Perhaps you might get more mileage out of this thought experiment if you argue that I am this, where "this" denotes the existential intuition that you are something that is part, but also apart of the world.

But staying at the level of "being" or "thinking", we will have trouble, because of the abstraction and uncertainty of these words.

"Materialism is the view that every real, concrete2 phenomenon3 in the universe is physical. It’s a view about the actual universe, and for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume that it is true.

2. By ‘concrete’ I simply mean ‘not abstract’. It’s natural to think that any really existing thing is
ipso facto concrete, non-abstract, in which case ‘concrete’ is redundant, but some philosophers like to say that numbers (for example) are real things—objects that really exist, but are abstract.

3. I use ‘phenomenon’ as a completely general word for any sort of existent, a word that carries no implication as to ontological category (the trouble with the general word ‘entity’ is that it is now standardly understood to refer specifically to things or substances). Note that someone who agrees that physical phenomena are all there are, but finds no logical incoherence in the idea that physical things could be put together in such a way as to give rise to non-physical things, can define materialism as the view that every real, concrete phenomenon that there is or could be in the universe is physical."

I don't understand why you point to my alleged narrow-mindedness, though it could well be the case.

As for the supposed contradiction you raise, I take it to be part of our cognitive constitution. We understand the manifest image (as per Sellars term) and we understand a bit of the scientific image.

We are so constituted that we grasp the two aspects of the world, which are actually different views of the same phenomenon, one being more reflexive and careful (science).

It could easily be the case that some intelligent alien species would see how photons get colours as they are processed in the brain, or they could intuitively understand how gravity or qm works. That's not us.

You have the prerogative to reject this as silly or nonsense. But I personally try to be charitable for a bit, but, we need not be, of course.

You're not alone. Albert Einstein was walking with his friend Abraham Pais one afternoon, when he suddenly stopped and said 'Does the moon cease to exist when nobody's looking at it?' He was asking exactly the same question. I won't address it here though as it's a derailer. — Wayfarer

Well, one could say that the moon being mental is surely a very hard problem. :joke:

Seriously though, I hope I won't forget it but, if the issue arises in some thread, let's bring this up to see how this could be tackled, it's quite a provocative idea.

You could flip this perspective, you know. You're saying that, because we can't define the physical, due to the ambiguous wave-particle nature of matter and the other paradoxes of qm, that it could or must be the case that, if everything exists is physical then the physical must also include the mental. But what if we acknowledged that nothing is completely or only physical, on the grounds that what is physical can never be completely defined, and that what we experience as physical is instead the attribute of a class of cognitive experiences? — Wayfarer

It's a terminological choice, more than substantive one, though there is some substance. The qm phenomena are curious and interesting, but an extremely miniscule part of what I take the physical to be. In this sense I'd want to say that experience is the most fundamental physical fact we are acquainted with, I choose "physical" because I want to emphasize the world out there, which I think exists without me.

We could say that everything is an idea (or experience) or something mental. That's fine, so long as an idea has bearer which is not an idea.

With mental... It's hard. I don't want to say that say, what we call "Mars" is constituted (made of) something mental, I don't think it is. But I grant that whatever we know about Mars comes through experience.

Our commonsense notions lead us astray in regard to the nature of the world. That something can be at the same time a particle and a wave in superposition is a fact about the world, it doesn't make sense to us, too bad, it's what we have.

Yeah, using Straswon's materialism is usually counter-intuitive, so it's hard to express. Materialism as is used today in philosophy means roughly, something like physicSalism, the view that everything can more or less be described by the terms of physics. That's incoherent, it's asking way, way too much of physics, way outside its purview too.

No, by physicalism I mean everything in the world is physical stuff - of the nature of the physical - this means that experience is a wholly physical phenomenon. But if it is true that experience is physical, and history is physical and everything that exists is physical, then clearly the physical goes way beyond what we usually attach to the meaning of the word.

