(1) In becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility, we have no idea at all of the neural matrix which encodes it. — Dfpolis

I define awareness as a perceptive and cognisant condition.
So, rather than "becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility", I think it is more accurate to say that we:
1) Become aware of (perceive and know) sensations (physical data).
2) Form an idea (mental data) based on awareness, and
3) Categorise the idea (more mental data) through the faculty of understanding (a mental function).

Moreover, we are unaware of (don't perceive or know) "the neural matrix which encodes" physical and mental data.

Is Applied Science the science litmus test for reality? — wellwisher

I would rather say that Applied (Practical) Science is a litmus test of the truth of scientific theory per Negative Pragmatism.

"What 'works' pragmatically might or might not be true, but what does not work must be false."
William Ernest Hocking

You will recall that this discussion was precipitated by your assertion that:

Real numbers [and the like] don’t begin to exist by virtue of there being someone around who learns how to count. The mind evolves to the point where it is able to count, that is all. The same goes for ideas and universals, generally. They are the constituents of the ability to reason but they’re not the products of reason. — Wayfarer

In contrast to Einstein's thoughts on the subject:

The axiomatic structure (A) of a theory is built psychologically on the experiences (E) of the world of perceptions. Inductive logic cannot lead from the (E) to the (A). The (E) need not be restricted to experimental data, nor to perceptions; rather, the (E) may include the data of Gendanken experiments. Pure reason (i.e., mathematics) connects (A) to theorems (S). But pure reason can grasp neither the world of perceptions nor the ultimate physical reality because there is no procedure that can be reduced to the rules of logic to connect the (A) to the (E). Physical reality can be grasped not by pure reason (as Kant has asserted), but by pure thought.

Einstein, A. (1933). On the Method of Theoretical Physics. Lecture delivered on 10 June 1933 at Oxford University.

You don't have to know what it is in order to use it. — Wayfarer

How does one use an unknown concept?

if one is doing abstract or theorectical math one always thinks in terms of the "abstract" number or you will fail the class (you won't be dead, you just won't pass). — prothero

Fair enough.
How would you use universal numbers to solve the problems and make the decisions in the situation I described above (abstracting all particulars)?
Also, converting from one system of units to another results in different numbers without affecting the measured phenomenon, so would the field officer using two different systems of units (e.g., metric and imperial), and modelling each set of universal numbers arrive at two different solutions and decisions?
Can there be numbers or systems of measurement apart from particulars?

What would be a general description of the number 2 which would apply to all instances of mental representation associated with the symbols "2", "II", "two", etc.? — Galuchat

I think actually defining what number is is a very difficult thing to do. If you look at the Wikipedia entry on philosophy of mathematics you will find it is very long, detailed, and with hundreds of references. — Wayfarer

If after deliberative cogitation, you have no description for an abstract universal called "number", it would be reasonable to conclude that you've never actually used such a concept in mental modelling, much less in controlled or automatic problem-solving and decision-making.

Given this situation:
You are a field officer in charge of a company which has engaged with hostile forces. The enemy has taken a small hill across the river where you are encamped. You have spotted an enemy convoy of several companies 5 miles away approaching your position. You radio for air support which will arrive within 5 minutes. They will be dropping napalm on the convoy. You have two routes of escape: one is under vegetative cover at a 25% gradient, the other is across level, open terrain. Carrying 100 pounds of kit, your soldiers can travel three times faster over level ground than they can over steep ground.

If:
You are thinking in terms of abstract universal numbers instead of in terms of quantity (multitude, magnitude), space (location, area, distance), time (instant, duration, synchronisation), motion (direction, trajectory, velocity), and thermodynamics (heat content, flow),

Then:
You are dead.

The symbol "2" (or "II" or "two") denotes the number 2. — Wayfarer

Symbols are objects having intersubjective meaning. In this case, they are graphical or written code for mental representations of multitude, magnitude, etc. Both symbols and their associated mental representations are actualities.

What would be a general description of the number 2 which would apply to all instances of mental representation associated with the symbols "2", "II", "two", etc.?

