I'm still not sure what you have in mind. Did you perhaps think that when I said the toddler's experience is what it is, I meant that it is, regardless of our ways of thinking about it, either internal or external, etc.? Because if that's what you were thinking you were mistaken: I simply meant that the toddler's experience is what it is in the sense that whatever she experiences, she experiences.

Apparently you think you see a contradiction; I don't see it, so unless you explain there is nothing to discuss.

Agreed, with the caveat “cannot be followed”. It remains that while it is rather absurd to suppose I have a complex argument with myself, I can nonetheless have a complex chain of thought comprised of a series of conjoined images, which, of course, no one else could follow. — Mww

OK, I can't do it, so I'll have to take your word for it that you can.

Derrida’s analyses of language attempted to show that what you are calling word symbols, and what Peirce calls ikon, have both conventional and inherently meaningful expressive relations with what they stand for . There is research corroborating Derrida’s claim that word symbols are not as strictly conventional as you might think. For instance , auditory characteristics of phonemes have been found to be non-arbitrarily linked to the meanings they symbolize. — Joshs

I don't deny that ikons may accumulate conventional associations, but all that is necessary for understanding what an ikon represents is the ability to see the similarity between it and what it represents. We see that in paleolithic cave paintings. I also don't deny that words may be onomatopoeic or their sounds non-arbitrarily associated with what they symbolize. But in both cases such relationships are not essential to their function.

Would you grant that a music composer is creating abstract concepts through their medium , and may consider music to be a more effective way , and perhaps the only, way to produce the deepest form of abstract thinking? — Joshs

No, for me music (without lyrics) conveys only feeling. Abstract concepts are determinate; I don't think music, like so-called "abstract" art, is rightly thought of as being abstract, but is non-representational and concrete; more concrete in a sense than representational art. Which is not to say that abstract art and music cannot evoke images or associations; but the images and/ or associations evoked, and whether there are images and/ or associations evoked, may be different for each individual.

We can create thought experiments and invent new ideas well before we are able to find new word names. — Joshs

Sure, we don't need new words, just new combinations of existing words, in order to produce novel ideas. I do it every time I write a poem. We cannot create thought experiments and invent new ideas without words, though; or at least I can't, and if someone tells me they can then I can only take their word for it, as there can be no other way to demonstrate whether what they claim is true or not. They may really be able to do something I cannot, or they may be deceiving themselves, who knows?

If you think I've contradicted myself then all you have to do is quote the purportedly contradictory statements I've made and we can look at it.

Are you sure about the last statement above? — creativesoul

I have no doubt that it is matter of definition, as I've explained.

All the stuff existed prior to our naming, but the fact about what was 'the cell' and what wasn't 'the cell' didn't exist prior to our naming it. — Isaac

I agree, and I think the same applies to what we variously decide to name "experience".

Are you really objecting to anyone claiming that humans had experience prior to language use?

Wow.

So then, no sex, no eating, no being full of fear at the sound of the bear, etc? Really? — creativesoul

Isaac will correct me if I've misunderstood, but I don't think that's what he means. At least that is not what we've been discussing, which is the various ways of defining experience, not whether it exists without language. That said, on certain views it would be possible to say that without language there is no experience; not that I would be inclined to agree with that..

Let's just say that there is no external world and continue to live our lives as if there is one. Then this silly debate would finally come to an end, and we'll do what we do in any case. — Ciceronianus

"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts." ― Charles Sanders Peirce

Not exactly; I'd say that what we count as the toddler's experience depends on how we define the word "experience". The toddler's experience is what it is regardless of how we define it.

What - exactly - is a matter of definition, and nothing more?

Whether or not a tree is inside or outside my head? — creativesoul

No, whether or not your experience of a tree is internal or both internal and external. As I said both can be coherently said, depending on context or definition of 'experience'.

According to you, the content of that toddler's experience depends upon how we define the word "experience". — creativesoul

You're putting words in my mouth. I haven't said anything about content. If experience is thought of as being something that goes on inside the body/ brain, then experience is rightly thought of as internal; that is inside the skin/ external world boundary.

If experience is thought of as the whole process consisting in stimulation of the senses by light, sound or whatever that is external to the skin/ external world boundary as well as the neural affects that go on inside the body/ brain, then experience is rightly thought of as both external and internal or neither (exclusively) external or internal; that is both outside and inside the skin/ external world boundary etc.

These are simply different ways we can think about these things; it is not a case of one being right and the other wrong. One or the other way of thinking might be more or less useful depending on what it is we want to do.

Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. — Mark Twain

:lol: :up: Brilliant!

That's how I'm taking it. It's fascinating, such complete incorrigibility. — Pie

Yep, it's pretty unique.

Well, I will wait until you can provide an actual refutation of the self evident truth of reason that any extended thing will be capable of infinite division. — Bartricks

Why would I bother trying to refute something that does not seem self-evident to me, just because you claim it seems self-evident to you? On the contrary I would be wasting my time, wouldn't I? In such a situation we could not but talk past one another. You'll say I can't see what is self-evident, and I'll say that you can't see what's self-evident (that neither the infinite divisibility nor the finite divisibility of extended things is self-evident). Where will that get us?

Nothing Democritus - and it is Democritus, not Democritius — Bartricks

Now you're reduced to pointing out typos?

Your "students" have my sincerest sympathies. — 180 Proof

:lol: OMG, it's the lecturer from Hell! This thread has become the 'comedy relief sandbox'.

That's not an argument. Explain why an extended thing could not be divided. — Bartricks

It wasn't intended to show that, but to show that there are different reasonable ways of thinking about it. In other words your blanket mantra "reason tell us" is a vacuous nostrum.

If some thought does not need words, then the proposition "thought does not need words" is true. This is true, regardless of the fact that some thought needs words. That's the way inductive reasoning works. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, if some thought does not need words then the proposition "some thought does not need words" is true. "Thought does not need words" is a blanket statement which is equivalent to "all thought does not need words".

I think that's true. I think the main areas we might disagree on concern different emphases; on differences regarding what might be thought to be the best approaches. And I see those as matters for the individual, as matters that are hard to gain normative purchase on.

Yup. — creativesoul

:cool: Cool, we agree on that it seems.

Never claimed otherwise. — creativesoul

Good, then we've nothing to argue about.

There are better approaches. — creativesoul

Better according to who?

I put it to you that whether or not experience is external, internal, and/or both is something that is not up to us any more than whether or not our biological machinery, the tree, leaves, and light are. Would you agree with that as well? — creativesoul

No, I think it's just a matter of definition, nothing more. If experience is defined as the sensing, feeling and thinking processes of an individual, which are obviously not open to public scrutiny, then on that definition experience is internal. So, it is up to us how we choose to think about it.

All thought and perception is symbolic in the sense of signifying something. Complexes of sound , image and sensation signify recognizable things. Music signifies complex ideas and feelings. Words are just specialized forms of signification. Many abstract ideas can be signified better by feelings( which are forms of conceptual meaning) than by words. — Joshs

The way I think about signs has been influenced by Peirce. To give a basic account: according to Peirce a symbol is something that signifies something else but does not resemble it. An ikon is something that signifies something else by resemblance or representation. And a basic sign, such as smoke being a sign of fire for example, signifies by material association acquired by inference or expectation from the experience of constant conjunctions of things.

Words are symbols in this sense that they do not resemble or have any material associations, but do have conventional associations, with the things they represent. So not all signs are symbols in this understanding.

Now my claim has just been that a complex argument or train of thought involving abstract concepts cannot be followed except in symbolic language terms. That said, I don't totally rule out the possibility, but I know I can't do it, and I cannot imagine how others could. But even if it were possible, how could it be shown to be such in any case?

Perfect. Do you object to what's directly below?

Thus, the experience consists of both internal and external things. It most certainly follows that the experience is neither internal nor external for it consists of elements that are both. — creativesoul

No, I've already said that, in the context of thinking about experience as being comprised of both internal and external elements, which is one of the possible ways to think about it, it's a sensible statement.

True enough, but is it not therefore logical, and rational, to claim that thinking about anything except words, would not need them? While it is true every thought must have its object, it does not follow that ever object must be a word. — Mww

Symbolic thought requires symbols, and symbols are mostly words. It's true that things like love or hate or anger can be symbolized by images, but how could non-verbal images be used to symbolize abstract notions like generality, specificity, pattern, from, form, about, content, exception, logic, rationality, fundamental, absolute and countless others?

For if it was an extended thing - a notion of ours that we bring to bear on our sensible experiences - then it would be capable of infinite division, something our reason denies is possible. — Bartricks

Democrtius' reason told him over two thousand years ago that divisible extended things are made up of tiny indivisible extended things and that therefore extended things are not, as it is possible to imagine they are, infinitely divisible. Kant's antinomies show us that exercising pure reason may lead to contradictory conclusions.

Kant understood this to show that our sometimes contradictory understandings of appearances cannot be in accordance with any absolutely mind-independent reality. One could be counted as a materialist and yet take the indubitable existence, for us, of material objects of the senses to show nothing beyond what it shows about our own experience. Just as Kant said he is an empirical realist, he could equally consistently have said he is an empirical materialist and that materialism has no bearing on anything beyond the empirical.

I said earlier "absolutely mind-independent reality"; we cannot know anything about such a thing, but we can say that objects of the senses are mind-independent relative to our experience, because our experience shows them to be such; it seems obvious to reason that they must be independent of any individual mind, because the world will not disappear no matter how many people you remove.

What will happen if the last person and all the animals (and plants?) are removed? It seems then the world would no longer appear; but will it still be there: visible, audible and tangible, but unseen, unheard and unfelt? That is the question about which no absolute, context-free answer can sensibly be given.

So it is no part of the definition of a materialist that they believe in objects of the senses, for that would generate a contradiction. — Bartricks

You are just repeating the same nonsense that I've already shown to be such without offering any counterargument.

Materialists believe that what is real is a material world of, as you say, "mind-external extended things"; things which just are the "objects of the senses". Where is the contradiction in that?

That doesn't preclude others from believing that the objects of the senses are real, but that they are not "mind-external extended things".

That reason apparently show different people different things shows that what reason show depends on its starting assumptions, which themselves are not show by reason, but appeal intuitively to some, and not to others..

I understood the first time. I agree, but that is a trivial point to make. We all know that much. Do you object to either claim in the quote at the top of this post? — creativesoul

Sure I agree, but I see those claims as being more obvious, more trivial, than the point that there is no fact of the matter concerning whether experience is internal, a combination of internal and external or neither internal nor external, and that these are just different ways of talking about perceptual experience; different understandings that all make sense in their various contexts, and that pitting them against one another doesn't mean much..

A material thing is what I said it is: a mind-external extended thing. — Bartricks

You keep jumping all over the place instead of addressing what I say. "A mind-external extended thing" just is an object of the senses; how else would we know it exists if not via the senses?

So far you've not assimilated or even really acknowledged any of my criticism of your views. — Pie

Bartricks constantly fails to do this with his interlocutors. I'm not sure if he's desperately trying to divert others' attention in order to protect views he's wedded to, or is simply a troll trying to get attention. His is at least a very unusual case, and I suppose that has to count for something.

You're just contradicting what I just said. LIke I say, you clealy think the fact I have said something is sufficient for it to be mistaken. I'm published on this stuff, for christ's sake!

Now, once again: an immaterialist believes in the objects of the senses. So, if you define a materailst as someone who believes in the objects of the senses, then an immaterialist turns out to be a materialist.

Do you see why that's not the correct definition? — Bartricks

Are you willfully misunderstanding what I wrote? I didn't define a materialist as someone who believes in the objects of the senses, but as someone who defines them as being material. So. I am not contradicting your claim that an immaterialist may believe in the objects of the senses.

If you really are published on this, then tell us the title of your book or article; otherwise why should you be believed, and in any case, so what; there is a mountain of drivel that has been published.; being published is no guarantee of rigor or quality of thought.

But it means the burden of proof is on the person who thinks minds are divisible to undercut those rational intuitions — Bartricks

What you call "rational intuitions" I think are imaginative intuitions arrived at by imagining an analogy between how we understand material substance and how we should understand a purported immaterial substance. 'Substance' is a very ambiguous term though.

Material substances in the sense of things like wood, metal, stone and so on are thought to be divisible because we can actually divide them. But only up to point; the fundamental particles of which they are thought to consist are not understood to be divisible. In any case, if we imagine an immaterial substance, there is no way to imagine how it could be divided.

The mistake lies in imagining an immaterial substance in the first place, because we have no clear idea of what such a thing could be. When you think about it the same goes for the more philosophical notions of material substance.

Aristotle thought all individual entities were substances in their own right; he saw substance in this sense as a kind of essence or identity, and of course that could not be divided either. To think in terms of dividing and identity, which is a concept, is simply a category error; and to reify what is merely a concept, and to imagine that it has some kind of substantive existence is also a category error; it is to commit the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness".

It is not simplistic at all, for they exhaust the alternatives. And that's not the definition of a material thing. An immaterialist does not deny the objects of the senses, yet they deny materialism. — Bartricks

All material things are objects of the senses. From the materialists' idea that material things are objects of the senses it does not follow that anyone who believe there are objects of the senses must beleive they are material; so if it is a fact that immaterialists deny materialism, that constitutes no problem for the common notion of materialism.

And any and all of those who think conscious states are states of the brain are holders of the view that the mind is the brain or some part of it (or whtaever they take the mental states to be supervening on or whatever ghastly term they employ). — Bartricks

This is not true; functionalists think there is a coherent distinction between mind and brain. The mind is not part of the brain but the function, understood from a phenomenological, not an objectivist, standpoint, of the whole brain. As far back as Spinoza mind and brain, and more generally mind and matter, or cogitans and extensa have been understood to be the one thing understood from different perspectives.

Spinoza admired and was influenced by Descartes, but he was smart enough to see through Descartes' reificational delusions that mind and matter are two different substances.

I'm ambivalent about the 'lords and masters' idea. I think we want access to nutritious food, effective medicine, protection from storms, etc., but we end up with side-effects like polution, global warming, the possibility of a panopticonic dystopia, etc. — Pie

The way I see it it is the rise of capitalism-enabling technology which has brought us to this culmination of the largely Christian notion of humanity as masters of nature, which is beginning to look like an ironic caricature and now we find ourselves in a situation wherein we will be shown just how delusional that notion is.

I think "nutritious food, effective medicine, protection from storms" and other "goods" are possible without capitalist driven technocracy, but not on the population scales we have now. So, we have ignorantly dug a hole I don't believe we will be able to "science" our way out of, a situation which there doesn't seem to be any other way out of now, either, other than catastrophe and collapse. Time will tell how long it will take for that to come to fruition. .

Indeed. And that reminds me that Fichte and Kant were quite concerned with this. — Pie

:up:

Materialists think minds are material things and immaterialists and dualists think they are immaterial things. — Bartricks

This is too simplistic, since it is obvious that mind is not a material things in the sense of being an object of the senses, which is the common definition of a material thing. It is too simplistic to think that if the mind is not a material thing in this sense that it must be an immaterial thing; where immaterial thing (substance) is thought as somehow analogous to material thing (substance). This reification gives rise to the idea of immaterial substance, and if I recall correctly (it's a long time since I read the book) this is something Ryle explicitly points out in Concept of Mind.

Needless to say, the mere fact I have said these things will be, for you, sufficient grounds to reject them, is that not true? — Bartricks

Not at all. You seem to be projecting your own propensities onto me. I don't have time to address anything else you said right now; I have to work. Perhaps I'll come back to it later.

As you may remember, he also wanted us to be 'lords and masters and nature' — Pie

Yes, and this kind of delusional thinking is what has led us to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Indeed. This is maybe the worst part of his thinking, perhaps a byproduct of what I think was a typical evasion of the time...namely rescuing the soul from a Newtonian determinism. I respect Spinoza and Hobbes for just accepting the deterministic implications and, in their own ways, avoiding the gulf between body and mind. — Pie

I agree that would be a motivation for this kind of thinking; the desire to separate us from nature in order to justify the rectitude of the idea of free will and accountability, as I recall Nietzsche points out in Twilight of the Idols.

Allow me to recommend The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle. I only recently got around to this book, and it's just flamethrower for so many entrenched confusions concerning the mind. — Pie

Yes, it's a great book; I don't know how many years ago I read it, twenty maybe, and I don't remember too much of it specifically now, but it made a powerful impression on me. Around the same time I read a work by Arthur Koestler titled The Ghost in the Machine (a term coined by Ryle) which was also a pretty good read, if my dim impressions of it now are anything to go by. Maybe I'll revisit those two books, so thanks for the reminder: I'm pretty sure I still have them somewhere.

The term 'ghost in the machine' reminds us that it was Descartes who first thought of the body as a machine animated by a ghostly, incorporeal substance; the mind. Descartes has much to answer for in the tradition of thought that understands animals to be unfeeling machines, on account of the idea that they do not possess the faculty of rationality, which distinguishes the crown of creation, man, from them and justifies using them in whatever ways satisfy our need or desire.

It's not a bunch of faculties. Faculties are had by a thing. Things are not made of faculties.

Same mistake, Hugh.

It can't be divided into faculties. It 'has' faculties. See?

Faculties are always the faculties 'of' something. Faculties of perception, reason and so on, are faculties 'of' a mind. — Bartricks

All things are not subject to the same the same ways of conception, of thinking about them. If the mind is understood to be a function of the brain (and a function is a thing, although not a physical thing in the sense of being a physical object directly discernible by the senses) or better, a set of functions, then to divide the general faculty of mind into specific faculties is perfectly in order.

The body, considered as a set of functions rather than as a mere thing (in the sense of being an object of the senses) can also be divided into functions: walking, running, digestion, respiration, excretion and so on.

So if the mind is the set of what we think of as mental faculties of the body, as opposed to the obviously physical faculties outlined above, then "faculties of perception, reason and so on" can reasonably be understood to be faculties or functions of the body, which all together make up the overall faculty or function of the body we call "mind".

Again, you need to deny premise 1. So make an argument against it. — Bartricks

Premise one is undeniable: as it is in the form of "if...then". It is premise two, and the conclusion that follows from it which may or may not be sound depending on whether by "death" you mean dying or being dead; in the former case it will be sound, and in the latter may be sound or unsound depending on whether there is existence following death. Has it penetrated your thick skull yet?

The term 'death' is ambiguous, and it is that ambiguity you are leveraging for your vapid "argument". 'Death' can mean either 'dying' or 'being dead'. Which one do you want it to mean? It doesn't really matter because your argument only works, is only definitely sound, for its usage as 'dying', and there it doesn't tell us anything that is not common knowledge.

I didn't say the mind is not a thing; I said it is not a physical thing. You need to improve your comprehension, Bratricks.

1. If death harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
2. Death harms the one who dies
3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time. — Bartricks

You're trading on a conflation between dying and being dead

1. If dying harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
2. Dying harms the one who dies
3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time (of dying).

There: fixed for you. And it is uncontroversial.

1. If being dead harms the one who is dead, then the one who is dead must exist at the time
2. Being dead harms the one who is dead
3. Therefore, the one who is dead exists at the time.

