First focus - the discussion will take place from a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view. — Clarky

The purpose of this thread is not to discuss the validity of a materialist viewpoint. — Clarky

Then the point of this thread is to preach to the choir?

When I was a Christian, I didn't seriously think about the view of being a Christian. I just was, and accepted the idea that God exists without seriously thinking about what that meant. Once I began to seriously take on the view and asking deeper questions about this viewpoint in an attempt to better understand and defend this viewpoint did I come to understand that what I believed simply didn't fit with more objective observations. So it was only in delving deeper into the view that I began to reject the view.

Second focus - For the purposes of this discussion, we live before 1905, when the universe was still classical and quantum mechanics was unthinkable. I see the ideas we come up with in this discussion as a baseline we can use in a later discussion to figure out how things change when we consider quantum mechanics.

Third focus - We’ll stick as much as possible with issues related to a scientific understanding of reality. Physics in particular. — Clarky

Right. So for the purpose of this discussion, we accept the view that macro-sized "physical" objects are the interaction between smaller "physical" objects, and that those smaller "physical" objects are themselves composed of the interactions of even smaller "physical" objects. If "physical" objects are really the interactions of smaller objects, then it seems to me that it doesn't make any sense to say that it's "physical" all the way down. It appears that using a pre-relativity physicists viewpoint actually shows that the world is not "physical" but relational all the way down.

The sensation of depth perception would be the "map" your brain has given you so that you can be aware of your position in 3D space and make split-second decisions related to that. It is not the neurons in your optic nerve, but it is the neurons in the conscious part of your brain. The information from your optic nerves has been compounded into a more-useful form of information that is intended to be used for navigating by your attention. You are the attention. You are the navigating being performed. — Bird-Up

Then when you look at other people and see bodies and brains (via their MRI brain scan) then bodies and brains are part of the map, not the territory.

Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity. — schopenhauer1

Information doesn't generate anything but more information via some process of causation. So the feeling is just information, as feelings inform you of something. The feeling is subjective because it's a relation between you and what the feeling is about. The feeling would be objective if it didn't include information about yourself in some way. Every feeling or sensation includes information about you and about what you are observing, which makes it subjective. This fits with how we define objective views as being a view from nowhere, or a view independent of some observer, or information independent or absent of information about the observer.

The kinds of things I have listed as knowledge cannot be seriously doubted, let alone discovered to have been wrong. — Janus

Like...?

So you're saying that you've never held an idea that you though could not be seriously doubted, yet only to discover later that you were wrong?

Sounds like you're saying that you've never been wrong in your life.

I'd say the human experience is 0% objective and 100% subjective. We are completely dependent on the information being supplied to us by our brain. That's why I consider objective reality to be an abstract idea. The best we can do, is to gain consensus about what is real by comparing our experience with others. But we can never truly prove that objective things actually exist. We strongly-suspect objectivity. — Bird-Up

Youi just explained how the world is for "we", as in more than just you. You just explained a state of the world in objective terms. How could you ever know what it is like for others if you are stuck in your subjectivity?

Also, is your mind part of the world? Do you have direct access to your mind and can communicate to others the states of your mind? And is your description factual despite what others might believe? In describing the state of your conscious mind, you are describing an objective state-of-affairs of the world - no different than describing any other state-of-affairs. We are able to get at actual states-of-affairs in the world (objectivity) via our subjective information. We just have to separate the information about ourselves from the equation.

The sensation of depth perception would be the "map" your brain has given you so that you can be aware of your position in 3D space and make split-second decisions related to that. It is not the neurons in your optic nerve, but it is the neurons in the conscious part of your brain. The information from your optic nerves has been compounded into a more-useful form of information that is intended to be used for navigating by your attention. You are the attention. You are the navigating being performed. — Bird-Up

There you go again describing the world in an objective manner - as in the state-of-affairs that is the case not only for yourself, but for me and everyone else too. How did you come to acquire this objective information if not subjectively?

