I'm not aware of any literature of language as the relationship between cause and effect, apart from your own comments.

Is there any? — Banno

Not language, meaning. Are you paying attention?

There wasn't any literature on the evolution of organisms by natural selection until Darwin wrote it. Why can't you address the argument instead continually committing these logical fallacies?

No, Harry - it doesn't refer to the begging of a conversation; it is the begining of a conversation. — Banno

Not necessarily. What if the other person doesn't respond and say, "Hello" back? "Hello" can't be the beginning of a conversation that never starts. This is why it is better think of "hello" as referring to the intent to start a conversation.

In a way, what we are both saying is true and not necessarily contradictory. Use refers to intent. This is why the theory that meaning is the relationship between cause and effect helps in describing the sound or scribble as the effect with the intent as the cause. The use would be the relationship between the intent and the scribble or sound. It's just that I'm also asserting that meaning also exists everywhere else causes (not just intentional causes) leave effects.

Yes, Harry, words can be used to talk about things. But they can do much more than just refer. The problem with a purely referential theory of language such as yours is that there is so much it cannot explain. — Banno

Thats all fine, but if meaning is not simply use, but the relationship between cause and effect, then words can be used to do other things, but as an effect of ones ideas and the intent to communicate them, words can always be used to refer to, or get at, one's intent, just like any one of their behaviors. Its just that "actions speak louder than words" in that its easier to hide the reference to ones intent with words than it is with actions that dont involve words.

Repeating it, even three or more times, does not make it so.

Is there anyone who agrees with you on this, Harry? — Banno

Neither does pleading to popularity or orthodoxy that doesnt exist.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/#Repr

Most involve referring to things in order to do stuff with them — Banno

Right, using words to refer to things that arent words in order to do stuff with those things that are not words. In other words, words are used to refer to the intent of the user to get some others to behave in a particular way.

No, Harry. It does not refer to anything; it does something. It begins the conversation. — Banno

Like i have said numerous times, meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. Effects are about their causes. Use requires intent. Intent is the cause of use, therefore use is about one's intent.

Speaking is a type of behavior and we attempt to get at the intent of other behaviors so that we form beliefs, or predictions about future behaviors.

i dont have to try that hard if "hello" is your one and only example. We can disagree on one example, but it take more than one example to prove your point.

Yeah, I noticed the leaning on possible worlds arguments in your replies regarding unspoken statements and propositions. — creativesoul

Not sure what use the idea of possible worlds is unless were talking about beliefs as predictions.

No, Harry - it doesn't refer to the begging of a conversation; it is the begining of a conversation. — Banno

Or a reference to the intent to communicate.

Yep. It's not referential. That's what you asked for. — Banno

Like i said, it refers to the beginning of a conversation, or the intent to communicate with you.

If its not referential, then what is its use?

Hello. — Banno

We've already been over this. No new examples?

"Hello" is the acknowledgement of two or more people to begin an exchange of information (have a conversation). "Good-bye" is the acknowledge of the parties' that the exchange of information has ended.

When a computer targets another to exchange information, they must acknowledge each other and the beginning of the exchange of information with what we call a "hand-shake" and then acknowledge the termination of the exchange with another acknowledgement from both nodes.

You seem to have entirely missed the point. Realist or idealist, one sentence is about the cat, the other about Harry. — Banno

No, it is you who missed the point. It wasnt a comparison of realism vs idealism, but between two different versions a realism - direct vs indirect. Idealism would also have two versions: direct vs. indirect.

Whatever you choose. — Banno

Not useful. Any examples of use other than representation would be helpful.

To the best of my knowledge, current convention denies that language less creatures can even have belief, to remain consistent with holding that all belief has propositional content(an attitude towards a proposition). — creativesoul

A Man Without Words is a story about a deaf man that grew up without language and only discovered language after becoming an adult.

Idelfonso obviously held beliefs before learning a language, or else how did he find food? He had to have beliefs about where food could be found that were not propositions, or else he would have starved, just like cats that learn and then hold beliefs that the sound of a can opener precedes the smell and taste of tuna.

What are language-less creatures' beliefs composed of? The same thing that words are composed of - shapes, colors, sounds, tastes, smells and the feelings that go along with them.

Try this: What is the subject of "the cat is on the mat"? I would say it is the cat. But what is the subject fo "Harry believes the cat is on the mat"? It's about Harry. They are quite different. — Banno

In the first, the naive realist believes that they can talk about how things are independent of some belief or observation. The first statement could be caused by an illusion, hallucination or a lie.

