Myself, I wonder why this particular forum, which is mainly concerned with philosophy, ought to accomodate never-ending threads on vexatious topics such as Middle Eastern politics, which is famously divisive. I hardly contribute to that thread, as I don't have a dog in the fight, and besides there's enough stress and bile going around without outsiders piling on with their own opinions. So let's bear in mind what the purpose of this particular forum is about, there are many other fora (reddit, quora, etc) where non philosophical issues can be canvassed.

My penurious financial status seems to indicate an experiment to find the economic usefulness of nothingness. — Gnomon

In my case, I fell into an accidental career in information technology when I went back to University to finish my Honours in Comparative Religion, a completely impractical degree for making a living. There was a casual job advertised for a sales assistant at the campus computer store which turned into a full-time job which I managed to convert into a career as a technical writer over about 25 years. 'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans' became one of my favourite sayings (the other being 'my life has been a whole series of crises, most of which never occured'.)

the idea of the absential resonates strongly with the experience of no-thing-ness that was foundational to my Zen practice. It's linked to the Hindu aphorism, neti neti, 'not this, not that' - which is about how the mind attaches to objects and soon learns to orient itself solely to the sensory domain, forgetting its true nature, which is not any thing.

An anecdote - one of the textbooks on Buddhism I read around that time there was an account of the Prajñāpāramitā literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Many of those texts a very long, one of them is 108,000 verses (that being a symbolically significant number in Buddhism.) But there's also a very short Prajñāpāramitā Sutra, which is the 'sutra of one letter' - that letter being the sanskrit letter a, अ, which is the negative particle (equivalent to English 'un-', as in 'unmanifest, unmade, uncreated). Whereas our empirical age is totally focussed on what is manifest, made, created, hence there is no escape from suffering (in Buddhist dialectic.) All of those discoveries had a major impact on me around that time (about 40 years ago now).

I asked ChatGPT for an example of an absential and it responded:

The idea of an absential is somewhat counterintuitive in traditional scientific thinking, which typically focuses on the presence of things—such as particles, forces, and fields—to explain phenomena. Deacon's absential, on the other hand, refers to the importance of absence, non-existence, or what is not there in understanding certain aspects of reality. For example, he discusses how the function of a key is defined by the absence of material in its cuts, which matches the absence of material in the lock it fits.

I then asked:

Q: There's an intriguing parallel in the invention of the symbol for zero, '0', which was originally taken from the hole in the centre seat of a sailing dhow for the mast, that absence providing the means by which the boat was able to sail!

A: That's a fascinating parallel indeed! The invention of the symbol for zero, '0', as inspired by the absence represented by the hole in the center seat of a sailing dhow for the mast, beautifully illustrates the concept of "absential" as described by Terrence Deacon. This example shows how an absence or a void can have a profound and functional significance, much like Deacon's absentials.

In the case of the zero symbol, the concept of 'nothing' or 'absence' became a cornerstone in the development of mathematics. The introduction of zero as a numeral was revolutionary because it allowed for a new way of counting and understanding quantities. It made the place-value number system possible, enabling the expression of large numbers efficiently and the performance of complex calculations. Before its invention, there was no efficient way to represent "nothing" in a numerical system, which limited the scope and scale of mathematical operations.

Similarly, Deacon's concept of absentials in philosophy highlights how the absence of something can be as critical as the presence of something in understanding complex systems and phenomena. Just as the zero revolutionized mathematics, the concept of absentials offers a new way to think about mind, matter, and the emergence of complex phenomena in the universe.

This parallel beautifully demonstrates how ideas from different fields, like philosophy and mathematics, can intersect and provide profound insights into understanding the world around us.

Amen (or aum) to that! This also came up in a dialogue I was listening to yesterday between the marvellous John Vervaeke, Greg Henriques, and Matt Segal, in relation to the idea that what is real overflows the bounds of what simply exists, because it also contains the domain of unactualised possibility.

:up: My thoughts also.