How do neurons create sensations in the first place? You keep talking about neurons and optic nerves, but you only experience those things in observing other people's mental states, not your own. Do you need to look at an MRI scan of your own brain to know your mental state? Why or why not?

e, if you just redefine it as "information", then somehow this confers powers of subjectivity. Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity. — schopenhauer1

What is subjectivity if not information about location relative to some other location - like your head?

I'm just saying that two languages can describe the same thing; even if they use a different vocabulary. Subjectivity is the first language. Objectivity is another language. — Bird-Up

But we can speak objectively about subjective experiences. Is it not objectively true that you have subjective experiences, or that you feel a certain way, or that you perceive things a particular way? The problem with subjectivity is trying to determine what part of the experience is about the object perceived vs the object doing the perceiving.

The physical brain has developed an awareness-center so that it can obtain decision-making functionality. The shapes, color, sounds, etc would be the "summary" or "map" that our subconscious brain presents us with for the purpose of deciding. — Bird-Up

You still don't seem to be getting at what the point I'm trying to make. How does a "physical" brain create the feeling of visual depth perception? How do neurons generate the feeling of empty space between me and the other objects in my vicinity? The empty space is not made up of neurons. It is made up of information about location relative to my eyes.

You can view your own view. — Bird-Up

What about how I described it using the visual feedback created by a camera-monitor system? In effect, you are not viewing a view. You are simply turning your attention back on itself.

I know that is the way things seem to me; there is no belief involved. — Janus

In that case you'll agree with me that it is better not to speak of believing things about which there can be no serious doubt, but of knowing them, and you'll also agree with me that when it comes to things we don't know, there is a distinction between adopting and holding one of the alternatives and declaring it to be the truth, and remaining undecided or provisionally adopting what seems most plausible, and seeing how it pans out. — Janus

As I pointed out in my previous post, there are instances in our actual lives where we have discovered that what we thought we knew was wrong. So it seems to me that there is no knowledge involved, only beliefs.

I would say that both objective and subjective experiences are an authentic version of reality. One is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from outside the head, and one is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from inside the head. — Bird-Up

I don't know what a view from outside of a head would look like. It's an impossibility. Third-person views are simulated first-person views.

Using your analogy, I would say that your conscious experience does show up on the MRI that the technician is looking at. Current medical technology is crude, low-resolution stuff. But imagine a snapshot of the brain that did capture everything. Every electrical signal jumping across each neuron. — Bird-Up

But that is what I'm getting at - why does someone else's conscious experience appear as a brain, but my own conscious experience does not include a brain, or neurons, or electrical signals. My conscious experience is composed of shapes, colors, sounds, feelings, visual, auditory and tactile depth, etc. of which my view of other people's brains and their neurons are composed of. I don't experience my own consciousness as a brain with electrical signals. That is only how I experience other people's conscious experience, and only via my own conscious experience, hence defining my own conscious experience as an illusion just relegates my view of other people's conscious experiences as brains to an illusion as well.

It is like the relationship between a program and its code. Nothing will happen until you start running the code. And the entirety of the program is expressed somewhere in the code (physical brain). At the same time, the experience of interacting with the program (conscious experience) is not described directly anywhere in the code. The code never mentions "yellow", but it does say: red intensity is 255, green intensity is 255, and blue intensity is 0. Could you imagine such instructions leading anywhere else but "yellow"? "Yellow" is clearly nowhere to be found, and "yellow" is also undoubtedly the only possible result. — Bird-Up

This just expands on the problem I mentioned above. Naive realism suggests that we see the world as it truly is - as if we are merely looking through the windows of our eyes. Science has suggested otherwise - that we don't see the world as it truly is. So what does that say about how we see brains and computers? If we posit the world being composed of information rather than static objects, then we resolve the problem of dualism and the static objects become mental models of what the world is really like, not the way the world actually is. The world is more like our minds, but that is not to say that mind is fundamental. Mind is just a particular type of arrangement of information.

