There is some arrangement that is the source of what is experienced: I am ill-equipped to say what that might be — Paine

We mostly do imagine there is, must be, "some arrangement" as "source", but are these ideas even coherent outside the context of human thought and understanding?

Subjects and objects are collective representations; artefacts of dualistic thinking. Once this is realized there is no ontological puzzle to be solved, but rather a kind of mesmeruzation to be transcended; a "bewitchment" by means of language in Wittgensteinean terms.

That said, becoming free from this, or perhaps more accurately, realizing that we are always already free from it, is not merely an intellectual matter, but involves a basic shift in orientation and concern.

LOL, sorry I was using 'alive' in a figurative sense.

I agree with you about heaven and hell, though.

Life is sufficient. — Vera Mont

Life is sufficient...when you are actually alive...

What is your explanation for existence? Why it occurred, what purpose or meaning it may or may not have? What are your ethical, epistemological or personal views related to existence?

How long have you had these beliefs/understandings, are they subject to reform, change, or have they been relatively static and unchallenged for quite a time? — Benj96

I think all explanations, while some are obviously better than others in various ways and for various reasons, are under-determined and inadequate to the reality.

I don't think the idea of a purpose over and above the real is determinable or even coherent. Sure we can imagine stuff and that can be creative and fun, and even inspiring, but ultimately groundless.

My ethical view is that morality is a sense to be cultivated just as the aesthetic sense is, and that the principle moral values are pretty much universal. The epistemological and the ontological cannot be separated, even though they can be conceptually distinguished, because in practice our ideas of what is are dependent upon and limited by how we are able to collectively represent the world. Our thinking is ineliminably dualistic, while reality itself is not, so any idea we have of reality is inevitably going to be something of a distortion and a misleading influence.

I'd say something like this has always been my view since I began to think about such things, and I would say it is a settled view. Well, actually it is more a rejection of all views than it is in itself a positive view. You might say it is an apophatic "view" which is really no view at all.

So, all that said, I am not saying that, among the suite of possible human dualistic understandings of the world, that some may not be better, more workable, more beneficial, than others, but I am not a fan of correctness as an absolute, because any idea of correctness is completely context dependent and makes sense only in terms of the groundless assumptions it grows out of and depends on.

You are a moral realist. What remains to be determined is whether your universalism concerning this aspect of human nature grounds itself on an evolutionarily adaptive instinct or a metaphysical a priori. If the former , do you agree with psychologists like Jonathan Haidt that there are a number of innate moral foundations? He specifies at least 5:

Care/harm
Fairness/cheating
Loyalty/betrayal
Authority/subversion
Sanctity/degradation.

But the catch is that while each of us has all of these , we have them in differing concentrations. The result is a relativism and political polarization over values. — Joshs

I don't consider myself to be a moral realist. I think of morality as a sense, and as you note people have this sense, with its accompanying "moral foundations" that you listed there, in "different concentrations" which I take you mean in different degrees, but also in different combinations.

I don't think these differences result in "a relativism" though, since care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity are arguably generally admired, while harm, cheating, betrayal, subversion and degradation are generally deprecated, in most if not all human societies, for very pragmatic, but I think also aesthetic, and even compassionate, reasons.

Authority and sanctity are the principles which I think allow of the greatest range of interpretations and thus of some relativism.

I don't see human morality as inherently different to the kinds of normative behaviors that can be observed in social animal communities.

For most of human history slavery was common and accepted , and I wager that if you were to ask slaves in periods of history when slavery was widely present if they believed that there were situations under which they themselves would be morally just in owning a slave they would say yes. — Joshs

That a social relationship or arrangement might be acceptable to people on account of the fact that they have 'bought the narrative" does not preclude its harmfulness. If the narrative was bought it was bought because of people being conditioned by overarching ideologies, finding themselves lacking the resources to critique.

So, that some slaves may have thought slavery was part of the natural or divine order of things, does not entail that the slaves (or the masters) were happy about it. If slavery were a good, an aid to human flourishing, then why would it ever be abolished? .

Many slave owners sincerely believed slavery was not only just but benefitted the slave. So the idea that slavery is immoral and abusive exploitation that prevents overall
human flourishing is not a universal of history or human nature, but a contingent product of modern culture. I agree that humans have always desired ‘flourishing’ but this is like saying we want what we want. — Joshs

Perhaps some slave owners did sincerely (although how would we know?) believe that slavery benefited the slave, but if true that would have been a rationalization that ignored the reality of the conditions of slavery, and as such it has no bearing on the question as to what, in the most general sense, contributes to human flourishing and what detracts from it.

Today we still have slavery, albeit of a different kind, endorsed by modern popular culture; consumerism is a form of slavery, wage slavery its sibling.

