:cool:

The self is not different than any other thing in the world. If what you say is true then what you've written is also true of the rest of reality, not just of our selves. — T Clark

That's true; the identity of a tree is no more nor less shaky than my own identity.

Mon dieu!

You take ideas seriously? How could you? — Manuel

Do I take ideas seriously? Yes and no.

How could I? Take ideas seriously? I don't know whether I do or not, or sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, so I don't know which question to answer.

Ordinary mentalistic talk is fine, but something weird happens as it's made absolute. — plaque flag

How is the ordinary communication of inner experience being "made absolute"? Inner experience is anything but absolute, if by absolute you mean 'in itself'. Inner experience, all experience, is for us, not absolute. So, I think you are misunderstnding what I'm saying, or reinterpreting it through the lens of your own presuppositions perhaps.

semantics — plaque flag

An 'impossible' semantics gets taken for granted, all the way back to Aristotle, who just took it as obvious (like the flatness of the earth) and therefore gave no justification. — plaque flag

What is the "impossible semantics" you see, why do you place impossible under inverted commas, and on what grounds do you think it is impossible (or 'impossible'?)

I have read some of the brown and blue books many years ago, and I probably still have them on my shelves somewhere. I can't honestly say I'm much impressed by Wittgenstein. I have tried to read his main works and never gotten far. I've read several secondary works, but the ideas seem pedestrian and have never really grabbed me, although some of his aphorisms are good. I know saying that amounts to heresy in the eyes of many, but there it is.

Something is given. — plaque flag

The orangeness of its flame is not just a token in a system of differences. This pure orangeness, that which exceeds the sign, overflows conceptuality altogether. It is there. But I cannot refer to it except negatively as that to which I cannot refer. — plaque flag

You have just referred to it positively and in a way anyone might understand; we all probably know that experience of the orange candle flame, so what's the problem?

I wouldn't say it overflows conceptuality, in the telling at least, since 'orange, 'candle' and 'flame' are all concepts. On the other hand I have no doubt the orange flame can stand out as a gestalt, pre-linguistically, even for animals (although if they cannot see orange, they may see a shade of grey or some other colour, who knows?).

Methodological solipsism and its endlessly dubious seems-to-me is taken for granted, because the nature of that 'me' is taken for granted. The unity of the voice that doubts and hears itself doubting at the same time is taken for granted. If you think of existence as being-in-a-world ('prior' to subject and object), then you can talk about (or try to talk about, without speaking nonsense) the same transconceptual or subconceptual thereness without subjectivistic bias, without the sediment or plaque of the Cartesian tradition. Back to Parmenides ? — plaque flag

Attending to your own inner experience does not constitute methodological solipsism in my view. Everything anyone claims is a "dubious seems-to-me" if the claim is meant to be taken to be anything more than a seeming. What could it mean to say that the inner doubting and the noticing of the doubting do not both belong to me? Who else could they belong to? To absolutize that would be to say it proves the existence of a substantial soul that is not dependent on the physical body, but it proves no such thing, even if it might be taken to suggest it.

I do think of being as prior to subject and object, but not being in a world, because in the latter you have a being and a world it is in. Heidegger never escaped the Cartesian dilemma, which consists essentially in that language is ineluctably dualistic, even though experience is not. When we speak about experience we inevitably speak dualistically; I don't see that as speaking nonsense, but as being the conceptual basis for the phenomenal shared world, which is dualistic through and through, and where words do refer dualistically in a dualistic schema. It's all we have when it comes to sharing, but we also have our own nondual experience if only we can attend to it.

That's a misunderstanding though, of my own case anyhow. The point is an awareness of a certain logical sloppiness that's difficult to point out or to have pointed out. I suspect that one way to get there is to try very hard for a final clarity and come up against the limit, which isn't a definite limit but more like a vision of fog. I think this is something of what Heidegger was trying for with 'the forgetfulness of being.'

A Cartesian bias might be transforming the problem of the meaning of being into the hard problem of consciousness. — plaque flag

I don't know what you mean by "logical sloppiness". I think all language is vague, but we manage more or less well to communicate our inner states regardless, and this is because we do it all the time, and are able simply to "get it" because we all have these states, we all know them directly. In fact they are what is known most directly, given that perceptions of the world are also, primordially, even though outwardly-directed, inner states.

Also inaccuracy in such communications is impossible to establish, so it is impossible to be wrong, and all that counts is whether people feel they get the inner states of others and the empathy that that sense of getting it invokes.

As an example, what I can see in this moment constitutes my visual field, and my visual field is not "out there" available for anyone else, and hence it also qualifies as an inner state.

