The Hard Problem of Consciousness & the Fundamental Abstraction

Reply to frank

See his paper Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism

Reply to Fooloso4
I have.

Quoting Dfpolis

I suggest you reread the text.

That doesn't seem to help. "the rock is hard" sure looks like a predication, despite your protests to the contrary.

The upshot is that your reversion to Aristotelian logic looks like a devolution. But go for it, if you think it helps.

Quoting Banno

"the rock is hard" sure looks like a predication

I am not denying that it is a predication, only your reading of what is identical.

Reply to Dfpolis Ok. So what is "identical"?

Aristotelian logic failed to clearly differentiate "=", ? " and the "is" of predication. Returning to those ambiguities is not a step forward.

Doubtless I am wrong that this is what you are doing; but thats what I gleaned from what you wrote.

Correct me.

Quoting Banno

So what is "identical"?

The source of the concepts and .

Quoting Dfpolis

It is organized by laws of nature

Are you claiming that those laws are not simply descriptive? That matter is somehow made to conform to laws that exist prior to and independent of it?

Quoting Dfpolis

... knowing what matter can become is insufficient to say what it will or does become.

I agree, but it does not become whatever it becomes haphazardly and randomly. The insufficiency is on our part. That does not mean that we will never know. No doubt AI will help make up for our deficiencies.

Quoting Dfpolis

Finally, even if we could predict which atoms of the primordial soup will come to compose my brain, that does not reduce consciousness to a physical basis

Neither does it rule out the possibility that the physical system has the capability for consciousness. It does not mean that something is missing and must be added on.

Quoting Fooloso4

Are you claiming that those laws are not simply descriptive? That matter is somehow made to conform to laws that exist prior to and independent of it?

If there were no laws of nature in reality to describe, then the descriptions of physics (call them "the laws of physics") would be fictions. Further, the laws are not invented, but discovered, and you cannot discover what does not exist.

As for priority, there can be no actual laws without matter for them to operate on, and matter would be formless without laws to specify its forms. So, they have to be concurrent.

Quoting Fooloso4

it does not become whatever it becomes haphazardly and randomly.

We agree. It is informed by the laws of nature.

Quoting Fooloso4

Neither does it rule out the possibility that the physical system has the capability for consciousness.

Obviously, whole humans are normally conscious beings, and they are physical. Still, the concept is an abstraction, and generally what is abstracted away is intentional reality. So, the question is: does your concept contain intentional notes of comprehension? In other words, when you say "physical" do you mean to include intentional realities such as knowing, willing, hoping, etc.? As "physical" is used in the context of physics, intentional realities are excluded. That is what I meant when I wrote that physics has no intentional effects. Since human life includes such realities, "physical" does not exhaust human nature. So, we are more than "physical" in this sense.

So, to say that a purely "physical" system can preform intentional operations, you have to redefine "physical." If you do not, you are equivocating.

Quoting frank

Chalmers doesn't endorse any particular theory of consciousness.

If you mean he declares it true then you are right, but he does endorse it in the sense of give support to it.

From his article The Puzzle of Conscious Experience:

Toward this end, I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic.

And from the paper cited above:

For present purposes, the relevant sorts of mental states are conscious experiences. I will
understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical entities are conscious: that
is, that there is something it is like to be a quark or a photon or a member of some other
fundamental physical type.(1)

In this article I will present an argument for panpsychism. Like most philosophical
arguments, this argument is not entirely conclusive, but I think it gives reason to take the view
seriously. Speaking for myself, I am by no means confident that panpsychism is true, but I am
also not confident that it is not true. This article presents what I take to be perhaps the best
reason for believing panpsychism. A companion article, “The Combination Problem for
Panpsychism”, presents what I take to be the best reason for disbelieving panpsychism.

Quoting Dfpolis

The source of the concepts and .

So you want to say something like that the source of the concept "the rock is hard" is not a predication but an identity?

That seems to me to be just the sort of thing that too great a reliance on Aristotelian logic would involve.

You want to claim that the source of the concepts "hard" and "this rock" are identical. But being a rock and being hard are not the very same things, not like 1+1 is the very same thing as 2, or like Tully is the very same thing as Cicero.

Nor is it at all clear what the source of a concept might be. Concepts are sometimes erroneously conceived of as mental furniture, as things inside the mind to be pushed around, repositioned in different arrangements. Concepts are sometimes better understood as abilities than as abstract objects. There then need be no discreet concept of "hard" situated somewhere in the mind, or in the brain, but instead a propensity to certain outputs from a neural net, which includes the construction of certain sentences such as "this rock is hard" - along connectionist lines.

Indeed, I'll offer connectionist models of representation as far superior to a regression to Aristotelian models.

Quoting Fooloso4

If you mean he declares it true then you are right, but he does endorse it in the sense of give support to it.

He's arguing that it should be on the table in our quest for a theory of consciousness. He has also praised Dennett's ingenuity as the type of creative mindset we'll need to begin creating a theory. In other words, he doesn't think there is any viable theory of consciousness at this time. Therefore, there is none to endorse.

Toward this end, I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic.

Yes. Again, this is what he thinks is required in order to lay the groundwork for a theory of consciousness. It isn't a theory in itself. You've misunderstood his intent if you thought so.

Quoting Dfpolis

If there were no laws of nature in reality to describe, then the descriptions of physics (call them "the laws of physics") would be fictions.

Surely you know that some physicists hold that the laws are the descriptions of the behavior of matter.

Quoting Dfpolis

In other words, when you say "physical" do you mean to include intentional realities such as knowing, willing, hoping, etc.? As "physical" is used in the context of physics, intentional realities are excluded.

When I say physical I mean that consciousness is not given to or added on to beings that are conscious. They are physical beings that have developed the capacities of knowing, willing, hoping, etc.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, to say that a purely "physical" system can preform intentional operations, you have to redefine "physical."

I have but you rejected it. The theory is that matter is self-organizing. At higher levels of organization capacities that were not present at lower levels emerge.

Reply to frank

Right, he does not have a scientific theory, that is, one that has stood the test of time.

In his own words:

I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious

.

Quoting Fooloso4

Right, he does not have a scientific theory, that is, one that has stood the test of time.

He's never proposed to have a scientific theory of consciousness. One would have to be almost completely ignorant of his work to think otherwise.

Quoting Fooloso4

The theory is that matter is self-organizing.

Doesn't this imply that matter is capable of intentional action?

Reply to frank
Quoting Chalmers, Facing Up to The Problems of Consciousness

At this point some are tempted to give up, holding that we will never have a theory of conscious experience. McGinn (1989), for example, argues that the problem is too hard for our limited minds; we are "cognitively closed" with respect to the phenomenon. Others have argued that conscious experience lies outside the domain of scientific theory altogether.

I think this pessimism is premature. This is not the place to give up; it is the place where things get interesting. When simple methods of explanation are ruled out, we need to investigate the alternatives. Given that reductive explanation fails, nonreductive explanation is the natural choice.

Although a remarkable number of phenomena have turned out to be explicable wholly in terms of entities simpler than themselves, this is not universal. In physics, it occasionally happens that an entity has to be taken as fundamental. Fundamental entities are not explained in terms of anything simpler. Instead, one takes them as basic, and gives a theory of how they relate to everything else in the world. For example, in the nineteenth century it turned out that electromagnetic processes could not be explained in terms of the wholly mechanical processes that previous physical theories appealed to, so Maxwell and others introduced electromagnetic charge and electromagnetic forces as new fundamental components of a physical theory. To explain electromagnetism, the ontology of physics had to be expanded. New basic properties and basic laws were needed to give a satisfactory account of the phenomena.

Reply to Paine

Yes. Are you posting that to agree or disagree with me?

Reply to frank
Both, I guess. He has not presented a theory to explain consciousness, but he is saying there could be one.

Isn't that what is being sought after or abandoned as a hopeless cause?

Quoting Paine

Both, I guess. He has not presented a theory to explain consciousness, but he is saying there could be one.

Isn't that what is being sought after or abandoned as a hopeless cause?

There are those who argue that a theory of consciousness isn't possible. Chalmers believes it is possible.

Reply to frank
Yes. How do you see that against the background of the essay presented by DF Polis?

Quoting Wayfarer

Doesn't this imply that matter is capable of intentional action?

At a sufficient level of organization, yes.

Quoting Paine

Yes. How do you see that against the background of the essay presented by DF Polis?

His article argues that functionality can't be explained by examining the physiology of the CNS. Whether or not this is true has no bearing in whether a theory of consciousness is possible.

Reply to frank

But the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense. See for example Theories of Consciousness in Nature.com

Quoting Fooloso4

Doesn't this imply that matter is capable of intentional action?
— Wayfarer

At a sufficient level of organization, yes.

But there must be some level of intention to reach a sufficient level of organisation in the first place. (I'll leave it there until I finish the article.)

Reply to Fooloso4
That article is behind a paywall. One of the theories mentioned in the abstract is IIT. Chalmers has offered his thoughts about the pros and cons of that approach, specifically what he thinks it would need to accomplish it's goal. At present, it's only a broad outline. I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make.

Reply to frank
Why does it have no bearing when the question of what can be reduced to a function is the center of both enquiries?

Quoting Banno

So you want to say something like that the source of the concept "the rock is hard" is not a predication but an identity?

I said what I wanted to say in my article: One and the same reality must be the source of both the subject and predicate concepts for the judgement to be true. If one reality elicits and a different reality elicits , the judgement (not concept) is unjustified.

You keep saying, despite the text of my article, that I am claiming the subject and predicate are identical. They are not. Perhaps you believe that concepts can only be different if the object eliciting them is different. That is a misconception. One and the same object can elicit many concepts: e.g. , , , , , etc., etc.

Quoting Banno

Nor is it at all clear what the source of a concept might be.

Again, reading my article resolves this: "If we are aware of feeling a stone, we can abstract the concept . Then, being aware that the identical object elicits both and , we link these concepts to judge , giving propositional knowledge." (p. 110) Clearly, the stone we are feeling is the source of the relevant concepts.

Quoting Banno

Concepts are sometimes erroneously conceived of as mental furniture, as things inside the mind to be pushed around, repositioned in different arrangements. Concepts are sometimes better understood as abilities than as abstract objects. There then need be no discreet concept of "hard" situated somewhere in the mind, or in the brain, but instead a propensity to certain outputs from a neural net, which includes the construction of certain sentences such as "this rock is hard" - along connectionist lines.

I have taken none of these positions. I said, "the concept is not a thing, but an activity, viz. the actualization of an apple representation’s intelligibility." (p. 109). Surely, you will agree that we have neural representations and are aware of some of their contents.

Quoting Banno

Indeed, I'll offer connectionist models of representation as far superior to a regression to Aristotelian models.

You seem to think that connectionism is an alternative to my analysis. It is not. I have no fundamental problem with connectionism. In fact, I invoked it to make one of my points (p. 99). What connectionism tells us, if true, is how representations are generated, instantiated and activated. It does not even attempt to explain how we become aware of the contents they encode -- how their intelligibility becomes actually known.

Quoting Paine

Why does it have no bearing when the question of what can be reduced to a function is the center of both enquiries?

Function can be reduced (explained) by neuroscience. This is Chalmers' "easy problem."

Neuroscience has been pretty successful here.

Reply to frank
You are dodging the challenge to your challenge in relation to reduction in regard to you saying, "whether a theory of consciousness is possible."

Quoting Paine

?frank
You are dodging the challenge to your challenge in relation to reduction in regard to you saying, "whether a theory of consciousness is possible."

Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.

You said:

Quoting frank

His article argues that functionality can't be explained by examining the physiology of the CNS. Whether or not this is true has no bearing in whether a theory of consciousness is possible.

You assert this as a self evident fact. It is not self evident to me. Chalmers went to some effort to argue otherwise. Thus my quote from his initial essay.

Reply to Paine I was talking about the OP's article.

Reply to frank
Me too.

I was responding to your summary of the article.

Quoting Fooloso4

Surely you know that some physicists hold that the laws are the descriptions of the behavior of matter.

The laws of physics are such descriptions. Still, if there were not some reality (the laws of nature) making matter behave that way, the descriptions would have no predictive value. Suppose I accurately described your behavior on a particular day. I could only use it to predict your future behavior if the description revealed some consistent dynamic -- perhaps a habit. So my ability to predict would not be based on having a description per se, (for most of it would not be repeated), but on the dynamic the description revealed. In the same way, without the assumption of universal laws of nature guiding the behavior of matter, theoretical physics would be inapplicable to new cases.

Quoting Fooloso4

When I say physical I mean that consciousness is not given to or added on to beings that are conscious. They are physical beings that have developed the capacities of knowing, willing, hoping, etc.

Yes. Yet, that is saying what is, not why it is. The idea of reductionism, which I am opposing, is that we can deduce consciousness by applying the laws of physics to the physical structure of human beings. I am saying that we could only do so if physics predicted intentional effects, and it does not.

Quoting Fooloso4

I have but you rejected it. The theory is that matter is self-organizing. At higher levels of organization capacities that were not present at lower levels emerge.

Let's put aside how matter comes to be organized (whether by itself, or by the laws of nature). We can agree that over time, more complex structures have evolved. Most people (including me) would agree that evolution is fully consistent with physics. I agree also that new capacities, such as nutrition, growth and reproduction, have resulted.

These are physical, not intentional, capacities. So, there is no reason to think that they transcend the bounds of physics. Consciousness is not physical, but intentional, and so it is beyond the capacity of physics to explain. This does not tell us how consciousness comes to be. It only tells us that however it comes to be, physics is inadequate to explain it. Consciousness is correlated with a high level of physical organization, but correlation is not causation. So, complex organization is not an explanation either.

Quoting frank

I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make.

The point is Quoting Fooloso4

the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense.

From the abstract:

Recent years have seen a blossoming of theories about the biological and physical basis of consciousness. Good theories guide empirical research, allowing us to interpret data, develop new experimental techniques and expand our capacity to manipulate the phenomenon of interest. Indeed, it is only when couched in terms of a theory that empirical discoveries can ultimately deliver a satisfying understanding of a phenomenon. However, in the case of consciousness, it is unclear how current theories relate to each other, or whether they can be empirically distinguished. To clarify this complicated landscape, we review four prominent theoretical approaches to consciousness: higher-order theories, global workspace theories, re-entry and predictive processing theories and integrated information theory.

This use of theory does not conform to the restrictive sense you want to reserve it for. Unless you clarify what sense of 'theory' you mean your denial is misleading.

Reply to Fooloso4
Sure. Look to context to understand usage.

Quoting Dfpolis

Still, if there were not some reality (the laws of nature) making matter behave that way

Well, that is one opinion. Law of nature are not some outside force that acts on nature. Surely you are aware that not all physicists hold to your concept of laws. It is because things behave in an orderly way that formulating laws is possible.

Quoting Dfpolis

Yet, that is saying what is, not why it is.

Why do you think it is?

Quoting Dfpolis

So, there is no reason to think that they transcend the bounds of physics.

Perhaps consciousness does not transcend the bounds of physics either, only our current understanding of physics.

I started reading this carefully with some quotes and counters, then got to about section 4 and started skimming.

First, this paper needs more focus. About half way through I forgot what you were even trying to show. You jump from this idea, to that idea from this philosopher, to over here, and I don't see a lot of commonality between them. You could probably cut your paper by quite a bit and still get to the point that you want.

Second, maybe you do understand what the hard problem is, but I had a hard problem in seeing that.

"I shall argue that it is logically impossible to reduce consciousness, and the intentional realities
flowing out of it, to a physical basis."

First, are you a neuroscientist? This is an incredibly bold claim. A neuroscientist will tell you, "We don't yet understand everything about the brain yet." Second, what about the easy problem of consciousness? We know if we give you some drugs, we can alter your conscious state. A man caught a disease and can no no longer see in color due to physical brain damage.

There is more than enough evidence that consciousness results from a physical basis. The hard problem really boils down to "What is it like to be another conscious being?" We can look at a brain, but we can't experience the brain from the brain's point of view. Does that mean that we don't need physical medium for consciousness to exist? No, we do. We can see the physical combination of factors that consistently result in certain conscious experiences for individuals. This is how brain surgery works. What a brain surgeon cannot do is BE you. No one can as of yet do some alteration of the mind and suddenly experience what it is like to experience exactly what you do.

"Does the Hard Problem reflect a failure of the reductive paradigm?"

No, not at all. The hard problem reflects the failure in our ability to experience what it is like to be another conscious being. We can reduce plenty of conscious experiences to brain states. But we can't be that brain state. We can reduce that brain state to its physical components, but its subjective experience is outside of our ability to understand. Reductionism does not fail in what it does. Reductionism does not attempt to claim what a subjective experience is like. Reductionism is a ruler that measures a mile, but it cannot tell you, nor try to tell you, what it is like to be that mile having the experience of being measured.

"I define ‘emergence’ as a logical property, viz. the impossibility of deducing a phenomenon from
fundamental principles, especially those of physics. Emergence can be physical, epistemological,
or ontological."

This is not what emergence means. "Emergent properties are the characteristics gained when an entity at any level, from molecular to global, plays a role in an organized system."
https://study.com/academy/lesson/emergent-properties-definition-examples.html

"However, absent a solution to the Hard Problem, believing consciousness to be
purely neural requires an act of faith."

I can give you one better example. Plants do not have neurons. And yet we find plants react to the world in a way that we consider to be conscious. A wiki article for you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology)#:~:text=Plants%20do%20not%20have%20brains,computation%20and%20basic%20problem%20solving.

It has long been concluded that neurons are not needed for consciousness. Almost certainly AI will inevitably, if not somewhere already, be labeled as conscious. We'll be able to look at the program of an AI and go, "That right there is needed for the AI to be conscious." Will we know what its like to feel like a conscious AI? No. That is the hard problem, not that its consciousness can't be reduced to the physical processes it runs.

If the point was to show that we should describe consciousness through potency and act, I confess not understanding how you got there. You kept referencing so many different philosophers and their viewpoints that I was unable to really glean your own. So many of the references just don't seem needed, and got in the way of the overall point I feel you were trying to make. I can tell you're well learned, and I know a lot of hard work went into that though. I just don't feel its very clear in making its point, seems to have some questionable assumptions and definitions, and ultimately feels like it loses its focus with a poor finish.

Reply to Philosophim :up:

Reply to Philosophim :fire: :100:

Quoting Dfpolis

I invite comments pro and con.

Before I start, I want to be clear. I have only an engineer's interested, amateur understanding of cognitive science or philosophy of mind. I also admit to just scanning the linked article. I am not well-read enough to make a line-by-line response to your detailed and careful argument.

To start, it's very well written. Clear and thorough. I don't think I've read a better one here on the forum. But then, I find it flawed and unconvincing. The article states:

Dfpolis:I see two sources of difficulty: the post-Cartesian conceptual space, and the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science.

This indicates the problems with the scientific study of consciousness are philosophical, logical, not scientific. That shows my primary problem with your argument - you have shuffled the decks of philosophy and science together to provide a muddled, makeshift argument. When you deal out a science card you often make blanket pronouncements without support. You make a quick arm-wave to current cognitive scientific study of consciousness without showing you have given them a fair hearing. You talk about a Standard Model of neurophysiology which, as far as I can tell, is a concept you came up with yourself. I can't find any reference to it with a quick web search.

I share your skepticism about a reductionist scientific understanding of consciousness. This is from a paper on Merleau-Ponty's theory of form which I think is relevant. Streetlight provided a link to the paper in a discussion about five years ago.

Quoting Sense-Making and Symmetry-Breaking

Merleau-Ponty argues that we cannot understand how knowledge arises within nature unless we abandon the Cartesian view of nature as a machine composed of mutually external and indifferent parts.

If nature is a mechanism then it has no intrinsic meaning or unity. Thus nature could only be meaningful for a constituting consciousness that imposes a meaning on it by synthesizing its disconnected parts into an ideal whole. However, this amounts to denying that we can know nature at all. First, it means that nature can only be known from the outside, from a God’s-eye-view that could comprehend it as an object. But this is not our situation; we find ourselves born into a nature that is older than thought, and indeed gives rise to it—a nature that we can never encompass or transcend. “Nature is an enigmatic object, an object that is not entirely an object; it does not exactly stand before us. It is our soil, not that which faces us, but that which carries us.” It is precisely for this reason that we wish to naturalize epistemology—to understand how knowledge arises within nature. Second, if the only meaning we can find in nature is one that we ourselves put into it, then nature ceases to be an object of knowledge that transcends consciousness and becomes instead an idea within consciousness—a representation or mental construct.

There's a lot more going on in the paper, some of which I admit to not understanding, but the author does not conclude that the study of mind is not accessible to scientific study.

Reply to Philosophim :up:

However,
Quoting Philosophim

The hard problem really boils down to "What is it like to be another conscious being?"

this doesn't seem quite correct. One could argue that someone with MPD experiences just that. But, you might say, they shift from one to the other, so being in one state at a time. I would even question that assertion. I have actually had a meditative experience in which I was able to be myself and another simultaneously for a few brief moments. No, I'm not crazy. As a matter of fact whenever we talk to ourselves we indulge very slightly in this experience. But I'm setting up a strawman here, so I'll leave it.

Quoting jgill

The hard problem really boils down to "What is it like to be another conscious being?"
— Philosophim

this doesn't seem quite correct.

+1. That is indeed not the point of the argument. The point of the argument about 'what it is like to be...' is to convey the fact of being a subject of experience. 'Being a subject of experience' is not something that can be captured in any objective description. So depicting it in terms of 'what it is like to be someone else' plainly misses the point of the argument.

@Dfpolis - I've read most of the article. As I too am generally critical of physicalism and reductionism, then I'm onside with your general approach ('the enemy of the enemy is my friend ;-) ) - although there are a few specific points with which I will take issue, when I've spent a bit more time digesting it.

Reply to Dfpolis You put yourself at the center of your considerations and start with the thinking. This is arbitrary and only works with logic. Why not start with things and follow along. When you do that, you see how life created central nervous systems, and these finally made consciousness possible. This is not a medical consideration, but an ontological one, i.e. what philosophy should do.
And that consciousness you can look at and measure it. But what you cannot do is experience what belongs to others. Others can tell you verbally what they are experiencing, but you cannot feel it.
The idea that this experience can be described in physical terms is nonsense, because experience is neither a physical nor a biological concept. If you want to translate this experience into biological terms, it is nervous excitement. And you can only feel this yourself.

Consciousness is neither the contents we being aware of information apprehend, nor the resulting qualia, but being aware of information.

The way I put it is 'sentient consciousness is the capacity for experience. Rational sentient consciousness also includes the capacity for reason'.

one can hardly anthropomorphize humans

:clap: But today's naturalism tends on the contrary to animalise humans, to deny any essential distinction to being human (see Anything but Human.)

Many argue that intentional being is too different from physical being to be reduced to it – a position performatively affirmed by eliminative materialists

Perhaps you could comment on that a little further?

Thus, natural science begins with a Fundamental Abstraction

I see the origin of the fundamental abstraction in Galileo's mathematization of nature, combined with the separation of primary and secondary qualities. This is the point where the objects of physics proper came to be conceived solely in terms of attributes which could be successfully quantized - mass, velocity, force, and so on - whilst appearance and many other attributes were assigned to the observer, and thus relegated, in effect, to the subjective domain, with what is physically measurable being declared what is actually real - hence, modern physicalism, the veritable origin of what you're calling 'the standard model'.

It is as absurd to reject replicable introspection because its token is private, as to reject Galileo’s observations because he made them in solitude.

Here I differ. The point about Galileo's observations, and Newton's laws, is that they can be validated in the third person. In that vital sense, they're objective - the same for all who can observe them. Introspection, per se, has no such method of validation - this was the cause of the failure of the early psychological methods of Willhelm Wundt.

Phenomenology introduces a disciplined method of the examination of the nature of experience, although I don't know whether it could be called 'introspective'.

