Not sure what you may be implying by mentioning bodily states emerging from cognitive states. — praxis

I didn’t intend the term “emerge” as in philosophical understanding of emergence but as in “coming out from.” At the time it seemed more appropriate than to say “caused by” (thinking it minimized the metaphysical implications). My use of the term was not optimal.

What I said has a lot to do with my understandings of top-down and bottom-up process of mind. I recognize this is not mainstream, and I don’t intend to here argue for them. I only want to offer a more meaningful reply.

I take it for granted that we’ve been addressing voluntary imagination. The example of envy to me is in this situation farfetched. Why would someone imagine themselves envious in order to so become? It’s an unpleasant emotion to experience. But to imagine oneself calm when one is turbulent and vice versa is common practice in some meditation schools of thought I’ve read. (It is even claimed that those experienced in such practices can, to varying degrees, alter their metabolic rates at will.) Calming one’s body when feeling anxious, this by voluntarily imagining oneself to be calm, would be something willed by the conscious self. Hence, in short, if successful it would be an effect consisting of bodily states caused by the intentions of the conscious self - this then being a top-down process of mind.

However, this is not to say that the conscious self is not resultant of subconscious process from which it emerges (here in the philosophical sense of emergence) - these being bottom-up processes of mind.

Again, though, if possible I’d like to currently abstain from debating how mind can be simultaneously composed of both bottom-up and top-down processes.

it involves subconscious prediction — praxis

To be honest, I find it hard to fathom how a mind could possibly work without these.

Ought to be going, but wanted to say you bring up a good point, if I interpret you correctly. Fear, aggression, and fun are three conceptually distinct emotions that can all result from bodily sensations of immanent peril. So it’s said, by “fun” in here thinking of activities like rock-climbing or roller-coaster rides. There’s the body’s production of adrenaline, this being the core affect in response to sub/unconsciously perceived peril. How one reacts to this core affect cognitively - here trying to keep things as simple as possible - then results in fear of, aggression toward, or a sense of fun. Notwithstanding my previous posts, this to me is one example of how cognition can at times interact with bodily sensations to produce specific emotions. Myself, as per Dewey and contra James’ thesis, I yet take the resulting emotion to temporally precede and be a causal factor to the behaviors that then unfold: e.g., fear resulting in flight, aggression in attack, and fun in bodily states of pleasure.

Then my bad for having misinterpreted the emotive tone.

Here. An number of regions are identified.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811916303792 — Isaac

I hope I don't need to link to definitions of "interoception" given how long this thread is and the term's repeated use, nor need to make a distinction between first hand experience and the fMRI readings of what's going on in a brain.

To state the obvious: regions in a CNS associated with envy do not address what first hand experience of core affect can and cannot be interpreted via emotion-concepts to result in envy.

What I'm interested in is how you came to your conclusion. Obviously if you feel envy (or imagine yourself feeling envy) you don't have an fMRI scanner wired up to you, so what was your line of thinking that lead you to conclude there were no core affects? — Isaac

This is a bit staggering. Do you need fMRI results to be aware of what you are looking at, what you hear, or what you sense as emotion? I and many others don't.

BTW, the "how" carries the term of introspection - fallible thought it is.

You have still not addressed what interoceptive core affect you'd claim cannot accompany envy. (But if you're going to talk about need for fMRI results to do so ... I will not be replying, for reasons that I find obvious.)

How would you know? — Isaac

I gave one example of envy. What set of core affects correlate to the cognitive state of envy? If any and all, then my conclusion is there is no necessary set of core affects.

Curious to find out what core affect you'd claim cannot accompany envy.

I should have been clearer in trying to point out that in using just imagination to become angry or envious the corresponding bodily stimuli are produced in the body. I imaging that curiosity, for example, corresponds to a bodily state of higher arousal. Whether that means a slightly higher heart rate or whatever I don't know, but there is an altered interoception. — praxis

No denying that. This is a good example of what I'd frame as top-down effects upon bodily states emerging from cognitive states.

I don't believe that the theory of constructed emotion makes that claim or relies on such a notion. — praxis

Haven't read a lot of various constructivist views, only summations of them. Still, in my reading on this thread of Barrett's take, I've interpreted her position to necessarily make use of a) emotion-concepts that are applied to b) core affects of which we become aware, i.e. to interoception. If I'm wrong in so interpreting, I'll do an ol' SNL skit remark of "never mind". Still, what I've been upholding is that some emotions take place in the absence of core affects ("feelings" thus interpreted as interoceptive) being interpreted via emotion-concepts. Some emotions emerge simply from cognition; the example of imagining oneself to be emotion-X resulting in oneself so being then serving as one example of this. And, if this is so, then emotions are not necessarily a conflux of the (a) and, more importantly here, (b) aforementioned; i.e. they don't necessarily emerge from our awareness of our own body's states of being.

Otherwise, you're right. I probably over-generalized.

I could produce the bodily stimuli associated with anger using just my imagination and no external stimuli. I could do the same with envy. What's the difference? — praxis

In respect to imagination (here broadly understood to not literally regard only images), I'd say very little if any. One can become thirsty (an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be just as one can become curious (not an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be.

I can't help thinking how inextricably interlinked the mind and body are, however. — praxis

I'm not denying the interlinked nature of mind and body, but am disagreeing with the physicalist-like notion - or predisposition of interpretation - that all cognition emerges from bodily states of being ... this expressed in my notion of simpleton talk. More correctly expressed: brain, more accurately the CNS, is a bodily organ [edit: in case this needs to be said, that depends on the workings of the total body for its functioning]; but the brain's states of being don't uniformly all emerge from the brain's interaction with the rest of the body's states of being - here taking into consideration that all awareness obtained via sensory receptors are of the latter relation. I don't want to overly-repeat the examples I previously gave, but examples can include our awareness of decisions, of the reasoning we engage in, and of certain emotions.

