Because that is one of the goals of the developments of AI, so of course questions about consciousness are going to rise.

I didn't say that AI is going to cause us to marvel about gravity or mutations. What I am saying is that without these two, we wouldn't be alive to try to make sense of experience, nor would we be around to create such machines.

On that basis alone, these things merit much more wonder that they often do. But we are much more ignorant about them then we are about consciousness.

My main disagreement is the emphasis in which consciousness is held to a problem, over and above anything else, it's a very recent and narrow focus in philosophy. There's a lot more to say, but it's late here so I won't go into detail now, tomorrow (or whenever) sure.

Certainly, Locke and Schopenhauer cared about consciousness (Locke's "ideas of sensation" and "ideas of reflection", and Schopenhauer's "representations"), hence hey wrote entire books dealing with how it is we come to acquire knowledge. But they did not see consciousness as more problematic than other properties of the world.

Well, there is historically a hard problem of motion, that was made worse when Newton discovered gravity, which to his dismay made no sense to him.

I think an appropriate way to look at these things is to see that they are all at bottom mysterious. As Schopenhauer said:

"The tendency to gravity in the stone is precisely as inexplicable as is thinking in the human brain, and so on this score, we could also infer a spirit in the stone. Therefore to these disputants [between 'spiritualists' and 'materialists'] I would say: you think you know a dead matter, that is, one that is completely passive and devoid of properties, because you imagine you really understand everything that you are able to reduce to mechanical effect. But… you are unable to reduce them… If matter can fall to earth without you knowing why, so can it also think without you knowing why… If your dead and purely passive matter can as heaviness gravitate, or as electricity attract, repel, and emit spark, so too as brain pulp can it think."

I think that is accurate perspective. Or take Locke:

Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man can know. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought... it is no less than a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal first-thinking Being...Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body, and motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion; so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which we can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon?

(Bold added).

I could add more from Hume, Priestley even Leibniz, and others.

So yeah, I think there is a deep mystery as regards to oxygen, gravity, mutations, liquidity, and virtually everything, on equal footing with consciousness.

Gravity for one. If we didn't have gravity, we would not have neuroscience, compute science, philosophy, etc.

Electromagnetism too, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't have a universe, or at least, nothing with life or of any interest would be around.

Oxygen is another important one, which would also render everything we adore obsolete, nitrogen too. Iron.

Mutations: no mutations, no speciation. Plate tectonics.

And on and on and on.

Philosophy is the main field we are talking about.

I wouldn't like - at this moment anyway - to repeat what I've said too many times before. I don't believe that the "hard problem", should be considered uniquely so.

I think there are good historical reasons to be suspect of believing that there is such a thing as "the" hard problem, I think there are many (hard problems), and highlighting one at the expense of others shows how little awareness there is on the history of this topic, which was debated by Descartes, Gassendi, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Priestley and others.

I was going to share my Chomsky thread, but just saw you participated in in.

So, if people are still debating the "hard problem" a thousand years from now, that would just be the utter death of the field.

It would be very general, and the semantic issue can't be completely taken away. But it would be something like there is at bottom, one kind of stuff in the universe. Why is it one kind as opposed to two or many?

Because if they don't share the same nature, our intuitions tell us that they cannot interact even in principle. Dualism as a metaphysical view is problematic, pluralism would be a nightmare: many different kinds of stuff making up everything there is, doesn't make sense.

So, choosing monism as a necessity, all that's left is to call whatever remains something, and here we just choose, I think "physical", rightly understood, is less problematic than mental or ideal.

If not, then "natural" might even be better. But the issue of the scope of science cannot be under-emphasized, by "natural" or "physical", reductionism should not be entailed such that if we say either of these words, we are merely pointing out to metaphysical "substance", not to view that physics or nature explains everything. It doesn't.

My usual spiel, physicalism (a version of materialism) doesn't really have a good definition anymore, because there's nothing which can sensible be made that physicalism can be opposed to.

