This is Part 1.

Students at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland are calling for the resignation of philosophy professor Joshua Hochschild because of an article he wrote earlier this month for The American Mind, a publication of the Claremont Institute, a conservative advocacy organization.

The article, “Once Upon a Presidency,” is an attempt to sympathetically convey the perspective of supporters of Donald Trump (including those who were at the January 6th attack on the Capitol), portraying the ignorance, question-begging, conspiracy-theorizing, hypocrisy, and anti-intellectualism common to Trumpism as reasonable or understandable. While absurd, it is at the same time actually a useful look at recent events through a mindset many readers of Daily Nous will find alien.

The article caught the attention of Mount St. Mary’s students, who have launched a petition calling for Professor Hochschild’s resignation. Brea Purdie, the student who authored the petition, writes:

I find it repulsive that Hochschild calls for respectability and humanity when the actions of Trump supporters on January 6 proved to be less than that. I find it telling that he asks for decency when there are prominent white supremacists rubbing elbows at the same event as he, and proudly boasting racial symbolism along with the American flag. Lastly, I find it incriminating that he went to such frivolous extremes to weave a narrative in which he is the victim of attending an event where people lost their lives, and white supremacy ran rampant. For him to call for respect in a situation where his peers call for the eradication of my being, yet he claims to uphold pro-life, is bigotry. I refuse to accept or respect this. — Mount St. Mary’s Students Call for Resignation of Philosophy Professor

I don't know the upshot of all that, as it took place in 2021, but I will acknowledge being extremely dissappointed that this scholar, of whom I had formed a positive opinion, would go in to bat for such a dreadful event in American history. I can only ascribe it to malign influence that Trump is exerting on American culture, much to its detriment.

What does it mean to "have an opinion" if there is no subject to judge? — J

This is addressed in the subsequent sections.

I don't know what point you're trying to prove. Are you defending the January 6th riot, when the Capitol building was attacked by protestors, windows smashed, and rioters broke into the building chanting Hang Mike Pence and Where's Nancy? I listened to that interview right up to where the speaker said 'it was completely peaceful'. She says, as a witness, no violence, kumbaya. But there was absolutely abundant real-time footage and photographs of violence, many police officers were beaten with flagpoles and other objects, resulting in several deaths (there were also later deaths from suicide amongst the attending police.)

This speaker said she entered the Capitol, and strolled around, and gave a speech - twice! But some actual photographs of the day were like this:





So - is this speaker actually claiming that those photographs were staged? Faked? That the riots didn't happen? That nobody was injured, that nobody broke forcefully into the Capitol building and assaulted law officers?

I don't understand how that can be the case. Perhaps you might be able to explain it. Because from where I sit, what I'm seeing is indeed a conspiracy - and I'm no conspiracy theorist - to whitewash the January 6th abomination, so as to exculpate the role of the now President and his violent supporters and to re-write history in terms favourable to him. And for some completely unfathomable reason, people are prepared to believe it.

I think this is a helpful and concise outline of your project, Wayfarer. — Leontiskos

Thank you!

In general, though, I am always left with the question of what exactly your thesis is. — Leontiskos

Well, it's only part 1!

I would hope that the reach of the argument is more than simply 'scientism', although that is certainly as aspect of it. I question the way you're interpreting it. The point about objectivity first appearing in the early 1600's is significant. It is the beginning of a different kind of awareness or consciousness with the beginning of the modern period. It's by no means a bad thing, but it has a shadow side, which is precisely that sense of outside-ness, otherness, alienation or disconnection. Max Weber wrote of the 'great disenchantment', to describe the character of a modernized, bureaucratic, secularized Western society. In Western society, according to Weber, scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and processes are oriented toward rational goals.' (Wikipedia) That is also the subject of the New Left's criticism of the 'instrumentalisation of reason'.