Can you give some more detail about how you think a Cartesian bias could transform the problem of the meaning of being into the Hard Problem? For what it's worth I think the hard problem arises on account of outmoded metaphysical assumptions about the "brute" nature of matter.

I would try an essay of J.L. Austin’s too. Although pedestrian, it is refreshing to see him actually get somewhere with issues that tie others in knots, though again it can be hard to take him as dealing with the same issues as the tradition. — Antony Nickles

I have read Austin years ago. He seems to convince himself that he has it all commonsensically figured out and that it is misuse of language and only misuse of language that causes philosophers to tie themselves up with metaphysical knots that can never be unravelled, but rather, like the Gordian knot of legend, can only be cut by the sword, in this case the sword of linguistic analysis. I find that attitude unconvincing because I see it as over-simplistic.

I agree; it is weird that people seem to be able to convince themselves on some imagined "objective" basis, that their inner experience is illusory. I think it's also kind of sad.

This language is only possible on account of the commonalities of private experience as I see it. — Janus

I agree with you about using language to express thoughts and feelings that are otherwise hard to express. On the point quoted though, I think we can just as easily explain in the other direction. We can think of mentalistic language evolving within a larger system of signs exchanged by cooperative and competitive organisms. For instance, it's more efficient to be lenient on those who harm the tribe 'accidentally.' — plaque flag

We seem to be talking about different things. I agree that language probably initially emerged in ostensive contexts, naming things, giving commands, uttering warning sounds and so on. But it is a fact that there are internal emotions, bodily sensations, fantasies and dreams which are privately entertained while being as types, not as tokens, common to all, and it seems reasonable to think that the human desire for communication would have motivated the development of language suitable for communicating these kinds of inner experiences.

A self is something like the training of a body into a [temporally stretched] thing that can make and keep promises, generate and modify and criticize claims about the world it shares with other such bodies. — plaque flag

I'm not convinced that making claims and taking responsibility for them is the primary focus of human life. Most people I know are comfortable with their own particular sets of inconsistencies, it seems to me.

When people are focused on making claims, it seems that they are mostly much more concerned with convincing others to their way of thinking than they are with being sure that they are consistent in their own thinking.

In the ordinary way of speaking, I basically agree. That's what makes this issue so tough to discuss. Our mentalistic language of private experience evolved because it was and is useful. So on that usual and undeniably useful level, I agree. — green flag

Doesn't Wittgenstein advise of the bewitchments that come with language going on holiday? I would say our "mentalistic" language of private experience evolved also out of a desire to communicate private experience, and to find commonality with the private experiences of others. This language is only possible on account of the commonalities of private experience as I see it.

The only philosophy that is "useful" is the philosophy that provides us with ideas that we can put into practice in order to live better, or ideas which enable us to get past cognitive biases that are holding us back from living better.

Other kinds of philosophy may be enjoyable if you like studying and entertaining ideas just for the sake of it, just for entertainment, like you might enjoy collecting stamps or watching birds.

If pop philosophy fulfills either of these criteria, then it would be either useful or enjoyable. We might also think that being enjoyable is in itself useful. Michel Foucault wrote a book titled The Use of Pleasure; I haven't read it, but I guess it might have something to do with young Italian boys (joke).

Thanks, I'd be interested to read that Rorty essay. I've never really explored Rorty, I have had a copy of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature on my shelves for perhaps 20 years and have never read past the first few pages. Perhaps I should give it another go. :smile:

The famous beetles and boxes passage suggests why. 'Consciousness' refers to a box that could contain anything or nothing. Or it says what it should not be able to say. — green flag

I know my "box' contains something, and I assume that you know yours does, even though I cannot know that for sure. So, there is private experience, and we all know that, because we can entertain thoughts and feelings that others cannot know about.

For me its' dishonest to pretend that we have no clue how subjective conscious states feel like especially when the free market is making big money through this knowledge. — Nickolasgaspar

Perhaps we all know how subjective conscious states feel because we all have them. If you had no subjective conscious states you would not know how they feel no matter how much brain research you undertook (assuming that you would be able to carry out brain research without having subjective conscious states yourself).

What if you knew your mental faculties were declining ? If it didn't make one a burden, maybe it'd be OK, but part of the charm of life for me is the hope of always jumping a little higher. This is irrational in the sense that we don't actually leave a Real dent, but that might be something we have trouble believing in our depths. — green flag

For me the challenge would be to find joy in decline; it's a different kind of experience after all. I don't set so much store in mental faculties. I'm not interested in "jumping a little higher" just for the sake of it, although I am interested in being a little higher, and I've found that much of philosophy doesn't help me with that.

