If you say that the alternative possibility must be under the libertarians control, then what exactly is the libertarian controlling that is not determinative? Why is he choosing Y instead of X? If there's a reason, that reason is determinative. If there's no reason, it's random - and QM indeterminism seems to fit that bill. — Relativist

The reason here is a motive, a motive that governs why one would choose one alternative over the others. But the motive itself is not any of the alternatives, which are instead means toward some end that the motive intends. Unless one can find an epistemic certainty for any alternative being best, all alternatives contemplated will hold likelihoods of being best means of obtaining the given end. The decision of which alternative to pursue, this as resulting effect, is then directly originated from the momentary constituency of the being in question as cause. The choice is then neither random—for it is guided/limited by the motive and the sum of alternatives one is aware of—nor is it determinate, for probabilities (i.e. some measure of uncertainty) are intrinsic to that which one willfully chooses. If no uncertainty in what to do is present, then neither will there be present the activity of making choices between alternatives--one here instead simply does what is deemed best.

For example, imagine a line segment with point A and C at the ends and point B at the center. The agent is at point B and intends to arrive at point C. But there’s an obstacle in the way. The alternative of going to point A is, in this situation, an invalid alternative—so it is rejected by default. Say that what one is left with is whether to go a long distance to the right of the obstacle—where there’s a risk of getting lost—or a short distance to the left of the obstacle—where there’s the danger of falling off of a cliff. What one chooses will be governed by the intention of obtaining the end pursued, but deciding which way is best is of itself, in this case, an effect directly caused by the agent at point B.

No better simple example currently comes to mind. But one result is that one here is metaphysically responsible for the choice one makes—and that the choice is neither random nor determinate.

A non-physicalist compatibilism affirms that a) no choice is possible in the complete absence of preexisting constraints—e.g. intentions and viable alternatives—that determine limitations of what can be and b) that the decision itself is neither determined via infinite chains of causation nor random—but is instead an effect directly originated by the agent.

Well, first, don't equate physicalism or materialism with being a Dennettian. Dennett and that ilk (the Churchlands, for example) are often considered eliminative materialists. Not all materialists are eliminative materialists.

I think that consciousness, and all mental phenomena in general, are physical/material, and no, i don't at all think that consciousness, qualia, etc. are an illusion. (Not to mention that the very idea of an illusion obtaining while not involving consciousness is incoherent.)

Re "explanations," are you talking about verbal (or lets say mathematical etc.) accounts of phenomena? — Terrapin Station

I’m taking a step back from your last post to me.

This isn’t so much to convince as it is an attempt to help you understand why physicalism can be incoherent to certain people, myself included.

Matter—hence, physical stuff—is commonly understood to be devoid of agency. By “agency” I intend the term’s commonly understood meaning of “ability to act on one’s own volition”. Metaphysically speaking, agency is neither randomness nor determinism. A billiard ball hit by another is, for example, therefore commonly understood to not have agency in how it behaves; it doesn’t decide where to go on account of its own volition but, instead, acts in deterministic manners. (By comparison, when humans and other animals are hit they will exhibit agency in their behaviors.) Matter, then, is commonly understood to be inanimate at all times—for it is devoid of agency.

If, on the other hand, one ascribes agency to matter, I then fail to see any metaphysical difference between the physicalism thus defined and the metaphysical position of animism—the latter being somewhat similar to panpsychism, an anima mundi, and so forth. But then, tmk, this would no longer be physicalism as it’s universally understood.

To sum up: Since physicalism proposes that everything is matter, and since matter is understood be devoid of agency, physicalism then upholds the complete absence of agency in the universe.

If physicalism is true, then all our awareness of agency—both personal and as it pertains to others—can only be considered an epiphenomenal illusion resulting from agency-devoid matter; more specifically, from agency-devoid brains.

Yet awareness is of itself inextricably converged with what we deem to be agency. It’s why we term living beings animate rather than inanimate—or a living brain animate and a dead brain inanimate.

As some in fact do argue, if everything is agency-devoid matter, then awareness itself can only be an illusion of animate being produced by inanimate matter—and would in truth not actually exist. This is argued not on grounds of what one is aware of but as an entailment of causal reasoning wherein the premise is that no agency can exist.

Top-down causation, after all, is a succinct means of addressing the agency of the whole over its parts. In this case, awareness’s agency over the structures of its brain; e.g., think in a certain way and one’s synapses will simultaneously, and in due measure, strengthen and become reinforced or decay and eventually vanish—this, obviously, within limits. Compliment this with awareness being itself resultant from bottom-up causation of neural interactions resulting in mind, and one does obtain a rough picture of awareness’s identity to its physical “substrata” of brain, for lack of better terms. Yet, because physicalism precludes the presence of agency, this very bottom-up + top-down approach to brain-mind relations would contradict the position of physicalism—for the bottom-up + top-down approach entails the presence of agency, i.e. of animate being, this rather than of strictly inanimate matter.

I venture that most would agree that it is awareness which ascribes truth values to all these conceptualizations and inferences. In other words, it is awareness that deems one conceptualization to be true and another one false. The faculty of so judging what is true and what is false being itself entwined with the agency of awareness.

Now, if the presence of awareness is an epistemic certainty, and if awareness entails agency (which—while intuitively true—is not that easy to philosophically evidence), this to me indicates that physicalism as just addressed is an erroneous conceptualization of reality.

So the issue here is not one of whether or not the earth beneath our feet is solid/material/physical on account of us perceiving it to so be, but one of how agency (or at least the illusion of agency) can come about if everything were to be agency-devoid matter, this as physicalism upholds.

Otherwise, without the presence of agency, one is for example left with the reality that all animate beings are actually inanimate.

OK, a fair reply. You are right in that I don’t view identity to be in and of itself an explanation. We could go about saying “X is so because it is X” or “X is so just because it is” for pretty much anything. And in most all situations, so doing wouldn’t provide any intellectual satisfaction. On the other hand, pointing to parts of the brain as being responsible for awareness rather than the whole brain doesn’t quite address the issue—namely, one of how one goes from material interactions to awareness as we know it (which, after all, holds agency via its body).

BTW, I agree that it happens, but as of yet stand firm that materialism/physicalism can’t provide for how.

But embarking upon the issue of causation so as to more properly address causal explanations for this would be for me, currently, an issue too expansive to likely settle. For instance, I agree with a few others hereabout that such a thing as top-down causation takes place … and arguing this out would take a lot of time.

As it is, it’s getting a little late for me. It’s been good chatting with you.

Re "explanations," are you talking about verbal (or lets say mathematical etc.) accounts of phenomena? — Terrapin Station

I had causal explanations in mind. You have a brain; its alive; there's this very complex thing called awareness. How?

---------

I should clarify. How from a physicalist's point of view?

OK, in your view, does physicalism explain the presence of awareness? Or, as it’s more commonly addressed, of consciousness.

I ask because tmk, according to those such as Dennett (cf., Consciousness Explained), physicalism entails that our “sense” of being an awareness/consciousness—which we label in the first person as “I”—is an illusion. Hence not in fact existing.

Here, the theory of physicalism is in contradiction with our so called sense of awareness being real. Yet, as I’ve argued in a recent thread on certainty of thought, in which you’ve posted, it is impossible to rationally doubt one’s own awareness while one is aware.

Hence, the presence of one’s own awareness while one is aware is an epistemic certainty for which one cannot discern any justifiable alternative.

Physicalism has plenty of justifiable alternatives, and is hence only a psychological certainty (for those who are certain of it).

So we have a contradiction between the epistemic certainty that we hold presence as an awareness while we are aware and a psychological certainty that we don’t (in the latter case, because our awareness is nothing but an illusion).

The contradiction then implies that at least one of these positions is false.

Assuming that you can understand what I’m saying, where do you disagree?

Just briefly skimming some of that, it doesn't look like it addresses anything in the vein of "Materialism is self-contradictory to that which appraises its truth: the presence of awareness.". Although of course I'm not sure what you're saying in that quote, and I only skimmed the chapter you posted. — Terrapin Station

Hm, if you don’t know what the quote is saying, how would you know that the chapter doesn’t address it? You kind’s lost me with that one.

As it turns out, it doesn’t. It’s only a first chapter, whose topics set up the field, so to speak. I provided it not to derail the thread but to evidence, empirically, that I’m actually busy working on a philosophical shpeel. And not merely making stuff up about so doing.

Yea. It's in the works. But I grant, it doesn't work well in soundbites. But I am tempted. It'll have to do with degrees of certainty, though (none of which will be absolute). — javra


Well I look forward to reading! Make sure to cc my username if/when you get around to it. — John Doe

On second thought ... Just in case you’re somewhat sincere, the “first principles” of the work can be found here: https://michaelwmoiceanu.com/2018/09/02/ch-1-first-principles-certainty-uncertainty-and-doubt/

Don’t know when I’ll get around to putting up more chapters online—it’ll likely be on a dedicated website. This first chapter, however, gives basic explanations of certainty, uncertainty, and doubt—which will then be used to establish conclusions of optimal certainty throughout the work. These topics are nevertheless standalone. I don’t want to seem like I’m BSing, so I’d thought I’d share.

You can PM me if you ever get around to reading it and care to comment.

But back to the thread’s discussion …

Well I look forward to reading! Make sure to cc my username if/when you get around to it. — John Doe

:smile: Cool

I defy you to justify this statement - "Materialism is self-contradictory to that which appraises its truth: the presence of awareness" with reasons that don't terminate either in your intuition or in a form of reasons which can be addressed and debated from a materialist perspective. — John Doe

Yea. It's in the works. But I grant, it doesn't work well in soundbites. But I am tempted. It'll have to do with degrees of certainty, though (none of which will be absolute).

