A new person does not emerge in me every morning.... — Clearbury

You're sure about that? We're all constantly changing, day by day, moment by moment. There is continuity, but also change. Many of the cells in your body are renewed regularly. That is one of the fascinating things about the nature of identity.

The evidence is much stronger than any religious point of view. — Sam26

It's a shame you can only see it through your pre-concieved notion of what a 'religious point of view' must be. Buddhism is alone amongst religions in its treatment of the nature of consciousness, which is what I was responding to, and provides a coherent philosophical framework within which NDE's might be interpreted.

Re a priori knowledge - there's a current philosopher, Lawrence BonJour, who writes about role of a priori knowledge and philosophical rationalism. As it happens, I've found a rather good and quite brief video on BonJour's ideas, by a professor of philosophy, which you can review here.

Computers demonstrate that logic can be mechanized, so I don't understand what you see as a problem. — Relativist

Computers don’t come into existence de novo. They are artefacts built by humans according to human aims and purposes. In other words, whatever purposes they pursue are extrinsic.

Armstrong advocates 'central state materialism' which claims that thought contents simply are brain states - a form of brain-mind identity. But brain states have physical properties (neuron firing patterns, biochemical reactions), whereas propositional content possesses semantic properties (meaning, truth-value). I don't think physicalism can explain how semantic properties emerge from, or are identical to, these physical states without appealing to, or assuming, non-physicalist explanations of meaning. As Feser says 'Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.' And the attempt to infer the relationship of brain states and inferential content can't proceed without relying on the very faculty that you're seeking to explain.

What's the problem with the way Armstrong appeals to physics? (i.e. the basis for believing there exist laws of nature). — Relativist

It's this:

When Armstrong refers to "laws of nature", he's not pointing to scientific theories and equations in textbooks. He's referring to something ontological. Physics may approximate the law, or describe it in terms meaningful to us, but those descriptions and equations are not the law. The law is the physical relations that exist between (or among) types of things (a type of thing is a universal). — Relativist

What is that 'something ontological', and how can it be described as physical, when it's not described by physics? It's a bit disingenuous to appeal to science whenever it suits your aims, but then disavow it when it doesn't.

Besides, physics assumes the order of nature - it doesn't explain it, nor need to explain it. As A N Whitehead puts it in Science and the Modern World, science itself depends on the belief that the natural world follows a regular, coherent structure. This regularity allows science to generalize from specific observations and to formulate laws that describe the behavior of natural phenomena. But, he says, this assumption of natural order is itself a metaphysical commitment, one that exceeds the bounds of empiricism, but is essential for science to proceed. In other words, science assumes the universe is not chaotic or random but instead governed by principles that are discoverable and consistent over time*. All of which is patently obvious in Armstrong.

This assumption is grounded in the history of Western philosophy, particularly in medieval and early modern thought, where thinkers like Aquinas and Newton envisioned a rational structure to the cosmos, often influenced by theological ideas of a divine order. Whitehead notes that even as science moved away from explicitly theological explanations, it retained this foundational belief in an orderly universe. I think Armstrong's philosophy is built on this ground - a divinely-ordained cosmos sans divine intellect.

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* Hence the purportedly 'brute facts' of empiricism - those elements for which further explanations ought not to be sought.

I cannot literally know the early universe, but I can metaphorically know it. — RussellA

Right. But naturalism then presumes that the mind which knows it, is the product of that process it only knows metaphorically.

Armstrong's physicalist metaphysics could be wrong (perhaps the mind isn't physical, or perhaps there are no actual laws of nature), but the same is true of any metaphysical system that has been, or ever will be, proposed. — Relativist

That's not an argument, but an observation. If you're an idealist, then you believe that Armstrong's physicalist theory is wrong, and will argue accordingly. I've presented many arguments against physicalism, which I hope are persuasive. (But then, people do have their predispositions.)

I think the only thing that a physicalist framework struggles with is theory of mind. — Relativist

I think its failure on that score is beyond reasonable doubt. The crux of that issue is logic itself, reason itself. I don't see how can there be any plausible physicalist account of the nature of reason, which inheres in the relationship of ideas, 'if-then' statements.

If physicists can't unequivocally demonstrate which interpretation is true, then certainly a philosopher isn't well-positioned to figure it out for them — Relativist

Nor can philosophers then appeal to physics in support of what they describe as 'physicalism'. And if their physicalism is not supported by physics, then why does it deserve that designation.

The problem isn't Trump, it's a badly patched system that enables Trump to happen. — Christoffer

I don't agree with that. Trump is someone who is an absolute expert at exploiting democratic systems and also financial systems for his own advantage. If there is a fault, it's that a satisfactory anti-Trump hasn't emerged - someone who is also charismatic, bombastic, and telegenic, but who has at least a core of common decency which has long died inside DJT.

Anyway, it ain't over. I think I'll hold fire until one week from today, when the outcome might be apparent.