If human reason cannot be explained in terms of evolutionary adaption, how did it originate? — RussellA

Have you considered the meaning of the term 'irreducible'? It means can't be explained in other terms.
If you were to 'explain reason', and considering that explanation is one of the principle functions of reason, then do you think that it would be feasible to explain the faculty which we use to seek explanations? There seems a problem of recursion to me.

The idea of origination in empirical philosophy might be something very different to origination as it was understood in classical philosophy. Scientific naturalism seeks explanations in terms of antecedent causes - what combination of factors give rise to what effects. It is far removed from the meaning of causation in classical philosophy, although to really explain that would take a long essay (and one which I may not be equipped to produce!)

Suffice to say that in evolutionary theory, the supervening reason for the existence of any faculty is that it facilitates propagation of the species. Reason becomes subordinated to survival, to what is useful or practical. But that again sells reason short, in that it undercuts the sovereignty of reason. (There's an interesting book on this topic, The Eclipse of Reason, by Max Horkheimer, which we've discussed here over the years, see this gloss.)

And, Happy New Year. :party:

Speaking of Artificial Intelligence, I put this exchange to ChatGPT just now:

Q: I’m interacting with a forum contributor who expresses many doubts about the impact of humans on climate change, and also the ability of humans to ameliorate that impact, even if he were to agree that humans are a factor. What should I say to him?

A: When engaging with someone skeptical about human impact on climate change and our ability to address it, it's important to approach the conversation with respect and understanding. Here are a few key points you could consider:

1. **Scientific Consensus**: Emphasize that there is a strong consensus among scientists that climate change is real and significantly driven by human activities, especially the emission of greenhouse gases like CO2.

2. **Historical Data and Predictions**: Point to the wealth of historical climate data and the accuracy of predictions made by climate models over the past decades, which support the understanding of human impact.

3. **Visible Impact**: Mention observable changes such as melting glaciers, more frequent and severe weather events, and shifts in wildlife behavior and habitats.

4. **Economic and Health Benefits**: Highlight that actions to mitigate climate change can have immediate benefits, like improving air quality, public health, and even creating economic opportunities in renewable energy sectors.

5. **Successful Examples**: Provide examples of successful mitigation efforts, such as the growth of renewable energy, reforestation projects, and the implementation of more efficient technologies, which demonstrate that human action can make a difference.

6. **Collective Responsibility**: Stress that while individual actions are important, the most significant changes need to come from systemic and policy changes at the governmental and corporate levels.

7. **Optimism and Practicality**: Acknowledge that while it's a huge challenge, being proactive and optimistic is more constructive than feeling hopeless or denying the problem.

Remember, the goal is not to win an argument but to foster a thoughtful conversation. Listening to their concerns and understanding their perspective can also be key in finding common ground.

Generally speaking, a good recommendation, with the caveat that the interlocutor also ought not feel as though they’ve ’won the argument’.

Climate changes over most of the last 800,000 years were always due to natural causes. Humans had little or no influence. — Agree-to-Disagree

800,000 years ago, hominid species were one of many species, with absolutely zero contribution above and beyond their biological needs. And that was the case right up until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In case you hadn’t noticed, humans have since then not only increased massively in number, approaching 8 billion in the coming year, they’ve also devised an enormous number of impactful technologies which have demonstrably affected the environment generally and the atmosphere in particular. This is utterly beyond dispute, it is a matter of empirical fact, no matter your sophisticated obfuscation.

Let's not forget that in Aristotelian philosophy, the final cause of a match is a fire. This is because the lighting of fires is the reason matches exist. IN this sense, the 'final cause' of the existence of something is also one of the reasons for its existence, even if it is temporally later than the thing it is the cause for. With the abandonment of teleology in Western philosophy, that may be something important that has been forgotten.

I will add, one of the most depressing and disgraceful episodes in recent American political history was the alactrity with which Haley and the others raised their hands when asked if they would support Trump should he be the eventual candidate in the first Candidates Debate (with the notable exception of Chris Christie and one other who has since dropped out). They're all hypocrites in my view.

She said she would pardon Trump. She will not be able to distance herself from him. — Fooloso4

All true, and highly lamentable. Although whomever is President cannot grant pardons for the election interference case brought in Georgia. But as I keep saying, I'm still convinced Trump's candidacy will collapse under the weight of his legal challenges.

