As ↪Benj96 worded the issue : "So either energy carries an inherent conscious currency/property, or matter does". — Gnomon

On the topic of fallacies, that is a false dichotomy. Is it energy, or the matter from which your car is constructed, that enables your car to take you to the grocery store?

Can you provide any evidence that consciousness exists apart from dynamic (energetic) processes occurring in matter?

:smirk: — schopenhauer1

Feel free to elaborate.

The interesting aspect of this type of thread, is that there is a significant number of hard realists who flatly refuse to acknowledge this need to put back the subjectivity, as required to have an honest approach to reality. Since these people think that "the real" can be arrived at simply by following the conventions, they are in great agreement with each other, and you'll see them on these threads, slapping each other on the back, giving thumbs up and high fives etc.. On the other hand, those who apprehend and agree with this need, "to put back the subjectivity" as a requirement for an approach to "the real", can never agree with each other as to how this ought to be done. This is because the very thing that they are arguing for, the need to respect the concrete base of subjectivity, as very real, and a very essential and true part of reality, is also the very same thing which manifests as the differences between us, which make agreement between us into a very difficult matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean by "put back the subjectivity"?

Heh the morning routine has worked so far, but this morning I think I have an idea about E4, but GSB really is drawing on his extensive knowledge of electronics. I find myself going back to ↪wonderer1 's explanation of one-bit adders, and looking over electronics websites, but instead of bits E4 is changing the wave-form as it is "processed" through E4. — Moliere

It has been interesting to read along with this discussion. I get tantalizing hints at what the topic under discussion might be related to, but not enough to be able to say anything helpful for the most part.

I suppose it is a bit like trying to decrypt a foreign language.

But Wittgenstein seems to wilfully ignore what the ordinary man knows. — RussellA

Willfully ignore, or be autistically oblivious to?

...what hope is there for Trump to win in 2024? — GRWelsh

As my (preacher's wife) mom said after the 2020 election, "Republicans need to get better at election fraud themselves." I suppose that is a sort of hope.

It's wanting to be "profound" without doing the work. — Banno

Or, perhaps more importantly for some, to appear so.

Not in my experience, but it might be selection bias. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Definitely selection bias on my part.

The best example of this view I can think of is Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos," which looks at significant problems in the "life is the result of many random coincidences and looking at them as anything other than random is simply to give in to fantasy," view. But Nagel is an avowed atheist. Likewise, Glattfelter's "Information, Conciousness, Reality," Winger's "Unreasonable Effectiveness," etc. don't seem particularly theistic to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As modern philosophers go, Nagel is a bit too far to the scientifically naive side, for my taste. Wigner's argument is what I've encountered the most, but it seems like puddle thinking to me. I'll have to look for Glattfelter.

IMO, there is nothing particularly theistic at expressing awe at the regularities in the world. We appear to have a universe with a begining. So at one point, there was a state at which things had begun to exist before which nothing seems to have existed. This forces us to ask the question "if things can start existing at one moment, for no reason at all, why did only certain types of things start to exist and why don't we see things starting to exist all the time? Or if things began to exist for a reason, what was the reason?"

I don't see how this is essentially a theistic question though. It seems like a natural outgrowth of human curiosity, God(s) or no. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Well, not really. Physics, with one of its principal subjects being the relations of one thing to another, motions, is actually designed for understanding complexity. — Metaphysician Undercover

It seems that your history of trying to keep scientific understanding from entering your "fortress" has left you with so many misconceptions that it doesn't seem like a very good use of my time to try to disabuse you of those misconceptions. However, feel free to explain who designed physics and quote their explanation of what they designed physics for.

Those with the philosophical mindset, the wonder and desire to know, will inquire as to why it is the case that physics tells us little if anything at all, about things like jealousy and love. — Metaphysician Undercover

Those who include scientific inquiry within the philosophical mindset are apt to recognize that the immense complexity of the brain very well explains the fact that physics tells us little about things like jealousy and love.

I know it's a hard idea to get your head around! — Wayfarer

It might be, if I hadn't read a lot of Suzuki and such, 40 years ago.

So do you think ordinary languages, like French and German, would have facilitated equal progress in physics and cosmology since the 17th C, in the absence of mathematics? — Wayfarer

No. However, I don't see what that has to do with the sense in which mathematics can be said to be in the world.

I don't see how it applies. The form of idealist philosophy that I'm advocating does not say that 'the world only exists in your mind'. I'm referring to the mind - yours, mine, the mind that we as a species and culture share. The mind is not an objective reality, it's not a material thing - yet we can't plausibly deny it! That's the elephant in the room, the fly in the ointment, for naturalism. — Wayfarer

I just googled "Buddhism existence of self" and the first thing that came up was:

From the Buddhist perspective, the idea of “individual self” is an illusion. It is not possible to separate self from its surroundings. Buddha in Lankavatara Sutra states, “Things are not what they seem… Deeds exist, but no doer can be found” (Majjhima Nikaya, 192).

The Buddha, the first eliminativist?

I trust that the system is based on measurements that replicate because things keep working, which they wouldn't of the measurements used to create them were arbitrary. — Kaiser Basileus

Sound like you are saying that you aren't rigorous yourself, but you trust that other people are. Is that correct?

The same input continues to match the output and poof, you have a yardstick, or whatever. The act of measurement is the act of validating causality. Reality/truth just keeps acting the same way every time we check it. It is that which we can be most certain of. — Kaiser Basileus

Why would I believe you had a yardstick because of poof? Doesn't sound like a particularly rigorous process to me.

Let's switch to meters. Why should I believe that you are able to measure a meter in any rigorous way?

Science is rigor. You can study anything rigorously... — Kaiser Basileus

Well, only somewhat rigorously. With what accuracy can you measure how long something is? What would be the basis of your claim to accuracy?

Also, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Mathematics is the world to the same extent that French or German is in the world, as a peculiar grammar by which we organize it for our purposes. — Joshs

Yes, I would agree with that.

I do want to say more regarding your response.

I'd have to say, "Of course mathematics is in the world.", in the sense you communicated so well. Do you have any thoughts, on whether that sense of mathematics being in the world is a perspective that is commonly held by those who ask, "Is maths embedded in the universe ?"

Most often I've encountered the question from people motivated to use the fact that there is math in the world, as evidence for the necessity of a God.

A computer can identify a picture of you as Banno. It must be matching various criteria against something in its database. That's what I'm doing at some level.
— Hanover

This claim carries all the paraphernalia around the guess that mind involves unconscious algorithmic processing.

I'm not buying that, and hence I am not buying your point here. — Banno

Is this still your view?

If so, suppose "algorithmic" was replaced with "physical" or "biological". Would that make a difference in your plausibility assessment?

Thanks for posting that!

:up:

I see nothing worth quibbling with. :grin:

↪Banno I think your objections are naive... — Wayfarer

We are all born ignorant, and we are all going to die only somewhat less ignorant.

But that was funny.

Thanks!

That would be the other guy... — Tom Storm

And humans don't actually love or hate as a matter of their own nature? It's God, or the other guy that God created, putting on a puppet show?

Why would you consider an electrical engineering definition "to be valuable to a philosophical discussion"? I don't accuse you of talking BS, but just of irrelevance to the topic of this thread. — Gnomon

It's pretty simple really. You've said stuff, that if taken seriously, could get someone killed. I value fellow TPF members not dying stupidly.

So I do accuse you of BS.

Do you understand the relevance of what I am saying now?

Religious discourse is a special type of discourse. It's meant to instruct the people in religious themes, praise the religious doctrine and the religious figures, proselytize to outsiders. It's not meant to encourage critical thinking as critical thinking is understood in secular academia.

And clearly, people apparently want and need this type of discourse, otherwise there wouldn't be such things as scientism. — baker

Want certainly. Need? I find that questionable.

In what sense do you mean "need"?

I read through your first two posts. I'm afraid I am skeptical of your account of inductive reasoning, or at least it doesn't seem to fit well with the way I see my cognitive processes working. I'm more inclined to view things along the lines of this article:

https://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/01/27/pattern-recognition-neither-deduction-nor-induction

So what happens when we classify in the absence of theory? We aren’t yet inductively constructing theory, and we aren’t able to deduce from theory (since there isn’t any yet) the classes of objects in the domain we are investigating. We argue that what is happening here is pattern recognition (Bishop 1995). We are classifier systems. It is one of the distinguishing features of neural network (NN) systems such as those between our ears that they will classify patterns. They do so in an interesting fashion. Rather than being cued by theory or explanatory goals, NNs are cued by stereotypical “training sets”. In effect, in order to see patterns, you need to have prior patterns to train your NN.

