Time came into existence along with the universe — Banno

Schopenhauer says time began with the first eye opening.

a platonic number or form (e.g., the perfect circle, devoid of which there is no pi, devoid of which there is no QM) will all "stand out" to us. Whereas consciousness (via which we apprehend objects of awareness such as the....universal of a perfect circle) does not. Were existence to be synonymous to actuality, as per what you've said of Peirce's interpretation, this discrepancy would not be accounted for. — javra

Here, I want to come back to the reality of intelligibles. Scientific principles, mathematical relations, and the natural numbers are not dependent on any individual mind, yet they can only be grasped by a mind. That is the sense in which I hold they are real (in the noumenal or intelligible sense) but not existent (in the phenomenal, spatiotemporal sense. This is nearer to the pre-Kantian sense of 'noumenal', which Kant adapted, and changed, for his own purposes.)

This isn’t meant as a full metaphysical system, but as an heuristic:

* existent = that which appears in space, time, and causal relations; what can be encountered as a phenomenon

* real = that which has objective validity or logical necessity, but is not a physical particular

This is very close to Peirce’s schema: laws, generalities, and mathematical structures are real even though they do not exist as phenomena of Secondness. On those grounds, I don’t think “reality” can be collapsed into “existence” without erasing the ontological standing of intelligibles altogether.

Furthermore language depends on such abstractions. Whenever we use the terms ‘same as’, ‘equal to’, ‘different from’, ‘less than’, and so on, we’re making use of our capacity for rational abstraction, without the requirement of being aware of doing so. This capacity is anticipated by a discussion in Plato’s Phaedo called ‘The Argument from Equality’. In it, Socrates argues that in order to judge the equal length of two like objects — two sticks, say, or two rocks — we must already have ‘the idea of equals’ present in our minds, otherwise we wouldn’t know how to go about comparing them; we must already have ‘the idea of equals’. And this idea must be innate, he says. It can’t be acquired by mere experience, but must have been present at birth.

I don’t know if it’s necessary for us to accept the implied belief in the ‘incarnation of the soul’ to make sense of the claim: the fact that it’s innate is what is at issue. It is the innate capacity which provides us the ability to make such judgements, which we as rational creatures do effortlessly. It is just this kind of innate capabiiity which empiricism tends to deprecate (subject of Steve Pinker's book The Blank Slate).

On a larger scale, the same kind of capacities of abstraction are brought to bear on formulating the mathematical bases of theoretical physics. Science sees the Universe through such mathematical hypotheses, which provide the indispensable framework for making judgements (in accordance with the oft-quoted Galilean expression that ‘the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics’).

Thus intellectual abstractions, the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are quite literally the ligatures of reason — they are what binds rational conceptions together to form coherent ideas.

You did ask me once what I meant by that expression.

If that's true, the law exists — Ludwig V

There’s actually a vast literature on whether or in what sense scientific laws exist, whether they’re laws etc.

It’s an artifact as such an extension of human capabilities.

I’ve noticed Peirce’s distinctions, mainly through interactions with @apokrisis over the years, and have read up on them a little. I find them useful precisely because he maintains a distinction between the real and the existent—a distinction I think is crucial, but which has largely dropped out of contemporary philosophical discourse. It survives, in a thinner form, in modern modal metaphysics, but typically only along strictly semantic lines (as in possible-worlds semantics), rather than with anything like Peirce’s richer, ontologically structured metaphysics.

In addition to 'res potentia', we also have to consider the reality of abstractions, such as the natural numbers. Here my sympathies lie with Platonism, although much of the debate around 'platonism in philosophy of math' is abstruse. But I take the point in the SEP article on same, that:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.

I find the 'this would be an important discovery' unintentially ironic, as according to many, this was already evident to the ancient Greeks and probably the ancient Egyptians. But, in any case, the whole reason that this is such a controversial topic is straightforward: if number is real but not material, then it undercuts philosophical materialism and a lot of empiricist philosophy:

...scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Me, I'd take the mile.

I think any useful metaphysic has to be able to disinguish reality, being and existence. These terms all have overlapping meanings, but they’re not exactly synonymous.

Peirce distinguishes reality and existence. For Peirce the real is that which is what it is independent of what any one person or definite group of people may think it is. It is the object of the final opinion of the indefinite community of investigators. But note this does not refer to material objects as such, as for example the law of conservation of energy is real, because its action is independent of what any one person or group thinks about it. It would hold true even if all humans vanished. It is a stable, general pattern or "habit" of the universe (although personally, I believe that the fact that human intelligence is alone capable of grasping such principles is itself metaphysically significant.)

Existence (or Actuality) refers to the primitive dyadic fact of an object reacting against or related to something else. It corresponds to Peirce's category of Secondness (Action/Fact/Brute Force).

Scope: Existence is limited to particular, individual, spatio-temporal facts, occurrences, and things that are actually here and now, having a brute impact on us or on other things. What is real extends far beyond that.

For Peirce, something can be real without existing (e.g., a universal law or a potential quality), but anything that exists is also real. The existing things are just the particular instances where the real generalities (laws and habits) are manifested in brute, immediate interaction.

I find the reality of potentialities or possibilities are particularly interesting in this respect. There are real possibilities, such as the fact that one out of 12 horses will win a race tomorrow, and impossibilities, such as that it might be won by some animal other than a horse. Some possibilities or potentialities are real, but others are not. A range of possibilities may be impossible to determine. The Schrodinger equation in physics is basically a strictly-formulated range of possible outcomes.

Being is not something specifically addressed in Peirce's lexicon in the same sense that it is in (for example) philosophical theology or 20thc existentialism. A large topic in its own right, but I would just observe the fact that we ourselves are beings (rather than existents or objects) is a clue to the nature of any enquiry into the nature of being, insofar as we ourselves are part of what we are seeking to understand.

I've been a Dennett antagonist ever since before joining this Forum. I thought the title of his book Consciousness Explained was ridiculously pompous (and indeed, it was widely parodied as 'Consciousness Ignored'. Galen Strawson satirically suggested that Dennett should be sued for deceptive trade practice. Been over it too many times.

Oh, no I didn't write it, but I feel it supports the point I was making in my comment. I heard about that article on another forum a couple of years ago, but I thought it was worth passing on. Also notice it has an audio version, whch is good, as it's quite a long read.

I’ve always felt that the basic idea behind the myth of the Fall of Man is indispensable in understanding the human condition (not that I necessarily concur with all of the traditional interpretations placed on it.) But it seems pretty straightforward that the whole reality of shame, guilt, and moral culpability can only come into being with the condition of self-awareness and self-consciousness which humans alone seem capable of. That there is terrible cruelty in nature there is no question, but neither prey nor predator are moral agents in the sense that humans can be. I've always felt that the parable of the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil' was a symbolic representation of that self-conscious state of being - of ownership, a sense of 'me and mine' and all of the qualities that accompany it. Humans are capable of extraordinary acts of compassion and empathy and also of dreadful violence and cruelty, and are driven by emotions and desires to act against their own best interests. All of that is implied in 'the Fall', and the want of it seems to me a lack or an absence in many secular philosophies. In fact the very suggestion that the myth of the Fall might still be meaningful or relevant is likely to be met with considerable hostility from a lot of people.

You might be interested in this long review from several years ago, The Strange Persistence of Guilt

I have never posited consciousness as a 'thinking thing' or as an homuncular entity. And an illusion is something that only a mind can entertain. Although I suppose I can't do anything about selective readings.

The danger you and I both recognize comes not from the story Bitbol tells here, but from the further story which physicalists try to tell, in which heat is "really" or "actually" or "reduced to" its objectively measurable components. — J

Of course! Neither you or @Patterner are the kinds of reductive materialists that Bitbol (and Chalmers) have in their sights - but plenty are, and that is who he's addressing.

In Consciousness Explained, I described a method, heterophenomenology, which was explicitly designed to be 'the neutral path leading from objective physical science and its insistence on the third-person point of view, to a method of phenomenological description that can (in principle) do justice to the most private and ineffable subjective experiences, while never abandoning the methodological principles of science. — Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science

That is the polar opposite of Bitbol's phenomenology and Chalmers' naturalistic dualism. So they're not (and I'm not) 'attacking straw man arguments' - physicalists really do say that. It's important to get clear on the fault lines between the tectonic plates, so to speak. Which, from what you're saying, I'm not sure that you're seeing. (Incidentally I'm drafting a Medium essay "Intro to Bitbol" which I hope might be useful as he has an enormous amount of material online.)

From my dealings with religious/spiritual people, I surmise that the purpose of religion/spirituality is that it's a way to have power over other people and to live a comfortable life, without actually having to work for it or deserve it by virtue of one's high birth. — baker

I think that is just a tad cynical.

I should add a caveat about McGinn. His “mysterian” view is useful in one narrow sense: he at least takes the reality of consciousness seriously, and he recognises that the standard physicalist story hasn’t solved anything. In that respect he’s a welcome counterweight to the eliminativist impulse.

But I think his explanation for the “mystery” goes astray. He says we can’t understand consciousness because humans lack the right conceptual equipment — as if a special metaphysical faculty were required to see how brain processes give rise to experience.

The difficulty is simpler, and much less exotic: the scientific conception of “nature” that we inherited from Galileo and Descartes deliberately brackets out subjective experience in order to describe the world in purely quantitative, third-person terms. So when we later try to fit consciousness back into that picture, it naturally appears inexplicable. (This has also been subject of the discussion in the First v Third Person thread.)

That’s not a cognitive failing, it’s a conceptual one. The framework within which he's considering the problem has already excluded what it is we’re trying to understand. So I think McGinn identifies the symptom correctly — the intractability — but not the underlying cause. 'Knowing your own mind' is still eminently feasible but maybe it doesn't mean what a lot of people would like it to mean.

Ref: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/C.McGinn/McGinn_1989_Mind-body-problem_M.pdf

Heat really is two different things at the same time, from different perspectives — J

Another snippet from Michel Bitbol, this one from a paper Is Consciousness Primary? (I’m on a Bitbol bender at the moment.)

Let me give an illustration of this process of objectification, borrowed from the dawn of thermodynamics. The long and difficult process by which the thermodynamic variables such as temperature, pressure, and even volume (though at a much earlier period of history) have been extracted from their experiential basis is a locus classicus of the philosophical history of science (Bachelard, 1938, 1973 ; Mach, 1986). In the beginning, there were bodily “sensations”, ordinary practices, and an overabundance of qualitative observations about color of metals, fusion or ebullition of materials, expansion of liquids according to whether they are cold or hot etc. Heat and temperature were hardly distinguished from one another, and from the feeling of hotness. As for pressure, it was little more than a name for felt strain on the skin. But, progressively, a new network of quantitative valuations emerged from this messy experiential background, together with the laws that connect them (such as the ideal gas law). Even though sensations of hotness and strain still acted as a root and as a last resort for these valuations, they slipped farther and farther away from attention, being the deeper but less reliable stratum in a growingly organized series of criteria for assessing thermodynamic variables. At a certain point, the sensation of hotness no longer played the role of an implicit standard at all ; it was replaced by phase transitions of water taken as references for a scale of variable dilatations in liquid thermometers. This scale, which posits a strict order relation of temperatures, replaced the mixture of non-relational statements of hot or cold and partial order relation of hotter and colder which tactile experience together with qualitative observation of materials afford. Accordingly, the visual experience of graduation readings, or rather the invariant of many such visual perceptions, was given priority over the tactile experience of hotness. Later on, when the function “Heat” was clearly distinguished from the variable “temperature”, and its variation defined as the product of the “heat capacity” times the variation of temperature, tactile experience was submitted to systematic criticism : the feeling of hotness was now considered as a complex and confused outcome of heat transfer between materials of unequal heat capacities and the skin, and also of the physiological state of the subject. From then on, declarations about tactile experience, which had acted initially as the tacit basis of any appraisal of thermic phenomena, were pushed aside and locked up in the restrictive category of so-called “subjective” statements (Peschard & Bitbol, 2008).

It is an example of how the ‘primary/secondary’ distinction emerged in a real-world context.

All of this still operates entirely within the materialist frame. It searches for an objective correlate—some measurable physical proxy—that can be mapped onto the intentional, semantic, and affective dimensions of experience. McFadden’s “cemi field” belongs to the familiar genre of quasi-scientific proposals that promise to locate consciousness in some previously overlooked physical substrate. But despite adopting new language (“information field,” “downloading,” “integration”), it remains materialist in essence: the hope is that adding one more physical principle will bridge the explanatory gap.

But ask the obvious question: even if such a field were discovered, would it bring us one step closer to the meaning of "know thyself"? The point is that we already have intimate acquaintance with consciousness—not as an object among objects, but as the observer, to whom anything appears as an object in the first place. No amount of empirical elaboration on electromagnetic dynamics touches this first-person dimension. It only charts more correlations.

