Damn that's :fire:

I'll take that and I'll raise my stakes to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Ds-FXGGQg

You have good taste in music. :smile:

And I think there is one modern problem that has been solved actually, substance dualism, the view that Descartes argued for. Though when he made it, he had good reasons to do so.

Very few people today would say they are a substance dualist. Although property dualism is a different problem...

:up:

Either way, one learns. :)

I think "experience" might be a good word to use. Experience being occurrent mental events or processes, what's happening now as you read these letters. Then there is the experience of thinking about an idea that you may want to articulate.

One can have experience of that little itch one may have on one's arm, or the experience of closing one's eyes. There's then the experience of breathing through your nose and the experience of seeing a blue sky. There's the experience of walking, as one walks, and the experience of frowning. You can focus on the sound you hear and that would be sound experience. There's the experience of looking at numbers, or of talking, or of being angry or sad, etc.

You may think of a specific memory and as that specific memory comes back, it evokes certain images or sounds, this would be experience too as is happens.

So that's what I propose. We use experience in this broad sense to refer to conscious goings-on. Everything else that is not part of experience at this moment (minus other people who one assumes have experience too) would be non-experiential.

I find it useful. Consciousness tends to have a lot of baggage attached. Experience is a bit less ambiguous.

hey also speak of type C which don't become hyperactive or passive, but just go a bit strange in response to stress, and I think that I probably fall into that category. — Jack Cummins

:lol:

I'm probably passive in these respects.

Yes, I've met people who say that certain experiences just made them change the way they view the world. They either become left wing or right wing and come up with some rather strong conclusions about how society should work. A bit more often than not, it's a series of experiences that does this, but sometimes it's only one.

It makes sense. But it's never applied to me. I just see something good or bad as highlighting good or bad things, it didn't change my way of understanding the world, that came with reason and argument.

But stress is surely an important factor in determining how many people think and (change the way) view the world.

That.

And the remaining problems are quite difficult.

Check this out, it's brief, but worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2i9WPzRbPo

It's a fine line between clarifying a concept and being a slave to the definition you've given. As in, if I say consciousness is to be defined as what-it's-like to be something and someone replies "that's no good, you can't be a rock. Also, can you tell me what it's like to be a bat?" Then we simply get stuck in discussing the definition as opposed to the phenomena.

A definition can be helpful but one has to be careful here.

Defining the hard problem of consciousness is interesting because it remains a key matter in discussions of physicalism, god and mysticism. — Tom Storm

Well, I'm going to sound like a broken record but, I think the so called "hard problem" is an example of being wed too strongly to a mistaken notion: that consciousness is the hard problem. There are many hard problems.

As for the other topics, yes I agree, consciousness is important for them.

It's a hard question. We can ask what is a heart. Some will say it's an organ that's used to pump blood around the body. That's one thing hearts do, maybe the main thing. But a definition of what a heart is doesn't tell us much about actual hearts.

Maybe consciousness is the same thing. It's something that the brain does. It's unlikely that it's even the "main" thing the brain does, but its one of its more surprising properties. And it's likely the greatest gift we've gotten from nature.

I see why you may want to clarify these terms. I'm not sure how useful it's going to be. The simpler the definition the better. Consciousness can be said to be awareness. Self consciousness means awareness of one's being aware. And so on. But defining a term says little about the phenomenon.

The (mathematical) equations of physics seem to pick out extra-mental aspects of the world. Why this is so is a good question.

But "by themselves", it's hard to make out what numbers amount to, much less to figure out why we can even access them at all. It does not seem to provide benefits for evolutionary purposes, outside of say counting with your hands. Beyond that it becomes bizarre.

Sure. We all vary in this respect. An experience can cause you to want to find out why something is so instead of just taking it as an established fact.

It's a good question. I think it depends on how you think of experience. I use it interchangeably with consciousness, so as to not repeat this very word so many times. Life altering experiences of the kind one may have when you see something awful or fascinating haven't really changed how I view things. They're just that powerful experiences.

The experience that I associate with changing my views is when I read things or when someone tells me something I did not know. So when I learned a bit about Kant's ideas of "things in themselves", that was mind-boggling. So it was when I learned, way back when I was a kid that colours reflect from objects.

I was also quite taken aback when I read Strawson's Real Materialism as well as Chomsky's explaining of how we recognize objects via psychic continuity and not physical properties.

So in short, yes, for me personal experiences have been impactful, within the context of taking experience to include reading. Real life examples only emphasize some aspect or other of the world.

Given that that's what you reduce life to - a succession of painful events - then of course you're correct.
If pain is bad, then so is life. But it is a tautology.

And it's an easy line of thinking. If you can prevent people from having babies, then you don't have to worry about those who are alive and suffering now. That's a bit more difficult to address, it seems to me.