Self-knowledge - insight into the nature of one's mind - often comes, not through introspection, but through life events. Thinking about the nature of experience in the naive sense of awareness of one's own stream of thinking rarely gets you any further than self-absorption, while true self-awareness often requires something more than that, often appearing in the form of shock, loss, or dissappointment. Perhaps the term is 'soul-searching'. But I don't know if the anodyne term of 'introspection' really conveys that.

For [Aristotle], form and ‘matter’ (???) are not things, but the foundations for two modes of conceptualization.

Excellent - sums up an idea that has been in the back of my mind reading Aristotelian-Thomistic dualism for a long while. I've never studied either Aristotle or Aquinas in depth and at my stage in life, I'm not likely to, but I've come to see the 'A-T' school as representative of the 'perennial philosophy' in Western culture.

Quoting Fooloso4

Well, that is one opinion. Law of nature are not some outside force that acts on nature. Surely you are aware that not all physicists hold to your concept of laws. It is because things behave in an orderly way that formulating laws is possible.

First, the laws of nature are not "outside." They are intrinsic -- coextensive with what they control. Second, the existence of alternate opinions is not an argument against a view. The question is what is required to explain the facts of experience. Third, the question is: why do "things behave in an orderly way"? Surely, it is neither a coincidence nor because we describe them as doing so. Rather, it is because something makes them do so. The name given to that something is "the laws of nature."

Quoting Fooloso4

Why do you think it is?

Because nature has an intentional, law-like aspect.

Quoting Fooloso4

Perhaps consciousness does not transcend the bounds of physics either, only our current understanding of physics.

It depends on how you define physics. That is the point of the article. As long as you limit physics by the fundamental abstraction, it cannot explain the facts that abstraction prescinds from.

Quoting Philosophim

First, this paper needs more focus. About half way through I forgot what you were even trying to show. You jump from this idea, to that idea from this philosopher, to over here, and I don't see a lot of commonality between them. You could probably cut your paper by quite a bit and still get to the point that you want.

Thank you. I wanted to connect all the points I made because they build one upon another. The reviewers had no problem with that, accepting the paper in 12 days.

Quoting Philosophim

First, are you a neuroscientist? This is an incredibly bold claim

No, I am a theoretical physicist by training, a generalist by work experience, and a philosopher by inclination. I am aware of the boldness of my claim. For that reason I needed to I needed to start from the ground and build up, dealing with logically successive topics.

Quoting Philosophim

A neuroscientist will tell you, "We don't yet understand everything about the brain yet."

I neither expect nor assume that they do. I do assume that they will not abandon the view that the brain represents and processes data. The need for representation and processing was seen by Aristotle, and the fact that the brain is the data processing organ was established by Galen. So, it is unlikely that further discoveries will change this fundamental fact after all this time.

Quoting Philosophim

There is more than enough evidence that consciousness results from a physical basis.

There is no such evidence. There is lots of evidence that the contents of awareness depend on physical processing, but contents are not our awareness of contents (which is what subjective, not medical, consciousness is).

Quoting Philosophim

The hard problem really boils down to "What is it like to be another conscious being?"

I suggest you re-read the section of the paper in which I quote Chalmers on the Hard Problem. There is no problem of what it is like to be a bat, because problems are about understanding experience, not about having experiences we cannot have.

Quoting Philosophim

Does that mean that we don't need physical medium for consciousness to exist? No, we do.

This is a different problem -- that of "immortality of the soul." It is one that natural science does not have the means to resolve. I do agree, however, that rational thought requires the physical representation of data.

Quoting Philosophim

The hard problem reflects the failure in our ability to experience what it is like to be another conscious being.

You do not understand what the Hard Problem is. Chalmers said, "The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect." This is not a problem about the experience of others, but of subjectivity per se. To be a subject is to be one pole in the subject-object relation we call "knowing" -- the pole that is aware of the object's intelligibility.

Quoting Philosophim

This is not what emergence means.

The point that contextualizes my definition is that "emergence" is ill-defined. You quote one definition, but there are others. I say what I mean by "emergence" to avoid confusion in what follows. We are all allowed to define our technical terms as we wish.

Quoting Philosophim

And yet we find plants react to the world in a way that we consider to be conscious.

This is equivocating on "consciousness". There is medical consciousness, which is a state of responsiveness, and this is seen, in an analogous way, in plants. That kind of consciousness need not entail subjectivity -- the awareness of the stimuli to which we are responding. You made the point earlier. We cannot know what it is like to be a bat or a plant, or even if it s "like" anything, instead of something purely mechanical -- devoid of an experiential aspect.

Quoting Philosophim

Almost certainly AI will inevitably, if not somewhere already, be labeled as conscious.

This non-fact is non-evidence.

I appreciate the time you spent in reading and responding to my work.

Quoting T Clark

To start, it's very well written. Clear and thorough. I don't think I've read a better one here on the forum.

Thank you.

Quoting T Clark

This indicates the problems with the scientific study of consciousness are philosophical, logical, not scientific.

Exactly. Nothing in the proposed paradigm places any restriction on scientific work. I only seek to re-contextualize it.

Quoting T Clark

You make a quick arm-wave to current cognitive scientific study of consciousness without showing you have given them a fair hearing.

As you pointed out, I am not disputing any science. So, I saw no need to say more than what the studies conclude.

Quoting T Clark

You talk about a Standard Model of neurophysiology which, as far as I can tell, is a concept you came up with yourself.

It is my term. I define it. I think it is a fair description of a general, but not universal, view. If you think it is not, please say why.

Thank you for the reference to Merleau-Ponty. While I do not agree with all of what he says, I agree with much of it. Our knowledge is not "objective." It is human knowledge -- a knowledge of how reality relates to us as humans, and not a divine knowledge -- not one of nature simply as it is.

Quoting Wayfarer

I've read most of the article. As I too am generally critical of physicalism and reductionism, then I'm onside with your general approach ('the enemy of the enemy is my friend ;-) ) - although there are a few specific points with which I will take issue, when I've spent a bit more time digesting it.

I look forward to your comments.

Quoting Wolfgang

You put yourself at the center of your considerations and start with the thinking. This is arbitrary and only works with logic. Why not start with things and follow along.

I am starting with the experience of knowing, in which things and thinking are united. The Fundamental Abstraction takes this unity, divides it, and fixes on things to the exclusion of thought.

Reply to Dfpolis Read my post https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13876/mind-body-problem/p1 then you will know what I mean (or not).:zwinkern:

Quoting Dfpolis

I recently published an article with the above title (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/1042/1035). Here is the abstract:

I will try to break down every single claim in the OP(and some in your article) and ultimately try to explain why most of those "memes" in philosophy are either epistemically outdated or in direct conflict with our latest scientific understanding of the phenomenon.

Before starting the deconstruction I always find helpful to include the most popular general Definition of Consciousness in Cognitive Science so we can all be on the same page:

"Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self, which is achieved through action of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) on the brain stem and cerebral cortex (Daube, 1986; Paus, 2000; Zeman, 2001; Gosseries et al., 2011). "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/

With the above description in mind and the tones of Neuroscientific publications found in the huge online data base (https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain), the conclusion that brain function is responsible for human behavior and thought processes is way more than an assumption.
Its an established epistemology, part of our Academic curriculum for more than 35 years.

Quoting D. F. Polis

Yet, in the years since David Chalmers distinguished the Hard Problem of Consciousness from the easy problems of neuroscience, no progress has been made toward a physical reduction of consciousness.

-That is only true for the advances in Philosophy. Almost all the breakthroughs made by relevant Scientific disciplines never make it in Neurophilosophy mainly because Philosophical frameworks that are based on the latest epistemology are part of Cognitive Science.

Now, Chalmers's attempt to identify the Hard problem of Consciousness had nothing to do with the actual Hard problems faced by the field. In fact, the set of questions where pseudo philosophical "why" questions.
I quote:

"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia).
1.Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
2.And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does
3.why an experience of red rather than green, for example? "
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Searching meaning in natural processes is a pseudo philosophical attempt to project Intention and purpose in nature (Agency) and create unsolvable questions. Proper questions capable to understand consciousness should begin with "how" and "what" , not why. (how some emerges, what is responsible for it etc).
For those who are interested in the real Hard Problems of Neuroscience, Anil Seth a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience explains in extensive detail why Chalmers "why" questions fail to grasp the real difficulties of the puzzle and identifies the real hard problems he and his colleagues are facing mainly due to the complex of the systems they are dealing with.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-one
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/consciousness-deep-dive/202110/the-real-problem-consciousness

Quoting D. F. Polis

This, together with collateral shortcomings Chalmers missed, show that the SM is inadequate to experience.

- I will make some points now that include some ideas in your article. TO keep it short it will be presented in bullets and feel free to demand additional info.
1. Chalmers (as I already explained), failed to identify the real hard problems by misleading people in a conversation on purpose and intention which is fallacious when dealing with Nature.

2. The current Working Hypothesis (SM) is more than adequate to explain the phenomenon. It even allow us to make predictions and produce Technical Applications that can directly affect, alter or terminate the phenomenon. It establishes Strong Correlations between lower level system(brain function) and high level systems(Mental states and properties).

3. the Hard Problem doesn't reflect a failure of the reductive paradigm because this paradigm (tool of science)is not that RELEVANT to the methods we use to study Mental properties. Complexity Science and Scientific Emergence are the proper tools for the job.

4."Epistemological emergence occurs when the consequences of known principles cannot be
deduced. We often assume, but cannot prove, that system behavior is the result of isolated com-
ponent behavior"
-Thats not quite true. There is a general misconception about Strong Emergence in philosophy. First of all in science we don't "prove" frameworks, we falsify them and we accept them for their Descriptive and Predictive power. Strong Emergence is an observer relative term. Its describes a causal mechanism with unknown parameters that affect a system plus it accepts the properties of a phenomenon without asking "Why" they exist the way they do. All the Philosophical Hard Problem does is ask "why" this mechanism gives rise to that qualities. That is not a scientific or a Philosophical question.
(here is a great video that explains the different types of Emergence : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66p9qlpnzzY&t=)
In my opinion the whole "Hard Problem" objection is nothing more than an Argument from Ignorance and in many cases, from Personal Incredulity Fallacies.

I could go in depth challenging the rest of the claims in the paper but It seems like it tries to draw its validity from Chalmers' bad philosophy.
What I constantly see in philosophical discussion is the lack of references to the latest epistemology of the respected scientific fields.
The Ascending Reticular Activating System, the Central Lateral Thalamus and the latest Theories of Consciousness on Emotions as the driving force (Mark Solmes, founder of Neuropsychoanalysis) leave no room for a competing non naturalistic theory in Methodological Naturalism and in Philosophy in general. Those attempts to use Quantum Physics(metaphysics in essence) in an effort to debunk the natural ontology of a Biological Phenomenon are just wrong.
We might use the same tools (Complexity Science) to understand Consciousness and QM but that doesn't mean that our current Hypotheses on Quantum physics apply to a biological system.

The honest answer on things we currently can't explain is "We don't know yet". We shouldn't "lets suggest the existence of advanced entity/substance/agent" just because we either ignore the latest epistemology of science or because we can not answer a "why" question.

The current and most successful Scientific Paradigm doesn't accept made up entities as "carries" of the phenomenon in question. This is intellectual laziness. IT takes us back in bed with Aristotle. Are we going to resurrect Gods, Phlogiston, Miasma, Panacea, Orgone Energy all over again???
Of course not because this practice offers zero Epistemic Connectedness, Instrumental Value, Predictive power etc( all 9 aspects of the systematic nature of science listed by Paul Hoyningen - Systematicity, the Nature of Science ).

We don't have the evidence (yet) to use Supernatural Philosophy (reject the current Scientific paradigm of Methodological Naturalism) in our explanations just because we miss pieces from our puzzle. We can not go back assuming the existence of Advanced properties independent of low level mechanisms. This is what kept our epistemology from growing for centuries.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Before starting the deconstruction I always find helpful to include the most popular general Definition of Consciousness in Cognitive Science so we can all be on the same page:

That's your page, not Dfpolis' page! That's not the definition he's using! This is a discussion based on his concept, not yours.

Reply to bert1
Why do you say that?
The first part of my definition is descriptive. If he disagrees then he either refers to a different phenomenon or a specific sub characteristic of it.

From what I understand he is proposing a different ontology for the same phenomenon.(Consciousness). My attempt was to point to our current scientific ontological framework.

If he promotes a different ontological framework then his philosophy is problematic at best because a. his epistemology is not up to date and b. his Auxiliary philosophical principles governing his interpretarions are not Naturalistic(Methodological).

Is your objection about our different ontological frameworks when you say "That's not the definition he's using!"?
If yes then ..I already know that and this is the reason why I posted my objection in his thread...This is how conversations work...people projecting their critique on other people's opinions.
IF not then tell me what is your objection. What is his definition that I missed?

quote="Dfpolis;783488"]First, the laws of nature are not "outside." They are intrinsic -- coextensive with what they control.[/quote]

If they are coextensive with then they are not intrinsic to what they control.

Quoting Dfpolis

The question is what is required to explain the facts of experience.

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.

Quoting Dfpolis

Third, the question is: why do "things behave in an orderly way"? Surely, it is neither a coincidence nor because we describe them as doing so. Rather, it is because something makes them do so. The name given to that something is "the laws of nature."

It is not as if things are chaotic and require something else that makes sure they do not misbehave. A rock does not become a hummingbird and fly away because "something" makes sure it doesn't happen.

Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature. Joe Sachs translator and interpreter of Aristotle explains it this way:

The Battle of the Gods and the Giants:Being is, first and last, living being. That is the meaning of Aristotle's claim that being is energeia, being-at-work, and always has the character of entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. Everything that exists at all is or is part of some self-maintaining whole. (13)

But being-at-work is what Aristotle says the form is, and the potency, or straining toward being-at-work is the way he characterizes material. Finally, the end, or telos, of a natural thing is so inseparable from its being-at-work that Aristotle fuses the two names into one: entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. (19)

The Battle of the Gods and the Giants

A natural being, according to Aristotle, is not as it is because something else acts on it to hold it together and make it behave as it does.

Quoting Dfpolis

am starting with the experience of knowing, in which things and thinking are united. The Fundamental Abstraction takes this unity, divides it, and fixes on things to the exclusion of thought.

This is a familiar idea. A number of philosophers have expressed the same sentiment. Like Hegel?

Reply to Nickolasgaspar One should consider the term reductionism in a differentiated way. Those who cannot imagine the mundane physiological activity producing consciousness, or seek some intermediate step, are quick to speak of reductionism. Such nonsensical themes as the serious problem of consciousness then arise from the rejection of it.

Now what is reductionism? This is legitimate in physics, because there you can always (at least mentally) reduce complexities to their individual parts.
Very different from all living things. This can only be explained as a structure, so from the outset it is not just more than the sum of its parts, it is something completely different from the sum. Central nervous systems are very different from protein synthesis. The term strong emergence is actually still too weak for this.

Emergence is not only a higher quantity, complexity or sophistication, but it brings new principles into play.
However, life is already emergent insofar as it can only be called life as a combination of individual parts and functions as such.

However, physics has no suitable categories for life that could explain the movement, change and development of a self-active system with its own will.
Here people like to ask whether physics should not have any justification in relation to life. Of course it has, but not by being able to explain the structure called life, but by exploring the relationships between the individual parts (biophysics).

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one.
And the question of how a single individual being feels, certainly not.

Quoting Wolfgang

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one.

What is it about physiology that is not physical?

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

The first part of my definition is descriptive.

Sure, this bit is reasonably theory free, and can more or less serve as a definition (I'd leave out the arousal bit):

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

"Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self,...

...whereas this bit (whether it is true or not) is pure theory, even if it has become so accepted in the community you refer to as to be, for practical purposes, a definition:

....which is achieved through action of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) on the brain stem and cerebral cortex (Daube, 1986; Paus, 2000; Zeman, 2001; Gosseries et al., 2011). "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/

This is a philosophy forum, not the community you are talking about. So we can't take this as definition here. This must be treated here as theory, to be shown, not assumed.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

From what I understand he is proposing a different ontology for the same phenomenon.(Consciousness). My attempt was to point to our current scientific ontological framework.

OK, that's no problem. Your theory contradicts Dfpolis'.

If he promotes a different ontological framework then his philosophy is problematic at best because a. his epistemology is not up to date and b. his Auxiliary philosophical principles governing his interpretarions are not Naturalistic(Methodological).

OK, more work need to be done than just tell us we're out of date. We're unlikely to slap our foreheads and say "Whoops! Thanks Nikolasgaspar for correcting us. No more philosophy of mind. Problem solved."

Is your objection about our different ontological frameworks when you say "That's not the definition he's using!"?

Not at all, no. Once we have agreed on the subject matter we are talking about (consciousness) then the disagreement about the nature of it can begin. :)

IF not then tell me what is your objection. What is his definition that I missed?

I'm not sure if he's given one, I've only skimmed the paper so far. But it's the same definition that is talked about in any discussion of the hard problem. Something like "Consciousness is that by which X can have experiences" or something like that. I've tried to put that definition in an as theory-free way as I can.

Quoting Dfpolis

While I do not agree with all of what he says, I agree with much of it.

As I noted, I don't understand all of it, but there's something there. I've spent a lot of time thinking about reductionism, holism, emergence, and that constellation of ideas that includes them. I've got more work to do.

Quoting Wayfarer

The way I put it is 'sentient consciousness is the capacity for experience. Rational sentient consciousness also includes the capacity for reason'.

Seeing knowing in as an essential characteristic allows me to connect to a rich tradition of epistemological reflection and bring new unity to the issues. For example, the Aristotelian-Thomistic identity of the sensible object informing the senses with the senses being informed by the sensible object ties in nicely with Damasio's theory of the evolution of sensory representation. It also allows me to discuss the way in which the identity theory of mind is correct.

Quoting Wayfarer

Perhaps you could comment on that a little further?

Eliminative materialists show by performance that they recognize that consciousness cannot be reduced to physical operations. If physicalism is to work, they realize that consciousness must be eliminated. In Consciousness Explained Daniel Dennett even offers strong arguments against the reduction of consciousness. Then, he violates the scientific method by rejecting the data of consciousness instead of the falsified hypothesis of physicalism.

Quoting Wayfarer

The point about Galileo's observations, and Newton's laws, is that they can be validated in the third person.

So? What makes third person experience privileged? We still have the same subject as in first person experience, subject to the same range of errors. What makes observations scientific is not their 1st or 3rd person perspective, but their type-replicability, as you argue:
Quoting Wayfarer

In that vital sense, they're objective - the same for all who can observe them.

Quoting Wayfarer

Introspection, per se, has no such method of validation - this was the cause of the failure of the early psychological methods of Willhelm Wundt.

I do not know Wundt's work. I do know that the behaviorists criticized the analogous introspection of other species. We are not another species and so there is a method of validation, viz. other workers engaging in the same type of introspection, just as other physical scientists perform the same type (but not the same token) experiment.

It seems to me that you need to show why performing the same type of observation and getting the same result is not "scientific" -- and to do so without assuming, a priori, that only 3rd person perspectives are acceptable.

Quoting Wayfarer

Phenomenology introduces a disciplined method of the examination of the nature of experience

Does that mean that William James, Franz Brentano and other introspective psychologists were undisciplined? I would like you to explain, for I really do not understand, the methodological differences you see (as opposed to differences in philosophic or interpretative assumptions).

Quoting Wayfarer

Self-knowledge - insight into the nature of one's mind - often comes, not through introspection, but through life events.

I agree completely. New challenges reveal potentials (for good or ill) that might otherwise remain hidden.

Quoting Wayfarer

But I don't know if the anodyne term of 'introspection' really conveys that.

Of course, it does not. The reason, I think, is that introspection is a scientific method, aimed at discovering universal truths, and human beings are individuals who only imperfectly conform to our abstractions. To know one's self is to know one's individuality, and that is discovered in life-experience.

Reply to Dummkopf4 very easy, consciousness ist no physical but a philosophical category.

Quoting Wolfgang

Read my post

As one trained in mathematical physics, the use of equations in analogies grates on me. So, I have to put aside my distaste for the medium to find the message. Still, I largely agree with you.

You wrote: "From this point of view, it becomes obvious that thinking has nothing to do with any cognition of an 'objective' reality. It is nothing more than the (highly differentiated) process of perception of reality, which (for us and not in itself) has produced tools with which we are able to process nature in a highly complex way."
I almost agree. As I noted earlier in this thread, human knowing does not reveal objects exhaustively, as divine knowledge does. It reveals them as they relate to us. Still, it is objective, for it is informed by the object. Such knowledge can also be true, in the classical sense of adaequatio rei et intellectus -- for it can be adequate to our needs in relating to the objects we know.

"Since the philosophy of mind addresses consciousness as an entity in its own right, it fails to present it as an (emergent) consequence of life."
To me, emergence and consequence are radically opposed. Still, I see what you mean: that it is inevitable that life should lead to consciousness. Perhaps, but I see no reason that it should. Isn't that what "emergent" means -- that the consequence is unforeseeable?

Quoting Wolfgang

consciousness ist no physical but a philosophical category.

You claimed:

Quoting Wolfgang

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one.

Saying that consciousness is not physical avoids the question of how physiology creates consciousness.

Quoting bert1

Sure, this bit is reasonably theory free, and can more or less serve as a definition (I'd leave out the arousal bit):
"Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self,...

-You shouldn't because it describes an observable fact. A human being can NOT experience a Conscious state without the arousal of this specific brain area.

Quoting bert1

...whereas this bit (whether it is true or not) is pure theory, even if it has become so accepted in the community you refer to as to be, for practical purposes, a definition:

- Again I think you don't understand what "theory" means in science. Theory is the narrative that includes all our observations, available facts, math formulations etc etc. I guess you meant " just a Hypothesis. No, it isn't just a hypothesis. Its a description of a mechanism that renders its Necessary and Sufficient the for the phenomenon to emerge. Our Working Hypothesis comes later to explain how the content of an conscious experience emerges.

Quoting bert1

This is a philosophy forum, not the community you are talking about. So we can't take this as definition here. This must be treated here as theory, to be shown, not assumed.

-You have a misconception on what Philosophy is. Philosophy is our intellectual endeavors to produce wise claims from the best epistemology available to us. By saying "we can not accept the description provided by science" you render your Philosophy Pseudo philosophy!

Quoting bert1

OK, that's no problem. Your theory contradicts Dfpolis'.

When a philosophical Speculation is in direct conflict with a Scientific Description that renders the speculation pseudo philosophical by definition. (Aristotle's 6 main steps of Philosophy)

Quoting bert1

OK, more work need to be done than just tell us we're out of date. We're unlikely to slap our foreheads and say "Whoops! Thanks Nikolasgaspar for correcting us. No more philosophy of mind. Problem solved."

-Its your duty to be aware of the latest epistemology...not mine. No more Philosophy of mine on arbitrary epistemology and presumptions . That's the correct way to do meaningful Philosophy.

Quoting bert1

Not at all, no. Once we have agreed on the subject matter we are talking about (consciousness) then the disagreement about the nature of it can begin.

- The problem is that you haven't provided a definition on the subject matter.
If you adopt the definition of the OP, then you are using a fallacy from ignorance to point to a magical entity/substance.

Quoting bert1

Something like "Consciousness is that by which X can have experiences" or something like that.

-:"is that by which"??? ....seriously!? you are still doing philosophy by using definition that start "that by which"?????
What is this...that? You do understand by calling the phenomenon in question "that" you offer nothing to the discussion...

Quoting Wolfgang

One should consider the term reductionism in a differentiated way. Those who cannot imagine the mundane physiological activity producing consciousness, or seek some intermediate step, are quick to speak of reductionism. Such nonsensical themes as the serious problem of consciousness then arise from the rejection of it.

.
-The issue here is that the reductionistic approach is not the only tool available to Science so people shouldn't accuse Science for failing to solve the puzzle because of that "tool".