But you have to know what 2 denotes - in other words, you have to be able to count - before you can make any deductions about the composition of water molecules. It's the fact that 2 = 2 and always has an invariant meaning that makes it a universal. Furthermore, that formula H²O thoroughly specifies the chemical compound called 'water' - the symbols specify something exactly. — Wayfarer

That's a good case in point, actually.
H₂O specifies a molecule of water. H²O specifies H squared times O.
So, what universal does “2” denote?

That's great. Thanks for the clarifications.

Such laws would cause all matter to move in a deterministic way, but God allows that we have free will, so the two are inconsistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see in this scheme: constraint and freedom, determinism and indeterminism.

(1) ...Natural laws are not made of particles or fields, but are immaterial principles operating through­out the cosmos.
(2) These laws are immanent, operating in matter, and transcendent, depending on no single species or instance of matter, but controlling all matter regardless of constitution or properties.
(4) These laws are aspects of reality, not fictions. Laws of nature are not invented, but discovered. — Dfpolis

The Laws of Nature are immaterial, transcendent and immanent, principles which act (operating, controlling). So, they are independent of, and determine, existence. From a theological standpoint, they can be equated (or at least associated) with God.

Generally, law (mass noun) is a set of constraints and freedoms which control action. So, laws act; constraining and/or permitting (i.e., controlling) action performed by objects (phenomena and/or noumena).

For example:
1) Human Positive Law controls human action.
2) The Laws of Nature control natural action.

(3) The laws explain things here and now because they act here and now. If laws did not act, we could never experience their effects. For energy to be conserved here and now, the law of conservation of energy must act here and now. The explanation is a concurrent, co-existing cause, not a Humean prior event. “Explanation” has two meanings. One is a word string describing a causal structure. The other is the cause so described. We are discussing causes in nature. — Dfpolis

The Laws of Nature are an explanation (cause) of existential change and/or stasis. Then are they efficient cause?

A pivotal thesis is that the laws of nature are essentially intentional. One way to see this is to reflect on what I call "Logical Propagators."...Logical propagators are propositions or judgments allowing information about one space-time point to be applied to another. — Dfpolis

If the observable sign of intentionality is "systematic time development ordered to ends" (efficient cause), what is final cause?

They (logical propagators) control the development of earlier material states into later ones, but are not material states. They are logical because they transform information. They are propagators because they propagate information from one time to another. — Dfpolis

I understand data transformation with reference to mathematical function (correspondence) and the process of encoding/decoding, but would appreciate a definition of "logic" in terms of data transformation which works for both the Laws of Nature and human committed intentions.

For example:
Logical Propagators control material development across time. So, "logic" in this context would be defined as: a rational (measurable and/or reasonable) principle?

My understanding of intentionality comes from the Scholastic tradition via Brentano. A key to my approach is the recognition that, as the laws of nature and human acts of will are both species of intentionality, they are in the same theater of operation. — Dfpolis

I like equating intentionality with logical propagation (carrying information forward in time) because it renders unnecessary the use of undesirable psychological metaphors with reference to the laws of nature.

GIven your biological interests, I wonder if you would like to read in my article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution"...As a physicist, I would like a biological perspective. — Dfpolis

I have downloaded, and am happy to read your article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution", however; my interest in biology is only incidental to my interest in cognitive psychology. So I'm not really in a position to offer a well-informed biological perspective.

Forum members who have had a career in one of the biological sciences are better placed to provide relevant insights. Hopefully one or more of them will accept your invitation.

I've noticed your YouTube channel, and am interested in becoming somewhat familiar with your views on intentionality and mind as time permits.

Thanks for mentioning your article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle".

I found it to be clear, enlightening with regard to explaining the differences between the Platonic and Aristotelian positions, and its conclusion regarding the active potency of hyle to be consistent with a contemporary description of gene expression (among other things).

Modern psychology, as a discipline, has major issues, though. — Wayfarer

All human beings practise psychology (the study of mind) when they attribute mental predicates to subjects (e.g., awareness and rationality) on the basis of their behaviour. It is how we manage personal and group relationships.