This niche is where I agree with your project, but I disagree when you go farther and make X = Realism. — Leontiskos

We'll get to that.

without an account of subjectivity, nothing homo sapiens may allegedly learn about the world and themselves can have any claim to justification -- there can be no reasons, since reasons are not part of the objective world. This seems to rule out any view of h. sapiens that purports to be true. — J

Hence - nihilism. Nothing is true, nothing really matters, and so on. I don't think nihilism always manifests as something dramatic or obviously awful. It can be a shrug, a 'so what?' Also very big part of the shadow of modernity.

I guess that gets us into philosophical anthropology - what is man (sorry for the gender specificity) in the greater scheme? We'll get to that, too.

Consider a change in the state of a physical, S1 to S2, which occurs at time t1 and t2 respectively. Assume that the physical in the state of S1 has the cause power to cause the physical in the state of S2. Physical however is not aware of the passage of time. Therefore, the physical in the state of S1 cannot know the correct instant to cause the physical in the state of S2. Therefore, the physical in the state of S1 cannot cause the physical in the state of S2. Therefore, the change is not possible in physical. Therefore, physical cannot be the cause of its own change. — MoK

The argument makes a mistake of assuming that for a physical system to cause a change in itself, it must know when to do so. But physical processes don’t require knowledge or awareness to function—they follow natural laws and causal mechanisms.

Hint: try using AI to sharpen up your arguments. Not to write but to review and proof.

The Red Line: - as is well known, many of Trump's executive orders are being challenged in the Courts. This includes his blatantly unconstituional freeze of Congressionally-approved expenditures, withholding monies that the Government had already agreed to disburse. This has been challenged - on the face of it, successfully - by a couple of lawsuits which have ordered the Adminstration to release the funds. However the Government has found ways of not complying with these orders, based on further arguments. But it is very close to the red line - which is that when the Government begins to deliberately defy or flout the Courts. This has not definitively happened yet, but it looks pretty certain that it's imminent in the next few days. Which will mean the Government will defy the judiciary - something which has happened only rarely in the past. Read more here:

Trump comes close to the red line of openly defying judges, experts say

Is the United States in a Constitutional Crisis?

my intuition and observations suggest (to me) that life is intrinsically meaningless — Tom Storm

Well, we are creatures of our times. I am trying to show that this is a natural implication of the 'cartesian division'. Which reminds me of the phrase I often quote, that of the 'Cartesian Anxiety':

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other". — Richard J Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis

Vervaeke says that this division is a fundamental aspect of our 'cultural grammar'.

Why is experience not physical? I agree that things "outside the mind" - outside consciousness itself are physical things and hence mediated through experience. What I don't quite get is why experience is not physical? — Manuel

Might I add that one can easily portray sensory experience as physical, in that it can be understood in terms of physical stimuli and physiological responses. We possess five primary senses - touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste - and they can be understood through cognitive science and physiology. What I think @MoK is getting at, is what David Chalmers describes as the problem of consciousness (usually called 'the hard problem') - that even though all of these processes can be described in physical terms, the experience of them - what it is like to see red, smell a rose, hear a sound - is not so amenable to physical description, because it has an experiential quality.

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. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, David Chalmers

Personally, I think the solution lies in the problem, which is that physical science has always bracketed out or excluded the subject, as I've presented in another thread. I hope I'm correct in saying that this is what MoK is driving at, as the 'hard problem' has been mentioned previously. So that while experiential states have a physical aspect, the subjective experience can't be completely explained in physical terms.

Expect some fire many firings. A fanatical partisan and another manifest threat to democracy.

I am following your posts and reading them carefully. I think we can agree that experience is a phenomenon that cannot be explained within physicalism. Therefore, there exists a mind with the capacity to experience. — MoK

:up:

Americans need to know that Russia has infiltrated their President. I wonder if they know they voted to make Russia great again.

But I can't tell how they so quickly single out individuals to be fired. If it is other than competence, is it by tweets? — magritte

Strictly by the numbers, so far as I can tell. ‘Fire all your probationary employees’ (because they have less tenure.) ‘Reduce your staff by 80%’. The vetting for Trump Loyalty is made for new hires, as I see it. MAGA loyalists among those being let go will be by-catch. But if anyone wants to join the public service, they better answer that they know the 2020 election was stolen.

Good idea, it’s the subject of an essay I’ve written recently.

Close! I was nine!

I’ve argued that it’s not feasible, for reasons that you haven’t refuted. But I will admit, my engagement in this thread was addressed to the series of arguments you gave in the post I responded to, rather than the OP itself.

I've been explaining why the argument fails... — Relativist

If you mean, why my arguments against physicalism have failed, I don't believe you have demonstrated that they do, but I'll save you the trouble of starting over.

The question is: can you identify any uncontroversial fact about mental activity that you can prove impossible under physicalism? — Relativist

I'm sure I have. But then you say:

I already explained I'm not trying to prove ...that physicalism is true. — Relativist

In which case, what are we talking about? I'm arguing against physicalist views that your posts are representing, only for you to say 'well, I'm not really advocating them.'

You seem to expect a complete neurolgical framework — Relativist

If physicalism claims that propositional content can be equated with a brain-state, then it must be able to provide such a basis. (In fact, I think brain-mind identity views are pretty much superseded nowadays largely on the difficulties that this presents, but it's a difficulty any form of physicalism needs to acknowledge.)

Anyway - thanks for the discussion. I very much appreciate your evenness of tone even if we disagree.

Glad to hear you say that. I'm probably older than you, born first half of fifties, I was seven during the Cuban Missile Crisis, my parents were extremely anxious. I've always had a sense of the possibility of an imminent armageddon, and Trump seems a character from central casting to precipitate one.

A clarification about my previous post, in respect of this particular statement:

any complete account of the universe must allow for the existence of a nonmaterial component which accounts for its unity and complexity. — Charles Pinter

In this passage, an explicit appeal to a 'nonmaterial component' is made, so it might be useful to look specifically at that remark. The natural question that would follow is: what would a 'nonmaterial component' be? What would you look for or expect? If Pinter is to challenge physicalism, then he must be able to answer that question.

My response is that it's very important how the question is framed. The 'nonmaterial component' is not anything objectively existent. It manifests in our experience as the act of judgement. It is the faculty of the mind which grasps meaning, and also the faculty which is at work in the brain stitching together the unified sense of self-and-world that comprises our sense of reality.

That's why framing the question properly is so important. We assume that what is real is what is objectively the case; what is measurable, objectifiable, able to be represented conceptually or mathematically. So we will naturally say, if this capacity is real, it must be based on the physical, because of the assumption that:

Everything is physical — Philosophim

What is subjective, on the other hand, is assumed to be private, internal and specific to the person. It is what is real 'for you'. Liberal philosophy allows this a kind of inherent worth ('the dignity of the individual') but denies it objective status. (Hence, 'moral relativism'.)

But the capacity of the mind which discerns meaning (i.e. reason) is not strictly personal either, and in that sense, not simply subjective. It is transpersonal, as it is characteristic of any subject of experience, not this or that subject. It is intrinsic to the structure of consciousness, and, therefore, experience.

So: understanding the 'immaterial' is recognition of the mind as the ground of rational intelligence. But that requires a perspective shift, a meta-cognitive insight. The mind is not an object of cognition, so neither is this 'immaterial component' - which is why you keep thinking I'm arguing for absolute skepticism or metaphysics. For us, only what is objective is real, and to deny the primacy of the objective threatens our sense of what is real. That is the perspective shift that is required. We are exclusively oriented to the objective world, the sensory world, such that anything that calls this orientation into question is automatically rejected.

(This is something that Continental philosophy understands, in a way that much Anglo philosophy does not.)

I understand this is a hard argument to grasp - it's a transcendental argument, along Kantian lines. Transcendental arguments are concerned with what must be so, in order for experience to be as it is. They are different to both empirical arguments and scientific arguments. But in this particular context, they're important. Otherwise, confusion ensues, as is evident in this and many other threads about philosophy of mind.