...it might benefit us to realise the tentative nature of many of our positions.
— Tom Storm

Can you list 3 ways in which it might benefit us, in real, daily-job terms?

For many people, "realizing the tentative nature of many of one's positions" amounts to plain old self-doubt and lack of confidence. Which are, of course, generally, bad and undesirable. — baker

I suppose it would depend on one's job. For a guru, preacher, or used car salesman it might be detrimental to recognize the tentative nature of one's beliefs. For a scientist or engineer it can be extremely valuable to be willing and able to question one's assumptions.

But Wittgenstein was quite taken by the fact that it can flip from one to other. He discusses this in the Tractatus as well, with regard to a picture of a cube. — Fooloso4

I wish I could talk to Witt about neuroscience and his thinking. From my point of view, the different ways we perceive Necker cubes makes perfect sense, and with a bit of practice I developed the ability to see a Necker cube as a 2-D image, although it requires defocusing my vision to overide the usual visual processing that tends to result in perceiving one of the 3-D interpretations.

As a bit of a tangent... Is it widely known that there is speculation that Witt was on the autism spectrum? And if so, what do people tend to think of such speculation?

If mathematics is embedded in the universe, then why don't the other animals with high intelligence such as Monkeys, Apes and some dogs make use of mathematics? Surely they exist in the universe just like humans do? Why is it that only humans use mathematics? What have humans got, the other species haven't got? — Corvus

I didn't mean to suggest that I think mathematics is embedded in the universe. I think that there are regularities to the way things occur in the universe, due to the universe having such regularities biological evolution could and did occur. Another consequence of the universe having regularities is that the sort of symbolic processing we call mathematics can have a strong correspondence with those regularities in many of the ways that we see that it does.

As far as difference between humans and chimps goes, that can only be speculative. However, one thing to consider, is that events in evolutionary history are often tradeoffs. For example, penguins seem to have traded off flying, for the better access to fish that comes with swimming.

This four minute BBC video suggests a possibility. Perhaps the ancestors of humans gave up the greater working memory of chimps, for a greater facility with symbolic thought, and differences in environmental niches determined whether the tradeoff was worth it or not.

I was addressing a philosophical question, not an electrical engineering question. — Gnomon

What you were doing was making false claims. I don't know why you would consider that to be a valuable contribution to a philosophical discussion.

Harry Frankfurt has a different name for what you refer to as "addressing a philosophical question":

It is in this sense that Pascal’s statement is unconnected to a concern with truth: she is not concerned with the truth-value of what she says. That is why she cannot be regarded as lying; for she does not presume that she knows the truth, and therefore she cannot be deliberately promulgating a proposition that she presumes to be false: Her statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.

Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit

In this sense, it seems like mathematics must be "embedded in the universe." So the question seems to be more "how did our mathematical intuitions and those of other animals emerge and did mathematics not exist in any sense prior to the first animal that possessed mathematical intuitions?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Must it be that mathematics must be embedded in the universe, or could it be that regularities to the way things occur in the universe result in it beng adaptive to have mathematical cognitive faculties?

Everyone you are disagreeing with has provided sources, with quotes. — Leontiskos

No. attributed claims to Dawkins without source or quotes, then when called on it said, "But I'm done debating Dawkins, I shouldn't have brought him up...", rather than attempt to back up his claim.

Of course, Voltage is a measure of Energy, not energy per se. — Gnomon

No it is not, as the link I provided explains.

And the measurement is expressed as a ratio between Zero now and some Potential value in the future. — Gnomon

No it is not. And this is yet another example of your tendency to assert things without knowing what you are talking about.

A battery contains no Actual Energy, only Potential Energy*2. — Gnomon

Potential energy is actual energy.

That's why you can touch both poles and not get shocked. — Gnomon

No. The reason you can touch both poles of a 1.5 Volt battery is that 1.5 Volts is too low a voltage to result in a sufficient current flowing through your skin to result in a perception of having been shocked.

You could perform the following experiment. (But don't because it would hurt and possibly kill you.) Connect 100 AAA cells in series, positive terminal to negative terminal. The difference between the voltage at the most positive end and the most negative end of the string of batteries would be ~150 Volts. Now touch the positive end of the string with one hand, and the negative end of the string with the other hand.