Sure reductionism is essential in understanding which parts of the brain are responsible for a specific property of the Mind (memory, vision,pattern recognition, symbolic thinking, meaning, intelligence etc etc etc) but in order to understand how all those properties merged (by Central Lateral Thalamus) to a conscious state with a specific concept we will needs a different set of tools.
So from what I understand accusing Science for being a failure due to Reductionism...that is just ignorant.

Quoting Wolfgang

Now what is reductionism? This is legitimate in physics, because there you can always (at least mentally) reduce complexities to their individual parts.
Very different from all living things. This can only be explained as a structure, so from the outset it is not just more than the sum of its parts, it is something completely different from the sum. Central nervous systems are very different from protein synthesis. The term strong emergence is actually still too weak for this.

-You can not study living things without including all the tools available to us. As I just explained we can reduce a system in order to identify function and use them to pin point where emergence occurs. Science is the systematic and methodical way to understand things and it would be an error to exclude a methodology , just because it can't go all the way.

Quoting Wolfgang

The term strong emergence is actually still too weak for this.

-Not really, again its an observer relative term which help us classify this emergent phenomenon based on its specific characteristics and qualities.

-Quoting Wolfgang

However, physics has no suitable categories for life that could explain the movement, change and development of a self-active system with its own will.

-....and this is why when we study life we don't "do" physics....we do "biology".

-Quoting Wolfgang

Here people like to ask whether physics should not have any justification in relation to life. Of course it has, but not by being able to explain the structure called life, but by exploring the relationships between the individual parts (biophysics).

-One very important thing is to ask the right questions independent if we like it or not. Again the process called life is explained by Biological disciplines, not physics.

-"Quoting Wolfgang

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one.
And the question of how a single individual being feels, certainly not.

"
-It isn't physical? How do you know that and how can you demonstrate it? That is an unfounded declaration plus it excludes the only ontology we have ever verified to exist!!!!

Of course we can address the question of how a biological structure can produce conscious properties . And even if we haven't arrived to a final theory yet that shouldn't be used as an excuse to invent an imaginary ontology and present it as an answer.
ITs an argument of Ignorance at best. (just because we don't have an answer yet...thus magic?)

Again there are many frameworks on the test bench and there are huge breakthroughs constantly elevating our understanding about the human mind. The problem I see is with Philosophy is its insistence to latch on Philosophical worldviews instead of constructing new frameworks based on the latest epistemology.

Just observe this thread. I have posted a number of academic links which introduce new data in the discussion, but no one cares enough to update his misconceptions about what we know or don't know.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

"Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self, which is achieved through action of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) on the brain stem and cerebral cortex

Unfortunately, "consciousness" is an analogous term, and using this definition, when I define consciousness differently (as "awareness of intelligiblity"), is equivocation. If you want to criticize my work, then you must use technical terms as I use them. In saying this, I am not objecting to ypur definition in se, only to its equivocal use.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

the conclusion that brain function is responsible for human behavior and thought processes is way more than an assumption.

Then you will have no problem in explaining how this hypothesis, which I am calling the Standard Model (SM), conforms to the facts I raised against it. Please note that I fully agree that rational thought requires proper brain function. So, that is not the issue. The issue is whether brain function alone is adequate.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Now, Chalmers's attempt to identify the Hard problem of Consciousness had nothing to do with the actual Hard problems faced by the field.

That may well be true. I do not know what neuroscientists consider hard, nor is that what I am addressing in my article. As I made clear from the beginning, I am addressing the problem Chalmers defined. That does not prevent you from discussing something else, as long as you recognize that in doing so you are not discussing my article or the problem it addresses. In saying that, I am not denigrating the importance of the problems neuroscientists consider hard -- they're just not my problem.

In defining the Hard Problem, you quote a reputable secondary source (Scholarpedia), but I quoted a primary source. So, I will stick with my characterization.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Searching meaning in natural processes is a pseudo philosophical attempt to project Intention and purpose in nature (Agency) and create unsolvable questions. Proper questions capable to understand consciousness should begin with "how" and "what" , not why. (how some emerges, what is responsible for it etc).

There are many senses of "why." Aristotle enumerates four. I suppose you mean "why" in the sense of some divine purpose. But, I did not ask or attempt to answer that question. The question I am asking is how we come to be aware of neurally encoded contents. So, I fail to see the point you are making.

Stepping back, you are more than welcome to answer the questions you choose to answer and ignore those you choose not to deal with. The same applies to me. However, if you wish to call something "pseudo philosophical" or claim that it "create[s] unsolvable questions," some justification for your claims would be courteous. Also, since I solved the problems I raised, they are hardly "unsolvable."

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

The current Working Hypothesis (SM) is more than adequate to explain the phenomenon. It even allow us to make predictions and produce Technical Applications that can directly affect, alter or terminate the phenomenon. It establishes Strong Correlations between lower level system(brain function) and high level systems(Mental states and properties).

I have never denied that the SM is able to solve a wide range of problems. It definitely is. The case is very like that of Newtonian physics, which can also solve many problems. However, I enumerated a number of problems it could not solve. Will you not address those?

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

the Hard Problem doesn't reflect a failure of the reductive paradigm because this paradigm (tool of science)is not that RELEVANT to the methods we use to study Mental properties. Complexity Science and Scientific Emergence are the proper tools for the job.

Again, this does not criticize my work, because you are not saying that my analysis is wrong, or even that reduction is not involved. Rather, you want me to look at a different problem. Further, with respect to that different problem, you do not even claim that the named methods have made progress in explaining how awareness of contents comes to be. So, I fail to see the cogency of your objection.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

"Epistemological emergence occurs when the consequences of known principles cannot be
deduced. We often assume, but cannot prove, that system behavior is the result of isolated com-
ponent behavior"
-Thats not quite true.

It is a definition, specifying how I choose to use words, and not a claim that could be true or false.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

First of all in science we don't "prove" frameworks, we falsify them and we accept them for their Descriptive and Predictive power.

I agree. I did not say that science proved frameworks, but that we use their principles to deduce predictions. That is the essence of the hypothetico-deductive method.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Strong Emergence is an observer relative term.

It is also a term that I did not employ.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

In my opinion the whole "Hard Problem" objection is nothing more than an Argument from Ignorance and in many cases, from Personal Incredulity Fallacies.

I am not sure how a problem, of any sort, can be a fallacy. It is just an issue that bothers someone, and seeks resolution. It may be based on a fallacy, and if it is, then exposing the fallacy solves it.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

I could go in depth challenging the rest of the claims in the paper but It seems like it tries to draw its validity from Chalmers' bad philosophy.

If you read carefully, you would see that I criticized Chalmers' philosophy, rather than basing my argument on it.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

The Ascending Reticular Activating System, the Central Lateral Thalamus and the latest Theories of Consciousness on Emotions as the driving force (Mark Solmes, founder of Neuropsychoanalysis) leave no room for a competing non naturalistic theory in Methodological Naturalism and in Philosophy in general.

Then you will have no difficulty in showing how my specific objections about reports of consciousness, one-to-many mappings from the physical to the intentional, and propositional attitudes, inter alia, are resolved by this theory -- or how neurally encoded intelligible contents become actually known. Despite the length of your response, you have made no attempt to resolve these critical issues.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

because we can not answer a "why" question.

This is baloney. I am asking how questions. The SM offers no hint as to how these observed effects occur. In fact, it precludes them.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

IT takes us back in bed with Aristotle. Are we going to resurrect Gods, Phlogiston, Miasma, Panacea, Orgone Energy all over again???

Obviously, you have never read Aristotle, as he proposes none of these. That you would think he does shows deep prejudice. Instead of taking the time to learn, or at least remaining quiet when you do not know, you choose to slander. It is very disappointing. A scientific mind should be open to, and thirsty for, the facts.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

We don't have the evidence (yet) to use Supernatural Philosophy (reject the current Scientific paradigm of Methodological Naturalism) in our explanations just because we miss pieces from our puzzle.

Nor am I suggesting that we do. I am suggesting that methodological naturalism does not restrict us to the third-person perspective of the Fundamental Abstraction. That you would think that considering first-person data is "supernatural" is alarming.

Thank you for the time you devoted to reading my work and the effort that went into your response.

Reply to Nickolasgaspar Sorry, I just don't think you've grasped the distinction between definition and theory. You're not the only one, there's lots of people here who struggle with this. I grant that it's not always possible to clearly separate the two. But if your opening gambit in someone else's thread is to insist they change their central definition to something else, you've not engaged in dialogue, you've changed the subject of discussion.

Quoting Dfpolis

"awareness of intelligiblity"

That's interesting. Sorry I still haven't read your article in detail yet, but I'm curious on where you think this definition likes on the spectrum of theory to definition. How theory laden is this? Is this what people in general mean, when talking about the hard problem? Is this what Chalmers means, for example?

Quoting Mark Nyquist

?RogueAI
Are you saying mind is separate from brain or a relation of brain -> mind -> information?

I'm an idealist, so I think the brain is a mental object. All that exists are minds Quoting Mark

[quote] Nyquist

Why not computer -> mind -> information?

How could a mind emerge from a collection of electronic switches? Why would we even consider that possibility? If you flip the right switches and run a current through them, you get the sensation of stubbing a toe? That sounds like magic.

Quoting Dfpolis

Thank you. I wanted to connect all the points I made because they build one upon another. The reviewers had no problem with that, accepting the paper in 12 days.

This is irrelevant. The acceptance of a paper does not mean it cannot be written better. You have proper citations, it fits the topic you are looking for, and it addresses a currently popular topic. But it is still a mess that loses its focus. I am quite certain you do not need many of these references to have gotten to your point.

There is more than enough evidence that consciousness results from a physical basis.
— Philosophim
There is no such evidence. There is lots of evidence that the contents of awareness depend on physical processing, but contents are not our awareness of contents (which is what subjective, not medical, consciousness is).

This is just wrong. https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/5-2-altering-consciousness-with-psychoactive-drugs/ At a very basic level humanity has been using drugs for centuries to alter our state of consciousness. Drugs are a physical thing. We can measure how the physical introduction of drugs changes the brain.

Read this about open brain surgery. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/awake-brain-surgery/about/pac-20384913#:~:text=Surgery%20while%20you're%20awake,control%20speech%20and%20other%20skills.&text=Awake%20brain%20surgery%2C%20also%20called,you%20are%20awake%20and%20alert.

Generally surgeons will keep you awake and map your experiences when they stimulate certain areas of the brain. They literally alter your conscious subjective experience.

Quoting Dfpolis

You do not understand what the Hard Problem is. Chalmers said, "The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect." This is not a problem about the experience of others, but of subjectivity per se. To be a subject is to be one pole in the subject-object relation we call "knowing" -- the pole that is aware of the object's intelligibility.

I mentioned "others" specifically to avoid the problem your claim runs into. The issue in monitoring other subjective experiences objectively is the fact that we don't know what the user is personally experiencing. If however you were to monitor your own brain state and record your subjective experience, you would be able to correlate the physical changes in your brain to your subjective experience. The problem again though, is that your information would not be able to be objectively compared to any other person's subjective experience because you cannot experience it.

Quoting Dfpolis

This is not what emergence means.
— Philosophim
The point that contextualizes my definition is that "emergence" is ill-defined. You quote one definition, but there are others. I say what I mean by "emergence" to avoid confusion in what follows. We are all allowed to define our technical terms as we wish.

Redefining words must be done with care as you then use a common word with a different meaning. No, we do not get to redefine as we wish if we want to be clear and ethical in our communication. If you do, generally it should be a tweak and not a completely new definition. Otherwise, It is a good way to hide points and sneak conflations in that would otherwise be more apparent to readers if you used a new word. I think that emergent is a common enough word that you should have attempted to cobble together a meaning that fit in with currently accepted definitions. Your definition as it is "the impossibility of deducing a phenomenon from fundamental principles, especially those of physics.", is not good. There are plenty of commonly known emergent properties that are not impossible to deduce from fundamental principles. This is too large of a divergence from the original intent of the word.

Quoting Dfpolis

This is a different problem -- that of "immortality of the soul." It is one that natural science does not have the means to resolve

Natural science has never found a soul, so it is not a problem to solve. It is like saying the "existence of unicorns" is a different problem. When you are making claims that consciousness is independent of the physical, you need to give evidence. So far all the evidence points to consciousness needing some type of physical medium to exist, and your paper has not shown otherwise.

Quoting Dfpolis

And yet we find plants react to the world in a way that we consider to be conscious.
— Philosophim
This is equivocating on "consciousness". There is medical consciousness, which is a state of responsiveness, and this is seen, in an analogous way, in plants. That kind of consciousness need not entail subjectivity -- the awareness of the stimuli to which we are responding. You made the point earlier. We cannot know what it is like to be a bat or a plant, or even if it s "like" anything, instead of something purely mechanical -- devoid of an experiential aspect.

Its not equivocation at all. You also now understand the hard problem. We can know that a being has all of the mechanical aspects of what we would identify with a conscious being. However, we can't know what that actual personal experience of being a conscious plant is. So of course the definition of a reductive consciousness cannot describe the personal subjective experience of the plant. It doesn't even try to.

If you believe that consciousness is only defined as, "Having a subjective experience," you are not using a reductive definition of consciousness, which is what you are supposedly railing against. Your denial that the plant might be "conscious", in the idea that we don't know if it has a subjective experience, is an agreement with my point. Its the hard problem. What we can do at this point is ascribe certain physical processes and responses of "beings" to what we would classify as "conscious". It does not require neurons, and it does not require that we know what the personal subjective experience of the being is.

Quoting Dfpolis

Almost certainly AI will inevitably, if not somewhere already, be labeled as conscious.
— Philosophim
This non-fact is non-evidence.

And I never claimed it to be a fact or evidence. I would think you would have looked into the debate of
consciousness in AI and this would not be a strange thing to mention.

Quoting Fooloso4

If they are coextensive with then they are not intrinsic to what they control.

How can what is intrinsic not be co-extensive with what it is intrinsic to? If it was in one place and time, and what it is intrinsic to were in another, it would not be intrinsic.

Quoting Fooloso4

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.

On the contrary, they are discovered via or experience of nature, and they could not be if they did not exist as an aspect of nature.

Quoting Fooloso4

It is not as if things are chaotic and require something else that makes sure they do not misbehave. A rock does not become a hummingbird and fly away because "something" makes sure it doesn't happen.

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. In other words, there would be no difference between what was metaphysically possible (involving no contradiction) and what is physically possible (consistent with the laws of nature). It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird, as there is no contradiction in being a at one time and b at another. Of course, this does not happen, as there are laws operative. Further, over time, and with difficulty, physicists have learned a great deal about what the laws actually are. For example, they are much closer to what Maxwell, Einstein and the quantum theorists proposed than what Newton thought.

Quoting Fooloso4

Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature.

You should not be. I look in many places for insight. That is exactly what Aristotle did. In Plato's Academy, his nickname was "the reader," because he read whatever he could.

Dfpolis:Similarly, metaphysical naturalists project nature onto an a priori model defined over a restricted conceptual space. With historical myopia, they tend to see dualism as the as the sole alternative to physicalism.

That seems right to me. It really makes discussing a topic hard work. @Nickolasgaspar might be a case in point, assuming we want to bring back the Gods and the ether.

Quoting frank

This is a familiar idea. A number of philosophers have expressed the same sentiment. Like Hegel?

I'm pretty ignorant of 19th c. German philosophy.

Quoting T Clark

I've got more work to do.

I've found that being challenged helps me clarify my ideas.

Quoting Philosophim

Generally surgeons will keep you awake and map your experiences when they stimulate certain areas of the brain. They literally alter your conscious subjective experience.

There was a Canadian neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, who was famous for conducting such tests, which he did over many years. He started out a convinced physicalist, but in the end he subscribed to a form of dualism. He noted that patients were always aware that the sensation, memory, etc., evoked by brain stimulation was done to them, but not by them. Penfield found that patients retained a “third person” perspective on mental events evoked by brain stimulation. This lead him to conclude that the patient's mind operated independently of cortical stimulation:

[quote=The Mystery of the Mind, Wilder Penfield, p55] The patient’s mind, which is considering the situation in such an aloof and critical manner, can only be something quite apart from neuronal reflex action. It is noteworthy that two streams of consciousness are flowing, the one driven by input from the environment, the other by an electrode delivering sixty pulses per second to the cortex. The fact that there should be no confusion in the conscious state suggests that, although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not.[/quote]

Quoting bert1

I'm curious on where you think this definition likes on the spectrum of theory to definition. How theory laden is this? Is this what people in general mean, when talking about the hard problem? Is this what Chalmers means, for example?

I think it is a distillation of experience. There are things that we could know, but do not (so they are intelligible), and when we come to know them when we turn our awareness to them.

This is theory in the sense of a reflective conclusion, but not in the sense of a hypothetical posit. There is nothing hypothetical about coming to know. We do it all the time. And, there is nothing hypothetical about intelligibility, as the things we come to know were capable of being known before we knew them.

What we know by abstracting from experience does not fit the "scientific" (hypothetico-deductive model). Instead of adding a hypothesis to a limited range of experience to generalize it, abstraction removes irrelevant elements. For example, we count apples and oranges and then realize that numbers only depend on the counting operation, not on what is counted.

I'm pretty sure that this is not what Chalmers would say.

Quoting Dfpolis

This is a familiar idea. A number of philosophers have expressed the same sentiment. Like Hegel?
— frank
I'm pretty ignorant of 19th c. German philosophy.

So you've never heard of the idea of starting with a unity that is subsequently divided into opposites?

Reply to RogueAI I might personally be inclined to be a reductionist however that dead ends because everything in philosophy is in the category of mind. So pragmatism forces some form of dualism. Mind emerging from the matter of brains is the best I can do but there might be better ways. I'm always looking.

Computers certainly have a unique set of parameters compared with biology...much faster and they feel no pain.

This category error problem could use some sorting. The primary category is physical matter.
That expands to matter/brain, mind and continues branching for various subject matter.

I got sidetracked looking up amoebas as background for early/primitive life forms.
They are single cell, have no central nervous system and seem to be controlled by direct connection to their DNA. A completely different mechanism from our consciousness.

Quoting bert1

Sorry, I just don't think you've grasped the distinction between definition and theory.

-You are wrong. You are trying to make an argument from ambiguity by using lame or specific meanings on both concepts.

-" I grant that it's not always possible to clearly separate the two."
-Of course it is...you just need to define them before use .

-Strawman, I just posted the definition used by science .
My goal in providing this definition was to point out a practical need for labeling a far more fundamental property than that suggested "(us being aware of our ability to understand).
To be aware of stimuli (internal (other mental properties) and external) is far more basic.
Our ability to project meaning in our thoughts is just one more (secondary)property of the mind.

A label for that mental property already exists in Cognitive science (Intelligibility or Symbolic Language and Thinking).
i.e. https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0218127404009405

So once again Philosophers fail to identify and distinquish basic Mental Properties of the Mind.

Quoting bert1

That's interesting. Sorry I still haven't read your article in detail yet, but I'm curious on where you think this definition likes on the spectrum of theory to definition. How theory laden is this? Is this what people in general mean, when talking about the hard problem? Is this what Chalmers means, for example?

Again A theory is the narrative that glues together definitions, descriptive theoretical frameworks, mathematical formulations,Evidence etc. This is the scientific definition of a Theory and this is how I use it.
Now the text I quoted is a DEFINITION of what science identifies as consciousness and the second part points to the Necessary and Sufficient mechanism needed for a conscious state to emerge. (I also included a link of the paper where you can find the definition).
I don't know why this is so difficult for you.....

What people or Chalmers mean when they talk about the Hard problem doesn't have any value.
In order to be able to talk about the problems one needs to be educated on the latest epistemology. Chalmers's why questions are pseudo philosophical questions (Sneaks in Intention and purpose in to nature).

Quoting bert1

That seems right to me. It really makes discussing a topic hard work. Nickolasgaspar might be a case in point, assuming we want to bring back the Gods and the ether.

Again you are wrong. First of all I am a Methodological Naturalist. This means that I reject all metaphysical worldviews (materialism/physicalism/metaphysical naturalism) and I stick to the paradigm : We currently don't know, so lets keep studying what is available to us by avoiding unnecessary entities and supernatural paradigms.
The problem with your claims is that you ignore our current epistemology and you keep trying to answer thing we don't know by introducing magic in the equation.

So as not to lose sight of the forest for the trees, skip to the end.

Quoting Dfpolis

How can what is intrinsic not be co-extensive with what it is intrinsic to?

What is intrinsic is basic to something. What is "co-extensive" is other than what it is coextensive with.

Quoting Dfpolis

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.
— Fooloso4
On the contrary, they are discovered via or experience of nature, and they could not be if they did not exist as an aspect of nature.

What is and how it is discovered are not the same. The ontological question, whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive, is not determined by experience. All that experience tells us is that there are regularities.

Quoting Dfpolis

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen.

That is a questionable assumption without evidence.

Quoting Dfpolis

It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird

A rock does not become a hummingbird because it's a fucking rock.

quote="Dfpolis;783589"]Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature.
— Fooloso4
You should not be. I look in many places for insight.[/quote]

Here is the problem. You say:

Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism.

This is true, but in borrowing from Aristotle and appending laws of nature you end up with your own dualism. On the one hand living beings that are, according to Aristotle, self-maintaining, and on the other something other than these living beings, the laws of nature, that you claim are necessary for living beings to be as they are.

Dfpolis:However, qualia are not subjective awareness, but contingent forms of sensory experience.

Yes, I think that's right. It's why I don't use the term 'qualia' - it creates too much confusion.

Dfpolis:However, consciousness of abstract truths, such as ‘the square root of 2 is a surd,’ have no quale. Only sensations have qualia, and not even all of them. Blindsight and proprioception have none.

That's interesting and not something I've thought about much. Not sure if I agree - proprioception seems to have a feel to me, although I don't doubt there's all sorts of things going on which I'm not aware of. I think perceiving a logical contradiction has a feel to it. Indeed, I'm not sure how we could know it was a contradiction if it didn't feel wrong in some way, a sort of offence to reason.

Reply to Nickolasgaspar Another day, another thread I think! Thank you for sharing your views. I don't want to pollute Dfpolis's thread with a whole load of stuff about definition vs theory. I should start my own thread. If you want, you could jump in on this thread, although it is old now:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11467/poll-definition-or-theory

Quoting Philosophim

The acceptance of a paper does not mean it cannot be written better.

I agree, but quick acceptance is a sign that the reviewers found merit in it.

Quoting Philosophim

This is just wrong. https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/5-2-altering-consciousness-with-psychoactive-drugs/ At a very basic level humanity has been using drugs for centuries to alter our state of consciousness. Drugs are a physical thing. We can measure how the physical introduction of drugs changes the brain.

This does not militate against anything I said. Since the brain process the contents we are aware of, modifying how the brain operates by drugs, trauma or in any other way can modify the contents we are aware of. Aquinas knew this in the 13th c.

Quoting Philosophim

The problem again though, is that your information would not be able to be objectively compared to any other person's subjective experience because you cannot experience it.

This misunderstands the nature of scientific observation. Generally, it does not matter if one person or a whole group witnesses a phenomenon. What is important is the ability of others to replicate the same type of phenomena -- and that is just as possible with 1st person observations as it is with 3rd person observations. Of course, I cannot know if my quale of red is your quale of red, but we can and do know that humans have such qualia. So that is a scientific fact. So also is our awareness of intelligibility.

Quoting Philosophim

There are plenty of commonly known emergent properties that are not impossible to deduce from fundamental principles.

You are free to write an article with your preferred definition. I said what I mean by the term, which is all that clear communication requires.

Quoting Philosophim

Natural science has never found a soul, so it is not a problem to solve.

Then, why did you raise it?

Quoting Philosophim

We can know that a being has all of the mechanical aspects of what we would identify with a conscious being. However, we can't know what that actual personal experience of being a conscious plant is. So of course the definition of a reductive consciousness cannot describe the personal subjective experience of the plant. It doesn't even try to.