Even idealism, where it differs, is at bottom, an issue of semantics. For one can say, all that exists are minds and ideas, but very few would deny that ideas come from brains in human beings.

That, or your a substance dualist - and then you have the traditional problems of interaction and unification.

Nevertheless, one should be careful, because physicalism does not (or should not) entail phyciSalism, the idea that everything can ultimately be explained in terms of the stuff physics says. That seriously distorts the purview of physics.

So yeah, not a bad term, but these metaphysical views often boil down to semantical problems.

I don't have strong objections to compatibilist notions of free will, as a matter of pragmatic necessity for beings as complex as we are. I just see a lot of value in awareness of what a compatibilist free will needs to be compatible with. — wonderer1

That's fair enough.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that the best theory we have in physics, quantum mechanics, suggests probability, not determinism, unless you follow someone like Sabine Hossenfelder.

I'm sure Sapolsky would recognize the difference, and perhaps would go into detail about how the reflex finger raise was a result of a chain of events that didn't go beyond nerve paths between brain and spine. Whereas in the case where the finger raise resulted from someone having written a post on TPF, the causal path was vastly more complicated. It seems clear to me that Sapolsky understands that most of us model the world with our thinking playing a starring role in what we do. — wonderer1

Ah, ok. That is a step forward.

Even without metaphysical (free will) freedom, there is such a thing as freedom as determined by the laws of physics (the freedom to phase through a wall). But even if I grant that to you, which I am willing to, you make a point about freedom existing because people in Copenhagen have more freedom than in Palestine. I show that this does not depend on metaphysical freedom and so much so that it is completely relative (Palestinians have the freedom to bear arms, Danes don't). Your point about modern politics is therefore completely unrelated to the discussion. — Lionino

Wait what? The freedom to phase through a wall? That's not freedom, it's a fact about wat physics says can or can't be done, but either way it's not about choice and consequence in any relevant sense in which those words are used.

If we have freedom to go to the left as opposed to turn to the right, if we have the freedom to say a sentence or not say a sentence, then political freedom of course follows.

But let's put that aside, since you think it's entirely irrelevant.

Because, as I said, the point or meaning of a proposition is separate from whether it has truth value or not. You are doing what some other users here do and basically saying "Ok but so what?/Who cares?" in reply to a discussion topic. That is not philosophy.

In any case, the OP is short and poorly formulated, it does not even fulfill the requirements to make a thread as put in the rules. — Lionino

That happens, given the frequency of people posting similar questions, most times people are nice enough, sometimes they're not, that's normal.

Sure, several threads don't meet the criteria asked here. If the discussion is decent, it's tolerated, though a better phrased OP would surely lead to a better discussion.

By the way, I didn't say "who cares", I am asking the determinist to tell me what consequences follow from this belief, which is an appropriate question.

Sure. There are many ways that humanity has culturally come up with, to deal with our innate tendedncies in a more prosocial way. Religions provide some such tools, for example Christianity and Buddhism. I wish I was more knowledgeable about the roots of the more enlightened Nordic perspectives, but I haven't looked into it and am open to reading recommendations. — wonderer1

Yes, me too on the Nordic angle, have seen a few decent documentaries on YouTube, heard stories from reliable sources, but I'm sure there are books on the topic, which is very interesting, quiet removed from the US justice framework, which is on the whole, too harsh.

The extent to which people are educated, to have a more accurate perspective on human nature and how to deal skillfully with having a human nature, might change. I think this is a reasonable hope that Sapolsky and I share. — wonderer1

Sure - education is a never ending process which offers everybody plenty of benefits, we create better societies and the like.

Now, there's something that's been indirectly tackled, does your view on us not having free will, include, say, that you are forced to reply (or not) to this sentence here and does that include the ability to merely lift a finger as well?

I'm unsure if Sapolsky would agree that there is felt (perhaps illusory) difference between lifting one's finger right now, and then have someone tap your finger such that it raises out of reflex. This is important.

