For example, a parent has two children and the parent has a favorite. She is not a bad mother because she has a favorite she loves both her children equally but she has a deeper connection with the youngest. The daughter and the mother have more in common and this has allowed the daughter to become the mom's favorite. But if the mother began to love the youngest daughter more this would be a problem. It does seem that God would have favorites not because God is a bad deity, but some humans seem more likable than others. — stressyandmessy

But unlike the mother, God has complete control over the qualities that define and are part of each of its "children" that it creates. God has favorite qualities that define a person and then goes about purposefully making people that possess these qualities to some degree or another. Why would God do that if he loves us all? Why would God purposefully create beings that lack those qualities that he favors?

But God showing favoritism does seem to be a problem. — stressyandmessy

Especially when those God favors happen to be the creators of the religion the God is a part of. Odin favored the Norsemen. Osiris favored the Egyptians. Allah favors the Arabs and God favors the Jews (chosen people).

Base level consciousness is the neurosemiosis. The modelling is the attending. — apokrisis

It seems to me that neurosemiosis, or mental processes involving signs, or producing meaning, is the act of modeling itself. Signs are types of models. Symbolizing is an act of modeling. Language is modeling of our conscious lives - our phenomenology - for others to bear witness to. Our language use is laced with phenomenological terms and projections of our phenomenology onto the world as if light is colored and ice cream is good and brains are physical outside of our own model.

Then you're a naive realist?

What does it mean to be physical?

How are brains perceived if not via consciousness? How is it that when I observe your mental processes I experience a brain but when I observe my own I experience a mind? When I look at you walking I see legs moving, and when I look at me walking I see legs moving. Why is it so different when looking at other's mental processes vs our own as opposed to looking at our running process? How does a "physical" brain create the feeling of empty space and visual depth?

In saying that brain processes correlate with, instead of cause, consciousness, I am saying that brain processes are conscious processes, just from different views.

When looking at a drop of blood in a microscope, it isn't the cells that cause the drop of blood to exist. They are the drop of blood just from a different view.

I think that information, as the:
1) process of informing, is becoming (being acquisition).
2) product of informing, is being (actuality and/or potentiality).

And that in both cases it is the effect of Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient, and final). — Galuchat

I consider Aristotle's Four Causes different facets of the same thing - information. Information is the relationship between cause and effect. Effects are also causes and causes effects of prior causes, therefore any example of Aristotle's four causes are really effects of prior causes themselves, all of which is information. Information, or relationships, or process is fundamental - not physical particles, like atoms, neurons and brains.

It is uncontroversial that it happens from physical processes. Those who dispute that are properly marginalized.

The controversial part is how. — hypericin

If you can't explain how it happens then there is a problem with the theory that says that it does happen. Until you've explained how it does happen then it's still quite possible that you have a problem of correlation and not causation.

And using the word "information" in a variety of descriptions at different levels of abstraction, without providing a unifying general definition, is equivocation. — Galuchat

Information is the relationship between cause and effect. The mind is information in that it is the relationship between body and environment.

It is what people think they mean when they say "consciousness" that is the controversial bit. What they usually mean is that somehow the world is "represented" as an "image" in some kind of Cartesian theatre. — apokrisis

But a Cartesian theater is what you are implying in talking about models that are attended.

Can't we turn our attention back on itself in attending the attention? If not how is it that you can even talk about attention if that isn't what you are attending? It's why we can know that we know and think about thinking.

The fact that consciousness arises from brain processes is utterly uncontroversial. The philosophically interesting question that remains is how can it be that such a thing can arise from brain processes... A question to which science remains largely silent. — hypericin

If it were uncontroversial then how is it you are questioning how it happens? I'm with you on the questioning it, just not with you in saying it's uncontroversial.

We can conclude very easily from the evidence that changes in brain function in humans alters the content of experience in humans. Of course it does. No one is denying that, not even the most extreme substance dualists. — bert1

I thought that is the very thing you are questioning Apo on - how a brain alters, influences or causes changes in experience - essentially why there is an experience to be had at all given the states of brains.

I've moved on from the part of the emergentist claiming that certain physical states begat experiencing states. Now I'm asking how exactly does a mass of neurons create an experience or model of the world that is not a mass of neurons? Neurons only appear in my experience when observing other people's experiences. That must mean there is a distinction between my view of my own mental processes vs. a view of other people's mental processes - of how my modeling models other people's experiences.

Do brains cause experiences - if so then you're left with the task if explaining how that happens. If it has nothing to do with causation but with views, then there is no need to explain how brains cause experiences. Brains and minds are just different views of the same thing - not much different than looking at a macro-scale object only with your eyes vs looking at it through a microscope - different views of the same thing makes it appear like we are talking about two different things.

I'm always saying "life and mind". The two are pretty synonymous given that they are both about the special thing of a semiotic modelling relation.

If you want a rough distinction, life is an organism's model of its body - its metabolic existence - and mind is an organism's model of the environment within which that body must persist. — apokrisis

This talk of models is strange considering that we understand models as a smaller scale representation of what is being modeled. Model cars are made of metal and plastic - the same as the real thing. The only difference is scale and detail.

The model that is the mind is not made up of neurons. It is made up of something totally different. I'm really looking forward to an explanation as to how neurons model visual depth and the feeling of persisting in an environment surrounded by empty space.

It seems to me that empty space that is experienced is just information or a model of other information (in light that passes through the air without being reflected just like a glass window appears transparent), just on a smaller scale and with less detail.

Doesn't the experience of bent straws in water and mirages and darkness and being surround by empty space show that we model the world using light?

So in talking about physical brains that are only observed with the presence of light you are confusing the model with what is modeled.

First-person models are composed of informational relations. A sensory information processor can only process information acquired by its own senses, not by the senses of another. The point of view that develops is a relationship between the organism and the immediate environment that the organism uniquely occupies. Even computers have first-person perspectives in that they occupy a unique area of space and time store and work with different information acquired by its inputs. So first-person perspectives are really just possessing and working with information that is unique to the organism or device that possesses it. It is why we can never know what it is like to be another because we would have to be that person to know what it is like.

Past experience is used to predict the future world in terms designed to deliver effective action. So the imagination is just this forward prediction of what it would be like to experience the known world from some other viewpoint.

So you could generate the image of a stop sign just as you could generate an image of your missing keys or the deer you hope to shoot in the woods. The ability to hold a search image in mind is a meaningful and functional action. It speaks to a state of intent that is to be physically enacted at some future time and place. The image informs that material possibility.

But such states of anticipatory imagery could be nonsensical - noise rather than information - as when you are dreaming. — apokrisis

Yet the dream appears just like the model in your description of "life and mind". How can one be a model and the other just noise when you can't tell the difference in the moment you are dreaming, and even after the fact as memories of what was dreamed are no different than the memories of "real" events?

We can imagine a past that would make the present we live in very different. People can dwell on what could have been. Dreams can cause people to change the way they live or to look at the world differently. These "imaginary" things have real impacts on peoples' behaviors.

Why they don't go forwards or backwards in time? They even fluctuate in time. — EugeneW

What does that even mean - as if time is a container in which things fluctuate? Fluctuation is a type of change. They don't fluctuate forwards and backwards in time (whatever "in time" even means). They simply change relative to each other.

Virtual particles form a clock, — EugeneW

If everything is made of virtual particles, then what use is the term, "Virutal"? The virtual only makes sense in light of the real. It doesn't make sense to say that all particles are virtual.

You obviously haven't been reading what I have wrote.

Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change. — Harry Hindu

I can only speak for myself. I read and attempt to understand the philosophers whose work interests me because of what I can learn from them. Their work does not come with an expiration date. Unless you have some understanding of a philosopher you are not in a position to judge whether his work is useful. — Fooloso4

What information do others (philosophers or not) have that you don't when it comes to understanding the mind and it's relationship with the world? It seems to me that we are all stuck in the same predicament with no one having any special place in trying to explain it. I am more interested in what you have to say about your own perceptions of your own mind which includes its thought, beliefs and knowledge and the forms they take, without any influence from others.

What are you pointing at when you say that you believe, or know, such-and-such.
— Harry Hindu

That depends on what it is I say I believe or know. The statement may be about me or what I say I believe or know or both. — Fooloso4

Prove it to yourself that you believe something, and tell me how you did it.
— Harry Hindu

I don't know what you are getting at. Why would I prove to myself that the things I believe are things I believe? What role do you think proof plays here? — Fooloso4

Yes, but there must be some similarity between your various beliefs for you to identify them all as beliefs, no? What is the similarity that all your beliefs have that you point to when you say "I have a belief"? What form do beliefs take so that you can identify them as beliefs?

How do you measure time? By comparing one change (the movement of the hands of a clock) with another (the rotation of the Earth). Time is the measurement, not what is being measured. This is what naive realists do - confuse the measurement with what is being measured.

I don't think you know the meaning of "doubt", Harry. It signifies an uncertain state of mind. Therefore your assertion that a person must decide to doubt is directly contradict to the nature of "doubt", as deciding signifies a form of certainty. — Metaphysician Undercover

It just doesn't make any sense to assert that doubt is fundamental. If it were, then how could we ever store any information in our brain? How is it that we have memory? What is memory for if not to store valid and useful information that can be relied on for similar situations in the future?

Now you are misusing the word "decide". Many, in fact most, actions performed by living beings are not produced from a decision. Biologists don't really know the true impetus behind most living actions, but we can surely say that the majority of them are not derived from decisions. So your question here is derived from the false premise, that an act of an organism proceeds from a decision, when in reality most of these acts do not derive from decisions. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seemed to be berating scientism in the other thread, but here you are embracing it. All I know is that when I decide to do something I can often times take time to simulate different actions and predictions of their outcomes of those actions and then choose the one that has the best predicted outcome. It can also involve comparing what is presently observed and integrating it with a vision of how I would like things to be and applying the best action to achieve that goal. So the way I am using "decide" is such that computers can make decisions to. It's simply a matter of being able to process sensory information (input) and then producing actions (output) based on one's programming (instincts and learned behaviors).

I agree, knowing how to use language is completely different from knowing how to run. But notice that the question here concerns knowing that oneself is running, which is completely different from knowing how to run. In order for a person to know that oneself is running, I think It's quite obvious that the person must know what "running" is. Otherwise it is more likely that the person would misjudge oneself as running, because the judgement would be nothing better than a guess, when the person doesn't know what "running" signifies. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well yeah, running isn't the scribbles, "running". It is an observable action. You know you are running because 1) you decided to run and 2) you can observe yourself running. If you decided to run but you are not running, then there is something wrong with your muscles, nervous system, etc. You don't need language to know you or anyone else is running. You simply need eyes and a brain.

When you were born and while you were an infant did you doubt anything your parents, or anyone in a position of authority, told you?
— Harry Hindu

Of course. This is just more evidence that you do not understand the meaning of "doubt". — Metaphysician Undercover

It seems to me that you have a strange notion of "doubt" and "fundamental".

That's where virtual particles come in. Their name is a misnomer. They go back and forth in time all the time. Before real particles came into existence, there were only these VPs. — EugeneW

Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change.

That's the problem with apokrisis' metaphysics, it gets the temporal relation of cause and effect backward. But that's just the manifestation of a deeper problem, inherent within scientism in general, a complete misunderstanding of the nature of time. When physics represents fundamental processes as reversible, it's obvious that they are employing a misrepresentation of time. This is the "denial of the obvious" I refer to above. When we deny the obvious, we can produce a very simple model of reality which appears to avoid all the hard problems, such as the causal role of the free will of the individual. But then instead of having an unbridgeable gap within the theory (dualism), there is an incompatibility between the theory and the fundamentals of experience. The theory does not correspond with basic observation. This is the manifestation of a failure to respect the difference between past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible - as if while the rest of the universe moves forward, some other processes could move backward in time. It seems to me that the whole universe would have to be moving backward, not just different processes within it. Time is the illusion. Change is fundamental. When something changes, there is no sense of forwards or backwards. Everything changes relative to everything else.

Neurons aren't any different. There is a frequency (Hz) at which neurons send, receive and process sensory data. Compared to a computer's CPU it's very slow, but the difference lies in the parallelism, where we have billions of CPUs where the computer has one with 6 or 8 cores by today's standards. Taking two computers with difference CPU speeds and running the same software will produce noticeable difference in how the computer processes input and displays output.

How brains process sensory data is dependent upon the relative speed at which it processes that data vs the speed at which what is observed changes. Instead of trying to track every change in the world, the brain creates the illusion of static, physical objects (like brains). Just as QM has theorized that the outcome of a measurement depends on the measuring device being used, so does the way the world appears is dependent on the sensory devices that are used to observe it (dark and bright, bent straws in water, mirages, etc.). In this sense, physical brains and their functions are not the cause, but the outcome. They are the measurement, not what is measured.

Phenomenology ain't the destination even if it seems the starting point. It might correctly identify the embodied and intersubjective nature of human experience. But as an academic thread of thought, it wanders away into no clear conclusion. It winds up in PoMo plurality and "disclosure of ways of being. Nothing of any great interest results. — apokrisis

It's the only point from which you know anything about the world, including brains. When you talk about brains and their functions you can't help but talk about them from your own starting point. A valid conclusion is that the world is not as it appears in the mind, but the mind is as the world is in the sense that it is not physical, but informational.

Hardly. One is an easy mistake to make - a high level act of interpretation. The other is found to be constitutive of interpretations themselves.