I am not sure what point, if any, you are making. In my paper, I am not discussing plant, but human experience. We know other humans are conscious because they are analogous to us, and they verbally confirm that they are self-aware. We do not know this about other beings, but we do know that we can explain all of our observations of them without assuming that they are aware of intelligibility.

There is no problem of what it is like to be a plant or a bat, just as there is no problem of what it is like to be in another universe. These are simply things we cannot do, and we know we cannot do them.

Quoting Philosophim

If you believe that consciousness is only defined as, "Having a subjective experience," you are not using a reductive definition of consciousness, which is what you are supposedly railing against.

I think that "consciousness" is an analogous term that can be defined in many ways. I never claimed to be using "a reductive definition of consciousness." I am not railing against anything, but offering some arguments against the physical reduction of subjective awareness, none of which you have commented upon.

Quoting Philosophim

And I never claimed it to be a fact or evidence. I would think you would have looked into the debate of consciousness in AI and this would not be a strange thing to mention.

I have concluded that it is not worth more time than I have already devoted to it in my book.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Chalmers's why questions are pseudo philosophical questions (Sneaks in Intention and purpose in to nature).

Curious then that Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University, and an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. Must have fooled a lot of important people!

Quoting frank

So you've never heard of the idea of starting with a unity that is subsequently divided into opposites?

I have heard of it, but not read Hegel, or been inclined to. I do not see him as an influence.

Quoting Wayfarer

There was a Canadian neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, who was famous for conducting such tests, which he did over many years. He started out a convinced physicalist, but in the end he subscribed to a form of dualism. He noted that patients were always aware that the sensation, memory, etc., evoked by brain stimulation was done to them, but not by them. Penfield found that patients retained a “third person” perspective on mental events evoked by brain stimulation. This lead him to conclude that the patient's mind operated independently of cortical stimulation:

Dr. Penfield was practicing until 1960. That's before we had computers. Modern neuroscience has come leaps and bounds along. I would be very careful of citing someone from so long ago. Check this for example:

"Using fMRI brain scans, these researchers were able to predict participants’ decisions as many as seven seconds before the subjects had consciously made the decisions. As the researchers concluded in Nature Neuroscience, “Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions, we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings.” "
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unconscious-branding/202012/our-brains-make-our-minds-we-know-it

If the unconscious has already made a decision seconds before the brain is stimulated to think something else, it is not a mystery for portions of the brain to realize it is affected. If I'm swinging my arm and unable to, I'm going to assume something else is stopping it because I'm not getting the expected feedback. So we know the brain can anticipate when its neuronal messages are interrupted or not completed correctly.

Quoting Dfpolis

I have heard of it, but not read Hegel, or been inclined to. I do not see him as an influence.

Where did you hear of it, if you don't mind my asking?

Quoting Philosophim

Dr. Penfield was practicing until 1960. That's before we had computers.

I don't see how the invention of computers has any bearing. The specifics of his claim haven't been shown to be incorrect, and the fact that it happened 50 years ago is not relevant. His main point is that his patients could clearly distinguish memories and sensations that were triggered by his instruments from their own volitional control. They would say 'you're doing that'. Penfield interpreted that to mean that their own awareness was separate to the reactions he was able to elicit by manipulation. That is why he tended towards a dualist view late in his career.

Quoting Philosophim

"Using fMRI brain scans, these researchers were able to predict participants’ decisions as many as seven seconds before the subjects had consciously made the decisions.

That indicates that conscious awareness of an action lags the unconscious, autonomic processes that initiate the action. I don't see how it has any bearing on the question of the nature of intentionality, and whether intentional actions can be understood as causally dependent on physical processes, which is really the point at issue. The 'placebo effect' and many other aspects of psychosomatic medicine show a 'downward causative' effect from states of mind and beliefs to actual physiology. According to the 'bottom-up' ontology of materialism, this ought never to happen. (Hence the hackneyed saying 'mind over matter'.)

As far as the overall efficacy of fMRI scans, this was one of the areas that was shown to be subject to the so-called 'replication crises' in the social sciences about ten years ago. See Do You Believe in God, or is that a Software Glitch

The problem that is always going to undermine physicalism or materialism is that being has a dimension that no physical process has. A first-person experience has a dimension of feeling that can never be replicated in a third-person or objective description. It's a very hard point to articulate, as it is more an implicit reality than an objective phenomenon. That is what the argument about 'the hard problem of consciousness' seeks to illuminate, and from your analysis of it, I'm not persuaded you see the point.

Quoting Fooloso4

What is "co-extensive" is other than what it is coextensive with.

A reasonable point. I would say that "otherness" depends on how you conceptualize things. If you think of a rock as a unity, you can say it is attracted to the earth as a unity -- and that would be true. In a different conceptual space, you can think of the rock and the earth as masses subject to the very real law of gravity -- and that would also be true -- be adequate to reality.

A reason to think of laws as distinct is that they are not confined to individuals. Instead, the same laws seem to act throughout space and time, while the things they act on come and go.

Quoting Fooloso4

All that experience tells us is that there are regularities.

Experience also tells us that phenomena have causes. So, if there are regularities, they must have a cause.

Quoting Fooloso4

That is a questionable assumption without evidence.

It is not an assumption, but a conclusion. Possibility, per se, is only limited by the impossibility of instantiating contradictions. In order to limit possibility to what is physically possible, more constraints are needed. These are the laws of nature.

Quoting Fooloso4

A rock does not become a hummingbird because it's a fucking rock.

But, a rock can become sand or lava or a plasma. So, being a rock is not sufficient to preclude change, and it alone cannot prevent it from becoming a humming bird. That it can become some things, but not others, is a consequence of the laws operating in nature.

Quoting Fooloso4

living beings that are, according to Aristotle, self-maintaining

Aristotle is well aware of the possibility of death due to external causes, and of the need for nutrients. So, living things are not self-maintaining, by exhibit immanent activity -- i.e. self-directed activity to maintain themselves and their species -- something we continue to see today.

Quoting bert1

ndeed, I'm not sure how we could know it was a contradiction if it didn't feel wrong in some way, a sort of offence to reason.

I think we can react emotionally to intellectual discord, but I think the perception of discord comes first.

Reply to Dfpolis Yeah, maybe

Quoting frank

Where did you hear of it, if you don't mind my asking?

I read a lot of history of philosophy -- Copleston's and others as well as articles in various dictionaries, compendia and companions. German philosophy seemed to be largely misguided from Kant on, so it did not interest me until Brentano.

Quoting Dfpolis

read a lot of history of philosophy -- Copleston's and others as well as articles in various dictionaries, compendia and companions.

I see.

Quoting Dfpolis

I would say that "otherness" depends on how you conceptualize things.

If you claim, as you do, that living things and the laws of nature are not the same then they are other to each other, but can form a unity in their duality. It is something other than the rock that keeps in on the ground. As you say, they are distinct. Hence, dualism.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, if there are regularities, they must have a cause.

I think you have it backwards. It is only when there is change, not when something remains the same, that there is a cause.

Quoting Dfpolis

It is not an assumption, but a conclusion. Possibility, per se, is only limited by the impossibility of instantiating contradictions.

You are adding one assumption on top of another.

Quoting Dfpolis

But, a rock can become sand or lava or a plasma. So, being a rock is not sufficient to preclude change, and it alone cannot prevent it from becoming a humming bird.

Again, you have it backwards. It is not that the laws of nature preclude a rock from becoming a hummingbird but rather there would have to be some cause in order for a rock to become a hummingbird.

Quoting Dfpolis

Aristotle is well aware of the possibility of death due to external causes, and of the need for nutrients. So, living things are not self-maintaining

Self-maintenance, or entelecheia, does not mean immortality or self-sufficiency. The point again is that Aristotle's conceptual space is unburdened by dualism, yours is not.

Quoting Dfpolis

The acceptance of a paper does not mean it cannot be written better.
— Philosophim
I agree, but quick acceptance is a sign that the reviewers found merit in it.

And yet you posted here for analysis and critique. The argument, "Well it was published" does not negate my point. Feel free to disagree with my analysis, but I did not hear you tie in why you needed to cover everyone you did to make your point. The fact that we're going back and forth on what consciousness is after I've read your paper should reveal to you that you didn't make a clear case of what it meant to you to your reader.

Quoting Dfpolis

This does not militate against anything I said. Since the brain process the contents we are aware of, modifying how the brain operates by drugs, trauma or in any other way can modify the contents we are aware of. Aquinas knew this in the 13th c.

Yet you stated a main goal of this paper on consciousness was: "I shall argue that it is logically impossible to reduce consciousness, and the intentional realities flowing out of it, to a physical basis."

You'll need to clarify for me. Can drugs alter our consciousness, yes, or no? If yes, then we can reduce consciousness to a physical basis. If the answer is yes, and we cannot, then please explain why. A very simple definition of what consciousness means to you could help here.

Quoting Dfpolis

The problem again though, is that your information would not be able to be objectively compared to any other person's subjective experience because you cannot experience it.
— Philosophim
This misunderstands the nature of scientific observation. Generally, it does not matter if one person or a whole group witnesses a phenomenon. What is important is the ability of others to replicate the same type of phenomena -- and that is just as possible with 1st person observations as it is with 3rd person observations. Of course, I cannot know if my quale of red is your quale of red, but we can and do know that humans have such qualia. So that is a scientific fact. So also is our awareness of intelligibility.

Then you are misunderstanding me and I will attempt to be clearer. We are agreeing here. We can know that each sees red through things like the color spectrum. But yes, we cannot know what its like for you to experience red. I know what its like for myself to experience red, but no one else can.

Quoting Dfpolis

You are free to write an article with your preferred definition. I said what I mean by the term, which is all that clear communication requires.

Hm. If you want me to pat you on your back and say, "Good job!" because you published an article, I can do that. If you want to have a discussion, then I'll stay. You should consider there are plenty of people here who have also published articles and books, but know better than to think that affords them any special consideration in a critique of their work.

Quoting Dfpolis

Natural science has never found a soul, so it is not a problem to solve.
— Philosophim
Then, why did you raise it?

I did not, you did in the original quote. I'm getting the feeling you're not really considering my points, or you are and are unable to answer them.

Quoting Dfpolis

I am not sure what point, if any, you are making. In my paper, I am not discussing plant, but human experience. We know other humans are conscious because they are analogous to us, and they verbally confirm that they are self-aware. We do not know this about other beings, but we do know that we can explain all of our observations of them without assuming that they are aware of intelligibility.

Your paper addresses consciousness. Consciousness is something attributed to beings besides human beings. Dogs for example. You can train a dog to listen to commands, and a dog can non-verbally communicate with you. Now if you mean intelligibility only terms of the written or spoken language, or intelligibility and consciousness purely in human terms, then I did not glean that from your paper. I would call this an omission in your consideration, especially if you are attempting to show that consciousness cannot be logically reduced to a physical basis. If anything, that would be odd to limit consciousness to only the the human physical form while simultaneously denying it is linked to neurons, or any other physical basis.

Quoting Dfpolis

If you believe that consciousness is only defined as, "Having a subjective experience," you are not using a reductive definition of consciousness, which is what you are supposedly railing against.
— Philosophim
I think that "consciousness" is an analogous term that can be defined in many ways. I never claimed to be using "a reductive definition of consciousness." I am not railing against anything, but offering some arguments against the physical reduction of subjective awareness, none of which you have commented upon.

And yet you said I was conflating consciousness earlier. How could I conflate if it can be defined many ways? How can you argue your points about consciousness using the word "impossibility" if it can be defined many ways? I am commenting on things you have mentioned within your paper on your way to making your goal. If you want me to address other aspects of your work, you'll need to address the points I feel unclear or problamatic first.

I have been mentioning subjective awareness repeatedly. How is my experiencing the color red a particular way not my subjective awareness? I look at red, I see red. "That's red" I think. You need to more clearly define your terms, as either I do not understand what you are trying to say, or you do not understand yourself and are answering vaguely in the hopes that I won't notice.

Quoting Dfpolis

And I never claimed it to be a fact or evidence. I would think you would have looked into the debate of consciousness in AI and this would not be a strange thing to mention.
— Philosophim
I have concluded that it is not worth more time than I have already devoted to it in my book.

You may have wanted to devote more time to it then. At least to the point where you would have understood my reference was not claiming to be a fact or evidence, and a perfectly reasonable thing to mention.

Quoting Wayfarer

Penfield interpreted that to mean that their own awareness was separate to the reactions he was able to elicit by manipulation. That is why he tended towards a dualist view late in his career.

I understood. But his beliefs as to "why" the experience happened is like a blind man feeling around in the dark compared to the lights we have today. In fact, we're still feeling around in the dark in many aspects, and we need to be careful that our opinions are not equated to anything more meaningful than our own personal satisfaction in holding them.

Quoting Wayfarer

The 'placebo effect' and many other aspects of psychosomatic medicine show a 'downward causative' effect from states of mind and beliefs to actual physiology. According to the 'bottom-up' ontology of materialism, this ought never to happen. (Hence the hackneyed saying 'mind over matter'.)

First, if you remember I don't ascribe to "materialism", or "physicalism" or really most "isms". They are often times isolated theories for a simple understanding of issues that break down when you really need to think about their subjects.

If you think about the statement, "States of mind and beliefs should never cause changes in physiology," its very quickly disproved. With concentration or distraction I can overcome hunger. Being happy and experiencing pleasant social interactions can improve your health. And if the mind is physical, then it can interact with the physical world. To say the state of one's mind couldn't impact the physical world, when it clearly is in the physical world, is the statement that is less believable.

Thank you for linking the article, but I could not read it as I do not have a subscription. I did note that article was from 2016, and found another study in 2019 that confirmed the original assessment. https://qz.com/1569158/neuroscientists-read-unconscious-brain-activity-to-predict-decisions

Quoting Wayfarer

The problem that is always going to undermine physicalism or materialism is that being has a dimension that no physical process has. A first-person experience has a dimension of feeling that can never be replicated in a third-person or objective description. It's a very hard point to articulate, as it is more an implicit reality than an objective phenomenon. That is what the argument about 'the hard problem of consciousness' seeks to illuminate, and from your analysis of it, I'm not persuaded you see the point.

I may not have been as clear as I liked then. I agree with this sentence entirely. "A first-person experience has a dimension of feeling that can never be replicated in a third-person or objective description". This is the hard problem essentially. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a physical process underlying it. It also doesn't mean that we can't affect consciousness physically, or understand that though we do not know the exact mechanism, it is fundamentally a physical process.

I mean, at its basic Wayfarer, why is your consciousness stuck in your head? Why can't it float out or even extend out to your feet? Try thinking locally within your foot. Try thinking outside of your physical self. Try getting drunk and have it not affect your consciousness. Even though we can't objectively know what its like to be someone else, that doesn't deny all the very obvious facts that demonstrate consciousness is a physical thing.

Quoting Dfpolis

Unfortunately, "consciousness" is an analogous term, and using this definition, when I define consciousness differently (as "awareness of intelligiblity"), is equivocation. If you want to criticize my work, then you must use technical terms as I use them. In saying this, I am not objecting to ypur definition in se, only to its equivocal use.

-Ok I get what you mean by that word, but there is a huge practical problem in that definition.
You define consciousness as "awareness of intelligibility", to be aware of our ability to understand. What about our ability to be aware on the first place....known in Science as Consciousness!(the ability to be aware of internal or environmental stimuli , to reflect upon them with different mind properties through the connections achieved by the Central Lateral thalamus i.e.intlligibility" and thus creating conscious content during a mental state.)

Its looks like we have the practice of cherry picking a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility or Symbolic thinking or Meaning and assigning the word Consciousness which is already in use for a far more fundamental property of the mind.

To be honest I am with you on that. I always found our ability to produce meaning far more "magical" than our ability to attend consciously stimuli in the first place. After all we have a huge sensory system constantly feeding signals to our brains.

Is this the Hard problem for you? because if that is the case a simple search will provide tones of known mechanisms on how the brain uses symbolic language and learning (previous experience) to introduce meaning to stimuli (internal or external).
i.e. How neurons make meaning: brain mechanisms for embodied and abstract-symbolic semantics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661313001228
Huge database
https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain+meaning

Either way the practical problem of the suggested definition remains. We already have labels for that mind property and we experience an ambiguity issue since we already use the term Consciousness in a more fundamental mind property than Symbolic thinking.

Quoting Dfpolis

Then you will have no problem in explaining how this hypothesis, which I am calling the Standard Model (SM), conforms to the facts I raised against it.

I will agree with you that it is a Working Hypothesis since we don't already have a Theory mainly because we have to many competing frameworks at this point.
Are the facts you raised the following.
(1) The Fundamental Abstraction of natural science (attending to the object to the exclusion of the subject);
(2) The limits of a Cartesian conceptual space.
If yes I have already answered that they are irrelevant to the phenomenon. We can elaborate more if you verify those facts.
This hypothesis is the Conclusion we arrive after 35 years of systematic study of the functions of the brain.
To be clear this is not a metaphysical claim. After all I reject all metaphysical worldviews, Physicalism/ Materialism included.
I am a Methodological Naturalist and like science my frameworks and gaps of knowledge are shaped by our Scientific Observations and Logic solely based on Pragmatic Necessity , not because of an ideology.
When we don't know, we admit we don't. We shouldn't go on and invent extra entities which are in direct conflict with the current successful Paradigm of Science.


Quoting Dfpolis

Please note that I fully agree that rational thought requires proper brain function. So, that is not the issue. The issue is whether brain function alone is adequate.

-Yes a healthy functioning brain is a necessary and sufficient explanation for any property of mind known to us. We may miss many details on how specific properties correlate to specific brain functions but that's not a reason to overlook the huge body of knowledge that we've gained the last 35 years.
The question "whether brain function alone is adequate." sounds more of a begging the question fallacy based on an general argument from Ignorance fallacy.
Again our data and logic (Parsimony) doesn't really allow us to introduce unnecessary entities we are unable to test or verify as a solution to our current problems.
This is a really easy way to pollute our epistemology with unfalsifiable "artifacts" (its Phlogiston,Miasma, Philosopher's Stone, Orgone Energy all over again).

Quoting Dfpolis

That may well be true. I do not know what neuroscientists consider hard, nor is that what I am addressing in my article. As I made clear from the beginning, I am addressing the problem Chalmers defined. That does not prevent you from discussing something else, as long as you recognize that in doing so you are not discussing my article or the problem it addresses. In saying that, I am not denigrating the importance of the problems neuroscientists consider hard -- they're just not my problem.

-An important question that comes in mind is: " Is your problem relevant to our efforts to understand".
As I explained Chalmers's problem is a fallacious teleological one. Its like me trying to find intention and purpose behind behind an unfortunate event....i.e. my house is destroyed by an earthquake.
Those types of questions are a distraction.

I want to focus on a specific issue common to almost all philosophers I talk to.
You stated: ". I do not know what neuroscientists consider hard, nor is that what I am addressing in my article."
I find this to be a serious problem for any discussion. How can you be sure about the epistemic foundations of your ideas and positions when you are not familiar with the latest epistemology on the topic? How can you be sure that we haven't answered those questions when your philosophy is based on ideas and knowledge of the past?

Quoting Dfpolis

In defining the Hard Problem, you quote a reputable secondary source (Scholarpedia), but I quoted a primary source. So, I will stick with my characterization.

- I find my source pretty accurate because I have watched Chalmers asking the same "why" questions plus Anil Seth shares the same opinion with me. But my all means please share your primary source and I will retract my characterization "Teleological fallacy".


Quoting Dfpolis

There are many senses of "why." Aristotle enumerates four. I suppose you mean "why" in the sense of some divine purpose. But, I did not ask or attempt to answer that question. The question I am asking is how we come to be aware of neurally encoded contents. So, I fail to see the point you are making.

-Agreed. But if Chalmers wanted answers to his ''why" questions with a different sense, he should have been Studying Cognitive Science. i.e. his first why question "Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?" the answer is simple. Evolutionary principles. Making meaning of your world ads an advantage for survival and flourishing(Avoiding suffering, managing pleasure etc).
The answer on the other two why question is equally simple "because it does".(example of the electron).

Quoting Dfpolis

The question I am asking is how we come to be aware of neurally encoded contents. So, I fail to see the point you are making.

In my opinion you fail because as you said yourself, you ignore the latest work and the hard questions tackled by Neuroscience.

Quoting Dfpolis

However, if you wish to call something "pseudo philosophical" or claim that it "create unsolvable questions," some justification for your claims would be courteous. Also, since I solved the problems I raised, they are hardly "unsolvable."

-I was referring to Chalmers's pseudo philosophical "why" questions. Questions like "Why there is something instead of nothing" are designed to remain unanswered.
Now what problems you raised and how they were solved???I will wait for a clarification on that interesting claim.


Quoting Dfpolis

I have never denied that the SM is able to solve a wide range of problems. It definitely is. The case is very like that of Newtonian physics, which can also solve many problems. However, I enumerated a number of problems it could not solve. Will you not address those?

-Sure there are many problems we haven't solved (yet). Why do you think that the SM won't manage to finally provide a solution and how are you sure that some of them aren't solved already. After all,as you stated you are not familiar with the current Science on the topic.
IS it ok if I ask you to put all the problems in a list (bullets) so I can check them?

Quoting Dfpolis

Again, this does not criticize my work, because you are not saying that my analysis is wrong, or even that reduction is not involved.cogency of your objection.

Well I don't know if it was a critique of your work. I only address the paragraph (Article) on Reduction and Emergence"Does the Hard Problem reflect a failure of the reductive paradigm? "
Also I addressed the following statement in your OP.
"Yet, in the years since David Chalmers distinguished the Hard Problem of Consciousness from the easy problems of neuroscience, no progress has been made toward a physical reduction of consciousness. "
The right answer is , yes they have been huge progress to the emerging physical nature of consciousness.

Maybe you use "reduction" in a different sense and if you do that is a poisoning the well fallacy imho. By default we know,can verify and are able to investigate only one realm, the Physical.
As far as we can say there are details in the physical system that we don't know or understand. Assuming extra realms is irrational without direct evidence and objective verification of their existence.

Quoting Dfpolis

Rather, you want me to look at a different problem. Further, with respect to that different problem, you do not even claim that the named methods have made progress in explaining how awareness of contents comes to be. So, I fail to see the

-As I explained if you are pointing to a different problem then you are committing a logical error. Science and every single one of us are limited within a single realm. The burden is not on Science to prove the phenomenon to be physical, but its on the side making the claim for an f an additional sub-straight. The two justified answers are "we currently don't know" Or"this mechanism is necessary and sufficient to explain the phenomenon".
In my academic links you can find tones of papers analyzing which(and how) mechanisms enable the brain to introduce content in our conscious states. I can list them in a single post if you like.

Quoting bert1

It is a definition, specifying how I choose to use words, and not a claim that could be true or false.

-My objection was with the word "prove", since in science we don't prove anything.
Quoting bert1

Sorry, I just don't think you've grasped the distinction between definition and theory.

-ok I think we are on the same page on that.



Quoting Dfpolis

I agree. I did not say that science proved frameworks, but that we use their principles to deduce predictions. That is the essence of the hypothetico-deductive method.

-Because the hard problem ...is a made up problem.(Chalmers's teleological questions).

Quoting Dfpolis

If you read carefully, you would see that I criticized Chalmers' philosophy, rather than basing my argument on it.

-Yes you did, but you also accept a portion of it...right? In retrospect you did stated that your questions seek the "how" and I pointed out that Science has addressed many "how" questions on Brain functions and meaning/Symbolic thinking.

-"Then you will have no difficulty in showing how my specific objections about reports of consciousness, one-to-many mappings from the physical to the intentional, and propositional attitudes, inter alia, are resolved by this theory -- or how neurally encoded intelligible contents become actually known. Despite the length of your response, you have made no attempt to resolve these critical issues"
- Have you look in our latest epistemology and failed to find answers.?
Can you give me an example for every single problem?

Quoting Dfpolis

This is baloney. I am asking how questions. The SM offers no hint as to how these observed effects occur. In fact, it precludes them.

