My bad for assuming you might have had the curiosity and knowledge to follow arguments already much simplified. — apokrisis

Their implications are so far too vague to be clear, apo. Do you uphold that first-person awareness, aka consciousness, is real?

↪javra
Ask RogueAI. — apokrisis

My bad for not clarifying: my last question regarding kindergarten was rhetorical.

As to RogueAI asking me, can you not, you know, express your views in manners that others can understand?

:blush:

----------

Why do I feel like I'm in kindergarten ... on a philosophy forum? One of those things one might never know.

Remind me which one you are again? — apokrisis

Use more syllables, apo. Meaning transference is important to discussions.

Oh, no. I understand symbols devoid of content. :wink:

I have no idea what any of this huge sentence means. Sorry. — Tom Storm

no worries

Maybe you could entice me to. What's an example of something that is not a social construction according to these texts and Vygotskain psychology.

Besides, you really have nothing to correct in what I interpret your state of mind to be?

metaphysical frameworks, such as idealism and panpsychism, which were derided as baseless nonsense by the positivists of the past, are back in new forms. But such claims cannot be taken as a true description of an ultimate reality for there is no credible realist theory of language that would make sense of such claims. — Tom Storm

I am wondering what people who study philosophy think of this claim as it strikes me as an interesting argument and might breathe some new life into debates about idealism. — Tom Storm

As someone how holds imperfect knowledge in this realm (in all realms, actually), at this point in our history I find the quoted argument for the most part valid. Nevertheless, for those of use don't remove the objective idealism from out of Peirce's metaphysics of objective idealism (with his notion of Agapism, for example, very much included), his is one example of a description of reality which can - I so far think - at the very least facilitate a "a credible realist theory of language" that thereby makes sense of the very metaphysics addressed - one wherein the physical world is effete mind in relation to which propositions can either be true or false. But I grant that Peirce's writings (and I have not as of yet read all of them) are not amongst the most analytically stringent writings out there in terms of presenting a coherent whole. (My favorite in this regard was the pantheistic metaphysics of Spinoza's Ethics; agree or disagree with it, it was exceedingly transparent in its premises-conclusion format; but no, not a system of either idealism or panpsychism.)

You're making him sound like an idiot! — RogueAI

It was in no way my intention to.

I anticipate and expect that he will correct me in any way that my statements might misrepresent him. Still, from past discussions on this topic in this thread, this is what I've honestly gathered.

ps. I should have written Chat GPT (not GTP)

I’ve noticed that @apokrisis hasn’t responded to a number of your questions, so I’ll do my best to do so in my honest interpretations of his state of mind. @apokrisis can of course readily correct me wherever he finds me mistaken in anything I say (it is, after all, a best current understanding).

(I wrote this before seeing both yours and @bert1's most recent replies; posting it all the same)

Apo is an eliminativist who deems all speak of first-person awareness and, hence, of consciousness to be a linguistic social construct devoid of real referent(s). Because of this, all your questions regarding the reality of consciousness as first-person awareness are nonsensical to him - with answers that are "not even wrong" as he might say. We are all – take your pick – moist robots or philosophical zombies that hypnotize ourselves via our language into illusions of being consciously aware when, in fact, no such thing can ever and in any way occur.

The socially constructed term (as though there could occur any linguistic terms that aren’t) we specify as “consciousness”, however, can be behavioristically interpreted and defined as “evidenced input into a system conjoined with the output of same said system”.

Hence, if a robot or computer program can report on inputs – with Chat GTP as one example of this - it is then as conscious as anything else. No awareness required - or, for that matter, possible. At least not as anything that is in any way real.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, there is the connotative issue of modernity vs. primitivity at play, and all that this might imply.

Likewise, instead of presuming that essential Potential was fully-formed into Consciousness at the beginning, ... — Gnomon

Only want to here point out that most ancient perspectives - such as that of Stoicism - in no way held such a view of an animistic world. This turn of events emerged with Abrahamic perspectives.

Objective knowledge from science about our moral intuitions is “impartial” and even mind-independent. Obtaining mind-independent knowledge is the standard goal in science. — Mark S

While I fully agree that objective knowledge - hence either perfectly impartial knowledge or a relatively impartial knowledge that aims toward the former - is the goal of the empirical sciences as an enterprise (all aspects of the scientific method function so as further approach this end), I'm not at all in agreement that any knowledge - including one that can by hypothesized as completely impartial - can ever be awareness independent. And I can here only interpret "mind-independent knowledge" to be just that: knowledge whose occurrence is not in any way dependent on awareness.

This disagreement might then likely be an insurmountable impasse for us.

And, perhaps most importantly, he was on an episode of "The Simpsons." — T Clark

:lol:

Objective knowledge about why our shared intuitions about good are what they are could be similarly useful. — Mark S

I don't disagree with this, but find it agreeing with my previous post. "Objective knowledge" cannot be interpreted as a (physical) object whose attributes are thereby equally applicable to all co-existent minds in impartial manners. Hence, I so far can only interpret it as "impartial knowledge" regarding our shared intuition about the good. Yet, to in fact be impartial, this knowledge will need to be equally applicable in valid manners to all minds the world over - if this is at all possible. And this, again, is not a theme for science to discover but, instead, one for meta-ethics to investigate.