What flourishing or exploitation means is relative to a value system, and value systems change. I think what evolves is our ability to relate to the ways of others different from ourselves and this allows flourishing to be shared more widely among different segments of culture. — Joshs

I don't think that what flourishing or exploitation consist in is merely relative to a value system. Have you ever seen mistreated animals living in appalling conditions of cruelty and neglect? We can see that they are miserable, that they are not flourishing, so I don't buy this idea of relativity. It is compassion or its lack that determines whether one can see whether others are flourishing or not.

There in no such thing as increased human flourishing, as though there were one objective linear scale of meaurement. For one thing, the understanding of what flourishing entails ,how and why it is important, changes from era to era, culture to culture and person to person. — Joshs

I think this is very simply wrong. There are conditions under which all people will either be happy or unhappy. No one wants to be a slave, for example,

I doubt anyone is really happy when being exploited by others, or for that matter, when exploiting others. There is undoubtedly a basellne human nature which gets moulded by cultural influences, but cannot be negated by them.

'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. we made up the word 'thinking' as being 'that thing which these entities do'. — Isaac

So what? The same could be said for running, or in fact for any aspect of our common knowledge. That all our knowledge is relative to the collective representation we call "the world" does nothing to diminish its significance as a shared understanding which is obviously reflected in linguistic usages. So, from the perspective of dualistic thinking (our collective representation of a world of objects, entities, processes and so on) it is indeed true to say that where thinking is found a thinker will also be found.

Since I've acknowledged that none of our dualistic thinking has any absolute ontological significance, or at least cannot be shown to have such, I'm unclear as to what you think you are disagreeing with.

I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. There is no difference between a backflip and the one that performs it, for instance. The entity is the backflip. It's entity all the way down and any action is just the movements and contortions of that entity. So it is with consciousness. — NOS4A2

Yes, I think that's kind of right, except I wouldn't say "it's entity all the way down" since that would be to privilege substance over mode, process, attribute; in other words to favour just one side of the duaiistic equation. So, I would say that from a nondual perspective there is no entity and no activity (in this case "thinking" or consciousness).

What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication? — Isaac

You seem to be confusing empirical and absolute truth. Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it.

But this is a truth of dualistic thinking. Since entities are formal collective representations of dualistic thinking and since we can say that reality is not beholden to suvh thinking, from the 'perspective ' of non-duality there is no thinking and there are no entities.

That's what it is - a tool for working through those apparent contradictions — Banno

I have seen only stipulative resolutions to the murky aspects of identity, and frankly such resolutions seem to have no significant point and to be of little value.

But I guess it all comes down to personal tastes and interests.

I don't disagree with any of that, but I see nothing in possible world semantics that is anything more than determining what can obviously be imagined without logical contradiction.
So I don't see anything to be gained by pursuing it further, since it is all pretty obvious until it becomes murky and there seems to be no way to definitively dispel the inevitable murkiness.

I'll maintain that Metaphysician Undercover is mistaken and that an object's properties may be subject to change and that it makes sense to talk of essential an non-essential attributes. — Banno

And this! I'm surprised to see you advocating essentialism.

A nonsense, again. Actually, it is in this room; Possibly, it might have been in the other. That's it. — Banno

Have it your way: I see no point in arguing further against dogma, so I'll leave you to it.

No it's easy to express. Logically the lectern could have been in a different room, but for all we know actually it could not have been, since to change one thing is to change everything. In any case it's something that could never be tested, and we certainly don't know that it is actually possible, just because we can consistently say that it is possible.

A nonsense expression. — Banno

No, a valid distinction which you can't see apparently. Try looking beyond words, you might actually arrive at some new thoughts.

It is logically possible but not actually possible. What is merely logical possible tells us nothing beyond what we are capable of coherently and consistently imagining, because it is really just playing with words.

As if "The lectern might have been in the other room" were false. — Banno

It is false; it is a mere logical possibility, nothing more than a matter of mere words.

Again, this odd interpretation has the result that when one says the lectern might have been in the other room, one is talking about a different lectern. — Banno

No, you would be talking erroneously about the lectern in question. It's not the case that it might have been in a room other than the one it is in, unless you mean that it might have been earlier or might be later in another room.

If the OP wanted a within-paradigm discussion, then drawing in biology, chemistry, electricity, and quantum mechanics mightn't be the best way to go about that.

As usual, a claim is made against science, then when a scientific paradigm is invoked in the defense of that claim, the argument shifts to a non-overlapping magesteria one.

