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 (In fact, I think brain-mind identity views are pretty much superseded nowadays largely on the difficulties that this presents, but it's a difficulty any form of physicalism needs to acknowledge.)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.

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette (pictured) works at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He also happens to be blind. So when he criticized Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed an online attack Hedtler-Gaudette described as “surreal” in its juvenile bigotry.

First, Musk retweeted a post on X noting that the “blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste” and added two laughing/crying emojis. The tweet garnered more than 21 million views, and sparked dozens of hateful messages to Hedtler-Gaudette’s account.

“He couldn’t see s--- … perfect excuse for being unable to perform your job,” one poster said. “The DEI blind guy can’t see fraud. U can’t make up this garbage,” another wrote. One person even called for posters to surface Hedtler-Gaudette’s bank account.

The episode illustrates how Musk’s unparalleled online reach has given him a powerful tool to attack individuals who criticize DOGE, with one post able to spark hundreds of blistering responses from his followers.

Last week, he amplified baseless claims about the judge who overturned Trump’s funding freeze on federal grants that named his government employee daughter. Musk has called for the dismissal of journalists who have written about DOGE, calling their actions “possibly criminal.” As he hunts for places to slash the federal bureaucracy, the billionaire has reposted the names and titles of individual government employees, insinuating they should be fired.

Digital rights experts say the situation has created an unprecedented imbalance in power. Musk’s massive online following, his ownership of a social media platform where he can dictate content moderation rules, and his position heading a government entity with access to private data, give him a unique ability to threaten those who question him and chill dissenting speech. — Washington Post

This is becoming a pattern. Musk can dog whistle his 250 million strong following on X to ridicule, shame and belittle anyone who opposes or even questions his and DOGE's activities. And he often spreads outright lies, which of course the hapless victims are defenseless against, particularly when Musk is implicitly backed by The Emperor. As I said earlier on (but deleted), it's a juggernaut of mendacity (and this time it stays!)

Save it for your crockery mate ;-)

From another thread:

Physicalism accounts for the world at large first, and after that focuses on whether the mind can fit that paradigm. It can account for the mind, but it's not in the terms we generally apply to mental processes.
— Relativist

What you think the 'world at large' is, relies on and is dependent on a great many judgements that you will make when considering its nature. You might gesture at it as if it were obviously something completely separate from you, but the very fact of speaking about it reveals the centrality of your judgement as to what the 'world at large' is. Science as a whole is always concerned with judgements as to what is the case in particular applications, but philosophy is different, in that it considers and calls into question the nature of judgement itself, not judgement concerning this or that state of affairs. — Wayfarer

It occured to me after I wrote this, that a bit of Rödl might have seeped in.

Physicalism accounts for the world at large first, and after that focuses on whether the mind can fit that paradigm. It can account for the mind, but it's not in the terms we generally apply to mental processes. — Relativist

What you think the 'world at large' is, relies on and is dependent on a great many judgements that you will make when considering its nature. You might gesture at it as if it were obviously something completely separate from you, but the very fact of speaking about it reveals the centrality of your judgement as to what the 'world at large' is. Science as a whole is always concerned with judgements as to what is the case in particular applications, but philosophy is different, in that it considers and calls into question the nature of judgement itself, not judgement concerning this or that state of affairs.

And where is that 'external world' grounded, if not in the mind?
— Wayfarer

It's grounded In the actual world. Don't you agree one exists? — Relativist

Of course it exists. It's just that we don't see it as it truly is. Nobody sees it as it truly is. You're starting from the assumption that the appearance, the phenomena, the world as it appears, is real independently of you, when your cognitive faculties provide the very basis for how it appears to you. If you want to refute this argument you need to understand what it is saying. It is not positing 'mind' as some objective, if ethereal, substance or thing.

All of our judgements about the nature of the world, what its constituents are and so on, are themselves intellectual in nature. But then physicalism claims that these are the result of supposedly mind-independent processes. Nothing I’ve said suggests that the mind 'exists uncaused' - what I said was that 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.

That our minds would reflect the reality that IS, seems reasonable because we are products of that reality. — Relativist

I don't think the sense in which the mind is 'the product of reality' is at all well established or understood. We do, of course, have considerable understanding about the course of evolutionary development, but evolutionary biology was not intended as, and doesn't necessarily serve as, a theory of knowledge per se. As far as evolution is concerned, the salient features of any species are those which serve the purpose of species' survival and propagation. I think what drives the whole process is still very much an open question (and by that I'm not appealing to any kind of 'creator God').

This calls into question the grounding, but I think this can be plausibly accounted for in terms of the connection to the external world through our senses. — Relativist

And where is that 'external world' grounded, if not in the mind? Of course it is true that the mind receives information from sensable objects, but then the whole process of apperception and synthesis swings into gear, and that generates whatever you understand 'the world' to be - including the accounts of 'the physical', the theories of which rely on the symbolic order represented by mathematical physics.

And, for that matter, what is the origin of the idea of the physical? In Charles Pinter's 'Mind and the Cosmic Order', it is put like this:

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)

The whole problem with physicalism, and the reason I'm criticizing it, is because it forget, omits, or excludes the role of the mind in the construction of what we understand 'the physical' to be. And that's a natural consequence of the way in which modern science was originally constructed, with its emphasis on the exclusive reality of the so-called primary qualities of matter and the relegation of the remainder to the subjective domain. It is question-begging all the way down.

Hence, to get back to the OP (which is terribly parsed, by the way) - how could mind be an uncaused cause? Well, damned if I know, but I think agree with Kant: we only recognize causal relationships because the mind imposes a framework of intelligibility on experience. Physicalism takes causality for granted as a feature of the external world, but it neglects the grounding role of the mind. Without this structuring role, causation as we know it would be unintelligible—mere succession without necessity (per Hume).

If mind decides to raise the arm, that intent has to somehow connect to the brain to cause it to occur. This suggests that either the mind has some physical properties, or the brain has some non-physical properties. Which is it? Either way, it seems problematic. — Relativist

The problem arises because of abstraction - the division of 'mind' and 'body' as two abstract or idealised entities which supposedly 'interact'. This is the basis of the 'interaction problem' that bedevils Cartesian philosophy, but it only exists because of the idealised abstraction that gave rise to it. The mind and body is actually a body-mind with physical and psychic aspects that are inter-related, not two separate entities (not two=nondual).

Consider what happens when I say something that shocks or annoys - all that has passed between us are symbolic forms, words. Yet these can have immediate physical consequences, raising of heart-rate or adrendal activity. This is because the reality is neither physical nor psychic, but embraces both aspects -hence mind-body medicine, psychosomatic effects, and so on. None of which are endorsed by physicalism.

Meanings and logic are semantic relations, not ontological (except insofar as we make sense of things using our physical brains). — Relativist

But nevertheless, they are constantly deployed to argue for what you consider to be physical. When you say that 'the physical brain' has causal power, you are relying on such semantic relations, which in reality underpin your entire 'thought-world'. Notice the contradictory nature of 'making sense using physical brains' - you deploy the word 'physical' because you think it 'makes sense', but that all depends on what is meant by 'physical'.

An unperceived event is not an experience. Perceptions entail physical changes to the brain. The experience is therefore a physical phenomenon. — Relativist

Much of our cognitive activity depends on sub- and unconscious processes, which by definition are not experienced (otherwise they'd be conscious). These include personal factors specific to the individual, but also autonomic and parasympathetic processes, and cultural factors, such as language and beliefs.

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

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.

Logical relationships exist without being physical (e.g., modus ponens or the law of the excluded middle in logic). Arguably, so-called 'physical laws' are themselves not physical, in that they rely heavily on idealisation (perfect objects and contexts) and abstraction (per Nancy Cartwright).

Meanings are real, yet they are not physical objects, and furthermore, to arrive at any concept of what physical objects are, requires the use of definitions, rules of inference, and so on, which cannot themselves be regarded as physically objective.

Per the hard problem of consciousness, the experience of "redness" is not itself a property of neural firings, even if those firings correlate with it. You cannot ascertain what it is like to see something red on the basis of the examination of neural data.

A brain state may be correlated with an experience, but it does not contain meaning in the way that a sentence does. Studies of neuroplasticity demonstrate that there is no discernable 1:1 relationship between semantic content and neurophysiological events, as these vary unpredictably within and between different studies of brains (see this article on interpretation of results from fMRI scans.)

Then there's the various forms of the argument from reason, which says that if thoughts and decisions were physically determined, there would be no room for rational inference, because reason involves moving from premises to conclusions because they are true. There is nothing corresponding to that relationship observable in the physical domain.

Memories are lost when brains are damaged from trauma or disease, suggesting memories are encoded in the brain. — Relativist

There is a large body of evidence concerning children who recall previous lives, suggesting memories may be transmitted by some means other than the physical.

For all these reasons and many others, physicalist philosophy of mind fails to come to terms with what it seeks to explain.

Life may be common throughout the Universe, and H.sapiens may not be the only example of something that can judge the world around it. In which case, being able to judge may be a natural expression of the nature of the world. — RussellA

But that's completely groundless speculation. Judgement is a cognitive function, exercised by an agent. And besides, even if it is true that other rational sentient life-forms have evolved, why would it not be the case that they too face existential angst as we do? (In Mahāyāna Buddhist mythology, it has long been accepted that there are other inhabited worlds, but that the same fundamental conditions apply there also, due to the principle of dependent origination.)

Is it possible for a moral code to be intrinsically right, even though it may not give the individual the best chance of continued life and prosperity? — RussellA

For example, enlisting to fight Nazism during WWII. On a smaller scale, every time an individual declines an opportunity to gain from an illicit promise of wealth.

I think there are still enough votes in Congress to authorize more aid to Ukraine. — RogueAI

Congress has not uttered a squeak about anything Trump has done since the election. Not a word, not a raised eyebrow. If Trump says jump, their only response will be How high?