If I'm missing something let me know.

A very well thought-out OP.

I don't know if I should throw this monkey-wrench into the wheels, but I will. For science and philosophy to converge on the issue of morality, what is first needed is a common understanding of the the term "good" references in all cases, irrespective of whether moral or not.

The mass murderer considers murdering innocent bystanders a good pleasure to obtain - this in terms of their own mind's workings. What then, for example, unifies as an underlying facet of all conceivable behaviors that which is good to the unconstrained mass murderer with that which is good to, for example, Mother Teresa?

Here is not addressed the issue of cooperation (which can be at the very least inferred from empirical observations), cooperation's mores, and the societal (or even universal) morality that can thereby obtain as a facet of these mores. Here is addressed why any such optimal means of cooperation is deemed - maybe in an a priori way - something good to begin with. In contrast, for one possible to conceive example, there is the the good(ness) to be aspired toward of a cosmically obtained absolute nonbeing - this as entertained by most, if not all, antinatalists - wherein the very process of cooperation is deemed to be a deficit of that which is good and, thereby, in this sense alone, an existential bad (for some measure of suffering will yet occur in such cooperation at least at times).

So what makes optimal cooperation, rather than absolute nonbeing, good? (as an aside, with a heads up that notions such as that of Nirvana entail being - this in contrast to the nonbeing longed for by the antinatalist)

Philosophically, the issue is not - or at least, is not foundationally - that of "what proposition specifies that which is in fact good" but, instead, "what universal attribute(s) constitute the very existential occurrence of good and bad (and, by extension when applied to psyches, the potential for evil)". Here circumscribing everything from a good piece of pie, to a good argument, to a good killing (from a vengeful murder's point of view just as much as from a hunter's or farmer's that kills for strict sustenance, etc.), to a good morality (such as the morality of female circumcision can be for some, but is not so deemed by most of the West - etc.) ... and everything else under the sun.

The later philosophical issue enquirers into something that cannot be empirically observed - but is instead presumed in empirical observations. And while i grant that not all philosophers are concerned with this issue, many are.

In sum, it so far seems to me that science and philosophy can only happily, satisfactorily, converge on the issue of morality only if both agree on what the meaning of "good" (regardless of the language in which it is expressed) can and does signify, and what it applies to in all its conceivably instantiations. (Again, including what Stalin deemed to be good for himself (and others) and what Mother Teresa deemed to be good for herself (and others) both here being individual instantiations of this very same meaning - of that which is good - as its meaning is here equally applicable to both). And this underlying issue of what I deem to be meta-ethics I find cannot be obtained via science but, instead, potentially only via philosophy.

This is intended for one and all:

*1. Panpsychism :
Though it sounds like something that sprang fully formed from the psychedelic culture, panpsychism has been around for a very long time. — Gnomon

Though my current conviction makes me partly dogmatic about the two being equivalent, I’m at the same time curious to discover how my understanding could be wrong – hence the question:

In what conceivable way is panpsychism not a reclothing (i.e., re-branding or re-veiling) of the quite ancient and, back then, basically ubiquitous notion of animism?

In other words, what can possibly be rationally different between panpsychism and animism as metaphysical understandings of reality?

----

As a reminder, to say that “everything is endowed with anima” is equivalent to saying that “everything is endowed with psyche” - first term being Latin and the second Greek, with both terms having the same underlying meaning.

And if animism needs to be made more palatable, the Stoic notion of an “anima mundi” is basic animism conceived of in stratified layers of efficacy in relation to the cosmos / whole.

Gould is one of my favorite writers. — T Clark

It's easy to understand why.

It's hard to believe he's been gone for more than 20 years. — T Clark

I don't mean to suggest that I knew him personally; I didn't; still: “Only the good die young,” comes to mind in thinking about him. (different ways to interpret this; but in this context I interpret it as “pass away while yet being young at heart”) Or so it seems to me, at least.

How people ever talked themselves into something as nonsensical as eliminativism, I'll never understand, but thankfully it's well on its way to the ash heap of history. — RogueAI

Yes. But in @apokrisis's poignantly expressed questioning:

Does that sentence even make sense? And from what point of view? — apokrisis

:razz:

OK. I'll bugger off now.

An entertaining read.

Well … We will someday hold that horizon in our hands, by gosh! We just need to run faster toward it, that’s all.

BTW, I am here officially making a bet with anyone who so wishes on a case of wine (need not be expensive) that no one will ever hold the horizon in their hands, like ever. Any takers? (As to time-frames, maybe its best to make it within our own lifetimes.)

-------

Obviously, this bet would apply only for those of us who are not horizon-eliminativists, and thereby for those of us who maintain that the horizon does in fact occur.