Our minds operate at a certain frequency relative to the frequency of change of other processes we might observe. Our mental state can have an effect on the speed at which our minds process information about other processes and the relative change, or frequency, between the mind and other processes can skew the appearance of the other processes making slow processes appear as static objects while faster processes appear as actual processes or as a blur of change. Think of the difference between how see view water in all of its states - solid, liquid and gas with each being composed of slow vs fast moving molecules relative to the speed at which our minds process the information.

I think it is an error in logic to attempt to unify subjective experience with the objective world. Yes, all the underpinnings of conscious experience can be found there, but the objective account itself will not directly show you subjective experience. Two different views of the same object can both be 100% correct. — Bird-Up

I'm not sure if this makes sense. I can have a view of your body and it's behavior and deduce that you have experiences that are the causes of your behavior. But can I view my own view? Does that make sense? It might if we think of our view like the camera-monitor system where the camera represent the focus of attention in the mind while the monitor represents the information the camera (attention) is focused on. When the camera is looking outwards, focusing the mind's attention on the world, what appears on the monitor is a representation of the world relative to the camera's eye. When the camera turns itself to look at the monitor, it creates a visual feedback loop - like the kind that occurs when you "observe" your own mind. With our attention, we can create an informational feedback loop of thinking about thinking, knowing that we know, being aware of awareness, etc.

But nowadays artificial neural networks do the same. Can a feeling also develop on the layers of an artificial neural network? — SolarWind

I don't see why not. Feelings are just information, and information takes the form of the relationship between cause and effect. As such feelings are the effect of prior causes and the cause of subsequent effects, like your behavior that results from your feelings. One might define feelings as any information that is processed within a neural network. "Artificial" and "natural" are useless terms here.

There are two kinds of doubt: ordinary doubt and radical doubt. When it comes to taking the perspective of radical doubt, pretty much anything can be doubted, which means we don't know anything, or at least we don't know that we know anything. But that kind of artificial doubt is abstract and has nothing to do with our actual lives. — Janus

Too vague. What do you mean, "actual lives"? There are many that seem to spend much of their "actual lives" on these forums expressing doubt in "radical" ways. We have experienced what it's like in holding a particular view only to find it was wrong, and this happens during our "actual lives". These types of "actual life" experiences are what cause us to question everything we know. So, I don't see a distinction you're making between radical and ordinary doubt. Doubt is doubt. It's just that we can doubt different things with different degrees. Questioning our purpose and whether we know anything is just like any other doubt. It's just that questioning foundational knowledge brings everything that was built on that foundation into doubt as well.

That's the way I see things, and it seems to be consistent and to work for me. I don't require or expect anyone to agree with my view. — Janus

I don't see how this is any different than the way I explained the differences between belief and knowledge. When others disagree with your view does that not instill doubt in your views? I know that it makes me want to understand the reason for their disagreement and whether or not it is a valid disagreement.

Belief is like holding a view without either some observation or logic to support it. Belief in God is an example. Also what some theory of physics seems to show without having been verified by observation would also qualify as a belief. Only when the belief has been shown to stand up against observational AND logical inquiry can it be categorized as knowledge.

I know that is the way things seem to me; there is no belief involved. — Janus

What is the difference between you knowing something and the way something seems to you?

What is the difference between the way things seem to you and you having a delusion or hallucination?

What terms can we use to refer to the way things seem to you and the way things are? Belief and Reality.

What is the difference between belief and knowledge? Belief is when you only have an observation OR reason to support a particular view. Knowledge is when you have both observation AND reason to support a particular view.

Instead of trying to imagine why the human brain is using consciousness, it might be easier to imagine how difficult it would be without conscious experience. — Bird-Up

I can imagine. We can also observe blind-sight patients and understand that while they may be able to navigate around objects they cannot see, then cannot describe the object in any detail. So if consciousness provides more detailed information about the world.

I would argue that the experience of consciousness does solve a practical problem. But it's mostly about making the brain more efficient, not about giving the brain an entirely new ability. I think that is why people find it confusing; it seems like a whole lot of work just to make the brain faster. Using conscious experience is like chalking the end of a pool stick; you could still hit the ball without it. — Bird-Up

This still doesn't explain how a brain can create an experience of not being a brain. It doesn't get at the problem of explaining why I experience my mental processes differently than how I experience everyone else's.

If your conscious brain making decisions is like walking the paths of a park, then conscious experience would be like looking at a map of the park. You could discover all the paths eventually if you walk around long enough, but the process goes a whole lot faster when you are using the map to make decisions. Some would also be quick to point out the deceitful nature of your strategy: "You fool, that is just a piece of paper with lines drawn on it; it is not actually the park!" — Bird-Up

Right, so how do we know that the brains that we associate with other people's mental processes aren't just part of the map and not actually reality? How is it that the mind that I experience as my own is the illusion but the brains that appear in my mind (like when I look at your brain scan while you are inside an MRI) when looking at your mental processes isn't an illusion? Neurologists seem to think that they have direct access to the park when observing the brains of others - as if they don't have a map at all - but see the world as it truly is with brains in skulls.

This does not explain why information-processing organic matter has feelings and information-processing inorganic matter does not. — SolarWind

Information-processing is taking certain inputs, manipulating them in some way based on the instructions of some program to produce certain outputs. What follows is that the types of inputs and the type of program can produce different outputs. Think of organic matter and inorganic matter as different systems, or instructions in a program, that take in different inputs and produce different outputs. So it stands to reason that one will produce outputs that the other does not.

Rocks do not have the same inputs and the same instructions as an organisms does, so how it reacts to temperature changes will be different than an organism.

Think of the conscious mind as one layer of fault-tolerance where the information that appears in consciousness (like feeling hot or cold) is then used to fine-tune behaviors, especially fine-tuning instinctive behaviors in social environments. Sensory information passes through different layers of processing in the brain and the conscious part is just on of those layers.

Janus you just said: "Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons; no believing needed."

That statement is fundamental and sums up and modifies this entire conversation. — Ken Edwards

"Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons;" is what it means to believe anything. All you've done is show that you can't escape believing anything.

And you're avoiding the question I posed to you earlier about it means to "believe in" things.

All you're doing is moving goal posts. :sad:

You say, To "believe in" something as in believing in love is the same as saying you believe "love exists" to be true."

It does not Say that love exists. It might or might not imply it depending entirely on the interpretation by the listener which is something else entirely.. — Ken Edwards

The goal of the listener is typically to understand what was said by the speaker, not to make up its own meaning to the words spoken by someone else.

So what is it you mean or are implying when you use the phrase, "i believe in love.", if it's not that you believe that it exists.

I carefully avoid believing anything at all.
— Ken Edwards

Is this not an expression of what you believe about believing, that is is better to avoid believing? — Fooloso4

Exactly. This whole time Mr. Edward's has been telling us what he believes to be the case. He could be wrong. So if he is wrong that means he cant be describing what actually is the case, but what he believes to be the case. Is Mr. Edward's never wrong?

We can only ever use language to refer to our beliefs/knowledge of what is the case. Whether or not our beliefs/knowledge of what the case is accurate is another story.

I am correct. — Jackson

Saying so doesn't make it so. Do better.

Choose:

the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that the organism sees some aspects of its environment and not others.

or

the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that the organism sees some kinds of picture in its Cartesian theatre and not others. — bongo fury

What do you mean by "sees"? Can an organism see it's own mind?

I think that "information" is more useful here. Just as every computer that comes off the production line and is purchased by a variety of users - over time the information in these computers will diverge in that each computer will possess different information depending on the inputs of different users.

Organisms possess information as well. The information they possess will be unique because each organism occupies a different location in space-time and possess different wants, needs and values. They're accumulation of unique input over their lives is part of the subjectivity in the information we possess.