In this form the argument tells us nothing about whether the dead person exists, so whether the argument is sound or not depends on that big "if" in the first premise. The alternative argument is:

1. If being dead harms the one who is dead, then the one who is dead must exist at the time
2. Being dead does not harm the one who is dead
3. Therefore, the one who is dead does not exist at the time.

Both valid arguments, both of which cannot be sound, the determination of which is sound depends on knowledge we do not possess.

So if you're remotely logical, you must now accept my conclusion or deny that one needs to exist in order to be harmed. — Bartricks

One is still existing in the act of dying or being killed. I haven't said that being dead is a harm: how could we know, since none of us have been there?

The mind can be conceptually divided up into different faculties; thought, emotion, volition, perception and so on, or different states: most broadly conscious and unconscious. But it doesn't follow that those faculties and states are somehow separate from one another in "practice".

The mind is not a physical thing, but a function of a physical thing, more of a verb than a noun; so it cannot be literally located and dissected like the brain can. According to reports, if the corpus callosum is severed, one side of the body literally doesn't know what the other is doing. Would you count that as being a division of the mind? What about multiple personality syndrome?

You think killing someone doesn't harm them, yes? That's really silly. — Bartricks

I haven't said that. Of course killing someone harms them. Even if there is no pain involved it deprives them of life.They are harmed in the act of being killed. Of course once they are dead, if they cease to exist, then there is no longer anyone to be deprived of anything, but that doesn't change the fact that you harmed the person in the act of killing them.

Try addressing your interlocutors' actual arguments instead of behaving like a shit-stain, Browntracks. :roll:

No, we see it as harmful because our reason represents it to be. That's why there's a big debate about the harmfulness of death in philosophy. — Bartricks

If reason represents death to be a harm, then there must be a reason for that representation; so what is that reason? Why does reason represent death to be a harm?

You just keep coming back with the same assertion, and you haven't even attempted to address with counterarguments any of the explanations I gave for people thinking that they will be harmed by death.

Death is self-evidently harmful. And that's not just my reason making such representations, it's everyone's including yours - it's why you try and avoid it, yes? — Bartricks

I'll try one last time to explain the way I see it and if you don't respond to that, but to something of your own fabrication, or just keep repeating the same baseless assertions, then I won't waste more time.

We see death as harmful because it forcibly removes us from what we love, or are at least attached to.

WE see death as harmful because we fear it will annihilate us, and we don't wish to be annihilated.

We see death as harmful because dying is most likely to be painful and humiliating, even if just in terms of the loss of control it involves. It doesn't matter if the control we thought we enjoyed was illusory.

We see death as harmful because we don't know what being dead involves (if anything) and we fear the unknown.

Being dead, though, cannot be harmful if being dead is not being anything..If being dead is being in a worse situation than we were in while alive, then death is harmful, to be sure, but we don't know that.

Respond directly to these points, criticize them all you like with counterarguments if you have any, or I'm done bothering with you.

Sigh. Yes, most contemporary philosophers do not believe in an afterlife. Which is why they think there is a puzzle about why death is harmful.
They try and explain how it would harm you despite you not existing at the time. And they fail and point this out to one another.
And it isn't dying - there's no puzzle about that. It's death. Not dying. Death. Christ. — Bartricks

I have come across some ideas along the line that death is harmful in that it is a deprivation of life. I don't buy that because if there is no afterlife, then there is no one to be deprived of anything. So, I can't see any justification for thinking that being dead is a harm.

It also seems obvious that dying is likely, if not certain, to be harmful, for the reasons I have already stated. You have not attempted to address this, which makes you look like a "bad faith" or willfully blind interlocutor.

I think your confusion about this will be ameliorated if you think not of death, which can mean both dying and being dead, and instead think separately about the possible harms of dying and being dead, and the appropriate imaginable scenarios for each which would likely to be harmful. .