You had no argument you could make. — apokrisis

The posturing guru speaketh. Bravo!

Stephen J Gould wrote, "In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'" Does that agree with your position or disagree with it? — T Clark

It agrees quite well. BTW, I have fond memories of Gould's various takes on sociobiology - albeit with some disagreements in some of the details.

Going back to my previous comment including the example, even many (most?) of our empirical observations are inferences and not direct observations. That may have been less true in Pierce's time. — T Clark

I think you are here erroneously conflating, or maybe fully equating, science to physics. A category error.

Again, how much of what we know is a brute fact? — T Clark

This question is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the proposition it is in reply to. All the same, there is no metaphysics that is both consistent and does not utilize a brute fact. Matter for materialists, as one example of this.

One of these crucial, pivotal inferences is that others are like us in being endowed with this "first-person point of view". Our observations (not inferences) of what they do sure as hell evidence and validate that they are thus endowed. Nevertheless, we do not observe them as first-person points of view. — javra

Again - many of what you call "brute-facts," we do not observe from a first-person point of view. — T Clark

If I remember right, I've only called one's own conscious being a brute fact to one's own conscious self. What are you here referring to?

All the same - though I do have my reason for so calling one's own conscious being a brute fact - if possible, due to the complexities involved, I'll retract my so claiming it to be with a "my bad". While I hold that it's not explainable in terms of more fundamental facts, I very much know that it's occurrence and form is dependent on a physical substratum of body and (in animals) brain - together with environment. Hence, the complexities.

As I noted in my last post to Wayfarer, it is unlikely you and I will get any further with this discussion. I've participated in similar ones many times, I'm sure you have too, and it never goes any further than this. This is probably a good place to stop. — T Clark

Alright. Thanks for the heads up.

FWIW, I'm in agreement, as I hope is also evident from what I've said above.

Useful crib on scientific method: — Wayfarer

:up: Cool. Thanks

I can't follow your argument there. Science is the combination of theory and test, deductive prediction and inductive confirmation. — apokrisis

When so loosely understood, what then isn't?

Take metaphysics. It is inferred theory and it is tested against a rubric of reason, it has deductive predictions from postulates and inductive confirmations of these predictions. And, it must conform to the observable world to be taken in any way seriously.

So now metaphysics is a branch of science? Um, no, it is not. ... boring as this might be, again, because it is not empirically testable (to be lucidly clear, your metaphysics very much included), and this because it has no empirically falsifiable hypothesis to test.

I'll try to leave our disagreement at that.

A direct question: does the total self of mind and body which can be to whatever extent empirically observed by others which you (I would assume) deem yourself to be hold a first-person point of view which is now reading this text? — javra

Does that sentence even make sense? And from what point of view? — apokrisis

Good luck with that, apo. I'll for now just choose to believe yours is merely a stinginess of charity mixed with some degree of deception (be it self-deception or otherwise). But hell, I could be talking to a Chat GPT program after all. So who knows?

As I just wrote in my previous post to Wayfarer, most of what we know is not based on our own direct observations. — T Clark

Yes. In absolutely full agreement. (Ergo the importance of trust and the significance of betrayal (of trust), including that of willful deceptions.)

It is a commonplace of all philosophy, at least since Descartes, that all our observations are imperfect and might be anywhere from 99% right to 100% wrong. At the same time, if you and I are both people of good will and both interested in learning about how people think, you're reports of your experience of your mind are likely to be valid, if imperfect. — T Clark

OK to this. As a reminder, I'm a diehard fallibilist. But it equivocates between empirical observations (which, yes, could in principle could include hallucinations - hence being technically fallible) and inferences, with these being optimal conclusions drawn from that which is observed (and since no one is omniscient, everyone's inferences could be potentially mistaken at times - hence being technically fallible).

Now I maintain this too is a fallible observation (a rabit-hole of philosophy, kind of thing) but, pragmatically, something that we all immediately know as a brute fact that we cannot rationally - nor experientially - doubt: we are as that which apprehends observables (including our thoughts, with some of these being our conscious inferences). Long story short, this is a direct experiential awareness of our own occurrence (again, as, I'll for now say, "first-person observers") Here is made absolutely no claim as to what we, as such, in fact are - be it entities/substance, processes, both, or neither. It doesn't matter.

In contrast to this direct experience of what is, we have inferences we live by. One of these crucial, pivotal inferences is that others are like us in being endowed with this "first-person point of view". Our observations (not inferences) of what they do sure as hell evidence and validate that they are thus endowed. Nevertheless, we do not observe them as first-person points of view.

We, hence, cannot observe other's consciousness and its factual activities - such as, for one example, what the consciousness remembers via the workings of its total mind.

None of this needs to be appraised for day to day interactions. But we are philosophically debating this very point, so I've mentioned it.