I'm getting to the point now where I have little interest in complex intellectual productions, or arcane subjects, and find more joy in simple expressions of being. I find much of philosophy, however impressively intellectually acrobatic it might be, tedious and uninspiring. If it lacks poetry, then I lack interest. I'm also unconcerned with leaving a mark in the world.

I'm more interested now in those philosophers whose focus is on living wisely. As I seem to remember from Wittgenstein: "It's more important to be good than to be clever".

So I would agree that "not fearing death" is not to ignore it, or think of it always, or to focus on "living", but to have the courage to define ourselves in committing to form and structure and institutions and the judgment of others; to speak despite the inadequacies of our expressions and still be held to our words as if all that we are was in them, with everything else dying each time. — Antony Nickles

So, something like Heidegger's "resoluteness"?

Learning how to die seems to be like becoming so ripe that one is willing to drop from the tree. — green flag

I won't be willing to die until I've already dropped from the tree and become so dried up and shriveled that I am way beyond over-ripe.

Why I am not afraid that the species will be erased ? It must, yes ? Is my programming not up to it ? Can I not 'truly' believe it in my depths ? Is it too big ? Too far away ? — green flag

Too irrelevant would be my pick.

To it's more like what Sartre called beneath all explanation. — green flag

Right, the mystical is beyond all explanation, whether beneath or above.

The experience that we need in order to understand logic is not that something or other is the state of things, but that something is: that, however, is not experience. — green flag

I don't understand what that sentence means.

But it is nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot imagine it not existing. — green flag

I think we can imagine that the world might not have existed (well I can at least). And even if we could not imagine that, I don't see why existence should not elicit a feeling of wonder.

One might be tempted to say that what I am wondering at is a tautology, namely at the sky being blue or not blue. But then it's just nonsense to say that one is wondering at a tautology. — green flag

I don't understand the contingencies of existence to be tautologies, or say how they could be so understood, so I'm afraid you've lost me here

According to Steven Schafersman, geologist and president of Texas Citizens for Science, metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy that proposes that: 1. Nature encompasses all that exists throughout space and time; 2. Nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal physical substance—mass–energy. Non-physical or quasi-physical substance, such as information, ideas, values, logic, mathematics, intellect, and other emergent phenomena, either supervene upon the physical or can be reduced to a physical account; 3. Nature operates by the laws of physics and in principle, can be explained and understood by science and philosophy; and 4. the supernatural does not exist, i.e., only nature is real. — WIkipedia — Wayfarer

1, This is just a definitional stipulation.
2. There is a presumption here that nature is well understood, through and through. We have a comprehensive, mostly consistent and coherent body of scientific understanding of nature, nature as it presented to us, and that is really all we have. We also cannot help thinking that nature is something in itself, but that thought just establishes the realization that our understanding is necessarily limited.
It does seem that all those things which appear non or quasi-physical supervene on the physical; so that is true as far as appearances go.
3. States how thing appear to be.
4, There doesn't seem to be any credible evidence for the existence of the supernatural, if we don't count imaginings, intuitions and intimations as some kind of evidence. Should we count them as evidence? I would say they cannot count as publicly available evidence, so the answer is 'no', since we cannot corroborate them inter-subjectively.

What exactly do you take the claims of metaphysical naturalism to be?

I don't really see the problem. I fully accept the naturalist account of evolution. All organic life is related, as evolutionary theory demonstrates. — Wayfarer

Then I don't know what you are proposing. Culture cannot explain a shared world. If we want to try to think of explanations for a shared world, then we are left to speculation, and I don't see a whole raft of competing theories, but really just two.

What I'm rejecting is a philosophical stance which attributes a kind absolute value to the objective domain. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure what that even means. but if you are referring to naive realism; I also reject that.

I mean, even if we study the cosmos right back to nanoseconds after the big bang, it is the observing mind that brings order and perspective to that analysis. From a naturalistic perspective, sure, h. sapiens only came along in the last ten minutes (speaking metaphorically) but it is in that form that all of this becomes somewhat intelligible, — Wayfarer

Yes the world is only intelligible to humans in human forms of intelligibility: no argument there.

What I already said about the collective nature of mind. Besides, the laws of physics still hold at micro-levels, but they're probabalistic, there is no 'absolute object', therefore no absolute objectivity. — Wayfarer

So your "collective mind" includes the animals as well? I'm not saying there are objects independent of human experience and understanding, I am saying there is "something" which, with incredible reliability, gives rise to a shared world of experience, which includes not only humans but (at least some) animals. How do we explain this if our minds are not somehow collectively coordinated or it is not the mind-independent nature of the physical ? Are there any other explanations you can think of?