@Tom Storm - a follow-up essay, this one questioning Bernardo Kastrup's 'mind-at-large' from a Buddhist perspective. It is dated some months ago but until now it was unlisted. Is there Mind at Large?

and Happy New Year :party: :sparkle: :clap:

Nowadays, we have the marvellous resource of youtube lectures. I listen whilst working out. Great Brian Greene quote, by the way.

Would a guilty or non-guilty charge become a reality before election gets going? — Christoffer

Indeed - the trial for the January 6th insurrection was originally scheduled for March 4th. Trump's lawyers are frantically trying to delay it through legal maneuvers but the Department of Justice is pushing very hard to stick as close to that date as possible. It is expected to have a duration of 4-6 weeks. If he's found guilty there will no doubt be an appeal but he will still have been convicted of a felony at that time.

The Republican Party has long since passed the point of no return with Trump. If they'd voted to convict after his second impeachment, he would have been disqualified from office for life, but they all caved in to 'the base'. They've all become totally corrupted by the Trump cult, there is no future for them other than electoral wipeout.

Seems to me Haley might come out of the wreckage a viable candidate. De Santis is a proven looser, Chris Christie a spolier. But whatever happens, you can bet it's going to be ugly.

:up: Deacon's is one of those books I should get around to reading, although I know enough about him to be open to his approach.

*3. How does Aristotle define substance? — Gnomon

Again, the word 'substance' came from the Latin translation of the Greek 'ousia', which is a form of the verb 'to be'. It was translated as 'substantia', 'that which stands under' but its further translation of 'substance' in English carries the unfortunate equivocation with the English word 'substance', 'a material with uniform properties', which has a completely different meaning to Aristotle's intent. (Not that I'm a scholar of either ancient Greek or Aristotle, but this is a cardinal issue in understanding philosophy. See this entry.)

That's why I wonder if they will consider the case before the resolution of the January 6th proceedings. It seems completely illogical that they could. After all, if he's found guilty (which seems likely considering the massive weight of evidence), then even without reference to the 14th Amendment, you will have a situation where an ostensible candidate will have been found guilty of trying to subvert the very process that he's supposedly participating in.

If reason itself is the transcendental source of being able to to reason, and not a consequence of evolutionary adaptation, why isn't it the case that other reasoning animals, such as cats, don't have the same ability of reasoning as humans? — RussellA

Why should they have? Why would you expect that? Aristotle called humans ‘rational animals’, the implication being that while we’re animals in some respects due to the power of reason we’re distinct. (Aristotle did not hold to any kind of ‘divine creation’.) I think even a naturalist ought to be able to accept that idea. I think one of the lamentable consequences of evolutionary biology in popular discourse is that by regarding ourselves as just another species, we loose sight of what makes us human (again, see Anything But Human.)

Regarding the innate capacities of the mind - ‘capacities’ or ‘categories’ are not the same as ‘innate ideas’. We have, for instance, the innate capacity to learn language, which human infants generally do by age three, and which no other animal does (this is the subject of Noam Chomsky’s studies of ‘universal grammar’). Same with a range of other capacities, such as music and mathematics - which again, no animal possesses. Reason and language open up horizons of being which are not perceptible to animals. This is both a responsibility and also a burden - a burden which in my view a great deal of what goes by the name of ‘philosophy’ in modern culture doesn’t wish to accept.

If they approve Trump’s eligibility before the Jan 6th case is decided, and he’s found guilty, then you will have the absurd situation of the Supreme Court pre-emptively approving of a candidate who has been found guilty of trying to subvert the election process.

It goes on:

In the end, Parnas concedes, Shokin's (Shokin being the alleged whistleblower) allegations were "cockamamie stuff" and the whistleblower information tipped to Giuliani was "bull****."

"There is no Joe Biden fraud," Parnas said. "But the (alleged) Joe Biden fraud, basically, was the key that got everyone together."

What resulted, he describes, was a "perfect storm" of individual but interconnected agendas that has caused enormous suffering in Ukraine, and political distortion in America.

