I'm running out of steam and getting short on time. I still don't get why you defend physicalism against the possibility of non-physicalism when you so clearly expressed that:

There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false? — javra

Firstly I'm not defending physicalism but refuting the claims of its supposed inconsistency.

I've provided this explanation, if not in full then in part: there can be no objective good - and hence no objective morality - within any system of physicalism.

You can, of course, evidence me wrong by pointing out any physicalist system wherein there can be coherently maintained an objective good.

But I'd like to know: why does all of this matter to you? — javra

You haven't explained why there can be no objective good under physicalism. I gave you examples to show that there can. You also haven't explained how there could be objective good under idealist or antirealist systems without positing a lawgiver apart from appeals to human flourishing and harmony etc which don't depend on any particular metaphysics.

Only the ethical and the aesthetical matter to me and I don't see those as being dependent on any particular metaphysic, and that is why the debate between materialism and idealism doesn't matter to me.

I am merely interested to see if proponents of idealism can show that such values are only or at least better supported by idealism (absent a lawgiver). Apparently that cannot be shown, at least not by you or anyone else I've encountered.

Thanks for trying anyway.

On what grounds if both percepts are physical in the same way via the functioning of the brain. (To better drive the point home, I'll specify that the observer of the cat is not surrounded by others - and that he observes a cat which he has no reason to presume is a hallucination even though it is.) — javra

In the case of the real cat there would be light reflected from it which enters the eye, etc. You know the story. In any case I have never had such a realistic hallucination, even during my extensive use of hallucinogens. I don't know anyone else who has either. I'm not saying such a thing is impossible, but if it is possible the level of delusion would be extreme.

Via examples, the Platonic / Neoplatonic notion of the Good can only be a non-physical ideal - one that is nevertheless the ultimate reality. But please note: no law-giver created or else decreed the Good in either system of understanding. And such objective good requires an non-physicalist metaphysics. Wtih the occurrence of such an objective good then also is entailed an objective morality. — javra

How would the objective morality in such a belief system be enforced other than via people believing in it? If it is non-physical how could such a thing exist if not in some universal mind. Goodness is a value and as far as I can see values can exist only in, be held by, minds. You seem to be gesturing at something, but it lacks coherent detail.

I acknowledge the sentiment, but none of this is a rational grounding for what is good. Slavery was once generally important to people, for example. Would that make slavery morally good? And on what grounds would an Orwellian 1984 not last long? Besides, why is lasting long a good to be aspired toward within physicalism? — javra

Why is it not a practical rational grounding? If you want a well-functioning society that fosters human flourishing and harmony why would you not want the most significant moral principles to govern? Slavery is a moral failure to be sure. It is pre-rationally normal for humans to care predominately about their own welfare and the welfare of those close to them. I don't believe the abolition of slavery depended on any higher principle. It depended on people having compassion and coming to count those who were previously thought to be of no significance to be of significance after all. We see the same thing happening today (although not enough to be sure) with animal welfare. Physicalism does not seem to be an impediment to such sentiments.

Oppressive dictatorships cannot last. Oppressed people will eventually become fed up and revolt. Humans may not have achieved much in the way of harmoniously living together but that lack of achievement has chiefly occurred in societies where people have believed in a higher good or deity. From a purely rational perspective there is no reason to grant one person more rights or privileges than another. So slavery itself can only be supported by practical reasons, and those reasons are not good ones because they promote disharmony.

How is a distinction between the perceived physical cat and the perceived non-physical cat to be made when both are equally "neural process and hence physical" as perceptions? — javra

The hallucinated cat is not a cat at all. The perceived cat is a cat.

There is here a warrantless conflation between lawgiver and afterlife. See, for example, Buddhism. I said "no" to your assumption of there being a deity (a law-giver) which ordains an objective good. — javra

I'm not conflating lawgiver and afterlife. I'm asking how physicalism could undermine the idea of there being consequences for immoral actions. I'm wondering how non-physicalism could support morality in any way that physicalism cannot, since that seemed to be your contention. You haven't attempted to address that question.

And, within physicalism, why are these to be deemed "good"? — javra

Because they are generally important to people, and because a society with moral principles that promoted general disharmony and suffering could not last long. It would necessarily be despotic.

The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical? — javra

The hallucination is a neural process and hence physical. Of course it is not a physical (real) cat. I see no inconsistency there but rather a conflation between the hallucination and what is hallucinated.

No. Reread what I've stated more attentively before replying and you might see how this assumption is unwarranted. — javra

I read it attentively the first time and I can't see what in a non-physicalist model the objective support for morality could be other than a lawgiver or else some kind of karmic threat of having to pay for transgressions. And again, I don't see how any of that could work absent the assumption of an afterlife.

And on what is this notion of what a "good life" is itself grounded, philosophically speaking within systems of physicalism? I'm not here addressing dispositions. I'm addressing logical reasoning. — javra

It would be grounded on human flourishing and social harmony. Of course there will be inconsistency if you presume that those things are not grounded in our physical embodiedness. Absent that assumption I see no inconsistency. In other words on the physicalists assumptions there are no inconsistencies even though there may be on yours.

There a bunch of other reasons, but as one significant gripe I have with it (here placing its inconsistencies aside), if physicalism is true, then this will easily lead to - if it does not directly entail - moral nihilism. And it certainly does away with any possibility of an objective good. — javra

By "inconsistencies" I take it you mean that physicalism is not consistent with our "normal' intuitions about the nature of mind and consciousness and the subject?

Anyway you've left those aside so are you saying that because (many or most?) people need to believe that moral laws are given by a higher (necessarily non-physical) power, physicalism in denying the existence of such a law-giver will lead to moral nihilism?

I don't think the idea of an objective moral good depends on a law-giver. I believe there are objective facts about human flourishing and suffering and social needs and social harmony which support the most basic and significant moral injunctions (usually proscriptions).

Ergo, enduring the suffering of life with as much grace as possible when things get rough is stupid - and there is no ultimate good to aspire toward, well, other than one's personal death when life gets a bit too much. — javra

What about the idea of living a good life. improving the lives of others. Do you believe that it's all pointless if there is no afterlife? It may be for you but I'm sure there are many people who don't think this way. Thinking this way is after all only a particular attitude or disposition not a reflection of objective truth.

:cool:

:up:

But then nothing is both alive and dead at the same time. — Banno

Right. I think this is the nub. 'Not-A' should strictly be the negation of 'A'. We cannot say 'if something is alive, then it is dead' even if we can say 'if something is alive then it will be dead'.

Also, in ordinary language 'not-A' can alternatively be anything which is not A. As you point out death is not-A in the second sense but it not strictly the negation of life. The strict negation of life would be no life. Language is messy.

Propositional logic deals in propositions. Your piece has the form of a modus ponens, but doesn't deal in propositions. That makes it interesting in several ways. But "not-a" is pretty well defined in propositional logic, in various equivalent ways. And by that I mean that the things we can do with negation in propositional logic are set. There are not different senses of "not-A" in propositional calculus. — Banno

OK thanks. It does seem to be a propositional statement in ordinary langauge.

1. If there is life (A) there is death (not-A)
2. There is life
3. Therefore there is death.

But as I've said before my undertsnding of formal logic leaves much to be desired.

I'm not interested in being moved by the question as to the truth or falsity of physicalism I'm just interested to know why others are moved by it.

Mind in part consists of thoughts. How are thoughts physical? One can of course state that the thoughts of a corporeal sentient being would not be in the absence of the respective corporeal body. But this does not entail that the given thoughts - say of a unicorn or of Harry Potter - are of themselves physical. — javra

But if not everything that does or can occur is physical, then physicalism so defined can only be false. — javra

Thoughts are widely considered to be neural events or processes. That they do not seem to be such to the thinker is no guarantee that they are not such. There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false?

Suffering is caused by being born. It's that simple. No more. — schopenhauer1

Suffering is not simply caused by being born but by the demand that your life should be other than it is.

I think it shows that 'not-A' has at least two different senses. The world is not as neat as formal logic. Formal logic may not be as neat as it might be thought to be either.

But that situation, where the antecedent is denied, is irrelevant because the second premise assumes A to be true. And it necessarily follows from the first premise that not-A is simultaneously true. This is self-contradictory and violates the LNC. — Benkei

What about my earlier example:

Here's an example in ordinary langauge with the same form.:

1.Life therefore death
2.Life
Therefore
3.Death.

Both valid and sound it seems — Janus

:ok:

I don't agree that it is self-evident (or even plausible) that time is merely "one of the forms of our sensibility". If, as according to Kant, the in itself is unknowable how can it be justified to claim that time does not exist in itself?

How am I not addressing the argument? What point have I neglected to address?

For me the idea of explaining the nature of the subject in physicalist terms is simply, under a certain conception of the nature of the subject, a misunderstanding of what could be possible in attempting to combine incommensurable paradigms of thought.
— Janus

You put a lot of effort into disagreeing with something you actually don't disagree with. — Wayfarer

I think you missed "under a certain conception". Under the intuitive conception people commonly have of the mind and consciousness and the subject a physical explanation is obviously impossible. Under a physicalist notion of the subject (that is that the subject is the living body) a physical explanation may indeed be possible.

You assume that the subject cannot be physical and then criticize physicalism for not being able to explain it. Can't you see that is tendentious thinking?

I do, but this is qualified by declaring that the world is not ultimately or really mind-independent, insofar as any judgement about its nature presupposes, but then 'brackets out', the observer. — Wayfarer

This clearly shows a confusion between judgement and what is being judged. Of course judgement is mind-dependent, but there seems to be little reason to think that the Universe could be human mind-dependent given that all the evidence points to its having being around for about seven thousand times as long as humans have been. I don't think this is a hard fact to grasp, but surprisingly you seem to have much difficulty understanding (or is it perhaps accepting?) it.

For me the idea of explaining the nature of the subject in physicalist terms is simply, under a certain conception of the nature of the subject, a misunderstanding of what could be possible in attempting to combine incommensurable paradigms of thought.

Even a "hard" science like geology is not understandable (even if it were possible it would be an immensely cumbersome task) in terms of quantum physics.

Sorry Timothy your point there escapes me. I can't see how death, if we accept there is no afterlife, is not the negation of life from any point of view, commonsense or otherwise.

I'll need some more explanation.

Yes, all that. As I mentioned earlier the opposable thumb has also played a great part.

It is naturalism (or physicalism) that is human-centric. Why? Because of having excluded the subject from consideration of what is real and declaring the measurable attributes of objects the sole criterion for what exists, as if that has philosophical significance, independently of any perspective whatever (something that the ‘measurement problem’ has made explicit.) — Wayfarer

Naturalism consists in the idea that the natural world is not dependent on humans for its existence. Your view, counterpointing naturalism, is that the natural world does depend on humans for its existence. It is obvious which view is human-centric.

The central idea of The Blind Spot of Science is trivially true. Of course science only exists on account of humans. I've challenged you before to explain how the human subject is to be incorporated as an integral part of the theory of astronomy, geology, chemistry, natural science or any of the non-humanistic sciences.

Of course you can never answer the challenge because its a ridiculous notion. We are already there in those subjects as the investigator, but we don't appear in the subject itself just as the eye does not appear in the visual field. Those disciplines study their respective subjects as they appear to us. How could it be otherwise?

Yeah, but if you affirm that "death" is equivalent with "not-life," you'll be stuck affirming Plato's argument for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo, which in turn implies that you may be reincarnated for innumerable lifetimes where you have to debate these same topics before finally achieving henosis and completing the process of exitus and reditus. That's a pretty rough commitment to have to make. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd have thought it is the opposite. If death is equivalent to not-life it means no afterlife.

Right so no counter argument or critique of what I've said just more references to your favourite authorities. Seems pointless.

What I said was a comment on that passage. I can't help it if you didn't understand that. Also I should point out that passage is not a quote from Husserl but is someone else's interpretation of what they think he believed.

Are you worried about what I said being an attack on authority? I explained what I think is wrong with ontologically absolutizing human consciousness. What more do you want? Do you have a counter argument or critique?

:up:

Here's an example in ordinary langauge with the same form.:

1.Life therefore death
2.Life
Therefore
3.Death.

Both valid and sound it seems.

This essay proposes the Evolutionary Coping Mechanism Theory, suggesting that intelligent species create religion and science as adaptive responses to existential threats and uncertainties. — ContextThinker

So species which do not create religion and science cannot be intelligent? I would agree with you if you had said instead "intelligent species which are capable of symbolic language". A creature no matter how intelligent could not create religion or science without first possessing symbolic language.

:up:

I'd say consciousness has evolved from very rudimentary sensory awareness. So what is ontologically fundamental would be the pre-existent conditions that enabled the genesis of and continues to make possible the most rudimentary sensory awareness.

I don't see that as inconsistent with the fact that from the perspective of phenomenological inquiry what is fundamental for us is what we are and can be aware of. I don't agree with the kind of thinking that counts what is fundamental for us as being fundamental tout court. Such thinking is too human-centric for my taste. I view it as a conceit.

Well, yes. Animals cannot articulate anything in that way. But that takes us back to the question what the significance is of the various species-unique abilities we can learn - given that every species is unique in some way. — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree that every species is unique in some way. For us it just happened to be symbolic language (unless there is at least one other species that unbeknownst to us also possesses it).

However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language. — jkop

I guess it all depends on how you define "symbolic language". As I see it the abstractive ability that enables explicit self-reflective awareness would be the defining feature.

Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest. — jkop

For non-symbolically linguistic animals I would say instead "the ability to understand things in the environment via signs".

Right. And all that this entails. — Wayfarer

I'm doubtful that we would be in agreement as to just "what all that this entails" apart from the bleeding obvious.

"Though Spinoza’s Ethics suggests a monistic view where everything is part of a single substance (God or Nature), he also suggests that the mind and body are distinct modes. Humans possess a unique kind of rationality, which he considers a higher function than that of animals."

Right so not merely animals as I already said above. For me the difference all comes down to symbolic language which enables an augmented abstract-capable rationality.

Also Chatbot does not present an explicit citation from Spinoza.

Personally, I'm in agreement with Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, that there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species, due to the human ability to speak, reason, create art and science, etc. — Wayfarer

We are a different kind of animal just as all the other kinds of animal are. I'm very familiar with Spinoza and I doubt he out of all those mentioned philosophers would deny that we are animals. I'd need an explicit citation to convince me.

I think those who deny it want to believe that there is a human spirit or soul or essence which is not of this world. It seems to me something like that would be the real motivation to deny that we are animals.

We can say we are not just animals because we are "civilized"...enculturated, if being just an animal is defined as being completely determined by instinct in the ways of living or forms of life available to it, we would escape that categorization. But it could also be said that we are the civilized animal—the animal that can act counter to its instincts. Of course we don't know for sure that there are no other kinds of animal that can do that.

But Vervaeke would also say that h.sapiens have greater horizons of being than do other animals, because of reason, language, self-awareness, and all that this entails. — Wayfarer

I would put that a little differently since I believe animals (to varying degrees of course) do non-symbolic or non-abstract reasoning and have non-symbolic or non-abstract self-awareness and I believe it is on account of symbolic language (and the opposable thumb) that humans have "greater horizons of being" or in other words collective and accumulative learning and culture.

As a Dawkins or a Crick would put it, you are ' robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes' or 'You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules'. — Wayfarer

The first quote is a ridiculous anthropomorphism. The second quote is perhaps true in the sense that we can be understood that way, but it is only one among many possible perspectives, so the "nothing but" part is not true.

There's a bit of a problem with that. Articulating our understanding of how to use words and construct sentences is much more difficult than it seems. For the most part, mostly our use of language is underpinned by skills that we do not, and often cannot, articulate. — Ludwig V

I was referring to a more modest capacity—the ability to articulate that we can use words and construct sentences. I wasn't claiming that we can articulate in any comprehensive sense how it is that we are able to do that.

But it delivers considerable capacity to gain knowledge, surely you would agree. H.sapiens by dint of reason is able to do many things which animals can not. (There have been interminable, and to my mind pointless, arguments about this in the Rational Thinking Human and Animal thread.) — Wayfarer

I would say not by dint of reason but by dint of symbolic language. Symbolic language enables collective learning and perceived history. I believe animals do possess reason, but of course if they do not possess symbolic language, it would seem they do not possess symbolically augmented reason or in other words they would not be capable of abstract reasoning.

The 'argument from reason' is that reasoned inference must convey facts that are internal to reason. Seeking to justify such reasons with reference to the extent to which they provide an adaptive or evolutionary advantage undermines the sovereignty of reason by saying that it's claims have some grounds other than their self-evident nature. — Wayfarer

It is not the fact (if it be such) that reason has evolved that "justifies" reason. Reason is never justified it is merely valid or invalid, consistent or inconsistent, As I already said this has to do with the LNC as I see it. That law is integral to our worldly experience. Something cannot both be and not be itself for example. Or for another example, something cannot be a round square or both red and blue all over I believe that (some) animals (for example dogs) show by their behavior that they instinctively comprehend this.

You said somewhere recently that Vervaeke's "relevance realization" operates at all levels of life. What could this be but some kind of understanding (however) rudimentary) that something is of whatever significance it is for the organism". A predator is a predator not a prey, Perhaps the LEM also comes into play here as well as the LNC. As I replied before this is the root of both meaning and reason.

I am not arguing that it (idealism) means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

I don't follow this argument. I can see that the judgement that "all such supposedly unseen realities" exist relies on an implicit perspective. What I don't see is that the existence of whatever relies on any perspective. There is an unexplained and seemingly unwarranted leap there from judgement of existence to actual existence.

When you say "What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle" you are treating only what that existence is ( or is not) for us. Of course something outside of any perspective is indeterminable for us. It doesn't follow that there is no existence outside of our perspectives or any perspective at all. You seem to be conflating experience and judgement with existence. We cannot say anything at all about anything that might exist beyond our possible experience and judgement including that it could not exist. All the evidence points to the fact that something did exist prior to our existence or the existence of any percipients.

However if the mind and reason are reduced to these terms, then this undermines the sovereignty of reason. We can discuss the details of that if you like. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by the "sovereignty of reason"? Reason by itself delivers no knowledge. As I understand it the main principles are the LNC and validity. I think the LNC features in the demand for validity or consistency. That in any example of valid reasoning the conclusion must be entailed by the premises. Obviously premises which contradict one another or the conclusion will not pass muster.

What is the actual argument for why accepting the evolution of reason would undermine those principles?