At stake in this is the status of emotion: is it an 'origin' - a brute biological given that is simply 'activated' in certain circumstances - or is it instead a 'result' - a bio-social 'production' that helps orient one's actions and is the outcome of an evaluative process? It's this latter view which I want to outline and discuss here. — StreetlightX

"Conceptual information about emotion can be thought of as “top-down” and core affect “bottom-up” constraints on the emerging experience of emotion. — Feldman Barrett - Solving the Emotion Paradox

While I concur that emotions are often formed at a conscious level of their manifestation via retroactive application of emotion-concepts to that which is perceived via interoception (what Barrett terms "core affect"), I find this to be a partial, and likely derivative, truth: it is accordant to some of what is, but not all.

For clarity, some working definitions:

• Concept: a generalized idea – commonly understood to be abstracted as such from multiple concrete instantiations.
• Emotion: that which produces or influences movement within the psyche, i.e. cognitive action – often resulting in bodily movements, i.e. behaviors – but which can manifest in the absence of correspondent behaviors. For example, a pang of jealousy can be sensed by the conscious self while being shunned by the conscious self as wrong or inappropriate to act out on – this judgement being a cognitive action rather than a behavior – thereby here being an emotion that is experienced to influence without resulting in corresponding behaviors.
• Experience: awareness of that which is lived through
• Empirical: addressing awareness that is gained via sensory receptors

If “to be aware of” is “to experience” then not all experiences are empirical. As one example, I can enactively experience my decisions (illusory or not) at the instant they are made by me, for I hold awareness of them, but will not gain this awareness via sensory receptors. My awareness of the decision I make – here strictly addressing the decision itself, rather than the alternatives I was aware of – is not obtained via interpretations of what is gained via interoception or exteroception. The same non-empirical awareness may be claimed for many things introspected: thoughts, reasoning, beliefs, and so forth.

While some emotions are commonly understood to be correlated to interoceptive stimuli – e.g. disgust with some degree of bodily nausea – other emotions hold no such correspondence whatsoever. Envy I think is a fairly common emotion – and is one such example of an emotion that is not gained via interoception. Unlike anger or sorrow, there is no set of bodily stimuli obtained via interoception that corresponds to envy. The same may be said for other emotions such as longing. Then there are more atypical and more complex emotions that likewise are not correlated to any set of particular interoceptive instantiations: “sweet sorrow” as one example.

This is to say that not all emotions are associated with interoceptive feeling, i.e. core affect. Some are in no way empirical but, instead, strictly manifest within cognition via non-empirical awareness – same way we hold non-empirical awareness of the reasoning we engage in. We nevertheless metaphorically speak of “feeling” oneself to be envious. But in this case “feeling” is strictly metaphorical; as is the case with “seeing” what something means, or something “chiming” true, or a “hunger” for knowledge and a “thirst” for life.

Since not all emotions are (or are conceptual interpretations of) interoceptive feelings – again, what Barrett terms “core affect” – this to me then indicates that there is something more primary to emotions as a class than what constructivist views of emotion such as that of Barrett maintain. And there are other modern schools of thought as pertains to emotions.

In short, that all emotions are conceptual interpretations of literal feelings obtained via interoception is imv a false premise – in part falsified by emotions such as that of envy. This is not to deny the interplay between conceptual understandings of emotions and the emotions which we enactively experience – via interoception of otherwise – and which we convey to each other as holding. But it does address a need to reappraise what the class of givens we term emotions are – rather than accept the aforementioned premise as addressing a fundamental truth.

It's not worth my time. — Baden

yea, ditto

That death is the obtainment of non-being is a false premise? I don't think that's what you intend. So spell out the false premise to my question.

Bunch of non-sequiturs and red herrings.

Here's the claim: There is no evidence for an afterlife.

Here's the way to refute it: Show me the evidence. — Baden

Intellectual honesty would have addressed my question.

And yet none of this affects the hypothetical of reincarnations. For instance, some CNS gets produced in the far future whose nurture in the formative years results in an ego whose attributes – wants, aversions, metaphysical beliefs, and the like – present the same persona you hold in this lifetime.

I’m not saying this is a sure deal, and there is the issue of working memory not here playing a role between lifetimes, but the scenario doesn’t get nullified by life being an emergent process. Or even by physicalism’s tenets, for that matter. What it pivots upon is what one is to make of the notion of personal identity.

So, it's merely intellectual feebleness to posit an afterlife — Baden

No need to disparage. As it turns out, were death to be the instant cessation of all worry, strife, and pain via the obtainment of non-being, committing suicide would be the only rational thing to do for an overwhelming number of humans on this Earth. Why? Because they are in extreme pain and don’t want any. Do you then hold suicidal individuals – and suicidal murderers to boot – to be endowed with superior intellectual prowess? "No" is an easy answer; but why not, rationally speaking, if death actually is the obtained non-being of self?

It's just a new and kind of disturbing thought that human culture may generally have a natural tendency to devalue the development of virtue, and not just that particular cultures may have that tendency. — praxis

I greatly admire the ideal of the USA founders: a checks and balances of all power. Given human imperfections and tendencies, this imv best stabilizes what would otherwise become competitions for supremacy over others. But our drives to be superior relative to others are most always at a crossroad with our drives to find a home in a community of individuals that all honestly affirm something along the lines of “liberty, equality, fraternity”.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being unrealistically optimistic in this case, but I hold that societies (and thereby cultures) can either move toward the first mentioned structure of interaction, one of slave-master and slaves, or toward the second. Given a checks of balances of power, both political and economic, one that is actively maintained rather than undermined, I think that a society can be structured so as to maximize the social cultivation of virtue. I’m saying this while recognizing the chasm between such possibility and the actualities we are currently living in. And, to further complicate matters, such checks and balances of power would nowadays need to be implemented globally for it to hold any import. Otherwise one power will subjugate the rest – politically, economically, or both. Despite this, I don’t think that all possible societies are inherently antithetical to the development of virtue in individuals. My two pennies’ worth, at least.

societies may have a tendency to devalue the development of virtue. American culture, for instance, doesn't train us to pursue well-being in the eudaimonic sense. It trains us to pursue a good career, wealth, status, etc. The fifth level felt rabit is heaven, nirvana, or whatever. All these dangling carrots are dependent on others, which isn't nessisarily a bad thing, but it does leave us open to West World-like manipulation. — praxis

Much of current American culture, which is spreading worldwide, subsists on insecurities. From Orwellian fears of other that hold no tangible resolution to the feelings of inadequacy which compels us to buy things we don't need and wouldn't otherwise want, this because some commercial so tells us to. Having problems with romance, buy this car; it will change the quality of your life. "Fun food" I still don't get as a concept, but it sells. Were most in society to cultivate virtue and feel more integral by so doing, economy as we currently know it would be devastated.