There's just one problem, which many here have already pointed out: life is about clearly more than pain alone.

You need to justify the claim the life is mostly about pain.

Yeah that's not depressing haha. — schopenhauer1

I didn't say it wasn't? But we should try and do something about it, if not for future generations, for all the animals we are killing for no reason other than extraction of resources and consumption. If we all disappeared today, we wouldn't have helped other life at all. That's bad in general.

So as long as Willy can keep his contestants from feeling forced, the game itself is okay for Willy to perpetuate and continue to force? — schopenhauer1

If contestants do not feel forced, what's the problem? People aren't as stupid as is sometimes assumed, they know when they're being used.

And those that don't like this at all have a way out. Not an easy one, clearly, but the option exists. And in the end we all exit the factory anyway. Why not enjoy what we can instead of complaining about it?

Jeez man, I'm generally a very pessimistic person and have pretty bad mood swings.

Yet you make me feel like I have panglossian views about the world.

Isn't there a major connection to these two ideas? — schopenhauer1

There is according to AN. Most people do not subscribe to AN. So it looks to me as if you wanted people to feel bad for merely existing. Or alternatively, you just try to make people see how bad life is. I don't see how doing this is a benefit, if you succeed in persuading one person, you've just made them miserable.

There are other ways to inform people about the downsides of having children...

Can't you say that about any philosophical point? Doesn't philosophy have lots of (seemingly) unintuitive points that on further reflection become more understandable? — schopenhauer1

I don't see the benefit in persuading people from the perspective of AN. Other philosophical points are meant, or I think should be made, to help other people, not to depress them. You don't need AN to point out serious issues that can be addressed, such as climate change.

No Willy Wonka has provided plenty of jobs.. it looks something like our world. Aren't I great for forcing my players into my awesome world? — schopenhauer1

I agree that in my case, having children would be a mistake. Irrespective of that if you just look at kids, the vast majority of them are fascinated by the world. So it's only "forced" on that small percentage that think life is a mistake. It's a small minority. Otherwise, the issue of being forced to live doesn't arise.

:ok:

Future Starts Slow by The Kills

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

Got this song stuck in my head like a sound-worm. :cheer:

You can holler, you can wail
You can swing, you can flail
You can fuck like a broken sail

But I'll never give you up
If I ever give you up my heart will surely fail

And after all God can keep my soul
England to have my bones
But don't ever give me up
I could never get back up when the future starts so slow

No longing for the moonlight
No longing for the sun
No longer will I curse the bad I've done
If there's a time when the feelings gone, I wanna feel it

You can holler, you can wail
You can blow what's left of my right mind
You can swing, you can flail
You can blow what's left of my right mind
(I don't mind)

There's a time for the second best
And there's a time when the feeling's gone
But it's hard to be hard I guess
When you're shaking like a dog

You can holler, you can wail
You can blow what's left of my right mind
You can swing, you can flail
You can blow what's left of my right mind

You can holler, you can wail
You can blow what's left of my right mind
You can swing, you can flail
You can blow what's left of my right mind
(I don't mind)

You can blow what's left of my right mind
You can blow what's left of my right mind
You can holler, you can wail
You can blow what's left of my right mind

I never got around to asking you a question you've probably been asked many times, but I'll take this opportunity if you don't mind. Math was always a weak point for me.

Is "pure" mathematics, meaning, mathematics that does not apply to the world (via physics, for example), something invented or discovered?

s the tree a tree, or is it part of a forrest? The difference seems to be in what context the object (in this case, the tree) is thought about, or how we visualize an object. — Don Wade

This is an epistemic claim, correct? This isn't a factual claim about the world. As in we designate trees as trees and trees as belonging to forests.

It also seems that sometimes we do not acknowledge a context. We may only visualize an object (no context). — Don Wade

It depends on what the aim of your inquiry is for. If you want to make a painting you can attempt to copy what you see, if you want to find out how such an object grows in a mind independent manner, then you'd do some kind of scientific enquiry. If you want to do philosophy of language, you can do many things with said object.

I think that part of the reason we ignore context is because we need to be able to discern something quickly. If we took in as much as we could any time we interact with an object, it might be too taxing for us.

I think this is a good point in general.

Nevertheless if you spend a considerable amount of time developing a certain view, it should take an enormous amount of evidence to show why you are wrong.

After all who are we to deny in someone who believes in The Flying Spaghetti Monster after much deliberation? We have to establish some epistemic boundaries.

There's humility and there's limited time to attempt to come up with the best answer you can, given who you are. We're not all Bertrand Russell.

So it's a fine line.

Computer language is fine so long as one does not suppose the brain to literally be a computer, only in a different from. For clarifying purposes it's ok, but I'd be careful.