Sounds good to me. But how do you determine the accuracy of fit for a world model? — Gnomon

Well that's an ongoing process with too many details to try to cover in a remotely comprehensive way, but considering the results of experimentation plays a large role. An experiment can test the accuracy with which a model represents the way things occur in reality. Differences between experimental results, and results expected based on models, point to aspects of models being wrong or at least simplistic.

For me, observing the difference between experimental results and modelling (whether mental or SPICE) is routine, so admittedly it is easy for me to say, "Make use of experimentation." I don't expect it to convey much to people who don't have experience with doing so to an extent similar to my experience. However, experimentation has played a huge role in humanity's development of more accurate ways of modelling the world.

I tend to rely on Quantum Physics as the most appropriate resource. — Gnomon

QM is just one aspect of a huge scientific picture and it is only so useful. In the case of complex systems, modelling things in terms of QM becomes computationally impossible. So for practical purposes, modelling things in terms of emergent properties (while ideally remaining aware that such modelling is simplistic) is necessary. I recommend you read, or reread, Sean Carroll's The Big Picture.

What can you do when your "most accurate" model is rejected by your interlocutors, and they don't acknowledge your analytical "skill"? — Gnomon

Well, at least in some cases I can demonstrate my skill. I design electronic measurement instruments, some of which are used by NIST and other NMIs in countries around the world to cross check their primary reference standards against each other. On the other hand, it can often be the case that someone else recognizes that I'm looking at something too simplistically and what I can do is recognize the value in questioning my assumptions.

If everyone who had used the language disappeared from existence, and all that was left were patterns of ink on paper, would these patterns of ink on paper still be a language if there was no one who knew what these patterns of ink on paper meant? — RussellA

Were the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone still a physical instantiation of a language before the Rosetta stone was found and used to learn to interpret hieroglyphics?

Or suppose humanity has gone extinct and extraterrestrials come to Earth and examine the physical artifacts left behind. Should we suppose that the ETs could not possibly learn to understand human languages on the basis of such artifacts alone?

I think the history of events surrounding the Rosetta Stone shows hieroglyphics to have been language even when no one in the world understood the interpretation of the language.

The question is, if there are only two individuals, where does the sentence "bring me a slab" exist ?

It cannot exist in the space between the two individuals as some kind of Platonic entity independently of either individual, but can only exist in the minds of the two individuals. — RussellA

For example, Egyptian scripts couldn't be translated until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. — RussellA

I'd suggest that language can exist in different physical forms with no need to appeal to Platonic entities.

It can exist in the way a proposition is represented in your brain, as variations in air pressure that the assistant recognizes as "Slab!", as a pattern of ink on paper, as the absence of stone resulting from carving in the case of the Rosetta stone...

:up:

But even things within this mid-way reality are affected by the aspects of reality which are outside of it, in the extremes, so these influences are invisible to us and therefore do not enter into our representation of reality. This makes our reality, the one produced from our mid-way temporal perspective, not very accurate as a true representation, because we cannot account for these influences. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can somewhat account for such influences, and to a relatively high degree of accuracy in specific cases. Without our ability to choreograph ballets of bits, on a timescale much smaller than we can consciously perceive, we wouldn't be communicating on TPF.

I will add that, as many people have pointed out, usually in vain, the new atheist depiction of God is remote from the conception of deity maintained by philosophy of religion. — Wayfarer

You don't seem to understand that Dawkins wasn't too concerned about the people who engage in critical thinking regarding the notion of God, as in philosophy of religion. He was more concerned with people whose ability to engage in critical thinking is stunted by religious beliefs.

Dawkins often states that a 'creator' must be 'more complex' than what it creates, so if God created the Universe, he must be fantastically complex (not to mention BIG!) It's a thoroughly anthropomorphic image, much more characteristic of folk beliefs in sky-fathers than anything held by actual theologians. It is really a kind of 'straw God' argument - attacking a kind of deity that few but the most stubborn fundamentalists hold to. — Wayfarer

That is just misrepresentation. Have you even read what Dawkins has to say? You come across as a fan of Dawkins detractors, rather than as someone who has charitably read what Dawkins has written.

Do you think that the degree to which religion stunts people's ability to engage in critical thinking is not something to be concerned with?