So I think Mcfadden's confidence in 'solving' the hard problem is misplaced. Problems are things for which solutions are possible; mysteries are circumstances of which we are a part (McGinn?). In that sense the hard problem is not a puzzle awaiting a clever physical hypothesis. It is the modern reappearance of an older insight: that the subject cannot be catalogued as one more item in the world, any more than walking far enough will take you to the horizon.

For that matter, why is THIS thread on the front page? :brow:

Fair enough. What with today's climate shenanigans in Australian politics, I'm sensitive to the downplaying of it, that's all.

Other than that there will be bumps in the road not a a collapse of civilisation. — I like sushi

A lot of really bad things can happen, short of civilizational collapse. For example, Bangladesh faces exceptionally severe consequences from climate change due to its unfortunate combination of geography and high population density. This densely-populated nation is predominantly a low-lying delta, making it acutely susceptible to sea-level rise, which threatens to permanently inundate vast coastal areas and push saline water inland, contaminating freshwater and soil. Exacerbating this risk is its location on the Bay of Bengal, a "funnel" that intensifies tropical cyclones, leading to catastrophic storm surges and increasing the frequency of devastating riverine flooding. This environmental fragility is amplified by the country's immense population density, where millions of people are dependent on climate-sensitive livelihoods like agriculture and fishing. Consequently, climate impacts directly translate into massive food and water insecurity, large-scale displacement, and mounting humanitarian and economic crises, making Bangladesh one of the most climate-vulnerable nations globally.

Already, the unfortunate Rohinga refugees, largely displaced from their homelands in Bengal, subsist by their thousands in miserable squalor on the fringes of Myanmar, wracked by civil war. So what happens if another 30 or 40 million Bangladeshis are displaced by these catastrophes in an adjacent region?

It may not be global civllisational collapse, but for those millions involved, it might as well be.

Any one-sentence OP is basically click bait.

…the plainly crackpot idea of there being a mind field or plane of consciousness which brain biology “tunes” into and so “lights up with” that magically subjective phenomenonal state. — apokrisis

What if the whole of evolutionary history is that process? That the emergence of life just is the manifestation of the subjective? And furthermore, that the reason this won’t be considered scientific, is because this field is something you’re never outside of, and so cannot objectify.

Doesn’t this dovetail with Peirce’s ‘feeling’ as fundamental? Matter as effete mind? The embodiment of Firstness?

In considering this in manners devoid of a “cosmic (ultimate) telos”, how would ethics not reduce to evolutionary processes of natural selection? Something I so far thought you were opposed to. — javra

Excellent question! Broadly, it means humans are confronted with the fact of their own mortality, in a way that animals are not. (This is not to say that some animals aren’t aware of death and dying, as elephants clearly are.) But it means wrestling with questions of meaning again in a way that animals do not.

(Speaking of ‘wrestling’, this is where John Vervaeke comes closer to a kind of spiritual longing. He speaks of ‘strong transcendence’ comprising a noetic insight into a more integrated and in that sense ‘higher’ level of Being, akin to the unitive vision of Neoplatonism. He’s trying to stay within the naturalist lane in all of this although to be honest I think his trajectory the last two years, in dialogue with many religious scholars and philosophers, is drawing nearer to a religious understanding.)

How this relates to evolutionary theory is a big subject. I will observe that in some important ways evolution has become a secular religion, a kind of naturalist creation myth in its own right (See Is Evolution a Secular Religion?, Michael Ruse, incidentally no friend of Intelligent Design.) But one of the consequences of this is the vanishing of the cognitive and existential facts that pertain to the human condition. I think it is because it enables us to see ourselves as a part of nature but in a scientific rather than religious sense. While the basic, empirical facts of evolution are undeniable, the question has to be asked, what philosophical resources does evolutionary biology provide us with? After all the aim of the theory is to demonstrate how species, including h. Sapiens, evolved. The drivers for those processes are biological, genetic and environmental, but it has long been appreciated that we’re genetically hardly different than our early h.sapiens ancestors of 100,000 years ago. And yet, look what has transpired in those aeons.

All kinds of meanings have been read into it from the theistic (Pierre Tielhard du Chardin) to the atheist (Richard Dawkins.) Without venturing into those difficult waters, all I will say is that the facts of evolutionary theory do not really comprise an existential philosophy, and that this can be said with no disrespect to those facts. Within this ambit, all manner of possibilities present themselves, including the possibility of transcendence.

Amongst all the themes emerging from this debate, one that has struck me is the insight that in h.sapiens, the evolutionary process has become aware of itself. No lesser light than Julian Huxley said the same:

Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately.

However, I am closer to his more spiritually-inclined brother, Alduous, author of The Perennial Philosophy. Within that context, there are also expressions of the idea that we are ‘life made conscious’ but set against the understanding that physical existence is but one phase or facet of the totality of Being.



:pray:

Meanwhile, here in Australia, the conservative political parties (Liberal-National Coalition) look set to dump the commitment to Net Zero emissions by 2050, which they had previously signed onto while in Government.

It's a sorry state of affairs, but then, climate change politics have wrecked many a career in Australia. The conservative parties have been decimated by the upsurge of so-called 'Teal Independents', mainly women, 'teal' because they tend to coalesce around Liberal (Blue) principles but stand up for green values (hence blue-green.) Many of the safest liberal seats in the country were taken by them, who now number 10 in the national Parliament, where Prime Miinister's Albanese's Labor has a massive majority. Commentators generally believe that the conservative abandonment of net zero will further weaken the coalition who currently only hold 43 out of 150 parliamentary seats (Labor holds 94).

As for how Australia is going in the race to decarbonize - still a massive amount to be done, but household rooftop solar and installed batteries are becoming a big factor. Still gaps, though, that are going to have to be filled by natural gas-powered electricity.

At this point, I’d like to draw attention back to a book page mentioned by @Pierre-Normand - Hillary Putnam on Facts and Values. The cover description:

If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective."

I’ve noted this time and again in debates here. But the problem usually manifests around the issue of the criteria for what can be considered good, because those criteria are not necessarily scientifically adjudicable. Meaning that an argument and an explanatory framework has to provided for what can be considered good, true, or ethically meaningful. And this is where the ever-present ‘who says?” or “by what authority?” enters the fray. At this point, appeals to Kant (deontology) and Aristotle (eudomonia) are considered philosophically acceptable, but if you bring an appeal to religion into the picture, then look out! (@baker) This is because scientific rationalism provides something like publicly-available normative standards, in a way that neither religious nor philosophical judgements seem to. It’s objective -whereas philosophical and religious arguments are too easily seen as resting on the individual faith commitments or philosophical proclivities. That is where the false dichotomy that Putnam is describing originates (or so I would surmise, not having read the book.)

So I’m trying to break this down in terms intelligible to analytic philosophy. I think the simplest way to portray it is in terms of a vertical axis - the axis of normative value judgements.

Consider the previously-discussed example from John Vervaeke. Vervaeke argues that normativity doesn’t need to be imported from a cosmic telos or moral law and that it’s implicit in our very capacity for rational, self-corrective cognition.

Our “is” — our biological and cognitive architecture — already entails competences that can be exercised well or poorly.

“Ought” simply names the direction of self-correction toward more adequate realization of those competences.

It might be asked, why then does this not apply to non-human beings such as the higher animals? The reason, I think, is that higher animals, though clearly intelligent and affectively rich, lack the capacity to imagine things being otherwise than as they are. They inhabit what Vervaeke might call an unbroken salience landscape — a world of immediate affordances, where meaning is lived rather than reflected upon. Humans, by contrast, can step back from the immediate field of relevance, entertain counterfactuals, and evaluate our own salience-mappings. It also means that things matter to us in a way that they don’t for animals. This reflexivity is the root of both our freedom and our moral burden.

As I understand Putnam’s book, from reading abstracts and reviews, his is not an entirely dissimilar type of argument - Vervaeke’s from cognitive science and Putnam’s from analytical philosophy.

Existentialism grew out of phenomenology. But neither of them are the subjects of Chalmers’ argument in ‘facing up to the problem of consciousness’.

Might I suggest that this is an overly rosey picture? For instance, across the Roman Empire vast numbers of people were tortured to death, publicly executed, or enslaved because they wouldn't offer sacrifices to the state gods and worship the emperors… — Count Timothy von Icarus

… not to forget Socrates….

This is a difficulty with various sorts of perennialism too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It’s not all ‘lazy syncretism’. Consider for example Fathers Bede Griffiths and Raymundo Panikkar. Both exemplified Christian virtue in close companionship with Indian religions. And I would think that the ability to accommodate a plurality of outlooks is essential in cosmopolitan culture.

As Albert Camus said, Everything begins with consciousness, and nothing is worth anything except through it. — Patterner

the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. — Routledge Intro to Phenomenology

Hmmm… do I detect a similarity here? :chin:

what about the human sciences -- psychology, economics, history, textual hermeneutics, etc.? I'm fine with the first two, at any rate, being a science, aren't you? — J

In a broad sense, but they are not counted amongst the ‘exact sciences’, are they? Their proponents might aspire to it, but there are many difficulties. Furthermore, as far as psychology is concerned, what are the broader questions that underlie it? What vision, or version, of humanity? That we’re species like other species, vying for survival and adaption? And that itself is not a question for psychology.

The genius of modern science was deciding what to exclude from its reckonings. For example, intentionality or telos. Such factors are invisible to precise definition and measurement. So, leave them out! Consider only what can be measured and predicted according to theory.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that, in time, we'll have positive tests for the presence of consciousness, and be able to describe its degrees and characteristics? — J

I’m sure that medicine does have such tests, they would be extremely important in the treatment of comatose patients. But the ‘how much’ and ‘what kind’ of consciousness questions are still within the ambit of what Chalmers designated solvable problems. (And for that matter, maybe the whole use of ‘problem’ in this regard is mistaken. Others have pointed out that it’s more of a mystery - the distinction being that problems are there to be solved, while mysteries are something we’re a part of, meaning we can’t step outside of them and ‘explain’ them.)

That’s a reasonable point and one that turns on what “natural” means.

If by natural we mean “what belongs to the order of things that occur independently of human artifice,” then consciousness is indeed natural — but not physical in the sense of being an object or process describable in terms of physics. To call it “non-physical” doesn’t mean “supernatural” or “mystical”; it means that it doesn’t present as a measurable phenomenon, as an object.

Mind is that to which the physical appears. It is the horizon within which things become present as physical, as measurable, as anything at all. So the distinction isn’t between “natural” and “supernatural,” but between 'that which appears' and the subject to whom it appears. That is what I'm saying (and not just me!) has been bracketed out by science. It is also what Husserl, and before him Kant, were getting at: consciousness isn’t a part of the world in the same way the brain, trees, or galaxies are. It’s the faculty for which a world appears.

I hope you can see that distinction, because I think it's important.

There's an important perspectival shift missing in that account, somewhat analogous to 'figure and ground'. As I said, you cannot find or point to consciousness in any sense meaningful to the natural sciences. You can only infer it. This is why Daniel Dennett continued to insist right until the end that it must in some sense be derivative, unreal or non-existent.

A note on Tillich (various sources)

Consciousness is part of the world. How is that in question? — Patterner

Because it's not! You can observe other people. and animals, which you can safely assume to be conscious, and which you can safely assume feel just like you do. But you will not observe consciousness as such - only it's manifestations. The only instance of consciousness which you really know, is the instance which you are, because you are it. Not because it's something you see. You can't experience experience. The hand can only grasp something other to itself (from the Upaniṣad).

I don't sponsor authoritarian religions. — javra

I agree with you, but I already acknowledged somewhere in this thread (can't find it now) the role that ecclesiastical Chrisianity had in spawning atheism. Paul Tillich said the same! The inevitable consequence of 'no other God beside Me' and 'I am the Truth.... no other way but Me'. My way or the highway, and woe betide unto anyone who differs.

But again, there are literalistic and esoteric ways of understanding. The Gnostics had a completely different way of understanding these things, but they ended up on the wrong side of history - which is, as you know, written by the victors.

And the jealous God dies hard! A great deal of atheist polemic is clearly derived from its Christian forbears. No other substance, but matter energy, and no way of interpretation, save by the Method! Woe betide unto anyone who differs.

does that necessarily put science on one side of an impermeable line? — J

It certainly puts modern Western science, as understood since Galileo, on one side of it. Unambiguously. You know that German culture has a word, Geistewischenschaft, meaning 'sciences of the spirit', right? You could put Ricouer, Hegel, Heidegger, and Husserl under that heading, but there's no way you could include them under the heading 'science' in a Western university.

I think there's a clear, bright line.

Although my overall knowledge of Aristotle is pretty slight, this is one of the passages that has stayed with me (previously quoted)

But if happiness (εὐδαιμονία, eudomonia) consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect (νοῦς nous), or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation [θεωρητική, theoritikós) — The Nicomachean Ethics 1.1177a11

The suggestion, in Aristotle, and indeed in Greek philosophy generally, is that nous, the instrument of reason, is able to discern immaterial truths, those being the universal forms or ideas. 'In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the faculty that enables rational cognition. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which animals possess. For Aristotle, discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same rational ways. Derived from this it was also sometimes argued, in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. By this type of account, it also came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it'.

Practicing a religion/spirituality works in the exact same way as going to school or taking up some other course of education or training. It's supposed to transform the student, and in a standardized, predictable way. — baker

I just noticed your post now, but what you said in it, seems completely at odds with this conclusion. Karen Armstrong says something very similar:

Religious truth is ...a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.

Which is, admittedly, how they must seem to many contributors.

Why is this not a conversation, but an ex cathedra lecture? — baker

Is it? I have not been aware of lecturing. I presented an argument, and am prepared to defend it, but only up to a point. The reference to Edward Conze's essay was intended to illustrate a point. But then, I suppose you take that as an 'appeal to authority', which naturally has to be shot down.

That's why physicalism is untenable. Science is broader than that. — J

But think it through in relation to Chalmers' 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. What you're saying is, you already agree that physicalism is untenable. But Chalmers, Nagel and Husserl are giving arguments as to why it is. And while their arguments are different, the distinction between the first- and third-person perspective is intrinsic to all of them. @noAxioms has already explained that he can't see any distinction. To be sure, many others say the same. But I think there's a real distinction that is not being acknowledged.

I think he (Nagel) would say that it isn't a physical science. — J

But think that through. If it's not a physical science, then, according to physicalism, how could it be a science? It must by definition be metaphysics.

:100: But, you know, that book was subject of a massive pile-on when it was published. Nagel was accused of 'selling out to creationism'.

Another passage from the same book:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

There's a typical forum style of argumentation I think of as 'the coconut shy'. A coconut shy, as you will recall, is a popular sideshow attraction, whereby coconuts are put on poles, and punters then try to knock them off by throwing tennis balls at them, thereby winning a prize.

This is one of those kinds of questions. :wink:

Obviously, many people have been gravely hurt by the religions. The history of religion in historical Europe is marred by episodes of appalling violence and repression - the Inquisition, the slaughter of the Cathars, the religious wars. The institution of the Papacy was a model for authoritarianism. There is no question about that, but it was not only that. David Bentley Hart makes the case eloquently in his book Atheist Delusions, which I’ve already mentioned. The social institutions of universities, hospitals, organised charities, and much else besides, grew out of the soil of Christian culture. The ideas of Christian humility, ‘all believers equal before God’, was also profoundly influential. (India still has a caste system to this day.) James Hannam makes an excellent case for how medieval Christian scholars laid the foundations for modern science in his book God’s Philosophers. Of course they all drew on an amalgamation of theology with Greek philosophy, which is foundational to the genius of Western culture.

As an undergrad, I was struck by the fact that so much of characteristically modern philosophy (starting with Descartes) was shaped around the unspoken premise of ‘anything but God’. It was a pervasive but largely unspoken theme. As I’ve explained many times, my own quest was shaped by 1960’s counter-culture and the quest for spiritual enlightenment, which at that time I did not associate at all with religion as such. But then I went on to study world religions and the perspective of the perennial philosophies and began to realise that the enlightenment I thought was the sole prerogative of the East was also to be found in Christianity (mainly via the early 20th C scholars of mysticism, Dean Inge and Evelyn Underhill.) It changed my view considerably, and there are now many Christian philosophers whom I hold in high regard (although I must confess a considerable degree of scepticism in regard to Reformed Theology.)

In any case none of this is an appeal to a ‘return to a golden past’. But religious symbolism inevitably portrays, in symbolic form, many of the archetypal factors and forces that underlie everyday thoughts and actions. They need to be understood and re-integrated, rather than fought against due to the animus we’ve inherited from the religious conflicts of the past. That’s where Vervaeke’s lectures are exemplary.