I very much agree with your statements. Just wanted to complement them a bit.

The development of virtue can be countercultural in the sense that it leads to independence. — praxis

I agree, but believe it would be an empathetic form of independence, rather than a form of self-isolationism. Hoping that makes sense as expressed.

People want scapegoats and saviors. — ssu

Both of which are an evasion from personal responsibility.

All this to say you have essentially covered all of this with your statements that you would rather be in hell anyway instead of a heaven which you feel like you didn't earn, (is that right?) — TheDarkElf

Well, I wouldn't use the term "earned". If some Heaven is filled with brown-nosers who don't give a damn about what is right and what is wrong ... um, they really wouldn't want me there anyway; if it would be eternal (as in no actualization of non-being) I'd likely be causing eternal trouble for them. Besides, I'd much rather be with those that maintained a sense of integrity. So if Hell is filled with those who have, I'd then have earned that which I'd want - in this Cartesian-like hypothetical, to be in Hell. :cool:

and that you can be happy with your own efforts to be living virtuously. — TheDarkElf

That's about it.

Have you found some proof that shows that there is no afterlife? — TheDarkElf

Generally speaking, isn’t this one of the logical entailments of physicalism? But since neither can physicalism as metaphysics be proven with infallible certainty – the fallibilist in me questions if any metaphysics can – my own take is that what occurs subsequent to death is a fundamental unknown. Make peace with this unknown – everything from it possibly resulting in non-being to it resulting in any of the many hypotheses of an afterlife which various cultures have proposed – and the living of life will unfold without this issue of death being any form of problem.

For example, if I live my life virtuously and death results in my non-being, I won’t be bothered by anything subsequent to death, for I will not in any way be – so why not endeavor to cultivate virtue as best as I can while I’m here? There are pleasures to it that cannot be obtained via vice. If, however, I live my life virtuously and (here contemplating a worst case scenario) am placed into some Hell that’s eternally divided from Heaven after death, I will be there on account of having a clear conscious. Consequently, to hell with Heaven, then: I’d only want to be where those who made an effort to have a clear conscious go, future demons though we all are (and to be an angel in such topsy-turvy Heaven would be an absolute nightmare for me). The resulting conclusion: live life more virtually than not and one won’t be bothered by what occurs after death, regardless of what might actually occur.

That said, my own sense of trust has it that it will likely neither be non-being nor a Heaven/Hell divide. But it’s still and unknown to me in terms of what will be. To each their own beliefs.

But this is very Schopenhauerian as I see it. [...] We are in constant need of being alleviated- both of things which befall us, and things we want but do not have now. — schopenhauer1

The part you quoted wanted to make a distinction between pleasure and eudemonia. Namely, that pleasure is of a transient nature whereas eudemonia is not. I gather my example was unsuccessful in so doing. Yet Stoic texts, for instance, speak of this distinction.

As one aspect of eudemonia, being at peace with oneself is not something that can be quantified. Nor does it bring about a cessation of all desires and of all dolors. Yet I reckon that once obtained it persists regardless of what befalls one, unless one were to squander it by willfully engaging in one too many vices. Here, then, is an example of an actualized goal that is not subject to an endless cycle of striving to alleviate frustration followed by more frustration. To the extent it is obtained, it is an end in and of itself and, as such, it breaks free from the cycle of endless frustration.

But then this can lead to Eastern notions which Schopenhauer overlooked despite being embedded in the overall Eastern metaphysics he translated for a Western culture. Notions of Moksha or of Nirvana come to mind. These have a lot to do with what in the west would be termed eudemonia gained via virtue and wisdom, as well as with an obtained awareness of what the self ultimately is. Or so are my best current understandings of these traditions.

I understand that we probably still disagree on issues of pessimism, but I’m thinking this disagreement hinges on basic metaphysical presumptions. All the same, the samsara which Schopenhauer addresses in his own ways is nevertheless something I readily acknowledge.

In this story, it's revealed quite a lot actually. First - running in circles, chasing. This is huge part of the self-actualization process. Chasing goals, again and again. — interim

I'm replying more to my overall impression of the OP in total than to any particular thing, and this will be a bit of a ramble as well:

Can’t remember ever desiring to self-actualize myself or recommending to anyone other that they do, and I haven’t seen Westworld (though you’re making it sound interesting).

I could easily see how at least some Buddhists would insist that the point to it all is to actualize no-self – i.e., to become utterly selfless being, and, paradoxically, that only there can non-hyperbolic equality reside. But this would be an about-face from the self-actualization motif as most interpret it. Still, it maybe could yet be interpreted as in tune with the “know thyself” dictum.

At any rate, I thought of a counter-example to the Schopenhauer-like generalization of an endless and unsatisfying striving: Itches. Its crude, but I think the example is concrete enough that all might be able to relate. If you feel an itch, it’s bothersome, and you hold as goal the disappearance of that itch. Scratching the itch can be in itself pleasing, this as a process toward an end. But it is not the case that one longs for new itches once the current itch disappears due to having been scratched. One instead would rather that no future itches reoccur. And, in a very diminutive sense of the term, in satisfying the eradication of the itch one obtains a state of (a very minor form of) eudemonia – i.e. a flourishing of being. The cessation of the itch allows you to better do that which you want done, rather than being persistently distracted, and hence hindered, from such (again, very minor form of) flourishing. So, in recapping this thesis, the scratching of an itch may be pleasing, but it of itself is not the obtainment of eudemonia, instead being a transient happiness; unlike the pleasure here referenced, it is the disappearance of the itch which grants the (minor) obtainment of a lasting eudemonia.