What is "matter is substantial" supposed to be saying? — Terrapin Station

I believe that was in reference to my statement. Its saying "matter as sub-stance (that upon which everything is founded)"

"

Okay. But I don't see the fact that physicalism doesn't seem intuitively right to you as a good reason to reject it. — Terrapin Station

No, my intuition has little if anything to do with it. Materialism is self-contradictory to that which appraises its truth: the presence of awareness.

Ok, taken in context of this thread, it was addressing what the "good reason" to question materialism is. I feel certain that other reasons can also be found. But I provided one.

Wait a minute--let's clarify this first: "the usual folk metaphysics" is physicalism re the mind-body issue? — Terrapin Station

I'm not going to get into an argument about what the "usual folk metaphysics" is ... other than to say that most folks take matter to be substantial.

Personally, I don't believe that "the usual folk" could give a rats ass about metaphysics (pardon my English) ... they just care that things work out better for them in their immediate lives. Which does entail the presence of awareness.

If It's "the usual folk metaphysics" and there's supposedly a problem with it, there would need to be a good argument for whatever the problem is supposed to be. — Terrapin Station

One good argument runs along the lines of: Because awareness matters … to all of us … except maybe when we've got our head in the clouds philosophizing about what is real. But matter as substance doesn’t explain the presence of awareness or any of its charms, things like its happiness and suffering, and its ability to cause these same attributes in other instantiations of awareness. The best a physicalist can do is do that faith thing which they often detest theist for: someday it will somehow magically be explained. Thus presenting a good reason to question that “everything is matter”.

I doubt that anyone here in their daily lives can’t colloquially/intuitively differentiate between that which is physical and that which is thoughts—regardless of their philosophies. Yet the affirmation that “all thoughts are composed of matter” has the equally justifiable—and also not perfect—alternative that “all matter is composed of thoughts”. Just that the latter can explain awareness, agency, and the like—especially when adopting a view such as Peirce’s objective idealism—whereas the former can’t.

(Besides which, there’s always the dual-aspect neutral-monism position wherein all stuff is, roughly speaking, basically just information that causally interacts, hence neither matter nor thought but that from which both manifest in their respective forms. Thought I’d trough this one in since it’s my view.)

I don't think we disagree all that much. — Bitter Crank

Yes, in relation to your last post, we don’t disagree on a whole lot. :smile: :up:

I wonder how common the "pleasure in power over" actually is. — Bitter Crank

You’ve never heard of kids burning up ants with magnifying glasses? Without pride in so saying, I’ve done so as a kid, also pulled wings off of flies. I’ve heard of a whole lot worse (cats flung off of roof tops with tails on fire, etc. ... funny to some, not to others). Ones interest in doing so is always entwined with pleasure in holding power over other. In the world I live in bullying hasn’t receded but increased. My point is, power-over is rather prevalent. And often increases in sociopathic ways into adulthood rather than being regretted. One would like to think that it’s receded some since the time of the Colosseum, but it can always come back again if we all were so willing and wanting.

To be honest, I find it naive to believe that power-over is not an endemic aspect of what we are as humans. Though, of course, not the only aspect of our human species.

As to sexuality, sex-slavery—quite often of preadolescents—is on the increase in the West, this based on things I’ve heard and read. But of course accurate data is hard to obtain. Still, are you one to believe that children don’t get abused sexually? If so, we strongly disagree on facts.

As to the me2 movement. I don’t recall ever being pinched in the ass by a stranger while in public. I imagine that if this would have occurred back when my ass might of been worth pinching, at least one of us would have ended up with blood on his face. However, in the world I inhabit, this same power-over behavior toward women is quite common – ass pinching, etc.

BTW. I’ve had more than a few girlfriends who eventually told me that they, at some point in their lives, were or nearly were raped or sexually attacked in public places. Also personally knowing of one close female friend in high school who I later discovered was repeatedly raped during that time. Maybe my secondhand experiences are an anomaly. We’re after all on a philosophy forum where all possibilities can get dragged out ad nausium. But I can say with confidence that I choose to believe that they are not anomalies.

In short, we disagree.

Finding agreement with what you say, I’ll add to it:

I’ve read it that there are two types of power: power-over and power-with.

Power-over is about authoritarian control over that which is existentially divorced from us as selves, other as that which is or holds the potential to be possession, and to be done with as one pleases without any sense of compassion. While we all engage in such form of power in relation to inanimate givens, this form of power can also endow some people with pleasure precisely via its capacity to enslave other beings as puppets—to turn people into objects to be possessed as one would possesses any other inanimate object. A pleasure that increases with increases sensations of absolute control over another being’s very life and death. Whenever we deride, lie, thieve, threaten, and kill with pleasure in so doing, it stems from our gravitation to this type of power.

