPR, but to the faculty of judgement - not just the capacity to judge, but the pure possibility of human judgement - which influences both reason and ethics at an a priori level.

But here Kant glimpses beyond reason, and recognises free, non-judgemental harmony between the faculties of imagination and understanding as the realm of ‘genius’, wisdom, sagacity. He left the door open to a broader approach to philosophy...

You keep verifying and validating. You don't restructure anything. Restructuring comes automatically after the verification and validation. Reason and logic is the tool for that exercise. But without co-relation of reason, logic and reality, your verification and validation will never be possible. — Corvus

Verifying and validating against what? Against your conception of reality? Against logic or reason?

It is the structure of this co-relation that is the key: the model of truth. But where does experience fit into this? Without an understanding of how feeling affects our perception of reality, reason or logic, and how this affected perception influences attention and effort, your verification and validation will never be accurate in relation to reality. At best you have a prediction.

Tis not contrary to reason to imagine us being motivated by reason alone, or, if you like, to be motivated for good reasons!

So, why is it that people multiple entities beyond their necessity and say that all actions need to be related to some desire or disposition for us to be able to act? Such a statement cannot be established as a relation of ideas, nor a matter of fact. Obviously, there is no logical necessity to talk of actions without desires, and no inductive statement can show us its necessity. It can presumably show us that some motivations are like that, but the way some people act is as if it's all of our motivations.

So, why do people do this? It seems completely more parsimonious to think we act for good reasons, simplicter. That, in some rare cases, a person can act such and such a way despite them not wanting to (by some prior disposition or prior desire). When these good reasons are divorced from our desires, we can begin ethics properly.

Always perplexes me why people want to add something more to the picture. — Marty

This is a good question. Any action requires energy, distributed as both attention and effort throughout the organism over a duration. How reason influences this distribution of energy is notoriously unclear.

I agree that when we imagine ourselves motivated by reason alone, divorced from our desires, we can arrive at a system of how we ‘should’ act. But we cannot determine the truth of this system in relation to why we act the way we do without an understanding of affect: namely the organism’s ongoing interoception of valence (pleasant/unpleasant) and arousal (high/low).

Whenever we do act, the structure of reality in which the organism distributes attention and effort (ie. acts) is ultimately determined neither by reason nor ethics, but by affect. This ‘map’ of valence and arousal interacts with conceptual structures to generate an ongoing prediction of attention and effort requirements that achieve allostasis.

That is not to say that reason and ethics have no influence. On the contrary, our conceptual reality is often structured according to reason and ethics. But the language and logic of human action is written in affect, and so a conceptual reality that cannot easily translate back and forth from affect is going to make inaccurate predictions about attention and effort requirements in themselves and in others.

It sounded like not Philosophy defined by philosophical view point, but from a psychology or layman. It is just too loose definition, and unclear. It does not mention anything about methodology of the subject.
"determine a model of truth"? by how?. Do you want to determine a model of truth, but deny the importance of logic and reason? — Corvus

I am not denying that logic and reason play a part, but they have no privileged place over experience that limits the methodology, and thereby access to truth. The methodology is part of the model itself, and should account for not just the variability of experience (ie. conceptual and ethical structures), but also the variability of reasoning (ie. logic and language structures).

The use of ‘the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement’ comes from Kant.

So, when I say that the investigation of logical correctness of terminology, sayings, codes, principles, etc has nothing to do with reality, I’m saying that it is subject to human decisions and conventions - namely, language.
— Possibility

Language alone would be insufficient. I am not sure if language alone can cover and reflect the whole picture of mental activities such as thinking, believing, imagination and judgement. Your thinking is very much limited. I feel that reality and logic and reasoning are closely related. If reason and logical process and conclusions do not agree with reality, then something is wrong somewhere, and you need to find out about that. — Corvus

I agree that language is insufficient. I’m saying that any philosophy which fails to account for the limitations of language is further removed from reality than they realise. I’m saying that language structures restrict thinking, believing, imagination and judgement, and so investigating logical correctness within a particular language structure only limits these mental activities further.

If reason and logical process and conclusions do not agree with reality, how far back will you go to restructure? If you employ a set methodology that gives primacy to logic and reason within a Western philosophical discourse, how can you investigate the correctness of that methodology?

I get that clinging to a logical foundation or reasonable methodology gives the illusion of certainty. But what if that’s where you’re wrong? How will you ever know?

1. What is Philosophy in your thought? — Corvus

I’ve already answered this question here. Twice.

Philosophy is exploring the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement to determine a model of truth. — Possibility

2. What is your definition of Reality? — Corvus

Let’s start with a standard philosophical definition:

Reality: existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective, and not subject to human decisions or conventions.

So, when I say that the investigation of logical correctness of terminology, sayings, codes, principles, etc has nothing to do with reality, I’m saying that it is subject to human decisions and conventions - namely, language.

I tend to prefer the term ‘arrange’, rather than ‘assemble’. I don’t think there’s necessarily a pre-determined purpose or reason for things to be brought together a certain way. But I do think there is an underlying logic.
— Possibility

As I don't hold to physicalism, I am sceptical of the effort to explain living things in terms of physical laws. I'm sceptical of the idea that the increase in order that we see with the evolution of life and the development of technological culture is literally balanced by an increase of entropy in the universe generally. As I mention below, I don't see how this is conceivably testable as an hypothesis. — Wayfarer

I understand your scepticism, and I didn’t say this equation was balanced. I’m talking about inefficiency. If you read my more recent reply to Gary, I think that life is highly efficient in maintaining order within itself, but the attention and effort required to maintain this order is ongoing, and so each organism does consume energy and expel waste. It is everything else we do to save ourselves time, money and discomfort, though, that lacks an awareness of how energy flows in the broader system.

When we turn on the heater in our house, do we know how much energy it uses? If we have the option to simply add a layer of clothing instead, theoretically we can calculate the difference in energy use within the global system - but do we? Entropy is the number of macroscopic states that our blurred vision of the world fails to distinguish. To the extent that our efforts to maintain a suitable temperature are inefficient, generating heat we can’t use or don’t need, we are increasing entropy. I’m not a physicist or mathematician, but I do think this is conceivably testable.

The related question I have is that, just as there is 'the arrow of time', there at least seems to be an 'arrow of complexity' i.e. more intelligent and self-aware beings have developed over time. However, this belief is rejected as orthogenetic by mainstream science.

I would like, for example, to at least entertain the notion that the evolution of intelligent beings fulfils a natural purpose - that there is an inherent tendency in nature to evolve towards greater levels of self-awareness. However this too is rejected as taboo in evolutionary science on the grounds that it is teleological, it presumes a purpose when there can be no purposes with an intelligent agent. And the only intelligent agent that science knows of is h. sapiens. — Wayfarer

I’m wary that your related question may take us a little off topic. I think you and I have interacted before on this forum with regard to the notion of teleology and evolution, and may have also been in agreement in relation to Nagel’s book ‘Mind and Cosmos’. I will say that I agree with you on the apparent ‘arrow of complexity’ and inherent tendency towards greater levels of ‘self-awareness’.

But I’m not sure that this necessarily translates to purpose. In his book, Nagel proposes a third alternative to the randomness vs purpose debate. I think there are hints to this third option throughout philosophy and science, including Kant’s ‘purposiveness without purpose’, the potentiality of QM, neuroscience’s interoception of affect and the notion of wu-wei in the Tao Te Ching. I think there is an underlying tendency in existence towards increasing awareness, connection and collaboration, as well as an overarching tendency to consolidate information through ignorance, isolation and exclusion. They have the potential to cancel each other out - and yet, here we are...

If entropy is based on the notion of energy flowing away from an aggregation of energy, I do not see why you should label the accumulation of energy as an accumulation of entropy? Are you saying that an accumulation is a gathering of the potential for faster dispersal? That seems ridiculous. Entropy is the dispersal not the accumulation. So let's call accumulation accumulation and not arrangement.

Entropy has also been extended into the concept of breaking down order into disorder. In the same way as the last paragraph, why are you saying that a build-up of order is not assembly but a build up of entropy. That again seems ridiculous.

Focussing on Entropy, whether the outward flow of energy or a tendency for order to break down more rapidly after a period of accumulation/assembly, still ignores the fact that assembly has occurred. Increased entropy isn't happening while there is accumulation. — Gary Enfield

As Rovelli states, “Entropy is a measurable and calculable quantity that increases or remains the same but never decreases, in an isolated process.” This is the second law of thermodynamics. So whenever it seems as if we are reducing entropy in a system, we need to recognise that the system we are focused on is merely a temporary arrangement within a broader system, and not an isolated process.

I did not say that a build up of order is not assembly - I said that it also increases entropy outside of what is ‘assembled’. There is a tendency here to assume that in what you assemble you’re accumulating energy, and thereby reducing entropy, but it only appears that way when you focus narrowly on the system you’re assembling. You’re not accumulating energy, you’re arranging structures of matter and the flow of energy as a relatively ‘stable’ system of low entropy. This has not reversed entropy overall - it has only temporarily reduced it within that system of focus. Keeping that system stable requires energy coming in by breaking down other created systems of low entropy, AND entropy being expelled into a wider system beyond this focus.

So when I say that we’re creating a store of energy, I don’t mean that we’re increasing the accumulation of energy, but that we’re temporarily keeping a certain amount of energy stable, simply by being alive. What we do on top of that - including burning fossil fuels for comfort and entertainment or planting trees for their own sake - determines whether we are increasing the amount of energy that is being kept in other low entropy systems, or increasing entropy by breaking down these other systems.

Much of the materials we use now for assembling structures such as shelter, clothing and tools are chosen for their stability, and require large amounts of energy to be established as such. We do this because our main focus is on keeping our own personal systems in an ongoing state of low entropy. The less effort I need to make, the less energy I need to use. But if we focus on a more global system, then it appears I’m releasing a lot of energy stores to keep a small, localised area stable - and this results in an increase of entropy on a global scale that far outweighs the small store of energy that I personally keep. But this global system, too, is a localised arrangement of matter and energy, so even if we manage to create arrangements that ‘reduce’ the entropy within our global ecosystem, we need to recognise that this will have implications for the quantity of universal entropy.

If we focus on assembly, then we ignore the entropy that is expelled. If we focus on entropy, the fact that it never decreases ensures that we locate this arrangement in a broader system, and recognise that there is missing information regarding the flow of energy/entropy.

I enjoyed reading this, and I’m glad I spotted this thread.

I dabbled in biblical hermeneutics for a period (don’t judge), and found an interesting use of three very different Greek words in John’s gospel commonly translated into the English verb ‘to see’. Recognising the difference drastically alters the meaning of that text in key points of the narrative such as those that refer to Jesus’ supposed divinity and resurrection. I’ll add it in here because it also refers to @god must be atheist’s reference to eidos:

θεωρέω - theoreo refers to seeing as in observing, discerning, considering. It describes more than simply looking - it includes thinking and deciphering what the visual cues mean. Theoreo is the root of the English word ‘theatre’, where spectators concentrate on meaning, as well as ‘theory’, in which a meaning is offered without confirmation. The seeing action is to attribute meaning through observation. The verb is used to describe someone not just seeing, but attempting to make sense of what they see - e.g. recognising a person or mistaking that person for someone else, recognising that what they observe has meaning, but not necessarily grasping the true meaning.

ὁράω - Horao is described as seeing with the mind, seeing spiritually, or with inward perception. The verb is used in the imperative to instruct the people to do more than simply look with their eyes. The seeing action is to grasp the truth of an observation. Horao is also used in the aorist form (eido) to describe knowing, or a seeing that becomes knowledge. Like the English expression ‘I see what you mean’, eido is described as ‘a gateway to grasp spiritual truth (reality) from a physical plane’ - a bridge to mental (and spiritual) seeing.

Both of these verbs are distinct in meaning from βλέπω (blepo) which refers to one’s physical sense of sight only. When this verb is used, the intention is to look at what is objectively visible, without necessarily associating what one sees visually with any meaning or knowledge in the mind. It describes a physical ‘looking’ or noticing. When someone is said to see in this manner, there is no sense that they are processing what they see, deriving meaning or realising the truth.

- - - - -

I’m intrigued by this aspect of ancient language and translations, in which the approach to thinking seems to be different, or perhaps has changed since these ancient languages dropped out of common usage. I’ve been trying address some of this in the thread on the Tao Te Ching, because there is also no single character that translates as ‘to be’ in traditional literary Chinese, and the language structure seems to lends itself more readily to communicating relations between the immaterial quality of ideas, rather than reifying concepts. The same characters in Chinese have been translated into seemingly contradictory English terms (such as jué, commonly translated as ‘absolutely’ outside of the TTC, yet in the TTC translated as ‘abandon’, ‘renounce’ or ‘avoid’). The notion of judgement or value also doesn’t seem to be a fixed aspect of the language - with most characters able to refer to both positive and negative approaches to an idea. I’d be interested in discussing this with a native Chinese speaker, though, as it seems as if modern use of Chinese may be different now to the traditional literary Chinese of ancient texts.