Some goals are held with false projections of how their obtainment will result in just such state of increased eudemonia – e.g., the desire to have the coolest car in town, to be richer than others, or the want to be seen by others with a romantic partner they all covet and envy you for. I think these are typical examples most are familiar with of how some approach a desire for self-respect and peace of mind (an untroubled inner being). Maybe pertinent, what is portrayed in these examples is often termed materialistic. Unlike these, though, the obtainment of other goals can actually result in eudemonia – as example, in an honest self-respect and peace of mind – such that it is lasting, often regardless of the material losses that might further occur somewhere down the line. For some, like the ancient philosophers that used the term “eudemonia”, the obtainment of eudemonia is pivoted around conformity to virtue, be it applied to ethics, to reasoning, or to anything else.

I believe that once we get into discussing the very nature of outcomes such as self-respect and peace of mind, things can get very complicated and debate might be non-stop. But I again stipulate that a basic physical itch can amply suffice as counter-example to a pessimistic understanding of life as endless struggle without the possibility of lasting satisfaction: The obtainment of some goals manifests something within us which is of value in and of itself, which is held irrespective of other’s opinions, and which is lasting rather than fleeting (sometime to the effect that we take it to the grave).

Metaphorically, then, all goals one seeks to accomplish are in some ways each an itch at which one scratches. Just that some of these do result in increased eudemonia and some don’t – the latter maybe being here best stipulated as “false itches” … for, their being scratched, while producing momentary pleasures, does not alleviate that which one is bothered by, this even when the goal is obtained.

With that in mind, firstly, I don't think eudemonia can be about being greater than thou. If you believe you hold it but you’re surrounded by those who don’t, you won’t be flourishing all that much – so, unlike many understandings of pleasure and happiness, hording it to yourself will paradoxically make it vanish. I believe this is one reason why the ancient philosophers wanted others obtain it. Then, secondly, as with the saying “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” – here staying true to the same theme I started with – endowing someone with eudemonia (with a flourishing of being), if not a bs proclamation, will get the other to want to help you out in turn. This instead of having the other hold grudges about you having done so fist.

As with others, my compliments on a very nicely written OP. My main overall disagreement is that rather than the Schopenhauer-like pessimism of “the glass is half empty” I’d rather acknowledge that “the glass contains 50% water”. In other words, there’s both good and bad to life and, by extension, to struggles for the obtaining of goals; focusing on one aspect and ignoring the other will not of itself make the other vanish.

I guess "intersubjective reality" is a metaphor. — David Mo

If I’m interpreting you correctly: I know this would be a vast debate on its own. Feel free to disagree, of course. But for me, “reality” is merely the noun form of the adjective “real” which, in turn, is intended to signify “actually existing or occurring - rather than fictional”. My recollection of a dream I had last night would, given this semantic, be real - and, by extension, would thereby be a part of my intra-subjective reality: one experience among others which actually exists or occurs for me but for no one else. If this dream was real and I’d express it to you, I’d express a truth; if unreal, I’d express a falsehood. In the same general way, because English (by which I include all semantics particular to the English language) is an actual, rather than fictitious, medium via which English speakers communicate, and because the English language is not the intra-subjective reality of one individual but is, instead, an actuality whose very occurrence necessitates commonality among a plurality of beings, the English language will then hold an intersubjective reality - i.e., will be intersubjectively real.

This usage of “realtiy” is in keeping with common usage, as in, “they live in a different reality than we do” - as can be affirmed for the flat earth society. Here is not implicitly referenced objective reality - which “reality” is most often employed to express - but, instead, a belief structure of what is real via which individuals interpret the objective world and act within it. Differently exemplified, those who are Young Earth Creationists will hence dwell in a different intersubjective reality than those who accept the validity of biological evolution - the two cohorts' belief structures in essence make each inhabit a vastly different (interpretation of) cosmology relative to the other - yet both cohorts will nevertheless inhabit and be bound by the same objective reality. The YEC doesn’t deny the presence of dinosaur fossils, for example, this being a facet of objective reality - but does (I presume) believe that they were placed here by God to test their faith in their notion of God … this latter shared belief then being a facet of the YEC’s intersubjective reality.

Yes, there could be countless intersubjective realities. The reason I used the singular so far is that I was concerned with the idealised "human" intersubjective reality, i.e. what would result if there were no bias, mistakes etc. While that will never practically be the case, it serves as my baseline for what could be called "practical reality". — Echarmion

The case could be also made that each species of animal shares its own species-specific intersubjective reality. A human, a dog, and an ant will interpret the objective reality of a rock differently, given the species-specific proclivities of perception and interpretation peculiar to each. But, here again, there would not be existent just one species-specific intersubjectivity, but a multitude of these; each one relative to a different species of life. All the same, I now understand what you were getting at.

It'd be more a question of what you think the order is: do the objects develop subjectivity, or do the subjects develop objects? — Echarmion

In case this question wasn’t rhetorical: My own understanding of ontology addresses this question in horrendously complex manners. Currently, I’d rather be remain a mute about it - though I will simplistically express that, to me, subjectivity is ultimately conditional on objectivity.

There was another prominent idealist whose name I forget. — Marchesk

You mean that Evolog guy? Maybe the bloke changed his avatar name to something less fancy, and changed his mind about terming things “objective idealism” to terming things “neutral monism”, thinking it to make the same difference anyway. The same way that “non-Cartesian skepticism” and “fallibilism” do. The tyke might still be around, I’m guessing. No offense in calling him a tyke, btw: my own avatar name “javra” translates to “mongrel”, in case it wasn’t known. But, then again, you might have had someone else in mind.

Noticed that you’ve so far only addressed intersubjective reality in the singular. Although all this might go without saying, I wanted to make it explicit that each and every culture is its own intersubjective reality; as is each unique religious worldview, here including atheism; each unique language and its embedded semantics; and so forth. I have extreme doubt about such being anything but a practical joke, but the flat earth society, if their proclaimed belief is real and not mere deception, would be just one intersubjective reality among many. On the other hand, our tangible objective reality - if it is deemed to impartially effect (causally) all coexistent sentient being - can only be singular by entailment.