If Trump invites Putin back into the fold, and it seems likely, it will thrown Putin a lifeline, just when the Russian economy was really beginning to fold under the impact of sanctions. Then if the US signs off on a 'peace deal' that gives an inch to Russian demands (as you can bet they will), Putin will say that he's had a major win, even if he didn't succeed in totally occupying Ukraine as per the initial aim. Then what? Do Ukraine and Europe try to continue the fight against a revitalised Russia without US support? Will the US say then that Ukraine are not observing whatever treaty they've tried to impose? If the UK puts 'boots on the ground' and the other European nations follow suit, it looks awfully like a war between Europe and Russia, with the US at least tacitly supporting Putin.

This is the stuff of nightmares. And it kept me awake last night.

If Trump invites Putin back into the fold, and it seems likely, it will thrown Putin a lifeline, just when the Russian economy was really beginning to fold under the impact of sanctions. Then if the US signs off on a 'peace deal' that gives an inch to Russian demands (as you can bet they will), Putin will say that he's had a major win, even if he didn't succeed in totally occupying Ukraine as per the initial aim. Then what? Do Ukraine and Europe try to continue the fight against a revitalised Russia without US support? Will the US say then that Ukraine are not observing whatever treaty they've tried to impose? If the UK puts 'boots on the ground' and the other European nations follow suit, it looks awfully like a war between Europe and Russia, with the US at least tacitly supporting Putin.

This is the stuff of nightmares. And it kept me awake last night. //ps thought this was the Ukraine thread, probably a better place for this issue.//

How is it possible, that my mind can deceive itself, by creating such a fiction, and so thoroughly deceive itself, with it's own fictional creation, that it actually believes that its own fictional creation is real? That's totally absurd. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seems all of a piece for how minds operate. (Just woke from a dream where I was in a room with some other people and we were discussing some eucalyptus saplings that had been planted on the street outside. A girl asked me what kind of ‘vegetative animal’ a tree was, to which I replied, ‘a plant’. Several people laughed. )

Let’s not forget Zelenskyy’s starring role in Trump’s first impeachment.


Trump clearly hasn’t.

Inferring meaning is not uncaused. It is caused by our interaction with the world. Meaning entails a "word to world" relationship, where "world" is our internalized world-view, that evolves during our lives.

It begins in our pre-verbal stage, based on our sensory input (including our bodily sensations). Our natural pattern recognition capabilities provides a nascent means of organizing the world that's perceived facilitating interaction with it. Pattern includes appearance and function and associations to other things (eg spoon-food-hunger-taste-smell). These associations are the ground floor of meaning. Associations grow over time, thus gaining additional meaning.

Verbal language entails associating pattern of sounds with prior established visual patterns. Written words are associations with the verbal

Nascent inference is again pattern recognition (if x happens, y will follow). With language, it becomes more developed, and we can recognize patterns in the language - that there is a generalized "if x then y — Relativist

Nothing I've said contradicts that. What I'm questioning is that the physicalist framework and, more generally, empiricist philosophy (the principle that all knowledge is acquired through experience) provides an adequate account of its basis. I'm arguing that the relationship of ideas is real in its own right independently of physical processes. 'The vast flow of perceptions, ideas, and emotions that arise in each human mind is something that actually exists as something other than merely the electrical firings in the brain that gives rise to them—and exists as surely as a brain, a chair, an atom, or a gamma ray' ~ Review of Thomas Nagel 'Mind and Cosmos'. Whereas it is commonly believed that the physical basis of mind is understood, when it is not. It explains the tendency to believe that whatever is real must be physical or based on the physical. But as I keep saying, what we consider to be physical also involves judgement (which is why physics is constantly evolving.) Causation is not only bottom-up.

Basic math entails patterns between quantities, leading to counting and then learning the general relations of arithmetic. — Relativist

Many will say that arithmetic is a natural function of the mind, leading to the ability to count and form abstract concepts. The abilities of the Caledonian Crow are often referred to in this context. But the fact is, were human minds not able to form and grasp foundational concepts, such as 'equals', it would be impossible for us to learn and practice arithmetic, let alone mathematics. It is an ability the human mind alone has.

this doesn't address the issue that we have to rely on such semantic relations to establish what is ontological - what is, for example, the nature of the physical, and how or if it is separate from the mind.
— Wayfarer

I'm not sure I understand the objection, but I'll try to address.

Nature of the physical: We start considering the physical to be anything we can touch, or seems touchable. We only recognize that air (and other gases) are physical after scientific study. By that same token, we don't naturally recognize elements of the mind as physical, but we come to learn of clear physical dependencies - like memories, that can be lost due to disease and trauma. — Relativist

Note again the passage I quoted earlier.

In fact, what we regard as the physical world is “physical” to us precisely in the sense that it acts in opposition to our will and constrains our actions. The aspect of the universe that resists our push and demands muscular effort on our part is what we consider to be “physical”. On the other hand, since sensation and thought don’t require overcoming any physical resistance, we consider them to be outside of material reality. It is shown in the final chapter (Mind, Life and Universe) that this is an illusory dichotomy, and any complete account of the universe must allow for the existence of a nonmaterial component which accounts for its unity and complexity. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics (p. 6)

My argument is, the basis of the physicalism that you're advocating can be traced back to Descartes' dualism. As the above says, what we consider 'physical' is precisely that 'which acts in opposition to our will and constrains our actions.' Mind is then depicted as 'res cogitans', the 'thinking subject' which is purportedly not extended in space and time. Over the ensuing centuries, the dualist model was retained, but the idea of res cogitans withered away, especially because science and engineering was able to accomplish so much with reference only to the so-called 'extended properties' of matter.

This is the 'cartesian division' which underlies so much of modern culture - it is, as John Vervaeke says, part of our 'cultural grammar'. Pinter's final chapter refers to information theory, semiotics, and other scientific developments that call the primacy of the physical into question.

the mind - reason - is able to peer into the realms beyond the physical and to bring back from it, things that have never before existed
— Wayfarer

The patterns in nature existed before us. Our intellect is based on our pattern recognition skills. — Relativist

That is not an adequate account of the power of reason. Mathematical regularities and symmetries are far more than repetitive patterns. Reason has enabled us to estimate the age and size of the Universe. Don't sell yourself short ;-)

how can a brain (with all the various properties of material objects), be caused to do something by something that lacks all material properties (no mass, no energy, no charge, and no location in space)? — Relativist

Through mathematics, humans are able to discover, predict and control events that would otherwise never occur or be observed in nature. So while it's true that numbers have 'no material properties, no mass, no energy, no change, and no location in space' the ability to grasp mathematics has many demonstrable material consequences. Abstract mathematical models are used to design rockets, build bridges, and develop quantum computing—things that would never occur spontaneously in nature and could never be discerned in nature without mathematics. Purely formal relationships (e.g., Einstein’s field equations, Schrödinger’s wave equation) appear to govern physical reality, yet they are not themselves physical. Another example: The discovery of Maxwell’s equations (which are purely formal) led to the creation of radio waves, television, and modern telecommunications—none of which would have "just happened" without conceptual reasoning. Notice also that these discoveries have lead to continual changes of the ‘idea of the physical’ (a perfect illustration of Hempel’s Dilemma).

So - the mind - reason - is able to peer into the realms beyond the physical and to bring back from it, things that have never before existed. Sure, those things are physical - but are the principles which lead to their invention?

After all the blood spilled, the enormous money spent...a lot of hearts will be broken tonight. Imagine the US combat advisers in the trenches with the Ukrainians - how will they be able to look them in the eye.

. That doesn't entail proving physicalism is true; it entails establishing that it is possible because it is a complete, coherent metaphysical theory. — Relativist

You haven't established that. Where I joined was to challenge this statement of yours:

how can a brain (with all the various properties of material objects), be caused to do something by something that lacks all material properties (no mass, no energy, no charge, and no location in space)? — Relativist

To which I responded:

The mind has non-physical properties, such as the ability to infer meaning and interpret symbols such as language and mathematics. These acts are not determined by physical causes in that there is no way to account for or explain the nature of the neural processes that supposedly cause or underlie such processes in physicalist terms, without relying on the very processes of inference and reasoning which we're attempting to explain. — Wayfarer

Your response was: we can lift our arms. How does that indicate a 'complete, coherent metaphysical theory'? You further said the ability to infer meanings are 'semantic relations' and 'not ontological'. But this doesn't address the issue that we have to rely on such semantic relations to establish what is ontological - what is, for example, the nature of the physical, and how or if it is separate from the mind.

I think we see reflections of actual reality, and that provides a basis for exploring further. You choose to believe that's hopeless. — Relativist

I've never said it's hopeless nor do I believe it is. I'm a scientific realist, but not a metaphysical realist. I believe scientific observations describe a real world that is independent of any particular observer, but it is not independent of all observation - otherwise what world are we talking about? Taking into account the way the mind shapes the understanding is part of cognitive science, but it also has philosophical implications. I don’t think you’re seeing the point I’m trying to make, which is not so radical as it seems.

Suits me.

The coverage is ridiculous. — philosch

Trump/Musk are dismantling the American Government before the world's eyes. And right now, the betrayal of Ukraine has begun.

Trump Blames Ukraine for Invasion.

The great betrayal has begun.

As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, Russia is not responsible for the war that has devastated its neighbor. Instead, he suggests that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion of it. To listen to Mr. Trump talk with reporters on Tuesday about the conflict was to hear a version of reality that would be unrecognizable on the ground in Ukraine and certainly would never have been heard from any other American president of either party.

In Mr. Trump’s telling, Ukrainian leaders were at fault for the war for not agreeing to surrender territory and therefore, he suggested, they do not deserve a seat at the table for the peace talks that he has just initiated with Mr. Putin. “You should have never started it,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Ukrainian leaders who, in fact, did not start it. “You could have made a deal.”

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he went on: “You have a leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened.” By contrast, Mr. Trump uttered not one word of reproach for Mr. Putin or for Russia. — NY Times

The Manchurian Candidate has finally been activated. Well played, Mr Putin!

The great stitch-up has begun.

As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, Russia is not responsible for the war that has devastated its neighbor. Instead, he suggests that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion of it. To listen to Mr. Trump talk with reporters on Tuesday about the conflict was to hear a version of reality that would be unrecognizable on the ground in Ukraine and certainly would never have been heard from any other American president of either party.

In Mr. Trump’s telling, Ukrainian leaders were at fault for the war for not agreeing to surrender territory and therefore, he suggested, they do not deserve a seat at the table for the peace talks that he has just initiated with Mr. Putin. “You should have never started it,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Ukrainian leaders who, in fact, did not start it. “You could have made a deal.”

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he went on: “You have a leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened.” By contrast, Mr. Trump uttered not one word of reproach for Mr. Putin or for Russia. — NY Times, 19 Feb

The 'initial talks' in Riyadh were about 'doing business' with Russia. You would have to wonder what kind of money Putin would put on the table for Trump Inc for such treatment.

So this is it. The great betrayal has begun. The USA will walk away from Ukraine and align itself with Putin against NATO. This is, of course, even to Republicans, a complete outrage, but who's going to stand up?

What I'm arguing is that all such 'reductions' are themselves dependent on intellectual constructs.
— Wayfarer
our experience of sense-able reality is still dependent on the brain
— Wayfarer

So what? These don't doesn't falsify physicalism, and these don't imply alternatives are in any better position. — Relativist

It does falsify physicalism, because it reverses the ontological priority that physicalism presumes, namely that the mind is dependent on or derived from the physical. Its saying that the physical is mind-dependent - the opposite of what Armstrong says. Not seeing it is not an argument against it.

the world is not simply given but is also constructed by the brain-mind. What I fault physicalism for is neglecting or failing to take into account this basic fact.
— Wayfarer
I disagree with the wording of the 1st sentence: it equivocates on "the world". There is an actual world, and then there is a concept of the world. There is some disconnect, of course. But there is also a connection: we exist within it. — Relativist

But we're never in a position to see an actual world apart from or outside of the way the brain/mind construes it. It's not as if you can step outside of it. We know the world as it appears to us, but not as it is outside that. That is the meaning of the 'in-itself' - we don't see the world as it is in itself.

Physicalism accounts for both the actual world and it accounts for the existence of minds within it — Relativist

I've presented a philosophical argument as to the circularity of the physicalist view. That argument hasn't been addressed.

You could develop a metaphysical theory that includes abstract objects, but it's just another unprovable theory. — Relativist

Not true. What of mathematics? Mathematical physics? Strictly speaking, the term 'proof' only applies to arithmetic. The whole human intellectual capacity relies on abstraction. It is fundamental to language.

The appeal of physicalism is that it is basically an attempt to reach scientific certainty with respect to philosophy. The reason physics was chosen as a paradigm, is because its methods and predictions are (or at least were) definite and unambiguous, and its predictions were applicable across an enormous range of phenomena. After all mathematical physics is behind many of the great breakthroughs in science, well beyond physics itself. Physics in that sense became paradigmatic for scientific knowledge generally. So the reductionist program was to bring philosophy within the scope of this model and the 'Australian materialists' notably Armstrong and Smart, were advocates for this kind of ambitious scientifically-based reductionism. I think it's a misapplication of the scientific method.

Your theory also has shortcomings. You admitted to a huge one:

how could mind be an uncaused cause? Well, damned if I know
— Wayfarer — Relativist

That's not a shortcoming. I am not positing 'mind' in the sense implied by the phrase 'uncaused cause' as some entity or power that existed before anything else existed. What I did say was:

we only recognize causal relationships because the mind imposes a framework of intelligibility on experience and so provides the basis on which judgements about causation are intelligible. In that sense, mind is prior to the physical explanations of phenomena, not in the temporal sense of pre-existing those phenomena, but in the ontological sense as being the ground of explanation itself. — Wayfarer

which in essence is the form of argument known as Kant's answer to Hume. The point of this criticism, then, is the physicalist claim that the brain 'causes' the mind, or that physical causes 'give rise to' the mental. It is pointing out that the principle of causation is itself a relationship of ideas, and so dependent on the very thing that it's seeking to explain. A characteristic claim of Armstrong's is 'It seems increasingly likely that biology is completely reducible to chemistry which is, in its turn, completely reducible to physics.' What I'm arguing is that all such 'reductions' are themselves dependent on intellectual constructs. As Schopenhauer remarks, 'the materialist is like Baron Münchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs.'

Further, you note that we don't know that we're seeing the world as it is, but that also applies to our the product of our self-reflection about the mind. — Relativist

I'm referring to insights that have arisen from cognitive science which lend support to a Kantian style of idealism (indeed Kant has been called the 'godfather of cognitive science'). This is the fact that the brain/mind synthesises data from the senses and combines them with its prior conceptual framework to arrive at judgements in order to derive our understanding of the world. All this is really pointing to, is that what we consider 'objective', that is, what exists independently of us or any observer, is still in that fundamental sense mind-dependent.

Consider the well-known anecdotes of neurologist Oliver Sachs, in 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'. That story, and other stories in that book, show how neurological disorders can lead to radical misjudgements about the nature of reality. Of course the normal functioning brain doesn't make those mistakes - but the point remains, our experience of sense-able reality is still dependent on the brain in that sense, and some of the disorders that Sachs relates, completely alter the subject's world. The normal subject's world is still brain- or mind-dependent in that sense, but operating within expected parameters.

So - 'not seeing the world as it is' reflects the insight that the world is not simply given but is also constructed by the brain-mind. What I fault physicalism for is neglecting or failing to take into account this basic fact. It takes what is apparently given - the objective or apparently independently existing object - as being truly existent, without taking into account the interpretive role of the mind in construing what that object is. This happens every minute, moment by moment, in the stream of experience we designate 'consciousness'. Hence my reference to Schopenhuaer: 'But we have shown that all this (i.e. the sensory domain) is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time.' Schopenhauer says materialism - and it just as well applies to physicalism - is the philosophy of 'the subject who forgets himself', i.e. overlooks the role of his own mind in interpreting what he takes to be independently existent. Furthermore that philosophy consists of gaining insight into the way the mind does this. (Hence 'man know thyself'.) Physicalism forgets all of that.

For example, abstractions seem to exist, because we can reflect on abstractions. That doesn't establish that they necessarily exist outside our minds. This extends to all the allegedly nonphysical character of mind: it seems correct but can't be established as such. — Relativist

If by 'abstractions' you mean formal concepts, like number, arithmetical proofs and logical principles - my view is these are real, but not existent as phenomena. They are intelligible objects. They exist outside our individual minds but can only be grasped by a mind. And they're foundational to the enterprise of science, which is kind of an embarassment to physicalism. Physicalists will try to accomodate them by saying they're 'products of' or 'caused by' the material brain, but we've already shown the circularity of this reasoning.

The "no government experience" line is meaningless for starters and is implying the auditors are not competent by inference. — philosch

Musk’s team of youngsters, as first reported by WIRED on Sunday, is Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, who said in September he was a senior at Harvard.

The ones who actually have degrees, or at least have left college, are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley;

The group’s relative lack of experience—especially no previous positions in government work—has Democrats crying foul they were granted access to sensitive records while remaining largely in the shadows, away from public scrutiny.

All six desperately tried to cover their digital tracks recently, almost all of them deleting LinkedIn profiles, X accounts and even Facebook. — The Daily Beast

As for Musk's accountability for his actions, why, he's not even responsible! Just 'an advisor'!

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly affirmed Musk’s leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But according to a new court filing from the White House, the administrator of DOGE isn’t Elon Musk after all. Who is? No one knows. The White House won’t tell the public, an administration lawyer has reportedly said he had no idea, and even people who work for the US DOGE Service can’t get a straight answer.

On Monday evening, Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration, claimed Musk wasn’t actually in charge of the so-called department he has championed for months. Fisher issued a sworn statement in a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico and 13 other Democratic attorneys general accusing Musk of exercising authority beyond the scope of his role. Rather than serving as the DOGE administrator or an employee of DOGE at all, Fisher said, Musk’s formal role is “senior advisor” to the president with “no greater authority than other senior White House advisors.” This could make Musk’s authority and standing at USDS legally murky—especially as a number of lawsuits embroil the organization’s activities — Wired

It can also seen as the shrewd radical way to dismantle government bureaucracy. — ssu

Do you think they're dismantling bureaucracy, or dismantling the government? What if Trump's hatred of 'the deep state' is actually just hatred of the state? Does that make Trump an 'enemy of the state'?

I don't see how you can defend any of your metaphysical judgements. — Relativist

I defend them with reference to the obvious shortcomings of physicalism, about which you have not answered any of my arguments.

'We trust our cognitive faculties because they work'.
'Science gives us a useful model, and that’s good enough.'
'Sure, we can’t prove the nature of reality, but agnosticism is a dead-end'

:up:

I’ve been reviewing the news about the mass dismissal of personnel from the Nuclear Security agency, followed by frantic attempts by DOGE to unfuck the situation when they realised they’d just sacked a bunch of people responsible for the US nuclear arsenal. But wait! They can’t be contacted! And why? Because in typical DOGE style, they were all locked out of their email accounts as soon as they were fired. So, like, you know, oopsie.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/climate/trump-nnsa-nuclear-staff-reinstated?cid=ios_app

In the eventual wisdom of hindsight - which may not be available, because it requires there to be a future - my prediction is that DOGE will come to be seen as the most egregious and idiotic blunder in the history of the government of the United States of America.