Like I said, it's Hope versus Hate.

Let's hope.

Why is it even possible in the first place? — Christoffer

If you mean, why is it possible that Donald Trump has come to dominate American politics, f***ed if I know. It makes zero sense.

I believe that there is some element of consciousness in most if not all living things. I also believe that consciousness is at the heart of reality and that all of us ultimately come from this core consciousness. — Sam26

From a philosophical perspective, it might be instructive to consider the Buddhist view of re-birth. It is often assumed that 'Buddhists believe in reincarnation', but it is not actually true. In the very earliest Buddhist texts, the Buddha firmly rejects the idea of there being a soul, self or person who migrates from one life to another. Yet at the same time, the Buddha is said to have insight into the fate of beings after death, and it is widely accepted that beings are reborn in one of the 'six realms of existence' after physical death.

It's a hard idea to communicate in a few words, but the basic point is that beings propogate causes during this life, which will give rise to, or manifest as, living beings in future lives. Even though there isn't a kernel of unchanging personality which continues or migrates from one life to another, when a child is born, that child will manifest inherited tendencies, proclivities, inclinations, and so on, which were set in motion in previous lives, as a result of previous actions (or karma). There is a term in some Buddhist schools, 'citta-santāna', translated as 'mind-stream' which seeks to convey this idea. It is sometimes linked to a teaching associated with later (Mahāyāna) Buddhism, of the 'storehouse consciousness' (alayavijnana) which can be compared to a 'collective unconscious'. So the person is more like a process, and indeed there have been comparisons between Buddhism and Western 'process philosophy', which is customarily said to have begun with Heraclitus.

As to whether this implies that beings 'originate from core consciousness', Buddhism doesn't generally teach in those terms, although East Asian teachings of 'Buddha Nature' might be interpreted along those lines.

For a variety of interpretations from various teachers, see Buddhist Teachings on Re-birth.
Also: citta santāna
Alayavijnana
Six Realms of Existence
Buddha Nature

US democracy has been eroding for a long time now. — Christoffer

There is much anti-American sentiment, on the streets and on this forum. I don't buy that 'it's all f***ed anyway, no point in either party, they're all equally bad.' The anti-democratic forces feed on that sentiment.

If democrats are so sure that Trump and modern republicans have been infiltrated by fascists and that democracy is threatened, that the constitution is threatened. Then what exactly are they doing about it? — Christoffer

They're fighting like hell. They're trying desperately to do everything possible to prevent it.

Even when someone like Trump do things that in any other previous political era would lead to almost political and societal ostracism, it just makes him stronger — Christoffer

Which is why I said in an earlier post that I think he really is actually evil. He's become like a window through which a great number of social evils are manifesting. I don't know if you heard the racist crap that was being spouted at his NY convention the other night, but he's creating a permission structure, an 'Overton window', to enable millions of people to indulge in their darkest instincts. One of the contributors on the old forum said it best: Trump is the manifestation of the American Id.

It's very clear: this election is hope vs hate.


Let's hope.

Thanks for taking the time! Just for clarity, I will be upfront about my attitude towards Armstrong. When I enrolled at University (decades ago now), he was the Professor of Traditional Philosophy. I never studied under him, but I was aware that his magnum opus was 'Materialist Theory of MInd'. My quest was of a somewhat spiritual nature ('spiritual' is actually not a very good description of my interests, but there are not many alternatives in the current lexicon.) In any case, I identified scientific and philosophical materialism as the opponent, a philosophy that essentially devalued and misunderstood something fundamental about human existence. I've always argued against materialist theory of mind and have devoted time to reading and debating David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel and Bernardo Kastrup, notable critics of it. So that's where I'm coming from.

What Armstrong is doing is acknowledging a distinction between the actual laws of nature and the academic discipline of physics. Physicists endeavors to uncover laws of nature, and is likely correct in many cases, but ontology is not dependent on them getting everything exactly correct. Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation seemed to be a law of nature for quite a long time, but in fact - it had an error, one that was corrected by Einstein's theory. The law of nature didn't change, but the law of physics did change. — Relativist

But first, what we know of the 'laws of nature' is customarily understood to be the province of natural philosophy (precursor of today's science). So what 'actual laws of nature' there are, would be in science's court.

Secondly, whether there *are* 'laws of nature' is nowadays contested. See for interest Nancy Cartwright No God, No Laws, where 'laws' can be understood as being prescriptive and determinative of what exists in nature. She argues without them being underwritten by God, then they lack the capacity to 'make things happen' (hence the title. I don't particularly want to pursue that line of argument but it has Armstrong's conception of 'law' in its sights. Nowadays it is common to encounter opinions that the concept of natural or scientific law is obsolete, although I don't agree with that, either.)