I’ll add that, to me at least, if these categories of “personally subjective realities”, “intersubjective realities”, and “the singular objective reality” are taken to be valid, they’d then retain the same properties regardless of which ontology happens to be the correct one: e.g., they’d apply just as much to idealism (it’s all psychical stuff in different forms) as they would to physicalism (it’s all physical stuff in different forms). The only main differences would be the metaphysical implications.

moral realism insists that there is a true good, a real good, which is *not* dependent on your or my or anyone’s viewpoint, opinion or even consent; it simply *is thus*. — Wayfarer

Given my (maybe peculiar) interpretations, this could be else worded as that which “just-is” (in the sense of being sans cause) … also, with “just” in part meaning “right, correct, impartial, and fair” – a notion from which the notions of both justice and justification - as well as the aesthetic (fair as that which is both pleasing and moral) - are derived. For instance – here imperfectly expressed - when we justify a belief we seek to evidence that that which is believed is impartially, factually, so - and, in so doing, imv we seek to align our beliefs to that which “just is” (rather than to our egoic wants or needs of what is; i.e., it’s not because I or you so say it is but because it is an impartial given that thereby is aligned to perfect impartiality, to that which just is).

This general notion then stands in contrast to the idea that that which is just will be the effect of one or more psyches (as can for example be stated of mainstream monotheisms, wherein that which is just is the product of a singular all-powerful deity's will - but, in fairness, for example excluding some of the more mystical facets of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam … Sufis, for example, here come to mind)

The first notion makes that which is good objective - as you say, impartial to the wants or needs of individual psyches. The second notion makes that which is good contingent upon, and thereby relative to, the wants or needs of one or more psyches - such that what is good is the creation of psyches.

Furthering this a bit, in the “is thus/just is” interpretation of the good: Affinity toward this state of being is what produces moral thought and behavior. Fear of this state of being, from where are produced aversions of various types, then results in immoral (bad or evil) behavior. This then can bridge to the rather archaic - and extremely laconic - notion of ethics being reducible to either love or fear (here, implicitly, for that which just is ... unless one further equates a perfectly impartial justice/fairness/etc with love, in which case there is then either affinity toward (universal) love (and its instantiations) or fear of it).

I guess my realism is showing.

People who take “objective” to mean “physical” just introduce unnecessary confusion and baggage to discussions about the objectivity of things other than reality (like morality, for example). — Pfhorrest

Since I’ve recently had the issue of governance on my mind, wanted to embellish my previous reply to this with something that is of interest to me - though, no doubt, which will be a highly dubious use of semantics to others.

As with the multiple meaning of “objective” - e.g., from that which is impartial to that which as noun is a goal – “to be a subject” too has its multiple meanings.

With that in mind, as an at the very least metaphoric appraisal of nature at large: Given the interpretation of objectivity which we so far agree upon, all subjective beings can thereby be further concluded via this mode of thought to inescapably be subjects to objectivity as ultimate authority - a power which the power of all subjects is conditional upon. Waiver too much from that which is objective, i.e. fully impartial, and the individual perishes. Stay accordant to objectivity and the individual holds the potential to flourish.

Of note, though, objectivity is in no way a psyche - nor can it be. We as psyches can be more objective by comparison to others or to other personally held states of mind - but our very nature of being individual selves precludes us from actualizing a perfectly impartial state of being. Hence, in this interpretation, we are above all subjects to a collectively shared, impartial reality - rather than being subjects to some monarch, some other leader, or some superlative incorporeal deity. No physical or spiritual sentient being to bow down to here.

You touched upon notions of an objective right and wrong - at least as possibilities to consider. To me, this too would then be a perfectly impartial, here metaphysical, reality. What some have termed, “the Real,” and what Plato termed “the Good” - this then, imv, being a metaphysical objectivity which holds at least some overtones to the neo-Platonic notion of “the One,” from which physicality was stated to emerge. But again - even when a neo-Platonic frame of mind is considered - I fail to fathom how “the Good” could in any way be a psyche and, hence, a deity. For, again, as that which is fully objective, it would need to be perfectly impartial in all conceivable ways. And a psyche always remains to some extent partial toward that which is good for itself, if nothing else.

With all this briefly mentioned for the sake of some background, that we as sentient beings are all subjects to, first and foremost, objectivity as ultimate authority is to me something that has a rather aesthetic appeal.

At any rate, since I started off with poetic mumbo-jumbo in this thread, I figured complimenting it with this take on the subjectivity/objectivity dichotomy can’t by now hurt too much.

Does that answer your question? — javra


Yep. — frank

Glad to hear you acknowledge so. Meanwhile, you don't happen to hold a monopoly on the semantics to the term "democracy" do you? Little old me - we've had our talks before - do not subscribe to your meanings of the term.

If you're American, I can tell you why you think that. — frank

BTW, think what exactly on account of my being "American"? A quote from me would make this statement of yours other than arbitrarily vague.

So can people who don't care about science arrive at decisions democratically? — frank

Strictly speaking, it all depends on the semantics we have in mind. So, three tyrannical brothers that don't give a fuddle about what science says who vote between themselves on what to do in reference to the populace they rule over, under the semantics you've simplistically articulated, do engage in democratic governance.

Given the same semantics, the same then can apply for a whole entire global populace who shuns science - and the scientists via which it manifests - as devils work.

Does that answer your question?

Suppose you have a community of people who don't particularly care about science. Could they not arrive at group decisions democratically? — frank

This to me has funny implications. I take democracy to be inclusive - this as an ideal it strives for. The Orwellian propaganda of "bringing democracy to the middle east" and the like aside. You are here asking about an exclusivist democracy, of a democracy for us but not for them, the other(s). Oligarchies work this way. As did many aspects of Hitler's regime. Neither of which fit what we (most of us at any rate) interpret to be democracy - to not even mention democratic values.

To my ear “objective” always means “impartial”, and what makes physical stuff objectively real is precisely that it can be impartially determined to exist, vis our common (and therefore unbiased) experiences.