Well, if a scientific paradigm has no place in discussions about consciousness, then will everyone please stop going on about neuroscience (the failings thereof) in relation to it. — Isaac

There is a difference between thinking that findings within science have absolutely no bearing on our phenomenological self-understandings, which, if you were familiar with the phenomenological tradition, you would know is certainly not true, and thinking that findings within science trump our self-understandings when there appears to be a conflict between them.

So, ideas such as "non-overlapping magisteria", "forms of life", "fields of sense" and so on, are themselves subject to interpretation ranging from the idea that each "magisteria", "form" or "field" is hermetically sealed from the others, to recognizing that there is cross-fertilization, but that the imagined priority of any magisteria over any others is a matter of personal presupposition, preference and oftentimes, prejudice.

So, no claim is being made (by me at least) against science, against neuroscientific findings, I just question the notion that those findings trump our everyday self-understandings. And that notion itself is not something that could ever be established or refuted by empirical evidence. In that sense this discussion is already outside the magisteria we call science.

Do you understand the difference between stubborn dogmatic polemical argument and productive discussion? Maybe productive discussion is not to be found between paradigms, but within them.

Well I believe even animals experience is mediated; unmediated experience would be literally nothing or no-thing.

This is among the reasons why enactivism makes more sense to me than any other account of 'experience'. :up: — 180 Proof

I fail to see how experience itself is not private, even thought or the telling or acting out of it obviously is not, and the experience itself is mediated by socially acquired conceptions.

It wasn't meant to. it was showing that the structure is not circular. — Banno

So, if it was valid it would be circular, otherwise not?

If P then Q, if ~P then ~Q. — Banno

'If there is smoke then there is fire'. 'If there is not smoke then there is not fire' does not seem to follow.

Perhaps you meant If P then Q, if ~Q then ~P .

The existence of red-green colourblindness and the rarer blue-yellow colourblindness shows that colours do indeed appear differently to some people. An "inverted spectrum" would be an extreme case, perhaps never found.

The analogy with the other, simpler senses, doesn't tell us much, if anything. For example the rough/ smooth example is silly simply because a rough surface can do actual work that a smooth surface cannot. Likewise with the loud/soft example; a loud enough sound can cause objects to vibrate and even break. A better sight analog would be 'dark/light'.

So? Again, I'm not seeing how that prevents us from being mistaken about it. Deities (of various sorts) were equally central at one point, we're clearly wrong about (at least some of) them. — Isaac

Firstly, how do you know "we" (was it us?) were "clearly wrong about (at least some of) them? Anyway the story at issue here is the human notion of self-awareness, of being aware. What does it mean to be aware? Why is it said that we are aware? One answer is that we have ideas about ourselves and can spontaneously come up with stories about ourselves. I haven't heard of any machines that do that, have you?

I don't even know what that means. What kind of experience is 'experiencing myself as being aware'. What would experiencing myself as being unaware consist of? — Isaac

I know what experiencing myself as being aware is, it is simply being aware of being aware. If you don't know that experience I can't help you beyond what I've just said. I'll warrant that if you asked almost anyone in the street if they have ever been aware of being aware, they'll say of course they have. It's not something you could be mistaken about. What could it even mean to be mistaken about it? Perhaps you should try some meditation or mind-altering drugs to free up your thinking.

If you are not able to be conscious of your own awareness, then that says something about you, not about others or humans in general. — Janus


Ah. Back to the "If you disagree with Chalmers you must have a brain defect" argument. I appreciate your concern, rest assured I will get the possibility checked out forthwith. — Isaac

Don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing about Chalmers. I said that if you don't have a certain kind of experience that says something about you, not about others who do have that kind of experience.

Neuronal activity and 'objects of conversation' are in two different worlds. The latter is constrained by the former, but not dictated by it. — Isaac

We agree on that much at least, and that's the very reason I say that neuroscientist findings are not relevant to phenomenological understandings of human experience; they are two very different and incommensurate domains of discourse.

"We" means a collection of "I"... It's telling that you couldn't express your idea here without using a personnal pronoun.

If one doubts that there is a self, who is doing the doubting? A doubt implies a person having it, a "mind" rejecting a belief. It can't be an independent doubt, free-floating in the universe. — Olivier5

If all we needed to demonstrate the existence of some substantial self in the Cartesian sense was the fact that we speak of "I" and "we" and so on, then it would have been proven long ago and no longer controversial.

All the bright and shinny feathers of all the birds in the world are composed of the same material as your hair and your nails: keratin — Olivier5

Sure, I haven't said there are not structural physical commonalities to be found everywhere in nature; that is obviously well known. But the human body/brain/mind is the most complex system known and the potential for diversity is enormous. That said, of course the commonalities are enormous too.

You don't know for sure what just happened and could be wrong about it. You tell a story. — Isaac

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about, but blather on regardless...

