Added to my reading list. — csalisbury

Since you like this type of literature, I guarantee you won't regret it.

Fair pushback on Mason & Dixon - I'll admit I haven't finished it (a few attempts, always faltered in the first section.) — csalisbury

I understand. I was in a Pynchon phase at the time, so I forced read through his tough books. With Mason & Dixon, I remember the beginning fairly well, and the ending. The rest is a blur, I recall almost nothing of it. I will have to go back to it sometime, when I'm up for a huge challenge.

In fact, my story with not finishing Pynchon is pretty bad. My biggest embarrassment as a reader which I hesitate to mention: I quit Against the Day at like 900 pages. :scream: I had like 150 pages left, but for some strange reason, I kept pushing it back and reading other stuff so that by the time I got back to it, I was lost. Yeah, insane on my part... I liked it, but burnout got to me. I should've forced myself just a bit more...

at a point I want to just yell - yes, we've had this conversation many times! I get it, man! It's spelled out in the first scene of your first book! — csalisbury

Yep, you are right. You can easily mix parts of V., GR and Against the Day into one book, and it would have significant similarities. It's like a genius paranoid speaking about everything. But clearly, he's not for everyone.

At the same time I'm a huge Melville fan, and he does this stuff too - there's no accounting for where and why you'll cut slack. — csalisbury

It's becoming harder and harder to find authors these days that can write and challenge and surprise you all in one go. I suspect there are some out there, but they're hidden way, way behind the "Bestsellers" section. It's a bit sad and very hard to find new stuff in this type of genre.

Yes. The idea is to say the same thing, in a profoundly different way. And style and vibe are very important.

As for Pynchon, I'd definitely agree that V. is his most fun work. Gravity's Rainbow obviously the most difficult, but perhaps his most wide ranging and profound. But I remember having to force myself to read 240 pages before I found a page that I could entirely follow. Granted, once he hits you with his incredible style, the book lifts off, pun intended.

I've heard Pynchon described as a "one-trick pony". This is perhaps not unfair. It's just that his trick is exceptional. Where I perhaps disagree with you a bit, is on Mason & Dixon. I think that even if he's riffing or not, there's evidence it took him over 20 years to write that book. The language displayed in that book is extraordinary and parts of that book are also magical.

One author, who is not well known at all, but who in my opinion writes like a mixture of Wallace and Pynchon + his own style is Jim Gauer, author of Novel Explosives. I think there's an argument for him being better than Pynchon and Wallace in some aspects, in that although his work is difficult, it is also very philosophical, it covers many topics and is probably the most fun book I've read, easily beating both mentioned authors in terms of fun factor alone while not sacrificing any depth.

The writing itself is subjective of course, some will prefer Wallace or Pynchon. It's a bit of a toss up for me in terms of style between the three.

It's crazy to think such a style of book could be exciting, profound and so so erudite. Yes I do propaganda for that novel. :razz:

La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4

True, eugenics led to a horror show. But during the enlightenment, we already had phrenology, which was used to try and justify slavery. And before that, class was used as weapon for the nobility. So in this respect we've always had plenty of quite ugly things to point to.

It is correct that the UDHR was an important moment in history. We now simply have to live to its words. But this applies practically to all documents, notably to constitutions the world over. I know that Rorty mentioned that pomo was probably born sometime in the late 19th century.

I think the pomo that is most prevalent is the one that arose from France, with Lyotard. And then we also have Jameson, who simply declared we live in a pomo society. I think I find more continuities with the French pomo school than a larger historical one.

Nevertheless, Wallace had this newer tradition in mind when he spoke of pomo, I think. I take it to mean a total confusion in regards to our epistemic situation and a regarding of different stories as mutually legitimate. That's fine. But it can be taken too far, and then we get into stuff like "there is no objectivity", "truth is dead", etc.

That's too much. Heck Plato was dealing with people who played with words over 2000 years ago with the sophists. But the French pomo puts this on steroids, it seems to me.

Yeah, that all makes sense. If you can't stand yourself in terms of being unable to cope with life, that should probably become a priority. If you are then are more-or-less well, then you can help or try to help other people. That's not controversial, I don't think.

As for the left you describe, yeah. It has many problems and is more fragmented than the right. It isn't entirely obvious when one should step in and help or leave others be. People's intuition differ on these topics - because they're complex.

