There needs to be rigor in that thinking and that is hard to acquire on your own. Nigh impossible I would think. — Tobias

That is a good point. Although I think an appreciation for critical thinking and reading can get people a long way.

When knowledge is defined as a justified true belief such that the justification necessitates the truth of the belief then the Gettier problem is no longer possible. — PL Olcott

So when knowledge is defined as something that can only be had by an omniscient being there is no Gettier problem?

Seems a bit drastic to me to define knowledge out of the range of humans to avoid Gettier problems.

In the exploration of the topic of nihilism, Nietszche is often cited, which puts me at a disadvantage as I am not well acquainted with his writings. But even in terms of general knowledge, his proclamation of the death of God is viewed as a kind of harbinger of the advent of nihilism, on the grounds that it undermines the basis of long-held and deeply-cherished beliefs and doctrines about the ultimate aim of life. — Quixodian

Yeah, "nihilism" has been used as a boogeyman for a long while now. It's like the Reefer Madness of philosophy. But can we set aside such arguments from consequences for now and talk about the intellectual position of moral nihilism?

There is a current of thought in modern scientific culture that life itself is a kind of chemical reaction, formed as a consequence of physical causes and operating according to the survival algorithm comprising the neo-darwinian synthesis. Life originates as a kind of biochemical fluke, and human beings an accidental by-product. — Quixodian

It's a tad bit more complex than that, but yes. There is a huge amount of evidence, the existence of which would be a fluke if something along the lines of that narrative hasn't occurred.

Suffice to say, it surfaces as the widely-held feeling that life has no inherent meaning or significance, often accompanied with a encouragement to make the heroic effort to give it the meaning of your own

I don't think it does suffice to simply say that.

For one thing, it looks to me as if that is an appeal to consequences. The fact that some people might experience such a psychological condition doesn't play any obvious role in determing whether or not there is some ultimate aim of life.

Finding things meaningful is an evolved aspect of our psychology. There is no need for things to be 'ultimately meaningful' in order for us to be creatures that find things meaningful. Not to say there aren't people in situations where they find it difficult to find things meaningful, but I think that for most of us most of the time, finding things meaningful comes fairly naturally.

To start at philosophy one should.... — Moliere

Be homo sapiens. Other species mostly suck at it, and don't get me started on the inarticulacy of rocks.

The problem that introduces is nihilism. Nihilism doesn't have to present itself in a very dramatic form, like a deep sense of foreboding or dread. It can simply manifest as the sense that nothing really matters. So if death nullifies or negates any differences between what beings do in life, that amounts to a form of nihilism, as Neitszche predicted (although of course he didn't believe in trying to cling to anything like belief in an after-life.) — Quixodian

Did you add to your post after I asked my question?

You seem to be speaking of nihilism as a sort of psychological condition rather than as a philosophical perspective. Is that what you intended?

The problem that introduces is nihilism. — Quixodian

How is that supposed to be a problem?

I should have said 'physical' sciences. With this qualifier I'd say the same in an academic journal if you wish and wouldn't be the first to do so. — FrancisRay

Lot's of things get posted in academic journals by people who don't know the subject they are talking about as well as one might wish. I'm not seeing a need for more of that.

I've already presented the stats of relevant "hidebound" academics - those more likely to have have put significant scholarly effort into becoming informed about science which is of relevance to philosophy of mind, rather than choosing ignorant denial of the relevance of science.

Consider this quote from the home page of The Science of Consciousness Conference.

The study of human consciousness is one of science's last great frontiers.
The Science of Consciousness (TSC) is an interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to all aspects of the study and understanding of conscious awareness. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, biology, quantum physics, meditation and altered states, machine consciousness, culture and experiential phenomenology.

As you can see, knowledge of meditation is only one aspect of what is involved in being informed about this very interdisciplinary subject.

Do you have a significant example of how science has helped us understand consciousness? — FrancisRay

Sure,

Science has helped humanity understand the ability of consciousness to be shut down, in the sense of ansthesia.

Science has helped humanity develop some understanding of the effects of a variety of mind altering physical substances.

Science has learned much about the limits of people's conscious perception. Such scientific understanding leads to the wide variety of optical and other sensory illusions which can be seen today.

I could go on like this forever, if not for my strong tendency to get bored and frustrated with people who want to be spoon fed rather than go educate themselves.