But yes, the topic of possible questions we can ask is intimately related to our nature. Technically speaking, the number of questions is infinite, but if we want answers with some depth to them, then meaningful answers will be constrained by our nature.

In that respect I agree entirely with:

in the sense there may exist other possible worlds that have a completely different metaphysical language or logic outside the usual categories of human thought. — 3017amen

And this point isn't stressed enough, I think. It's very important point.

I think that using computers to analyze the mind/brain and the universe can be misleading in the sense that the brain does what it does and is different from a computer in many crucial respects, not least of which is biology.

But putting that aside, and getting to the post: it depends on the question asked and what domain of knowledge you want to elucidate. The deepest questions we can ask about the universe, which we can get some theoretically rich answers come from physics. So if properly posed, we may get some type of answer to these questions, not anything beyond that. Wheeler wrote about this topic in his "it from bit doctrine", except that he thought we could only get "yes"-or-"no"-type answers to these questions.

As we move up in levels of complexity, the questions we ask about the world may not have an answer. We may not know enough to ask nature the proper questions. So the proportional part of the question only arises if the questions we ask correctly capture some aspect of the mind-independent world.

I've always considered old Georg an obscurant, occulting, charlatan (must be my Schopenhauerian / Feuerbachian bias pace Žižek et al) — 180 Proof

:rofl:

:100:

I just heard this this morning and I came to this thread to post just this, but you beat me to it, so here's to synchronicity. — Hanover

That just means you have good tastes and we're on the same wavelength. :cool:

There are many great lines in the song, such as this one. What I like about the song in general is how it manages to mess up with one's notion of time. Lyrically, this one is quite special.

Not just the lyrics, but the title itself, the imagery of being tangled up in blue, so difficult to get out of, but you know will, you just have to keep trying. I think we've all been there, making not such great decisions along the way. — Hanover

Yes. It's not even clear that we are capable of untangling ourselves. Then again, there are many interpretations that could be given of this song.

I guess we'll meet again someday on the avenue...

I like the title, I think it's true.

Isn't life strange
A turn of the page
A book without light
Unless with love we write;
To throw it away
To lose just a day
The quicksand of time
You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry — Amity

I like the type of the music and the lyrics are poetic.

I think losing a few days is necessary. We pay way too much attention on achievement and not enough on just being and taking in. It is mistake. :)

I don't understand something. What's the endgame with these types of arguments? Do you want to convince people that life is a pain-ridden mistake or do you want people to not have babies?

If people don't share these intuitions, I don't understand why AN continue arguing so frequently on these points.

As per your OP, is Willy Wonka the only option? Are there other jobs or hobbies that are meaningful? If there are other places outside Willy Wonka's factory, that may be worth pursuing. If Willy Wonka is all there is in the world, then people will have to see what works for them.

If it's the only posstible option in the world, the morality of Willy Wonka does not arise.

Beautiful lyrics. :smile:

A deep song, eh? I think I have one. :wink:

Tangled in Blue - Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKcNyMBw818

Early one morning, the sun was shining
I was laying in bed
Wondering if she'd changed it all
If her hair was still red

Her folks, they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough

And I was standing on the side of the road
Rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the east coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues getting through

Tangled up in blue

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess
But I used a little too much force
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out west

Split up on a dark, sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was walking away
I heard her say over my shoulder
"We'll meet again someday on the avenue"

Tangled up in blue

I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I's lucky for to be employed
Working for a while on a fishing boat
Right outside of Delacroix
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind
I seen a lot of women

But she never escaped my mind and I just grew
Tangled up in blue

She was working in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer
I just kept looking at the sight of her face
In the spotlight so clear

And later on when the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said, "Tell me, don't I know your name?"
I muttered something underneath my breath
She studied the lines on my face

I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe
Tangled up in blue

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello, " she said
"You look like the silent type"
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue

I lived with them on Montagüe Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafés at night
And revolution in the air

Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside

And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue

So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't what they do with their lives
But me, I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view

Tangled up in blue

That's what I suspected you'd argue at the beginning. I guess others here will be able to give you some ideas on how to think about this type of philosophy. I can't say much because I think the basis for such a view is not coherent. So we won't get far, I don't think.

I'm sure others here could sharpen your eliminitavist views or challenge you. :cool:

Any suggestions? — Brock Harding

I'm not sure. If you give arguments as to what your arguing for or against, then you could say something like "Mind is fundamental, not matter." Something like that.

Ah. My bad. :sweat:

I think this may prove an interesting angle. What models of reality are in competition with your version of physicalism? Nature of consciousness? Subjective experience? — Tom Storm

Sure. Those who agree or sympathetic to Dennett and Churchland have to address this question, which they have to some degree.

My physicalism includes consciousness as is ordinarily understood in everyday living. I'm only saying that consciousness is physical, it is the fact of existence of which we are most confident, not that there's a particular problem with our experience of the world.

Quantum mechanics may say something perhaps, as in Penrose and Hammeroff idea microtubules interacting with quantum phenomena. It's not the view which is too popular, but it's an option.

That makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

I also think there may be an element of us wanting to feel better about ourselves so we put the good in some otherworldy domain and try to imbue the bad with human error or folly, or the nebulous term "evil".

But if you attribute to God evil, then there are less paradoxes. Not that this means such a thing exists, we are simply attributing all human attributes to a "supreme Being" and dialing our attributes to infinity...

It's really hard to find a full quote, as the work is not translated into English yet, but this snippet given by spirit-salamander (who may be a poster here I suppose) captures some of the essence of the metaphor:

"The only objection that can be made to my metaphysics is this: the ultimate goal of the world need not be nothing; it can also be paradise. But the objection is untenable.
First, the pre-worldly deity [God] had the omnipotence to be as he wanted. If he had wanted to be a lot of pure and noble beings, he would have been able to satisfy his wish at once and a process would not have been necessary.

Secondly, it cannot be said that the process had to take place because the Godhead was not a pure Godhead; the process purifies it. For this statement is first destroyed by the omnipotence of God, then by the fact that the essence of God is completely veiled in the human spirit. Who then gives me the right to say that God is an impure God?"

- Philip Mainländer

The idea is that before this plurality of entities we see in the world, there must have been a singularity. This singularity can be called "God". This so called God was a simple entity, he could do whatever he wished. But "he" decided that existence was so bad, that instead of creating a paradise, he choose to kill himself. And he thus the universe and plurality arose. We are the rotting corpse of God, heading to annihilation.

I'm sure I'm missing some details, but I think the main point is given. I don't know why, but the idea of "God" killing himself is haunting, in a certain way...

Well if we attribute to God the highest and noblest, why not attribute to Him the lowest and most degenerate?

If God were not only the author of the good, but also of the bad, there would be less brain-wrecking than trying to explain how the bad could possibly exist if an omnipotent being is responsible.

I never understood why and the answers given seemed evasive. If God permits good, he permits evil. Then we are left with an image of an omnipotent being which is not "benevolent", in any way that we understand that term.

And that's perfectly fine, but you need to give some argument as to why mind is fundamental or everything we need.

Stating this to be the case does not seem to say much as to why the soul is important. It's only a postulate at this point.

Hey, it takes a little while to sink in but what I am saying is that the soul is the mind. — Brock Harding

That looks like different words for the same phenomena. Which is fine.

Do we really need to know how the mind is created to know it works? Of course how it works is also interesting but doesn't precludes it's existence. — Brock Harding

No we don't. We just have experience, with little clue as to how it works at all.

But it seems you might be wanting to say something more about the soul than this?

Ah. Gotcha.

So you'd like to make consciousness explainable by states in the brain, that type of thing?

I'm sympathetic to certain strands of idealism, but I think there might be something unclear here.

As you have a mind you have a soul or spirit. By regarding the mind itself as a soul/spirit you can now revisit current theologies with a fresh perspective and the certainty that your soul/spirit is undeniably real and has always existed within you whatever your beliefs or doubts. — Brock Harding

What would be the difference between a mind and a soul? Could you explain that a bit more? As far as I can see, I think soul is another word for mental phenomena, likely encapsulating certain physiological aspects too, but I'm unclear as to why the soul is something distinct from mind...

There is another physicalism discussion open on the thread right now. — T Clark

Yes, but I'm seeing that one is 5 months old, does that not count as bumping a thread?

I would defined physicalism as : A exist if and only if A is a necesary variable of a measurement of the natural science as such the natural science couldn't explain the measurement without it. — Nzomigni

So any view that think that there is more to reality than what the sciences say would be making a mistake or what would they be doing wrong?

I'm hesitant to say much on this, because I think we might be on opposite sides of the argument. But since I don't know that yet, I'll give it a quick shot.

It depends on what you mean by "physicalism" and what such a view would entail and what your arguing against. I like Strawson's "real materialism". What does this view suggest? That everything that exists is physical. This should not be taken to mean that that everything is physicSal, meaning reducible to physics.

On this view consciousness, what you are reading now, what you see when you look to the side, what you hear as you listen to music or taste ice cream, is wholly physical too. Consciousness is fact about the physical - nature, if you will - that we're most confident in having "merely" by having it.

Why use "physical" instead of something else? Because I'm interested in the world out there and I don't think that what's out there is all a product of my mind. If this is unconvincing, then you may use whatever label you wish. The main point here is that dualism cannot be properly formulated.

What is your physicalism arguing against?