It's a monist claim, usually not accepted because people think that materialism must be physicSalism, I don't think it follows, but I'm in a very small minority here.

“In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding.” -David Hume

:up:

Yes, in a sense modern QM at least, does once and for all demolish the once very popular, and still intuitive belief, of "dead and stupid matter" - we don't know enough about it to conclude this.

All I emphasize is that it's the scientific aspects, which we know much less well than personal experience, hence not knowing what 95% of the universe is, nor knowing how to connect QM with Relativity, heck, not even knowing what a particle is:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/

If we have trouble with a particle, we have some issues in understanding matter as revealed by physics. Experience is by comparison, easier to us, we can empathize, use intuition, pass laws, read novels, tell jokes, read a room, etc. And we tend to do these things without much effort.

Still a whole lot to learn about experience by way of science, but, again, compared to physics, I think it's substantially less problematic, by quite a margin, I'd wager.

I follow Strawson here, everything is physical, and that means everything. It's a terminological choice, but a coherent metaphysical one, which focuses on the nature of the world.

Within the physical (or material) we understand the conscious aspects of it better than anything by far. But there remains a lot of the physical we understand poorly, which is the non-conscious aspects of the physical (or matter).

What's the incoherence in this view, if you could explain it a bit more?

It appears to be a near-universal intuition that mind is somehow different and separate from matter, a form of thinking that sticks with us and appears all over the place. I think we by now have sufficient evidence to show that mind and matter are not distinct (different) ontological categories, but instead should be considered part of the same phenomena, matter, which we do not understand well at all.

However, within matter, the aspect we are most confident about is our conscious experience, so that specific aspect of matter is less obscure.

And if what I'm formulating is roughly on the right track, as I believe it is, it's no wonder some people think of this as a "hard problem", the only issue is that the problem should be reversed. What we don't understand is matter absent consciousness- we study its structural characteristics only - and we do not understand what 95% of the universe even is, though we must assume it's a variation of physical stuff.

Compared to that picture of matter, consciousness shouldn't be as problematic as discussed in the literature. Of course, there's a whole lot we don't know about it, but to think that it's this massive problem is quite misleading, for the given reasons.

I think something like that is true. Occasionally you'll get some scientists say that we don't really understand what gravity is, while many other say that we do know what it is, because it is what it does. The latter explanation is misleading, I think.

But yes, some new phenomena or discovery comes to light that sheds some light into what was already deemed extremely problematic centuries ago, like the hard problem, or machines thinking.

Finally finished Leibniz New Essays, though of course extremely interesting and quite brilliant in parts, he is prone to meandering too much for my patience, so the final part was quite a slog. Worth it in the end.

On to The Philosophical Writings of Descartes.

Hey man good to see you writing about these kinds of things for a change! :smile:

Oh sure, plenty of silly mysticism surrounding this topic. Which is strange, because, as I think you would agree, consciousness is what we are most acquainted with out of everything there is. So the problem must be elsewhere, and lamentably, I agree with Chomsky again (lamentable, because I have difficulty disagreeing with him): the problem is matter, not experience.

We can't understand how the thing we study through physics and biology could possibly lead to experience, that's the problem.

Locke put the issue in a religious matter, which can be interpreted naturalistically, and be on the same page w/Chalmers, or to be more accurate, Chalmers with Locke, as when the latter says:

"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know
whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator."

[Bold added]

Replace "God" with "nature", and you have the hard problem, stated over 300 years ago.

Apologies for the length, I got motivated. :cool:

A solution to the hard problem is to recognize that it is merely one of many.

Back in the 17th century the "hard rock of philosophy" was the problem of motion, in which "motion has effects which we in no way can conceive".

What happened with that problem? It was accepted and science and philosophy continued - in fact, to this day, the hard problem of motion has not been solved, but we work with what we have.

I suspect the same solution applies to today's peculiar hard problem. We have to accept it as fact, as Locke recognized long before Chalmers.

