if panpsychism is true, human consciousness (probably) isn't the result of evolution. But I don't think that's likely - I don't turn my nose up at it either, but I don't think it's likely. — flannel jesus

On the other hand, human existence presents the appearance of a concordance of improbabilities. In which case, perhaps it is the validation of an unlikely hypothesis.

Anticipations, The Open Conspiracy, The New World Order
by H. G. Wells

Seems that H.G. Wells wrote a lot of futurist social commentary. I love digging for gems.

edit: Well, fudge that. Impossible to get a usable kindle edition of the collected works. The man just wrote too much I guess.

this instead

Island Nights' Entertainments
by Robert Louis Stevenson

I think there is a spectrum of belief, stretching from things that we entertain as hypotheticals, to things upon which we are willing to act, in some cases even in defiance of consequences and personal risk. Which is why philosophical exercises that revolve around counterfactual or merely-possible hypotheticals are so tiresome. It isn't really important what someone "might" believe. It is important what people actually do believe, and how much they do believe it. Some people think that belief is easy to accomplish; it isn't. Many people make a great many pretensions to a great many beliefs But how many of those beliefs rise to the status of convictions?

Nevertheless something gives rise to thought, and since it is prior it is without telos — Chris Degnen

Not necessarily. Perhaps thought is a symptom of teleology.

Incomplete Nature by Terrance Deacon is an interesting modern attempt to recover Aristotlean formal cause through thermodynamics and thus to explain purposeful behavior and the emergence of first person perspective. It isn't fully convincing, but it's the best effort I've seen.

One deficit it has though is that it assumes that information only exists in terms of life, as a given. To assume otherwise would be to introduce humonculi for Deacon.

I think this is mistaken. My hunch is that a satisfactory accounting of intentionality will include an explanation of the way perspective and semiotic elements of reality are "baked in" from the outset. Scott Mueller's "Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information," and Carlo Rovelli's "Helgoland," have some interesting points on this front. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks, I really appreciate the references/recommendations, those are always beneficial.

I think it has utility as an aspiration, as in calling thought into action when required and resting it when not required; — Chris Degnen

Which is identical with what I wrote, no?

I do think that will can and should be employed in both an externally realizing and internally self-restraining sense — Pantagruel

As far as there being something "prior to thought" here we part ways. This can only be speculation, IMO, and it isn't productive, pragmatically speaking. It tends towards an kind of idealism which I no longer support I see consciousness as inextricable from the contexts of its expression.

Yes, I know that isn't your gist. But personally I think that the undercurrent of purpose is not disposable. There an innate conation to consciousness. I do think that will can and should be employed in both an externally realizing and internally self-restraining sense. But I don't see the "null-state" as being meaningful, except as an exercise perhaps.

"there is a perception of a refined truth of the dimension of nothingness" — Chris Degnen

Various philosophers also consider the faculty of "intellectual intuition"

Lots of people attempt to abstract essential features of consciousness and then deny consciousness. I have never found this cogent. Rather, it seems to me fundamentally "autologically unsound," viz., relying on a faculty to deny the existence of that faculty. "Passive volition" is an example of a paradoxical concept found in Tibetan yoga and zen buddhism. But this is not being without mind so much as it is being of two minds.

The fact that teleology exists. You can't abstract away from something that is evident. You can hypothesize what a universe absent consciousness might be like but, per impossibile, you cannot actually experience such a universe without being in a state of self-contradiction. If you want to deny teleology, why not also deny materiality?

That is fine in a world of thought and things, but in an unconditioned world without (or before) thought there is no telos. — Chris Degnen

I would say that whether there is or is not such a world is precisely what is in question. And the essential fact of telos suggests to me that there is not such an unconditioned world.

So we can actually chill-out and float upstream in a reality free of instrumentality, from time to time. — Chris Degnen

I don't see how this follows. Everything you cited suggest that teleology is imminent, as imminent as is the future....