I attribute memory; or thinking, or feeling, or seeing, or knowing; to people all the time just based on their self-reporting and other behavior I can observe. That's how we know the world. Mental processes are not special. — T Clark

I'll again propose and argue that his attribution is due to inference - much of it unconscious and hence automatic - and not due to (first-person) observation (which can only be direct - rather than, for example, hearsay). For instance:

Of course I can. Here I go. Watch me. Hey, Javra, what are you remembering right now? — T Clark

What if I answer "nothing" or "a pink dolphin" or something else and it happens to be a proposition that I'm fully aware doesn't conform to the reality of what my current recollections are. These examples are obvious, but then I could answer with a proposition that, thought false, would be easily believable by you - and one which you'd have no possible way of verifying: e.g., "I'm now remembering your last post before this one".

You can infer what I'm remembering - but you do not observe it. Hopefully that makes better sense?

I pointed out how it is failing the test in terms of being a generalisation that ought to contain supersymmetry as a particular feature. And in being thus currently tested, that makes it doubly a problem if you want to say it is currently untestable – the stronger claim that it can't even be tested in principle. — apokrisis

OK, to state what should be obvious to those science savvy, such as yourself, one does not - and cannot - empirically test a theory inferred from data via use of strict theory and still declare such test one of empirical science.

The historic complexities aside, the theory of evolution can, for instance, be empirically tested in the lab - with fruit flies as just one among many examples.

The physics theory of relativity only became empirical science when empirically tested, and it was thereby empirically found that gravity does in fact bend light.

One does not test a theoretical inference against another theoretical inference - regardless of what the latter might be, that of supersymmetry included (which has alternatives to boot) - and then declare this a scientific test. For there's nothing empirical about such a test.

Hence, there is no currently imaginable way to test M-theory empirically - although, with no one being omniscient, given a lack of dogma one can/should allow for the existential possibility that at some point in the distant future someone somewhere might figure out a way to empirically test it. Until then - if this "then" will ever occur - it is not a scientific theory exactly and solely on this count: it cannot be empirically tested one way or another other.

This potential confusion between theoretical abstractons that might or might not be valid (edit: which often enough compete against each other) and that which becomes empirically tested and thereby empirically verified is why I initially addressed in a tongue in cheek manner that "(purely) theoretical fartology" is not a valid scientific discipline.

Would Chat GPT make as many rookie errors? There are whole shelves on the social construction of the self that could be poured into its pattern-matching data bank. It would at least be familiar with the relevant social science. — apokrisis

A direct question: does the total self of mind and body which can be to whatever extent empirically observed by others which you (I would assume) deem yourself to be hold a first-person point of view which is now reading this text?

As to social constructions studied by social sciences, these will include comparative religions just as much as those relevant notions of self (and in fairness, of non-self). Leave cultural constructs aside for a moment and given an honest proposition regarding what factually is in therms of your consciousness: do you in any way occur as a first-person point of view that is now reading this text?

Is it an untested theory or the mathematical generalisation of tested theories? — apokrisis

I didn't say "currently untested". I said "currently untestable". A major difference for those science savy.

I find plenty of disagreement. But not much of importance. You articulate a cultural construct with a long social history. — apokrisis

Ah, I see. My occurrence as a first-person point of view is a "cultural construct with a long social history" - a proposition that thereby lacks a truthful correspondence to anything real, I then infer. Claims like this make one doubt one is talking to another human rather than some AI robot.

As for the rest, we all know that he who presents the most ostentatious posturing wins. Much like those chimp ancestors of ours. So, go for it.

I would define "mind" as the sum total of an entities mental processes which include thinking, feeling, perceiving, knowing, remembering, being aware, being self-aware, proprioception, and lots of stuff I'm leaving out. I think all of those things are observable from the outside (third person observation) and many are observable from the inside (introspection). — T Clark

So you're claiming that you (or anyone else) can observe what I'm remembering right now? I won't even push the issue by addressing those good or bad vibes of former days for which I currently can find no adequate words but, nevertheless, can still remember. I'm here simply addressing (maybe via use of brain scans) another's ability to observe that which I as a so called "mind's eye" can perceptually remember via the non-physiologial senses of one's mind (say, my perceiving the remembered smell of a particular rose).

This is certainly not true. There are more than seven billion human minds that are objects to us and only one you might argue isn't. — T Clark

Maybe, but this would be contingent on how one defines and thereby interprets "mind". So how do you define mind?

As two examples among many:

1) a body of sometimes disparate agencies of awareness and will - interacting at various levels of unconscious (with one's conscience as one example) - that can of themselves hold causal power and thereby affect or else form the causal abilities of consciousness (e.g., feeling an overwhelming unconscious urge to do something that one then does) that can fully unify into a singular awareness and will (such as when one is in the flow and effortlessly acts in manners devoid of any choice making or deliberative thought). In short, mind as a mostly unified bundle of agencies.

2) the strict, causal-power-devoid epiphenomenon of a physical brain's operatons that is thereby necessarily reducible to the purely deterministic, causal operations of a physical brain's components and, hence, of itself holds no causal power to alter any behavior - this such as via the activity of making choices or of thinking - here very much including the non-agency of consciousness ... which is one aspect of a human's total mind). In short, mind as the effete byproduct of a brain.