-Sure you clarified that and I pointed out the problem with your "how" questions. Many "how" questions have already been addressed and if they haven't been that is not a justification to reject the whole model (the Quasi Dogmatic Principles protects the framework at all time). After all its a dynamic model in progress that yields results and the only one that can be applied,tested produce causal descriptions and Technical Applications!

Quoting Dfpolis

Obviously, you have never read Aristotle, as he proposes none of these. That you would think he does shows deep prejudice. Instead of taking the time to learn, or at least remaining quiet when you do not know, you choose to slander. It is very disappointing. A scientific mind should be open to, and thirsty for, the facts.

-Strawman, I never said he did. I only pointed out the main historical errors in our Philosophy. Teleology in nature(Chalmers's hard problem) and agency with properties pretty similar to the properties displayed by the phenomenon we are trying to explain.(your claim on the non physical nature of Consciousness)
I only hope philosophers would take half of the courses on Neuroscience I have before talking about the unanswered mysteries of consciousness. Btw I am Greek. Studying Greek philosophers is my hobby.

Quoting Dfpolis

Nor am I suggesting that we do. I am suggesting that methodological naturalism does not restrict us to the third-person perspective of the Fundamental Abstraction. That you would think that considering first-person data is "supernatural" is alarming.

-Abstract concepts do not help complex topics like this one. On the contrary they introduce more ambiguity in the discussion. Plus you strawmanned me again with that supernatural first person data.

Mario Bunge's Ten Criticisms of contemporary academic philosophy highlighted this problem.
Here is the list.

Tenure-Chasing Supplants Substantive Contributions

• Confusion between Philosophizing & Chronicling

• Insular Obscurity / Inaccessibility (to outsiders)

• Obsession with Language too much over Solving Real-World Problems

• Idealism vs. Realism and Reductionism

• Too Many Miniproblems & Fashionable Academic Games

• Poor Enforcement of Validity / Methodology

• Unsystematic (vs. System Building & Ensuring Findings are Worldview Coherent)

• Detachment from Intellectual Engines of Modern Civilization (science, technology, and real-world ideologies that affect mass human thought and action)

• Ivory Tower Syndrome (not talking to experts in other departments and getting knowledge and questions to explore from them or helping them)


Science tells us that the brain is necessary and sufficient to explain the phenomenon even if we have loads of question to answer
You see an issue in brain function being sufficient to explain the phenomenon.
So here is my question. Lets assume that our current model never manages to reduce consciousness to a physical system. Does that point to a non physical function? If yes please elaborate.

Quoting Wayfarer

Curious then that Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University, and an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. Must have fooled a lot of important people!

That's an argument from false authority fallacy. Reasoning doesn't really have experts . We are all experts on matters of logic as long as we are aware of its rules principles and criteria .
Second point. Do you think that Chalmers's occupies those chairs because of this Teleological fallacy alone? Is this his only work?
Does all those accolades ensure the quality of all his philosophical ideas?
If you understand why agency (in Nature) needs to be demonstrated not asserted, then you can easily understand why looking for intention and purpose behind a natural process is fallacious reasoning and produces unanswerable questions.
Academic Accolades do not have the power to change logic or the negative value of a Fallacious statement.

Science got rid of Teleology centuries ago. The epistemic success of science is founded on that really small but important change.

There is the logic that biology alone fails in any explanation of consciousness. We communicate ideas but no biology is transfered brain to brain in the process. That points away from reductionism and suggests something emergent is necessary in understanding consciousness.

This is the science of the problem. Observable and repeatable.

Here is some Academic material for those who are interested in updating their philosophy on the topic.
Our epistemology on Consciousness is a huge mosaic of data offering answers to all kind of "how the brain..." questions.
Aristotle systematized Logic,Philosophy and highlighted Epistemology as the first and hugely import step for all Philosophical inquiries !

publications
Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175/

HOW AND WHY BRAINS CREATE MEANING FROM SENSORY INFORMATION
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0218127404009405

https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain+meaning+semantics

https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain+consciousness

Thalamus Modulates Consciousness via Layer-Specific Control of Cortex
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(20)30005-2

Moocs
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/what-is-a-mind
https://www.coursera.org/learn/neurobiology

Lectures - talks
Alok Jha: Consciousness, the hard problem? - Presentations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=313yn0RY9QI

Anil Seth on the Neuroscience of Consciousness, Free Will, The Self, and Perception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUEqXhDbVs

mark solms theory of consciousness
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mark+solms+theory+of+consciousness

BS 160 Neuroscience of Consciousness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGwOfSKmo_I&t=

Brain Science Podcast with Ginger Campbell
https://www.youtube.com/@BrainSciencePodcast/videos

Reply to Dfpolis Reply to bert1

Reply to Mark Nyquist
Quoting Mark Nyquist

There is the logic that biology alone fails in any explanation of consciousness.

that has nothing to do with logic (or knowledge). That is mostly scientific ignorance.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

We communicate ideas but no biology is transfered brain to brain in the process.

-....there are these things called eyes, ears and mouth which are connected to the brain. The communication of ideas use the exact same mechanism like any other environmental stimuli that ends up in our brains.
Quoting Mark Nyquist

That points away from reductionism and suggests something emergent is necessary in understanding consciousness

-Again, reductionism is not the only tool science have.We use Complexity Science to study the emergent properties in complex systems.
https://complexityexplained.github.io/

Quoting Mark Nyquist

This is the science of the problem. Observable and repeatable.

Actually the main problems are Complexity and Observation Objectivity collapse (our ability to make observations without interacting with the system).

[reply="Nickolasgaspar;783673]
So we do agree that ideas can be transfered brain to brain and no biological material is being transfered, right? That is a valid observation.

Reply to Mark Nyquist Well its true but its trivial, commonly known as a deepity. Information uses other mediums than i.e. procreation where transferring biological material is necessary. Biological organisms have sensory systems that enable them to exchange information.

Quoting Philosophim

But his beliefs as to "why" the experience happened is like a blind man feeling around in the dark compared to the lights we have today.

I really don’t accept that. You’re talking about him as if he lived in Medieval Europe. He had a career spanning 50 years, which wasn’t even 100 years ago.

Quoting Philosophim

I don't ascribe to "materialism", or "physicalism"

I had thought so based on such statements as

Quoting Philosophim

One way to look at life is it is an internally self-sustaining chemical reaction. In a non-living reaction, the matter required to create the reaction eventually runs out on its own. Life seeks to sustain and extend its own balance of chemical reactions.

However on second reading, you’re differentiating life from chemistry, by saying that ‘life seeks to sustain and extend….’ So you’ve introduced the element of intentionality which I agree is necessary and which I don’t believe has any analogy in materialism.

Quoting Philosophim

I mean, at its basic Wayfarer, why is your consciousness stuck in your head?

Don’t accept that it is. Conscious thought is an activity of the brain, but consciousness does indeed extend throughout your body and permeates all living things to one degree or another.


Quoting Nickolasgaspar

That's an argument from false authority fallacy

It wasn’t so much an appeal to authority, but the observation that a lot of people say that Chalmer’s work is pseudo-philosophy, without, I think, demonstrating an understanding of the rationale behind his ‘hard problem’ argument. And indeed, that single paper launched Chalmers into a career as an internationally-renowned and tenured philosopher, which says something.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

That points away from reductionism and suggests something emergent is necessary in understanding consciousness.

This is where biosemiosis enters the picture. I’ve learned a lot about that from this forum.

Quoting Wayfarer

I really don’t accept that. You’re talking about him as if he lived in Medieval Europe. He had a career spanning 50 years, which wasn’t even 100 years ago.

Again, you are committing a Strawman and a false authority fallacy. I am NOT talking "about him". I am criticizing the obvious teleological error in his so called "Hard problem".
The longevity of his carrier or his academic accolades do not guarantee the truth or logic in his ideas. All claims rise and fall on their own merits.
Anil Seth, true Authority on the problems of consciousness verifies my objections on Chalmers's idea.
The auxiliary principles he uses place his idea in the Medieval period, not my critique of doing so.

Quoting Wayfarer

It wasn’t so much an appeal to authority,

...but you insist on mentioning the longevity of his carrier ?

Quoting Wayfarer

It wasn’t so much an appeal to authority, but the observation that a lot of people say that Chalmer’s work is pseudo-philosophy, without, I think, demonstrating an understanding of the rationale behind his ‘hard problem’ argument. And indeed, that single paper launched Chalmers into a career as an internationally-renowned and tenured philosopher, which says something.

-Without demonstrating or understanding? Does the term fallacy mean nothing to you? I literally named the fallacy he is committing and I quoted his 2 fallacious questions while pointing out that he needs to demonstrate Intention and purpose in natural process, not assert them.

AGAIN here are his questions :

1.Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
2.why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does, why an experience of red rather than green, for example?
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

The answer for the first question is Survival advantage(Evolutionary Principles) and for the second "because it does".
So the first one can be answered Through science as if it was a "how" question while the second is just nonsensical.

Quoting Fooloso4

As you say, they are distinct. Hence, dualism.

Dualism does not mean that there is more than one way of thinking about reality.

Quoting Fooloso4

I think you have it backwards. It is only when there is change, not when something remains the same, that there is a cause.

No, even "staying the same" requires a cause -- first, because physical objects are not static, composed of Greek atoma, but dynamic, constantly oscillating at the quantum level and interchanging constituents; and secondly, because they have no intrinsic necessity and so need to be sustained in being by something that has such necessity.

Quoting Fooloso4

You are adding one assumption on top of another.

Perhaps you would give me your definition of "possible".

Quoting Fooloso4

Again, you have it backwards. It is not that the laws of nature preclude a rock from becoming a hummingbird but rather there would have to be some cause in order for a rock to become a hummingbird.

These are not mutually exclusive. There needs to be a cause both for remaining the same (e.g. conservation laws) and for changing. We live in a world of constant causation.

Quoting Fooloso4

Self-maintenance, or entelecheia, does not mean immortality or self-sufficiency. The point again is that Aristotle's conceptual space is unburdened by dualism, yours is not.

To see the world as filled with causal links is not to be a dualist.

Quoting Philosophim

The fact that we're going back and forth on what consciousness is after I've read your paper should reveal to you that you didn't make a clear case of what it meant to you to your reader.

No, it only illustrates the difficulty humans have in letting go of preconceptions.

Quoting Philosophim

Can drugs alter our consciousness, yes, or no? If yes, then we can reduce consciousness to a physical basis.

Non sequitur. It only shows that there is a dependence (which I affirm), not that the particular dependence explains all the known operations.

Quoting Philosophim

A very simple definition of what consciousness means to you could help here.

Asked and answered.

Quoting Philosophim

We are agreeing here.

Good.

Quoting Philosophim

Your paper addresses consciousness. Consciousness is something attributed to beings besides human beings. Dogs for example.

Again, "consciousness" is an analogous term. The only organisms we know to experience awareness of intelligibility are humans.

Quoting Philosophim

If anything, that would be odd to limit consciousness to only the the human physical form while simultaneously denying it is linked to neurons, or any other physical basis.

You persist in misrepresenting my position. That is not a sign of good faith. I have said repeatedly that conscious thought depends on neural representation and processing.

Quoting Philosophim

If you want me to address other aspects of your work, you'll need to address the points I feel unclear or problamatic first.

I have. I am growing impatient with going over the same ground with you, as it wastes my time.

Quoting Philosophim

How is my experiencing the color red a particular way not my subjective awareness?

I did not say it was not an instance of subjective awareness. Still, experiencing qualia is just one kind of such awareness. Knowing that pi is an irrational number is another, and it does not have a quale.

Quoting Philosophim

You may have wanted to devote more time to it then. At least to the point where you would have understood my reference was not claiming to be a fact or evidence, and a perfectly reasonable thing to mention.

I suggest you read the section of my paper addressing information in computers.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

1.Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?
[...]
The answer for the first question is Survival advantage(Evolutionary Principles)

How can natural selection act on experience?

Reply to GrahamJ
Well if I understand your question correctly the answer should go like this.
Being able to experience your environment and what patterns, emotions and social cues mean you gain a huge survival and flourishing advantage.

Reply to Nickolasgaspar

But experience is subjective. Natural selection can only act on morphology and behaviour. ("Natural selection can hear you scream but it cannot feel your pain").

Quoting Dfpolis

Dualism does not mean that there is more than one way of thinking about reality.

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities and beings that are distinct beings because these laws are causal and act on them. What acts on and what is acted on are two different things.

Whether the laws of nature are descriptions of regularities or are regulative is not something we are going to resolve. So let me ask you another question: what is the source of the laws of nature? They cannot be inherent in beings if:

Quoting Dfpolis

... they [physical beings] have no intrinsic necessity and so need to be sustained in being by something that has such necessity.

Do the laws of nature have such necessity?

Elsewhere you say:

... the laws of nature are contingent and need to be discovered empirically.

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent.

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God

Added:

Rather than the "fundamental abstraction" you give us the fundamental addition. Although you say that "agent intellect (???? ???????ó?)" is human rather than divine, you appeal to the idea of:

... an agent intellect to understand intelligible contents

The idea of intelligible content has a double sense. Things are intelligible both in the sense that they are intelligible to us and that they are the work of Intelligence or Mind. They are the former because of the latter.





.

Reply to Fooloso4 Quoting Fooloso4

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God

Ya got that right:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347359286_Does_God_Gamble_With_Creation

Reply to GrahamJ Only the content of our experiences has a subjective quality. The process enabling our conscious experiences is biological thus it is affected by all known evolutionary pressures like any other biological trait. So the high accuracy of our experiences raises our chances for survival and procreation.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

You define consciousness as "awareness of intelligibility", to be aware of our ability to understand. What about our ability to be aware on the first place....known in Science as Consciousness!(the ability to be aware of internal or environmental stimuli , to reflect upon them with different mind properties through the connections achieved by the Central Lateral thalamus i.e.intlligibility" and thus creating conscious content during a mental state.)

You misunderstand the definition. I mean the "ability to be aware" in operation. I add "of intelligibility," because we are never aware without being aware of something intelligible. This is important because the carrier of intelligibility is a neural state. I thank you for showing me how my definition can be misunderstood.

Usually, the brain does not "create" contents, but processes contents coming to it from the senses.\

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Its looks like we have the practice of cherry picking a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility or Symbolic thinking or Meaning

What you call "cherry picking," I call "focusing." My work is no more cherry-picking than any study that focuses one aspect of a whole to the exclusion of others.

Also, intelligibility is not "Symbolic thinking." It is a property that things (mostly outside the mind) must have if they are to be known. In other words, know-ability. If they could not be known, we could not know them.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility

Intelligibility is typically a property of objects in nature that may be neurally encoded, not a property of the mind. In the mind, it is actually known, rather than merely intelligible, for consciousness makes merely intelligible contents actually known.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

s this the Hard problem for you? because if that is the case a simple search will provide tones of known mechanisms on how the brain uses symbolic language and learning (previous experience) to introduce meaning to stimuli (internal or external).

No, it is not the Hard Problem. You need only refer to my article.

Do any of these articles show how we become aware of the contents the brain represents and processes? If not, none advances the reduction of the act of (as opposed to the contents of) awareness to a physical basis.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Are the facts you raised the following.
(1) The Fundamental Abstraction of natural science (attending to the object to the exclusion of the subject);
(2) The limits of a Cartesian conceptual space.

No, those are explanations for the problems. The problems I was referring to are:
1. Problems with verbal reports of consciousness (p. 98).
2. No neural structures correspond to propositional attitudes (p. 98).
3. Dennett's arguments against a physical reduction of consciousness (p. 98).
4. A causally impotent consciousness cannot enhance reproductive fitness, and consequent failure of an evolutionary explanation of its genesis (p. 99).
5. The inability to explain the genesis of environmental knowledge (p. 99).
6. The failure of David Lewis’s Humean supervenience because of one-to-many mappings of the physical to the intentional (pp. 99, 107).
7. The inability to account for purposeful human behavior (p. 99f).

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

I am a Methodological Naturalist and like science my frameworks and gaps of knowledge are shaped by our Scientific Observations and Logic solely based on Pragmatic Necessity , not because of an ideology.

I am also a methodological naturalist, with no need to capitalize because it is a method, not an ideology. Nothing in my article transgresses the bounds of methodological naturalism. The actual problem is you seem to be a closet physicalist -- unwilling to admit that the intentional theater of operations is just as natural as the physical theater. If you were not a closet physicalist, you would have no difficulty in being open to intentional realities. So, you might as well come out of the closet.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

When we don't know, we admit we don't. We shouldn't go on and invent extra entities which are in direct conflict with the current successful Paradigm of Science.

On the other hand, when we do know, say by analyzing first-person experience, we should admit it.

The success of the current paradigm is impressive, but still limited. Note the seven unanswered difficulties above. Nothing I propose conflicts with any experimental fact, so please stop making such baseless claims. Instead, my suggested new paradigm increases the range of explained phenomena.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Yes a healthy functioning brain is a necessary and sufficient explanation for any property of mind known to us.

This is not the claim of a methodological naturalist, but of a dogmatic physicalist.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar

that's not a reason to overlook the huge body of knowledge that we've gained the last 35 years.

For me, it is not. For you, it seems to be reason to ignore all previous progress.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

How can you be sure about the epistemic foundations of your ideas and positions when you are not familiar with the latest epistemology on the topic? How can you be sure that we haven't answered those questions when your philosophy is based on ideas and knowledge of the past?

All humans are liable to err, and no one can know everything. I opened this thread to allow people the opportunity to point out actual problems. My not knowing everything is not an actual problem with my work. If you find an actual mistake, please point it out.

All the knowledge we rely upon was obtained in the past. You seem to think it has an expiration date. Should I stop driving because the idea of wheels has expired? Can I still use counting? Thread?

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

IS it ok if I ask you to put all the problems in a list (bullets) so I can check them?

See above. The list is not intended to be exhaustive. It is just the problems I have identified.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

yes they have been huge progress to the emerging physical nature of consciousness.

Please explain how neuroscience has come closer to understanding our awareness of (as opposed to the processing of) neurally encoded contents.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

By default we know,can verify and are able to investigate only one realm, the Physical.

Congratulations on coming out of the closet!

Sadly, you are fundamentally wrong. We also know, and so can analyze, intentional operations. We know that we know and can speak of what we know.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

In my academic links you can find tones of papers analyzing which(and how) mechanisms enable the brain to introduce content in our conscious states.

Again, the issue is not contents, but our awareness of contents.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Can you give me an example for every single problem?

I am not asking you to solve "every single problem," but to respond to my actual arguments. If you do not wish to do so, you are wasting my time.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Abstract concepts do not help complex topics like this one.

All science is based on abstract concepts, because it seeks to be universal, and universal ideas are abstract.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Plus you strawmanned me again with that supernatural first person data.

Not at all. I said that we are dealing with first person data, and you responded I was dealing with the supernatural.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Science tells us that the brain is necessary and sufficient to explain the phenomenon even if we have loads of question to answer

Science cannot possibly tell us any theory is sufficient to all phenomena, but only that it is sufficient for the phenomena for which it has been confirmed.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Here is some Academic material ...

Thank you.

Quoting GrahamJ

How can natural selection act on experience?

Excellent question.

Reply to Joshs

I just did a bit of poking around:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/dennis-polis

A few points, none of which he made in this article but inform his work:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

Reply to Fooloso4 Quoting Fooloso4

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

I have to admit that scholars in the sciences who show their theological affinities run the risk of discrimination.

Quoting Fooloso4

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities

No, I am not. I am not saying they are separate, only that they are real because if they were not real, we could neither discover nor describe them, and we do both.

Quoting Fooloso4

Do the laws of nature have such necessity?

The laws of nature have physical, not metaphysical necessity. They could be different, and there might even be actual universes in which they are different.

Quoting Fooloso4

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent.

Yes. Logically (wrt human knowledge) and metaphysically (wrt the nature of existence) contingent.

Quoting Fooloso4

Upon further examination ontological commitments are with God

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition.

Reply to Dfpolis Quoting Dfpolis

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter

What happens to God’s will if we determine the origin and nature of will, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Freud and embodied approaches in cognitive science, in terms of a differential ecology of drives? In a twist on Aristotle, Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”.

Reply to Dfpolis Way to many problems in your philosophy, but I think we are done.
Thanks for your time.

Quoting Dfpolis

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition.

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God.

Quoting Fooloso4

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right!

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle.

Quoting bert1

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right!

And maybe the rejection is also right.

Quoting Wayfarer

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle.

I don't want to turn this into another theism vs atheism debate, but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle.

Reply to Fooloso4 It’s more that in current Western philosophy there’s a kind of unwritten rule that certain lines of argument are not considered as a matter of principle. When Thomas Nagel’s book Mind and Cosmos came out, which was critical of what it called neo-Darwinian materialism, some of his many critics said that he was giving ‘aid and comfort to creationists’, never mind that he himself frequently affirms that he is an atheist. There is the view that naturalism has to be the final court of appeal for philosophical claims.

My view of the laws of nature is that science assumes that the Universe displays regularities which are called (for better or worse) ‘natural’ or ‘scientific’ laws (even while I also note quite a few articles questioning the entire idea.) And that while science discovers and relies on those laws, it doesn’t, nor should be required to, explain them. Science works on the level of contingent facts and material and efficient causes, and not metaphysical ultimates. In fact, I don’t think science as now construed is the least concerned with why anything exists, in any sense other than understanding its causal precedents. And why the universe has the laws it does is not itself a scientific question (and the claim that there might be ‘other universes with different laws’ has always struck me as otiose. )

Quoting Fooloso4

but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle.

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God. In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread.

Quoting bert1

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God.

A conclusion aimed at supporting his assumptions.

Quoting bert1

In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread.

What is not particularly relevant, whether he chooses to call it an conclusion or whether God is relevant? As to the former he make the distinction. As to the latter, God is fundamental to his ontology, his claims about the laws of nature, agent intellect, and his criticism of science in favor of theology.

Quoting Joshs

What happens to God’s will if we determine the origin and nature of will, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Freud and embodied approaches in cognitive science, in terms of a differential ecology of drives? In a twist on Aristotle, Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”.

I am not quite sure what you are asking, but I will comment.

First, the idea of differential drives is simply wrongheaded. We desire food, water and air. If I asked, "How much food (or money) would you be willing to take for all your air?" you would think I was crazy. This is because our desires are incommensurate. We need a satisfactory, not a maximal, amount of food, water and air, and, indeed, of all the things we naturally desire. So, they cannot be traded off against one another. Accordingly, the idea of a maximal good or utility or anything of that sort is nonsense.

Second, our learning the nature of things in general, or will in particular, cannot change God, for, if God exists, it is as unlimited being, and nothing can change (add to or detract from) infinite being.

Third, the idea of a "life of the drives" seems to entail some kind of panzooism, in which everything is alive and has drives. But, to be alive is to be act to benefit the organism and its species. Clearly, inanimate things do not seek nutrition or reproduce to sustain their species. So, the idea seems to be more poetic than literal.

Quoting Fooloso4

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God.

Of course! God is the ultimate cause of reality. Darwin recognized that when he wrote of his belief in "designed laws." Still, being the Ultimate Cause does not mean that God is the proximate cause of phenomena. As scientist and philosophers, we want to understand proximate, not ultimate causes. That is why Darwin developed his theory. The same with Newton and many others.

Reply to Nickolasgaspar So the high accuracy of our experiences raises our chances for survival and procreation.

Are they highly accurate? After all, for much of human history, we've had some kooky beliefs about what, exactly, the world is and is made of.

Quoting Fooloso4

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

My argument is based on the premises laid down -- none of which are theological. So, to reject my argument you need to show either that my premises are false, or that my reasoning is invalid. Rejecting them because I also think that there is an ultimate cause of reality is an act of prejudice, and so irrational.

Quoting Fooloso4

And maybe the rejection is also right.

This confirms that many atheists are not open to rational discourse -- even when the subject is not theological.