The recognition then of intra-organic events, which are not merely effects nor distorted refractions of cosmic objects, but inchoate future cosmic objects in process of experimental construction, resolves. to my mind, the paradox of so-called subjective and private things that have objective and universal reference, and that operate so as to lead to objective consequences which test their own value. When a man can say: This color is not necessarily the color of the glass nor the picture nor even of an object reflected but is at least an event in my nervous system, an event which I may refer to my organism till I get surety of other reference—he is for the first time emancipated from the dogmatism of unquestioned reference, and is set upon a path of experimental inquiry.
~John Dewey, The Logical Character of Ideas

He's not wrong. This is the essence of my own position which I'd describe as experimental constructivism.

If the sensations are fabricated then are you implying that your intuitions of objectivity are unreliable? As long as you are not effacing the link with objectivity that the intuition effects.

Unlike Kant, I would say that, although there must be something intuited as outside of me in order to determine myself within experience, it is entirely possible that the sensations which are given (for me to intuit) are completely or partially fabricated (by myself or another) and there is no way to know. To me, this doesn’t really matter for practical purposes, but is technically true. — Bob Ross

I think this contradicts an essential characteristic of transcendental intuition, which is that effect a synthesis of the subjective and the objective. Hence its transcendental character.

narrative trick of saying "you're not going to believe this but I swear it's true." — Jamal

manufacturing credibility

:up:

I really like this reflection from the opening:

I feared I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess....

Suggests that the truth of events is so complex that we are essentially always "fictionalizing" in order to represent reality.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
by Edgar Allan Poe

The violent attack on Israel is far worse than the defensive reply with violence. Defense is permitted, attack is not. Killing in defense is not as bad karma as murder during an assault. — Nicholas

Yes, Israel definitely does not have a history of genocidal persecution of the Palestinians. The holocaust halo doesn't grant eternal moral immunity. The end does not justify the means. The means we use dictate the ends.

That being said, I think Israel should abide by its own principles in war and provide as much aide as possible to Gazans, keep its air strikes only at targets that are absolutely seen as necessary to disarm them, not just anywhere they suspect. They need to actually have a strategic plan for a two state solution and work to bolster the moderate Palestinians. — schopenhauer1

Reasonable.

Should the Allies have bombed Nazi Germany in 1945? — schopenhauer1

What should happen is that people stop try to justify and legitimize violence in all of its repulsive aspects. Morality is exercised in living contexts, not historical evaluations.

Israel's treatment of the Palestinians while shocking to you appears to overlook the fact that Palestinians butchered and burnt babies, raped women, and took the very old as hostages. — Hanover

So you would say, on the atrocity scale, that Hamas has "crossed the line"?

I wasn't aware there was a spectrum of genocidal intent.

Claiming either side has a moral edge in justifying murder is....justifying murder.

Doubtless many and many an act of thought has intervened in effecting the organization of our commonest practical-affectional-aesthetic environment. I only mean to indicate that thought does take place in such a world; not after a world of bare existences. and that while the more systematic reflection we call organized science may, in some fair sense, be said to come after, it comes after affectional, artistic, and technological interests which have found realization.
Dewey, "The Antecedents and Stimuli of Thinking"

Which is to say, of course, that thinking precedes science. Which seems pretty obvious. Science is a product of instrumental thought. Since I'm interested in the instrumentality of thought (for which science is only a tool) I'm crossing the boundaries of intuition, epistemology, social linguistics, science, etc.. There's actually a method which formalizes this type of project called "intertheoretic reduction." The result of an intertheoretic reduction is known as a 'reducing theory' which explains or predicts a wider range of phenomena under more general conditions.

It's metaphysical speculation, sure. That's why its in the lounge. Of course, science isn't sacrosanct for most of us.

