But an experience is a conscious state - to be experiencing something is to be in a state of consciousness — Bartricks

Yes.

But the claim Strawson makes is that phenomena are experience-involving or experience-realizing. This means that the phenomena we interact with realize or involve our experience. An aspect of the object reacts to experience. If they did not, then his panpsychism would fall apart on that alone.

Rational intuitions are our source of insight into what's what. There's nothing else to appeal to. All of our rational intuitions tell us minds are immaterial, not material. — Bartricks

Consciousness arises through complex interactions in the brain. The brain is molded matter. Why would this thing consciousness coming out of brains not be physical too? We'd have an interaction problem - substance dualism - that we can do without.

This imples that physical stuff is much more than what we intuit.

So, my reason is telling me, then, that my mind is not in the business of having properties such as shape, smell, taste, texture. Not, in other words, a material object. — Bartricks

Why aren't tastes, smells, textures and so forth physical things? Why not? Tastes from the tongue, smells from the nose, etc.

I think the problem here is the very common association of materialism with whatever physics says. Or eliminitavism. There's no reason to believe in eliminitavism, or at least, no good reason.

They'd surely need to be in order to avoid having to posit a new emergent property of consciousness? — Bartricks

What's at bottom are the ultimates, which involve or realize experience. When these ultimates organize in a certain way, then you get consciousness as you or I would recognize, arising from brains, in a manner that is quite obscure. So for Strawson, you don't need anything else, everything is a configuration of physical stuff. Thus he avoids the emergence problem, it was there all along, just not yet configured in a proper manner.

Just as you can't get something shaped from combining elements none of which have any shape, so too you can't get consciousness by combining that which is not conscious - that's his case, I take it? — Bartricks

That's the idea. It is commonly thought that matter cannot possibly have those properties which we associate with consciousness, such that non experience-involving matter could ever combine to create experience. That's the no-radical emergence thesis.

But for Strawson stuff involves experience at bottom. If this is true, then combining matter in a proper way brings forth consciousness quite naturally.

My mind appears to be nothing remotely like a material object. Everything - but everything - our reason tells us about our minds conflicts with the materialist thesis. — Bartricks

And yet, as Chomsky points out in his very insightful essay The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, this intuition is false. He quotes Joseph Priestley who "culminated" Locke's reflection on thought and matter, as when Locke considers that God could proceed "supperadding" thought to matter.

Priestley says:

"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of sensation and thought, from such as are usually ascribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the same substance, unless we can shew them to be absolutely incompatible with one another.”... this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial system: for we have no more conception how the powers of sensation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material substance..."'

for panpsychism is manifestly false. — Bartricks

I also think it's false, but would state my view less strongly. I take radical emergence for granted, as Chomsky does too.

So if materialism is true, then everything must be conscious if anything is?

What possible reason is there to be a materialist given it has such absurd implications? It's perverse. No evidence it is true and plenty that it is false. — Bartricks

According to Strawson's materialism, it does not follow that things need to be conscious. What follows is that the phenomena we interact with in the world are experience realizing or experience involving. In other words objects have those properties which must interact with experience. This does not mean that objects themselves are conscious.

His panpsychist position is such that he thinks that what he calls "ultimates", whatever they may be - quantum fields or even strings - also realize or involve experience. There is no evidence for his view. But there is no evidence against it.



As to the rest of your reply, no. These aren't conscious states. But every time you move an arm or look at a table or anything else, you interact with these things through experience so the objects and your body are intrinsically suited to interact with it.

Mind you, that's his position. Not mine.

You can accept his "real materialism" while rejecting his "realistic monism". The latter includes panpsychism. The former doesn't.

But then again, you may reject both.

As usual in these types of discussions :100:



Yes, this phrase "nothing but" reminds me of another one, quite similar, as is the case when someone says something like colours are just waves of light, emotions are just chemicals. By saying these words, it's clear that hard problems are put to the side.