Sure, if you haven't got an argument for defining rationality in spiritual (rather than mental) terms, denigrating the entire field of psychology (which is extensive) may be a good tactic when trying to score points on a philosophy forum.

my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties — Wayfarer

What is rationality?

I think that:
1) Rationality is the possession of reason (a mental faculty).
2) A human being is a body/mind unity.
3) Human biology comprehends human anatomy and physiology.
4) Human psychology comprehends human mental conditions and functions
5) Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable.

So, I agree that "rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties", but it doesn't transcend a biological and psychological account of human faculties, unless it is also (or strictly) defined in spiritual terms.

Only humans are made in the image of God and have immortal souls endowed with the spiritual powers of rationality and freedom. — Stephen M. Barr

What is the theological argument for defining rationality as a spiritual (rather than mental) power? And why is such an argument necessary in view of the empirical evidence presented by Berwick and Chomsky?

On my view, if reason is the faculty which forms conclusions from premises, it is dependent on language (which entails mental modelling).

Since 65% of communication is nonverbal (Birdwhistell, 1974), language is most effectively used as a modelling system, rather than as a means of communication. This is consistent with Berwick and Chomsky: "Merge and syntactically hierarchical language were not, to begin with, an instrument of communication at all, but of thought."

That's what a secular account would say, as by definition, it can't accomodate the soteriological dimension, as there's nothing in its conceptual framework to accomodate it. — Wayfarer

By definition or due to lack of any evidence for why it would need to be taken seriously...why would we believe in such fairy tales...why would we believe that given what we now know...? — apokrisis

That is rather the whole point: unbelief was the point of departure, so belief is the only point of return.

From here:

The soul was always understood as separable from the body, even following Aristotle's definition, designating it as the form of the body... — Metaphysician Undercover

To here:

As I understand, the soul is not the form of the body. — Metaphysician Undercover

If your understanding is not contradictory, your explanations certainly are.

Given Aristotle's avoidance of psychological terms...It seems to me that using "intent" with reference to final cause is equivocal, possibly serving an unnecessary theological (as opposed to strictly scientific) end (read: Thomist viewpoint superseding Aristotelian viewpoint). — Galuchat

I don't see this equivocation. "Intent" and "end" are both applicable terms, one is of the general, the other particular. "End" refers to the particular, best understood as "the good", that which is desired, the particular thing which one is trying to bring about in an intentional act. — Metaphysician Undercover

And to @apokrisis here:

You claim that organisation occurs "to meet finality" which implies necessarily, "purpose", but then you deny the non-physical, "intent" which is implied by purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

In my opinion, you have been presenting a view of Final Cause which Aristotle would not have endorsed. So, our discussion ends here.

When two things are united as one, each part has a different relation to the one united thing. So "soul" could refer to the source of intentional activity, and "mind" could have a different relation to intentional activity, while the two are united as one in the human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the soul (mind+form of the body) is the source of intentional activity, and we must look to something other than the mind as the source of intentional activity, then is it more accurate to say that the form of the body (and not the soul) is the source of intentional activity?

If so, is physiology an example of nonconscious intentional activity produced by the form of the body independent of the mind?

Do mind and form of the body interact? If so, how?

I don't think I said anything to imply that final cause is evident in inanimate things.
Metaphysician Undercover

You didn't, but if final cause applies to all of nature, and not just living organisms, we should be able to describe it using the same terms (e.g., "nonconscious intent") with reference to inorganic objects and processes.

I'm just trying to determine whether (given Aristotle's avoidance of psychological terms such as "intent") the use of even "nonconscious intent" to describe final cause should be avoided in favour of another, such as "end" (telos). It seems to me that using "intent" with reference to final cause is equivocal, possibly serving an unnecessary theological (as opposed to strictly scientific) end (read: Thomist viewpoint superseding Aristotelian viewpoint).

