I think we have fundamentally different structures of experience. — Noble Dust

maybe you're just more well-adjusted while my neuroses dictate my philosophical thinking more than you. — Noble Dust

Which is interesting, actually. I wonder to what extent people's interest in self-help correlates to their psychological states or conditions. And whether those interested in philosophy proper are in any better shape. — Noble Dust

And whether those interested in philosophy proper are in any better shape. — Noble Dust

He did not respond with the infantile phrases Mr O'Donaghue suggests on the website you cited. — universeness

Consciousness (the process), seems more like a post hoc storytelling of self-identity, it's a way of bringing together otherwise disparate and often contradictory mental processes into a coherent whole by re-telling what just happened seconds ago with this single character as the protagonist. — Isaac

I'm something of a (slightly reformed) behaviourist, so I'm also in agreement with you in that it is our behaviours which reveal to us mental processes. Later on in my career, however, I was lucky enough to work with some excellent neuroscientists on issues around visual perception and they changed a lot of the way I think about cognitive processes. Now I consider it to be a bit more OK to talk about a mere cognitive state (sans behaviour) as being a real state of affairs, but I'm still not as comfortable with it as I am with behaviour. — Isaac

philosophy can open one's eyes. To what and why? For what purpose? — Noble Dust

Otherwise, this is an interesting thread because I find myself agreeing with what T Clark and @Michael have said, which has never happened before. — Jamal

• I'm really smart
• I'm really funny
• I'm kind of an asshole

Thanks for interesting post. — bert1

This perhaps is related to arguments from ignorance. I've been told that's what I'm doing several times, and that might be right. Maybe I just haven't read enough neuroscience. Maybe I lack faith in the scientific method which, after all, is easily the best method we have had so far in our history at arriving at reliable/true/useful theories about the world. — bert1

Having said all that, the issues seem to me to be conceptual rather than empirical. Sometimes scientists need philosophers to help them out a bit with the concepts (yeah that's patronising, I don't care. — bert1

I classify phenomenal consciousness as a mental process. That's the kind of a thing I say it is. The category I say it belongs in. One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors.

If it's not a mental process, what kind of a thing is it? What category does it fit in? — T Clark

That may be true of some, but I don't think it's true of many philosophers. People like Brian Cox and Dawkins make much of this point - going on and on about how the wonders of the natural world are not diminished by their physical basis. I think it basically a straw man, no serious woo-mongers actually make this point. — bert1

One example of an important conceptual matter is the idea that consciousness does not, conceptually, seem to admit of borderline cases. — bert1

OK, so you're a non-reductionist about the mind. That's obviously fine but it creates a problem. If mind isn't just the operation of a nervous system, what is it? A simple unsophisticalted identification (the simplest way to be a physicalist) between neural activity and consciousness is no longer an option. One option is to take a hierarchical systems approach, saying that whole systems and sub-systems have properties unique to each 'level' and these have upward and downward causation powers, and that various components of mind, including consciousness, is somehow captured with these concepts. I think apokrisis thinks something along these lines (no doubt I have got it wrong somewhat wrong). — bert1

As a panpsychist I go much further, and assert that any behaviour at all, including the behaviour of atoms, is valuable for the mind of the atom. Everything happens because of consciousness. I've been toying with the idea that all causation is actually psychological. — bert1

The joke I don't get tired of repeating is taken from Churchill: "Panpsychism is the worst theory of consciousness apart from all the others." — bert1

At an elegant dinner party, Lady Astor once leaned across the table to remark, “If you were my husband, Winston, I’d poison your coffee.”
“And if you were my wife, I’d beat the shit out of you,” came Churchill’s unhesitating retort. — Michael O'Donaghue - The Churchill Wit

In my own experience, pop philosophy/psychology books were very helpful as a kid and made me curious about the direct sources. I see articles like the one in the OP similarly— the difference being I’m more “elitist” now, do I have to counter the instinct to look down my nose. — Mikie

Why examine oneself if not to improve oneself? — Noble Dust

Science's paradigm states that we don't observe Advance Properties "floating" free in Nature. We constantly verify the need of Physical Structures with functions for such properties to emerge.
This is how we demarcate Supernatural from scientific claims, When Kastrup or Sheldrake or Hoffmann etc project high level features in nature independent of physical low level mechanisms we quickly understand that we deal with a pseudo scientific story. — Nickolasgaspar

Is there not a place for articles like this, and pop philosophy in general? — Mikie

Fair enough. But what is this deep curiosity ? Do you have any thoughts on it ? On its source ? Is it good for the species ? Is it innate in us ? — green flag

Why would a person seek to be more rational, more educated, if this wasn't understood as an improvement, a development, an enrichment ? — green flag

19:15 for those of us living in the One True Timezone. — Michael

Donald Trump is being arraigned in New York city. — Mikie

But it doesn't follow from that that consciousness is behaviour. — Michael

One of the characteristics of a mental processes is that they are behaviors or at least that they manifest themselves to us as behaviors. — T Clark