Reply to Dfpolis

Quoting Dfpolis

First, the idea of differential drives is simply wrongheaded. We desire food, water and air. If I asked, "How much food (or money) would you be willing to take for all your air?" you would think I was crazy. This is because our desires are incommensurate. We need a satisfactory, not a maximal, amount of food, water and air, and, indeed, of all the things we naturally desire. So, they cannot be traded off against one another. Accordingly, the idea of a maximal good or utility or anything of that sort is nonsense

My point about differential drives is that psychologists and biologists today view organisms as self-organizing systems whose functioning is defined by reciprocal interactions with an environment. There is not first an organism and then its interactions with its world. The organism is nothing but these adaptive interactions. ‘Will’ derives from the overarching tendency of living systems to maintain consistent goal-oriented adaptivity in the face of changing environmental conditions. Our drives ( need for air, food, water, sociality) are interconnected within the functionally unified purposes of the organism as a whole, ‘Will’ makes no sense outside of this reciprocal feedforward-feedback adaptive relationship between a living thing and its world. To desire is equal parts affecting and being affected by. The idea of a divine will , a first or final cause existing outside of a continually changing system of interactions, is an empty, incoherent concept. All causation is reciprocal , contingent and relative to a system of exchanges . What gives Will its meaning , even for a hypothesized god, is its relevance to the aims of adapting to a changing world. Will prior to world is like the smile before the Cheshire Cat.

Quoting Joshs

Nietzsche suggested we could understand the “mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives”.

I was thinking about that while reading the essay offered upthread by Fooloso4: The Battle of the Gods and the Giants by Joe Sachs. Nietzsche's objection to laws of nature was not a rejection of natural causes but a protest against how they are imagined. It is interesting to hear Sachs make a parallel observation regarding Aristotle's understanding of nature:

Joe Sachs:When Aristotle says that nature acts for ends, he explains this by saying that the end is the form. Things have natures because they are formed into wholes. The claim is not that these natural wholes have purposes but that they are purposes. Every being is an end in itself, and the word telos, that we translate as end, means completion. When we try to judge Aristotle's claim that nature acts for ends, we tend to confuse ourselves in two ways. First, we imagine that it must mean something deliberates and has
purposes. Second and worse, we begin with our mathematically conceived universe, and can't find anything in it that looks like a directedness toward ends. But Aristotle indicates that it is just because ends are present in nature that a physicist cannot be a mathematician. We have seen that even change of place becomes impossible in mathematical space. But there are three other kinds of motion, from which the mathematician is even more hopelessly cut off, without which activity for the sake of ends would be impossible. Things in the world are born, develop, and grow. Genuine wholes, which are not random heaps, must be able to come into being, take on the qualities appropriate to their natures, and
achieve a size at which they are complete. But mathematical objects can at most be combined, separated, and rearranged. If we have first committed ourselves to a view of the world as being extended lumps in a void, there is no way to get wholes or ends back into the world. That means in turn that the question of ends has to come first, before one permits any choice to be made that empties the world of possibilities.

This is not what Nietzsche is saying exactly in his objection to metaphysics nor is he rejecting modern methods, but it is another way to ask what laws of nature refer to in our picture of a caused world.

Quoting Joshs

My point about differential drives is that psychologists and biologists today view organisms as self-organizing systems whose functioning is defined by reciprocal interactions with an environment.

Of course.

Quoting Joshs

The organism is nothing but its adaptive interactions.

Not quite. It is a structure able to interact in what was an adaptive way in its native environment. Whether its species will survive depends on the rate at which its progeny can adapt to environmental change.

Quoting Joshs

‘Will’ derives from the overarching tendency of living systems to maintain consistent goal-oriented adaptivity in the face of changing environmental conditions.

Scare quotes always concern me. Clearly, you recognize that this is not "will" by the usual definition. It is an adaptive response without conscious commitment. Will, in the proper sense, is a commitment in light of knowledge. This is analogous to what you are describing, but hardly identical. The common note in the analogy is desire, or goal orientation. The difference is that biological desire need not involve awareness, while will proper does. This is a move from the physical to the intentional theater of operation.

Quoting Joshs

‘Will’ makes no sense outside of this reciprocal feedforward-feedback adaptive relationship between a living thing and its world.

This would be true if I let you equivocate on "will." I won't. Will in the proper sense is a conscious commitment, and as such transcends the merely biological. So, I am happy to agree that an adaptive biological inclination makes no sense outside the biological context, but that is not what will in the proper sense is.

You can see this from the fact that willed commitments can be extremely unadaptive and harmful -- both to the individual and to the species. Even more telling is the fact that in making willed commitments, we typically have immanent within us incompatible alternatives. There is no counterpart for this in the physical theater of operations, where one initial state is always mapped unto one final state. It would be unadaptive to take the time and energy to represent alternative courses of action if the outcome were predetermined and the alternatives were actually impossible.

Quoting Joshs

The idea of a divine will , a first or final cause existing outside of a continually changing system of interactions, is an empty, incoherent concept.

Thank you for your faith claim. Now, how about an argument that shows that one conscious being cannot commit to the good of another, even if it is unadaptive for the one committing? You might just show that the concept of conscious commitment is incoherent.

Quoting Joshs

All causation is reciprocal

Really? So an artist creating a work is acted upon by the work that does not yet exist? My learning a song causes the song? Perhaps you can explain what you mean.

Quoting Joshs

What gives Will its meaning , even for a hypothesized god, is its relevance to the aims of adapting to a changing world.

No. Will is the capacity to knowingly commit, even if it is non- or un-adaptive.

Quoting Joshs

Will prior to world is like the smile before the Cheshire Cat.

Again, this does not work. I can commit to the good of my children even before they are conceived.

Quoting Paine

it is another way to ask what laws of nature refer to in our picture of a caused world.

We need to remember that mechanism does not contradict teleology. It merely rearranges its constituents. Mechanically, initial states and the laws of motion determine final states. "Final state" is just another term for "end." So, mechanism says systems act toward ends. Every physical end requires means, or mechanisms, and every set of determinate means leads to a determinate final state or end.

Reply to Dfpolis
I figure what Sachs is asking is whether you can have your cake and eat it too in the matter of life "being wholes" or the result of a fundamental process that was set up to permit those beings. In that regard, Aristotle is starting with a connection rather than having to presuppose one.

Reply to Dfpolis Quoting Dfpolis

The organism is nothing but its adaptive interactions.
— Joshs
Not quite. It is a structure able to interact in what was an adaptive way in its native environment. Whether its species will survive depends on the rate at which its progeny can adapt to environmental change.

Is a bird simply what is contained within an outlined drawing? Or is it also the niche that sustains the animal
and in which it is embedded? Isnt it purely arbitrary to define a living organism by a slab of cells that form a contiguous mass? A living system isn’t a structure designed by a deity or nature and then dropped into a world, it is inseparable from its particular environing world. It is a system of processes in which the dividing line between niche and animal can only be drawn artificially.

Quoting Dfpolis

The difference is that biological desire need not involve awareness, while will proper does. This is a move from the physical to the intentional theater of operation

You mean the dualist split between matter and subjectivity? Where does awareness begin in the animal kingdom? Certainly not with humans. Does it emerge suddenly or gradually as a function of neural complexity? If will and awareness is a gradual evolutionary development, then, as been suggested by biologists and neuroscientists, then in some sense one may see it in incipient form already in single-called organisms that have sensory capacities and show learning and adaptive goal-oriented behavior.

Quoting Dfpolis

Will in the proper sense is a conscious commitment, and as such transcends the merely biological.

You can see this from the fact that willed commitments can be extremely unadaptive and harmful -- both to the individual and to the species. E

Willed commitments are organized on the basis not strictly of the survival of my organism, but as I have been arguing, are designed to maintain adaptive sense-making , which is as much a social as an individual process.

Quoting Dfpolis

Now, how about an argument that shows that one conscious being cannot commit to the good of another, even if it is unadaptive for the one committing

Humans evolved as cooperative social creatures. Like many other mammals, we are born with certain moral emotions , such as the protection of our young and the ability to experience pain at the suffering of others in our group. Sacrificing oneself for the protection of others is seen in other animals. Anthropologists hypothesize that conscience evolved in order to protect tribes from the violence of alpha males. Even behaviors which on the surface appear unadaptive, such as suicide or homicide, are driven by a combination of such moral emotions.

It is not the self strictly defined as a body, that our biologically evolved motivational processes are designed to preserve. Rather, it is social systems ( friendship, marriage, family, clan) that sustain us and that we are primed to defend.

Quoting Dfpolis

All causation is reciprocal
— Joshs
Really? So an artist creating a work is acted upon by the work that does not yet exist? My learning a song causes the song? Perhaps you can explain what you mean.

The creative process is a reciprocal back-and-forth between what we symbolize in thought in a particular artistic medium (exploratory chords on a piano, a sketch on a canvas, practice dance steps , a few lines of prose) , and the way these tentative symbolizations talk back to us ( and of course other with whom we share these creative first steps also talk back to us) and guide us with either positive or negative feedback.

Quoting Paine

Aristotle is starting with a connection rather than having to presuppose one.

Aristotle was a biologist. So, I think he came to his understanding of organic wholes from observation.

Reply to Dfpolis
Agreed. I read De Anima as a continuation of that thought. Our life is this life too.

Quoting Dfpolis

My argument is based on the premises laid down -- none of which are theological.

Have you forgotten your own claims? I posted some above and here:

Quoting Fooloso4

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God.

While none of these claims were made in the paper but not because there is no connection.

Quoting Dfpolis

This confirms that many atheists are not open to rational discourse -- even when the subject is not theological.

This may be difficult for you to understand because you are convinced of the truth of your own arguments, but not everyone is persuaded. Being open to rational discourse does not mean accepting the agency of a God.

Quoting Joshs

Is a bird simply what is contained within an outlined drawing? Or is it also the niche that sustains the animal and in which it is embedded?

I do not think this is an either or question. There are different ways of conceptualizing the world. In one, the bird is circumscribed and interacts with other circumscribed entities. In another, the bird is conceived in, and is an inseparable part of, its ecological context. Neither mode of conceptualization is wrong, because both are adequate to a set of human needs (and it is humans who are conceiving them).

The point I am making is that we can represent the same reality in diverse ways. This is very common in physics, where we use different coordinate systems depending on which makes a problem easier to deal with. In biology, we can think in terms of cells, organs, organisms, biomes, or ecosystems. None of these concepts is unfunded or useless. We just need to make sure that what we have abstracted away can be safely ignored in the case we are considering.

Quoting Joshs

It is a system of processes in which the dividing line between niche and animal can only be drawn artificially.

All distinctions are "artificial" in the sense that we do not find dividing lines in nature. Rather our mind must abstract two or more aspects of a single reality. That does not mean that the distinctions are not both well-founded and useful.

Quoting Joshs

You mean the dualist split between matter and subjectivity?

There is no such split. All knowing is a subject-object relation. Without a knowing subject and a known object, there is no knowledge. In other words, subjectivity never occurs absent objectivity -- the essence of each is to be a relatum in the relation of knowing.

Quoting Joshs

Where does awareness begin in the animal kingdom?

I do not know. Do you? I do know that humans are aware.
Quoting Joshs

Certainly not with humans.

There is no evidence to support this. We are ignorant of the possible experience of other species.
Quoting Joshs

Does it emerge suddenly or gradually as a function of neural complexity?

How do you know it is a function of complexity? We only have one data point. Human brains are complex and humans are conscious. Maybe that is a coincidence, or maybe it is not.
Quoting Joshs

If will and awareness is a gradual evolutionary development, then, as been suggested by biologists and neuroscientists, then in some sense one may see it in incipient form already in single-called organisms that have sensory capacities and show learning and adaptive goal-oriented behavior.

"Maybe" is a poor basis for conclusions.

Perhaps you would like to comment on my discussion of the in compatibility of the Standard Model and the evolutionary genesis of consciousness and environmental representation in my article (p. 99). Instead of blindly applying a standard explanation, it is good to reflect on how the mechanisms it proposes could apply to the case at hand.

Quoting Joshs

Willed commitments are organized on the basis not strictly of the survival of my organism, but as I have been arguing, are designed to maintain adaptive sense-making, which is as much a social as an individual process.

That would be nice if true, but many willed commitments make neither individual nor social sense, as I am sure you know. Some are destructive both to the individual and to society. Even if they did make sense, they are unlike the adaptive biological responses you originally called "will" because they involve conscious reflection.

Quoting Joshs

moral emotions

This is a very strange turn of phrase. Emotions are psycho-physical responses. As such, they have no "moral" value. Anger, for example, can be morally righteous or immorally vindictive. Sexual attraction can be destructive to both parties or the basis of a committed and supportive relationship. In any event, willed commitments are not emotions, although they may be responses to emotions. We can see that they are not emotions because they persist through emotional changes.

I am wondering how you define "moral"? I think of it in intentional terms as willing the self-realization of ones' self and others. Perhaps you are a consequentialist, thinking that intent doesn't matter, only outcomes. The problem with that is that we cannot fully predict outcomes, we only know what we intend to happen. So, we are brought back to intention.

Quoting Joshs

Sacrificing oneself for the protection of others is seen in other animals.

Of course. What we do not know is if these responses in other species are conscious or not -- and that is what is at stake in the discussion of will vs. instinct.

Quoting Joshs

Anthropologists hypothesize that conscience evolved in order to protect tribes from the violence of alpha males. Even behaviors which on the surface appear unadaptive, such as suicide or homicide, are driven by a combination of such moral emotions.

What about beta females who may add poisonous herbs or fungi to a stew? Unconfirmed hypotheses have little cogency. And, here is "moral emotions" again.

Quoting Joshs

Rather, it is social systems ( friendship, marriage, family, clan) that sustain us and that we are primed to defend.

This is true of socialized individuals, but untrue of those not properly socialized. So, it seems more a matter of nurturing than of immutable (biological) nature.

Quoting Joshs

what we symbolize in thought ... the way these tentative symbolizations talk back to us

You realize that these "tentative symbolizations" need not be the work created, but part of the agent and her agency -- her thought process? So, this need not be the work acting causally on its creator. My thoughts, creative or otherwise, are my acts of awareness. I have heard a number of film actors say that they do not look at the "rushes," "dailies," or their finished films.

There can be, and is, both causal reciprocity and feedback, but there can also be causality without reciprocity or feedback.

Thank you for sharing your reflections. It helps to have other views.

Quoting Fooloso4

Have you forgotten your own claims?

These are not the basis of the arguments made in my article. You will find no theology there.

One person can think on many topics. I think about science, philosophy and theology without mixing them up, as you seem to be. So, I affirm what you quoted. I only deny their logical relevance to the arguments in my article.

Have you heard of the genetic fallacy? It is a fallacy of irrelevance, and you are making it.

Quoting Fooloso4

This may be difficult for you to understand because you are convinced of the truth of your own arguments, but not everyone is persuaded. Being open to rational discourse does not mean accepting the agency of a God.

I understand and expect that my sound arguments may change few minds. Once people commit to a position, reason is a poor tool. My hope is to inform fresh, open minds.

As for God, the arguments in my paper neither assume nor conclude His existence. That you persist in the genetic fallacy only confirms my view that some atheists are closed to reason, even when the matter being discussed is not theological.

Reply to Dfpolis

Quoting Dfpolis

You mean the dualist split between matter and subjectivity?
— Joshs
There is no such split. All knowing is a subject-object relation. Without a knowing subject and a known object, there is no knowledge. In other words, subjectivity never occurs absent objectivity -- the essence of each is to be a relatum in the relation of knowing

Kant said something similar to this: ‘Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without conceptions blind’.
And yet he was a dualist. How does the Cartesian split manifest itself in his thinking? One can point to a split that evinces itself not merely in a lack of relation between subject and object, but in the way that each side of the binary is conceived in terms of its assumed internal composition. Kant attributed apriori categorical content to the subject. While these categories only function in relation to objects , their content is generated independent of exposure to objects and is of a different order with respect to objects.

By contrast , contemporary naturalist-evolutionary accounts of subject-object relations conceive the genesis and content of the subject pole in the same naturalist terms as the object pole. Essentially the subject pole contributes recall of previous states to the interpretation of objective sense. Furthermore, there is no transcendent or self-identical self, ego, ‘I’ underlying subjectivity. The ‘I’ that wills in each willing is never the same self, because its nature and identity is subtly reorganized as a result of each encounter with a world. So the self at the heart of subjectivity is an always changing construction. It changes alongside the objects which also change their sense due to the fact that , as you say, we can represent the same reality in different ways.

Quoting Dfpolis

Where does awareness begin in the animal kingdom?
— Joshs
I do not know. Do you? I do know that humans are aware.
Certainly not with humans.
— Joshs
There is no evidence to support this. We are ignorant of the possible experience of other species… What we do not know is if these responses in other species are conscious or not.

You should impart this important bit of news to the burgeoning field of consciousness studies in comparative psychology. Explain to them that their evidence doesn’t count for you as evidence. Or you could take your own words to heart: we can represent the same reality in diverse ways.

There is a long list of capacities that were assumed at one point to be associated exclusively with humans ( tool-making, language, cognition, emotion). Given the intimate proximity between cognition, emotion and awareness, now that multiple sources of evidence point to the presence of the first two capabilities in other animals, it is not a leap to hypothesize consciousness also. Furthermore, increased understanding of consciousness in humans reveals it to be a less important aspect of cognition than was previously thought to be the case. Most of our everyday activities are performed unconsciously, automatically. Consciousness is simply not needed for adaptive cognitive functioning in many situations.

Quoting Dfpolis

what we symbolize in thought ... the way these tentative symbolizations talk back to us
— Joshs
You realize that these "tentative symbolizations" need not be the work created, but part of the agent and her agency -- her thought process? So, this need not be the work acting causally on its creator. My thoughts, creative or otherwise, are my acts of awareness

The work created become part of the agent and her agency. This goes back to the issue of the Cartesian constancy of the self. Only if we assume that subjective agency is split off from the objects that it interacts with , only if we make the thought process into a solipsistic internal activity, do we construe acts of awareness apart from the work acting causally on its creator.

[reQuoting RogueAI

Are they highly accurate? After all, for much of human history, we've had some kooky beliefs about what, exactly, the world is and is made of.

First of the content of a metaphysical belief(accuracy) about the nature of the world does not really play any role in our survival.
Accuracy is needed when we experiencing the world around us (not its underlying ontology), for spatial navigation and temporal navigation, to avoid obstacles or predators, identify patterns, find resources or mates,decode social cues and behavior and in general to avoid suffering and increase our percentage of survival.
We are the decedents of those organisms who were able to experience the world in the best possible way.

Quoting Dfpolis

The fact that we're going back and forth on what consciousness is after I've read your paper should reveal to you that you didn't make a clear case of what it meant to you to your reader.
— Philosophim
No, it only illustrates the difficulty humans have in letting go of preconceptions.

No, it really means you don't have a clear definition of consciousness that a reader can understand. Instead of simply retyping or pointing out the clear case to refute my point, you've huffed yourself up and just blamed me for not simply being open to considering how amazingly right you are. Not a good counter.

Quoting Dfpolis

Can drugs alter our consciousness, yes, or no? If yes, then we can reduce consciousness to a physical basis.
— Philosophim
Non sequitur. It only shows that there is a dependence (which I affirm), not that the particular dependence explains all the known operations.

That's not a non sequitur at all. If consciousness depends on a physical basis, then it is up to you to demonstrate aspects of consciousness that do not depend on a physical basis. I already mentioned that we do not have to know every little thing in how a physical process works to know it is still a physical process, so your point is moot here.

Quoting Dfpolis

A very simple definition of what consciousness means to you could help here.
— Philosophim
Asked and answered.

Quoting Dfpolis

Again, "consciousness" is an analogous term.

Analogous to what? That is neither a clear nor simple definition. This answers nothing.

Quoting Dfpolis

The only organisms we know to experience awareness of intelligibility are humans.

No, I just gave you an example of dog expressing intelligibility. I even gave you the opportunity to note that intelligibility only convers to spoken or written language, which you have neither confirmed nor denied. The fact you just make claims instead of explaining why your claims are correct persuades no one.

Quoting Dfpolis

If anything, that would be odd to limit consciousness to only the human physical form while simultaneously denying it is linked to neurons, or any other physical basis.
— Philosophim
You persist in misrepresenting my position. That is not a sign of good faith. I have said repeatedly that conscious thought depends on neural representation and processing.

No, your position is unclear. Your assumption that I am misrepresenting your position after a reader has told you your work seems unclear, is not a sign of good faith. Its your job when someone misunderstands your work to clearly and politely point out where they've misunderstood the position. If they've misrepresented it, explain the misrepresentation and move on. I am not intentionally trying to misrepresent your position. You have spent days of your life constructing and thinking on it. I have spent an hour. Point me to lines of your work that clarify the issue. See how I'm referencing your words in your paper, then saying why I think they're incorrect? Show me other words of your paper that clarify what you mean.

You are also misunderstanding my meaning. Reread the context of what I am saying again. I am noting your position was that it was logically impossible to link consciousness to a physical basis. By consequence, that means you are claiming it is impossible to link consciousness to neurons. The way I understand it is you view neurons as creating the sensory "picture" that our consciousness intends to.

Two quotes from you:

"Aristotle’s bridging dynamic is the agent intellect (???? ???????ó?). Sensible objects engender a
physical ‘image’ he calls a phantasm (????????). We would call it a neural representation. Since
the phantasm’s intelligibility cannot make itself known, something else, capable of intentional
effects, must do so. This is the agent intellect."

"Since neural processing cannot effect awareness, an extra element is required, as Aristotle
argued and Chalmers seconds."

So here you seem to be implying that consciousness is separate from neurons, or the physical. As if it is some other thing apart from neuronal activity that analyses and intends to what those neurons provide. And if that is the case, then I believe my point has merit. If consciousness only has intentional effects on what neurons provide, but does not come from them, why would consciousness be only tied to intention upon neurons? Why not plants or dogs?

Quoting Dfpolis

How is my experiencing the color red a particular way not my subjective awareness?
— Philosophim
I did not say it was not an instance of subjective awareness. Still, experiencing qualia is just one kind of such awareness. Knowing that pi is an irrational number is another, and it does not have a quale.

Then don't tell me I'm ignoring subjective awareness.

Quoting Dfpolis

If you want me to address other aspects of your work, you'll need to address the points I feel unclear or problamatic first.
— Philosophim
I have. I am growing impatient with going over the same ground with you, as it wastes my time.

No, you have often been unclear in your answers, or dismissive by mentioning you've published a paper and have a book. You have not clearly pointed out areas in your work which would refute or clarify the issues you are trying to make. I am your reader. I am not wasting your time. When a person has spent days writing and no one responds, be it positive or negative, that is a waste of your time. You have a reader who is willing to engage with you. Someone to sell your idea to, to show the passion and outcome of your hard work to. It is very much worth your time. Why write anything if that is your attitude?

Quoting Dfpolis

You may have wanted to devote more time to it then. At least to the point where you would have understood my reference was not claiming to be a fact or evidence, and a perfectly reasonable thing to mention.
— Philosophim
I suggest you read the section of my paper addressing information in computers.

I did. It addressed a very cursory look at primitive computation and not the modern day analysis of advanced AI.

Never imply to your reader that they should just accept that you are right because you've published an article or written a book. Don't simply be dismissive of a reader's points, counter them with clarity and citation. Maybe you will have an audience larger than a forum one day. That will be your chance to make a name for yourself, don't screw it up by behaving like you are here. Publishing does not mean you've made it or that you've changed minds. You'll need to hear from others and be able to defend your work. So far, you have not done a great job at it. Be better.

Quoting Wayfarer

I really don’t accept that. You’re talking about him as if he lived in Medieval Europe. He had a career spanning 50 years, which wasn’t even 100 years ago.

It was almost 70 years ago Wayfarer. You may not be aware of how much information and discovery computers have opened up, but neuroscience back then really is the stone age comparatively. You really shouldn't be looking into neuroscience beyond the last 20-30 years honestly.

Quoting Wayfarer

However on second reading, you’re differentiating life from chemistry, by saying that ‘life seeks to sustain and extend….’ So you’ve introduced the element of intentionality which I agree is necessary and which I don’t believe has any analogy in materialism.

Sure, if you want to use intentionality to describe chemical reactions that attempt to keep the chemical reactions going, that's fine by me. I just think that's an aspect of the physical world, and not anything else.

Quoting Wayfarer

I mean, at its basic Wayfarer, why is your consciousness stuck in your head?
— Philosophim

Don’t accept that it is. Conscious thought is an activity of the brain, but consciousness does indeed extend throughout your body and permeates all living things to one degree or another.

That's perfectly fair. I had wondered if that was how you view consciousness, as its a bit of a subjective term. But once again the point I made remains. Can you extend your consciousness outside of your physical body? No.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, I affirm what you quoted. I only deny their logical relevance to the arguments in my article.

When you talk about "laws of nature", "biological species", and "logical principles essential to science", despite your denial, there is an obvious logical relevance to your paper.


Central to your argument is Aristotle's "active intellect", whatever that might be, and what it might be is not at all clear or agreed upon. But this much is clear, about the active intellect Aristotle says:

De Anima Book 3, Chapter 5:this alone is deathless and everlasting

Yet nowhere in your paper do you mention this important point. If, as you say, consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect, then consciousness is deathless and everlasting; a conclusion you fail to draw. Instead you say:

Like electron-electron repulsion, consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that
between a rational subject and present intelligibility.

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled. As Joe Sachs points out:

Wikipedia, Active Intellect :... in Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10. Aristotle again distinguishes between the active and passive intellects, but this time he equates the active intellect with the "unmoved mover" and God.

In defense of your claims about the laws of nature you say:

Quoting Dfpolis

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. In other words, there would be no difference between what was metaphysically possible (involving no contradiction) and what is physically possible (consistent with the laws of nature). It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird, as there is no contradiction in being a at one time and b at another.

Your appeal is to a notion of logic that abstracts from physical reality, as if it is perfectly logical to think that rocks can become hummingbirds. Of course you are free to use Aristotle when doing so supports your argument and abandoning him when he doesn't, but for all your talk of inadequate conceptual space, you have carved out your own. Your a priori metaphysical abstraction leads to a dream world in which there is a need for laws of nature to constrain whatever does not entail a logical contradiction from happening.

So, where Aristotle would say it is not in a hummingbird's nature to come to be from a rock, you abandon his phusis and teleology. You fault the SM for its failure to account for Aristotle’s final cause, but that is exactly what you do.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

First of the content of a metaphysical belief(accuracy) about the nature of the world does not really play any role in our survival.
Accuracy is needed when we experiencing the world around us (not its underlying ontology), for spatial navigation and temporal navigation, to avoid obstacles or predators, identify patterns, find resources or mates,decode social cues and behavior and in general to avoid suffering and increase our percentage of survival.
We are the decedents of those organisms who were able to experience the world in the best possible way.

You have conflated easier problems with the Hard Problem. Easier problems deal with mechanisms for brain function. This can be tested and is amenable to empirical verification. The Hard Problem is how it is that there is a point of view. The problem is that people who try to handwave the question by purporting the easier problems as the solution, aren't getting it. They are ALREADY assuming the consequent without explaining it. It is the Homunculus Fallacy. Simply listing off physical processes doesn't get at things like subjective qualia or imagination. What IS that thing that mind-thing that I am doing when I am imagining a blue cube being rotated in my mind? What is THAT. You can say it is "such-and-such neural networks" and that it developed because of "such-and-such evolutionary reasons", but that is not answering the question. How is it that there is this rotating of the blue cube that is happening with the firing of the neurons. It is superimposed, and forced into the picture but without explanation, only correlation with various obvious empirical stuff that isn't getting any closer to the answer to the question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument

Quoting Joshs

Kant attributed apriori categorical content to the subject.

I am neither Kant, nor a Kantian. I think his approach is fundamentally wrong.

I am an Aristotelian. For Aristotle, the object informing the subject is identically the subject being informed by the object -- for these are alternate formulations of the same event. Thus, knowing is not a relation between the subject and a representation, as it is for Locke and Kant, but a case of shared existence. The sharing is limited because the subject and object are each more than their shared act. Still it is, and must be, an ontological union founded on the described identity.

Quoting Joshs

By contrast , contemporary naturalist-evolutionary accounts of subject-object relations conceive the genesis and content of the subject pole in the same naturalist terms as the object pole.

Yes, I am well aware of this a priori assumption. That is why I asked you to comment on my discussion of the genesis of representation and consciousness on p. 99.

Quoting Joshs

Essentially the subject pole contributes recall of previous states to the interpretation of objective sense.

I have no problem with this; however, it does not explain how we become aware of the relevant contents.

Quoting Joshs

Furthermore, there is no transcendent or self-identical self, ego, ‘I’ underlying subjectivity.

I have not suggested that humans have a "transcendental ego." Again, I am not a Kantian. As for "self-identical," whatever is, is identically itself. So, this is a nonsensical claim. As for an ego simpliciter, you have implicitly admitted that humans can be subjects in the act of knowing, and egos are simply the capacity to be a knowing subject, and this capacity, which is not a Cartesian res, is the 'I' required to be a subject. We could hardly know absent an underlying ability to know. Thus, I am unclear what is being objected to.

Quoting Joshs

The ‘I’ that wills in each willing is never the same self, because its nature and identity is subtly reorganized as a result of each encounter with a world.

Again, this is confused because of your physicalist bias. Self-identity over time, whether of a river or of an organism, does not mean material identity. It means dynamic continuity. My present self has few, if any, atoms in common with the baby that came from my mother's womb or with the zygote that preceded it; however, I am dynamically continuous with both.

Quoting Joshs

You should impart this important bit of news to the burgeoning field of consciousness studies in comparative psychology.

There is no need to. It has long been known that we cannot experience the first person experience of others. This is the so-called "problem of other minds." Also, the behaviorists roundly criticized the method of analogous introspection, by which some early psychologists claimed to study non-human minds.

None of this prevents the study of medical consciousness (a state of responsiveness). It is fully available to third-person observation. Still, it is the rankest form of equivocation to equate medical consciousness with subjective consciousness (awareness of intelligible contents).

Quoting Joshs

Given the intimate proximity between cognition, emotion and awareness, now that multiple sources of evidence point to the presence of the first two capabilities in other animals, it is not a leap to hypothesize consciousness also.

I have no doubt that medical consciousness is a purely biological phenomena.

Quoting Joshs

only if we make the thought process into a solipsistic internal activity

As I explained in my article, and at the beginning of this post, this is not the Aristotelian view. Rather than knowledge being solipsistic isolation, it is shared existence.

So far, you have not criticized one argument in my paper. Instead, you have accused me to the errors of others and made unsubstantiated claims. Perhaps if you addressed what I actually wrote, we could make more progress. For example, in an earlier post, I listed 7 problems I have with the Standard Model. You could explain why these are not real problems

Quoting Philosophim

That's not a non sequitur at all. If consciousness depends on a physical basis, then it is up to you to demonstrate aspects of consciousness that do not depend on a physical basis.

If you read my article, you will see that I did so.

Quoting Philosophim

Analogous to what?

"Analogous" is a logical classification of meaning. It means that a term is predicated in a way that is partly the same and partly different.

Quoting Philosophim

Its your job when someone misunderstands your work to clearly and politely point out where they've misunderstood the position.

I have done so. It is also my job to recognize when further explanation is a waste of time.

Quoting Philosophim

When a person has spent days writing and no one responds, be it positive or negative, that is a waste of your time.

I spent weeks writing my article, and you have yet to address its arguments. So, you are wasting my time.

Quoting Philosophim

I am noting your position was that it was logically impossible to link consciousness to a physical basis

I made no such claim. You continue to waste my time.

Quoting Dfpolis

Analogous to what?
— Philosophim
"Analogous" is a logical classification of meaning. It means that a term is predicated in a way that is partly the same and partly different.

Again, "consciousness" is an analogous term.
— Dfpolis

Yes, we all know what analogous means. You described consciousness as analogous. That means it is partly the same and partly different to what? Its like if you said, "Consciousness is a very term". Very what?

Quoting Dfpolis

I am noting your position was that it was logically impossible to link consciousness to a physical basis
— Philosophim
I made no such claim. You continue to waste my time.

I believe the exact quote was here: "I shall argue that it is logically impossible to reduce consciousness, and the intentional realities flowing out of it, to a physical basis." Part 3 page 100. But hey, if you didn't write that, ok then.

Congrats on publishing your article! *Pats you on the back*

Quoting Philosophim

You may not be aware of how much information and discovery computers have opened up, but neuroscience back then really is the stone age comparatively.

Find me a citation that shows that Wilder Penfield's experimental verification that subjects were aware that their own volitional actions were separate from those caused by the surgeon has been overturned. (Don't waste too much time, however, because you won't.)

Quoting Philosophim

However on second reading, you’re differentiating life from chemistry, by saying that ‘life seeks to sustain and extend….’ So you’ve introduced the element of intentionality which I agree is necessary and which I don’t believe has any analogy in materialism.
— Wayfarer

Sure, if you want to use intentionality to describe chemical reactions that attempt to keep the chemical reactions going, that's fine by me. I just think that's an aspect of the physical world, and not anything else.

You can't have it both ways. First you acknowledge that life seeks to extend the scope of 'ordinary' chemical reactions, and then as soon as that is pointed out, you say 'well, actually it doesn't, regular chemical reactions are doing that'. But this simply ignores the initial point, which is that living organisms possess attributes and qualities that are never observed in the inorganic realm. So the organic world is sharply differentiated from the inorganic, which you have no account for, other than the claim that it's not.

Quoting Philosophim

Can you extend your consciousness outside of your physical body? No.

You don't know that, it's simply an assumption because in the normal state of being we naturally associate with the body.

Quoting Wayfarer

You may not be aware of how much information and discovery computers have opened up, but neuroscience back then really is the stone age comparatively.
— Philosophim

Find me a citation that shows that Wilder Penfield's experimental verification that subjects were aware that their own volitional actions were separate from those caused by the surgeon has been overturned.

No, I agree with that fact. It was his conclusion that there must be some type of dualism that I'm contending has no basis today.

Quoting Wayfarer

You can't have it both ways. First you acknowledge that life seeks to extend the scope of 'ordinary' chemical reactions, and then as soon as that is pointed out, you say 'well, actually it doesn't, regular chemical reactions are doing that.

No, I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm saying that life = group of chemical reactions that seek to self-sustain. You seem to put some attribute beyond the physical to it. I don't. That's just one aspect of physical reality.

Quoting Wayfarer

Can you extend your consciousness outside of your physical body? No.
— Philosophim

You don't know that, it's simply an assumption because in the normal state of being we naturally associate with the body.

We both know that because we cannot do it. Its like saying I don't know that a unicorn that you cannot sense doesn't exist. No, I know such a thing does not exist. To know that we can do something is to have actually done it at least once.

Thank you for your engagement Wayfarer, its always a good discussion. However, I don't want to derail the OP's thread. Feel free to have the last word, or create a new thread and I'll join you there if you want further discussion.

Quoting Fooloso4

Yet nowhere in your paper do you mention this important point.

I am not writing a commentary on De Anima. I am discussing the Hard Problem.

Quoting Fooloso4

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

In one sense (its genesis) it does not emerge in interaction. In another sense (its actual operation) it does -- just like electron repulsion.

Quoting Fooloso4

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled.

I said it was controversial and offered my argument to resolve the controversy.

Quoting Fooloso4

Your appeal is to a notion of logic that abstracts from physical reality, as if it is perfectly logical to think that rocks can become hummingbirds.

You make my case. If we abstract away physical reality, anything can happen, so the reason many things cannot happen is an aspect of physical reality.

Quoting Fooloso4

Of course you are free to use Aristotle when doing so supports your argument and abandoning him when he doesn't

I am never using Aristotle as an authority. I am crediting him as a source.

Quoting Fooloso4

Your a priori metaphysical abstraction

By definition, an abstraction focuses on some aspects of experience while prescinding from others. As it is based on experience, it is necessarily a posteriori.

Quoting Philosophim

Yes, we all know what analogous means. You described consciousness as analogous. That means it is partly the same and partly different to what?

As I said, it is the different senses of "consciousness" that are analogous.

Quoting Philosophim

"I shall argue that it is logically impossible to reduce consciousness, and the intentional realities flowing out of it, to a physical basis."

That does not mean that there is no physical aspect. If you read the whole article, my position would be clear. For example, "Descartes drew the wrong line in the wrong place. It is the wrong line because discursive thought requires neural representations." (p. 109).

Thank you for the congratulations.

Quoting Philosophim

I'm saying that life = group of chemical reactions that seek to self-sustain.

So, you see life as teleological? Seeking the goal of being self-sustaining.

Quoting Philosophim

You seem to put some attribute beyond the physical to it. I don't.

By definition, chemistry seeking non-chemical outcomes transcends the physical.
.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You have conflated easier problems with the Hard Problem.

No I have not, I haven't suggested any problems. I am just addressing one of the pseudo philosophical "why" questions of Chalmers's supposedly "hard problem.[/quote]

Quoting schopenhauer1

Easier problems deal with mechanisms for brain function.

No they are not Neuroscience deals with far more difficult problems than Chalmers teleological fallacious questions.[/quote]


Quoting schopenhauer1

This can be tested and is amenable to empirical verification.

-Please watch Anil Seth lectures on the subject. You will learn about our difficulties.


Quoting schopenhauer1

The Hard Problem is how it is that there is a point of view.

Its like asking "why previously exited electrons produce a particle out of thin air"....the answer to all this type of questions is "because they do".


Quoting schopenhauer1

The problem is that people who try to handwave the question by purporting the easier problems as the solution, aren't getting it.

-The question is fallacious(teleology) since the answer can only be whatever the questioner desires.
The fact is that in Nature fundamental or emergent properties "exist" and asking ''why" they exist is a nonsensical question.


Quoting schopenhauer1

They are ALREADY assuming the consequent without explaining it.

If you study the scientific material of the interdisciplinary fields you will see that we are tackling far more meaningful and logical questions. As I wrote before,this why question can be answered by Evolutionary biology. Experiencing your Environment provides a Survival advantage to Organisms(animals) that aren't plants and need to move around and compete for resources. The fact that we have 2.5 milion of species (animals and insects) with different qualities of experiences verifies the evolutionary character of the property.


Quoting schopenhauer1

It is the Homunculus Fallacy. Simply listing off physical processes doesn't get at things like subjective qualia or imagination.

You are confusing the ability to be conscious with the quality of a conscious experience. That is a common error idealists do based on Bad Language Mode. You also confuse a secondary Mind Property with Consciousness which is the top 3 (According to Neuroscience).
Again I can not stress it enough. Individuals you want to understand the phenomenon they NEED to study our official Scientific knowledge on the topic. The second important step is to STOP using abstract concepts and assume that it points to a substance/entity/agent.


Quoting schopenhauer1

What IS that thing that mind-thing that I am doing when I am imagining a blue cube being rotated in my mind? What is THAT.

-That is a mental state. Your Central Later Thalamus has the ability to connect different areas of your brain, specialized in Memory/past experience, logic, Abstract thinking, Symbolic language, Critical thinking, Imagination etc and introduce content in that specific mental state....and all this is enabled by your Ascending Reticular Activating System.


Quoting schopenhauer1

You can say it is "such-and-such neural networks" and that it developed because of "such-and-such evolutionary reasons", but that is not answering the question.

-Of course it answers a huge part of that answer and not only that!!!! We can use this knowledge either to force a brain to recreate that specific state, we can read brain scans and based on the brain patter we can accurately (up to 85%) decode the conscious thought of the subject, we have designed Surgery and Medical protocols that can reestablish or improve specific mental states in patients and we can make Accurate diagnoses by looking at the physiology and function of brains and by analyzing the symptoms of a patient's mental states. We can predict mental malfunctions by studying the pathology of brains...and the list goes on.


Quoting schopenhauer1

How is it that there is this rotating of the blue cube that is happening with the firing of the neurons.

-brains are connected to a complex sensory system and they can store images. People who haven't observed such images are unable to reproduce them. The evolution in Arts , Music, Architecture, design etc verifies the importance of experiencing existing patterns in order to be able to modify and improve on them.
But your questions is a why question in disguise. In reality you are asking: why neurons have the ability to store and reproduce this optical stimuli. (why a silicon processor turn zeros and ones in complex pictures on a monitor). If they couldn't you wouldn't be able to see, remember and...ultimately survive.
The answer is simple your neurons can do that because you are the descendant of organisms with brains who could and they survived enough to pass this trait to the next generation.


Quoting schopenhauer1

It is superimposed, and forced into the picture but without explanation, only correlation with various obvious empirical stuff that isn't getting any closer to the answer to the question.

-Why gravity has the quality it has...why it pulls but never pushes. Why conductivity manifest solely in metals. Why electricity passing through silicon ICs can produce images on a TFT or LED panel.
Why molecules act differently in different temperatures.
The answer is always "because they do".

You are a modern Don Quixote who asks questions that are meaningless.

Quoting Dfpolis

I am not writing a commentary on De Anima. I am discussing the Hard Problem.

'Active or agent intellect' is a term of art for Aristotle. An adequate discussion of it does not require a commentary on De Anima, but if you claiming that consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect, then it requires a discussion of what Aristotle actually said about it rather than skip over an essential point. If what you mean by agent intellect is what Aristotle said about it then your claim that consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect is the claim that consciousness is deathless and everlasting. Seems like an important point to skip over.

Quoting Dfpolis

I said it was controversial and offered my argument to resolve the controversy.

You didn't offer an argument. You simply chose one side.

Quoting Dfpolis

If we abstract away physical reality, anything can happen

When talking about physical reality it makes no sense to abstract away physical reality. To abstract away from physical reality and claim that it is logically possible for rocks to become hummingbirds is sophistry.

Quoting Dfpolis

I am never using Aristotle as an authority. I am crediting him as a source.

You are doing more than that. You do not simply cite him as a source, your argument is based on his. You refer to him 36 times in the article.

You say in the discussion:

Quoting Dfpolis

I am an Aristotelian.

and response to someone

Quoting Dfpolis

this is not the Aristotelian view.

Quoting Dfpolis

By definition, an abstraction focuses on some aspects of experience while prescinding from others. As it is based on experience, it is necessarily a posteriori.

When you "abstract away physical reality" you are not focusing on some aspect of experience. It is an escape to never never land. There can be no experience of such a world where everything that is not a logical contradiction can and does happen. The claim is not a posteriori.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Its like asking "why previously exited electrons produce a particle out of thin air"....the answer to all this type of questions is "because they do".

Cool. End of philosophy.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

You are confusing the ability to be conscious with the quality of a conscious experience.

No not it. Rather, how is it that experience is at all, along with biochemical processes. Just the piling on of more biochemical (or any physical) processes is not going to get you closer to that answer. It simply answers the easier problems of what events we can observe correlating with subjectivity/experientialness.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-That is a mental state. Your Central Later Thalamus has the ability to connect different areas of your brain, specialized in Memory/past experience, logic, Abstract thinking, Symbolic language, Critical thinking, Imagination etc and introduce content in that specific mental state....and all this is enabled by your Ascending Reticular Activating System.

Yeah now you are just making categorical errors all over the place.. You went from "mental state" (the thing in question), to its physical correlates, but no closer to how the correlates ARE the mental state (ontologically). Homunculus here and there and everywhere. You do not seem to be getting the hard problem or are obstinately ignoring it.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-Of course it answers a huge part of that answer and not only that!!!! We can use this knowledge either to force a brain to recreate that specific state, we can read brain scans and based on the brain patter we can accurately (up to 85%) decode the conscious thought of the subject, we have designed Surgery and Medical protocols that can reestablish or improve specific mental states in patients and we can make Accurate diagnoses by looking at the physiology and function of brains and by analyzing the symptoms of a patient's mental states. We can predict mental malfunctions by studying the pathology of brains...and the list goes on.

So now it really does show you do not know the difference between easy and hard problem and are repeating this error over and over. I can try to explain it better if you want, but I feel that I have in my last post so not sure what else to say but you are not getting it.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-Why gravity has the quality it has...why it pulls but never pushes. Why conductivity manifest solely in metals. Why electricity passing through silicon ICs can produce images on a TFT or LED panel.
Why molecules act differently in different temperatures.
The answer is always "because they do".

That's not scientific at all. The very thing that is most well known to us (our own subjective experience) you are just saying "It is". Not very scientific. The other stuff you mentioned, ironically can go straight into the realist versus idealist debate for if those phenomena (scientific or otherwise) are anything beyond our empirical observation of it.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Cool. End of philosophy

Well the end of Philosophy came with that "why" question. There is nowhere to go from there. If we embrace the right "how/what" question there is plenty of philosophy to be done on available scientific data.
Philosophy's goal is to produce wise claims on available facts and expand our understanding of the world. Fallacious questions don't really serve that purpose.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Rather, how is it that experience is at all, along with biochemical processes.

Again a disguised "why" question that doesn't really ask anything meaningful. Why Weak and Strong forces exist?......they just do. Why electricity exists....etc.
Now experience DOESN'T exist as an entity or a force or a substance. Experience is a process enabled by biochemical systems /structures(brain).
We need to be careful not to assume entities when using abstract concepts and to accept observable mechanism that are verified through Strong Correlations.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Just the piling on of more biochemical (or any physical) processes is not going to get you closer to that answer.

Even if that was true...How can you ever make claim that? BUt it isn't . For 35 years we have managed to get closer and closer to a descriptive framework about the Necessary and Sufficient role of a biological mechanism in our ability to experience ourself and surroundings.
Denying it is just scientifically wrong. The data are overwhelming.
As Laplace replied to Napoleon's question "where God fits in your model" we can say with certainty " We have no need for that hypothesis, the model works without it".(not only Describes accurate, it Predicts and it offer us Technical Applications)
Necessity and Sufficiency are met...and Chalmer's "why" questions aren't enough to justify any unnecessary entity/process/substance/force (unparsimonious).

Quoting schopenhauer1

It simply answers the easier problems of what events we can observe correlating with subjectivity/experientialness.

-Again, a "why question" that doesn't have an answer is not harder....its irrelevant and without meaning.
Teleological fallacies do not qualify as serious questions or helpful to our quest for wisdom....
Again you are committing the same mistake by addressing the quality some personal experiences have, not the actual ability(process) of a thinking organism. You take us back in time when Philosophy and early science were hunting Plogiston, Miasma, Panacea, Orgone Energy and many other discredited substances.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Yeah now you are just making categorical errors all over the place.

No I am not, I am pointing to the descriptive framework of a mechanism proven to be Necessary and Sufficient for that specific property to manifest in reality.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You went from "mental state" (the thing in question), to its physical correlates,

-No I pointed to Strong Correlations that render specific physical processes Necessary and Sufficient for a mental state to emerge. Strong Correlations in Science are the closest we can get to a proof(philosophy of Science-Paul Hoyningen). Of course Science is not a tool of Logic/mathematics(the other way around) so we can not prove 100% anything. What we can do is to try and falsify our working Hypothesis. For 35-40 years we are constantly failing to falsify and render thes biological mechanisms Unnecessary and Insufficient.
We can not disprove a universal negative (a source of the phenomenon beyond physical mechanisms) so we are forced to reject that claim(Null Hypothesis) and stay within our limits of observations and work with the current scientific paradigm and model. This is Logic 101


Quoting schopenhauer1

but no closer to how the correlates ARE the mental state (ontologically).

-For that question you will need to visit Neurosciencenews.org , put the search key phrase "How the brain does" and you will learn the "hows" and "whats" for many mental functions.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Homunculus here and there and everywhere. You do not seem to be getting the hard problem or are obstinately ignoring it.

-Again the "hard problem" is a made problem without an answer. We don't have a way to judge the truth value of an answer in favor of a teleological question. In addition to that, Intention and Purpose need to be demonstrated before they are asserted.