Perfect example of Trump handiwork. Take a few grams of bullshit and turn it into wholesale social catastrophe spanning continents. That’s how you Make America Great Again. :victory: And it’s the dead horse those morons in the GOP sham trial committee are trying to flog towards a finish line.

The GOP sham trial are not going to want him too. Saith he:

The whole motive and the whole Biden stuff was never about getting justice, and getting to the bottom of Biden criminality or doing an investigation in Ukraine. It was all about announcing an investigation and using that in the media to be able to destroy the Biden campaign and have Trump win.

I mean, no kidding. We all knew that two years ago.

Of which there is precious little. Don’t you think the Supreme Court will have to take into account the Jan 6th case, which is material in determining if he is in fact guilty of inciting insurrection.

Happy New Year’s irrespective of ontological stance all the same! — javra

:party: :sparkle: :flower:

With Maine also striking Trump from the ballot, maybe the U.S. Supreme Court will come up with more than a due process objection which you pointed out is quite possible. With States having undergone interference from a national party organization in the electoral vote process, it would be helpful to recognize how that is wrong if it is to be distinguished from insurrection. If the Electoral College is to continue, it needs a basis upon which States can protect themselves from partisan influence. — Paine

I think it's becoming clear that in 2024 - one day away! - the entire American Presidential Election process is going to be racked with Trump's forthcoming criminal trials and questions of eligibility, injecting an enormous element of chaos into the electoral process. Of course, any normal person would realise the potential consequences of this and graciously withdraw from the field - but not Trump! The Ego Must Be Served. His bosom buddy Steve Bannon had a memorable phrase for dealing with threats to the Trump supremacy, 'flooding the zone with shit'. It means creating so many distractions and outrages that the media and the electorate can't keep up with any single issue and loose focus. But here the stakes are becoming life-threatening for the democratic process. Let's hope it simply becomes obvious that Trump can never be considered a viable candidate, the sooner the better, because it ought to be abundantly obvious that he is not.

Of course. The rhetorical question I posed was, does it make sense to say that (1) this a creation of the brain and (2) is therefore "physical"?

Why is it absurd? If the brain is physical, and it can relate ideas, math is a physical result of this relation. I've noted before a rock can't create math. — Philosophim

No, it's not a physical result. That is the flaw in your reasoning. You think you see a causal connection there, or an ontological relationship, but it's not there. There are many arguments that can be presented against it, but let's just concentrate on that point. The qualitative dimension of experience is one of them, but there are others.

Can we point some evidence of reason existing apart from the creation of a human brain? — Philosophim

Plenty! The entire 'order of creation'. Eugene Wigner's Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Did 'the law of the excluded middle' - a basic logical principle - come into existence as a result of evolution? Or rather, did we evolve to the point of being able to grasp something that was always already so?

Hey love that graphic. I want one. :wink: Reminds me of Daniel Dennett's 'skyhooks'.

I think we already use the categories to make sense of experiences. It is on the basis of reflection upon how experiences must be for us in order that we can make sense of them that the synthetic a priori is generated, as I understand it. — Janus

I reckon that's about right. Thomas Nagel says in his book The Last Word that there are thoughts or principles that one cannot "get outside of," meaning they are so basic to our understanding and reasoning that we cannot meaningfully doubt or reject them from a position outside of them.

Nagel's argument is focused on the nature of reason itself and how certain principles, like those of logic and mathematics, are not just human constructs but are instead intrinsic to any rational thought. The idea is that to even argue against these principles, one would have to use them, thus demonstrating their inescapable nature. (This is also the basis of his rejection of accouting for reason in terms of evolutionary adaption - to appeal to successful adaptation as the grounds for reason, attempts to provide a grounding outside of reason itself, thereby undercutting the sovereignity of reason.)

I've been asking for some time now, if the brain doesn't produce them (i.e. numbers), where are they? What material are they made out of? I've clearly pointed out that the brain, which is physical, can retain information, make judgements, etc. This includes numbers. — Philosophim

I've answered on a number of occasions, the subject is philosophy of mathematics, and you haven't responded, other than repeating your point. I've said that numbers and other mathematical concepts are abstractions, to which your reply has been 'what are they made from'? But it is absurd to claim that mathematical concepts are physical. They solely comprise relations of ideas. It's certainly true that the h. sapien brain is uniquely equipped to discern these relations, but that no way proves that they are the product of hominid neurophysiology. At best it shows that the brain has evolved in such a way that it has attained the ability to understand such things. We can grasp them through the faculty of reason (which is not, incidentally, simply a better way of making stuff :brow: )

I acknowledge this a contested subject. There is no settled answer, but one of the schools of thought is mathematical or platonic realism which says that 'there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices'. From that article:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences[1] Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.

So, a platonist answer is that numbers are not to empirical objects, but are objects of reason. In other words, they don't exist as temporal objects, but they are real for anyone who can count. That is the source of the expression that such things as basic arithmetic are 'true in all possible worlds'. So the argument 'they only exist in brains', and 'were there nobody to recognise these facts, they would not be real', doesn't cut it. Number and logical principles are the constituents of reason, they are what we rely on to even start any kind of science, including brain science. We don't see them in the neural data, instead, we call on them to analyse and understand the data that we see. They are internal to thought.

The demand to prove 'what numbers are made of' and 'where they exist' only illustrates the failure to understand this point, not an argument against it.

You have failed to do so, and are instead doing me a favor by not calling me a name. How noble and strong you are! — Philosophim

You will notice that I edited out that remark a long time before your reply appeared, but as you've brought it up, the description I had in mind was 'scientism'. And I'm not the least concerned with your 'tongue lashing', only the tedium of having to deal with it. Your entire ouvre rests of just one claim: science proves consciousness is the product of the brain and that all that is unknown is how. But that was just the subject of the bet:

Back to the bet between Koch and Chalmers: They agreed that, for Koch to win, the evidence for a neural signature of consciousness must be “clear.” That word “clear” doomed Koch.

//ps - you quoted the IEP article on the hard problem, perhaps you could give an indication of where you map in the 'responses' section. I think it might be here.

If there are no brains in the universe, there is no math — Philosophim

There is a long history of the ‘maths is discovered, not invented’ school of thought which says numbers are not produced by the brain but discerned by rational insight. But this is nowadays considered controversial because it appears to undercut materialism.

The brain produces or is involved in producing neurochemicals, endocrines and so on, but it doesn’t produce numbers or words. Physicalist ontology is simply that because matter is fundamental, the brain is material, then it must be the case that the brain ‘produces’ numbers.

Concepts and ideas are physical things that we think about and can communicate to each other over physical mediums — Philosophim

Concepts are not physical things. Find me one reputable philosopher who says otherwise.

That brains create consciousness? We've figured that out. — Philosophim

This again demonstrates that you're not 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. But I do know a brick wall when I see one, and also when to refrain from beating my head against it, so I'll bow out.

‘In our brains’ is another reification. It has no location, it isn’t in any place. If an intelligent creature were to evolve by a completely separate biological pathway, they would discover the concept of equals, But it’s a concept, an idea, it is not a physical thing.

@Fooloso4 will recognise the provenance of this argument, although he may not agree with it ;-)

Yes, judgement is a physical process by your brain. — Philosophim

No, it’s an intellectual process. 2+2=4 is an intellectual operation. There is no such thing as ‘=‘ in the physical world, it is an abstraction. The mind relies on such abstractions to reason, and they’re not physical in nature. (Hence the interminable arguments about platonic realism.)

:100: :clap:

I kind of get the intuitive sense of saying that evolutionary development accounts for our innate ability. But then, even Noam Chomsky, who's pretty firmly wedded to naturalism, allows there's something deeply uncanny about the acquisition of language (in Why Only Us? co-authored with Robert Berwick.) Of course, I don't dispute the fact of evolution, but I'm sceptical of the sense in which it has become a 'theory of everything' in respect of human nature. See Anything But Human. Anyway, I won't pursue it as this thread has stayed admirably on-point thus far and it's a digression.

Incidentally, what would constitute evidence of this claim? What would you be looking for?
— Wayfarer

Outstanding question. I did a summary of three points for someone else who asked the same question earlier in this thread. Of course, its not limited to that. Let me find and repaste them here.