You tell a story — 180 Proof

All discourse is just stories; so what? You have your story and I mine, correctness doesn't enter into it; it's a matter of presuppositions, preferences and prejudices, not correctness.

Edit: this is meant for @Isaac

Already made, but apparently not recognized.

What is generally disagreeable hereabouts is the thinking that begins with subject or introspection or private sensations. — Banno

Yes, the machine men do seem to find that disagreeable, and that should not be surprising.

As Descartes pointed out, who would be doing the "you" part, then? The doubter cannot doubt his own existence. — Olivier5

:up: Although I'm a bit more modest than Descartes; I would say we know that thinking (and feeling and awareness) are going on; the self is a more problematic proposition. But the devil is in the details (of definition) as to what the self is thought to be.

Misanthropy is democratic.

I'm not seeing the problem you're seeing here. History is littered with understandings and entities which seemed 'so obvious' to people at the time, but later societies consider them nothing but misunderstandings or superstition. I can't see how "everyone thinks it's obvious" presents any major barrier to neurological theories. — Isaac

This is not just "some theory" this is central to human experience and self-understanding, and it's not a question of that understanding being right or wrong. Humans generally experience themselves as being aware, and they are not at all aware of purported neural correlates, which are thus entirely irrelevant to their experience and self-understanding.

If you are not able to be conscious of your own awareness, then that says something about you, not about others or humans in general.

Yes, because you've already done it again and again based on a real human body. — Olivier5

Practice only enables, and thus explains being able to, acquire the motor skills involved in getting proportions right which of course comes from training. Likeness, recognizability, is something else. Even if I can't visualize a familiar face I know if even small details of a familiar face have been changed.

Anyway, my own experience has shown me that even though I usually cannot hold a stable image in mind, that I do have the ability to do it in some altered states.

And again I would pick you up on assuming that everyone is the same. What you find yourself able to do is not necessarily representative of human capacities in general.

I'm just trying to pin down what this thing 'awareness' is that neuroscience has apparently failed to explain. — Isaac

It isn't anything objective, and we should not expect it to be, but it is, by all reports something we all (or most of us at least) experience. Neuroscience cannot directly examine experience, but it doesn't follow from that that experience is an illusion, a "folk" delusion or is nothing. It might be, but again, how would we ever know, since such a thing cannot be empirically confirmed. What could it even mean for something that seems so obvious to most people to be a delusion?

Introspectingly, I realized that this image was not actually 'there' in my mind. — Olivier5

That's generally true of me as well. In my teens i realized that, although I was very good at drawing and painting, I could not evoke an image of even familiar things, such that I could look at it like I would a photograph and note all the fine details.But back then I asked friends about their experience and some claimed they could visualize like that.

Also I've many times experienced the ability to do it, when under the influence of psychedelics, so I believe the capacity is there. Also I can draw a likeness of the face of someone I know well, even if I can't "see" a stable mental picture of it. Same with the human figure; I can draw a very accurate, proportionally and muscularly speaking, image of the human body, male or female.

So. I look at my tea cup, and the claim is that in addition to the circuits processing the sensations I get from it, I also have this other thing called 'being aware' of it, which isn't simply the word we give to those circuits doing their job, but something else (which correlates with them). We assume bats have it (what 'it's like' to be a bat) even though they don't insist they do, but cameras don't have it (there's nothing it's like to be a camera)...because bats would be... offended? — Isaac

The awareness is prior to any understanding of "circuits", the "circuits" which may or may not be objective correlates to subjective awareness.

We assume animals are aware because we see them spontaneously responding to things as we would. We see them, some of them at least, playing and seeming to enjoy and desire certain activities, if their body language is any indication, which it plausibly is since it is not so different from ours.

We don't observe anything close to that in machines. If they never manifest body language, similar enough to be recognizable and readable by us, then how would we ever know they were aware? That said, personally I wouldn't care if machines turned out to be conscious entities, I have nothing to protect that such a revelation would threaten.

Then how do we know the machine isn't? — Isaac

We don't, but we also have no reason to think it is. We think others are aware because they insist that they are, and become offended when it is suggested that they might be deluded. This doesn't happen with machines.

What are the imaginable criteria for "greatness"? Influence within the genre? Widespread public recognition? Aesthetic quality? Profundity of thought or idea? Originality? It seems it's not so easy to establish a definitive marker for greatness.

Some have claimed that it is pointless to work at creative development without desiring recognition. That is an unwarranted claim. Some write in order to find out how they think, paint in order to find out how they see or play music for relaxation or as a form of meditation or to alter consciousness. Any of these pursuits may be undertaken simply for the love of self-development.

:lol: :cool:

Others can compose music in my head. — Marchesk

That'd be a neat trick. :wink: