I am but with other posters at this point because I found something of interest. — schopenhauer1

Uh huh.

What the hell is the point of the petty squabbling. Stop trying to be assholes or clever and state your case. — schopenhauer1

I did state my case. You clearly have nothing to say or you would have said something already.

Always good to associate with peers. — tim wood

I find you worthless. Maybe time to move on.

Not interested in kiddy stuff. Mostly undergrad punks trying to be competent. Might not be the right forum for me.

You last year? You're a junior now? A poem for you — tim wood

I teach college. I would ask you to leave my class.

But there is an historic aspect of all this barely touched on. The ancient Greeks attributed such order as they found in nature to "mind." — tim wood

Nous can be translated as mind, but also intelligence.
For Aristotle, intelligence is as fundamental to the world as physical objects.

If you want to be a panpsychist, the best way to do so is to attack emergentism as hard as you can. If you can say that emergentism isn't true, and that consciousness is real, then you can say that consciousness is fundamental. — Pneumenon

Panpsychism is the idea that the universe is structured as intelligent. Intelligence is not derived from anything.

What do you think philosophy is about? — bert1

An interest in how the world is. Arguing is for sophomores.

You don't have to have one, but then you should be quiet, — bert1

Seriously, are there any adults who use this forum? Is this place just for kids?

You haven't done any philosophy here. Philosophy is about argument and rational justification for beliefs. — bert1

No. That's for undergrads who think they're masters because they know some names.

Wiki: Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context. — jgill

Why do people keep citing wikipedia? Most philosophers use the SEP, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

What Banno — schopenhauer1

I reported Banno to moderators.

Go back and read what I wrote. I stated my thesis. Go outside for a walk if you have excess nervous energy.

Don't believe it. I have no patience for smart alecks.

Sorry. I was flippant about atoms having minds. But a mind is something which has mental states and mental contents, no? Where, or rather how, do we draw the line between the environment and ourselves? — Zophie

Right. I wanted to shift the discussion from consciousness to intelligence. Consciousness is an aspect of intelligence.

Banno is a troll.

2. Varieties of Contemporary Panpsychism

2.1 The Definition of Panpsychism
The word “panpsychism” literally means that everything has a mind. However, in contemporary debates it is generally understood as the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. Thus, in conjunction with the widely held assumption (which will be reconsidered below) that fundamental things exist only at the micro-level, panpsychism entails that at least some kinds of micro-level entities have mentality, and that instances of those kinds are found in all things throughout the material universe. So whilst the panpsychist holds that mentality is distributed throughout the natural world—in the sense that all material objects have parts with mental properties—she needn’t hold that literally everything has a mind, e.g., she needn’t hold that a rock has mental properties (just that the rock’s fundamental parts do).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/

Already did.

Well, I gotta admit, I was sceptical. But with an argument like that, what more is there to say? I'm convinced. — Banno

I find your childish insulting annoying. Do I need to report you to the moderators?

before we assume atoms have minds? — Zophie

Right. I want to stay away from what having a mind is and simply describe it as the principle of intelligence.

My only problem with panpsychism is that it's virtually indistinguishable from animism. — Zophie

Panpsychism is closer to the qbit. As Wheeler described it, no physical particle exists without information.

Another way of stating this is that the universe is inherently intelligent. This is an ancient idea that nous is everywhere in the world. Nous is mind or thought.

Panpsychism isn't neutral monism. Russell had in mind a third ingredient in addition to mind and matter.

There's nothing special about neutral monism which is why it's neutral and unknowable. — Zophie

I think they're similar. But my point is not to equate the two, But I never read about this "third ingredient" from Russell.

but it seems pretty clear that at rock bottom, there must be something that exists as a metaphysical necessity. — Michael Nelson

The fact that there is a world does not mean there has to be a world.

We weren't talking about language games, but games in general, and whether all games must contain some common essential feature. Wittgenstein rejects this idea, claiming that games share in a family of similar features, but without there being one essential feature that every game must contain. — Luke

Right.

Nevertheless, what about a game such as truth or dare. Is that a game? If so, what counts as successful and unsuccessful performance? — Luke

Generally I agree with what your position is. But it does seem that a language game has to convey something and not just be gibberish.

Catching the ball means winning the game? — Luke

A game would require the concept of a successful performance. Does not have to mean winning.

One example of a game is chess. There are rules of chess which can be learned in an hour. But the game is about winning and knowing the rules does little to help you win. Playing chess improves your game. Most good players study grandmaster games to learn how the best play.

I think Wittgenstein's point is that chess is very complex because of its play and defining piece movements and rules will not tell us what the game is about.

But there is such a thing as universal good - consisting of the union set of all things to which the word "good" has been applied to. — TheMadFool

Okay. But that seems abstract. Plato asks what is common about a good shoemaker and good statesman. After we say they perform their tasks well, what knowledge has been added to what we already knew? The problem with universals is not that they are wrong but that they don't convey the knowledge they're supposed to have.

There is no common theme detectable in these three people and if Wittgenstein has the say then, good doesn't have a universally applicable meaning - its different for different people and has no fixed referent. — TheMadFool

Wittgenstein is criticizing platonism, the idea that we cannot understand the good without understanding what all uses have in common. I think Plato had this backwards. We do understand each use of good and do not need to have a universal concept of good.

We may (mis)understand. — TheMadFool

Yes. But that is not a problem of language.

Which is another way of saying meaning (of words) is not in reference but elsewhere and that elsewhere for Wittgenstein is use but, my suspicion is that words are being misused and since Wittgenstein's theory (of language games) is predicated on words being used well, it follows that his theory needs some adjustment to say the least. — TheMadFool

If you say something and I understand it then you have used words properly.

That family resemblance exists in the word universe doesn't imply that words have no referents, that referential meaning is flawed and so forth. What it really does is reveal errors in word usage and the cumulative effect of such errors. — TheMadFool

I think Wittgenstein's argument is not that words have no referents but that our understanding is not a function of their references.

The problem is not that words are misused but that words don't have essential meanings..

For instance, continuing with Wittgenstein's water example, "water", first and foremost, refers to H2O. — TheMadFool

Right. You give a good analysis. The problem I have is using H2O as a universal.
Is the lake and ocean both H2O? Not exactly. The ocean is salty and a lake is not. You can drink lake water but not ocean water.

What should I read for Wittgenstein? — TheMadFool

Philosophical Investigations. Also, a great reference for philosophy is the SEP, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

in·sti·tu·tion
/ˌinstəˈt(y)o͞oSH(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce
noun
1.
a society or organization founded for a religious, educational, social, or similar purpose.
"a certificate from a professional institution"

https://www.google.com/search?q=institution&rlz=1C1OKWM_enUS777US777&oq=institution&aqs=chrome..69i57.3121j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

ok

A building. That simple.

[reply="Ban
no;407069"]

No, I meant, make your argument about the specific text. Are you new to philosophy?

Buddhism isn't a defined institution. Neither is Christianity really. Only a couple of Churches are actually institutions, the rest of them are all over the place. — h060tu

Missing your point. A church, by definition, is an institution.