For the indirect realist, both are the same because you can only talk about your ideas or observations, and your ideas or observations would be about the way things are. So words can be about the way things are, but not without some observation, which is what some proposition is about, not about the way things are independent of some observation. We can only ever speak about our knowledge and hope that our knowledge is accurate.

Language was developed in such a way that it implies that we see the world as it is. When we speak of colors and sounds, we imply that those colors and sounds exist independent of our observations and that we see colors and hear sounds that are actually there. But science has shown that indirect realism is the case where colors only exist in the mind and are representations of wavelengths of EM energy, and sounds are representations of vibrating air molecules. As a result of modern scientific knowledge, it is understood that our words can only be about the way things are indirectly - meaning that our words refer to our ideas and our ideas refer to states-of-affairs. Our words only accurately refer to state-of-affairs when our ideas do the same.

Given that color is a component of the perception and not of the perceived, what is the subject of the statement, "The apple is red."?

Exactly; the attitude of taking the proposition to be true. — Banno

Having the attitude that some proposition is true doesn't make the proposition true. What makes some proposition true or not, and how would you know?

I don't see any benefit in that. I can see no clear way in which "We believe that Augustus was a Roman Emperor" is just a prediction. However treating belief as a propositional attitude has spawned very many further developments. Again it seems worth pointing out that it is, for better or worse, orthodoxy. — Banno

You predict both future and past state-of-affairs based on observations of current conditions. You can predict past events based on the effects they have left, like a criminal investigator investigating the evidence at the crime scene to predict the identity of the criminal and their motive. While the crime happened in the past, the knowledge of who did it is in the future and is only proved once the evidence is properly interpreted. Your continued reference to orthodoxy and popularity is a logical fallacy and not useful.

Not certainty, but truth. — Banno

We can know that we can be certain about some proposition, but not that some proposition is true. What does it mean for some proposition to be true?

And yet we do things with them. There's no point in going over the problems with your referential theory of meaning again. — Banno

What do we do with them, Banno? Use them to accomplish what goal? Intent precedes use and use is dependent upon intent. What is the intent of using words? Your "going over the problems of referential theory" were debunked and you abandoned the conversation, like you are doing now. There's no point in going over the problems of meaning is use again when you make the same arguments and keep appealing to popularity.

Meaning is use is not specific enough as words can be used for representation.

Beliefs are not propositions. They are attitudes towards propositions. The belief is not "the cat is on the mat" but that "It is true that the cat is on the mat". — Banno

I don't see the difference in the meaning. Why would you say the cat is on the mat if you weren't implying that it was true that the cat is on the mat?

"Attitudes" doesn't really fit, or leaves one wanting to know: what kind of attitude, if not the attitude that the proposition, or idea, is true?

Beliefs are better described as predictions. We are prediction machines and predictions are attitudes of probability towards some idea or proposition. We often use the phrases, "I think", "I believe", and "I know" to refer to the level of certainty we have of a given idea, with the latter being the most certain you can be.

Saying, "The sun will rise tomorrow." is the same as making a prediction and we make predictions based on prior experiences in similar circumstances. The more experience we have in a certain circumstance, the more certain we become that similar future circumstances will be the same. A belief is no different. Beliefs eventually become knowledge with more justification.

But in addition the model you use of talking as if things in your head were translated into language that is then transmitted and translated in things in your listener's head has been thoroughly critiqued, and found wanting. It's clear that it is much better to deal with the use to which one's utterance are put rather than to invent an enigmatic, disembodied entity called "the meaning of a word" that somehow floats from mind to mind.

If you are interested in formal representations of beliefs, the Stanford article on that topic is quite good.

As per all philosophical considerations, it takes for granted that beliefs are propositional attitudes. — Banno

Your use of "attitudes" and "use" is found wanting. What kind of attitudes, if not attitudes of certainty? Used for what if not representing things that aren't words?

I have found that defining meaning as the relationship between cause and effect very useful. Meaning is everywhere causes leave effects. Words are the effects of one's intent to communicate ideas that are not just other words. Some idea and the intent to communicate them is what causes words to appear on this page, and it is now the reader's job to get at the cause of the words - the idea the writer intends to communicate. Sometimes the reader may require re-phrasing or ask questions to better understand the idea.