Continuing with the SEP article (3. The Four Causes in the Science of Nature):

"In the Physics, Aristotle builds on his general account of the four causes by developing explanatory principles that are specific to the study of nature. Here Aristotle insists that all four causes are involved in the explanation of natural phenomena, and that the job of “the student of nature is to bring the why-question back to them all in the way appropriate to the science of nature” (Phys. 198 a 21–23)."

That's why we must look to something other than the mind as the source of purposeful, or intentional activity. If you read Aristotle's biology you will see that he attributes this immaterial source of purposeful, or intentional activity (which manifests as conscious intent), to "the soul", which all living things have in common. — Metaphysician Undercover

As previously noted here:
The intellect (mind) and soul (form of the living body) of the human being are united as one (according to Aquinas, not Aristotle).

So, how is the human soul (mind+form) the source of intentional activity if "...we must look to something other than the mind as the source of purposeful, or intentional activity." (as above)?

Also, if Aristotle's final cause applies to all of nature, it may help if you could explain what the final cause of an inorganic object or process (e.g., a volcano or volcanic eruption) would be.

In his "Physics" he defined final cause as "that for the sake of which". The example he gave is that if a man walks for his health, then health is the cause of the man walking, in the sense of final cause. The man has an idea, a goal, "health", and this is the cause of him walking. This is commonly called, by us, intent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Continuing with the SEP article (2. The Four Causes):

"Moreover, a teleological explanation of the type sketched above does not crucially depend upon the application of psychological concepts such as desires, beliefs and intentions. This is important because artistic production provides Aristotle with a teleological model for the study of natural processes, whose explanation does not involve beliefs, desires, intentions or anything of this sort. Some have contended that Aristotle explains natural process on the basis of an inappropriately psychological teleological model; that is to say, a teleological model that involves a purposive agent who is somehow sensitive to the end. This objection can be met if the artistic model is understood in non-psychological terms. In other words, Aristotle does not psychologize nature because his study of the natural world is based on a teleological model that is consciously free from psychological factors."

Christianity is a dead religion. — frank

It definitely is as far as the vast majority of people are concerned; which is its own vindication.

Final cause requires intention, the non-physical. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can purpose refer to function or reason instead of intent, and thereby to a strictly physical (as opposed to mental, or non-physical) process?

For example:
1) The purpose (function) of the heart is to pump blood.
2) The purpose of (reason for) photosynthesis is to convert light into chemical energy.

Did Aristotle define telos in terms of reason or intent?

What is a mental state? — Banno

A mind condition (mode of being).
Examples:
1) Consciousness (mass noun)
2) Altered States of Consciousness (noun)
3) Personality (Affect Correlation)
4) Mood (Temperament Correlation)
5) Emotion

Is it just experiencing Mental phenomena such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and sensations? — Banno

I find it useful to distinguish between mental conditions and mental functions in spite of the relations which obtain between them. Mental conditions are experienced, and mental functions are exercised, by an organism.

Types of mental function (mind action):
1) Semantic
2) Syntactic
3) Pragmatic

Inductive evidence in the form of physiological correlates, and criterial evidence in the form of observed behaviour, establish the existence of mental conditions and functions.

Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable because:
1) Correlation does not imply causation.
2) Corporeal and mental data are accessed at different levels of abstraction.

So, the idea of information (or prehension) is not "diluted" as long as distinctions between the kinds and complexities of information (or prehension) are maintained; in fact information or prehension are conceptions that unify the whole of nature, including the human, and thereby avoid the mistake that it was the central focus of Whitehead's whole project to circumvent: namely the "bifurcation of nature". — Janus

Well said.

The reason I dislike Bateson's definition of information so much is because it only pertains to information created by a mind.

'There are in the mind no objects or events - no pigs, no coconut palms, and no mothers. The mind contains only transforms, percepts, images, etc....It is nonsense to say that a man was frightened by a lion, because a lion is not an idea. The man makes an idea of the lion' (Bateson 1972: 271).

According to Gregory Bateson information is based on difference. A sensory end organ is a comparator, a device which responds to difference. While reading this, for instance, your eyes do not respond to the ink, but to the multiple differences between the ink and the paper. The number of potential differences in our surroundings, however, is infinite.