So your options should look more like:
the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that the organism possesses a perspective of some aspects of its environment and not others.

or

the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that the organism possesses a perspective of some kinds of picture in its Cartesian theatre and not others.

Each organism possesses a perspective and a perspective is a structure of information about the relationship between the organism and it's environment. The environment appears located relative to the eyes but the environment is not located relative to the eyes. The experience is subjective because the information is about the environment relative to our self, and not any one else.

As information, we turn the information back on itself, forming a loop - like that seen when you point a camera at the monitor it is connected to. This creates a feedback loop where the information on the screen is about itself being about its self, being about its self, etc. In this sense we are not really "seeing" our minds. We are simply looping the information of our mind the same way the camera-monitor system does.

The idea of the "hard problem" just makes a fetish out of consciousness. — Jackson

Wrong. The hard problem exposes the fetish of physicalists with their naive realism and dualists with their inability to explain how two opposing substances can interact.

The hard problem is resolved by a monistic view that information or process is fundamental - not matter and/or mind.

I meant we could be deceived that our conscious experience is more than just electrical signals bouncing around in our heads: "Whatever this sensation of consciousness is that I'm experiencing, it is something more!" — Bird-Up

But that is the question the hard problem shines a light on - how does electrical signals bounding around in our heads deceive our heads? In essence the brain is fooling itself into believing that it is not a brain. Why would it do that? What evolutionary problem would that solve (ie why would such a thing evolve in the first place)?

A hard cutoff point for "thought" assumes that the definition shouldn't take place on a gradual scale. Instead of "thought" and "not a thought", couldn't it be defined as "more conscious" and "less conscious"? Why does a paramedic wave a flashlight in your eyes and ask you pointless questions? They are trying to measure how much consciousness you are currently experiencing. — Bird-Up

It doesn't necessarily assume that there isn't a gradual scale, but if there is no cut-off then you're implying that everything has some degree of consciousness.

There are degrees of pain, but there is also no pain, so implying a cut-off doesn't necessarily imply that there isn't a gradual scale where describing your level of pain on a scale of 0-10 where you feel pain and a 0 would be that you feel no pain.

Maybe your subjective experience is not really a valid experience of the objective world. Maybe it's more like we are each hallucinating our own existence. — Bird-Up

In conversing with you on this forum, would I be hallucinating your existence? The point was that we both experience our own and each other's existence very differently. If consciousness is an illusion, then everything I experience, which includes your posts on this forum and your body and behaviors, would be an illusion. This also means that neurologists' experiences of other people's brains and all their scientific descriptions of such would be an illusion too.

Sorry, I just don't know what you're talking about anymore. — Jackson

Are you a p-zombie?
— Harry Hindu

Yes. — Jackson

Well, there's proof that p-zombies would have no idea what a human is talking about when it comes to the mind and consciousness.

Funny. I was going to say the same thing to you.

It can all too easily grab hold of the adverb "in" which changes the meaning completely. Instead of "I believe" something to be true, it says I believe IN Love or in Democracy or some such which has a totally different meaning. — Ken Edwards

Also its noun form: "Belief" has a completely changed meaning. The noun, "Belief", might be said to be one of the results or one of the outcomes of believing something to be true. — Ken Edwards

It does not change the meaning. To "believe in" something as in believing in love is the same as saying you believe "love exists" to be true. To believe in something is to believe that it exists, or to have the belief that it exists. Just as hammering requires a hammer, believing requires a belief.

Banno? Is that you?

How do you experience another person's mental activity? — Jackson

By looking at their live brain scan - just as any neurologist would. But do you need to look at your brain scan to experience your own mental activity? Do you even need to know you have a brain to know you have thoughts and experiences?