Right, and the data would require a book length treatment to lay out well. — wonderer1

Agreed.

That's fair enough, though I do not see how to proceed. This now becomes speculative metaphysics which, to be sure, is fun, but more often than not doesn't lead anywhere.

But keeping something so broad so as to argue that a simple being acts any possible world is nebulous in the extreme.

For sake of a total baseless guess, perhaps it can be said that the simplest possible thing is the cause of everything in the universe, somewhat akin to the singularity in the big bang, but ever simpler.

So, this simple being would thus necessarily be responsible, in an extremely remote and far off manner, for everything that there is.

Aside from this, I can't invent anything else that is intelligible in the least.

I mean, sure I can read Sapolsky but I prefer to see your arguments, reading we do in our own time this place is to discuss ideas.

However, with a more accurate understanding of our own nature we can become more cognizant of that nature and develop skill at seeing beyond our kneejerk monkey-mindedness. — wonderer1

That's fine - yet I think we already have instances in which people do not automatically go with kneejerk reactions. Compare the Nordic justice system with the US'. They are just night and day, one of them is much more humane, the other is just punishment or mostly based on more primitive notions.

But, as I understand it - especially the Nordic one - which is extremely little, is that both of them are based on the notion of freedom of the will, what changes is the way society reacts.

So suppose blameworthiness is an illusion and we have rationalized our view of each other as free willed agents, because although simplistic, it fits with the monkey-minded ways we tend to interact with each other. Wouldn't there still be value in recognizing our proneness to such illusions, and in developing skills at seeing through such illusions. I personally find it valuable to have at least some skill in that. — wonderer1

Let's suppose it is an illusion. What changes? Not much. People will be prone to knee-jerk judgments and others will not. You could say that those who are more rational don't think free will is real, but then one would need evidence for this. I strongly suspect that even those who are less judgmental would not all fit into the camp of determinists, not that you are claiming this, I know.

Either way, we need data for this.

We can still aim for more humane treatment of people who commit crimes, irrespective of the belief in freedom of the will. Because you then have to attempt to explain the other side of the problem:

A criminal will say I had no choice but to do what I did. But then the judge will reply, I have no choice but to condemn you as I will.

Something is off here.

No spatial dimension? That's not entirely clear. If something has no spatial dimension, how can we say it exists in the world (as opposed to how we could imagine it to exist in our minds)?

Well, your second question assumes there are possible worlds, maybe, maybe not. But you'd first have to say what leads you to believe that it could act in a way that if has effects on this world.

If you can state how this belief carries force for you, then we could proceed. Otherwise, it seems to me like we are stuck.

It's not simple to change the way people think, but we certainly do effect each other's thinking, and we have fields such as education that would make no sense apart from an understanding that people's thinking can be changed. Perhaps your paradigm, for understanding changes in human thinking, is a bit unrealistic? — wonderer1

Sure, we change our minds all the time, we thought we knew X and discovered something we didn't know, and now we believe Y. The deeper a belief is entrenched the harder it will be to change one's mind, but if it's not something deeply held, it can be done without much difficulty. Beyond that, it is very hard.

But that quote you provided by Sapolsky looks like what others who deny free will say, especially the phrase:

"it’s very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others and to judge ourselves."

In other words, he lives and judges people as if we had free will (because if we really don't then how could we judge? It would be an illusion.), but then says we really don't have it.

So, it becomes a kind of game of sorts, we don't have free will, even if almost all of us act as if we do, but then this could lead (the belief that free will is false) to a society in which people are more cognizant of that fact and hence we would have less severe laws for crime, we'd understand other people's faults better and so on.

I agree that we can still be nicer to each other regardless of free will or not. But, if we act as if we have it, then I don't see how an argument against it, carries much force.