Power-with is about mutually shared goals. This leading into mutually shared degrees of compassion for the other, wants for the other to be successful, to be pleased, etc. It includes the ideal power relations between leader and willfully led—be this teacher and student, typically male dance leader and typically female dance follower, and, I very much uphold, sex … regardless if it’s lovy dovy or full-blown S&M.

I’m saying this with an implicit understanding that both men and women can engage in power-with behaviors. Just as they both can in their own ways engage in power-over behaviors.

Rape is a product of the pleasure and momentary happiness gained via greater power-over the person raped.

The label of sexual harassment can become less clear—especially in its subtler forms and at the very commencement—become here both forms of power can manifest with the same overall effects: those of romantic overtures. Power-over seeking its power over the other—often teasing out the degree to which it may so accomplish without getting injured. Power-with seeking to discover and encourage the possibility of a power-with relationship with the other. Of course, power-with gets the point when clearly told no. Thereby, I’d say, not being sexual harassment. But power-over just sees this rejection as a personal insult to be retaliated against—this so as better prove to oneself one’s capacities of power-over ... else such individual will often think of themselves as week.

So I agree: sex is about power. But I want to add that not all power takes the form of power-over.

I think 'ego' is incorrect terminology here. An all-perceiving mind/consciousness, perhaps; but not 'ego' which is 'one's sense of oneself'. — Wayfarer

Yes, it was written in haste. I here intended “ego” in what I understand to be its Latin sense. But, even so, I acknowledge this could still become ambiguous more quickly than not. To clarify:

Berkeley supposes some being that perceives and that via this faculty is all-perceiving.

I was alluding to a possible argument that this very concept is self-contradictory. In summation: To perceive is to have a point of view from where perceptions occur, yet the very presence of a point of view would entail that some things are not perceived—thereby precluding the possibility of perceiving everything in a simultaneous and eternal way. Otherwise, devoid of such point of view, omni-perception as a hypothetical could maybe be denoted as consisting of all perception from all co-existent point-of-view-endowed beings simultaneously. Yet Berkeley specifies a being that governs all by perceiving everything as singular point of view. Something that to me is self-contradictory. As it is, I don’t currently care to more formally argue this out. But I do deem it to be a problem with the consistency of Berkeley’s overall paradigm.

Notwithstanding, I agree with your post.

"Reasoning concerning causal interactions, however, can lead to an understanding of the physical world as a realm of causal interactions with which we all interact."

Maybe I misunderstand you, but I fail to see how this is harmful. — kudos

No, I didn’t intend that it is harmful. I intended that such approach is beneficial to establishing the presence of what is often termed the external world. This in what I presumed to be an overall agreement with your own perspective.

Attempts to base the reality of the physical world on appearances has traditionally led into problems. One example being that of Berkley’s need for an all-perceiving ego. Reasoning concerning causal interactions, however, can lead to an understanding of the physical world as a realm of causal interactions with which we all interact. Perceptions are then only a limited set of these causal interactions.

This of itself doesn’t presume physicalism. To the same degree that our thinking entails our agency to enactively produce or else influence our own thoughts, we as lifeforms also hold a limited agency within the commonly shared physical world of causal interactions we inhabit. This physical world of interactions that affects all living beings can then be further interpreted as an effete mind, to use Charles Peirce’s terminology. This can be likened to a universal mind that is devoid of the agency which we are endowed with as living beings. As Peirce puts it, roughly expressed, its causal interactions and natural laws are themselves habits of thought. So interpreting makes “effete mind” and “physicality” indistinguishable concepts when addressing how individual brains interact with their respective minds. Nevertheless, here the monism changes from that of dual-aspect physicalism to one of either dual-aspect idealism or dual-aspect neutral-monism.

I do uphold that perceptions are important, but very much believe that the external world can best be evidenced via its causal interactions, this whenever the question of its presence holds a potential to arise.

I don’t know how this perspective will strike you, but I wanted to provide some support to what you stated in your last two posts. Namely, that physical existence is contingent on interactions—this rather than upon our perceptions of it.

:razz: hell, if the cosmos makes you do things ... but then the cosmos is an idea as well. What isn't?

Ideas are rather like diseases. — Nils Loc

If so, the cure is then to abstain from philosophy.

What is this awareness you speak of? Have you seen it? Sounds like an idea to me. — Nils Loc

You seem to not have read my post. No, I've never seen it. I'm venturing that nether have you.

So:

A: awareness exists because we are aware.
or
B: awareness doesn't exist because no one has ever seen it.

... as to what it is: I'm still working on the "Know Thyself" bit.

Speak true, brother.

To be is to be perceived. — Nils Loc

:lol: Shucks, I guess that no awareness can then be. As in, you can see your eyes in a mirror but not the you as an ever changing awareness that is seeing your eyes in a mirror, etc. Hence, by entailment: an awareness-devoid philosophy ... right up there with the presence of homunculi. Sounds oddly reminiscent to physicalism, wherein awareness itself is only an epiphenomenal illusion. So ... back to serious/true philosophy where all these issues are willfully ignored so as to magically make the ontic presence of awareness nonexistent.

Replying more to the title than to the OP: That’s how insults work; you produce thoughts of another’s pain that you don’t feel yourself, then act by hurling the insult (words being thoughts themselves in many a sense)—that then produces the other’s pain, if one’s successful.

Core issue here is intentionality. If one imagines some hurt without any intention of the hurt affecting some other … well, I haven’t read of any spiritual or metaphysical take where this is interpreted as in any way being, in and of itself, a cause for anyone else’s pain. And I've read my fair share.

Hanover 's looks. :up: — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :wink: :razz:

I can at least in part concede, and agree. From my vantage: When we do devise symbols, we don’t do so from and in relation to nothing but, instead, in relation to the structures of our world—be these physical or metaphysical. Colors can at times serve as a good example of such symbols. On the side: I once gathered from anthropology that languages in which there’s distinction between only two hews always discern between white/light and black/dark; those with three hews always add on the color red; those with only four always add on either blue or green. Going by this alone (though its only a vague memory), our relation to colors is far more complex than merely that which we choose to be.

In my defense, though, I was aiming at pithiness. Here granting some degree of metaphysical speculation, and in a manner of speaking, I was ignoring the middlemen of all those conceivable universals that to any degree do hold limitations, are hence not limitless, and, thereby, which hold any type of discernable form (form in a Platonic sense of the term—though I’m not addressing this from the vantage of Platonism). Any particular color can serve as example of a limited universal. however, so far, I interpret givens such as that of “the Good” and “truth” to hold metaphysically formless presence—this thought they converge with form … either in the affirmative or as negations, in the latter case thereby resulting in the bad and in falsity, respectively (Hence, with both the bad and falsity being contingent upon the existential presence of the good and truth, respectively—such that while the latter are metaphysically eternal the former are not).

So, given this frame of mind: To represent that which is metaphysically formless is to assign it form—thereby not capturing the formless given which is being addressed, but at best only pointing toward it.

Edit: my dyslexic self edited some mishaps.

Isn't "the truth" also a concept that most of us see as something eternal? — UngeGosh

Sure. One could argue that the truth is a) always uncreated (we don’t, for example, create the truths we perceive—such as in, “look, a tree is over there”; we merely report them in an honest way to the best of our abilities … or else remain conformant to them by not creating fabrications regarding, in this case, what was perceived) … as well as b) ubiquitous (even our occasional deceptions, which are fabrications that we of ourselves create (in this case, as willfully given lies), are dependent upon some common agreement upon that which is true—such as the truth that trees as real givens on planet earth—so whether we’re addressing truths or deceptions, it’s all dependent upon a necessary preexistence of truth). In line with this type of reasoning, given that truth is both uncreated and ubiquitous, one can then fairly easily conclude that truth itself is eternal.

But then when it comes to symbolic representations of “the truth”, these to my knowledge can vary greatly between cultures. Being a Westerner, “light” comes to mind; from an even more Abrahamic slant, also the dove as symbol for the holy ghost. Though of an utterly different nature, the yin-yang relation in Eastern cultures, I currently believe, could maybe also serve as a symbol for truth. Thing is, if all symbols are of our creation, and if truth is metaphysically uncreated, no symbol would adequately represent the truth itself as a metaphysical given.

Eh, my best current musings on the subject.

And if we accept it as a source of knowledge in lots of other areas, why not for miracles? — Empedocles

Regardless of whether one believes in spiritual realms or not:

If a miracle is defined as an event that is contradictory to natural laws, and if the principle of noncontradiction is considered to have ubiquitous application and presence, then the occurrence of a miracle (as metaphysical reality) would falsify the reality of the natural law(s) it is in contradiction with. Say the miracle is that walking on water (applicable to Christianity) or levitation (applicable to Hinduism where its stated that yogi once upon a time were able to levitate via meditation) or flight (applicable to ancient shaman where oral tradition has it that shaman were in ancient times seen by the villagers to fly over the village); regardless of case, the miracle will prove the law of gravity to be invalid as a natural law. Were this invalidity of the law of gravity to be factual, then logically chaos would result as consequence; e.g., without the natural law of gravity, what causal mechanism remains to prevent people from ascending into outer space haphazardly?