At this tome I know of no scientist who claims any understand of it except for the rare ones outlier who explores meditation and mysticism. . . — FrancisRay

Not something to be bragging about.

What current understanding? the natural sciences have no method for acquiring an understanding — FrancisRay

He says in a post on an internet forum.

There is still an issue I have with physicalism. Physical matter is restricted to the physical present. Our mental content can deal with past, present and future. Doesn't this stepping outside the physical present make mental content different in kind from physical matter? — Mark Nyquist

It sounds like differences in theories of time is playing a big role in this for you. Do you consider yourself to be a presentist, and if so, are you aware that presentism is problematic in light of all the evidence supporting relativity?

I'm not really interested in getting into an involved discussion of theories of time, so I hope you will look through that link. In any case, it isn't a logical problem for a physicalism, that you hold to a theory of time which is incompatible with physicalism. That only poses a problem for your ability to recognise the merits of a physicalist point of view.

Without brains nature on it's own would have no mechanisms to know the past or affect the future. — Mark Nyquist

Why think nature wouldn't have the ability to affect the future without brains existing? Do you think the Sun's gravitational field didn't affect the course through space taken by the Earth before there were brains?

So with brains something extra has been added to the mix that strict physicalism (as a philosophy) doesn't permit. — Mark Nyquist

I'd say the evolution of brains added what we might call new classes of physical processes to what occurs in the universe, although that is rather circular as it dependent on there being brains to classify physical processes into different sorts.

Regardless, I think you need to develop a more accurate picture of what things look like from a physicalist perspective before you will be in a position to say what physicalism does and doesn't permit.

Everything is connected, everything is one. — Bret Bernhoft

Are there multiple things that are connected, or is there only one thing?

...time perception? The materialist/physicalist.view seems to have some difficulty with it and they may need to concede that the brain has an ability to deal with the non-physical. — Mark Nyquist

What gives you that impression? I'm a materialist/physicalist/naturalist and certainly don't see myself as having any particular difficulty with time. (Relatively speaking.)

Might that be a conclusion you jumped to, in light of my not having responded to your earlier post?

I agree with you that...

There really is a problem of terms and definitions here to sort out. — Mark Nyquist

...and there are matters of learning as well.

Suppose that physical reality is all that there is. In that case, wouldn't "dealing with the non-physical" equate to "dealing with the nonexistent"?

I seriously doubt this - but can't imagine how you could demonstrate your new understanding so won't push the point. — FrancisRay

It's not just my understanding, and it is not all that new. If you are interested in learning about the subject, the 2016 Atlantic article How Google's AlphaGo Imitates Human Intuition is a decent popular level article touching on salient points.

Alternatively, if there is something that you have real expertise in, and you recognize the role that intuition plays in your exercising that expertise, then perhaps in discussing your area of expertise I could point out things that would give you a greater recognition of how intuition works in yourself.

Admittedly, this stuff is somewhat esoteric at this point in human history, but there is no magic involved, and understanding of it is inevitably going to become more widespread. (Barring a near total collapse of human culture.)

Could you give an example of this explanatory value? — FrancisRay

Sure. Understanding the nature of deep learning in neural nets has given me a lot of insight into the nature of human intuitions, the reliabilty or lack thereof of human intuitions, and what it takes to change intuitions.

On the mind question, physicalism or non-physicalism, I would be stuck picking 'other'. — Mark Nyquist

A nice feature of the Philpapers survey webpage is the choices in results display that can be selected. (Hit refresh to get a page updated to show the new results display.) Earlier I copied and pasted the default coarse grained results, but selecting fine grained shows:

Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
Accept: physicalism 180 / 414 (43.5%)
Lean toward: physicalism 68 / 414 (16.4%)
Accept: non-physicalism 61 / 414 (14.7%)
Lean toward: non-physicalism 44 / 414 (10.6%)
The question is too unclear to answer 22 / 414 (5.3%)
Accept another alternative 13 / 414 (3.1%)
Accept an intermediate view 10 / 414 (2.4%)
Agnostic/undecided 8 / 414 (1.9%)
Reject both 4 / 414 (1.0%)
There is no fact of the matter 2 / 414 (0.5%)
Skip 1 / 414 (0.2%)
Accept both 1 / 414 (0.2%)

For the majority picking physicalism how do they account for our endless mental content of non-physical subject matter? — Mark Nyquist

I couldn't speak for the survey respondents. For myself, I'd ask you to clarify what you would find surprising about a physical system being able to represent ideas of things which don't exist in our physical reality.

I asked the physical system ChatGPT, "who is voldemort" and got the response:

Voldemort, also known as Lord Voldemort, is a fictional character and the main antagonist in J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series. He is a dark wizard who seeks to conquer the wizarding world and achieve immortality by any means necessary.

Physical representations of things which don't actually exist in physical reality doesn't seem problematic from my perspective.

For example anything outside their present time and location. Of course it's done by physical means but shouldn't brains with the capability to deal with non-physicals be considered? And do the physicalists have any way of dealing with time outside the present? Past and future are non-physical to me. — Mark Nyquist

Brains which can encode memories of the past, and use those memories to project possible futures, seems to be one of the major reasons that brains have been evolutionarily adaptive. A lot of the benefit of our brains' modelling capabilities lies in our ability to imagine multiple possible futures, and only one of those multiple possible futures might actually occur. Our ability to imagine counterfactuals plays an important role in us having human level abilities to affect how the future unfolds.

So, I guess I would say that "brains with the capability to deal with non-physicals" are considered by physicalists, but perhaps I am not understanding your question.

A lot of Christians I've talked to would respond with something like, "Why would you think there are objective moral goods or evils if there is no God?"

Do you see yourself as particularly well qualified to judge what is science?
— wonderer1

You are getting mighty close to arguing from a place of bad faith. But please do continue...poison well commence I guess. — schopenhauer1

I asked a question which you didn't answer. Do you know why are you are jumping to conclusions about whatever arguing you are speculating about?

In any case, I'd say the poisoning of the well began with your OP.

If you don't like the Chinese Room argument because it seems too narrow, then call my version, the "Danish Room Argument". That is to say, my point that I wanted to take away was that processing can miss the "what-it's-like" aspect of consciousness whilst still being valid for processing inputs and outputs, whether that be computationalist models, connectionis models, both, none of them or all of them. I don't think it is model-dependent in the Danish Room argument. — schopenhauer1

Well, by all means, present your Danish Room Argument, but it's sounding like it amounts to an assertion that science has no role to play in explaining "what it is like".

That seems fairly out of touch with what the Philpapers survey suggests is mainstream philosophy of mind:

Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
Accept or lean toward: physicalism 248 / 414 (59.9%)
Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism 105 / 414 (25.4%)
Other 61 / 414 (14.7%)

As for me, scientific understanding has proven to be of enormous explanatory value in understanding what is like to be me. (And to some degree, what it is like to be you.) More and more it looks to me, as if you are a modern day analog to a geocentrist, when it comes to the topic of philosophy of mind, but you do you.

BTW, I'm rather accustomed to, and unbothered by, people finding things I say disagreeable. Respond or don't, as you like.

I'd have some quibbles as what is "science" but it would be going on a tangent. — schopenhauer1

In a discussion of theory of mind, consideration of neuroscience would be going on a tangent?

Do you see yourself as particularly well qualified to judge what is science?

Rather, I want to focus on the idea of the difference between what is going on in the Chinese Room experiment and an actual experiencer or interpreter of events that integrates meaning from the computation. — schopenhauer1

Why do you want to talk about what is going on in a Chinese Room rather than what goes on in brains? I thought I had already explained that the Chinese Room argument is an argument against computationalism, and not particularly relevant.

I'm getting the impression that you are wanting to beat on a straw man, rather than have an enlightening discussion of the topic. Say it ain't so.

I was t saying that for rhetoric. You were pretty haughty sounding there. Information processing is not necessarily scientific, though it is technical. — schopenhauer1

An important aspect of neuroscience is developing scientific understanding of the information processing that occurs in brains. Neuroscience involves knowledge of other relevant sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. Yes, technology plays a huge role in humanity's ability to make progress in understanding the information processing which occurs in brains, but that is fairly tangential to the question of what is being learned in neuroscience.

Oh come now, get off the pedestal. I was just pointing out problems with the move to information processing which I know is a popular approach. — schopenhauer1

Come now, crawl out of the pit of scientific ignorance you are in.

But it's more than trivially true in respect of the question posed in the thread, the question being, what does the ground of experience really comprise? Are beings concatenations of atoms behaving in accordance with the laws of physics, or something other than that? And if 'other', then what is that? — Quixodian

Do you expect the sort of simple answer that someone might post here? Or do you expect the answer would take years of study to get a handle on?