People who take “objective” to mean “physical” just introduce unnecessary confusion and baggage to discussions about the objectivity of things other than reality (like morality, for example). — Pfhorrest

Fully agreed. To add: Culturally, this can often get confusing due to the commonly understood semantics of "objects" - despite, for example, concepts being objects of awareness. We're often habituated into thinking that objects are always necessarily physical and, as a result, end up thinking of objectivity as being the physicality which applies to (physical) objects. Whereas, as you say, each physical object holds an impartial existence to all coexistent sentient beings - and is (or at least can coherently be conceptualized as being) thereby objective precisely due to its nature of being impartially applicable all subjects.

Science arrives at facts democratically? That's an interesting perspective. When do they vote? — frank

Trite, but I’ll play along. Vote for what? For what is real, right? Scientists do this every time they offer a conclusion to the data that is gathered via experiments regarding falsifiable claims. The conclusions – i.e., interpretations - offered by one scientist are an individual voicing of what is true, given the data obtained … hence, a vote for what is real. It takes many multiple scientists holding the same interpretation to make the given interpretation a scientific theory of what is. And, of course, intrinsic to the whole process is further validation by more experiments which are themselves a) peer-reviewed and replicated and b) concluded via interpretations of the data.

But no, frank, empirical science and political governance are not one and the same. And no, scientists don’t vote for a common president.

“Rule by the people (which is what democracy is) as concerns what is true” as compared to say “rule by some person(s) who is/are superlatively close to the monotheistic God who alone decrees what is and is not true” has applications in social settings outside of political governance all the same.

As for science, again, no one is opposed to it, but I'm still not seeing how it has much to do with democracy. — frank

If democracy is not mob rule wherein “might makes right (both morally and factually)” but, instead, incorporates the ideals of consent via compromise and accord among a given plurality of subjective beings which in turn makes them unified - E Pluribus Unum as motif - then:

All empirical sciences are governed by this same ideal via their essential property of peer-review. Peer-review is not only, or even primarily, journal councils reviewing newly submitted articles. It at its essence incorporates a mandatory replicability of data. This, expressed in the simplest possible way I can currently think of, is akin to “Do you also see what I see? If we’re all seeing the same thing, then that which is here referenced impartially applies to all of us and is thereby evidenced, but never proven with infallible certainty, to be objectively real. If only one of us sees it and the rest do not, then it was only a misplaced subjective perception of what is - and can be safely ignored.”

This, then, is at pith a democratic process of appraising what is and is not real.

Take away all aspects of the peer-review process and what remains are authoritarian, hence totalitarian, decrees of what is objectively real, wherein might makes right ... which is contradictory to a

government of the people, by the people, for the people — Lincoln

Modern empirical science is obviously not a panacea, hence adequate for all fields of knowledge (metaphysics for starters), but it is deeply instituted in democratic principles.

Comments... — TheMadFool

As for myself, furthering this metaphor, many species of thought have become extinct. We might be able to discover their fossilized remains within our history - but the allegorical flesh and nervous system of these can only be imperfectly inferred. The fragments of Heraclitus’ philosophy to me seem a good example of this. As with physical manifestations of life, those species of thought that have gone extinct are forever to remain extinct. Nevertheless, via analogous evolution, we find many of the same forms of belief in today’s species of thought that once pertained to now extinct species of thought. Process theory is a different, currently living, species of thought than that of Heraclitus’s now extinct philosophy of global flux - unlike process theory, the latter being fully grounded in an understanding of logos as natural law (of which our own human reasoning, replete with its laws of thought, was only a sub-constituent of), this being a species of thought that now no longer is. Yet the analogously evolved properties between today’s process theories and Heraclitean philosophy is blatantly present all the same. And, alongside analogous evolutionary processes, there are also homologous evolutionary processes: the gradual change from one species of thought into another. As one example, what was once the Empiricist driven period of the so-called Enlightenment in the west steadily morphing into today’s physicalism (as one crucial difference, ideas were empirical to the likes of Lock and Hume, whereas against the backdrop of today’s species of thought termed physicalism, that which is empirical is today strictly constituted of what can be grasped via sensory receptors - which, in today’s species of thought, precludes ideas from so being empirically known).

I have little interest in justifying these affirmations, so one can chalk them all up to being mere opinions. But, given this general outlook:

Just as the changes that occur in physical manifestations of life - which are commonly termed “(biological) evolution” - hold global limitations and attributes (e.g., the adaptation of life to that which is objectively real via, in part, life’s random mutations – here simplistically expressing something very complex), so too can be expressed for the evolution of species of philosophical thought: these too are bound to global limitations and attributes. As an additional offered opinion and nothing more, all species of philosophical thought evolve - via both analogous and homologous processes - via adaptation to that which is objectively (here understood as "impartially" rather than "physically") real; this, in part, through at times random changes that can for example obtain though trial and error, novel intuitions, and the like.

A species of philosophical thought that would, for example, affirm that one can fly off of tall buildings by flapping one’s hands were one to will it with sufficient force will not last long.

On the other hand, studying the so-called fossils of bygone species of philosophical thought can at times help us better understand the global aspects of – here, primarily metaphysical – reality; in particular, those global aspects which makes the analogously evolved properties of certain species of thought reoccur throughout history.

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Yup, nothing here but the poetic articulation of a metaphorical perspective regarding philosophy’s history - with not an ounce of proper justification to any of it. But, then, in my own defense, the OP was drenched in metaphor to begin with.

You, as a thing just like any other thing, have small changes which occur to you over time, so your point of view changes, nevertheless you are still the same thing, and it is still your point of view. So the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself, allows that a thing which is changing as time passes, might continue to be the same thing, because the thing never ceases to be the same as itself despite the fact that it is changing over time. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are very likely interpreting the term “thing” in different ways. “I am a thing” to me doesn’t register.