1. Consciousness is able to exist despite a lack of physical capability to do so.

For example, move your consciousness apart from your head where it sits into the next room that you cannot currently see.

2. Demonstrate a conscious entity that has no physical or energetic correlation.

For example, prove that a completely brain dead body is conscious. Or Inebriate someone to a high blood alcohol level and demonstrate that their consciousness is completely unaffected.

3. If consciousness is not matter and/or energy, please demonstrate evidence of its existence without using a God of the Gaps approach. — Philosophim

But the existence of 'an immaterial entity' was not the point at issue. The claim being considered was this:

It (the act of typing) is physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.

What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides?
— Philosophim

The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. — Wayfarer

This does not posit the existence of an immaterial entity separate from or outside of the physical. It is a philosophical argument: that the act of rational judgement is not reducible to the physical or explainable in physical terms.

Consider what is involved in judgement - every time you make an argument, you're inferring causal relations and equivalences, saying that 'this means that....' or 'because of this, then....'. These processes inhere entirely in the relations of ideas. And evidence for that claim has already been given, which is that the same ideas can be expressed in an endless variety of physical forms whilst still retaining their meaning.

Whereas you will always take the argument as requiring to establish the existence of an immaterial entity or thing. That is what I claim is the deleterious consequence of Cartesian philosophy with its fallacious conception of 'res cogitans', a thinking thing. It is called reification', literally 'making into a thing'. The 'matter-form' dualism associated with Aristotelian philosophy does not fall into that trap.

Humans are metaphysical beings because they can see meaning above and beyond the sensory. They seek to understand principles and causes. That is the origin of the idea of the 'rational soul' which is quite different to 'the ghost in the machine' allegory of Cartesian philosophy. (Although it is also true that much of modern and post-modern philosophy is irrational in its denial of there being an underlying universal logos, although that is a very different issue.)

As far as the effects of drugs and inebriants on the brain, it is obvious that this is so. But it does not establish that consciousness is a product of the brain. It is still quite feasible that the brain as a central organ behaves in the sense of a receiver. You wouldn't say that the television produces the characters of a television drama. It's still an open question, so the influence of drugs is immaterial in that sense.

In the service of survival though, right?

the a priori is evolutionarily established. — Janus

So Darwin explains Kant?

I'm not being dismissive of it, I'm challenging it on the basis of arguments and citations.

So your appeal to authority is particularly unpersuasive in this case. — wonderer1

It's not an 'appeal to authority', but an appeal to a rational argument by a recognised philosopher. But, of course, philosophy itself is useless, right? Unless it can be put to use in some practical way. Makes you wonder why we're all wasting our time here.

Breaking news: NY Times sues OpenAI for copyright infringement

The New York Times is suing Microsoft and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, claiming millions of its news articles have been misused by the tech companies to train their AI-powered chatbots.

It's the first time one of America's big traditional media companies has taken on the new technology in court. And it sets up a showdown over the increasingly contentious use of copyrighted content to fuel artificial intelligence software.

The legal complaint, which demands a jury trial in a New York district court, says the bots' creators have refused to recognise copyright protections afforded by legislation and the US Constitution. It says the bots, including those incorporated into Microsoft products like its Bing search engine, have repurposed the Times's content to compete with it.

This image shows an instance of the alleged copyright violation, with the red text identical to that in the NY Times original




More from NY Times (gift link) and Australian Broadcasting Commission

It's physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.
— Wayfarer

But where is the evidence that its not? I don't mind the declaration, but there has to be evidence. — Philosophim

Incidentally, what would constitute evidence of this claim? What would you be looking for?

But where is the evidence that its not? I don't mind the declaration, but there has to be evidence. If my brain bleeds do I not have a stroke? — Philosophim

It's not an empirical question, but a philosophical one. Although, there's the famous TED talk, My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor. She was a neuroscientist involved in brain-mapping who suffered a major stroke, which resulted in her attaining an insight into what she descibed as 'Nirvāṇa' (her 'stroke of insight') due to the left hemisphere of the brain shutting down. But note that this was a first-person experience - there would have been no way for her to tell, as a neuroscientist, what that experience might be in another subject, without having undergone it.