Yes I understand the move to describe it as information processing, but does that really solve anything different for the hard problem? Searle's Chinese Room Argument provides the problem with this sort of "pat" answer. — schopenhauer1

Please remember, I was responding to your question:

But we are back at square one. Some processes are not mental. Why? Or if they are, how do you get past the incredulity of saying that rocks and air molecules, or even a tree has "subjectivity" or "consciousness", or "experience"? — schopenhauer1

Do you see your question as a purely rhetorical question? Or do you want to learn about the answers? To develop some understanding of how far beyond square one (some of) humanity is?

Searle's Chinese Room is an argument against computationalism. We could have a nuanced discussion of the argument's merits and limitations, but let's suppose the argument totally succeeds against computationalism. In that case we have reason to narrow our view of the sort of information processing which could result in mental events to non-computational information processing. However, I only presented information processing as a criteria for ruling out the many physical processes which aren't the sort of physical processes suitable for resulting in mental events. Narrowing things down further is not a problem, depending on how specific we want to get in various ways.

As you walk away self-assured, this beckons back out to you that you haven't solved anything. Where is the "there" in the processing in terms of mental outputs? There is a point of view somewhere, but it's not necessarily simply "processing". — schopenhauer1

I solved the problem I wanted to solve - providing a relatively informed answer to your question, as to why some processes don't have mental results. Now I'm going to swagger away from your moved goal posts. :razz:

But we are back at square one. Some processes are not mental. Why? Or if they are, how do you get past the incredulity of saying that rocks and air molecules, or even a tree has "subjectivity" or "consciousness", or "experience"? — schopenhauer1

Some physical processes are information processing apt, while most physical processes aren't information processing apt. If what we refer to as mental processes can only supervene on information processing apt physical processes, then we are some distance from square one.

Does Ovulation Change Women’s Sexual Desire, After All?:

So yes, women do increase their sexual desire during ovulation. And yes, this is important because most women do not know when they are ovulating. When these findings are added to the evidence that men show increased interest in ovulating women, and other findings that testosterone influences sexual desire in both sexes, it is clear that the extreme versions of the Blank Slate social constructivist views of human sexuality, such as Gagnon and Simon’s script theory, were wrong.

Someone grows up with culture reinforcing X, Y, Z traits as attractive markers. These are the things that should get your attention, in other words. This then becomes so reinforced that by the time of puberty, indeed the connections are already made that this is the kind of things that are generally attractive. Of course, right off the bat there is so much variability in people's personal preferences (beauty is in the eye of the beholder trope), but EVEN discounting that strong evidence, let's say there is a more-or-less common set of traits that attraction coalesces around. Again, how do we know that the attraction, or even ATTRACTION simplar (just being attracted to "something" not even a specific trait) is not simply playing off cultural markers that have been there in the culture since the person was born and raised? There is the trope in culture, "When I reach X age, I am supposed to be attracted to someone and pursue them or be pursued (or mutually pursue or whatever)". — schopenhauer1

Cross cultural studies have been done

[PDF]Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures

To label something as "tall" is a relative descriptor, to label something else as having a height of 6 feet is an absolute descriptor. — LuckyR

To label something 6 feet is to describe it relative to something, like the length of someone's foot.

In most cases, I think what you're talking about is incredibly exciting, and I can think mostly of examples where it will be used for good. — Judaka

Indeed. It has incredible potential for being beneficial, and it is proving itself very beneficial in science and medicine right now.

I talk about the subject because I see it as a subject that is important for humanity to become more informed about, in order to better be prepared to make wise decisions about it.

I'll try not to disappoint. — Isaac

I'm afraid you aren't succeeding.

I have the impression that you are trying to paint Jabberwock as a bigot, which seems the sort of thing you deplore about woke cancel culture.

Although I'm not actually that familiar with TikTok, there has been controversy over its AI gathering data from its user's phones to recommend videos and such, do you have any familiarity with this controversy? — Judaka

I'm afraid I don't know much about TikTok.

Knowledge can be a means to power, but rarely does it amount to much, and I'm not too sure what the actual concern is. Could you give a context? Does TikTok, or gambling apps using AI, or stuff like that, represent your concern well, or is it something else? — Judaka

I disagree about the power of knowledge rarely amounting to much. The colonization of much of the world by relatively small European nations, is something I see as having been a function of knowledge conferring power. The knowledge of how to make a nuke has conferred power since WWII. Trump's knowledge of how to manipulate the thinking of wide swaths of the US populace...