Therefore, for differences to become information they must first be selected by some kind of 'mind', the recipient system. Information, then, is difference which makes a difference (to that mind):

'Try to descibe a leaf or, still better, try to describe the difference between two leaves of the same plant, or between the second and the third walking appendages (the "leg") of a single, particular crab. You will discover that that which you must specify is everywhere in the leaf or in the crab's leg. It will be, in fact, impossible to decide upon any general statement that will be a premise to all the details, and utterly impossible to deal with the details one by one' (Bateson and Bateson 1987:164).

What enters the mind as information always depends on a selection, and this selection is mostly unconcious. In this sense one should not speak about 'getting' information, rather information is something we 'create'. — Hoffmeyer & Emmeche. (1991). Code Duality and the Semiotics of Nature.

Types of information correspond to types of data (form) which correspond to types of ideas and objects.

Does mathematical incommensurability entail epistemological (as opposed to ontological) emergence per Michel Bitbol?

Right. So then there is the further question of whether there are universal elements in these beliefs and narratives. I think this is where it becomes a matter of interpretation. — Janus

I agree.

Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces comes to mind. Any thoughts? — Janus

I've not read it, but it appears to be highly relevant. Also, @Wayfarer would be a good source of information, since he studied Comparative Religion.

My current working definition of religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, characteristics, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Donald E. Brown also considers morality to be a human universal. Albeit subject to interpretation, an investigation of the moral codes of the world's major book religions and systems of moral philosophy reveals similarities (i.e., universal elements).

I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Is it that particular beliefs and narratives are universals or that belief and narrative in general are universal? — Janus

The latter.

If mystical or religious experience were taken to demonstrate anything particular about metaphysics, then there would indeed be a problem, since the different metaphysical conceptions associated with the major religions disagree with one another. — Janus

Drawing a distinction between religious (or better, spiritual) experiences, and religious (or better, theological) concepts, and religion itself; religious beliefs and narratives are human universals (Brown, 1991). And the content of those beliefs and narratives concerns the metaphysical.

Because of its subjective and intersubjective aspects, I agree that generalisations regarding the spiritual/theological/religious may be problematic.

That you have linked the spiritual to affect (an aspect of responsiveness, or corporeal condition), and @apokrisis has linked it to cognition (an aspect of awareness, or mental condition), thereby linking spiritual to different aspects of consciousness (mass noun), I find new and interesting.

At this point, one can only invoke the Fourth Law of Holes.

I agree that a triadic formulation of human substance is more complicated than a dyadic one. Whether or not it's necessary depends on the relevant science and one's theology (or lack thereof).

I like the basic Platonic and Aristotelian framework of Forms, because it involves the process of information (which provides a direct link to modern science) and allows for the possibility of spiritual things. So, I find the reality/existence, form/matter, pure/empirical, and other, distinctions useful to science.

In attempting to modernise this framework, I find it useful to distinguish between data (asymmetries), communication (the discovery of pure data or creation of empirical data), and information (communicated data). Data being Form re-defined (it wouldn't be the first time).

I currently view semiotics as a specialised type of communication (i.e., signification), so have no problem with assigning it a significant role in a modern metaphysics.

Thanks for your clarification.

I find it unfortunate that Aquinas conflated soul (form) and mind, because it is:
1) Theologically unnecessary. Other theologians have managed to posit human beings consisting of a united body and mind, and separable spirit (i.e., tripartite being).
2) Metaphysically unnecessary and confused. It doesn't derive from the intuitively obvious unity of human mind and body.

Also your earlier comments in this thread about the inherent conflict between scientific and religious views are likely to incline you against such a philosophy. — Wayfarer

True science and true theology will not contradict each other.

What do you mean by "Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul'? — Metaphysician Undercover

"Aquinas, capitalising on Aristotle's obscure remarks about the active intellect, argued that 'the intellectual principle which is called the mind or intellect has an operation through itself (per se) unless it subsists through itself, for activity belongs to a being in act...Consequently, the human soul, which is called the intellect or mind, is something incorporeal and subsisting' (Summa Theologiae I, 76, 1)." (Bennett & Hacker, 2003)

So, Aquinas changed the meaning of "soul" from "form" to "mind" and separated it from "body" for theological reasons.

Your posts suggest to me that you may be conflating "form" and "mind", or using "soul" in an equivocal manner, and that you may not recognise the mind-body unity of human beings, hence; my request for clarification.

Which part do you disagree with, that what creates genetic code is somewhat unknown, or that the logic leads us to conclude that this cause is non-physical? — Metaphysician Undercover

With reference to gene expression, both.

An agent is something active, actual. In semiotic processes it is required that there is an agent which produces signs and an agent which interprets signs. That's why it doesn't make sense to say that both the categories, mind and matter, emerge from semiotic process. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is your concept of the relations between Form, Matter, and Mind? Hopefully, it is not based on an Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul".

What actually creates genetic code is somewhat unknown, and this is what we attribute to the non-physical soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

This would appear to be our fundamental point of disagreement.

An agent is something active, actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, an agent may be a: human being, dog, volcano, tornado, force, wave, phase transition, biochemical signal or reaction, fertilized egg (zygote), television broadcast, mechanical actuator, etc.?

Aristotle's definition of soul: the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially in it. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Aristotle ascribed to each living organism a psuche (soul). The psuche was conceived to be the form of a natural body that has life. It was also characterised as the first actuality of a natural body that has organs (De Anima 412 5-6)." (Bennett & Hacker, 2003)

So, in terms of modern science and Aristotle, we could say that human genetic code is the particular form (first actuality) of an individual human being.

In semiotic processes it is required that there is an agent which produces signs and an agent which interprets signs. That's why it doesn't make sense to say that both the categories, mind and matter, emerge from semiotic process. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, (given your definition of agent) in the case of gene expression, human fertilization would be the agent which produces the genetic code (sign) which is accessed by the zygote (interpreter) which produces a human organism (object) which has a human body and a human mind.

Why doesn't this make sense?

I didn't refer to "conscious agency". — Metaphysician Undercover

My bad. @Read Parfit referred to "a conscious host", and you replied: "...something (an agent) who is practising semiosis", here. So, I assumed you were referring to a conscious person.

The soul is understood to be the agent of all living things. I believe it is a mistake to associate consciousness with agency in such a way as to make agency necessarily conscious agency. Conscious agency is a type of agency, but we see agency in all living things whether they are conscious or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Please define "agent", "agency", and "soul".
Does the process of gene expression involve semiotic relationships, the soul, or agency?

That is the issue which apokrisis doesn't seem to understand. Apokrisis wants to reduce everything to semiotics, not apprehending the logical conclusion that this requires something (an agent) who is practising semiosis. — Metaphysician Undercover

Biosemioticians would say that only life (not conscious agency) is required for semiotic relationships to obtain.

In the case of gene expression, is it the complementarity of message source (sign) and destination (interpreter), or the purpose of a conscious agent, which effects the construction of an organism?

While I can appreciate the role of semiosis in the empirical domain (as above), is its role with reference to the pure domain limited to the purposes of conscious agents?

[Nietzsche] thought that love of systems was a human weakness and that the stronger one’s character, the less one would need and the less attracted one would be to a system. Nietzsche holds that if God were to exist, he would not, contrary to eighteenth-century views, be a master geometer with a universal system of the world. He would see each thing clearly as precisely that which it is and nothing else, and he would not need to use a concept to catch it and reduce it to something else he already knows. — Raymond Geuss

And yet, systems (or better, mental representations) are part of the human psyche.

If Nietzsche had been a systematic theologian, he probably would have held that God is the transcendent and immanent author and sustainer (not observer) of the world (i.e., kosmos).

In other words, he would have understood that the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, eternity, and omnipresence, render observation (the automatic and/or controlled processing of physical experience, resulting in the identification or interpretation of phenomena) unnecessary.

So, it is absurd to suggest that human beings should or could observe differently (much less, more like God).