We rarely “put together” most of what comes to us unless we are on a first date or creating a speech, much less can use that as a universal description. (The desire though is that we could control what we mean by what we say, even more than we “always” put it together.) The hoped-for picture here is that there is something (thought, meaning, intention, etc.) that we convey or at least that goes into language (or in this instance is in language systematically). However, for example, when Wittgenstein talks about “expression”, it is to point to the moment at which we are responsible for what we have said—speaking “externally” to this extent only; not to infer it is from something internal. We can also say we speak in expressions; that our words are judged (have importance, are meaningful) by the criteria for threatening, entreating, explaining, describing, etc. But it is not some “we” that do these or cause them to happen. As I have said in my last post, you are individually responsible for what you say, but it is not otherwise special in your having said it. — Antony Nickles

Sure, if you want to be more precise, you can say that we put together what comes to us when we externalize to others what we say, or when we are attempting to get the other person to see what we are trying to say, as I am doing know, replying to what you said.

The rest of it, is pretty much fragmentary and not put together, that's my experience of it anyway.

As for the Wittgenstein comments, I'd phrase it differently. We are responsible for what we say... ok, fine and fair enough. In a sense, we don't take ourselves to be inferring something internal in ordinary conversation.

But I think that the fact of the matter, is that I attempt to tell you what I have in mind, to the extent that when I am saying something, hopefully you will get to see what I say, from my point of view.

That's an ideal of course, we don't reach it, but that's how I understand communication through language.

I don't quite follow what you are trying to say: "But it is not some "we" that do these..."

Yes, I agree, I am responsible for what I say, but what about it is not special?

But isn't it entirely possible that the little voice is a sort of back-construction, the internalisation, as it were, of our external language? — Banno

Quick comment, that's an interesting question. I think Chomsky's idea is that if you introspect into what happening in your head right now, you don't get coherent sentences, sometimes you do, rarely. Usually they are fragments, pieces of words as it were, etc.

This suggests that when we vocalize, we put together these fragments into a coherent whole that another native speaker will understand what we are saying. I suspect that the initial babbling of infants offers a clue of the language faculty growing to maturity.

But your point is worth contemplating.

I'll be sure to look at the articles later, thanks for sharing.

Yeah, all the evils of the world are the lefts fault.

Von Mises on the other hand was gushing with Joy as the Austrian state smashed union workers.

Fine people these guys...

Yep, great quote. He's right, as far as I can see.

Heck even people belonging to the Hayek institute (I'm forgetting the name) say that his summary of Neoliberalism, in Globalists, is quite faithful to the original members.

Indeed. Which is why he refers to Descartes and Cudworth in the tradition, Chomsky is very much an "innatist dospositionalist", experience serves as a trigger for the idea, but the experience is quite fragmentary, and poor compared to what arises in the brain.

He'd say that it would not be possible to explain how experience could possibility lead to such rich concepts.

Apologies if that goes off topic from the OP.

Quinn Slobodian is probably the best source on the topic.

Many definitions have been given, having to do with privatization and letting the market run things etc., etc.

What it is, is a way to "encase" the Market (Slobodian's word) such that those at the top play by the rules they establish and let others play the game.

But it very much needs a nanny state to help out, otherwise it collapses, as it did in 2008 and again during the pandemic.

In case anyone is interested, I believe one of his most interesting books in regards to language is his New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind

I'm not much into the detailed technical debates on philosophy of language, nevertheless:

There's an excellent and quite long series of classes given by Chomsky that go through a lot of material, including Quine. But 1) it is very, very long (almost 20 hours) and 2) the audio quality is quite bad, it's very low. Nevertheless, if anyone want to go through that hurdle, which I did once, was quite interesting, here is a link to the first part of the lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3gFaNYluBQ&list=PLJ8I0IGeFhIpD2_2w71jghsDGCfbtSVF4

And it goes on from that one, from what I can recall, I seem to remember he discusses Quine maybe in lecture 2-4, one of those, but, can't be sure.

That's true. But I suppose you can also add eliminitavism and idealism too. They can argue that those views cover everything.

But it's a matter of emphasis on some aspect of the world, rather than substance, with the exception of eliminitavism.

The psychological factor you mention is susbtantive.

Yep! Quite true, it's a tendency we have in our nature and psychological makeup that makes us seek these things, which is curious.

Why seek unification instead of being content with plurality? From a psychological perspective, it shouldn't matter much.

It likely has something to do with explanations. We ideally want to find out what's basic or fundamental, and the less things we have to postulate, the better it tends to be.

Also, there's something about elegance and simplicity to take into account. One substance or thing is better that two substances, which is better than three, and so on.

Sometimes we can't reduce things further down. But to remain at pluralism, I don't think tells you as much.

That's my intuition anyway.

I didn't take it as a personal criticism. And you are right that some of these mainstream scientists, though in my opinion quite more serious than Chopra, have aspects that could be critiqued, like Dawkins, for instance, who insists that evolution explains everything.

If people get benefit from this, it's good for them. It's not trivial to argue who probably shouldn't be taken seriously. But quality matters too. So, it's dicey.

:up:

The issue of true understanding is important. We can't even really explain why we have these aha! moments, nor would most predict that some human beings would not be satisfied with the idea that an apple falls to the ground because it's going to its natural place. Which is an intuitive answer. But happens to be wrong.

This type of stuff seems to me to be beyond coding. At least for a good long while, if not forever. But, surprises can happen.

Though ChatGPT does do impressive stuff, it has to be granted, one should be very, very worried of the potential of further disinformation, which is bad enough as is.

I just want to show that one cannot put boundaries to any philosophy that talks about these subjects. If that were the case, 80% of the known philosophers would be considered outside boundaries. — Alkis Piskas

That's a bit too far. The word and field lose meaning. Is Charles Manson philosophy? It could be, but it's problematic.

I'm not defending Chopra or his work. Maybe I shouldn't include him among the "representatives" of the new "wave", current or trend in philosophy. I don't know. And, honestly, I don't much care. — Alkis Piskas

I don't disagree with the gist of your thought. I have nothing against "ordinary people" saying and thinking philosophically, in fact, it is very useful.

But you should care if someone like Chopra is taken seriously. It degrades the quality of ones thought.

Other than that, it's matter of emphasis more than substance.

I'd say intellectual honesty and coherence at a basic level.

Who judges? The community of people engaged in philosophy, especially those who make contributions to the tradition.

But it sounds as if you would be willing to allow everything in. I was trying to find an analogy to Chopra, maybe Jordan Peterson or someone like that, but I can't.

If you allow everything in, you aren't going to get minimum quality discussions. This is why journals and publishers have editors. This is why this place has mods. Imagine if these places lacked these things, they'd be a disaster.

He goes on with these scientists in conversations or debates because he sells a lot of books. But most scientists, with the exception of Hoffman and one philosopher, Kastrup, go to argue with him that his conclusions don't follow from his premises, in so far as one can even make sense of them.

I can't of course, judge a person who doesn't know QM well enough, I would have to include myself in the conversation, I read a bit about it, but know almost nothing. What I don't sympathize with is pretending to have profound knowledge when it is not. I think that's devious.

Philosophy should be open to all who want to participate, but it should have minimum standards of quality, otherwise the discipline will lose even more meaning as coherent field, in my opinion.

No.

It seems to me to obfuscate a trivial point, people and life in general will tend to treat you better if you treat them/it well.

But we see thousands of examples to the contrary. And we may be deluding ourselves that we are doing good, when we are not.

Deepak Chopra — Alkis Piskas

Really?

There is a fine line between talking about QM in a serious manner, and using the same terminology for obscure and often meaningless babble.

And although most of us aren't physicists, we should, nevertheless, not encourage people to follow others who can only lead to severe misunderstanding of important topics.

Sounds good. Remind me: did you study under him? Is that why he'll know you? — Mikie

I've emailed him hundreds of times over the years (over 8 years now).

And I also got to meet him personally in MIT, just before he moved to Arizona, though I don't expect him to remember my face, obviously.

If it weren't for the exchanges I had with him, I may have not completed my own thesis. :)

Damn Mikie that's a massive catch! Extraordinary.

If you give him my name, he'll know who it is. By way of reinforcement, could you ask him why he thinks Cudworth is important?

I know what he'll say, but others would benefit from reading his reply, so at least a few people become aware of his existence.

You could copy this exact post, or whatever you think is best.

Ohhh, these look very very interesting, I'll definitely take a look. Many thanks. :cheer:

Is pursuing ideas for their own sake pursuing life for its own sake? I don't think so. If the ideas pursued are about ideas themselves then unless those ideas relate to life they become increasingly removed from the concerns of one's life and the life of others. — Fooloso4

That's tricky. Let's use real life examples, Newton and Einstein.

Newton got his idea of gravity or was motivated to explore the idea, by seeing an apple fall from a tree.

He then went on to pursue this thought and apply it to the moon and the planets.

Einstein was spurred to his ideas on relativity by imagining a person falling off a building, calling it "the happiest thought of my life", then went on to develop his relativity theories by thinking about how light travels and how time is affected by differing speeds.

(Emphasis added)

Maybe there are ideas that are more useless than these, as ideas, but most ideas don't go anywhere. But some could, and it can be fulfilling for those people. These ideas are quite removed from ordinary daily concerns.

The claim that learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live needs to be looked at in context. The context is certain trends contemporary philosophy. Is reading Heidegger a prerequisite of pursing life? — Fooloso4

Ah, OK, this is different than the previous comment taken without this added context. No, I don't think reading Heidegger (or anybody) is a pre-requisite to live life. It's in fact impossible to do so.

What one can say, is that for those interested in Heidegger (or Kant, Einstein, Plato, choose your philosopher or scientist), life may be greatly enriched by encountering such ideas.

Currently reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Amazing so far.

Incidentally, I plan to read Jim Gauer's Novel Explosives for a third time, it really is a masterpiece in fiction, has plenty of philosophy, amazing prose, countless ideas and is actually fun to read. But it is also challenging.

@180 Proof@Jamal

I think both of you will most surely enjoy Novel Explosives, if you are ever in a mood for philosophical, albeit somewhat challenging fiction, I think you cannot go wrong with it. I am under obligation to make propaganda for it, because it's not well known...

I know this isn't aimed at me at all, and that I'm butting in here, but I wanted a bit of clarification on this comment:

I don't quite follow the reasoning of how pursuing ideas for the sake of the pursuit leads to sacrificing pursuing life for its own sake.

I mean, anything we do at any moment, whether it be reading books to gain ideas, or going to the beach is going to sacrifice something else we could be doing.

I rather take it that those of us interested in philosophy engage in a true privilege, being able to use thought for its own sake, which reveals aspects of reality other people take utterly for granted, and thus miss out on what it truly means to be an experiencing being in the fullest sense of the word.

Granted, they make up for this in other ways.

If it's a way of life, it's not because of some ethical system, but because of the possibility of revelation. I don't think a way of living is entailed by pursuing philosophy, but for many others, it can be.

So be it, different strokes and all...

I don't think that there will be such a merger of science and religion/spirituality. These are different aspects of human life. The latter includes issues of meaning and significance within the universe.

Science doesn't make these attributions, we add them to it, if we so choose to do so.

Religion is currently a loaded word, outside of believers, it is very frequently associated with negative connotations associated with fanaticism.

Although far from my favorite word, spirituality, or maybe mysticism, do a better job in being somewhat more neutral than religion.