P-zombies are specifically stipulated as appearing to be normal people. — Tate

P-Zombies are make-believe concepts that have no basis in reality. P-zombies are stipulated as having no experiences of color, shapes, sounds, feelings, etc. and being identical to humans in behavior. All one has to do is point to blind-sight patients as evidence that p-zombies could not behave like humans. In this sense, the concept of p-zombies are like the concept of god. They are proposed to be possible realities when one simply needs to look at reality to see that such things are not possible as stipulated.

Before responding, what is it like reading my post?
— Harry Hindu

I do not see how that is a meaningful concept. — Jackson

I put it several ways but you're cherry-picking.

Before you responded you had to read my post. It took conscious effort and time to do so. How would you describe this state-of-affairs - of you reading my post? If you wanted to describe to someone this state-of-affairs how would you do it? How would the description from someone else observing you reading my posts differ from your account of the same state-of-affairs?

The hard problem is certainly trying to come from the position of neutrality. — Bird-Up

Ancient Greeks, like Aristotle, never discussed consciousness. He talks about thought, but makes nothing of self-consciousness.
Kierkegaard said Christianity invented inwardness, or subjectivity. It strikes me that trying to explain consciousness is based on this error. — Jackson

Self-consciousness would simply be thoughts of the self.

The question is what are thoughts composed of, or what forms do they take? What makes a thing a thought as opposed to not a thought?

The hard problem is asking why do the thoughts of others take the form of the visual of their brain/neural activity, while our own thoughts take the form of sounds, feelings, colors, shapes depth, etc. All descriptions of mental activity from a third-person scientific perspective are actually first-person visual subjective descriptions of other's mental activity. You never experience your own mental activity the way you experience others' mental activity.

I don't think a p-zombie would claim to be one. She doesn't understand what her deficiency is. — Tate

A blind-sight person seems to understand what their deficiency is. They seem to be unsure about what it is that they are experiencing visually. They seem to respond to things that do not appear in their visual field without knowing what it is they are responding to. People with blind-sight don't behave like normal humans. Neither would a p-zombie.

What is it that you can point to to say, "I am reading a post in the English language on my computer screen."?
— Harry Hindu

I read and responded. Proof. — Jackson

Your response is not you reading the post. That comes after reading the post. How do you know that you responded to my post?

Before responding, what is it like reading my post? What form does the information, "I am reading Harry Hindu's post" take for you? How do you know who's post is whose after you've written and posted your posts? What form does the information in your memory of you having written a post take? What is it like for you to remember something? What are you comparing to say that you remember writing your post if not a visual of your post and the visual memory of writing it?

That is not true. A rock absorbs sunlight, heats up on this side and processes this information through heat conduction. How do you know it doesn't feel that? — SolarWind

What reason would there be for a rock to feel that? Rocks don't possess goals of seeking out a nominal temperature, therefore there would be no reason for it to feel hot or cold.

Humans do have goals of survival and achieving homeostasis, therefore it would need to be able to use information about it's body's temperature (feel hot or cold) to then be able to engage in behaviors that achieve such goals of homeostasis or nominal body temperatures.

You don't need to necessarily feel hot for your body to sweat. Sweating is an involuntary reaction to high temperatures, but sweating will only go so far in solving the problem. Being able to react by moving into the shade, or getting out of the kitchen, could be more useful but would require one to feel the heat to then produce behaviors to remove one from the hot spot.

It's most likely that the superman will be a computer. — Bird-Up

Then it wouldn't be a superman. It would be a supercomputer as opposed to just computers, which is what you are using right now.

Maybe superman would be more of a merging of biology and technology. In effect, cyborgs would be superhuman.

If only some relations have a qualitative aspect, then it is that which still has to be explained. You cannot get around this. Whether "process", "event" or "object" or combination thereof.. the problem remains as none of that entails qualitative aspects. — schopenhauer1

To answer your question, you should answer 180's.

My answer to 180's question would be a type of relation composed of sensory information. Sensory information is a relation between perceiver and perceived. Not all relations are composed of a perceiver and perceived. Rocks do not have eyes, ears and a working memory, therefore it is not possible for a rock to be a component (the perceiver) of a qualitative relation. It can only participate in a qualitative relation as what is perceived by a perceiver.