As for the main gist of the quote:

A rock as a thing is in perpetual change and this change eventually results in sediments. Though the same physical components are present, the rock is not the same thing as the sediments which inevitably result. There will be a time over this course of slow transformation - in which the rock turns to sediments - when the given rock ceases to be the same given rock, instead being a different rock. Sortie’s paradox here applies (imo, as it applies to the identity of all spatiotemporal givens). Before this time is arrived at, its sameness over time is not a result of the same unchanging total package of constituent parts - which never remains the same - but only of the same holistic form which is maintained despite all the changes that unfold. Nothing spatiotemporal ever remains in a static state of being - and so identity through time is not a property applicable to the organization of the parts but only to the holistic form which the parts bring about. Hence, one cannot step twice into the same river in terms of constituent components - yet it remains the same river in terms of its holistic form via which it is recognized over time to be the same river. Such is my view.

If a given’s constituents are never identical across time, but only its holistic form can so remain, then the notion of identity can only apply to holistic forms. Coming round to the previous topic, again, what I’ve been trying to express is that the holistic form of a first-person point of view is the same, qualitatively identical, for all numerically different first person points of view - despite the constituents of awareness pertaining to each being drastically different, thereby being a part of what makes each numerically different first person point of view unique.

Via analogy only: the holistic form which makes some given be a rock is of itself the same, qualitatively identical, for all numerically different rocks - despite the constituents of each individual rock being drastically different. This rock is not that rock for a multitude of reasons, their unique spatial location included, but both clear cut cases of rocks will equally be a rock.

Maybe you no longer subscribe to realism when it comes to universals? I thought you did. Or maybe we hold drastically different understandings of these as well.

All the same, I’m not here trying to convince you but am instead justifying my stance, which you took issue with. And I don't find the metaphysics of identity to be an easy topic.

It was you who was talking about a first-person-point-of view as if it were a thing, — Metaphysician Undercover

Not in the slightest. This is what you’ve projected upon what I said, via your own means of interpretation.

If the first-person-point-of-view is not a thing which can be talked about, then what is it that you are referring to with this phrase? — Metaphysician Undercover

A process, maybe? All the same, as I see it, what a first person point of view is ontologically - a thing, a process, both, or neither - does not need to be in any way known by us for one to hold a rather strong certainty that such nevertheless is, at the very least in the here and now.

The law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself. Therefore, one person's point of view is the same as that person's point of view. — Metaphysician Undercover

Taking a different route, if I’m understanding you correctly: Since no singular first person point of view remains the same over time - e.g., the you of five seconds past is not identical to the you of the present - there thereby can be no personal identity through time. Is this correct?

I should add that I don't consider the first person point of view to be a thing, i.e.a homunculus.

Your claim that all first-person points-of-view are exactly the same, by virtue of being first-person points-of-view, is just like saying that all things are exactly the same by virtue of being things. How is that a useful assumption, rather than a misleading assumption, in this context? — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to have misread what I wrote. To try to better explain via the law of identity: X = X. Hence, "a first person point of view = a first person point of view". This just as much as "a thing = a thing". I did state and then emphasize that each first person point of view is different in various ways - but that all first person points of view are nevertheless identical strictly in so being first person points of view. To then use your example, all things are identical strictly in their property of being things. A rock is no more nor less a thing than is a bolder - despite the two things mentioned being distinctly different in givens such as their spatial properties. The thingness, or thinghood (don't laugh, these are words one can find in a dictionary), of all things is nevertheless exactly the same, this by virtue of all things being things - rather than for example being actions. Again, just as X = X, so too does a thing = a thing.

Now, thingness is an abstraction we abstract from individual things. In the context of consciousness, or else of awareness, though the words "a first-person point of view" are themselves abstractions, what I'm saying is that we each can reference these words to a personal experience of being which, of itself as experience, is intimately real and non-abstract.

I get the Cartesian skepticism that could unfold (the "what if" and "how do you know with infallible certainty" questions). Still, you experience yourself to be, among other things, a first person point of view, as I myself do. These experiences are as real as experiences get. We are of course uniquely different in innumerable ways as first person points of view. Nevertheless, if you are a first person point of view, and if I am a first person point of view - this among all our other attributes which differentiates us - then (get ready) how would the "first-person-point-of-view-ness(or, -hood)" which we both share be in and of itself in any way different ... as that which we both at base minimally are as aware beings?

Do you for example experience being a first person point of view by physiologically seeing some given from two different points of view at the same time and in the same way?

Again, I do maintain that the beetle you hold of being a first person point of view and the beetle which I hold of likewise being a first person point of view - in so far as strictly this one attribute of being is concerned - can only be qualitatively identical (again, in so far as strictly concerns this one attribute). That we, for example, each see different things that impart upon us different forms as first person points of view does not, of itself, annul the fact that we both minimally are first person points of view as aware beings that cognize things. As a bolder is no more or less a thing than is a pebble, so too are you or I no more or less a first person point of view than the other.

You make me feel so Jung :grin: — Wayfarer

Ha! It’s good to be Jung at heart. :razz: (Well, in some ways at least, given that we are referencing Carl Jung).

I offer this not to be contrary but only to keep things interesting by defending an opposing view. It's not for me about destroying the concept of consciousness but instead in recontextualizing it. The idea is (as I understand it) that we have certain conventions that give concepts identity. — jjAmEs

I’ll expand my views on this a little in reference to consciousness. As I was previously implying, consciousness as an abstract conceptual noun has no meaning in the absence of awareness. Although “awareness” and “cognizance” can hold different spectrums of meaning, “to be aware” and “to cognize” do not - this at least when applied to the first-person point of view (rather than a total mind): to be aware of X is to cognize X and vice versa. Here we have multiple abstract conceptual nouns that convey somewhat different concepts that, nevertheless, reference the same exact beetle that is in everybody’s box. Though we’re all uniquely informed as first-person points-of-view by information at large, this being in part what makes us all uniquely different, we all nevertheless hold an identical beetle in that we are all endowed with (else are) a first-person point of view. Granting that an ant is a sentient being and not an automaton, so too does an ant hold the same beetle in its box: that of having, else being, a first-person point-of-view. For emphasis, all first-person points-of-view will be different in form - again, partly due to the differing information they are informed by, also by biological predispositions that are genetically inherited, etc.; nevertheless, all first-person points of view will be the same, by which I mean qualitatively identical, in their one property of so being first-person points-of-view – differently worded, in being a first-person nexus of awareness.

Here, to me, the occurrence of first-person points-of-view is a concrete, albeit intangible, reality – in the sense that our so being is directly experienced by us, rather than being something which we abstract from direct experiences. And to say that I as a first-person point-of-view “am conscious of”, “am aware of”, or “am cognizant of” makes not the slightest difference in what I am intending to be understood by the given signs. But once we enter into the world of abstracted nouns, things change. As abstracted nouns, consciousness, awareness, and cognizance – though their meanings overlap – can each convey different meanings. And, to the extent that these terms can translate into other languages, these meanings are culturally relative, rather than universal.

Notwithstanding, all these abstracted nouns are generalized from that which is directly experienced, and, in this sense, concrete: the first person point of view which is conscious of / aware of / cognizant of. And this concrete experience of what is will itself be of a proverbial beetle.

So our abstractions, our concepts, do float about, so to speak, in a linguistic webbing of our own intersubjective making. Our linguistic conventions do give the concepts we entertain their identity. Yet, as is the case with consciousness, these abstract nouns are yet abstracted by us from an underlying non-abstract reality that is. Rather than it being abstract nouns all the way down.

Not saying this to object to your perspectives, but in attempts to better find a suitable middle ground.

Feel free to link to any art you have online. I'll check it out. — jjAmEs

Oh, man. This made me blush. Didn’t mean to imply that I’ve either been prolific or good at the artistic stuff I’ve engaged in - though it’s always been a pleasurable challenge for me. As it is, I haven’t yet posted most anything of my arts on line. Certainly nice to have been asked, though. Ditto, btw. If you have anything online, it would be nice to check it out.

Different languages have different ways of breaking up or articulating reality. I find that fascinating. — jjAmEs

Yes, me as well. Though I yet maintain that there is some underlying reality that is signified. In a way it reminds me of a ruby metaphor: the same gem gets expressed, and conceptualized, via one of its many faces. Though each conceptualization, as abstraction, picks up a different impression of the underlying reality, the underlying reality as a whole still is. Maybe I'm over-generalizing here, but I find this for example holds in relation to what can be termed "awareness".

But I'd like to add the notion of the artist discovering experiences by experimenting with the medium. I've worked in various media (music and visual art, for example) and personally I did not in general know where I was going or wanted to say. Instead I experienced a 'reactive' critical faculty that was or was not satisfied as I tried this or that, starting perhaps with vague general ideas. If all went well, I'd end up with shapes or sounds that felt good. — jjAmEs

:grin: Yup, I can relate. Sometimes, I'd dabble random dots on a blank paper and then proceed to connect them till something interesting would appear. Then I'd refine this general appearance into a finalized product that "felt good". I think that's the extreme I've gone in that direction. Music too, placing bits of sound that worked individually into a streamlined whole. Still, I've also often had a general image, or feeling, that I wanted to make tangible - not a picture perfect imagination, but a clear awareness of the impact I wanted the subject matter to convey. Then, of course, as the work progressed, aesthetic decisions changed what I initially conceived into a somewhat altered final product.

For me the artist would share with others in the experience of the art afterward. But he or she would never know for sure that the experience/beetle was the same. — jjAmEs

Seems as though this goes without saying. Agreed. Then there's the case to be made of the artwork holding the artist as its principle audience. One knows, senses, when it came out at its best. The pleasure then is intrinsic, rather than being obtained from other's reaction.

Hmm, notice this is changing the thread's topic a bit - possibly a bit too much. But its good to relate about these things.

I gotta link to this, in case you're interested: http://lab404.com/misc/ltdinc.pdf — jjAmEs

I'll check it out. Seems like a worthwhile read.

Have to ask, have you ever experienced concepts that are not communicable via the language(s) you speak?

Yea, I know, the beetle.

Since I'm Romanian-American, as example, in Romanian there is no translation of "awareness" - as there is, for example, of "cat" ("pisica"). There is "conștință" - which stands for both consciousness and conscience - as well as "cognizență", which is fluidly translated into "cognizance" - but there's no term for "awareness". This example, of course, is easier than expressing Romanian words for which there is no English translation. It's because of such multilingual experiences - along with sentiments and for me at times concepts which I find are not communicable via the languages I know (other than via generalities that miss the mark, e.g. "an aesthetic experience") - that I take the following view:

Allegorically, words as signs are akin to boxes into which we package our intended semantics so as to have our meaning delivered to some other who then opens the box, so to speak, in order to grasp - as best they can - what we wanted to be understood by them. These boxes are intersubjectively manifested, with a long history to them, and so goad that which we can and cannot convey - both to others as well as to ourselves. In the case of the latter, a language's words limits the forms which our linguistically conveyed thoughts can take. Hence, language shapes thoughts by imposing itself upon which concepts are possible to convey. Yet, at the same time, it is due to the very existence of "beetles" which it references that language has any import for us. Rather than it being a unidirectional causal process - either envisioned from without (language) toward within (subjects) or vice versa - I strongly believe the relation between language and subject to be bidirectional. New words come into use via individual subjects' intentions (culturally speaking, this being a bottom-up influence upon language). Once these words become mainstream, they then shape that which can be conveyed and the very thoughts of those who convey information (language's top-down influence upon subjects). These are my general musings on the subject, here given for disclosure.

At any rate, we all have our unique experiences. Again, was curious if you've ever experienced concepts that were not communicable via language.

Now that I think of it, to me many art forms are just this: the attempted communication of experiences, sometimes conceptual, that are not communicable via language.

I hope my answer is somehow helpful or at least not boring. — jjAmEs

Definitely not boring, and certainty insightful. I agree that meaning is not static, fixed, but instead fluid and alive (allegorically speaking). It's also a given to me that language is inter-subjective, rather than what I'd term intra-subjective (as would be one's private awareness of a flashing insight, for example) - and, hence, that linguistic meaning is largely social and historical. Myself, I however am also of the general opinion that most concepts - or, at least, those which are most important - do however reference concrete existents, for lack of better terms, this in reference to what's going on within (again, as I term it, in reference to each of our own intra-subjective reality). That said, I by no means deny the complexity to our semantics, which you've eloquently expressed.

Thank you for the candid reply.