As for postmodernism, that's one way to describe it, saying that it's the name for our era. Not intending to sound too much theoretical, but I don't think modernity ever finished, despite what is said about "the failure of the enlightenment" and so forth. It was a tremendous success, prior to that "The West" was in a state of near-total religious mania.

I don't think pointing to the World Wars or fascism is a fault of modernity, though the technological innovation used in missles and tanks may be counted as a consequence. As far as I can see, at least in WWII, the fascists were reverting to tribalism, not rationality. The enlightenment in this sense, never really finished and probably never will, if honest, open inquiry is to remain one of its goals.

But I know this last point is endlessly disputable.

Israel's strategy is baffling except as an attempt to maintain the conflict for as long as possible as cover for expansions of settlements, expulsions, and further encroachments. — Baden

It is. But they can only get away with these "wars" in so far as the US allows it. For the US, the settlements aren't aren't much of a problem, occasional rhetoric aside.

It is somewhat curious that they pound Gaza every X amount of years. By now, popular opinion is very much against them. And regardless of anti-BDS laws or propaganda campaigns, I think they've essentially lost the PR war. They can't get that back anymore.

But the situation in terms of the massacres, not the occupation necessarily, may only change if the US becomes firm with Israel and tells them to stop these massacres or we cut out military aid.

And even then, given how nationalistic Israel is right now, it's not clear that they would acquiesce on settlements, though they would have to give up on Gaza assaults.

Samson option and what that implies may become a factor. Hopefully not.

If you consider what his ideas actually are, it'd seem that were they to actually have been into place, the situation there, though still with certain predicaments, would be preferable to what exists now. United States collaboration with right-wing authoritarian regimes was born out of a cynical anti-democratic anti-Communism and not some form of genuine Neo-Liberalism. — thewonder

The neoliberal project can never fully be realized, as with any other school of thought be it Marxism, Capitalism, Austrianism, Socialism or anything else. These doctrines can only be pushed so far. They can't get every single thing they want, but they can get a lot.

Friedman's ideas on markets are somewhat similar to Mises'. If freedom is taken to imply whatever you can purchase and nothing else, then sure, these figures are very much freedom oriented. But based on what you're saying, I don't think you or I are convinced that freedom is restricted to transactions.

There are all kinds of problems with Neo-Liberalism, but I don't think that it is really what to cite as what has made the Liberal democratic project, to me, at least, insufficient. — thewonder

Clearly not. It's extremely hard to point out all the malaise we see in society. I only choose neoliberalism because I think it captures a lot, but very far from all, aspects of society.

Take say pomo, supposedly it is very left wing. Maybe some aspects of it are. Other aspects of it seems to me to obscure reality rather than shed light on it. I have in mind pomo philosophy, not literature. I really like pomo lit, but not philosophy. The latter is often used as a critical lens which aims to elucidate almost everything.

But instead of doing that, I think it gets stuck in ever smaller units of power measurement, rendering its adherents to fight with each other on things that many people could not care less about. What reading of Marx is best? How many pronouns should we have? Should science become horizontal?

It has its uses in places to be fair. I think Foucault is interesting in part. But to be fair, a neoliberal analysis may also fall prey to this. If everything is reduced to creating a habitat for markets and creating a competitive consumer society, then it will miss aspects of society which are explicitly rejecting such an ideology.

And many other problems. A-one-size-fits-all approach just won't work, it will create ideologues, I think, more often than not.

A person's way of life and relationship to the world can be very easily utilized in order to manipulate them. You should only really care about your way of life and relationship to the world, however. It's just something that you can't ever let go of. — thewonder

You can only control yourself, and even that's hard. But trying to help others is self beneficial too. ;)

The idea in Capitalist Realism is that there is no Capitalist ideology. It's already cynicism. I think that the danger is of a more generalized cynicism than any form of indoctrination. — thewonder

I think Mirowski does a much better job than Fischer, because it is more oriented towards a specific strand of market ideology that is currently pervasive and encompasses a lot of aspects of society all over the world, which is neoliberalism. It is now showing some signs of waning in the US, not so much in the EU. But it has been proclaimed "dead" many times before, so one need be careful here.

Friedman is a part of that group, but far from the most important or sophisticated member in terms of ideas, that would fall to the likes of Hayek, Ropke, Mises, Schumpeter and so on.

I do think that it is easy to engulf oneself in negativity and hopelessness, it is a real meaning-problem. But if we let it consume us, we get completely stuck. Not only in our actions, but in our capacity to use analytic reason.

User participation within the production of goods and services does offer a certain degree of choice. It's, of course, considerably more troubling when you think about companies collecting massive amounts of data to build profiles of people to know what to market them. The experience is very strange, almost akin to schizophrenia. It seems like the ads are speaking to you directly because they kind of are. — thewonder

Sure. Systems are way too complex and large to say, point blank: there's nothing good at all about them. Sometimes people manage to use aspects of this system, say Facebook or Twitter to organize against other powerful entities, as was seen on Occupy, for instance. So "choice" in itself is not bad in certain areas, in other areas the idea of "choice" obscures real alternatives, such as the case of healthcare in the US, versus a state-system, because markets wouldn't stand to make money.

I was just saying that it's as if you're not let to feel as you should about the human experience. There's no boundless joy, whimsical caprice, emotional depth, righteous indignation, or catharsis. There seems, to me, to be a somewhat deliberate attempt to disrupt how we naturally feel about things. That's what I'm saying bothers me the most. — thewonder

Yes, I think this is a problem too. Wallace was good about pointing this out. I mean, I think it still happens, but it can get co-opted quite easily. But I take your point.

Currently rereading:

Never Let A Serious Crisis Go to Waste by Philip Mirowski

And also reading a novel:

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong

We desire authenticity to the point of psychological terror. Anything that lets us feel again is somehow good. I've just been invoking extreme examples to point this out. — thewonder

Sure. Maybe I'm stretching the idea too far, but I think part of this has to do with neo-liberal indoctrination. Philip Mirowski has done very good work on this. We strive to stand out by being unique and selling ourselves in every conceivable aspect of our lives through social media for example.

We rate every experience we have on Google, and so forth. I think this is more extreme market thinking than pomo, even if pomo also plays its part by sidelining people with spectacle.

hink about The Waking Life, for instance. People consider for it to be the worst form of pseudo-intellectual trite. It was a good film, y'know? What I'm suggesting is that this idea that we should care for and consider the world as it actually is should not have been a passing trend. — thewonder

I don't think this has passed. It is true that there is more cynicism employed by several companies. For instance, it is true that now it quite common to see a product in a store or a supermarket and such products say "a portion of the profits go to well-established charities", as if that takes care of social responsibility alone.

But the environmental movement, I think is quite strong world-wide, and with good reason too. Global warming is extremely worrisome.

Ah, did not know. Thanks for sharing.

Both of these books are Strawson's. Maybe Chalmers wrote in the latter book, as it contained many responses by philosophers.

It becomes very strange later on in the last essay, he starts introducing micro-subjects of experience and speaks about the inner and the outrer aspects of experience in ultimates...not convincing.

Ah ok. Then yes. I agree with that and I do think it is problem.

He'd probably say that radical emergence can't happen because every aspect of nature would be a miracle, there'd be no reason, law, habit or anything for why things occur.

Yes, Curtis is thought provoking at the very least, whatever else anyone thinks about him.

But consciousness - on his view - is quite different. We're not talking about more of the same. And thus it cannot emerge. It must therefore be present all the way down. I don't see that you've said anything to block this. — Bartricks

No. His point is that consciousness is not a different sort of emergence than liquidity. That's why he denies radical emergence.

Liquidity emerges naturally based on the properties of the particles that make it up.

The only point I want to stress is that experience (consciousness) all the way down can be misleading, because it would suggest that particles or tables are conscious somewhat analogous to the way people are conscious. He doesn't say this at all.

He'd say that experience is an "ultimate" one of several features that are found at the base of physical stuff. Just like liquidity is an ultimate too.

But as found at the base of physical stuff, it isn't configured in a manner that has consciousness as a person would. But being that it is one of the properties of physical stuff, when it is configured in things like brains you do get experience like ours. So experience emerges naturally for him.

I have to repeat that this is not my view. I don't think panpsychism is correct.

Having said all this and explained (or failed to explain) his views as best I could, feel free to attack the view as much as you wish. I don't want to block anything, I just tried to state his views.

EDIT: I forgot to add, this version of his panpsychism comes from his two most cited works I believe, Realistic Monism and Consciousness and Its Place in Nature.

He goes on to expand and elaborate his views, later on, in a manner I can't defend, because I don't understand it and because what I read seems way off the mark to me. So I'm only presenting what I think I understand. Just so you know.

It's fun, y'know? You just have to keep two bookmarks. — thewonder

Maybe I'll try again some other time. I've changed my tastes a bit. So it could click this time around.

They believe that their existential status has been called into question. It's their very way of life that they believe to be at stake. If anyone is serious about bringing an end to the war, they will have to take that into consideration. We need Kanye West to bring us there, though. That's what I'm saying about the Postmodern condition. — thewonder

And if the US war machine is coming after you with fury, it makes sense to think that. But now they're still in power, so the war just meant mass death with nothing positive happening. Like almost all wars.

Maybe a very select few would - somehow - react to Kayne in such a way that they rethink US foreign policy. Maybe his lyrics help soldiers or something.

But beyond these very tenuous connections, I don't see how this helps us understand the Afghan war. Unless one is only focusing on the media spectacle side.

Maybe you can expand on this last point a bit, see If I can make more sense of it.

That's an interesting take on Wallace. Again, going back to D.T Max, he was asked at one point, I think it was in an interview, about one scene in Wallace's article on the cruise ship. Wallace was looking at the ocean and he was saying that the ocean was vast, dark and empty. Don't quote me strictly on that. But I believe he said something to that effect.

Max asks, was that Wallace simply describing what the ocean felt like to him or was that his depression talking? I don't know. What you say about Wallace constantly tormenting himself reminds me of that.

And I think this is true. It's hard to explain Wallace better than he explains himself, but I think one can say that his acute and amazing powers of observation and detail must have applied to everything, not only his short stories or his books, but to himself too. It's the price he had to pay for the gift he had.

Nevertheless, I still think sincerity is sincerity and that can be used in a perverse manner too. But by now, given how much literature has expanded, it's just extremely hard to come up with something new to say something tried and true in an original manner. So it's said "naively" as it were, and can come off as cliched. Too bad, but, then again, this is person-dependant. What I find to be just cheesy sentimentalism, others find profound. And what I find deep others find verbose or obscurantist. Oh well.



I got to page 450 of Infinite Jest and just lost interest. It did not grip me like his other stuff. And I do believe Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon by Pynchon to be quite harder to read than IJ. It's just a matter of taste. I loved his other stuff, not his novel. The endnotes did it for me, it made reading way too slow.

On the other hand, these very same techniques in his essays and short stories are a true pleasure. And some will like all of it some parts of it and some don't like Wallace. Just like some hate Pynchon. It's all fair.

What I do think is that Wallace was unique in being able to express himself with such precision that is almost unmatched. He could easily form sentences and paragraphs around ideas that would take other writers entire books to try and elucidate.

I think his critique of pomo in literature is completely legitimate. And a serious problem for writers thinking about creating a "new style" or genre. But in real life you can get stuck in the images and the "narratives" while setting aside power structures. In a way, it's like wrestling with authority on authority's terms. So you can take the Iraq war and just treat it like a TV spectacle and you analyze that. But then you don't mention the millions of civilians which were killed. And that's a problem, if this is overlooked.

Not saying it to you specifically, just speaking in general terms.

Having said this, he could very much describe the "water", which we take for granted, such as being in a luxury cruise and being amazed at how comfortable he was in his room, with all the luxuries given but then describing how in like a day or two, he was upset his waiter brought his room service 10 minutes late. Or him pointing out that we take a sunny day as any other, don't even bother to think about it. But if we knew it was our last day on Earth, how much we would appreciate every little detail.

In the end, it really is about being aware. Which is easy to say and so hard to do all the time.

Yes, see, before making families homeless and destroying all their worldly posessions, Israeli terrorists let them know that that's what's about to happen before hand. So it's all good. — StreetlightX

What, you wouldn't want to know if your house was going to be destroyed? At least you get to live.

That's honorable. . .

I very much like DFW. I could finish all of Pynchon's hard novels, couldn't finish Infinite Jest. :lol:

But his short fiction and especially his non-fiction are second to none. I've still to read that article, but I recall some aspects of Wallace's comments on pomo literature.

I guess I have to agree with Wallace's biographer D.T. Max, when he says that he doesn't really understand the idea of an "ironic turn on irony", or words to that effect. I think Wallace was trying to explain sincerity in a meaningful way and focused too much on how the mainstream commodified cynicism. Sure, that happens.

But you still get rebels, frequently. Look at Assange or Snowden. Look at the George Floyd protests and etc. If I don't remember incorrectly, Wallace predicted things like Skype and Zoom. But he thought people would end up wearing masks for fear that the other person looking at you would think you were being insincere if you looked away while talking.

I think he took these ideas too far, even if the way he expresses this is unique.

And now we have people analyzing all the phenomena Wallace could not have predicted: smart phones, talking about Q, etc.

So yes, I think at times of Wallace's articles. I think they're spectacular. But he risks excess in the claims he makes, even if they're largely correct.

Yes, Israel sometimes sends paper saying your house is going to be destroyed.

Very humanitarian. :roll:

For him, everything that exists, everything is physical. But he concludes by saying he is not bothered much by what labels he uses for himself, in this respect he is also happy calling himself a ?-ist.

The main point in this is simply to say that there is only one kind of stuff in the world: physical stuff. Or call it "immaterial stuff" or "natural stuff."

Idealism even, would not bother him. His only caveat with this is that if idealism is conceived as "consisting of ideas" and so everything is made of ideas, then there must be someone who is having the ideas.

Neutral monism, as he understands, is the view that the world is neither mental nor physical as we currently understand these terms. But he think it isn't true because in having experience, we are acquainted with - we know - certain fundamental aspects of reality in merely having experience. And since for him, experience is a physical phenomena, then neutral monism would be misleading, because we are not completely ignorant about the nature of the world, by virtue of being conscious.

The basic idea is to reject metaphysical dualism.

His "physical" has nothing to do with Dennett's ideas by the way. They're kind of the opposite.

"A common objection today is that such ideas invoke an unacceptable form of "radical emergence," unlike the emergence of liquids from molecules, where the properties of the liquid can in some reasonable sense be regarded as inhering in the molecules. In Nagel's phrase, "we can see how liquidity is the logical result of the molecules 'rolling around on each other' at the microscopic level," though "nothing comparable is to be expected in the case of neurons" and consciousness. Also taking liquidity as a paradigm, Strawson argues extensively that the notion of emergence is intelligible only if we interpret it as "total dependence": if "some part or aspect of Y [hails] from somewhere else," then we cannot say that Y is "emergent from X." We can speak intelligibly about emergence of Y-phenomena from non-Y-phenomena only if the non-Y-phenomena at the very least are "somehow intrinsically suited to constituting" the X-phenomena; there must be ''something about X's nature in virtue of which" they are "so suited."....

...It should be noted that the molecule· liquid example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turning into two gases by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in hydrogen or oxygen or other atoms."

Strawson considers liquidity to be weak emergence, as do most other philosophers, I believe.

Chomsky is the exception. Probably McGinn too, but I am unsure.

The idea would be that there has to something about physical stuff that is inherently suited to give rise to consciousness in certain modified states.

If there is nothing about physical stuff that could possibly give rise to experience, then experience would be a miracle. That is, nothing about the nature of the physical could possibly lead to experience, hence in having experience as we have it, is completely inexplicable even to God - if such a being existed.

On this view, there would be no reason, or law, or tendency that could account for something emerging radically.

The example I've been talking about is consciousness, but it can apply to any emergent thing.

Of course, there are several ways to develop this argument. One option would be that there must be something about matter that is inherently suited to give rise to experience, but we have no idea what that something could be and we quite possibly may never be able to understand it. This view is held by Chomsky, for example.

Good to see Gantz being a great humanitarian:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gantz-non-humanitarian-aid-to-gaza-depends-on-return-of-israeli-soldiers-bodies-1.9836555

:roll:

there'd be no reason to suppose it resident potentially but not actualized — Bartricks

Fine.

I'm trying not to defend his views, but to articulate as best I can.

Sometimes I agree with him, so it's hard to keep it in check. In any case, that's his main argument.

I can only assume that you think Strawson is not committed to attributing conscious states to everything. Okay. Why not? — Bartricks

Because consciousness only arises in quite specific circumstances, such as the configuration of brains found in human beings. And other creatures too, which we think are conscious: dogs, horses, etc.

In a table, matter is not so configured so as to lead to experience. Nor is it configured in this manner in rocks, rivers, dirt and so forth.

Again, consciousness can't emerge - Strawson doesn't think so. So it is not - not - like liquidity.

So consciousness must be present - fully present - in the building blocks. If it is not fully present in the building blocks, then we have something coming out that wasn't put it. — Bartricks

Strawson didn't say consciousness can't emerge, he says that it does. Rather he states that consciousness cannot radically emerge: there has to be something about matter that, when combined in a certain way leads to experience. Like you said, it's hard to make sense of the idea of experience arising out of a combination of non-conscious stuff.

Experience is a property of organized matter, so is liquidity. Both liquidity and experience are inherent in matter, they can emerge given certain specific configurations. There is something about matter that when so configured, we get experience or liquidity.

But if matter does not organize in this specific way, we won't get experience, even if the property of experience is already in matter. That his panpsychism in a nutshell.

I lack the capacity to communicate this to you, despite repeatedly trying my best.

So, I think this is as far as we'll go.

Wait, you asked me if I though liquidity was emergent. I said yes. In fact, I go so far as to say that it is radically emergent, that is, there is no conceivable way (to us) to understand how it could be that apparently non-liquid molecules could combine to create liquidity.

Strawson on the other hand, thinks these phenomena are emergent, but not radically so. On this "soft emergent" view, liquidity, experience and everything else arise out of the specific combination of physical stuff.

There is a reason as to why this is so, according to him: he says it doesn't make sense to think that experience could arise from something completely and utterly non-experiential, as matter appears to be, because it would be a miracle to have experience if at bottom physical stuff does not poses properties that can give rise to experience. So physical stuff must contain, among its properties, experiential stuff - potential for experience.

So to avoid radical emergence, he postulates that experience and everything else, is already inherent in the base stuff of reality.

The last three paragraphs are his view, not mine.

I entirely agree.

Note too that as a general rule the mention of quantum mechanics in a philosophical discussion is an admission of defeat. — Bartricks

In materialism? Really? To say that quantum mechanics is the study of physical stuff is an admission of defeat? That's surprising.

Now, liquidity - you haven't answered my questions about it. What is liquidity and is it an emergent property or not? — Bartricks

Liquidity is defined as "the state in which a substance exhibits a characteristic readiness to flow with little or no tendency to disperse and relatively high incompressibility."

It is an emergent property, of course.

Yeah, sure.

But then what happens when one chosen person is instructed by God to say, kill another chosen person and yet this latter one is instructed by God to save a child?

Unless we multiply God per person, then the same God would be telling X to kill Y, and God is also commanding Y to save a child. Yet the child can't be saved if Y is killed.

We face the typical dilema of God giving two orders simultaneously which are contradictory. Unless God's notion of morality differs radically from ours, such a situation is hard to reconcile with our innate ethical faculties.

I don't have a clue what a quantum field is. But the concept of materialism predates any such notion. — Bartricks

Then you are working with an outdated notion of materialism. I mean, you can use it if you like. It has no relevance to what's happening now because the notion of materialism used by Descartes was directly based on the science of his day. That science is now outdated.

I don't understand what you said about Descartes. He made several arguments for the immateriality of the mind. They're good arguments. — Bartricks

Yes he argued that the mind cannot be explained by mechanistic means, among other arguments. And he's right about that to this day.

Based on what I've seen thanks to you and YuYuHunter, I can't wait for the translation.

Mostly his epistemic/metaphysical stuff. His pessimism is a bit too strong for me. :grimace:

Descartes did not just arbitrarily believe that minds were not material mechanisms, he argued that they are not — Bartricks

Yes, correct. He based that in large part to the creative aspect of language use.

I'm offering Chomsky's version of events. Which I've found to be accurate based on historical and original sources.

Materialists believe there are objects extended in space. That's a good working definition. — Bartricks

Well if you call quantum fields extended, okay.

Descartes' arguments have not been refuted and if he were alive today he would still be a dualist and would join me in deriding the stupidity and dogmatism of those who think the mind is material. He didn't suffer fools gladly and he'd have torn Strawson a new one. — Bartricks

Ah, ok then. :up:

There is no reason to think materialism about the mind is true. When faith in a view is widespread, many mistake that for evidence or think that there must be an evidential base for it. But there is no evidential base for materialism about the mind. I have asked to be shown evidence for it time and time again, and in 10 years of asking, no one has provided me with any, just fallacious arguments that won't withstand a moment's reflection. — Bartricks

At bottom, this is mostly a terminological dispute, not so much of substance. I think that's important to point out. Panpsychism aside, Strawson's materialism claims that everything is physical, whatever the nature of the physical may be.

But if you don't like the term, you can say that everything is immaterial or you could adopt neutral monism. I would even say idealism here too, with the caveat that I don't think that everything is made of ideas, nor is everything in the world the product of a person.

Materialism used to have a distinct meaning and could be counterposed to other views. When it had a intelligible meaning was back in the time of Descartes and Hobbes. When materialism essentially meant mechanistic materialist: the world is a giant machine, like a massive clock. But it didn't reach the domain of mind. Hence Descartes' dualism.

That all fell apart when Newton discovered gravity and proved mechanistic materialism to be false: the world does not work like a clock, there is action at a distance with no direct contact. But with that we lost an intelligible notion of "body". So metaphysical dualism collapsed.

Consider shape. We cannot get shape from that which is not shaped. Molecules have a shape as much as the objects they compose. They do not have to have the same shape, but they have a shape. Likewise for conscious states. Consciousness cannot emerge from that which is not conscious. — Bartricks

Yes. That's the intuition. And what Strawson tries to avoid by articulating panpsychism, he wants to avoid "radical emergence" as described in your own words.

I think radical emergence exists, it's what happens in nature. We do get shapes from that which lack shape and we do get consciousness out of non-conscious things, just as we get water from molecules that give no indication at all that they have such properties.

People today call that magic. It was more or less accepted as a brute fact back in 17th and 18th centuries.

conscious states - not something else - must be fully present in molecules — Bartricks

As a property, like electricity or gravity or liquidity, which is inherent in matter. This does not mean that this property is realized in ordinary objects, any more than liquidity is realized in tables. It's the same stuff at bottom, but only different configurations of matter lead to liquidity, which is also not found in tables.

So Strawson must, onpain of inconsistency, insist that everything has conscious states. Not something 'like'consciuos states, but the real deal. Thus my wardrobe is conscious. My hand is. My ear is. A speck of dust is. Properly conscious. — Bartricks

I've stressed the point several times. I don't know how to express myself more clearly. I'll say it one more time: Strawson is not saying that a table is conscious, nor is a wardrobe. He never says that. What he says is that the stuff tables and wardrobes are made of consists of matter than has in it the capacity to become conscious when configured in a certain manner as in the case of brains.

Again, think of liquidity. It's not found in wardrobes, but it can arise when configured in a specific manner. We don't therefore say that tables and wardrobes are wet.

This does not imply what you keep saying, namely that ordinary objects are conscious. They are not, nor does Strawson ever claim that at all.

I don't think that formulation captures what Strawson in saying, because if we say that a table is conscious, we would associate it with our own intuitions of consciousness which would make this view completely insane. And whatever one may think of Strawson, he's not insane. Is he wrong? Perhaps, I think he's wrong in some sense, sure.

It would be more accurate to say that Strawson thinks that tables, rocks, pianos, etc., are made of the kind of stuff that, when modified in a specific manner constitute consciousness. But the property of experience is already in the stuff which makes everything up. As would be the case with every other emergent property of nature, once we "go up" from fields or strings or whatever is at the bottom of things.

If one remains a materialist despite being driven to these lengths, then I think one has discovered that one's materialism is a faith. — Bartricks

Yes. This is true. But as he points out, any metaphysical view is tied to some kind of faith, because we have no way to test these views. We can only depend on reasons and what sounds likely or intuitive to us.

Fair enough.

I lost some of the focus of thread, which was presenting Strawson's argument.

Unless God's command conflicts with the rights of other people. Then it's not so clear this argument from authority is valid.

Yes. It is mysterious and such radical emergence is usually ridiculed by many modern philosophers. They refer to it as "magical emergence". It was taken for granted in the scientific revolution. But for whatever reason, today some people don't like the idea that some aspects of nature simply don't make sense to us.

Yes, I am the same — spirit-salamander

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