And third, if Armstrong’s metaphysics is founded on the idea of scientific laws as real and necessary features of the world, then one would expect it to appeal to scientifically established theories. Yet by not “being bound by actual physics,” Armstrong’s conception of laws becomes somewhat abstracted from the very empirical framework that supposedly substantiates it. In a way, he’s attempting to have it both ways: appealing to the supposed authority of scientific realism to bolster his metaphysical position while remaining unanchored from science’s provisional and revisable nature (see also Hempel's Dilemma.)

About ontology - strictly speaking, it is 'the study of the nature of being'. 'Ontology' has uses in current English, for example in information technology, where it refers to the inventory of types of system in a network. But the original meaning was the study of the nature of being (derived from the Greek verb for 'to be'). I've had many a debate here about the implications of this term, because I seek to make a distinction between the 'nature of being' and 'the analysis of what exists'*. The former is nowadays associated with phenomenology and existentialism, while the latter is firmly in the province of the natural sciences. Armstrong would of course claim that the former can be reduced to the latter, which is a foundational move of scientific materialism.

The state of affairs of a quantum system is perfectly describable as a Schroedinger equation. In that respect, the quantum system evolves in a strictly deterministic way over time. — Relativist

You wonder why, then, Schrödinger published his notorious thought-experiment on the not-dead-or-alive cat. He sought to illustrate the fundamental indeterminacy that characterises the so-called 'fundamental particles' of physics by providing a hypothetical example of their absurd implications were they to manifest on the level of everyday experience. The fact that the equation is accurate is not at issue, as it is firmly established that the accuracy of the predictions of quantum mechanics exceeds anything previously discovered in history. It's what they say, or don't say, about the so-called fundamental constituents of reality that is the philosophical point at issue. In other words, it's the ontological implications that are at issue, not the practical effectiveness. The fact that Armstrong can blithely wave these away says something about his theories, in my view.
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*Regarding the distinction between the nature of being and the study of what exists, one of my opponents linked an apparently-classic article Charles Kahn 'The Greek Verb "To Be" and the Meaning of Being' which unfortunately for him tended to favour my side of the argument.

When Armstrong refers to "laws of nature", he's not pointing to scientific theories and equations in textbooks. He's referring to something ontological. Physics may approximate the law, or describe it in terms meaningful to us, but those descriptions and equations are not the law. The law is the physical relations that exist between (or among) types of things (a type of thing is a universal).

So when I said that laws of nature are necessarily natural, if naturalism is true, I was specifically referring to laws as something ontological, not descriptive. — Relativist

But if they're not the laws described by physics, then in what sense are those relations physical? What about the relationship between sign and interpreter? I question that declaring everything to be physical, without any reference to physics itself, is even meaningful.

The essential element of his ontology is that every thing that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its attached properties and relations). Even quantum fields, or strings, fit this framework. — Relativist

But that is not true. Scientific realists, including Sir Roger Penrose and Albert Einstein, both criticize quantum physics precisely on the grounds that they provide no description of specification of what the 'state of affairs' of a quantum system is, prior to it being measured. This is why they both insist that quantum physics must be in some sense incomplete. Yet it has withstood every test that has been set for it. (I've published a Medium essay on this topic.)

"Are laws of nature natural? "
Yes. If they weren't, then all forms of naturalism would be false. — Relativist

Not necessarily. They could be regularities which serve a descriptive, but not regulative, purpose. The idea that laws necessitate outcomes may presuppose more than physicalism can account for, as it implies a causal force binding outcomes beyond regularities. And the nature of the causation here is far from obvious.

Even if 'scientific laws' appear to be validated through observation, what is observed are instances or effects of them, not the laws themselves. For instance, we observe gravitational effects, but we don’t directly observe gravity, and the nature of gravity and electromagnetic fields is still an open question. I suppose a framework like Armstrong's can simply appropriate these as they come along, but that then falls victim to Hempel's dilemma e.g. definitions of 'physical' can be updated on an ad hoc basis as required, which dilutes their explanatory power.

All of this raises questions of whether universals in Armstrong’s view are really properties of physical systems or whether they reflect underlying, non-empirical constraints that dictate these regularities. If they are something like "necessitating forces," then Armstrong’s physicalism has to account for how these forces exist as part of the physical domain, especially if they are not physical objects themselves.

Furthermore appealing to the entities of sub-atomic physics presents difficulties for Armstrong's style of physicalism. This is because whether such entities are truly objective is still an unresolved question, subject of ongoing debates in philosophy of science. I don't know if Armstrong ever touches on the thorny question of interpretation in quantum physics, but I'm not sure it would support his overall approach.

"observing subjects" are objects that exist as a consequence of the way the world is and the specific history that it has. — Relativist

"observing subjects" are only 'objects' to other observing subjects who, it is hoped, will be sufficiently perceptive to recognise them as subjects, rather than regarding them as objects.

even if Trump loses (an apparent coin flip at this point) it'll only be a matter of time before the next lunatic comes in that people will find reasons to support. — Mr Bee

It might be, but it could take a long time to re-appear. Whereas if Trump looses he's not going to run again and many of those who backed him will at least loose momentum.

Whereas, if Trump wins, he has apprentices in his slipstream who have been preparing to exploit the moment. Particularly Vance:

Mainstream news outlets now feature stories about felon and former president Donald Trump’s “strikingly erratic, coarse and often confusing” rambling speeches, “cognitive decline,” and bizarre behavior. This evidence of mental breakdown, coupled with his event cancellations due to reports of “exhaustion” (reports his campaign has denied), give voters every reason to think that Trump could not complete a second term or would be “out of it.” Either way, his vice-presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the most disliked man ever to run for vice president, would be running the show.

In essence, the most unqualified man ever to run for vice president — without a lick of executive public experience, just two years in the Senate, author of not a single piece of significant legislation, lacking any experience with foreign leaders — would be promoted. We would have a real life encounter with Peter’s Principle in the most important job on the planet. And considering the opposition from most of the “adults” from the first term, he might be relying on likely Trump Cabinet officials and advisers such as Kash Patel, Stephen K. Bannon, Richard Grenell, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Vance is far more ideological than Trump, who blows with the wind on everything from a national abortion ban to Social Security. And Vance is every bit as enmeshed in the fever world of conspiracies — from the antisemitic obsession with George Soros as the mastermind behind Democratic causes to the “great replacement theory” to election denial — with ties to other conspiratorialists. He is a better spoken, more erudite conspiracy monger.

Moreover, few doubt that Vance, who has extensive ties to Project 2025, would likely be raring to implement the wholesale remaking of the federal government. If Trump might be distracted or convinced the plan would make him unpopular, an ideologue such as like Vance might well be more committed to implementing its crackpot ideas, such as politicizing the Federal Reserve, replacing 50,000 civil service experts with MAGA loyalists, conducting a mass roundup and expulsion of undocumented immigrants, abolition of the Education Department, and shredding the prohibition on establishment of religion. — Jennifer Rubin, WaPo

Vance is a protogé of Peter Theil, who says that democracy and freedom are incompatible. Trump has said he'll put Elon Musk in charge of Federal spending.

Make no mistake: Democracy is on the ballot. This is not Democratic Party hyperbole. If Trump were not to loose, the USA will be managed by rich oligarchs.

Modern science paints a strange picture of the world. Our world is one of tremendous diversity. It includes many types of star and galaxy, a vast number of species, each with their own complex biology, a “zoo” of fundamental particles, etc. At the same time, it paints a picture of a word that is unified. There are no truly isolated systems. Causation, energy, and information flow across the boundaries of all seemingly discrete “things,” such that the universe appears to be not so much a “collection of things,” but rather a single continuous process. How do we reconcile this seeming multiplicity (the Many) with the equally apparent unity of being (the One)? How can we make true statements about the world given this problem? — Count Timothy von Icarus

That is the problematic of classical philosophy in a nutshell, is it not? Which has nowadays made a comeback, through such sciences as systems theory and complexity science, where it had been deprecated by early modern science in favour of atomistic materialism. I like that you bring this perspective to bear in many of your comments, as not many contributors are as aware of it as you are. (Incidentally, and I might have mentioned this previously, there is a current book by a philosophical physicist that explores this territory, The One, Heinrich Pas. Video interview can be found here. )

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Yes, we cannot think about "being" without thoughts, but we can also think about "being" existing outside the mind. Otherwise we come to the conclusion that the Universe didn't begin 13 billion years ago, but only began 200,000 years ago when humans developed language. — RussellA

Almost anyone on this forum would take this assumption for granted, but it can be questioned, obvious though it may seem. Many of the conundrums you're wrestling with arise from this assumption.

You're assuming that 'the universe' (or 'world') would exist, just as it is, without any observers in it. But that assumption always requires an implicit perspective. Certainly we can imagine the early universe, devoid of organic life, but that imagined universe still contains a perspective and a sense of scale provided by the observing mind. For absent scale and perspective, what can we say exists?

For what exactly is meant by saying that the world existed prior to human consciousnesses? It might be meant that the earth emerged from a primitive nebula where the conditions for life had not [yet] been brought together. But each one of these words, just like each equation in physics, presupposes our pre-scientific experience of the world, and this reference to the lived world contributes to constituting the valid signification of the statement. Nothing will ever lead me to understand what a nebula, which could not be seen by anyone, might be. Laplace’s nebula is not behind us, at our origin, but rather out in front of us in the cultural world ~ Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Merleau-Ponty is not denying that there is a perfectly legitimate sense in which we can say that the world existed before human consciousness. Indeed, he refers to the “valid signification” of this statement. He is making a point at a different level, the level of meaning. The meanings of terms in scientific statements, including mathematical equations, depend on the life-world [the web of connected meanings within which subjects interpret existence ~wayfarer]. Furthermore, the universe does not come ready-made and presorted into kinds of entities, such as nebulae, independent of investigating scientists who find it useful to conceptualize and categorize things that way given their perceptual capacities, observational tools, and explanatory purposes in the life-world and the scientific workshop [a point also central to Mind and the Cosmic Order, Pinter ~ wf]. The very idea of a nebula, a distinct body of interstellar clouds, reflects our human and scientific way of perceptually and conceptually sorting astronomical phenomena. This is what Merleau-Ponty means when he says that he cannot understand what a nebula that could not be seen by anyone might be. Nothing intrinsically bears the identity “nebula” within it. That identity depends on a conceptual system that informs (and is informed by) observation. Nevertheless, Merleau-Ponty’s last sentence is exaggerated. Given the conceptual system of astrophysics and general relativity theory, Laplace’s nebula is behind us in cosmic time. But it is not just behind us. It is also out in front of us in the cultural world, because the very idea of a nebula is a human category. The universe contains the life-world, but the life-world contains the universe. ...