Rationality is a capturing and understanding of the world that allows planning and use of that reality accurately. — Philosophim

No, that is described in critical philosophy as the instrumentalisation of reason, although I'm guessing that won't of interest to those here.

Second, are computers not physical then? I can send a file from my computer to another. Does that mean the file isn't a set of physical 1's and zeros on my hard drive? Of course it is. Its obvious. — Philosophim

I'm questioning what you regard as obvious. What imparts that order? If you zero out the HD it is physically the same matter, it weighs the same, has all the same physical constituents, but it contains no information. The information is conveyed by the arrangement of matter. What arranges it? I mean, computers don't emerge spontaneously from the sky, they're the product of human intelligence.

Of course its a physical process. You are physically typing, the physical transfer of binary information across the internet to my TV hooked up to my computer. I will read it with my physical eyes, my physical brain will process the information, and I'll type a physical reply. If I'm wrong, where am I wrong? — Philosophim

It's physical in some respects, but the salient point, our understanding of what is being said, the expression of intentional meaning - that is not a physical process.

What is the non-physical part? A sub-space where my consciousness resides? — Philosophim

The interpretation of meaning. The constant, underlying, subliminal processes of 'this means that', 'this is that', 'this word has that meaning' - otherwise known as judgement. That is not a physical process. It can be instantiated in the computer, even more so now with AI (which I myself use constantly and refer to frequently) - but those are human artefacts, manufactured and programmed by humans to amplify human abilities.

I will acknowledge that I am positing a form of dualism, but it has to be spelled out very carefully. As I've said already a number of times in this thread, the Cartesian idea of there being a 'thinking thing' (res cogitans) or 'spiritual substance' is extremely misleading. There is no such thing, in any objective sense - there's nothing 'out there' which corresponds to that. The thinking subject is not an objective reality (which is another way of expressing the hard problem). But such judgements as 'is', 'is not', 'is the same as', and so on, are intrinsic to the operation of reason, which is internal to thought, and thus not objective in the sense implied in cartesian dualism. I'm more impressed with the approach of A-T (Aristotelian Thomist) dualism, generally described with that ugly word 'hylomorphism'. But what it means is that reason (nous) grasps meaning, which is the building block of rational thought. And that is not a physical process. That is why Thomist philosophy (and Christianity generally) sees the human as a compound of body and soul (or psyche). Not that the soul exists objectively, but as the animating intelligence which makes the grasp of meaning possible.

Even if we accept the impossibility of recognition of the value of the law of the excluded middle as a result of biological evolution, despite you simply asserting it, here is a paper suggesting it was a matter of cultural evolution. — wonderer1

And that is where Nagel's critique of evolutionary reductionism is salient. To seek to provide an account of reason, on some grounds other than the rational, is to call into question the sovereignty of reason.

Unless it is coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason, the evolutionary hypothesis is threatening rather than reassuring. It is consistent with continued confidence only if it amounts to the hypothesis that evolution has led to the existence of creatures, namely us, with a capacity for reasoning in whose validity we can have much stronger confidence than would be warranted merely from its having come into existence in that way. I have to be able to believe that the evolutionary explanation is consistent with the proposition that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct--not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so. But to believe that, I have to be justified independently in believing that they are correct. And this cannot be merely on the basis of my contingent psychological disposition, together with the hypothesis that it is the product of natural selection. I can have no justification for trusting a reasoning capacity I have as a consequence of natural selection, unless I am justified in trusting it simply in itself -- that is, believing what it tells me, in virtue of the content of the arguments it delivers.

If reason is in this way self-justifying, then it is open to us also to speculate that natural selection played a role in the evolution and survival of a species that is capable of understanding and engaging in it. But the recognition of logical arguments as independently valid is a precondition of the acceptability of an evolutionary story about the source of that recognition. This means that the evolutionary hypothesis is acceptable only if reason does not need its support. At most it may show why the existence of reason need not be biologically mysterious.

The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts, one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. — Thomas Nagel, op cit