So take your example

Reality is nothing but appearances — Janus

What is an appearance? Is the questioner implying that this person suffering because of some famine or some war is an appearance? Well that seems to take a lot away from what I'm experiencing. And likewise with selves being social constructions. Yeah, probably they are constructions, but we don't treat them as we would characters in a novel...

It's easy to say, but big problems remain with all of them by using "nothing but" or "just".

This is my area of expertise.

Strawson uses physicalism and materialism interchangeably. The point for him is that his materialism says that the nature of reality is physical, whatever its nature may ultimately be. As for the panpsychism, he thinks that materialists have to consider it a real possibility, on pains that if you reject such a view, you are committed to the view that there is "radical" or "brute" emergence in nature, meaning some wholly new property arises which was not at all apparent in its constituent parts.

But he used to not be a panpsychist, although he always respected this perspective. He would've called himself "an experiential-and-non-experiential monist".

But in all his phases, Strawson has never doubted that experience is the most obvious and certain thing we are acquainted with.

EDIT: I forgot to ask are you the same spirit-salamander from Mainländer's reddit page?

I believe this was the case for the Taba negotiations. Namely commit to resolution 242, with some modifications and land exchange. This meant that Israeli's got to keep some land not stipulated in 242 and Palestine would do the same. But the land swap would've been moderate.

This would still be the case for a reasonable resolution of the conflict for the short to medium term. But it's more than enough to work on. Israel has gone very much to the right since 2000 more or less. Yes Hamas beat the PLO in Gaza by very little, but they won. I don't know if there's something to the right of Hamas in Gaza. Maybe.

But it wouldn't really make a difference because the situation on the ground in Gaza is dire. So even if they wanted sophisticated missiles, they can't get them. Nor should they seek them either, don't get me wrong.

So, in short, yes. Moderates or at least a compromise towards moderation is the only way.

Sure. Makes sense.

even Kant’s: seemings. — Mww

What is the problem with seemings in Kant? I've read some of him, but I don't recall thinking to myself that this was a problem for his philosophy, unless his thought is confused with Berkeley's

Aren't seemings simultaneously given and (partially or in some important aspects) a priori? I have to continue reading C.I. Lewis on this topic, it's interesting...

Smaller units of stuff implies empirical reductionism, right? For that reason, I stipulated metaphysical reductionism, which pertains to ever smaller units of conception. Prime example......A = A. The logical laws. In Aristotle and Kant, among others perhaps, there are also the categories. Gotta start somewhere and the irreducible offers the least possibility for contradiction. — Mww

Yes. That's the kind that is fashionable nowadays, the empirical one: Dennett, Churchland(s) and (heaven forbid this lunacy) Rosenberg. The latter literally believes "there is nothing but fermions and bosons"... :roll:

He also rejects free will, so there’s two strikes. — Mww

He does. But it's one of those debates that don't seem fruitful to me. I mean, I think it exists but if others deny it, whatever.

But I understand others who find it interesting. That's the nature of philosophy.

It isn't a tautology: moral acts are obligatory because god commands them. However, that doesn't mean that god commands moral acts because they are moral. Those are two very different things. — ToothyMaw

But I'm assuming that people believe that the commands given by God are moral, because they are given by God. He wouldn't command me to do something immoral, surely? I suppose it depends on which religion you have in mind.

There's the whole Abraham and Isaac story I know.

How is it not crystal clear? God commands it, it is right, we should do it. I'm not saying divine command theory is infallible, but it makes ethics very simple. — ToothyMaw

Let me put aside religion just for this paragraph, then I'll put it back in. Why do something moral? Do we know? I often can't give better reasons than asking "how would you feel if X is done to you"? Where X stands in for theft, murder of a friend, etc. But this doesn't seem to me to go deep into morality.

Now back to religion. God commands something, it is right because He says it is right. Why is it right? Because God says so. This seems to me to be equivalent of asking but what's wrong with I did and a police officer replying "it's the law". Yeah, fine. I don't think that's a good reason, much less an argument.

I don't think in either case morality is clear, as in us understanding why we should be moral.

But I may be interpreting this completely wrong, so, I'm not chained to this interpretation.

Metaphysical reductionism asks, nonetheless.....if a thing is true why merely believe it, and, if a mere belief, on what ground can it be true, this first brought to light, of course, by the Socratic dialogues and dialectical arguments in general. Usually partaken by those with nothing better to do. (Grin) — Mww

Sure. But that path of reductionism just leads to ever smaller relations of units of stuff. If that provides a satisfactory answer to those that use such methods, well good for them. It doesn't seem like a very coherent idea to doubt the given in such a manner that it is eventually denied. But what's the basis for the denial if not the given itself? But then there's no reason to trust anything, it seems to me. That's problematic.

As Galen Strawson points out, by quoting Democritus:

"The Intellect speaks first: There seems to be colour, there seems to be sweetness, there seems to be bitterness. But really there are only atoms and the void. But then The Senses reply: Poor Intellect, do you hope to defeat us while from us you borrow your evidence? Your victory is your defeat."

Having nothing better to do can be entertaining, at the very least. :grimace:

those things can indeed be morally obligatory just because he says so. — ToothyMaw

Sure. But it doesn't offer an explanation which isn't tautological as to why you should or should not do X, Y or Z.

Thus, morality is clear as day in the context of religion - even if the principles imparted by god are arbitrary. — ToothyMaw

It may appear clear. Doesn't mean it is. Even in a secular standpoint I does not seem to me that morality is clear in the sense of giving justifications for not doing or doing certain things.

Or that's how it looks like to me.

Their idea of moral behavior (as far as verbal and bodily actions go) is still the one as first modeled by religion. — baker

Maybe. When we first managed to articulate our thoughts many things, if not all things were caused by different kinds of gods. It provides some kind of explanation as to why the world act as it does, including ourselves as well. But calling this religion might be misleading, in that today religion is associated with specific traditions and are rarely used to justify events and behavior in the world.

We could also call it "folk science" or "protoscience" or "folk psychology".

I'm not asking whether morality can be justified without religion. I'm asking whence the idea that it can or should be. Is this just rebellion against religion, or is there something else to it? — baker

Sure. Nowadays it's less rare for many people not to refer to a God or Gods for moral acts. So the idea can be articulated somewhat, without religion. Not that religion makes morality more clear. Just because a deity announces a moral principle to be valid does not make the moral principle itself more important or better stated.

Sure!

I like Kant. But compared to you, I wouldn't dare provide even a bare bones description of what I think he's articulating. I'd be massively embarrassed in mere seconds. So I'll stick to Schopenhauer, Chomsky and what I believe to be true based on things I've read and thought about myself, which can be called roughly "Kantian".

So yes, I think you are correct in this topic. And I think such a philosophy shouldn't even be controversial in general, it should be obvious. But, if it were, we wouldn't be arguing philosophy. And that's not realistic. :wink:

Ok?

If I were a dog, I wouldn't be able to write dogs don't have language.

They seem to lack a science forming faculty as well. But maybe they're hiding the secrets to a unified ToE.

Spoken like a true subjectivist! — counterpunch

Well, we are human beings. Not Gods.

What other realistic scenario exists?

That's quite hard rockish eh? :smile:

Man In The Box - Alice in Chains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46zC6iR2wsg

Correct, but we don’t care about what we see, as much we wish to be certain about our knowledge of what we see. It makes no difference to us what’s out there, we care only about how it relates to us. — Mww

:100: :up:

I prefer to tangle with Box Jellyfish. Pointless and painful, I'm told. :wink:

But different strokes...

Cudworth postulated things in themselves before Kant and Chomsky thinks Cudworth ideas are more interesting than Kant, he doesn't think "things in themselves" are an empty idea.

Kant was a Newtonian which is why he postulated space and time to be a priori. He didn't just postulate things in themselves for the fun of it or trying to be obscure.

On the other hand Schopenhauer was a Kantian and built on that system. One of the portraits hanging in Einstein's office in Berlin were of Faraday, Maxwell and Schopenhauer. He apparently did not think it silly that Schopenhauer built the system he did.

But if it's pufferfish to you, then fine.

I will always stand by Kant's differentiation of phenomena and noumena, because it is the central problem of philosophy, that being 'appearance and reality', and philosophy only ever consists of seeking new ways to re-frame it. — Wayfarer

:100:

Yes. Science gives us models to frame reality. Reality as it appears to human beings, which appear to include aspects of reality that are mind-independent.

But it doesn't go beyond. It can't. Science only goes so far as the phenomenon we study impinges itself on our mode of cognition. But it's still a representation. By postulating things in themselves, we put in a framework that signals "beyond here we cannot venture", in part because we are the creatures we are, and in part because we cannot exhaust nature.

Well bad threads in terms of woo-like subjects at least offers the opportunity for some here to show why such thinking is bad for rational discourse.

Of course, it rarely changes minds. But for others who might be looking at this site, it could be helpful in this negative sense.

Fair enough.

There isn't much to say about it, true.

But it has has epistemic consequences, if it exists.

There is no contradiction in saying science studies reality, but that it does not reach thing in themselves. It needn't even come from Kant, Russell says something similar.

Or to state it differently, I don't see why this would be a problem. Unless you have something specific in mind.

Yes, there are real victims on both sides. What do you mean "even if these victims' circumstances were also caused by the victims themselves?" I agree that there were Jewish leaders who acted atrociously and as collaborators so I'm fine attributing blame to some individual Jews in leadership positions. I don't think I'd go much further than that however. — BitconnectCarlos

Sorry. I worded it badly, All I meant to say that even if the victims situation (the Palestinians expulsion) was caused by victims too (Jews in WWII).

I don't mean to take it further than that.

I haven't typed the words "human nature" until just now. I don't know why it should be a problem, because humans have a nature, being that we are natural creatures like everything else in biology. But it is very complex: everything that humans can do, are part of that nature. But that's for another thread.

I think there are real victims in history: Native Americans all throughout the continent, Jews in WWII, the black population in South Africa during apartheid, etc., etc. And I don't think this should be controversial in the least.

Does this mean that there aren't other factors that could be included in these events? No. You can find almost anything in any group: Blacks in South Africa collaborating with the racist government, Palestinians working with the IDF and so on down the line.

It doesn't change the fact that there are victims, even if these victims circumstances are also caused by victims themselves, as is the case with Jews in WWII.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I see it, but I guess I'm not really understanding the point. Like you said it's subtle. If by free agency you mean the each member in Israel and the Occupied Territories can do different things, as in not get engaged in politics or not identify with any of the ruling political parties or anything else, sure. That happens in virtually all conflict, there's simply too much variety in human beings.

Having said that, what we're speaking here is of the most salient and organized groups of each side. In this case it would be Hamas, the Israeli government and the PLO in the West Bank. We don't mention at the moment other political groups in the Territories nor other political parties in Israel, because for this massacre just now, they're not the main actors. But all people have a range of options available given whatever constraints they have placed on them given life circumstances.

Hamas could not shoot and just be humiliated by Israel as they steal more land and kill more innocent people. It's not as if the Israeli government needs Hamas to kill Palestinians, they do it quite frequently, but it doesn't make the news. Heck they did it before Hamas with the PLO too, also called terrorists.

Where I think you are mistaken is that you seem to think Gazans have a lot of options. They don't.

I think you are all overlooking how much this is just a feeback loop of the extremes. Hamas and Netanyahu should thank each other, they hold everyone else hostage.. They keep each other in power. But yet the general populations are complicit as well, because they too can't get out of the "security/revenge" cycle and so vote the extremes back in because of the very thing they started and perpetuated. Go deeper than the usual blame/victim performance you are all doing. — schopenhauer1

In a certain sense this is correct. It's correct that Israel helped create Hamas to weaken the PLO, which by the time Hamas branched out into a political entity, the PLO was actually making real strides towards a two state solution, circa 2000 ish.

And of course Hamas won in part because they were speaking about taking action against Israel, after much humiliation and land theft. By now, for Israel, Hamas is a gift. A bit like ISIS for the West: we have to defeat them, etc. But you can't defeat them by killing them: they morph into something more ugly at best. Short of Israel removing the blockade and settlements, Hamas will be around, because what else can they do? They have no autonomy in Gaza, despite Israel's rhetoric.

In the respect in which you are wrong is that, again, the people in Gaza don't really have an option. Well, they could just wave at the sky with peace symbols as they're bombed. Or they can try to fight the most sophisticated army in the Middle East and one of the strongest in the world. Israel is keeping Hamas in power, but Hamas doesn't change the situation in Israel much.

For that to change US policy towards Israel has to change. Then we might see real change in the area. But the power disparity between the Occupied Territories and Israel is so vast and massive, that speaking of "two sides keeping each other in power" is a massive exaggeration.

Innatism/Nativism as exemplified in Russell's An Outline of Philosophy and Tallis' The Knowing Animal.

Though neither are innatists as such.

Wittgenstein has a point, not all, but a point:

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.

I don't agree with his "this is the answer" part.

:party: :cheer: :party:

L.A. Woman - The Doors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHXjcdNIN-Q

But I also think it might be important to point out that it's not always trivial separating science from the scientist. It's not as if science is "out there" and we simply re-describe how the mind-independant world works.

People are crucially involved and we can only hope to capture those things which we have the cognitive capacity to map out or describe. In this respect, and trivially too, we can only do science in as far as it's the type of phenomenon human beings can recognize.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/21/jubilation-in-gaza-as-ceasefire-takes-effect-palestine-israel-live

Things are still very tense in Jerusalem...

After all, knowledge is justified true beliefs. — Curious Layman

I don't think so. This restricts whatever "knowledge" is, and includes things such as knowledge by luck or knowledge by accident.

This is probably also tied in with some rather peculiar connotations and uses related to the English word "knowledge".

September - Earth, Wind & Fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk

Perhaps. I have noticed that for the past few years I've posted more to politics-related discussions than philosophy. I guess after 15 years of being here/the old PF I've run out of stuff to say. — Michael

That's interesting. Also a bit worrisome if it happened to me, not that this applies to you at all.

I'd be afraid that there's nothing new that I could learn in philosophy. But there's so much in the tradition. I guess it could also happen that no new topics are of interest to me, then I could see that not being something that would bother me.

Probably true here again. I hope not.

I was hearing about a certain faction in Iraq wanting to get involved if this fighting continued. If this cease fire breaks, they could get involved.

Enough bloodshed already...

I'm quite new here, but I'll give my 2 cents on the general topic. I used to be a consistent poster on another sports-related site, was there for about 6 to 7 years.

It's as other have said, I used to belong to a very nice community of about 7 or 8 people. I guess that lasted for a bit over a year. Inevitably someone says something stupid or irresponsible and it all fell apart quite quickly. I tried to bring it back, but I couldn't: life and all.

I go back once in a blue moon to see it, I think at most I recognize 2 people all of which joined after me. The quality itself has not changed much, I don't think. But site format too much for my taste. If people you recognize don't remain, it's only normal to see these things as "deteriorating".

And maybe in some respects it has, but overall it's similar. Being invested in a place will shade the colour of your glasses. How can it not?

Science as in Sean Carroll, Carlo Rovelli or Noam Chomsky is good.

Science as in Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss is still ok, but is missing quite a bit.

They're going to be the last ones to change.

But when they do they'll claim moral indignation at the world's indifference, bla bla. Nothing new.

Hope this cease fire holds.