Just two options among many, but I so far find anything resembling (1) to be non-observable (instead only being inferable, typically unconsciously in day to day life, this via observable data regarding a total person's overt behaviors) - this even though a corporeal being's mind is here yet understood to be contingent on a corporeal, hence physical, body (and at the very least in mammals, on a physical central nervous system). And, since mind here is non directly observable (with MRIs and such, which are observable, being inferential understandings of such agency we term mind), mind in this interpretation cannot be an observable object. (albeit, one can via various inferences often enough predict what minds will do).

Whereas anything resembling (2) can then be easily expressed as an observable object - this since it here basically amounts to the occurrence of a brain - of whose illusory agency in the form of mind is fully, well, illusory.

(Personally, I find that satisfactorily defining mind is far more challenging than defining consciousness - esp. when attempting to remain consistent to the occurrence of consciousness itself. All the same, an interesting topic to explore via commonalities and differences of perspective.)

Thanks.

But how much neurobiology do you know to make such sweeping dismissals? What definition of “consciousness” can you present here such that it could be subject to experimental investigation?

Sure, you know what it feels like to feel like you. But where can you point to the failures of science to say something about that? Give us an example from psychophysics or cognitive neuroscience. — apokrisis

As to definitions:

Science: any conceivable field of knowledge, including that of theoretical fartology any field of study that is necessarily founded upon empirical observation (hence, observations via any of the physiological senses) and that employs the scientific method of a) falsifiable hypothesis regrading empirical observations, b) empirically observable test, and c) empirically observable results. (e.g., M-theory is currently an untestable theory and so is not of itself science)

Consciousness: the first-person point of view which empirically observes (again, hence observes via its physiological senses), as well as introspects (which is a non-empirical activity), while always finding itself as first-person point of view in non-empirical yet experiential states of being such as those of happiness, certainty, and their opposites, among numerous others. (E.g., I know I am psychologically certain when I am simply by so being as a first-person point of view – such that this certainty is in no way something other that I as a first-person point of view apprehend but, again, is simply an aspect of my momentary state of being as a consciousness.)

If you find any disagreement with either definition, it would be important that you then express your differences.

Then, I cannot see myself as a first-person point of view in the mirror - I can instead only see the body through which I as a first-person point of view operate (e.g., neither of the two physiological eyes through which I see is the I which I am as a first-person point of view (i.e., a consciousness). Nor can I touch, smell, taste, hear, or proprioceive (etc.) myself as that which apprehends touch, smell, taste, auditory information, and proprioception (etc.).

In short, I as a consciousness – i.e. as a first person point of view – know myself to be 100% non-empirical - to in no way whatsoever stand out to anyone anywhere, my own self very much included - and to nevertheless yet be.

Science – including psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience – can only address empirical givens by definition.

Ergo, to presume that anyone now or ever can obtain scientific knowledge of what consciousness is is a massive category mistake. It’s right up there with believing one can catch the horizon if one chases it fast enough.

-----

Of important note: here is being strictly addresses the issue of consciousness – and in no way that of mind (which as a definite given among humans always pertains to a given consciousness; e.g. “my mind” or "his mind") This in no way denying the interplay between consciousness and the unconscious mind. And it in no way addresses metaphysics.

A theory of “consciousness” is just the pursuit of a ghostly spirit stuff. Or can you frame the task in a way that is scientific rather than a search for immaterial being? — apokrisis

Science should be able to explain something as fundamental as consciousness, shouldn't it? — RogueAI

Why should it?

It’s not like this ultimate beetle in the box called “consciousness”, aka lived experience, in any way matters - all the more so were it be immaterial - not ethically and certainty not substantially (neither of the latter - ethics or substance - being in any way scientifically testable anyways).

For instance, pragmatically speaking, we can contemplate mathematical systems and work with empirical knowledge just fine without it.

Plus, socio-politically speaking, all those people the world over that have learned to detest science exactly due to attitudes such as the two just expressed are morons – this for having the nerve to maintain that their lived experience (which, needless to add, is first-person), and those of others they care about, should be in any way valued, this either by other individuals or by cultural institutions. Telling them that they're idiots on this count should get them to finally take science seriously - rather than thumb their noses at global warming and the like.

And why is "consciousness" in quotes? — RogueAI

Because it is one of them illusions? After all, it is neither tangible nor explainable mathematically and, thus, cannot possibly be real.

------

Hey, devil’s advocate at work here. :naughty: Because while I know I am, I can’t conclusively prove that individual others are.

(BTW, the advocacy provided is directed primarily at @apokrisis's comments.)

I know it's already been suggested that crows can count, but try explaining the concept of prime to them. — Wayfarer

To try clarify what was suggested, by me at least: If crows can count, then crows (as with apes and other lesser animals) obviously cannot count the way humans do: via use of language and its conceptual constructs. But then crows can't understand a rock as object the same way we do either - e.g., that it consists of minerals, subatomic particles, etc. Still, crows can hold awareness of some rudimentary properties of rocks well enough to intentionally make use of some rocks as tools - not like us, they can't build a skyrocketing pyramid from them, but they can drop them on things in attempts to crack these things open.

In parallel to their, by comparison, minuscule understanding of physical objects in the world, crows might well be able to apprehend rudimentary aspects of definite quantities existing in the world which we humans linguistically refer to by the term "numbers".

This teeny-weeny aptitude of apprehension will quite obviously differ by great magnitudes in comparison to an average human's. But this does not mandate that there is an absolute on/off switch in-between.

That our human psyches are leaps and bounds more awareness-endowed than those of all lesser animals does not of itself then indicate that there was no evolutionary cline in awareness and the intelligence that accompanies it.

As another parallel, that one can't explain calculus to a five-year-old doesn't then imply that the five-year-old has no awareness of specific quantity whatsoever.

Not claiming to know that lesser animals do or don't count. But if they do, this does not then make their aptitudes of understanding on par to our own. Its why we term them "lesser" animals - due to us being the most evolved (here strictly meaning, developed) animal we know of by far.

In the Philebus Plato addresses the question of the relation between language and world.
It raises the problem of what Aristotle called the “indeterminate dyad” . — Fooloso4

Interesting. But I find that a distinction can be made between necessary dyads and unnecessary dyads (however it would be best to lignuistically distinguish them). As an example of this distinction:

Left and right form what I've termed a necessary dyad. It is impossible in all cases and at all times to have one devoid of the other's occurrence (same with up and down and many other dyads).

On the other hand, love and hate give an example of what I've tentatively termed "an unnecessary dyad": yes, they stand in direct opposition to each other as a dichotomy and therefore comprise one set, but: while one cannot ever hate in manners fully devoid of love - namely, of love for that which is valued, typically one's own self - a person can potentially experience love in manners fully devoid of hate for anything (at least transiently). So, unlike left and right, while hate necessitates love in all cases, love will not likewise necessitate hate.

Ultimately, there is neither ‘this or that’ but ‘this and that’. The Whole is not reducible to One. — Fooloso4

Getting back into cosmology :razz: , in cosmological models wherein some the absolute state of being is equated to pure (cosmic) love - maybe such as the Neo-platonic notion of "the One"? - the unnecessary dyad of love-hate terminates in manners where only love remains at the expense of all hate. So that the Whole here can be theoretically reducible to One - this due to not all dyads being a matter of "this and that" (some in fact being "this or that"). [Other possible cases of unnecessary dyads might also be potentially discerned.]

p.s., yes, deep down, I'm sincerely philosophically minded about this issue of opposites. Though I'm not sure that if fits in with the thread's theme.

Thanks for engaging with what I've previously asked!

To go back to Bateson's initial quote, what would a numberless measurement of length, for example, be? - javra

Couldn't this be accomplished by simply referencing objects' extension in relation to one another? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, you are quite right. (Realized this after posting, but deemed that editing it would be a bit much ... in any case, my bad here.) I would however better reword the concern I have in this way:

-- Can one have any measurement that is devoid of any discrete givens which we - either thinkingly or unthinkingly - enumerate (i.e., determine the amount of) via numbers?

If not, then it currently seems to me that measurement necessitates number in some way or another.

Notice that in the very quoted sentence number (a definite amount; i.e., a definite quantity) is necessarily specified in order for cogent semantics to obtain (what I've boldfaced). Likewise, while a ratio might not be itself interpreted as a number (debatable) it will yet, I so far find, necessarily consist of a relation between numbers - at the very least between quantities (the plurality of which is itself a quantity) which we hold the potential to enumerate. Else, in measurements that strictly concern relations, such as greater than or lesser than, there will always be an at the very least implicitly addressed number of givens to which the relations applies. I'm for example weak on pure theoretical mathematics, but I so far can't find any exception to this.

I feel like there is support for the supposition that the illusion of discreteness is just a useful survival trick as much as for the idea that innate numeracy denotes the existence of numbers "out there, sans mind." — Count Timothy von Icarus

As to whether lesser animals can count, as philosophy it's right up there with whether lesser animals are in fact conscious - to which might as well be appended the issue of other minds. In short, I'm convinced that they do, but, as with those who'd disagree, can't provide conclusive philosophical evidence of it - at least not in a forum format. So, I won't debate the issue.

Still, the pivotal issue I was addressing is that, as I currently find it, discreteness is contingent on the occurrence of awareness - such that if awareness then discreteness (and as an important meta-example: the occurrence of one awareness or more will each be a discrete given). And, furthermore, that numbers are only then contingent on the occurrence of discreteness. This irrespective of one's metaphysical interpretation(s) regarding the consequent significance in respect to the cosmos we inhabit. (e.g., a materialists' view that an awareness-devoid cosmos is possible or, else, an idealist's view that such is impossible - as two among other metaphysical perspectives)

So I'm here in full agreement that "numbers 'out there, sans minds' [by which I here understand, tersely stated, "a plurality of discrete awareness"]'" can only be a fallacy.

how can one have numbers in the complete absence of discrete amounts of givens - i.e., of quantities? - javra

Imagine a continuum, for example a line, of finite length. Our line has an uncountably infinite number of points but also a finite length. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right here, in the very semantics of what a line is, is the occurrence of quantity in the form of "points" - such that this quantity minimally consists of more than one point. In addressing "a" continuum one is likewise specifying a quantity - not two or three continuums but one. So the occurrence of quantity is a requite aspect of any continuum - be it real or strictly conceptual.

ake some section of the line, arbitrarily, and compare how many lengths of the section fit within the whole. There are sections of the line that exist such that the line can be broken into n segments of equal length, where n is a natural number. No initial discreteness required, right? All that is required is that the points of the line differ from each other in some way; — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe the "discreteness" here addressed by you has a specialized mathematical meaning? But in the ordinary sense I've addressed it it specifies something being separate, distinct, individual. Hence, in the sense I intend the very sections of the line that are compared are thereby discrete (to our awareness of them as such - otherwise no comparison could be made).

BTW, one could then address point-free topology as another example to be provided - but, here too, tmk there will be discerned some form of separateness somewhere (e.g., sets), such that discreteness (and hence quantity) yet obtains.

So, I again find that the (maybe I should specify, cosmic) occurrence of quantity is requisite for the occurrence of numbers (be the latter's occurrence also cosmic or, else, strictly located in individual minds as some would have it).

I've always found the reverse argument more interesting, the claim that numbers are essential for reality, or at least our understanding of it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This in fact isn't too different from my own personal metaphysical views. Only that I maintain quantity - as in "discrete givens" - to be essential to existence rather than to reality (with "existence" here roughly understood as all which "stands out" in any way) and, thereby, to physical reality (which exists); this, thereby, concurrently necessitating the ontic occurence of numbers in the cosmos (however sentience might represent them symbolically; e.g. as "IV", as "4", or as "four"). But I don't want to digress into my own metaphysical views concerning this.

All the same, of main interest here is the issue of how numbers could be had in the complete absence of quantity.

Anyhow, if some hitherto unformulated version of logicalism is true, and numbers are reducible to logos, it seems to me like this argument is moot (and that the concept of logos spermatikos ends up beating out divine nous as a better explanation of "how things are," IMHO.) — Count Timothy von Icarus

:grin: I could go with that. (but then these touchy terms hold different connotations to different people, for instance, that of "spermatikos" say by compassion to the terms "in-fluence" or even that of "inspiration (aka, to breath in or, more archaically, roughly, to be breathed into psychically)") But yes, a Heraclitean-like, cosmic logos of the type addressed stands in direct logical contradiction to an omnipotent and omniscient creator deity whose "words" make up the world.

I'm not sure what you are saying or asking there. I'll attempt an answer if you care to clarify. — Janus

That's OK. Thanks

That something stands out perceptually is not that it is actually separate from its environment; it is just that we can distinguish it. — Janus

I'm not getting this. Edit: A predator's perceived prey that stands out perceptually isn't separate from the prey's environment?

When we distinguish a single tomato, there is not an "indefinite quantity of something" in the sense that you were using the term 'quantity', that is as number: on the contrary there is an exact number of tomatoes; in this case one. — Janus

"A quantity" is an unspecified amount. "A number" is a specified quantity. Q: "What is the quantity of tomatoes you've purchased from the store?" A: "One." Conceptually, quantities consist of numbers - whether or not the latter are specified. To go back to Bateson's initial quote, what would a numberless measurement of length, for example, be?

As to Bateson's latest quote, interesting as it is to read, it only speculates without evidencing what is speculated.

Just found this on line:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/animals-can-count-and-use-zero-how-far-does-their-number-sense-go-20210809/

it starts:

An understanding of numbers is often viewed as a distinctly human faculty — a hallmark of our intelligence that, along with language, sets us apart from all other animals.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Honeybees count landmarks when navigating toward sources of nectar. Lionesses tally the number of roars they hear from an intruding pride before deciding whether to attack or retreat. Some ants keep track of their steps; some spiders keep track of how many prey are caught in their web. One species of frog bases its entire mating ritual on number: If a male calls out — a whining pew followed by a brief pulsing note called a chuck — his rival responds by placing two chucks at the end of his own call. The first frog then responds with three, the other with four, and so on up to around six, when they run out of breath.

Practically every animal that scientists have studied — insects and cephalopods, amphibians and reptiles, birds and mammals — can distinguish between different numbers of objects in a set or sounds in a sequence. They don’t just have a sense of “greater than” or “less than,” but an approximate sense of quantity: that two is distinct from three, that 15 is distinct from 20. This mental representation of set size, called numerosity, seems to be “a general ability,” and an ancient one, said Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at the University of Trento in Italy.

And it gets better as you read the article.

But wait, what if all this is not counting but "pattern or rhythm recognition"? I'll skip on this debate.

Instead, you could reply to what I initially asked.

Either via the idealism of Platonic Realism or the materialism of today's mainstream views, how can one have numbers in the complete absence of discrete amounts of givens - i.e., of quantities? (if nothing else, there would yet be a quantity of numbers by the shear presence of the number(s) addressed) — javra

So, we can have exactly three tomatoes, but we cannot have exactly three kilograms or cubic centimeters of tomatoes. — Janus

I of course accept this, but so far fail to see its significance.

Rather than focusing on the absolute exactitude of things in the physical world (which I would grant does not exist, all of it being in flux and such - tomatoes very much included), I'd instead focus on the discreetness of physical givens as discerned by awareness. Something which, as an indefinite amount of something, we commonly term quantity in the English language. Which we then use numbers to more precisely quantify in definite manners.

I don't know the background of the guy you've quoted. Is the guy trying to conceive of what reality is like, or would be like, in the complete absence of all awareness in the cosmos? As one avenue of enquiry into this: under the a materialist's reductionist microscope where everything material (i.e., everything) is reducible to the quantum vacuum, in the absence of awareness discreteness would be hard to specify, if at all present. Sure. But then in a world devoid of all awareness so too would numbers not be present.

The exactitude of numbers has everything to do with awareness's aptitudes - especially here addressing that of humans - the very same awareness which discerns discreteness, and hence quantity, in the physical world (to not mention in is own thoughts, in its own emotions, in it own perceptions, etc.).

Take that meter I previously addressed: its composed of ever moving quantum parts; it, as a physical meter stick, has no absolute exactitude. And yet it is not simply an absolutely precise, abstract, free floating number; it instead is a discrete amount of something, a quantity - which we address in definite terms via use of numbers. Hence, "there is one meter stick there".

At any rate, in reference to what seems to be your disagreement with my stance that you've previously quoted:

Either via the idealism of Platonic Realism or the materialism of today's mainstream views, how can one have numbers in the complete absence of discrete amounts of givens - i.e., of quantities? (if nothing else, there would yet be a quantity of numbers by the shear presence of the number(s) addressed)

Again, in reference to what I initially said, the physical reality we know of entails the presence of quantity and, due to this, of number, (the later at least for us linguistic animals). (As an apropos, ravens and other animals are known to be able to count, obviously this without the use of language, via which numbers are specified).

Between two and three, there is a jump. In the case of quantity, there is no such jump; and because jump is missing in the world of quantity, it is impossible for any quantity to be exact. You can have exactly three tomatoes. You can never have exactly three gallons of water. — Janus

Alright, so you're saying (via your quote) that tomatoes are not quantifiable?

As to the "exactness" of what a gallon consists of, this applies to all measurements in general, doesn't it? As in "exactly 1 yard or meter" doesn't quite exist in every day physical reality - other than good enough approximations - but only occurs as an abstracted concept ... much the same as a (perfect) circle doesn't occur in physical reality. Take the standard meter by which all measuring devices (say, a tape measure) are measured and built, place this very standard on any flat surface: which molecules pertain to the meter and which don't? And then there's smaller constituents of the physical. Its exactness doesn't occur in physicality.

Till shown otherwise, I'm calling BS on the quote's contents. One can't have numbers (such that they mean anything) in the absence of quantity, I still say.

My belief is that our every rational act is suffused with such judgements of sameness and difference, is/is not, equals/unequal. And because it structures our cognition, these are also inherent in reality as experienced by us. — Wayfarer

I'm in agreement. Could try to splurge on the idea a little, but am thinking this would only muddle matters.

However, in relation to what has been so far discussed by me, on one hand there is the issue of whether the law of identity is immutable for all awareness and, thus, for all consequent thought. Then, on the other hand, there is the issue of whether physical reality in fact does conform to this same principle: that what is X at time t cannot in the same respect be non-X at time t - not just epistemically but also onticaly.

Since we're all quite familiar with introductory notions of quantum mechanics, this issue, for instance, can then apply to the wave-particle duality of quantum particles: Is a particle a particle at time t when its so measured to be? Is this so called "measurement" only a best inference - rather than an immediate percept of what is - that can thereby be mistaken (due to mistaken reasoning) in the identity of what is being measured - such that what's measured is neither strictly particle nor wave, but something different? Or is it, in physical reality, both a strict particle and a strict wave simultaneously and in the same respect - contradictory though this is? But the latter can then signify that a chair can ontically be a swimming pool at the same time and in the same way - and so so much for reasoning.

For those of us who don't know how to "shut up and just do the math", how one address the law of identity as an existential given - one that might be applicable to physical reality at large as well as all our awareness - will directly impact one's possible choices in perspective regarding this issue of particle-wave duality just mentioned.

I don't have a ready answer for this issue up my sleeve - just my convictions. And this subject is probably a distraction for the thread's primary theme. All the same, it's interesting stuff to me - ontologically speaking.

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Edit: BTW, thanks for the head's up as to the historic background to the law of identity. I misspoke in that previous post you quoted from: the principle was known of prior to Aristotle.