In the case of knowledge coming from AI, it is not so much that there is anything specific I am concerned about, so much as I am concerned about AIs ability to yield totally surprising results, e.g. recognize factors relevant to predicting the development of schizophrenia.

As an example nightmare scenario, suppose an AI was trained on statements by manipulative bullshit artists like Trump, as well as the statements of those who drank the kool-aid and those who didn't. Perhaps such training of an AI would result in the AI recognizing a ways to be an order of magnitude more effective at manipulating people's thinking than Trump is.

:up:

AI tests into top 1% for original creative thinking:

...The researchers submitted eight responses generated by ChatGPT, the application powered by the GPT-4 artificial intelligence engine. They also submitted answers from a control group of 24 UM students taking Guzik's entrepreneurship and personal finance classes. These scores were compared with 2,700 college students nationally who took the TTCT in 2016. All submissions were scored by Scholastic Testing Service, which didn't know AI was involved.

The results placed ChatGPT in elite company for creativity. The AI application was in the top percentile for fluency -- the ability to generate a large volume of ideas -- and for originality -- the ability to come up with new ideas. The AI slipped a bit -- to the 97th percentile -- for flexibility, the ability to generate different types and categories of ideas...

I've never heard a perspective like this. Can you give an example showing the cause for your concern? — Judaka

I don't know of any cases of modern AI having been used nefariously. So if that is what you are asking for then no.

I can give you an illustrative excerpt, to convey the sort of 'superhuman' pattern recognition that I am concerned about:

In 2015, a research group at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York was inspired to apply deep learning to the hospital’s vast database of patient records. This data set features hundreds of variables on patients, drawn from their test results, doctor visits, and so on. The resulting program, which the researchers named Deep Patient, was trained using data from about 700,000 individuals, and when tested on new records, it proved incredibly good at predicting disease. Without any expert instruction, Deep Patient had discovered patterns hidden in the hospital data that seemed to indicate when people were on the way to a wide range of ailments, including cancer of the liver. There are a lot of methods that are “pretty good” at predicting disease from a patient’s records, says Joel Dudley, who leads the Mount Sinai team. But, he adds, “this was just way better.”

At the same time, Deep Patient is a bit puzzling. It appears to anticipate the onset of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia surprisingly well. But since schizophrenia is notoriously difficult for physicians to predict, Dudley wondered how this was possible. He still doesn’t know. The new tool offers no clue as to how it does this. If something like Deep Patient is actually going to help doctors, it will ideally give them the rationale for its prediction, to reassure them that it is accurate and to justify, say, a change in the drugs someone is being prescribed. “We can build these models,” Dudley says ruefully, “but we don’t know how they work.”

https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/04/11/5113/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/

Currently there is no true AI, there is simulated AI. However, even simulated AI can replace numerous workers in middle management and low level creative fields. This can/will have a devastating impact on employment and thus the economy as well as social stability. — LuckyR

What do you see as the distinction between "true AI" and "simulated AI"?

My biggest concern about AI, is its ability to acquire knowledge that humans aren't up to acquiring due to the enormous amount of data AI can process without getting bored and deciding there must be a more meaningful way of being.

Knowledge is power, and individuals or small groups with sole possession of AI determined knowledge can use such power unscrupulously.

What government are you assuming to be Jabberwock's?

I agree. Do you see a contradiction between what I said and what you said?

I think there is a lot that is interesting about human acts that is independent of whatever moral judgementalness might pass through people's minds.

Let's suppose that when Einstein presented his theories of relativity it was intentional. Why is the defining characteristic of those acts by Einstein his intentions rather than the increase in human understanding?

Blinking and breathing are not acts in the philosophical sense. — Leontiskos

In that case I assume the following sentence says the same as what you wrote:

Every intentional human act involves an intention, and the intention is the primary defining characteristic of an act.

So the first proposition is a tautology, and I'm not seeing any good reason to believe the second proposition. Why think the intention is the primary defining characteristic of all acts?

Very well said.

Every properly human act involves an intention, and the intention is the primary defining characteristic of an act. — Leontiskos

Medical doctors expect properly functioning humans to have the patellar spinal reflex.

I blink and snore without intention. There are all sorts of things humans do without intention.

I'm fine with waiting until I've read more of what you have to say, before deciding that I have something that I want to try to communicate to you.