The discussion is about control over mental operations, not about the electromagnetic force inhibiting your freedom to phase through walls or a valley hampering your freedom to bike to the neighbouring city. Social/physical freedom are not the same as metaphysical freedom. If you wanna make the opposite point however, I am open to hearing it. Otherwise, you are completely missing the point of the thread to take the opportunity to talk about modern politics. — Lionino

If you don't have metaphysical freedom, the freedom to move an arm or choose to get up now and read a book or not or any other trivial thing, how can you have any other freedom? So no, I certainly do not buy the notion that metaphysical freedom is opposite any other freedom, in fact, it presupposes it, as do the laws in the societies we live in.

The utility or meaning of something bears no importance on its truth.

One day the server where this website's data is hosted will come apart and your comment will be lost —at best 10 people will ever read your comment. What is the point of making comments? — Lionino

Yeah, and Newton's discoveries will fade, and we will all die.

It bears just enough meaning to merit arguing we don't have it ...

What is the point in saying we don't have it, if all of us, including the most die-hard determinist lives as if they do have free will?

The point of coming to this site, is to discuss issues pertaining to philosophy - if people read great, if not, fantastic. But plainly you are making an effort which could be used for something else to attempt to convince people we don't have something we very much seem to have.

That's an interesting take, perhaps correct.

Then let' say the simplest object has one property, this property aligns with the simplest possible thing that could exist which must have at least one property.

What could this be?

A point in space?

I've wondered about this.

The point I tried to convey is that you are using freedom in common sense meaning, as in the freedom to drive a car or the freedom to spouse certain ideologies. OP is talking about metaphysical freedom — free will basically.

Obviously "freedom to wield AK-47s" is a reply made in jest. — Lionino

It's an extension of freedom of the will. If you are in a war zone, your freedom is severely hampered. Sure, one could say that people have a choice to try and stay alive or they are free to walk to areas they know will be bombed and choose to die.

Unless they deny free will, in which a person has no choice but to live or die.

But, I do take this to very basic levels. Suppose you don't have free will. Ok. What's the point is trying to let people know about this? You can't change what they think and if they do change based on what you say, then there is freedom to choose based on reasons.

If someone really believes that we do not have free will, then why do anything at all? Just stay in bed. Why bother doing things? Unless you suspect that there is something more than being forced all the time to do whatever circumstance dictates.

I find this rather puzzling. Yes, it's true, having a doctorate may make me seem to be "higher in the ladder", but all that means is that I had the time, interest and opportunity to do something I thought would be worth doing.

What bothers me to no end, is how little I know about the darn history, everything you read or contemplate leads to 20 other topics and 20 other obscure figures and it's impossible to read it all, much less know it in-depth.

On the other hand, your mastery of Kant is awe-inducing. I will read the Critique again, even more carefully, probably a commentary, it will be long and maybe I'll fail to do what I have in mind. But even if I do pull it off, I'd still be behind you.

Heck, I've read Locke, Hume and Leibniz twice, both times with quite a bit of care. And I still fear I misunderstood many, many aspects. Nowhere near what you do with Kant. The only similarity in me would be Chomsky, but he doesn't have a Critique or an Essay Concerning Human Understanding. And his linguistics stuff, once it goes beyond lay-audiences, is beyond me.

So, don't sell yourself short.

For sure. I don't recall how I felt about Skinner and his skin, I read him in high school. Looking back though, it's just so incredibly poor. But finding a wife is not so bad a price to pay to put it with it, I'd think. :)

Oh yeah, some fringe stuff can be very good, taken with care and salt. For literature it pays off though, and so far as I can see, a good novel is the best psychology a person can get.

Don’t you think behaviourism was reductionist from the outset? That it was basically a Procrustean bed - because the mind couldn’t be observed, and science built around observation, then it has to be excluded from consideration. (Dennett does say somewhere that his approach is basically behaviourist.) — Wayfarer

I don't know enough about the history to say. I suspect not, I don't think most phycologists as psychologists, believe this. It's not even useful at all for what they do.

In philosophy, with the bit that I've seen (not a lot - I find it stupid and insulting), the feeling I get it that this approach (behaviorism, vulgar empiricism - meaning, modern versions - sophism, etc.) stands in contrast to another tradition, which you can call Platonic, Rationalistic, etc.