The answer to that could only be silence. — Wayfarer

Why? You don't want to commit yourself because then you might have to admit something you don't want to?

For what it's worth I don't hold to any view, but I do think there either has to be a collective coordination of minds or else a stable mind-independent physical reality at the level of perception. I cannot think of any other alternative, can you?

This is where the non-objectivity of quantum mechanics enters the picture. When you seek the underlying, objective ground from which all of the objects of everyday experience are supposedly derived, it is found to be different for every observer (e.g. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a40460495/objective-reality-may-not-exist/) — Wayfarer

"In a field where intriguing, almost mysterious phenomena like “quantum superposition” prevail—a situation where one particle can be in two or even “all” possible places at the same time—some experts say reality exists outside of your own awareness, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. Others insist “quantum reality” might be some form of Play-Doh you mold into different shapes with your own actions. Now, scientists from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) in the São Paulo metropolitan area in Brazil are adding fuel to the suggestion that reality might be “in the eye of the observer.”"

If there is no objective ground, if we all mold our own realities, then how do we explain the fact that we all see the same things? Take the "quantum cat" that is neither dead nor alive, or both dead and alive, before an observation is made: how do explain that on observation everyone will agree as to whether it is dead or alive if there is no objective reality, and no connective coordination between individual minds?

Again, not saying the world is 'only in your mind'. — Wayfarer

What are you saying then: would there be anything at all if there were no human minds according to you?

The question will remain, how then can you say the world existed before humans, if it's a collective construct? — Wayfarer

Culture can determine the forms in which we understand things, but it cannot account for the everyday fact that we don't only see things in the same general ways, but see exactly the same things in detail at the same places at the same times. And as I said earlier even animals share a world with us, and they have not been inducted into our culture.

Consider this. All of the vast amounts of data being nowadays collected about the universe by our incredibly powerful telescopes and particle colliders is still synthesised and converted into conceptual information by scientists. And that conceptual activity remains conditioned by, and subject to, our sensory and intellectual capabilities — determined by the kinds of sensory beings we are, and shaped by the attitudes and theories we hold (which is the lesson of embodied cognition and enactivism). And we’re never outside of that web of conceptual activities — at least, not as long as we’re conscious beings. That is the sense in which the Universe exists ‘in the mind’ — not as a figment of someone’s imagination, but as a combination or synthesis of perception, conception and theory in the mind (which is more than simply your mind or mine). — Wayfarer

All of that is not sufficient to explain the simple facts of everyday experience. Consider this: I hear a cow mooing, and my dogs start barking at the same time, If I let them out they run straight over to the neighbour's field where the cows are. Now either there really is something mind-independent "out there" producing those sounds that I and the dogs are responding to, or our minds are connected somehow in some way we have no awareness of, or there is some other explanation we cannot even imagine, but culture cannot explain it, that much is obvious.

:lol: Appropriate clip!

:up: If I have a tendency any way it would be that way...I certainly don't believe in or prepare for an after life.

By all means roll your eyes if that's all you can come up with...

Also, I think concepts like e.g. realism, materialism & idealism are suppositions and not propositional statements, so that being "true", as you suggest, Janus, isn't determinative; rather the self-consistency, contextual coherence with adjacent-concepts, descriptive clarity & communicative usefulness, for example, are more adequate criteria – rules-of-thumb – for de/selecting (or creating) philosophical concepts. What do you think? :chin: — 180 Proof

I agree that the truth (which I would say means reality) of materialism and idealism are non-determinable. So I see them as purely speculative, and ultimately undecidable in principle. The trouble with criteria of self-consistency, contextual coherence, descriptive clarity and communicative usefulness is that these are all context and presupposition-dependent and one person's meat will be another's poison.

I just concern myself with understanding the ideas and their implications, and beyond that I suspend judgement. So, not having a settled opinion I don't have a dog in the race. Also, I don't think it matters what we believe when it comes to abstruse undecidables

I agree with Nietzsche that it is better to believe whatever helps you live and flourish best, or else abstain from believing anything if that works better for you (as it does for me), rather than agonizing over whether something undecidable is true or false.

That's my small coinage, for what it's worth.

You give an explicit insult after three posts. Brief, even for you.

The point is simply that not all imagined possibilities are worthy of consideration. But of course, the Jatravartid differ as to the details. — Banno

I wasn't insulting you; I was saying your example is a stupid one. The idea that there is a universal consciousness as opposed to the idea that there is just a brute materiality has an extensive and very reasonable provenance. It is one of just two imaginable possibilities: universal consciousness or no universal consciousness.