Addressed in spiritual terms:

There are many of a spiritual slant who will say that there are physical natural laws as well as non-physical natural laws of which we are yet ignorant. So, as an example: Were 500 people to all see a non-physical apparition and agree upon it as though it were physical, this could be accordant to non-physical laws of nature … without being contradictory to the physical laws of nature of which we already know. Still, this inter-personal experience shared by the 500 people a) would yet not be something objective in the sense of something that all co-existent beings hold a capacity to experience at will—and could thereby not be validated by any objective means, e.g. via science—and, here more importantly, b) it would not be an event that by definition contradicts known laws of nature (nor, one would reason, those laws of nature of which we have yet to discover)—i.e., it would not be a miracle as miracles have just been defined.

Point being that, in either scenario, were an event to occur at the expense of a preserved ubiquity of natural laws, then reality as we know it could only become chaotic at everyone’s expense due to the lack of stable natural laws by which our causal interactions are governed. If its factual that the natural laws don’t apply, then it would also be factual that existential chaos can result at any time for no reason … something that we do not observe and has never been recorded to occur.

Though this is only the outline of a concept, I nevertheless deem it to be a good enough explanation for why miracles—i.e., events that contradict natural laws—cannot be rationally upheld as real in any metaphysical sense.

But if one defines "miracle" not as an event that contradicts laws of nature but, instead, merely as an event for which we currently do not have an explanation for, these could be argued to be common enough. But then, the known laws of nature remain fully preserved.

Ea, maybe I’m picking at straws. But then, if a Pegasus is just a horse with wings, wouldn’t the conclusion preserve truth? As in, because horses can both have and not have wings as a category of entity/being—winged horses being a type of horse—then some horses (members of the category just expressed) do have wings.

Yet we acknowledge that horses do not have wings ... I'm guessing due to our implicit understanding of the category horse as something distinct from the categories of Pegasus or unicorn.

All winged horses are horses
All winged horses have wings
Therefore some horses have wings — MindForged

Isn’t a winged horse by definition not a horse? (Its proper term being a Pegasus.) In parallel, I’m thinking that a unicorn is not a horse. Or, a sphinx is not a lion. I’m here addressing my sense of proper categories as regards the validity of the argument—this rather than the issue of fictitious beings v. real beings.

Much of this will be contestable, so I’m up to hearing of alternative slants.

Eternity is limitless time. Infinity (i.e., “without end”) is tmk nowadays commonly interpreted more spatially, as in limitless space--I'm guessing due to its mathematical applications, with maths not consisting of time. Both can be abstracted to address particulars—e.g., an eternal universal such as that of “the Good” that stands in contrast to transient physical givens; e.g., a line whose length is infinite in contrast to its width. Likewise both can be abstracted to address everything as generality—e.g., space-time as being itself limitless.

Irrespective of the veracity to these abstractions—some of which often enough contradict when compared—their common denominator is the concept of limitlessness.

I currently know of only two possible symbols for limitlessness: the lemniscate (i.e., ∞, which can be interpreted to be a perfect circle twisted in upon itself) and the ouroboros (an imaginary animal consisting only of a head (mind) and the tale (body) which grows due to the actions of the mind—often represented as a snake or a worm—that can only subsist by means of taking into itself its own tail. It’s commonly stated to represent the endless cycle of life and death at a cosmic level—hence, limitlessness of cosmic being. Roughly speaking, it can also be interpreted in terms of karma, akin to: you, we, or else everything will need to take into itself tomorrow those effects that are produced today).

However, the lemniscate—though a symbol for that which is limitless (without end)—is again nowadays commonly interpreted more spatially than temporally (though technically it just stipulates “without limits”). On the other hand, the symbolic implications of the ouroboros—while they more readily connote the limitlessness of time—are often lost on us modern folk, with its more precise meanings seeming to be anybody’s guess (my own liberties in previously describing its symbolic meaning fully included).

I’ve no ideal of how stability can be represented via a precise symbol—but am aware of cultures that use the symbol of a rock for this purpose; e.g., the philosopher’s stone as, possibly, symbol for Sophia (wisdom), this among alchemists; or our own cultural saying of “steady as a rock”.

So I keep on thinking -- might it be the case that we use a (now believed valid) form of argument with true premises that then comes to false conclusions? — Moliere

Conclusions can be deemed erroneous due their being contradictory—either relative to themselves, as in some obtained conclusion that affirms A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect, or else in relation to some set of known truths that are contextual to the obtained conclusion. I can’t currently think of other means by which concluded truths can be deemed erroneous which do not themselves reduce to the presence of inconsistency. If someone else can, this would complicate my argument.

What you bring up can, to my mind, be exemplified relatively well by Zeno’s paradoxes. Their reasoning is logically valid, as far as we can tell. Yet their conclusions are contradictory to experience. Hence: That it’s impossible for a runner to outrun a turtle as long as the turtle has an initial lead, or that it’s impossible for an arrow to hit its target, are logically valid arguments (as Zeno argues them). But, because they contradict with experience (which is—as an ever changing awareness of givens—after all required to make sense of these paradoxes of change/motion which conclude that no change can occur), we then know that something is false somewhere along the way with the argument. It might be that some of the premises, thought they seem intuitively true, are false or that the arguments, which seem logically valid, are in fact not valid.

But generally speaking, if both the premises and the conclusions hold consistency to all other related truths and are obtained via reasoning that is not demonstrably invalid, then the argument gives all indications of logical soundness. It’s how we know that the premises are true to begin with: they’re consistency to all other relevant truths. It’s not until contradictions occur that we hold reason to question the soundness of arguments.

I’m not sure, but maybe this serves to address the issue you’re enquiring into.

So if I'm aware of thoughts, then they must be occuring? — Kranky

To you, yes.

But hey, that’s the wacky nature of mind: it’s personal to the awareness involved.

If you are aware of your thoughts and your thoughts thereby influence your awareness—which they do just by you being aware of them—then they occur as thoughts.

I don’t have the discipline to not do this. I’m kicking myself in the buttocks already.

First off I never read anything by this guy, but I’ve heard of one of em’ poetic sayin’s that I find more aesthetically pleasing. Here paraphrased from imperfect memory: Reality is a mountain whose material is composed of multiple paths of truth amid our deceptions and self-deceptions, and holds as its zenith Truth, a state of being where all these paths of truth converge into the same thing. So I disagree with this pathlessness interpretation and approach people have been speaking about here … this at an emotive level.

Also:

[...]I do know that those claiming that they are awakened are most likely not. — Posty McPostface

What about those who claim to be sleeping? If a person tells us that they’re asleep, should we trust that they are in fact sleepwalking? I think not.

(For the record, I agree with you, Posty. Just thinking that what I just said is funny. :joke: )

Just because we can conceive of alternative(s) for X does not make the alternative(s) true. E.g. That the Earth is pyramidal in shape, though this is an alternative to the Earth being roughly spherical, is not true on account of having been conceived.

Just because alternatives for X are conceivable does not then imply that there is reason to doubt X. E.g., the quantity of alternatives to “Earth’s shape is roughly spherical” is, I believe, on par with the quantity of geometric shapes conceivable. But since all of our experience is most consistently explained (i.e., explained in manners devoid of contradiction) by the Earth being spherical, it then is irrational to doubt that Earth is spherical because someone says “Hey, maybe it’s an octahedron … or may a donut.”

Otherwise, to doubt Earth’s shape via each and every alternative to its being spherical would—to be consistent in how one thinks—also require one’s doubting each and every conceivable alternative in turn ad infinitum. At which point some would say, “man, to hell with all this ad infinitum doubting; just suspend judgment as regards absolute certainty and just go with what is most evident and justified, always free to change one’s mind if the evidence ever changes.”

So what appears to be my thoughts right now, — Kranky

Be that as it may, can you justify any alternative to the highlighted quote? If not, then your awareness of the thoughts you are aware of is not possible to rationally doubt … because you can’t justify any conceivable alternative by which to doubt it ... because you'd have to be aware of the alternative in order to use for the purpose of doubting, thereby proving the alternative wrong (again, because you hold presence as an awareness aware of this alternative).

Are you or are you not aware of thoughts?

And if one’s own awareness is not possible to rationally doubt when one is aware of anything (such as of one’s own thoughts), then there might be other such forms of not yet absolute certainty* that is nevertheless not possible to doubt in practice.

*It can’t be absolute certainty because you can’t prove that you or someone else will never find justifiable alternatives that facilitate the possibility—but not the necessity!—to doubt the reality that you hold presence as an awareness while in any way aware of anything. This even though I’m guessing the given verdict of your presence as, minimally, an awareness is not possible to rationally doubt in practice.

But again, try to read up on those who would argue that one should suspend judgment on matters such as that of what is of absolute certainty. They used to go by the name of Skeptics.

Ideas and concepts may not be empirical but our knowledge of them may be said to be objective shared in the sense that we all acknowledge having them and characterize them quite similarly. — BrianW

:grin: I like that. Objectivity as the quality of being impartially shared between/among all--rather then the property of physicality as it applies to physical entities (which are themselves, after all, impartially perceived by all in the same way, here roughly speaking).

Considering they are a significant part of our experiences, perhaps we could deal with them more intelligently and seek to understand them further especially in how and why they come to be. — BrianW

I very much agree that we should. Yet, again, because they are not something perceived via our physiological senses, I rather envision this investigation occurring via science accordant philosophy. This rather than through strict use of science itself.

and I wonder if we could develop it further into a scientific process that can be designated as creation or conception?

Can we take the little we know of this mental process and develop it into a scientific discipline? — BrianW

Aren’t ideas and concepts by their very nature not empirical? This in the modern sense of the word, where empiricism is understood as all experience strictly obtained via the physiological senses. (Lock, Hume, etc. I believe often interpreted “empirical” in ways far more similar to what we’d intend by “experiential”—which ideas and concept are, for we know of them via our direct awareness/experience.)

Given that ideas and concept are not empirical, it’s hard to see understand how one could make a scientific discipline for their empirical study.

As to learning to be more creative, two ideas: a) practicing the allegorical muscle of imagination by more actively imagining things in general and b) (this, to me, given certain assumptions I partially addressed in a previous post) improving one’s total mind’s capacity of creativity by learning how to ask of oneself questions regarding (and with sincere intent to discover) things that are relatively uncertain, abstract, and/or as of yet unknown. Sort of tangentially, one practice I’ve heard of, for example, is that of writing down question to oneself prior to going to sleep, this with the apparent expectation that answers to these questions might be discovered during dreams. Haven’t done this myself though.

A few times now, I've awoken with ideas that have come directly from dreams, remembered from the dreams and recognized as useful, I've transferred them into actual useful creative ideas. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yea, dreams are a very interesting field of study I for the most part consider so far unexplored. Freud I think ruined it for a great portion of people; then again, I’m not big on Freud. Many in the field believe that dreams have an important role in the formation of long-term memories*; and, as we all know, lack of sleep can be devastating to the psyche (if not eventually lethal). Though I don’t look upon him (or anyone) as being without faults, I do like certain aspects of Hume’s notion of self as mind. In particular, that of it being a commonwealth (I’ll here skip my partial disagreements with his same stance). When we’re awake, this commonwealth—imo—becomes relatively unified at a conscious level in mostly undifferentiable ways; although there are things such as a conscience or pangs of emotion we sense affecting us that occasionally directly evidence to us the commonwealth that is; but most of this commonwealth enters into what we term the unconscious (again, imo) when we’re awake. But in dreams, the commonwealth becomes apparent to us, taking the form of dreamt entities which often hold their own agency in addition to ideas which we there are exposed to via symbolism. Yea, the nature of dreams is an interesting subject to explore—especially since a significant amount of our novel ideas as humans come from dreams.

I can relate, btw. (wanted to say something in addition to this)

* a link to back up that statement: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dream-catcher/201602/are-dreams-required-memory

I'm not denying the fact of new representations. For example, a new model of a car is still just a car. A new-born human is just a human. By creativity, I mean generating a distinct concept which can be characterized independently of its source material. This is why I consider most creations as a synthesis. — BrianW

The thought of a hovercraft came to mind. At some last point in history the idea/concept of a hovercraft was not present—though cars, airplanes, and helicopters were (haven’t done my research but I presume something along these lines). Then, right after this period, the idea/concept of a hovercraft became present. A hybrid idea of something between cars and helicopters that then holds the capacity to engage in a hovering sort of flight. As ideas go, it would be, when allegorically expressed, a new species of idea: neither car, nor airplane, nor helicopter.

I’d also like to add that I’m quite certain that our unconscious minds think, and—as an example—in so doing, that they sometimes synthesize concepts just right, subsequent to which the new ideas are kicked up into consciousness, thereby producing eureka moments which we term moments of inspiration of insight.

So this process of creating new ideas is not always—maybe not typically—something which we as conscious egos do ourselves. Come to think of it—if I remember my history right—the theory of relativity was reputedly first conceived during a dream of sleep, this according to Einstein. (If wrong, may I be corrected.) Hence, not by the awoken conscious ego but by the unconscious mind’s thoughts while the total being was sleeping (though dreams are to me a complex subject when it comes to experience and awareness—we as egos are after all aware of our dreams while dreaming).

Currently, it seems to me that you might be asking too much from the notions of creation and creativity. I’m here thinking of the maxim that from nothing comes nothing.

If you don’t intend this maxim, then how would any creation not be accomplished via use of something that previously is/was? [To try to avoid questions regarding metaphysical implications, I for one uphold that the beginning of being is unknowable to us beings, period.]

Perhaps the reason might be that those who piously believed the Laws of Nature reflect the Divine Will may have been led to think that the invariances of nature are indeed deductively certain; it would be illogical for God to contravene the Universal Laws He has created. — Janus

:grin: If this "God" has an ego, an "I", then is it the biggest ego that has ever existed or can exist? Such an, um, egoistic individual would likely want to be believed with deductive certainty, I'm imaging.

Yea, no, I gravitate toward the concept of an egoless consciousness ... ya know, mystical stulf akin to notions such as that of Nirvana. But, as we all know, this at least metaphysical possibility is not something can can be deductively proven.

Eh, against my better judgment, currently finding myself somewhat humorous, I'll post this post anyway.