Given the givenness of reality, the natural order of things is for things to fade away. So for any apparently existing structure, the tendency is for that structure to dis-integrate. That is the most general conceptualization of physical entropy. Any structure which contradicts this law cannot have physicality as a sufficient cause. So emergent structures necessarily involve transphysical causation. Energy flows downhill, just like streams of water. And just like streams of water, energy can be harnessed by certain types of structures and made to flow along the reverse gradient. An adventitious momentary configuration becomes advantageous in storing energy (because that is essentially what negentropy does). Informationally, the adventitious momentary configuration is the physicality of the medium. Words can be written. They can be in any language. They can be carved in stone. Or transmitted as pulses of energy. But the essential symbolicity of meaning is what is completely transphysical, what exists across and transcends all possible physical configurations. And the ongoing physical evolution confirms the efficacy of the informational. Information tends to accrue, just like matter, and imposes form upon matter. Dark energy and dark matter, for example, appear to interact with matter, and also appear not to be affected by matter. There are dimensions of overlap.

It's your topic. I suggest you start one.

Suppose the universe starts at a state of low entropy A and ends up in a state of high entropy B. Now suppose that the event of the transition from state A to B leaves an informational footprint. It is possible that the informational entropy decrease complements the physical entropy increase.

I suggest that the nature of the relationship between physical and informational entropy is only beginning to be understood. Therefore I refrain from making judgements that rely on presuppositions about overall entropy state, whether the universe is an open or closed system, etc., Negentropy emerges locally. That's a fact and it's what I'm currently thinking about. :)

Are you saying that there is a consensus as to the overall entropy state of the universe? That would be news to me. In any case, its not germane to the mechanism of negentropy and whether total entropy increases, decreases, or remains the same is moot to me at this moment.

I think whether the total entropy of the universe is conserved or not is an open question. In any case, I'm not speculating as to that at this time.

I'm getting some really clear ideas while reading Dewey's essays on experimental logic. It's roughly conformant with what's being looked at in the current thread on mind and nature. About the facticity of phenomenological data. To me it suggests that information emerges through a natural process, having both a synchronic-objective form but also a diachronic aspect. And this becomes instrumental in the unfolding of negentropy, which I see as a kind of amplification of quantum-coherence.

Surely, science isn't "the pursuit of truth" but "the pursuit of truth under a particular set of circumstances", and these circumstances are what we call science. — Judaka

I think this is accurate. Per Dewey, "Every science is continually learning that its supposed solutions are only "apparent" because the solution solves, not the actual problem, but one which has been made up." (Dewey, "The Relationship of Thought and its Subject Matter" in Essays in Experimental Logic) Science is conducted under conditions which are "constructed."

I agree with your overall perspective....if I had to pick it would be social justice over wealth.

I'd have to say that whether or not money is useful on a desert island isn't relevant to its possessing actual and unique force in the world at large.

direct usefulness means that a dog would understand it. — Vera Mont

Arf?!?

itself having no direct usefulness — Vera Mont

Actually Georg Simmel talks a lot about how money achieves an independent and real function, concretizing the value of the intangible. As one of the "steering media" (Habermas) money has unique and definite influences.

start here — 180 Proof

:up:

:rofl:

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit. — Vera Mont

Hence the notion of trickle down, and what trickles down.

So you are being ironic, right? Because grocery stores don't distribute unsold produce, they dispose of it.

Religions are not life-affirming as such. — baker

This is also not true of many kinds of religions. Calvinistic Protestants aspire to a calling, a special task that gives meaning and utility to life. And various indigenous fertility rites throughout history can't be described as anything but life-affirming. Harvest festivals. Frazer's Golden Bough is a great resource.

Collective and cooperative efforts on a global scale are impossible. One cannot coordinate and cooperate with 100 people at once, let alone 9 billion. So I’m not sure about the reasonableness of that. — NOS4A2

I would dispute this. There is a difference between coordination of efforts and coordination of objectives.

As to the involuntary force-governed cooperation of the governed, that can be said to be true of all governance. As Weber says, the state holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.