Presenting universes being sneezed out, flying spaghetti monsters or teapots as being equally reasonable alternatives is just a silly attempt to bring the idea of universal consciousness down to the same stupid level; it is an unworthy, disrespectful, merely rhetorical attempt to discredit the idea,in lieu of being able to provide a decent argument against it. Such "arguments" are themselves insults to your interlocutor's intelligence; it's a "schooltard" tactic, and you should know better.

I would say the salient polemic is materiality vs ideality. If idealism were true it would be the reality.

Now you're just being stupid.

I don't think being members of a species, language group and culture is sufficient to explain the fact that we all see the same things in the same places at the same times. Even my dogs, judging from their behavior see the doorways where I see them, the ball where I've thrown it and so on. This can be explained by mind-independent existents or by existents which are ideas in a collective mind we would all have to be connected to.

If that's what idealism needs in order to explain apples, then so much the worse for idealism. — Banno

Right, that's your preference, but idealism in the collective mind sense is an imaginable possibility, and it might avoid other issues that plague the idea of mind-independent material existents. All views seem to have their shortcomings and aporias if pushed hard enough.

And if evolution is nothing more than our perceptions, then it didn't really occur.

The view still undermines itself. — Banno

You're persisting in straw-manning idealism. There might be one version which says that there are individual minds and their perceptions. with no connection between them. That view fails to account for what is obvious in everyday experience; that we inhabit a shared world.

But if the reality is thought to consist in not mind-independent existents, but ideas in a universal mind, of which we are all a part, then the problem of shared reality disappears, and so does the problem of evolution not really occurring.

I don't hold to one view or the other, but they are both possibilities and we have no way of knowing which obtains, or if there is some other explanation we cannot even conceive of.

I agree with you about the honest and dishonest interlocutors. As to the dishonest: either deliberately or deludedly (monomaniacally) so.

:up: I think most of us are to varying degrees fools and dilettantes.

I'd class myself as a foolish dilettante skeptic.

How about critical thinkers, dogmatists, skeptics, system builders, experientialists, practitioners (as in philosophy as a way of life). Any of those could be fools, dilletantes or monomaniacs, or some blend of the three in varying degrees.

You're right; parsimony is good, but how parsimonious can we be while still being comprehensive? Can you think of ways to collapse these categories further?

A good list that I'd modify/ augment a little: Critical thinkers, system builders (your "theorists"), dogmatic acolytes, dilettantes, practitioners, monomaniacs, artists, spiritualists, mystics, religionists, logicists, scientists. phenomenologists, relativists, positivists, post-modernists.

Of course not. Like Mww above, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that I am right. When the meaning of what you say is actually analyzed, it is revealed to be an absurdity. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you think there is only one possible interpretation of metaphysical, phenomenological or epistemological statements, then I'm sorry to say it but; but you are simply simple-minded. From where I sit, I see you distorting the arguments of others in ridiculous ways in order to "win" the argument.This is not good faith or good philosophical practice, dude.

And your inconsistencies are glaringly obvious: you claim that we are all so different we don't even share a common world, and yet you think that your particular (mostly absurd) interpretations of others' arguments are the only possible ones, that each word only has one meaning (the one that suits you of course).

I agree with what you say: I think MU needs a "reality check". He seems to be headed deeper into a methodological solipsism.

I'm not wasting further time on your distortions.

I know! Crazy isn't it!

That anyone might think a thing you can't personally understand could actually be the case! Implausible.... — Isaac

I hope you are not falling into the dogmatic delusion that anyone who doesn't agree with you must not understand. Nothing difficult to understand there, just difficult to believe. But then you seem to have no difficulty believing it..it looks like we have different opinions about what seems plausible...go figure...

No. You can see five different colours there. That they are all shades of 'red' is something you were taught by the culture you grew up in. different cultures have different groupings and distinctions. — Isaac

This thesis is implausible; how could culture determine whether I or anyone else would class something as red or as purple or orange when it comes to edge cases?

It is rather the individual who determines whether someting counts as red or any other colour on the imprecise experiential basis of whether it looks red or looks orange or purple.

Of course I am not disputing the fact that the word 'red' is culturally acquired.

Two experiences of the same thing at the same time qualifies as a shared experience in my lexicon.

If we shared a plate of food that would not entail that we ate exactly the same items on the plate: that would be impossible.

If we both see the same kinds of things in front of us that qualifies as a shared experience.

If you saw a beach and I saw a city that would not be a shared experience.

You beat me to it...nicely put!