As you even say yourself "much of our behavior, I would say most, is not driven by consciousness" and so clearly they are two different things. — Michael

Then it is only fair that Kappa gets some attention. — Caerulea-Lawrence

What I don’t get is the hatred for sock puppets.
— 0 thru 9

Yeah, me either. I'm actually a sock puppet for @Baden. As a moderator I don't want to overwhelm people with my wisdom, sophistication, and wit, so I created T Clark to represent my better self. [Edit] Kappa. — T Clark

That's one theory. I wouldn't take it as a given. — Michael

... What would an answer look like? Give me an example answer. It's doesn't have to be the right answer, just an example of what sort of thing would satisfy you. — Isaac

I can think things and yet not tell you or anyone else what I am thinking. There's more to consciousness than just public behaviour. — Michael

That consciousness drives behaviour isn't that consciousness is behaviour. — Michael

I suggest trying to ask it to pay special attention to the ambiguity of language, and justify the translation of each ambiguous word. You get excellent translations that way. I tried this with the first chapter of the Daodejing, and got a footnoted translation. Each footnote justified the translation for each footnoted word, and provided alternative meanings of the translated ideograms. — Ying

The potential problem here is that if there is such a thing as first person consciousness, and if first person consciousness is essentially private, then by necessity there can’t be any sort of public, scientific evidence of or explanation for it. — Michael

The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
the integration of information by a cognitive system;
the reportability of mental states;
the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
the focus of attention;
the deliberate control of behavior;
the difference between wakefulness and sleep. — Chalmers - Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness

Neuroscience has nothing to say about phenomenal consciousness. — bert1

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience...

...Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — Chalmers again

What I don’t get is the hatred for sock puppets. — 0 thru 9

I assosciate it with people in their teens and early twenties. — Caerulea-Lawrence

Which isn't to say it isn't true, kappa. — Caerulea-Lawrence

green flag was unbanned after a lovely email pointing out an error that we made. Allegedly they asked to be banned in the days of yore, and it would be strange to keep someone banned if they weren't banned for any misconduct. — fdrake

We now have the "suspended" role, which can be used to stop someone posting. — fdrake

Ah. I see. So all we have to do is wait for Noble Dust to create a thread about PKD. Damn, that's like a big responsibility. Not easy to create a thread about one the most philosophical of sci-fi writers. Wonder how that will go.

But no pressure. — Manuel

Thank you for providing this example — Pierre-Normand

So on a rough line, which approach, which perspective, comes closer to the interests you express here - Bunge's "real man" approach, decisive and practical, or Midgley's open, piecemeal, remedial approach? — Banno

You seem to imply that the intellect has little to do with ethics and politics... — Banno

@Well, I mean, what did you make of it? — Manuel

Woah, you read it already? Ok, I’ll see what I can do… I would like to re read it though, especially since I need to gather my thoughts in order to make a decent OP. — Noble Dust

Can you provide one or two examples of the "significant figures" that it couldn't handle? — Pierre-Normand

a UBIK by Philip K. Dick thread. — Noble Dust

With regards to English, it is my second language, and even though I believe I have a decent grasp on the language, it should be relatively apparent in these kinds of high-level conversations that I am a non-native speaker. — Caerulea-Lawrence

Why I'd like to join is a bit similar to what Wayfarer writes in this post.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14024/meta-philosophy-types-and-orientations — Caerulea-Lawrence

My perspective on it would be to find others that want to harmonize not only different perspectives and insights, but also experiences, moral and everyday life as well. In that sense, my objective aligns with the concept of Intentional Community, but I am more focused on finding people that have a meta-vision with regards to their life, and have a longing for co-creating with others as well. — Caerulea-Lawrence

This is just wrong. Much work has been done in reshaping man's relation to the world and conception of himself from the point of view of the environment as a whole. This gives rise to an entirely new value system which is necessarily in conflict with capitalism and scientism. It is very little discussed on this site, because it has been successfully marginalised, sidelined and ridiculed to a great extent. But there is a philosophy of ecology, that is even called Deep Ecology, and much related material on the concept of wilderness, and Ecosophy, and all sorts of interesting stuff that the Man does not want us to talk about. — unenlightened

Daniel Dennett updated the quote 50 years later with - "90% of everything is crap. That is true, whether you are talking about physics, chemistry, evolutionary psychology, sociology, medicine – you name it – rock music, country western. 90% of everything is crap." — Tom Storm

Mary Midgley: Philosophical Plumbing — Banno

I think his view of Metaphysics is the only meaningful one. After all Philosophy's goal is nothing more than our efforts to produce wise claims about our world(etymology). In order for any claim to be wise it needs to interpret verified knowledge and reflect on the consequences of it. So by default Metaphysics provide solutions to questions and problems.
The best example of how good philosophy can be in problem solving can be found in Scientific Frameworks (Theories). — Nickolasgaspar