The main point of contention is that either the world is, put in corny manner: either there is something special about us, or there is not. Those who think that we are special, tend to be strong believers in the importance and range of mind. Those that do not, take us to be mere machines, doing what is to be expected from the "laws of nature", such that neither mind nor nature is special.

Dennett called himself a "Neo-positivist" in one paper, so, it's not too far off.

But I need to stress, not that you don't already know this: Locke and Hume whom I have read carefully, would be insulted by how empiricism has been so distorted and mangled. These were among the best philosophers in history, virtually nothing to do with this modern mediocrity.

As to how physics comes into consideration - isn’t it the case that modern mathematical physics is grounded in the quantisation of measurable attributes of bodies? And that this was then taken as paradigmatic for all manner of science, culminating in what René Guenon describes as ‘the reign of quantity’? Then only what is measurable is considered significant. And furthermore the paradigm assumes the separation of observer and observed - something which has been found to be untenable in quantum physics. — Wayfarer

Also very much in line with Tallis, whom you and I both admire.

I don't disagree this is what physics does, in essence. Nonetheless, I do believe that the stuff physics describes existed prior to us, and that we are made of the stuff of physics (but there's a lot more to it than physics, by an unimaginable amount), notwithstanding the many difficulties involved.

But I would agree with you, I think, in saying that, for all practical purposes, physics is not relevant to the mental, and it is related to the brain is a very basic and uninformative manner.

On the one hand, it doesn’t seem like there could be, but on the other, it seems impossible there isn’t. — Mww

Quite so. Or very close, as I see it.

To (most) of those who don't bother with understanding a bit of modern physics, there is no problem, they are aware and experience the world.

Those who do read or listen or watch material on modern physics, the problem is immense: how could the things of physics lead to mind?

We don't know, likely will never know. But, since we are conscious, then we are forced to conclude that there is nothing in physics which prevents minds from arising, when the stuff of physics is suitably arranged.

Do they?

Do they have the freedom not to get killed? There's no evidence for this.

How is this even contentious?

@180 Proof

:ok:

I can't believe I'm still surprised, but it still happens.

Philosophically, I think Gilbert Ryle may have been one the modern precursors in trying to get rid of ideas. Hence "the ghost in the machine".

But more broadly, Galen Strawson points out that it was likely the psychologist John Watson Psychology as the Behaviorists Views It that established the tradition. What began quite nobely as an attempt to understand some of human psychology, by limiting itself to what could be observed - we cannot see into another person's mind - somehow morphed into the view that there is no mind or mental.

But it goes back, haven't read him closely or enough, yet Hobbes for instance, gives an impression of something like this view.

It's all based on the mistaken idea, that we know something enough to dismiss serious problems as illusions or delusions. But we don't. We don't know what a particle is, much less do we know how the brain works. Skinner's psychology, in light of this, is embarrassing.

Compare the people in Gaza vs. most people in Copenhagen. Then tell me there is no difference.

You didn't include universals in your OP.

The list you provide is quite good, but I think an option of "other" without qualifications would've been useful.

Ideas are as "real" as anything is, in fact it is what we are most acquainted with out of everything there is. Now, the problem aren't ideas per se, it's the world: that's what we really struggle with. Our best science cannot account for 95% of the universe.

And the 5% we do know is giving us a lot of problems, conceptually, theoretically and so on. So, yeah, I do think ideas are a problem - despite our intimate acquaintance with these. But the world is stranger, the mind-independent world anyway.

So, the issue as usually discussed is quite the opposite of the mainstream formulation. It's ghosts all the way down, as far as I can see.

I mean if spirits exist, they are metaphysically possible and so would be logical too.

We may even be more constrained in logic than in metaphysics, for there is a lot about the world which we do not know, and perhaps cannot know, given that we have biological minds.

Sam Harris, eh.