We can now appreciate that the life-world has the same kind of primacy as the primacy of consciousness and the primacy of embodiment. Better yet, the primacy of the life-world subsumes the primacy of consciousness and the primacy of embodiment. We cannot step outside the life-world, because we carry it with us wherever we go. — The Blind Spot - Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, Evan Thompson

Whereas, I think you're taking what you understand as the scientific picture of the world as being real independently of any observer, attributing with a kind of absolute or taken-for-granted reality. But then you can't see where 'mind' fits in, because that picture is purportedly 'mind-independent'!

> Also see How Time Began with the First Eye Opening

No, no, no. It's not nearly so complicated, there's no need for all this complicated verbiage. Science studies objects and objective facts - how big is it, where is it, how fast is it moving, how does it interact, what causes it, etc. This it does for everything from the sub-atomic to cosmic scales. But as consciousness does not appear as an object, it is not included in that analysis as a matter of principle. Let's not loose sight of the forest for the trees.

Usually many less paragraph breaks, which I added. But his prose on the whole is very lucid.

they'd be claiming that consciousness is the foundational reality, beyond which there are no further explanations—it's simply taken as given — Tom Storm

Still can't go past Schopenhauer:

Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is.

It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality.

Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought 'matter', we really thought only 'the subject that perceives matter'; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it.

Thus the tremendous petitio principii (=begged question) reveals itself unexpectedly; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like Baron Münchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and himself also by his cue. The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or after it has taken form, is empirically given—that is to say, is substance, the chemical element with its primary relations. Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away.

Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction).

But we have shown that all this 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. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained.

To the assertion that 'thought is a modification of matter' we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that 'all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject' - as its idea. Yet the aim and ideal of all natural science is at bottom a consistent materialism. The recognition here of the obvious impossibility of such a system establishes another truth ...the truth that all science properly so called, by which I understand systematic knowledge under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, can never reach its final goal, nor give a complete and adequate explanation: for it is not concerned with the inmost nature of the world, it cannot get beyond the idea; indeed, it really teaches nothing more than the relation of one idea to another.

My own existence is certainly a fact - cogito ergo sum - but not of the kind that was mooted in the post I was responding to. After all, even Descartes himself noted that the existence of the world might be a spell cast by an evil daemon.

//I suppose to expand on that a bit, I find @Relativist’s defense of physicalism is very much grounded in the ‘Cartesian division’ typical of modern physicalism generally.

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. (Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, pp. 35-36)

And another:

The scientific revolution took its impulse from what the philosopher Bernard Williams called the Absolute Conception of Reality. This is a conception of the world as "it really is" entirely apart from how it appears to us: a colorless, odorless value-free domain of particles and complexes moving in accordance with timeless and immutable mathematical laws. The world so conceived has no place for mind in it. No intention. No purpose. If there is mind — and of course the great scientific revolutionaries such as Descartes and Newton would not deny that there is mind — it exists apart from and unconnected to* the material world as this was conceived of by the New Science.

If modern science begins by shaping a conception of the cosmos, its subject matter, in such a way as to exclude mind and life, then it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can't seem to find a place for them in the natural order so conceived. — Alva Noe, Review of Mind and Cosmos, quoted by Edward Feser

*while being explainable in terms of

The "natural" is anything that exists* that is causally connected to the actual physical world through laws of nature. — Relativist

Are laws of nature natural? They’re never actually observed, only their effects can be discerned by measurement and observation. But the question why nature is lawful or what natural laws comprise, is not itself a question that naturalism has answers for. Naturalism assumes an order in nature, but it doesn’t explain it, nor does it need to explain it. That, I suppose, is what you’re getting at by saying that the existence of the world is ‘brute fact’ - which effectively forecloses any attempt to understand why things are the way they are, whether they are as they seem, and so on.

Another argument is that what exists according to natural science, does not include the observing subject who stipulates the axioms upon which it rests. That is the topic of the innumerable and interminable discussions about the hard problem of consciousness. It is also the major topic of both phenomenology and existentialism, which will probably not be cowed with threats of ‘brute fact’. :wink:

Case in point: from the Madison Square delusionfest:

Trump says he would let RFK Jr. "go wild on medicines" as Kennedy promotes vaccine conspiracy theories
From CNN's Kate Sullivan in New York

Former President Donald Trump said Sunday he would let former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been a leading purveyor of debunked vaccine conspiracy theories, “go wild on health,” “go wild on the food” and “go wild on medicines,” if reelected.

Trump previously told CNN’s Kristen Holmes he would consider appointing Kennedy to a role in his administration if he wins in November. Kennedy, who spoke at the rally, has a role on Trump’s transition team.

“I’m going to let him go wild on health, I’m going to let him go wild on the food, I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”

For sure. He’s a trojan horse.

I agree, although the threat of an apocalypse is a real and present danger. There are so many critical situations - economic, political, military and environmental.The world is on a knife edge. Trump would be preoccupied with vengeance - not long ago he was fantasizing about putting Liz Cheney in front of a military tribunal. Purging the public service and politicizing the Justice Department. Fiddling while Rome burns, indeed.

At least these questions have led me down various paths, including French and German existentalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of language and American pragmatism. I am currently working on papers involving Jean-Francois Lyotard, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. The last few years were mainly spent with these characters along with Emmanuel Levinas, Samuel Beckett, and some lesser known figures like Josiah Royce or Francois Laruelle (sometimes you just gotta get a little weird). Truth be told, it is difficult to find people interested in these authors, so I hope to find some companionship in this forum. — KrisGl

Interesting but intimidating! There’s always so much to read and only so much time. But it sounds to me as if you have a multi-faceted and rich perspective so I think you’ll be a great contributor. Welcome!

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'
— Wayfarer

I tried to pick the most neutral word possible. Is there a better term for the denizens (another neutral word!) of the "formal realm"? Happy to use it instead. — J

I don't know if there is - 'noumena' is nowadays almost exclusively tied to Kant, specifically. It was more a reflection that the use of 'phenomena' to describe 'everything that is' (including for example the axioms of mathematics) is nowadays commonplace, but it overlooks a semantic distinction that ought to be implied in the meaning of the term, namely, that it is 'what appears'. (Is the "is" implied in the "=" symbol a phenomenal existent? In 19th C Idealism it was customary to distinguish 'reality and appearance' but that was pretty well vanquished by Moore and Russell.)

Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments.
— Wayfarer

Is there a particular reference you have in mind? — J

"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (1951) where he challenges the distinction between analytic (necessarily true by definition) and synthetic (empirically contingent) statements, arguing instead that all knowledge, including mathematics and logic, is part of a "web of belief." In this web, statements derive their meaning and truth-value not in isolation but through their interconnectedness with other empirical and theoretical commitments. This interdependence implies that even mathematical truths are not purely necessary in an absolute sense but are subject to revision if the overall network of beliefs demands it.

(While I acknowledge that my understanding of Quine is limited I think this is relevant to the OP.)

By way of footnote, I feel there's an issue with the way 'thought' is used in these contexts. It's a term with many meanings, but to me it conveys a very casual sense of undirected mental activity. Our minds are full of thoughts - or anyway mine is - often hard to direct and mercurial as quicksilver. I feel when the ancient worthies speak of ‘thought’, this is NOT what they had in mind. Thought can be more or less concentrated, and I think that on a day-to-day basis ordinary thought is not at all concentrated. Whereas when the subject is ‘thinking-being’, I feel the kind of thought that is being referred to, is nothing like those vagaries of thought that tend to occupy one’s mind. Much more concentrated and indeed formal. Something to bear in mind.

I used not to think that Trump was evil. I thought he was banal, narcissistic, corrupt, venal, and all the other obviously suitable descriptions. But I didn’t think he had the gravitas, or the balls, to be evil in the same vein has Hitler and Stalin. But I’ve changed my mind. He still doesn’t have the balls, but his vanity is such that it provides a real window of opportunity for a lot of very evil players, with nefarious intentions, to seize power. J D Vance and Elon Musk are both hanging on to the coat-tails, and if Trump did win, God forbid, and I still don’t believe he will - they’re both very clever men. He will be surrounded by many evil opportunists who know how to use flattery to accomplish their own ends. (Elon Musk will to all intents be the Finance secretary god help us all.)

The other factor is the pull that Trump has even despite his obvious malfeasance and incompetence. Any sane judge of character would immediately grasp Trump’s unfitness for office. But he’s succeeded in convincing a very large number of people that the facts don’t matter, or alternatively, that they’re not facts, and that he’s the sole purveyor of facts. And that is definitely evil, although he has many willing co-conspirators in the dissemination of that evil.

phenomena like mathematically necessary statements, which we can't even imagine to be otherwise. — J

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'. In classical philosophy mathematics belonged to the 'formal realm' rather than the phenomenal domain - although it is of course true that this is something that the authors of the article in question would not recognise. I think the classical picture was, very briefly, that the mathematical principles that science discovers and exploits are woven into the fabric of the cosmos, so to speak, but I think you could say that the general trend of 20th century philosophy has been against that.

As for the synthetic-analytic division, this brings to mind Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments. From this view, what we consider necessary mathematical truths might not be fundamentally woven into the cosmos but rather reflect our conceptual framework’s contingencies. This is a departure from the classical view, which saw mathematics as part of a formal realm—universally necessary and distinct from contingent phenomena. It could be said that one of the tendencies in analytic philosophy is to declare that everything, in fact, is contingent, thereby undermining the whole idea of there being necessary truths at all.

And therein lies a chasm!

New York Times endorses Kamala Harris (gift link).

It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

even though I believe that the colour red, pain and numbers don't exist in the world, I believe there is something real in the world that has caused my perception of the colour red, pain and numbers, even though I will probably never know what it is....As I know that my perceptions are real, I believe that the cause of my perceptions are also real, even if I will never know what these causes are. — RussellA

Rather a poignant expression of the plight of modernity. That is not a personal criticism - I think you're wrestling with a real conundrum inherent in modern culture and philosophy.

Kant is not an Innatist, in that a priori necessity is not something we are born with. He uses a transcendental argument that although cognition of inner necessity is prior to a posteriori empirical cognition, such a prior cognition has in fact been determined by a posteriori cognition. — RussellA

Kant maintains that the structures of cognition, like time and space, are necessary preconditions that shape any experience we might have; and that they are not derived from or contingent upon empirical experiences. The a priori nature of space and time is fundamental to Kant’s project, establishing these as the conditions that make empirical knowledge possible in the first place. In other words, while our temporal self-awareness needs external spatial reference (per the Refutation of Idealism), this does not imply that the a priori conditions (like the structure of time) are determined by empirical experience. Rather, the transcendental argument shows that experience as we know it requires these a priori forms.

Enactivism, by contrast, is focused on dissolving the strong subject-object dualism that is presupposed by the division of thought from being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the foundational texts of enactivism, The Embodied Mind, has a chapter titled 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".

(Coined in Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 1983)

This anxiety underlies many a debate.

They're (physical laws are) called contingent to distinguish them from mathematical necessity, which the authors believe is modally stronger. They're also contingent in the sense that we can easily imagine a physical world with different constants, different explanatory equations, etc. In this world, to be sure, they are nomic. — J

Ah, but can you? One might imagine a world where physical laws are different, but that is no basis to believe that physical laws are, in fact, contingent. Just because one can imagine a Universe where different laws obtain is no reason to believe that there might be such a thing. You may recall Martin Rees ‘Just Six Numbers’, showing that a small number of physical ratios are fundamental to the existence of a physical universe. A few percentage points different either way, and there would be no complex matter and presumably no living beings. This reasoning underwrites the venerable philosophical intuition of mathematical facts as ‘true in all possible worlds’. And it provides a plausible nexus between mathematical logic and physical causation, wherein the entailments of these constants manifest as constraints or natural law. Which is just the kind of transcendental argument that the paper in the OP is seeking to counter.

Sure. Might just be my own experience as I first started reading philosophy decades before the internet existed. And I’ve learned a ton here. But the diversity of views can also be confusing.

I think it’s more important to get acquainted with the subject of philosophy than to start interacting on forums. On forums you will find a huge variety of attitudes and arguments, and it can be very confusing until you have some knowledge of the subject and can orient yourself wth respect to the arguments. As many have suggested here, start with history of the subject and basic reading of the important philosophers. Be patient and be prepared for lots of reading and/or listening to texts. As far as podcasts go, definitely check out Peter Adamson’s History of Philosophy Without any Gaps.

although I believe there are benefits to viewing things that way, I don't have reason to think it's how things are. — Patterner

The purpose of the quote from Indian philosophy was mainly to demonstrate the provenance of the aphorism that 'the eye cannot see itself' and its link to phenomenology.

So naturally, we could try to define "and" as the physical process. It could be: “And” is a circuit that receives several inputs and gives an output of 1 if all inputs are 1. You can see that “and” is already in the definition and even if we try to phrase it differently to avoid the “and”, you’ll still need to talk about the several inputs being received, and what’s “several”? It is at least one unit AND another. Do you see the circularity? — Skalidris

I do. It's that 'primitive' concepts like "and", "equals", "is", "is not" are required for any form of rational inference. That includes rational inference about consciousness.

Is 1 + 1 = 2 a necessary truth by definition or because in the world 1 + 1 = 2?

If I invent a mathematics and define 1 + 1 = 3, then within my mathematics 1 + 1 = 3 is a necessary truth.

If in the world 1 + 1 = 2, then in mathematics 1 + 1 = 2 would be a necessary truth. However, this depends on justifying that numbers exist in the world.

If numbers did exist in the world, then this would require a relation between 1 and 1. But what has not been shown is the ontological existence of relations in the world.

The ontological existence of relations in the world introduces a number of practical problems, suggesting that numbers don't exist in the world. — RussellA

Mathematics doesn’t require numbers to exist as physical objects; rather, it functions as an abstract framework that helps us describe and understand relations and patterns in the physical world. When we say '1 + 1 = 2' in a physical context, we’re using numbers to represent observed regularities and quantities. Whatever mathematical system we invent must, by necessity, align with these constraints to be applicable. So you don't get to define necessary truths in any way you like!

The fact that mathematical reasoning often anticipates empirical phenomena (such as Dirac’s prediction of anti-matter) suggests a deep correspondence between mathematical structures and causal relations in the world. This doesn’t imply that numbers 'exist' in the same way as physical objects; instead, it indicates that mathematics captures and models crucial aspects of physical causation. Numbers, therefore, need not exist in the world to guide explanations of physical forces, provided they symbollically represent the appropriate values.

It's this relationship between mathematical logic (DME) and contingent causation that is central to the argument. You can't get around it by declaring that mathematics is purely arbitrary, because it ain't.

I think the 'practical problem' you're referring to, is how numbers can be real if they don't exist in a physical sense. Because that poses a problem for physicalism, doesn't it?

Well, the bolded might work in a (Neo)-Platonist, Aristotelian, Thomistic, etc. context, depending on how we define "real from their own side." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was responding to the specific question of perceived object permanence, but perhaps ought not to have mentioned Buddhist philosophy in the context. However, it's not incongruent with the point made in the Sokolowski passage, about dependency on subject-object relations.

Although I introduced arithmetic, my point wasn't about "transcendental functions" in the technical mathematical sense but rather about the type of knowledge that goes beyond what’s immediately available to the senses. Arithmetic and mathematical reasoning exemplify this because they allow us to grasp necessary truths that, although not sensory, still inform our understanding of the world — similar to Kant’s idea of the synthetic a priori.

I'm simply drawing an analogy to show how there are forms of knowledge, like mathematical deduction, that function beyond sensory input and can help us conceive of Kant’s transcendental structures. Modern mathematical physics is full of examples where mathematical reasoning anticipates empirical confirmation, from the countless 'Einstein proved right, again!' headlines to Paul Dirac's prediction of anti-matter, which, as he famously said, 'fell out of the equations.'

I would say the weight of virtually all empirical evidence is that an apple being an apple doesn't depend on us specifically for its existence. When we leave a room, the apples don't vanish. We can tell they continue to exist because they are subject to corruption. being eaten by mice, etc. while we are gone. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One might imagine the object going in and out of existence, depending on whether it is observed or not, but that itself is a mental act. So there’s no need to account for the existence (or non-existence) of non-perceived objects. To attempt to do so is to engage in what Buddhist philosophy categorises as a dogmatic view. It is safe for all practical purposes to assume the persistence of objects of perception but they shouldn’t be understood to exist in any absolute sense. They’re not real ‘from their own side’ is one of the ways it is expressed. That is quite different to the Platonist take on it but that’s enough for one post.

Well, a question here is what it means to be "independent from observers." In a certain sense, everything we think of is, in at least some sense, not independent of observers. We have thought of it, therefore it is not independent of our thought. It is in this very broad sense that Parmenides contends that "the same is for thinking as for being." — Count Timothy von Icarus

‘There are no mind-independent objects!’

‘Sure there are.’

‘Well, name one.’

:chin:

Kant argues in the CPR that we have transcendental knowledge of a world the other side of our senses, but never explains how this could work. — RussellA

We can ‘see’ things through deductive inference that are not empirically knowable. There’s a sense in which even arithmetic is transcendental in that it reveals aspects of nature which sense could not otherwise discern.

how can we transcend our senses in order to know what has caused these experiences in our senses? — RussellA

In pre-modern philosophy this was generally associated with transcending the self, although that is made more explicit in Eastern philosophies such as Vedanta and Buddhism. In those philosophies the over-valuation of sense-data is deprecated as the root cause of delusion although plainly this has an ethical dimension which is generally absent in Anglo philosophy and the overwhelmingly sensory orientation of modern culture.

Ok, Mww, I see your point now: “reality” cannot include the a priori modes of cognizing it; so our a priori faculties are not technically “real” in that sense, but must be grounded ontologically in something which allows for those faculties to exist—we just can’t know definitively what that is (viz., I do not know myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself). — Bob Ross

Another footnote - scholars have commented on the influence Kant and Schopenhauer had on Freud’s theories. See this The point being many aspects of our own psyche are not available to casual introspection but are in some important sense sub- and unconscious. Meaning the ancient dictum ‘Know thyself’ is not nearly so straightforward as it may seem.

The whole 'hard problem' arises from regarding consciousness as an object, which it is not, while science itself is based on objective facts. It's not complicated, but it's hard to see.