There's a way of thinking that supposes, given that we talk about this being red and that being red, that there must be a thing which is named by "red". Of course, there isn't. The red in the sunset has nothing in common with the red in the sports car; apart from the name.

The temptation is to reify the red into existence. But all we actually have is a way of talking that has proved useful. — Banno

Words are just colored shapes on a background of a contrasting color, or particular sounds in the air. Given that we can talk about words and how they are shaped and how they sound, like we can talk about apples and the way the are colored and shaped and how they taste and smell, and compare them to other words, even from different languages, seems to show that we are talking about something when we use words like, "red", "black letters on white paper", and the way "where" sounds like "wear", as opposed to just "using" them (again, used for what if not to refer to something that isn't a word).

If there are beliefs that cannot be presented in propositional form, give us an example.
It's that simple. — Banno

I use whatever symbol-system I've learned and that I believe my reader knows so that I might translate my beliefs into a form perceivable to them. My beliefs are not only propositions, but can be symbolized using words.

If beliefs were only propositions then are you saying that your beliefs are only composed of visual scribbles and spoken sounds? What color are the words that form your belief, and the corresponding background that provides the contrast for you to be able to easily discern the scribbles that are imposed upon it? What font is used to form your belief? Is the type of font and color of the scribbles and background part of the belief? Just so I can better understand the composition of your beliefs, but I don't think that is going to get me anywhere in understanding your belief. What will help me understand your stated belief is what the scribbles on this page refer to, which can't be just scribbles in your head.

Do propositions exhaust the entirety of your beliefs? In reading your propositions, do I have direct access to your beliefs without missing anything in the translation?

These functions are experience in itself. — Hermeticus

This doesn't explain why I don't see the experience itself when looking at your brain. Instead I can only have the experience itself of looking at your brain. Your brain is not my experience of it (I hope, or else solipsism is the case and your brain doesn't exist when I don't think about it), nor is my brain my experience. My experience is a point of view.

How do non-colored neurons create the experience of color? How do neurons create the experience of visual depth?

How do you know there is no fundamental level? — Raymond

Because everytime himans declare theyve discovered the fundamental level of reality we find there are even smaller things, like atoms to protons to quarks.

Besides, how do you reconcile the concept of particles with the concept of the mind (the hard problem)‽ We can refer to the mind with words. Is the mind a thing or particle?

That's a property of particles in cooperation. — Raymond

I can use whatever term you like. Property is a type of information. When you use the terms property, interaction, relationship or process, you are referring to a type if information.

That definition is wanting in many respects. It doesn't, for example, say anything useful i.e. it merely states what's obvious. As for your request to tell you what you'r missing, I regret to inform you that I can't comply, for obvious reasons. — Agent Smith

It's not obvious, or else I wouldn't have asked in the first place. What use are you hoping to get from a definition other than the way some word is used to refer to some (obvious) state-of-affairs?

Is there experience without awareness? Can a rock, for instance, experience anything? Also,is there awareness sans experience? Is this sentence :point: "Tell me you experiences in Paris?" appropriate for a block of wood or does it seem like one that should be asked of a being capable of awareness, like yourself for example? — Agent Smith

I don't see how any of this answers my questions in my previous post. I asked you a question and now you're answering it with questions. Remember, I'm asking you to clarify what you have said about your position, not mine.

The process stops at a fundamental level. The fundamentals are massless. They interact and form the massive structures of quarks and leptons. They interact because they contain a charge, which is not a material like we see around us. Not a thing. So the word "charge", in relation to elementary particles, is an example of a word not referring to a thing. It's a non-thing in a thing. — Raymond

How do you know that there is a "fundamental level" of the universe? Any "level" is just a view from somewhere in the universe, so levels of the universe, including the "fundamental" one would just be different imaginary views of the universe from imaginary vantage points in the universe.

A charge is often described as an attribute, or defining quality, of some thing, which is just another way of saying that it is information.

Information is a material notion. It describes the spatial relationships between particles. — Raymond

What are particles? Isn't any particle really just an interaction of smaller "particles", which are in turn composed of the interaction of even smaller "particles", ad infinitum? So you never get at any particles, only interactions between smaller interactions, or information/processes all the way down. Particles would be the process of mental modeling of other information, or processes, relative to your own.

Not all words in English language refer to things though. — Raymond

Have any examples?
If some word doesnt refer to something, then what would you be talking about?

Sometimes it's not really a dog, but a bush shaking in the wind that you momentarily mistaken for a dog. Your experience was real, and it matched the experience that you would have if there was a dog, but there wasn't a dog.

I think there is always an element of illusion in everything we perceive. E.g. does the dog have a color in your experience? We know that the color perception in humans is somewhat arbitrary. It only ties to a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The things in the universe are not inherently colorful, but it's the human brain that perceives them as such. Is it not reasonable to say that color is kind of an illusion? Would this necessarily undermine our experience and knowledge about colors? — pfirefry

Right. So preliminary perceptions can lead to a misinterpretation of those perceptions. Only after you do a double-take and look more closely do you see that it's a shaking bush, and not a tail-wagging dog and the illusion is dispelled, yet you still experience something. So it seems to me that consciousness and its contents (qualia) are not illusions. As you said, the experience is real. It is the misinterpretation of the experience that is the illusion.

Take mirages and a "bent" straw in a glass of water. There isn't really water on the ground and the straw isn't bent. It is the light that is being bent and that is what you are experiencing. Once you interpret the sensory data correctly the illusion disappears. Even though I still experience the appearance of water on the ground and straws being bent, the interpretation is what either makes it an illusion or not. Once I interpret the data correctly, I am seeing it as it truly is. Pools of water on the ground and bent straws are what bent light looks like. Even though what things look like isn't the way those things truly are (that would be confusing the map with the territory), I can still get at how it truly is. How can I still get at things as they truly are indirectly? Because causes leave effects and effects are about their causes. So by seeing the effect (qualia) as it truly is I can get at what the qualia is about by correctly interpreting the causes.

Is your experience joyful when you're seeing a dog wagging its tail? Perhaps a person next to you experiences fear because they're afraid of dogs. Don't we call it an illusion when things appear differently in our experience from what they actually are? Do we ever perceive things exactly the way they are? Can an experience exist without containing at least some illusion in it? — pfirefry

That's if you are incorrectly projecting joy and fear onto the dog. In this case it would be an illusion if you interpreted your joy or fear as being part of the dog and not part of your self, just as we create an illusion by interpreting the bentness as part of the straw in the water and not to the light that reflects off it and into our eyes.

You came to that conclusion. You tell me. — Agent Smith

No. It is what you implied. Let's recap.

You said:

neither single neurons nor neural networks see themselves as they truly are, neurons or neural networks — Agent Smith

and

my neural network (brain) is not aware that it is a neural network (brain). — Agent Smith

So you implied that being aware of something is seeing it as it truly is.

I asked you how you know the mind as it truly is - as a neural network - if you're not aware of it:

Then how is it that you can say that you have a neural network if youre not aware of it? — Harry Hindu

You replied:

I learnt it later on, from biology books. — Agent Smith

So I attempted point out that you can be aware of something and not see it as it truly is:

So you can become aware of something by reading a book and not necessarily by experiencing "directly". — Harry Hindu

A book is not a brain or a mind, yet you said that you can be aware of a brain or mind as it truly is by reading a book.

You then said:

Therein lies the rub. We don't experience ourselves directly as brains - we're told we're brains. — Agent Smith

You switched from using the term, "aware" to "experience". So what you seemed to have implied is that you can be aware of things as they truly are by reading a book, but not experience things as they truly are. So I'm asking you what the difference is.

How are you using "experience" as opposed to "awareness" if you can be aware of things as they truly are even if you experience them not as they truly are. Are you experiencing the book as it truly is, that you then become aware of how brains truly are by reading it?

Thats the definition if time that works for me. Nothing else is needed. Why dont you tell me what I'm missing.

Therein lies the rub. We don't experience ourselves directly as brains - we're told we're brains. — Agent Smith

Then there is a difference between awareness and experience? What is the difference?

What the clock measures.

Basic idea = Something that can't be broken down into simpler ideas. Ergo, is undefin(ed/able). — Agent Smith

What the clock measures is change. The measurement of change is time, like the measurement of space is length. Clock is to the ruler as time is to length.

We are not conscious of these dynamic, complex and layered processes. We are only aware of their consequence. For example, when we pat a dog, we may experience seeing the dogs tail wag and feeling the texture of its coat.

We do not experience the light meeting our retina, travelling to our optic nerve as an electrical signal and into the brain structure and IT cortex where 16 million neurons activate in different patterns and register seeing a dog.

Nor do we experience the simultaneous chemical changes in the brain that may alter our mood and the firing of neurons in the somatosensory cortex that create a response that registers as ‘feeling dog hair’.
When we think about the dog, we do not experience the electrical activity of neurons in the visual and auditory cortexes, the prefrontal cortex or the activation of the motor cortex in preparation for saying ‘good dog’. — Brock Harding

Sure we do. Our experiences are what it is like to feel light entering the eye and the chemical changes in the brain. An experience is not the thing experienced but is about the thing experienced. Every thing is a consequence of prior causes. Things are not their causes.

Where is the illusion? Is there not really a dog wagging its tail when i experience a dog wagging its tail?

Just replace "dog" and "tail wagging" with "brain" and "neurons firing" and you have the same problem. By asserting that your mind is an illusion you undermine all of your experiences and knowledge, including those of brains and their neurons. The experience of seeing an MRI image of your brain would just be another of these consequences.

And none of this explains how brains can create illusions or how the substance of the illusion is created by the substance of the brain.

Assume R = Time is real

If R is true then there must be a proof (call it ϕ1ϕ1) that R.

The proof ϕ1ϕ1 implies that we can construct a reductio ad absurdum argument (call it ϕcϕc) to prove R.

ϕcϕc assumes the negation of R i.e. ~R = Time is unreal.

If ~R, there can't be contradictions (re definition of contradiction); no contradiction, no ϕcϕc; no ϕcϕc, no ϕ1ϕ1.

Conclusion: Impossible to prove time is real. — Agent Smith

This is a convoluted way to try and prove whether time is real or not. How about starting off with a definition of time and then we can discuss whether or not your definition refers to something real and consistent with observation.

So you can become aware of something by reading a book and not necessarily by experiencing "directly".

There's no point to this discussion: my neural network (brain) is not aware that it is a neural network (brain). Case closed! — Agent Smith

Then how is it that you can say that you have a neural network if youre not aware of it? You dont read other peoples posts and just keep repeating yourself.

You might think that is a hard problem, but it is not the so-called "Hard Problem". I don't think it is a hard problem at all; it seems obvious to me that you intimately know you are aware because you are yourself, and do not know others are aware in the same way, because you are not them. — Janus

Then I think that we are talking about different hard problems. Is it not the type of evidence that we have for recognizing our own self-awareness vs recognizing other's self-awareness, and how to reconcile the differences, what the so-called "Hard Problem" refers to?

If you recognize your own self-awareness using some evidence, but you can't use the same evidence to recognize other's self-awareness, then is the evidence you have for either really evidence at all for self-awareness?

There are all sorts of different relations, and some are not between objects, like the relation between hot and cold. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, there is the relationship between hot and cold, and then there is the relationship between your body temperature and the air's temperature. The difference is what you feel as hot or cold. Hotter bodies will feel cold, while colder bodies will feel hot. Everything is a relationship.

No that's not what I meant. I meant what I said. The word refers to the state, or condition of a certain type of unity. The type of unity being marriage, and the condition, that it has been ended. And if you cannot understand this without seeing it as a contradiction, I don't think it's worthwhile to say anything more. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ask any individual that has been divorced and they won't use the word "unity" to describe their current status, or relationship, with their former partner. If I can substitute the word "unity" with the word, "relationship" and it not take away from or unnecessarily add more to what you are actually saying, then we are both saying the same thing. It is now up to you to show how the two words have different meaning in what you are trying to say.

Suppose, arguendo, the mind = brain.

I'm now thinking about my mind. When I do, I don't see my brain. In other words my mind doesn't see itself as it truly is, assuming mind = brain. — Agent Smith

As I've been trying to show, mind and brain are the same, but appear different because you are observing from different viewpoints, or measurements. In one view point you are using reflected light to observe/measure minds/brains, from the other you are using qualia to observe/measure your mind/brain.

Why would the amount and type of light in the environment affect how you see brains if light was not part of the equation? So are you seeing the brain as it truly is when the lights are out?

Again, you seem to be confusing the image of a brain with the brain. What I've been trying to tell you is that the mind is capable of perceiving itself - as a mind. An image of a mind would be a brain. Just as the word "mind" is not a mind but a word, an image of a mind is not a mind but a brain.

The popular idea seems to be just that: that we can correctly see others "as they truly are".
It's why a formulation in the form of "You are x" isn't merely shorthand for "I think you are x". — baker

It seems to me that only x can say what they are and everyone else can only see it - which means using the way light reflects off of x as a means of knowing what x is.

Yes, it matters. Are you not scared by the proposition that you're trapped in indirectness? — baker

But are you not directly accessing your own mind and is your mind not part of the causality of the world? What would it be like to directly access something vs. indirectly.? Access is a term that implies indirectness, as something that is accessed by an accessor. How does the accessor access the accessed, if not indirectly - by accessing the effects x has on y (world on mind and mind on world)? Information takes time to travel from accessed to accessor.

It would seem that you have direct access to your mind with direct meaning that you are your mind, and indirect access to the world via light's effect on the eyes.

The divorce does not separate them, it still describes a unity, but it also puts a temporal constraint on that unity by saying that it has ended. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why not just agree that divorce and marriage are relationships so that you don't contradict yourself in saying that a divorce is a type of unity. What you mean is that it is a type of relationship.

People do not 'measure the space' between things, they measure the distance between them. So yes, by measuring the distance between them you are establishing a relationship, and this is inherently a unity between them. You are making them both one predicate of the same subject (which is the unity of the two) by saying that the two exist with such a distance between them. Measuring the distance between them is not to posit a space between them which is being measured, it is to posit a principle of unity between them, the act of measurement unites them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Every time you say "unity" you mean relationship. Every time you say "distance" you mean space. We are both saying essentially the same thing, but using different words. With our different words, we are pointing to the same thing. Thanks for agreeing. :smile:

Is there any experience without acquaintance with nature, or any acquaintance with nature without experience? I think experience is just a word to denote that we have awareness. To my way of thinking the so-called "hard problem" is a kind of illusion based on thinking that what matter is is clearly understood; that it is something like "dead" particles that could not, according to our conception, possibly give rise to what we think of as "immaterial" subjective experience. The hard problem then seems to me to be an expression of incredulity based on ignorance. — Janus

The hard problem is trying to explain why there is a difference in the evidence used to assert that you are aware vs.asserting that others are aware. How you come to know that you are aware vs. knowing others are aware is totally different.

Might have once read something about government gaining legitimacy through the consent of the governed. — Ennui Elucidator

For most of human history governments have gained legitimacy through lies and fear. The governed may appear to be consenting (North Korean citizens proclaiming their love for their precious leader is a good example), but they only do so out of fear. In this sense they are not consenting, they are coerced.

When power-hungry elitists gain control of government and consolidate their power (outsider, non-politicians are not welcome in their group), and much of what they do is behind closed doors and what they say is all generalizations and plurality, then is this what the goverened has consented to, or are the goverened merely preoccupied with celebrities and themselves (making themselves a celebrity) on TikTok and Facebook to give a damn? Dumbing down the governed is one way to make it look like the governed are giving consent when in fact the governed are just to dumb to know that they arent, or wouldn't, if they really knew what was going on in the government.

Self-awareness: x sees x via an image of x that x is capable of generating. — Agent Smith

I dont know what this means. I describe self-awareness as a sensory information feedback loop, like the visual or auditory feedback you get when pointing a camera at its monitor or a microphone to its speaker. When you think about your "self" (one problem that we need to resolve is what is a self and where is it relative to the mind, brain and body), you are creating an information feedback loop - of the mind minding itself.

Come to us, humans, now. When I engage in self-reflection, I don't see myself as a brain. Physicalists insist that the brain is the mind. Ergo, the brain is incapable of self-reflection (it doesn't see itself as it truly is, a mushy mass of meat). Consciousness is an illusion? — Agent Smith

Im not a physicalist (i dont even know what "phyisical" means), nor do i believe that consciousness is an illusion. I do agree that the distinction between mind and brain needs a good explanation. I think that the mind and brain are one and the same - just from different views, like photons can be both waves and particles, depending on the measuring device being used. The sensory-brain system (mind) is a measuring device. But be careful not to confuse the measurement with what is being measured.

Separates" and "unites" are somewhat opposed. — Metaphysician Undercover

The definition in the OP is wrong. Scientists have described space as a thing that can expand or contract. Put a wall between you and I and an object, not space, separates us.

These are both types of relationships. A couple can be married (unites) and then divorced (separates) and both are types of relationships between them. You could be sitting right next to me or across the country and that is a relationship between you and I.

In measuring the space between individuals are you not establishing a relationship between them? Thats what a measurement is - a relationship.