You can unsee the mysterious figure. But you can't unsee the Mach bands. And having noted this interesting difference in your qualitative experience, you would then look to its separate causes. — apokrisis

Can you unsee the empty space around you that isn't empty at all? Can you unsee colors that scientists claim doesn't exist outside of your head? When scientists claim that the world isn't as it appears, what does that say about how "brains" (other minds) appear?

A textbook example of Dunning-Kruger in action. The less folk know about brain function, the more they feel confident the Hard Problem is a slam dunk. — apokrisis

I know plenty about brain function, but nothing about how brain functions create the conscious feeling of say, depth perception. How do neurons create the sensation of empty space?

In all the literature I have read, none of it explains how it is that when I look at your mental functions I perceive a brain, but when I look at my mental functions, I perceive a mind. You only know of brains and their functions by it's appearance in the mind. I don't I experience the same thing when looking at everyone else's mental functions as I do when looking at mine.

Consciousness is the brain operating to allow for wakefulness and awareness. There is no "where." It's a made up idea. There is just the brain and its functions. Consciousness is itself a made-up term used to describe something people had no clue about before the past few decades. — Garrett Travers

Yet you use the term to describe what the brain emits or produces. It's not my made-up idea. It's yours that I'm trying to understand based on what you have said and the terms you are using.

Then consciousness isn't emitted by the brain, but is the brain operating in certain ways. You aren't being consistent.
— Harry Hindu

There is no distinction between the two, Harry. The brain emits, generates, or otherwise enables consciousness, just as it does sight, through its operations. Individual networks of the brain are responsible for certain functions, that when operating in tandem with others, produce the awareness that you use the term "consciousness" to describe. — Garrett Travers

The brain does not enable sight on it's own. It needs eyes to be able to do that. Eyes are not the brain, but are connected to the brain.

Light bulbs emit/produce light. Light is not part of the bulb once emitted. The bulb changes states between off and on and when on it emits light and when off it doesn't. The bulb projects light out into the world. So the terms you are using is describing the brain and consciousness like a light bulb and light. Yet you then contradict yourself and say that consciousness is the brain. If the latter, then the electrified filament inside the bulb would be more like consciousness as being (part of) the brain and not something that is produced or emitted. So which is it?

What form does the awareness that is produced by the brain take if not just the brain in a certain state? How would you know that someone is aware by looking at their brain? How do you know that you are aware? Can you know that you are aware without looking at your own brain? If so, then what form does your own awareness take as opposed to the form that other people's awareness takes from your own perspective?

As Wittgenstein uses the term 'proposition' it is not its expression. According to the Tractatus a thought with a sense is a proposition (4). It does not become a proposition when it is expressed. The belief is not the cause of a proposition. The belief or thought is the proposition, it is expressed in symbols or words or scribbles or pictures. — Fooloso4

I really couldn't care what Wittgenstein says because it isn't useful. There is too much of a dependency on what dead philosophers have said with no regard to what we know now. Some people on this forum treat Witt like he was some kind of prophet.

I never said the belief is the scribble. I said it is the cause of the scribble. What form does your belief take if not visual imagery, sounds, feelings, etc.? How do you know that you are believing or knowing anything at any moment? What are you pointing at when you say that you believe, or know, such-and-such. You don't need to prove it to me. Prove it to yourself that you believe something, and tell me how you did it.

I really don't see your logic Harry. Why do you think that when a person is doing anything, doubting for example, the person must be certain of what oneself is doing? Do I need to be certain that I am running, in order for me to be running? The person who doesn't even know the word "running" would still run, and it would be impossible for that person to know oneself to be running. Likewise, the person who doesn't know the word "doubt" would be doubting without the possibility of being certain that they are doubting. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is ridiculous, Meta. A person or animal decides to doubt, to run, or whatever. How can an organism decide to do something without knowing it's doing it?? When you raise your arm you have to decide to do it prior to it raising. Doing so may be simple and effortless now,, but it required a lot of practice when you were an infant to control your limbs - to bend them to your will. A person doesn't need to know language to know it is running. Knowing how to use a language and knowing how to run are two different things.

I can't grasp your question here. When I ask someone to justify something, then, generally I am doubting that person. What this says about my own belief is that I believe that I ought to doubt others. It doesn't mean that I am certain that I ought to doubt others. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not necessarily. You could be asking a question because you simply don't understand what they are saying. There is a lot of word salad on these forums. You can't doubt something you don't understand. In a sense you're not doubting what they said yet. You are doubting your own understanding of what they said.

When you were born and while you were an infant did you doubt anything your parents, or anyone in a position of authority, told you? Do you doubt everything everyone says, or are there some that you trust more than others, like your family and friends?

Consciousness is the brain operating to allow for wakefulness and awareness. There is no "where." It's a made up idea. There is just the brain and its functions. Consciousness is itself a made-up term used to describe something people had no clue about before the past few decades. — Garrett Travers

Then consciousness isn't emitted by the brain, but is the brain operating in certain ways. You aren't being consistent.

So neurologists are not conscious of the brains they are testing? When neurologists provide explanations of brains and how they function, are they talking about their conscious experience of brains, or how brains function independent of their conscious experience (observation, empirical evidence)?
— Harry Hindu

...? — Garrett Travers

Well? Are neurologists conscious of brains or not? If so, then what form does them being conscious of brains take? How would they know they are conscious of brains? What form does empirical evidence of brain functions take, and in talking about empirical evidence, are you talking about your conscious visual experience of brains, or how brains are independent of your visual experience of them?

One can tell if someone is unconscious if they are unresponsive. The man acting unconscious is still conscious. He wouldn’t be able to act if he was unconscious, though he may deceive us. — NOS4A2

You can yell my name and I won't respond. Deceiving you is a successful act of acting like you are unconscious.

I don’t think the fact of being conscious is silly, but the notion of “consciousness” is. By adding the suffix “ness” to the adjective “conscious” we fashion a thing out of a descriptive term, which in my mind is an error in philosophical discussions. This is true of terms such as “awareness”, “happiness”, “whiteness”. Descriptive terms serve to describe things, but they aren’t themselves things, substances, or forces, and they shouldn’t be treated as such in any careful language.

When speaking about and analyzing things that exist, the human organism exists. This human organism is what we study and analyze to better understand his activity. “Consciousness”, however, doesn’t exist, and we should abandon the term. — NOS4A2

What I am gathering from what you are saying is that conscious is a descriptive term of other's behaviors. But that isn't what I'm talking about when I use the term. I'm talking about the form my awareness of other people's behaviors takes.

So, it would have to be brains that produce consciousness, as there are no structures of consciousness that can be tested for brain production, but the opposite is tested daily, as I have demonstrated with the research I have posted. — Garrett Travers

So neurologists are not conscious of the brains they are testing? When neurologists provide explanations of brains and how they function, are they talking about their conscious experience of brains, or how brains function independent of their conscious experience (observation, empirical evidence)?

"How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. By produce, I mean emit, generate, or otherwise enable. Much like eyesight is produced by the brain, so too is consciousness. — Garrett Travers

I don't see how complex networks of neurons can produce experiences of things that are not neurons. If brains emit consciousness, where is consciousness - once emitted, relative to the brain?

Sam's contention is that non-verbal beliefs are not propositional, on the assumption that propositions are are verbal statements, and so pre-verbal beliefs are not propositions. — Fooloso4

We must understand how a term or symbol is being used in order to understand how it is being used to represent a state of affairs. The same term can be used in the representation of different states of affairs. — Fooloso4

And a symbol can be a scribble, picture, or behavior to represent the belief of the one writing scribbles, drawing pictures and behaving in certain ways. Propositions are those effects (written scribbles, drawn pictures and behaviors) that we observe that we then use to get at the causes of these effects - which is the beliefs of the one causing the scribbles, pictures and their body to move in certain ways, which can include making sounds with your mouth.

You're not making sense Harry. To doubt a certainty is contradiction. The fact that you are doubting it means that it is not a certainty. To doubt is to be uncertain. To be certain of something is to be free of doubt concerning it. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that you are doubting anything? Can you be certain that you are doubting? As I have said before certainty and doubt go hand-in-hand. It seems to me that you cannot doubt without the certainty that you are doubting. If you doubt that you are doubting, then you are doing something. What are you doing if not exhibiting a certainty of what you are doing whether it be doubting or not?

I don't see why you believe that it is required to have certainty prior to having uncertainty (doubt). Obviously human beings are evolving creatures, and human knowledge has come into existence as have human beings. Therefore, if certainty is knowledge, as you propose, uncertainty is prior to certainty, as the form of animalistic belief prior to knowledge. It makes no sense to say that uncertainty (doubt) requires an underlying certainty, or else knowledge would have to come into existence from some form of certainty which is prior to knowledge. But this undermines your proposition that knowledge and certainty are the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see that we may be more likely to doubt knowledge coming from others than we are in doubting our own knowledge. This is why we have rules of logic about pleading to popularity and authority. In using these rules of logic, are we doubting the propositions of others or becoming more certain that what they are saying is wrong and you are right?

We must understand how a term or symbol is being used in order to understand how it is being used to represent a state of affairs. The same term can be used in the representation of different states of affairs.

The proposition: 'it is raining' is not used only to convey meteorological information. It can be an expression of exasperation or pleasure or surprise. — Fooloso4

You missed my point which was that we use scribbles to convey information about states-of-affairs that are not just another use of scribbles, to others that are not aware of said states-of-affairs. Using scribbles to convey meteorological information or mental information is not useful if the other person is already aware of the meteorological or mental states. So it appears that while we use things, it doesn't necessarily mean that we accomplished our goal (that it was useful). We are simply wasting our time and energy using scribbles to inform others of what they already know.

If use is the scale by which we judge metaphysical factors, then it seems to me that the scales would be epistemological in nature, as in existing in our minds only and not the way the world is actually divided.
— Harry Hindu

I think that's true too. — T Clark

Why should you represent reality into the physics-chemistry-biology-cosmology division in the first place?
— EugeneW

As I indicated in my OP, I think that's a metaphysical division. It's useful, so we use it. — T Clark

Wait, I thought you agreed that the division of these scales was epistemological, not metaphysical. So physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology are merely epistemological explanations of scales that only exist in our minds, and not real in any sense in the world beyond our minds. So I fail to see how they are useful if they are not representative of what is the case outside of our minds.

You seem content to remain in the bubble of your mind - to live only in the map, and not in the territory while at the same time implying that you are talking about states of affairs outside of your mind. When talking about the world, I'm not interested, not do I find it useful, to talk about your epistemological states. You seem to be confusing epistemology and metaphysics.

How does this fit into your military metaphor? You talk about constraints from above. How do the feedback loops constrain the chemistry? Are the products of the enzymes the soldiers? So chemicals evolve into structures that control how they behave. — T Clark

Above what? If the scales are epistemological then there is no metaphysical above or below. We are simply talking about the same thing from different views. In other words we are confusing the map with the territory. The constraints from above or below are only figments of our imagination, ie explanations that are useful, but not representative of anything real in any sense outside of our minds. Constraints would only come from the sides - meaning things on the same "scale" (there would only be one scale, so the term becomes meaningless when describing the world outside of your mind) as the thing we are talking about. This is akin to natural selection where forces on the same scale constrain other forces on the same scale, like how predators constrain the evolution of prey and vice versa.

I would just add

For the PRC Taiwan is basically the last remnants of the Civil War where the Kuomingtang retreated. It would be like if during the US Civil War the Confederacy would not have surrendered, but had retreated to present Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and held high their flags on those islands to this day. — ssu

That's weird that you put it that way because I see China as more like the Confederacy and Taiwan as more like the North. After all, China is the one segregating their population by means of the type of treatment the various groups receive, with some of the treatment bordering on genocide. China sees the capitalism and freedom that makes up the Taiwanese society as a threat to the Communist party, just as Russia sees the same type of representational, western-leaning societal engineering going on in Ukraine as a threat to the One-Party regime in Russia.

There is the problem of how the information Putin had about the kind of resistance he would go up against in Ukraine was inaccurate and China may be wondering the same thing about Taiwan, and the longer it takes for Russia to conquer Ukraine may inspire more in Taiwan to more fervently resist any invasion by China. It is to early to tell. I'm hoping for a rebellion in Russia given the declining economy, government crackdown on media sources and the death of many thousand Russian sons in a senseless war against their Ukrainian cousins.

I am not dismissing the importance of habitual behaviour, or the role of certainty. What I am saying is that it must be the case that uncertainty, doubt, is necessarily more basic or fundamental than certainty. This is due to the fallibility of certainty. Since a living being can still be wrong, even in instances when that individual has the attitude of certainty, then there must be a mechanism whereby we doubt even the most basic certitudes, or else we'd all die from our mistakes. Some of us do not doubt our fundamental certitudes, and some of us die from our mistakes. Some of us do doubt our fundamental habits and certitudes, and since this trait often saves us, it is selected for in evolution.

The conclusion therefore, is that the beliefs are fundamentally not certainties, because the living being who holds a belief is conditioned through instinct and genetics, to naturally doubt the belief. This is an evolutionarily beneficial trait which has been selected for. So positing something like hinge propositions, as fundamental beliefs which are somehow beyond doubt, is simply an incorrect representation. The evolutionary process has ensured that beliefs do not actually exist in this way. The propensity to doubt, is fundamental to, and inherent within all belief. The condition of certainty, I suggest, is added to the belief afterward, therefore not fundamental to belief. It is layered on, as an attitude toward belief, not actually part of the belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

I disagree. If doubt were fundamental then what would you be doubting if not some certainty? It seems that in order to doubt you must have some certainty to doubt prior to doubting it.

Personally, it don't like the terms being used to explain what you are trying to explain. I think of certainty and knowledge as the same thing. And I think of knowledge as a set of instructions that we go by. These instructions are dynamic - capable of being updated with new (sensory) information. In other words, knowledge can change with new information.

The instructions we use aren't much different than instructions in a computer language. Given some goal, reference the instructions we have for attaining that goal. If we don't have instructions then acquire them through learning (observe someone with the same goal and how they do it or trying instructions that we already have that are used for similar tasks and observe the results and then modify as needed and try again).

Doubt stems from our knowledge (certainty) that the world is complex and changes constantly and that we acquire new information by the use of our senses, and that any set of instructions may need to be updated, given new information.

Can you find the section you are referring to? He rejects the idea that meaning is a picture or representation of reality, in favor of the idea that meaning is determined by use. But the issue here is about the relationship between beliefs and propositions. Sam's contention is that non-verbal beliefs are not propositional, on the assumption that propositions are are verbal statements, and so pre-verbal beliefs are not propositions. — Fooloso4

If meaning is determined by use, then something is used to accomplish some goal. What is being used if not our representation (knowledge) of reality, and what is the goal? In using propositions we are using scribbles and sounds, or pictures, to communicate (represent) some state-of-affairs that isn't the use of scribbles and sounds, or pictures to others that we believe do not possess the same knowledge (representation) of reality that we do.

In telling someone it is raining, we only do so because we believe the person we are using a proposition with isn't aware that it is raining. If we believed they already knew it was raining, then what use would it be in telling them?

I’ve seen people knocked out, but never a brain knocked out. People are far more than brains. — NOS4A2

Yeah, but how do you explain the difference between someone being knocked out and someone being awake? Where is the difference? You might point the person's behavior, but I can act like I'm knocked out so how do you tell the difference between someone acting like they are knocked out and someone who is actually knocked out? And how would the person that goes from being awake, to knocked out to awake again describe the difference, and would there be a discrepancy between the two descriptions (yours and theirs), and if so why? If we can act, or lie with our actions, then there must be some difference between our behaviors and what we are presently aware (conscious) of.

“Consciousness” is a silly concept, anyways. Nothing called “consciousness” moves from one area to another, so saying that it “comes from” the brain is nonsensical. Neither is it “produced” by the brain, as if the brain was a qualia factory. — NOS4A2

I agree with everything except the notion that consciousness is a silly concept. How do you explain dreams, or the fact that I can act in some way that is contrary to my present knowledge?

In defining consciousness as a silly concept then you are defining empiricism and observable evidence as silly concepts because the only way we know the world is via consciousness. It is the only thing we have any proof of, but that isn't to say that is the only thing that exists, nor does it imply that consciousness is fundamental. It's only implication is that it exists. I think, therefore I am.

When you think, how do you know that you are thinking? What form does your thinking take - entangled electrified neurons or entangled colors, shapes, feelings and sounds? Why would your thinking take the form of electrified neurons from my view but take the shape of colors, shapes, sounds, feelings etc. from your view? How would we know that we're talking about the same thing?

That’s where the hierarchy of scale comes in. It represents an artificial division of the universe into manageable pieces. The division is made based on the usefulness of the distinctions made at each scale. As I’ve written many times, usefulness, rather than truth, is the measure by which we judge metaphysical factors. Metaphysical questions can not be answered empirically. To me, the hierarchy of scale is a metaphysical entity. By that standard, I choose the level on the hierarchy most useful in describing and understanding a particular phenomenon in a particular situation. — T Clark

Any knowledge we glean from other scales than the one we find ourselves living in are only useful in the scale we find ourselves living in. We only use states at other scales to explain the behavior of objects on the scale we live in - hence the issue of trying to integrate QM with classical physics. We are trying to use the behavior of objects at the quantum scale to explain and predict the behavior of macro-scale objects.

If use is the scale by which we judge metaphysical factors, then it seems to me that the scales would be epistemological in nature, as in existing in our minds only and not the way the world is actually divided.

When using a microscope to look at a drop of blood and viewing red blood cells, aren't we still looking at the drop of blood - just from a different view (at a smaller scale)? The world is only divided into scales when we take different views of the same thing.

Any attempt to define consciousness as some sort of illusion just pulls the rug out from under all the empirical "evidence" one has for the existence brains.

There are numerous well-known theories that explain that the way we perceive the world is "inaccurate", or not the way the world is. The theory that color only exists in our minds, and not in the world is one of those theories. What does that say about how we perceive brains? How do we get any "accurate" information about the world to survive for any length of time if we can only access our consciousness and consciousness isn't suppose to be an accurate representation of reality?

I think that we do get accurate information about the world via consciousness, but there are many who confuse the map with the territory. The territory is process. The map is static models of processes - hence brains are confused to be the real thing (the map (static models)) and minds (the territory (process)) are relegated to the status of illusions or as subordinate to the static model. It's as if scientists are forgetting about the very nature of observation itself and the role it plays in how we think about things.

Do you have an example of integrated information in the brain?
— EugeneW

No. — Garrett Travers

Consciousness is integrated sensory information - where information from the eyes, ears, nose, skin, etc. all come together to produce the model of the world we experience.

Yep, that's exactly my point. And it is the brain doing so, as far the evidence is concerned. You have something that suggest otherwise, present it. I'm not here to discuss opinions. — Garrett Travers

The only evidence anyone has is of consciousness itself. Any evidence you have of brains is by means of consciousness/integrated sensory information/empiricism. So is it brains that produce consciousness or consciousness that produce brains? And that is only part of the question. The other part of the question is how does one "produce" the other? What exactly is meant by "produce" in this context?

Here's an example of what I am saying. We can represent the certainty as the basis for the habitual activity. I know that the act X will have the outcome of Y, so act X for the purpose of Y becomes habituated, and I tend to proceed with very little doubt. The light turns green, I walk across the street, for instance.

However, before I cross the street I glance around to see if anyone is running the red. This is "the check", which is a manifestation of the fundamental uncertainty. The check has to be more fundamental than the certainty, in order that it might at any time overrule the certainty. The habit can be broken. If the check is allowed to be overruled by the certainty, then eventually I will step in front of an errant vehicle.

One might model the certainty as more fundamental than the uncertainty, as is the case when hinge propositions are modeled as free from the tendency to doubt, but this is a false model. It is proven false, because those who do not perform the check get the Darwin award, and this trait of relinquishing the check, is not maintained. So the uncertainty of the check is supported by evolution, and its overruling the certainty of habit, as a more fundamental aspect of living beings is verified in this way. And the check as an uncertainty based activity cannot be modeled as a habit because it is different (habit being similar) in every field of activity yet common to them all. — Metaphysician Undercover

I get what you're saying but I think that it can be argued that habitual behavior has also been selected as a trait conductive to surviving. For me, it is one of those yin/yang relationships. Certainty has no meaning without doubt.

Right, the reason for posting here is to submit my ideas to the criticisms of others. My ideas are forever evolving, because of my uncertainty, and the role that others play in changing my mind.
— Metaphysician Undercover

To state something as a proposition, is to make a proposal. It does not imply 'I am certain of what I wrote'. This is your misinterpretation, derived from, (and a very good demonstration of), that faulty notion that actions are based in certainty. That you interpret my proposal as an indication that I am certain of the truth of what I write, shows that you are committed to this faulty way of understanding. I write in my habitual way, but this does not mean that I am not ready, willing, and actively looking for reasons, to break the habit if necessary. I walk across the street right after the light turns green, and it appears like I am certain in that act, if you do not notice the more subtle act of me looking around before crossing. In the case of writing, the more subtle act occurs within my mind, as thinking, so it's even more difficult to notice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. So here on a philosophy forum, discussing topics that are on the fringes of human knowledge, there would be a higher degree of playing devil's advocate - in proposing ideas that you don't necessarily believe but would like to see if there are any rebuttals to. The forum does have it's fair share of fundamentalists that you find in the religious and political discussions where what people say, they really mean, or "know" is true. And then there is the every-day-talk where most of what people say, they believe because we talk about each other, the events of the day, the world, etc.

One topic that denizens of TPF seem to be under the impression that empirical research has left the door open for the discussion of philosophers to "speculate" about. This would be the topic of consciousness, and the nature of its presence here on Earth, and in the human race. — Garrett Travers

No. It's actually that you have completely ignored the very nature of empiricism and how the way things are observed influences how we think about brains and their accompanying conscious. You seemed assert that brains and consciousness exists without having ever seen them, but only heard about them.

In the other thread I mentioned that neuroscience an QM need work together to provide a better explanation of consciousness, but you called that unscientific and woo mysticism, and then continued to berate others, so excuse me if I don't think you're intellectually honest enough to engage in this type of conversation.

What you, many others in this thread, and Wittgenstein himself, fail to recognize, is that doubt and uncertainty is what underlies human actions, as inherent within them, essential to them, and impossible to remove. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you typing and submitting your post is evidence of your underlying uncertainty? You seem certain of what you say, but if your admitting that your certainty of what you are saying is an illusion and that you know its an illusion I would have expected a lot less of telling others what they fail to realize (as if they are wrong and you are right) and more humility on your part. Are you certain that certainty is just an illusion?