If it's logically possible, it is metaphysically possible too. I don't believe we could postulate something logically which could, in principle, be impossible metaphysically, unless one wants to play word games like golden-lead, or a triangular circle.

Very much so, it's just crazy all over. Those last 150 pages or so, were very, very tough and I probably missed over 60-70% of the references, but, still, a good challenge.

:up:

In a sense it does, in another sense, it does not.

Goodman goes into some of this in Starmaking.

I think so too, she starts, iirc, speaking about how Kant is an empirical realist but also a transcendental idealist, that he is both and that there is no contradiction. You say something similar.

She'll go on to speak about how he would fit today under different analytic interpretations (realism vs. anti-realism, metaphysical vs. deflationary interpretations, etc.)

But the part I liked the best is the last 2 (maybe 3) chapters, which is what I've read many times.

Entire book 2. So, if you do agree with her, seems to me you have a decent theory in the works. :)

Anytime! :cheer:

Oh heavens.

If it were easy, it would be no fun. :cool:

Mmm. It's not super, super easy, but, much easier than the Critique, Lucy Allais' Manifest Reality is sublime. Try that one out.

Then read his (Kant's) Prolegomena. After that, you could try other sources, or just struggle with the darn thing.

Or get yourself an @Mww, if they are up for sale. They can help a lot. :cool:

Where do you get off the train? (meaning, at what point do you hit the 'its now a futile endeavour' line in your enquiry?) — AmadeusD

I don't think it's of much difference to other issues like freedom of the will, or matter thinking, personal identity and so on.

You get off whenever you get tired of it or bored with it or find a unique approach that may be somewhat satisfactory.

It's not doubting that there is an external world, Hume never doubts this, what he is pointing out as problematic is in having an idea of external existence which is different from our specific perceptions of them.

Well, I'm still stuck with Hume's "Skepticism with Regard to the Senses."

The thought experiment consists in looking at objects to attempt to get the idea of a continued existence of objects as well as trying to find the reasons for why we believe objects to exist in a manner distinct from our perceptions of them.

We can't. Yet we do assume both, quite strongly, yet we don't have good reasons for doing so. It's really hard. But fascinating notwithstanding the futility of such an exercise, it's an obsession.

It's pretty damn rough to read. It's one a the very few cases in which I recommend secondary literature before reading the book, there's plenty of it.

But even with this secondary literature, there's a whole lot that is just hard to follow, because he is just way too technical. But of course, it has come excellent ideas.

I have probably written here more than once, but, I like the question, so I will reply again.

The hard problem of consciousness seems to hard, because we have forgotten about the hard problem of motion, which we do not understand, but can study quite successfully.

And, then, I think if we clearly look at the situation, we have many hard problems, the problem of morality, the problem of will, the problem of identity, the problem meaning, the problem of mind, the problem of magnetism, the problem of first origins and on and on and on.

For whatever curios reason, consciousness is taken to be specifically more problematic than any of these. I don't see a reason to believe it.

My example was against your point that you would rather take a more supported and seeming option rather than a less supported and unlikely option. The OP was asking what your reasons to believe in the existence of the world are, while not perceiving it. — Corvus

But your example of the Earth being round has less immediately perceivable proofs, than the argument that the Earth is flat. The latter is much easier to believe, because the world feels that way. But once we introduce reason to the equation (of which only a part of it is in experience) then we can see much more and better evidence suggesting the Earth is round, of which of course we know have evidence beyond doubt.

Your question about how do we know if the Earth exists if we are not perceiving it is much less evident than the belief that the Earth exists absent us. It only appears more evident if you ignore the great amount of evidence that is not immediately available for conscious experience.

If fact, what you seem to be getting at goes way beyond Berkley or Kant or any other idealist. Very few of them say that the world does not exist if we are not perceiving it. They take it for granted.

What they question is the conceptions we should make about the world absent people, but never denying that the world exists, in some manner or other.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but they are very rare.

:chin:

Anything is possible.

:victory: