Does it happen in the mind, though? Yes, I see the results of the experiment or work out the theory. But that's not science yet. I need to get people to agree with it, ideally reproduce it, force me to defend it, in which case I'm dealing directly with objects not minds (although minds are the best explanation for those particular objects' behaviours). — Kenosha Kid

Exactly. The validation you seek is from other minds. Science is fundamentally dualist, it's always about minds understanding matter. And it has been very successful at doing that. It's only philosophers (or scientists who try and play philosophers, sometimes) who try to imagine an alternative, without much success so far.

Now that sounds like physicalist — Kenosha Kid

Why yes, science is based on a dualist framework (empiricism + rationalism), so a logical form of scientism or physicalism would include the mind as the central place where science happens.

But that's an idealist argument, no? Not dualist. — Kenosha Kid

Not to my mind. It is dualist in that it postulates the existence of minds and bodies as two different things, provides a possible reason why bodies might have developed minds through evolution (because minds are needed, they do something that cannot be done without them) and describes a realistic relationship between bodies and minds.

The physicalist description of mind is that it's something the brain _does_, so describing it in a way that fits in very well with that doesn't seem like a compelling argument against physicalism. But maybe there's better dualist arguments I haven't heard yet. — Kenosha Kid

There's the argument that the mind is something the brain _does_ and vice versa, the brain is something the mind does. The idea that it's a two-way street

In any case, that was (I think) what Pop meant by:

Information is the cause of your thought. — Pop

That'd be why sense-deprivation is a mode of torture.

deleted

Still all good, but having to do with anthropology and sociology and such. Just because I’m trapped in some relative influences of them, doesn’t mandate a personal interest. — Mww

Sure, you could try and become a hermit or a monk, or just throw yourself under the bus if survival is of absolutely no interest to you.

Yeah, I have some sympathy with that view, although there are some aspects I'm not so sure on...another thread though maybe. — Isaac

I found it a very powerful formulation, and I think it works for me. Life is fundamentally transcendental in that sense.

:100:

One thing is to say that we don't want these types of behaviors in society, another thing is to say they're a problem, because, why would there not be evil? It's assuming that "good" is something natural or obvious. — Manuel

Well yes, Rousseau basically assumed that good was natural to men (within limits). And I went along with that in a humanist world view. A bit like Freud after WW1 considered the instinct of death (Thanatos) and not only the instinct of life (libido or Eros), I realized at some point that our human nature do tend to enjoy destruction and inflicting unnecessary pain on others.

There is also the wave-particle duality, which I think might correspond to the duality of matter and forms at sub-atomic level.

Isn't the problem of evil a problem specifically within a theological context? Because it seems to me that if we are going to speak about the problem of evil absent theology, then we have to speak about the problem of good or the problem humor, etc. — Manuel

I used to think so, but I realized at some point that evil is not just the absence of good, and that there ARE evil behaviors, generally coming from certain (rare) individuals rather than from others. E.g. serial killers; the people at FAUX News, Bashir El Assad.

I suspect us moderns ignoring the problem of what is evil has only helped it make further progress.

Of course, one can use one's mind to do crosswords or sudoku... or philosophy for that matter. But if the house burns around you and your life is in danger, you'll probably drop that sudoku or Derida book in a heart beat. Your mind wants to survive.

Note that survival is the most basic but not the only biological goal that a mind serves. The highest goal is still successful reproduction, which for our species (as well as for most bird and mammal species to a lesser degree) entails not just biology but also cultural elements: songs, seduction, dances, parental care and protection of off-springs, transmission of knowledge to the off-springs, etc.

Information is what the thought is about, not the cause of it. — Mww

Before Pop drowns you under some wall of text about 'enformation', allow me to give the short version:

Like any animal, you are capable of acquiring and analyzing information through senses only because such a process is useful for your survival. So the reason you have a mind is that this mind can acquire and work on usable information to make your life easier, longer, more successful, etc.

Ergo, if there was no information in this world, or if it was inaccessible, or if it was useless for survival, you would simply have no need for thinking, and as per Darwin you would therefore not think.

Don't know if it's been mentioned already, but the philosophical issue that bothers me the most in life is the issue of evil, i.e. why are people doing evil things like raping children or killing them? Or lying about climate change.

Generally, I've found near universal agreement that the two kinds of experience have a distinguishable and meaningful difference. — Isaac

I'm not quite sure because he was so vague about it, but it seemed to me that bongo-fury was in the habit of denying everything mental. Just one example.

In other words, there is an epistemic gap between the event perceived and the corresponding perception events.
— Olivier5

Absolutely. A matter I've written about pretty extensively in my posts before so won't go into again here in the general sense. — Isaac

Reminds me of Pattee's epistemic cut and how this is the basis for the subject-object distinction.

https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/rocha/publications/pattee/pattee.html

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life
Tryna make ends meet, you're a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know, the one that takes you to the place where all the veins meet

No change
I can change
But I'm here in my mold
But I'm a million different people
From one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

Well, I've never prayed but tonight I'm on my knees
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now
But the airwaves are clean and there's nobody singin' to me now

No change etc.

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life
Tryna make ends meet, tryna find somebody then you die
It's just sex and violence, melody and silence
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down

So you are sending to the vast web a message in a bottle, to find soulmates somewhere, or pen friends?

Any particular gender orientation in that search?

Note that there are better platforms than this one for finding a soulmate, but you must have tried many other platforms, so I guess why not try this one too... Still, let me recommend the lounge, and, mendaciously, 'my' music thread @ https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8898/deep-songs/latest/comment

It's a thread about lyrics. Many love songs in there... I just posted one for you.

Here you go, :


Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before
I fall into despair

I'll send an S.O.S to the world
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle

A year has passed
Since I wrote my note
I should have known
This right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
Or love can break your heart

I'll send an S.O.S etc.

Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
Hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone
At being alone
Hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home

I'll read this, thanks. My original take on him was a bit contemptuous maybe. I came to the conclusion that, flawed and piecemeal as his thinking was, he was one of the very few in that analytic clique who understood that to try and break down philosophy into computable pieces (what I call "philosophy for computers" aka analytic philosophy) was an operation that, if successful, would kill the subject.

His TLP was the main reason for my contempt; I actually read it when in my 20's and found it ridiculous. But what I see now is that he too ultimately realized that the TLP was ridiculous. And from that realization onward, he tried to do better than philosophy for computers; i.e. to provoke some actual human thinking among his analytic peers in Oxford and Cambridge and stuff.

So in this little analytic world, he was the only sane one. No wonder they all quote him like the messiah.

I suppose that may also be the conclusion Wittgenstein arrives at. But note the similarity with Plato's idea that the Good transcends even the gods.

The sense of the world must lie outside the world.

I am starting to appreciate Wittgenstein.

Ok. Then @RogueAI's argument would be that this recognizes some sort of distinction between mental event and non-mental events.

(Note: I am using this terminology of mental and non-mental because the classic distinction of physical vs mental has been made unusable once you and I recognized that mental events must be physical in some manner or another)

Of course, this distinction between things "in our head" and things "outside our head" is culturally near-universal and I believe absolutely fundamental to art, justice, politics and zillions other things we humans do. Still, some other people refuse to envisage this distinction, or try and deny its importance.

The next step is to realize that perceptions are not just different, or even "originating from" a non-mental event in a mechanical manner. Perceptions represent non-mental events, they interpret them in a symbolic manner. Our mental world is (among other things) modeling reality "out there".

In other words, there is an epistemic gap between the event perceived and the corresponding perception events.

You are making a distinction between two types of mental events: those that 'originate from' (better still: code for, represent, depict) an event outside of the mind, and those that 'originate from' (better still: are created, imagined by) the mind.

In other words, a (useful and indeed basic) distinction between an actual perception and an imagined perception. Between the real stuff and its virtual mimicry.

there seems no good reason not to assume a theory that these two radically different types of experience have two equally radically different causes. — Isaac

Are you arguing for dualism now?

My heart is sad and lonely
For you I sigh, for you dear only
Why haven't you seen it
I'm all for you body and soul

I spend my days in longing
And wondering why it's me you're ogling
I tell you I mean it
I'm all for you body and soul

I can't believe it
It's hard to conceive it
That you’d turn away romance
Are you pretending
It looks like the ending
Unless I could have just one more chance to prove, dear

My life a wreck you're making
You know I'm yours for the very taking
I'd gladly surrender myself to you body and soul

Ok so more fundamental than the level we've arrived at in our exploration of the infinitely small.

The answer is most probably yes.

Further, once we reached this more fundamental level, there will still most probably be a more fundamental level to explore.... And again and again.

More fundamental than what?

a. What is the fundamental substrate of reality — Enrique

Is there one? Why should reality have a fundamental substrate?

Unlike with abiogenesis, the explanation for consciousness at this point is pure guess work. I think it's a unique problem. You think "give it time". Maybe. But we should at least have the broad outlines of an explanation by now. The fact we don't is good evidence there's something deeper to the mystery. — RogueAI

We are just guessing about abiogenesis too. Some guys think they have the begining of a usable framework. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

My point is that the mind-body relationship is not a problem to be avoided, it's an interesting area of research. So just because this question comes up in a dualist framework is no reason to abandon a dualist framework. It's just one of the interesting questions that crop up when one accepts the existence of bodies and minds. It's not a problem.

Consciousness has become a big problem in academia. It's not OK to just sweep it under the rug anymore. — RogueAI

It always has been, I think. Freud and Lacan were all the craze when I was a teen.

The top down view doesn't have to be a design-engineering God, but forms that are latent in the Cosmos that are actualised - real-ised - by evolutionary processes. — Wayfarer

The two ideas (of latent forms and gods) are not that different to me.

Certainly not. ATP is not carrying information, only energy.

Are ATP molecules considered major neurotransmitters? — Mww

Nope. ATP is the compound storing, transporting and availing chemical energy to other molecules, in pretty much all living cells.

I think the mind-body problem is evidence that there's a category error going on, and you can't get the mental from the physical. — RogueAI

The "mind-body problem" is a misnomer. Call it an enigma instead, or a mystery, or simply a question. There are many unresolved questions, like the origin of the universe, what existed before the big bang, how did life happen? These are accurately called questions, not problems. Nobody calls abiogenesis a "problem", for good reasons.

Questions are good things. They can be contemplated and marvelled at forever. Problems are problematic, there's something wrong with them; they need to be solved, the sooner the better.

Or they should be avoided, which is what you seem to be saying: "let's avoid a philosophy where this problem would arise". Should we also avoid any philosophy where the "abiogenesis problem" would arise?

Defining the mind-body relationship as a "problem" tends to get people anxiously banging their head on the wall about it, or avoiding it, when they could instead enjoy the beauty of the question.

You can see it happen here 24/7. The same old tired arguments are being made over and over again on this subject, day after day, month after month, year after year. They think they are arguing but all they do is bang heads.

All these ideas are too fancy for me.

Having a mind and a body is not necessarily a problem. The duality of form and matter is useful, conceptually and practically. So is the particle-wave duality.

you will grant me the existence of people who cannot tell their hallucinations from reality, and this causes them tremendous trouble in life. — RogueAI

There are many problems in this world. Thankfully most of us can intuitively feel a difference between dreams, or even hallucinations, and reality. There's a sense of matter being there, being hard and heavy.

Hallucinations and reality are often indestinguisable rom each other to the person experiencing it. — RogueAI

That is not true for me. I can feel the difference quite well.

Playing with an idea and playing with a physical object are two very different things. — RogueAI

I agree.

But dreams and reality are different.