I do not know what it is like to be me. I am not sure that is a meaningful concept. — Jackson

Sounds like something a p-zombie would say. Are you a p-zombie? What form does your information about the world take? For instance, how do you know that you're reading this post right now? What is it that you can point to to say, "I am reading a post in the English language on my computer screen."?

Seems to me that both scenarios are real life scenarios. What use is math if not meant to be applied to real world scenarios? How is an impossible scenario described by math or language useful in real life?

Significant digits are the digits that are necessary in solving a real world problem. All other digits are unnecessary to the problem at hand. They may be useful for some other problem, but not the current one.

Depending on the number of humans and the fraction of them receiving an apple you could have ended up with an irrational number of humans. Can a human be divided and still be a human? So in the case of humans, we are only concerened about whole numbers and not any digits after the decimal.

We should keep in mind that math is a quantified representation of a world that is not composed of separate static objects but of intertwined relations. Math is more of a representaion of how the world is perceived than how the world is independent of perception, so we run into problems when we start to believe that the answers to math problems describe a world independent of our perceptions and goals.

There exists qualitative aspects to things. — schopenhauer1

This is similar to saying that there is a relational aspect to things. Saying it like this closes the divide between physical and mental things. The hard problem is only a problem for dualists and physicalists, or those that believe the world is composed of a quantity of static objects independent of other things and then try to reconcile that with the qualitative aspect of the perception of quantities of static objects.

It does not mean "what (in our experience) it resembles," but rather "how it is for the subject himself." — Jackson

What makes a subject special in this regard? Is there a way it is for any object? I'm not asking if a table or rock has a perspective or a mind. I'm asking if there is a what is the case for any object or subject? How is talking about what is the case for the environment of Earth different than talking about what is the case for your state of mind?

Or it could mean that when you are dead you can't experience anything.

In both examples the second interpretation is not about comparison. That's the sense that Nagel means. — bert1

I doubt Nagel was implying that there is nothing it is like to be a bat. I think Nagel was trying to get at the sensory information the bat posesses and the form this sensory information takes and not only how it is like (similar to) our sensory information we possess and the form it takes, but also how it differs.

What would be the purpose of defining such things, and what makes you think there would be a consensus? If you're just proposing that an individual do this for themselves, I'm fine with it. I'm just not fine with imposing a definition on people who may legitimately disagree. — Relativist

We ALL want people to do the right thing, but there's an element of subjectivity in deciding when something is wrong and there are nearly always exceptional circumstances that make any firm legal boundaries problematic in special cases. Why isn't it "the right thing" to trust women to do what's right for themselves, and refrain from creating restrictions that limit their choices? — Relativist

The issue with abortion is that it shines a light on when we, as a society or as individuals, acknowledge that some life have the right to life. At what point do we as either a society, or as an individual, recognize that another life has the the right to life?

Who decides on who is suffering, and to what degree? These judgments will necessarily be based on one's subjective beliefs because there's no objective measure of suffering and no objective identifier of what constitutes an individual human being. — Relativist

That's the thing - who speaks for those that cannot speak of their suffering? It seems to me that if a life attempts to flee or fight back against being killed then we don't necessarily need a language to make it known to others that some organism is suffering. This is why I think that most people agree that killing a zygote creates less suffering than killing a fetus with a brain and nervous system that reacts to an abortion doctor killing it. Plants also react to being killed or attacked. Do plants suffer the same way that animals with nervous systems do, or are their behaviors instinctive in that there is no self-awareness or self-reflective experiences?

This sounds a reasonable basis for you to decide on when you should or shouldn't get an abortion. But it's not based on objectively true standards, so how could you justify imposing your view on others? — Relativist

Again, this isn't me imposing my view on others. It is asking about when a life without language deserves the right to life. We already impose our views on others by putting people in jail if that life without language is terminated after it is born, but not before. It's strange to complain about others imposing their views on you when you live in a society that does just that. If you are fine with living under someone else's rules, why are you complaining about that when it comes to abortion? At what point are we imposing our views on the fetus/baby?

Is there some reason to think women are getting late term abortions for a reason that is so bad that it needs to be made illegal? — Relativist

I didn't think so until I saw women bragging about having an abortions. What would be the goal a woman is trying to achieve by bragging about it, or calling it joyful? If a serial killer calls their killing of others joyful and brags about it, what would you conclude?

I understand, and in the abstract - it's a reasonable objective. In practice, there are problems. Louisiana was considering a law that would treat any act that causes the death of a zygote as a homicide, including a morning after pill, in-vitro fertilization, and failure to medically implant a fertilized egg in an entopic pregnancy. The legislators who favored it believe they would be preventing evil things from occurring. — Relativist

I would do what I am doing now - question the consistency of such a position when they believe that killing viruses and bacteria is a good thing. I wouldn't consider an abortion a good or evil thing - just a necessary thing from some people. In my opinion, terminating the life of a zygote isn't much different than terminating the life of a virus. Terminating the life of a fetus is approaching that area where morality begins because we cross into that gray area of a language-less organism having the right to life or not. Do only organisms that can use language and make others aware of their suffering via utterances deserve to live?

This is the wrong direction of approaching the issue. It's a direction that makes sure that the matter never gets resolved.

If, on the other hand, we focus on the intention of those involved in abortion, it all gets very clear and very simple. They act with the intention to kill. They know what that glob of cells is likely going to develop into, and this is what they want to stop from happening. So as far as intention goes, it's irrelevant whether the unborn feels pain or not, whether it should be considered a person or not. Because the intention is to kill. — baker

Sure, but then so is using bug spray to terminate bugs and weed spray to terminate weeds. The intent is the same (to kill) but are the consequences the same - meaning is a weed's life any more important than a zygote in the grand scheme of things? To human's a zygote in a woman's womb is more important than a weed, but that doesn't mean that a zygote in a woman's womb is objectively more important. The universe doesn't care, nor does it place any value on one life over another. We do that. What if an alien race that evolved from weeds millions of years ago travels to Earth, defines humans as the pests and attempts to eradicate the infestation?

Again, too narrow a scope. The issue is the intention for engaging in sex in the first place. In discussions of abortion, this is rarely or never addressed.

And since you bring up suffering and magnitudes of it:

What is the greater suffering:

Enduring a sexual urge and not acting on it until it passes (after about 10 minutes),
or risking the health and life of the woman with hormonal contraceptives (and abortions, in case the contraceptives fail)? — baker

It seems to me that one can have the intention of experiencing the pleasurable feeling of sex and the orgasm that follows, or even building stronger social bonds between you and your mate, not necessarily to have kids. The existence of contraceptives allow us to make that distinction. Since my wife went through the pain and effort to carry and give birth to our children, I thought that it only fair that I be the one that gets a vasectomy. While it wasn't entirely painless, it was far less invasive than my wife getting her tubes tied. Getting the vasectomy was one of the best things I did. Now I can enjoy sex with my wife without worrying about a pregnancy. Of course the tubes can always find their way back together, but that hasn't happened in 15 years and now my wife is post-menopausal so even if my tubes did reconnect, there would be no pregnancy.

If by some crazy fluke, my wife got pregnant, we would abort because for us, three is enough. We wouldn't wait until the third or second trimester, though. We would do it as soon as possible. We would terminate the pregnancy not just because we have the number of children that we want, but also because there is a higher risk of birth defects for women over 40. Would it be fair to the child and to us if we were forced to have a child with birth defects? Which would cause the most suffering?

Sure, going under a doctor's knife can have it's risks, but in today's modern world, that is a small risk, and I think that, as individuals, it is our own prerogative to make our own risk assessments.