Quoting schopenhauer1

So now it really does show you do not know the difference between easy and hard problem and are repeating this error over and over.

-No I'm just pointing out that "why" questions (like why there is something rather than nothing) are pseudo philosophical questions. Just because we can not answer them it doesn't mean they are hard. They are nonsensical, fallacious and they are far from the real hard questions of the field.
Try reading Anil Seth's essay on AEON.

Quoting schopenhauer1

I can try to explain it better if you want, but I feel that I have in my last post so not sure what else to say but you are not getting it.

-Please do, but I think the problem here is that you ignore the latest science what fallacies are.

Quoting schopenhauer1

That's not scientific at all. The very thing that is most well known to us (our own subjective experience) you are just saying "It is". N

Of course it is. In science we are honest enough to say we don't know what gravity is, it behaves the way it does, but we won't make claims about a supernatural source for its properties. We just identity the necessary and sufficient mechanism for the emergence of the phenomenon, do our measurements and math and describe/ predict the phenomenon.
We use the exact same approach for the biological phenomenon of the mind. Its the most honest thing to do.
There is no need to commit an Argument from ignorance fallacy (just because we don't know why neurons have this ability and can't prove a universal negative..we can assume a supernatural source for the mind).

Quoting schopenhauer1

Not very scientific.

-Science is based on the Principles of Methodological Naturalism.That means our methods and description can only be within the realm we can observe and investigate and we are forced to keep supernatural explanations outside our frameworks until we are able to verify/falsify them.
So asking a "begging the question" fallacious question is unscientific and irrational.

Quoting schopenhauer1

The other stuff you mentioned, ironically can go straight into the realist versus idealist debate for if those phenomena (scientific or otherwise) are anything beyond our empirical observation of it.

-You shouldn't go to that debate. Idealism is a pseudo philosophical worldview that hasn't assisted our Epistemology or Philosophy. Philosophy's first stem is the evaluation of our Epistemology(what we know and how we know it). Unfortunately for idealists, we don't have any knowledge based on Idealistic principles.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Well the end of Philosophy came with that "why" question. There is nowhere to go from there. If we embrace the right "how/what" question there is plenty of philosophy to be done on available scientific data.
Philosophy's goal is to produce wise claims on available facts and expand our understanding of the world. Fallacious questions don't really serve that purpose.

You are missing his point. Rotating a cube in your mind is a phenomenon. Physiological/biological processes are a phenomenon. They are correlated. Yet that correlation, while no one is doubting its correlation through observation, has it such that a completely new kind of phenomena takes place that is different from all the other physical phenomena. That is, it is the fundamental phenomena of qualitative-ness/ experiential-ness. That such a unique thing exists that is so different than all the physical phenomena is the question. Why should neural networks be correlated with qualatitiveness? A purely physical description would simply be some sort of behaviorism. It would be like AI that has no qualitative experience but has inputs and outputs. But that's not the case, we have experience. You can play ignorant hobbit, and say we don't need to explain that, but then you are just pouting that it is such a hard question and then delegitimizing it because of its difficulty. Well, poo poo, it is a quite difficult question, and thus will remain a thorn in the side of your sour grapes that it cannot be explained. But to make the problem go away by simple fiat that philosophical inquiry just sucks is not going to do anything other than show your feeling about it.


You Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Even if that was true...How can you ever make claim that? BUt it isn't . For 35 years we have managed to get closer and closer to a descriptive framework about the Necessary and Sufficient role of a biological mechanism in our ability to experience ourself and surroundings.
Denying it is just scientifically wrong. The data are overwhelming.
As Laplace replied to Napoleon's question "where God fits in your model" we can say with certainty " We have no need for that hypothesis, the model works without it".(not only Describes accurate, it Predicts and it offer us Technical Applications)
Necessity and Sufficiency are met...and Chalmer's "why" questions aren't enough to justify any unnecessary entity/process/substance/force (unparsimonious).

I don't know the answer to the hard question obviously. But what I do know is that there is a hidden dualism in materialist assumptions. Emergence/integration/binding it doesn't matter your phrasing, it is all stand ins for "magical experience takes place". You are always thus jumping from category physical to category mental activity. The assumption is simply just put there because we know indeed we experience. Nothing is explained otherwise as to the nature of this "experience" other than it is correlated with these physiological correlations.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-For that question you will need to visit Neurosciencenews.org , put the search key phrase "How the brain does" and you will learn the "hows" and "whats" for many mental functions.

No, again, that is not ontologically how they are one and the same, just that these physical processes correlate to these experiential ones. Those are indeed the easy problems Chalmers mentions.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-Please do, but I think the problem here is that you ignore the latest science what fallacies are.

Experience the very thing which observes the other phenomena. How is it this is the biological/physical substrate, and if it "arises" from the physical substrates, "what" is this "arising"?

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Lectures - talks
Alok Jha: Consciousness, the hard problem? - Presentations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=313yn0RY9QI

Anil Seth on the Neuroscience of Consciousness, Free Will, The Self, and Perception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUEqXhDbVs

These talks don't seem to support what you're saying. For example, Anil Seth defines 'consciousness' just in terms of subjective experience, at least to start with.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You are missing his point. Rotating a cube in your mind is a phenomenon. Physiological/biological processes are a phenomenon. They are correlated. Yet that correlation, while no one is doubting its correlation through observation, has it such that a completely new kind of phenomena takes place that is different from all the other physical phenomena

-Yes that is his point and I am not saying he is not making that point. I am only saying that his objections are hugely misinformed! All Emergent properties BY DEFINITION do NOT share the same characteristics with mechanisms responsible for their "existence".
Physiological/biological processes are emergent phenomena. life,Metabolism, mitosis,self organization, Photosynthesis etc are emergent properties irrelevant how amazing or impossible they appear to us!

Again, Science doesn't arrive to conclusions through simple correlations. The systematic and methodological nature of Science allow us to identify Strong Correlations between a low level mechanism and its high level features even in complex biological systems. This is what makes those Strong Correlations capable to produce Meaningful Descriptions, Accurate Predictions and Technical applications.!


Quoting schopenhauer1

That is, it is the fundamental phenomena of qualitative-ness/ experiential-ness.

You are using way to many abstract concepts for your statement to make any meaning. I will try to break it down in known processes. "Yes the ability of the brain to receive internal or external stimuli through the workings of a complex sensory system and to reflect upon them through the unique biological setup of an organism and a large list of mental properties(memory, reasoning, imagination, symbolic language, pattern recognition etc) renders its role fundamental for our ability to experience the qualities of the worlds subjectively.

Quoting schopenhauer1

That such a unique thing exists that is so different than all the physical phenomena is the question.

All emergent phenomena are different from any other phenomenon. i.e. Cellular Self Organization is a unique feature! We just cherry pick the phenomenon experience to produce our narrative for our "special nature" or to justify our death denying ideologies.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Why should neural networks be correlated with qualatitiveness?

-Again, "why" questions are not good questions when it comes to understand Natural phenomena.
Neural Networks enable mental properties(like conscious experiences) to emerge. The subjective nature of our conscious experiences depends on:
1.our biological setup. i.e. A super taster(one with a huge number of taste buds on his tongue) finds the experience of spicy foods really bad compared to people with a smaller number of taste buds.
2.our previous experiences. i.e throwing up a meal for irrelevant reasons will make us hate that taste.
3. Physiological Anomalies. Eyes lacking specific color rods are unable to accurate convey the actual information of energy carried by a photons.
Childhood experiences are stronger, stress affects our ability to store info, feelings enhance our abilities to store memories, hormones and receptors work different on different individuals so people tend to experience things differently based on how their limbic system works and whether they had positive or negative childhood experiences.
We can NOT provide answers to those questions without proper scientific knowledge on the relevant mechanisms.

Quoting schopenhauer1

A purely physical description would simply be some sort of behaviorism.

-That is a false conclusion.First all we haven't verified any other realm so a physical description is the only thing we can evaluate. Such a description could NEVER be an ism (since it is a description)....It can only be Science.

Quoting schopenhauer1

. It would be like AI that has no qualitative experience but has inputs and outputs. But that's not the case, we have experience.

That's a wrong example. AI works on algorithms. We on an other hand work on emotions reasoned in to feelings which in turn inform our Actions.
Mark Solms, the founder of Neuropsychoanalysis in his latest Theory explains how emotions fuel our states and how advanced mental properties like Symbolic language and previous knowledge and experience introduce meaningful content in our conscious experiences.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You can play ignorant hobbit, and say we don't need to explain that, but then you are just pouting that it is such a hard question and then delegitimizing it because of its difficulty.

You are not listening , I am not saying "we don't need to explain that". I am only pointing out that "amazing properties" are what matter is capable off. The bigger the complexity of the structure and function is the more advanced these emerging properties get.
Asking ''why'' matter is capable of this thing is a nonsensical question. IF you have a way or a method to go beyond the physical realm (if of course there is a "beyond") and study whatever (if) lies beyond then be my quest.
From the moment you are unable to verify or study anything beyond the Physical realm, you are doomed to speculate without epistemology....and Philosophy without epistemology is Pseudo Philosophy.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Well, poo poo, it is a quite difficult question, and thus will remain a thorn in the side of your sour grapes that it cannot be explained.

Again these questions are not hard, they are fallacious (poisoning the well).
Its a huge argument from ignorance fallacy too...since they "create" a fake unknown and they use it as an excuse to introduce magic as a potential answer.

My answer is "we don't know" we can only observe empirical regularity in our Strong Correlations. Specific structures of Matter appear as Necessary and Sufficient for these phenomena .
You on the other hand claim...because we can not prove 100% the ultimate ontology of the phenomenon(ignorance fallacy) and because the phenomenon seems to us completely different (personal incredulity fallacy) we are justified to assume additional dimensions ,realms and agents (argument from magic).
The truth is that biology is not the smallest scale of our world. Its bigger than the quantum scale and the molecular scale. Phenomena like the mind can only emerge in this larger scale (biology).

So there is no reason to assume hidden scales or dimension and reject our current Scientific Paradigm just because we ask the wrong questions.

Quoting schopenhauer1

But to make the problem go away by simple fiat that philosophical inquiry just sucks is not going to do anything other than show your feeling about it.

Please, don't project your personal motivation!.I am not the one who really needs to have an answer even if it means to invent a completely new substrate (its not wise to attempt to answer a mystery with a bigger mystery). My approach is cold, scientific and in total agreement with the basic rules and principles of science.
The moment to assume an additional dimension/substance/agent as necessary and sufficient is ONLY after we manage to demonstrate its existence and role...not a second sooner.

Quoting schopenhauer1

I don't know the answer to the hard question obviously. But what I do know is that there is a hidden dualism in materialist assumptions.

For that...you will need to talk to materialists. I am not a materialist but a Methodological Naturalist. I reject all metaphysical worldviews and I try to keep out from our epistemology and working hypotheses all metaphysical artifacts that can't be falsified.
And yes I know you don't know the answer of the "hard question" because it doesn't have an answer. Its a "why" question. Teleology is useless when we are trying to understand natural phenomena.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Emergence/integration/binding it doesn't matter your phrasing, it is all stand ins for "magical experience takes place". You are always thus jumping from category physical to category mental activity.

-This doesn't make sense. Pls read about Scientific Emergence and Complexity science. It will help you understand the differences between Pragmatic Necessity ( to accept a empirical regular phenomenon without making ontological questions) and Idealistic preferences (making up claims for an assumed underlying ontological mechanism).
In Methodological Naturalism we don't accept made up Substances to explain a phenomenon. We know for decades now its a waste of time. Phlogiston , Miasma, Orgone energy etc etc derailed our efforts to understand the world by assuming these agents responsible for the phenomena in question.
We identify our limits in our observations and within the realm accessible to us we try to construct the best descriptions we can.
Materialists might say "there is nothing beyond Matter" , idealists might say "there is mind beyond matter"....Methodological Naturalists say who cares with your unfalsifiable stories...lets do science and provide justification to our knowledge claims.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You are always thus jumping from category physical to category mental activity.

Mental Activity is contingent to physical structure and function. Without the latter you can not have the first.
What may lie beyond our observations is something that both Materialists and Idealists need to justify free from fallacies before bringing their ideologies in Philosophy.



Quoting schopenhauer1

The assumption is simply just put there because we know indeed we experience. Nothing is explained otherwise as to the nature of this "experience" other than it is correlated with these physiological correlations.

-You need to study Neuroscience before making those false claims. Again don't talk about "correlations" . Science systematicity doesn't deal with simple correlations.

Quoting schopenhauer1

No, again, that is not ontologically how they are one and the same, just that these physical processes correlate to these experiential ones. Those are indeed the easy problems Chalmers mentions.

We Shouldn't care for any assumed, untestable metaphysical ontology.We only care about the observable ontology that enables a phenomenon to manifest in our realm.
You don't know and have no way to prove the existence of an underlying ontology so it is irrational to keep pushing this ideology on the excuse "conscious experience appear to be magical"!

Quoting schopenhauer1

Experience the very thing which observes the other phenomena. How is it this is the biological/physical substrate, and if it "arises" from the physical substrates, "what" is this "arising"?

-Be aware of your bad language mode since it derails and pollutes your train of thought. Experience is NOT an agent. Its a label we put on a biological process where sensory systems feed stimuli to the brain and the brain process them in to meaning through the consumption of metabolic molecules and by achieving connections to different brain areas specialized on different properties of mind..
Again you are asking "Why" questions and that is a fallacious practice.
Those questions do not address the same thing with what science tries to explain.
They go beyond our verified realm and ask questions on unobservable and unverifiable ontologies.
This is Pseudo philosophy.

Reply to bert1 ok bert...........

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

ok bert...........

Hi!

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

You don't know and have no way to prove the existence of an underlying ontology so it is irrational to keep pushing this ideology on the excuse "conscious experience appear to be magical"!

This is your whole argument repeated. Philosophy and science are doing two different things. The assumption you’re making is the value statement that philosophy is to only be subordinate to science to have any value. Rather, it is a never ending dialogue that poses questions and proposes avenues to explore to answer them. It considers science as a methodology but is not bound to not ask questions science cannot be able to answer. You are asking philosophy to do something it’s not bound to do and say why isn’t it so bound. Sounds like a you problem.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

"conscious experience appear to be magical"!

Literally nobody ever says that. Not that I've heard anyway.

Quoting Fooloso4

Declaring the failure of reductionism seems premature.

When the OP first started posting on this forum a while ago, I was driven by curiosity to quick-read some sort of paper or book chapter that he shared. I remember being struck by the breathtaking ease with which he solved long-standing problems of philosophy. He proved the existence of God in one short paragraph, then went on as if that question was now settled once and for all. He established the truth of determinism even more simply: by quoting Laplace's famous maxim (Laplace's demon). Later he did think it necessary for some reason to revisit the question of determinism in light of the challenge supposedly posed by quantum mechanics, but dismissed it right away with a reference to Bohm's pilot wave theory - thus settling, in passing, the problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Quoting schopenhauer1

This is your whole argument repeated.

You didn't quote my argument so I am not sure you understood it correctly

Quoting schopenhauer1

Philosophy and science are doing two different things.

Correct. Science produces the most credible Epistemology while Philosophy is the tool we use to understand its implications and make us wiser.
When our Philosophical doesn't start from an epistemic foundation then we are guilty of pseudo-philosophizing. (like Chalmers did with this idea).


Quoting schopenhauer1

The assumption you’re making is the value statement that philosophy is to only be subordinate to science to have any value.

Not true. As I pointed out many times before ,claims with unknown epistemic value can never be accepted as wise. (this isn't difficult to comprehend).
We can not do science without philosophy and we can not do meaningful philosophy without credible knowledge.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Rather, it is a never ending dialogue that poses questions and proposes avenues to explore to answer them

-We can agree on that. The problem emerges when a dialogue doesn't start fromasturdy epistemic foundation allowing it to drift towards wishful thoughts and desires.
Philosophy is an exercise in frustration NOT a quick fix for our Existential and Epistemic anxieties.

Quoting schopenhauer1

It considers science as a methodology but is not bound to not ask questions science cannot be able to answer.

-That is a factually wrong statement. Science, previously known as Natural Philosophy is a Philosophical Category with the addition of a huge set of empirical and statistical methodologies.
Science IS philosophy practice on far better Data(this is why we also have theoretical frameworks, hypotheses and interpretations!). When data are available we do Science, when they aren't we do Philosophy.
What we don't do in Natural Philosophy is to accept pseudo philosophical worldviews like idealism, occasionalism,solipsism as frameworks of our epistemology.
There are many reasons why some questions can't be answered, but not all sentences with a question-mark at the end qualify as real philosophical questions.(look Chalmers's fallacious teleological questions).
The problem we are dealing with here is not between Science and Philosophy, but Philosophy and Pseudo Philosophy.

Idealism is Pseudo philosophy. ITs principles are assumed, they aren't founded on observations or epistemology and an assumed conclusion not a testable hypothesis to put on the test.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You are asking philosophy to do something it’s not bound to do and say why isn’t it so bound. Sounds like a you problem.

_No I am only demarcating Philosophy from pseudo philosophical claims based on fallacious reasoning and total lack of epistemic support in their metaphysical assumptions.

Reply to bert1 When someone assumes an unobservable untestable ontology in addition to a necessary and sufficient scientific description , then the source of that ontology is not distinguishable from Magic.

This thread isn't about Dfpolis's paper any more is it?

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

What we don't do in Natural Philosophy is to accept pseudo philosophical worldviews like idealism, occasionalism,solipsism as frameworks of our epistemology.
There are many reasons why some questions can't be answered, but not all sentences with a question-mark at the end qualify as real philosophical questions.(look Chalmers's fallacious teleological questions).
The problem we are dealing with here is not between Science and Philosophy, but Philosophy and Pseudo Philosophy.

Glad it's not science we are discussing. In Fight Club we don't talk about Fight Club. But I'm not in Fight Club, so I'll talk about it and not limit myself in such a way.

Also about emergence, there are whole sections of philosophy that discuss the trickiness of emergence and reduction- how it is that the whole reduces to its parts. Weak and strong emergence, which I think you were alluding to. We know that new entities supervene on their constituents, but we aren't clear on how.

An Idealist, for example, could make the claim that emergence could never take place without an observational standpoint. There has to be "something" for which emerging happens in. Sort of a container. Otherwise, we get ghostly new entities from fiat, which itself has to be explained. In other words, answering it by giving its constituents would simply be circular reasoning and not a sufficient answer.

Quoting Joshs

Humans evolved as cooperative social creatures. Like many other mammals, we are born with certain moral emotions , such as the protection of our young and the ability to experience pain at the suffering of others in our group. Sacrificing oneself for the protection of others is seen in other animals. Anthropologists hypothesize that conscience evolved in order to protect tribes from the violence of alpha males. Even behaviors which on the surface appear unadaptive, such as suicide or homicide, are driven by a combination of such moral emotions.

It is not the self strictly defined as a body, that our biologically evolved motivational processes are designed to preserve. Rather, it is social systems ( friendship, marriage, family, clan) that sustain us and that we are primed to defend.

In regards to the boundaries of 'self', it is interesting to consider Bateson's view on the 'unit of evolutionary' change:

Quoting Gregory Bateson, Form, Substance, Difference

Let us start from the evolutionary side. It is now empirically clear that Darwinian evolutionary theory contained a very great error in its identification of the unit of survival under natural selection. The unit which was believed to be crucial and around which the theory was set up was either the breeding individual or the family line or the subspecies or some similar homogeneous set of conspecifics. Now I suggest that the last hundred years have demonstrated empirically that if an organism or aggregate of organisms sets to work with a focus on its own survival and thinks that is the way to select its adaptive moves, its "progress" ends up with a destroyed environment. If the organism ends up destroying its environment, it has in fact destroyed itself. And we may very easily see this process carried to its ultimate reductio ad absurdum in the next twenty years. The unit of survival is not the breeding organism, or the family line, or the society.

The old unit has already been partly corrected by the population geneticists. They have insisted that the evolutionary unit is, in fact, not homogeneous. A wild population of any species consists always of individuals whose genetic constitution varies widely. In other words, potentiality and readiness for change is already built into the survival unit. The heterogeneity of the wild population is already one-half of that trial-and-error system which is necessary for dealing with environment.

The artificially homogenized populations of man's domestic animals and plants are scarcely fit for survival.

And today a further correction of the unit is necessary. The flexible environment must also be included along with the flexible organism because, as I have already said, the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. The unit of survival is a flexible organism-in-its-environment.

While this is not the same as Nietzsche's view of nature, perhaps it touches upon Nietzsche's dislike of the 'survival of the fittest' model because it did not express the superfluity or over-abundance of life.

Reply to Dfpolis Quoting Dfpolis

Kant attributed apriori categorical content to the subject.
— Joshs
I am neither Kant, nor a Kantian. I think his approach is fundamentally wrong.

I am an Aristotelian.

Aren’t we all Kantians now , including those physicists who extend the scope of Quantum theory? That is to say, even though Kant’s ideas have been subject to a variety of critiques within contemporary philosophy and science, I know of no major theorist who has rejected his key premise, that the mind contributes to the organization of our experience, and this organizing, categorizing and synthesizing activity of the mind is the condition of possibility for empirical knowledge. What most disagree with is Kant’s claim that the mind’s organizing capabilities are grounded in a metaphysical a priori. Are you rejecting Kant’s central premise or offering a critique of Kant which preserves this premise?

Quoting Dfpolis

So far, you have not criticized one argument in my paper. Instead, you have accused me to the errors of others and made unsubstantiated claims. Perhaps if you addressed what I actually wrote, we could make more progress. For example, in an earlier post, I listed 7 problems I have with the Standard Model. You could explain why these are not real problems

As you have pointed out, your use of the term Standard Model is you own invention. This is a bold and risky move for an outsider to philosophy of mind. By creating a single overarching category de novo, and attempting to squeeze a diverse assortment of philosophical views within it, you are turning your back on an entire community of thought. Perhaps your Aristotelian-inflected model is a truly fresh perspective, but it could also be a reinventing of the wheel born of a lack of exposure to the relevant philosophical
history, beginning with Kant. After reading your article I am tending toward the latter conclusion. As you grapple with a solution to the Hard Problem alongside those you mention in your paper, it is clear that what you have in common with your interlocutors is the acknowledgment of contributions from two domains , the subjective and the objective. For you there is no split between what you call intention and the physical world. You say there is an identity between them: “the object informing the intellect is, identically, the intellect being informed by the object.”

Where you differ from ‘SM’ concerns how much work you expect intention, intellect and will ( form, potency) to do vs the physical pole (act, matter) . That is, how you define their relative attributes , functions, capacities and essence.Writers like Chalmers and Dennett will argue that concepts like ‘material’, ‘physical’ and ‘natural’ have evolved alongside our philosophical understanding. As a result, much of what was formerly attributed to the non-physical in the form of the subjectively mental can now be placed within the category of the objectively natural and material( although ‘physical’ is a more contentious term). This includes epistemological and logical-mathematical forms of meaning. This gives the subjectively mental little to contribute other than an affective feeling of what’s it is like to experience. For you, by contrast, epistemology, logic, Will, intentionality, propositionality and mathematics still belong to the subjective pole as pre-given capacities or attributes. Is it your hunch that these are divinely given?

Reply to Paine Quoting Gregory Bateson, Form, Substance, Difference

The flexible environment must also be included along with the flexible organism because, as I have already said, the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. The unit of survival is a flexible organism-in-its-environment.

Yes, the adaptive continuation of a system of interaction with a niche, rather than the survival of a human self(genetic or tribal) , is the focus of selective pressure.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Glad it's not science we are discussing. In Fight Club we don't talk about Fight Club. But I'm not in Fight Club, so I'll talk about it and not limit myself in such a way.

-you stated , I quote "Philosophy and science are doing two different things." So I pointed out that its not about science vs philosophy, its Philosophy vs Pseudo philosophy.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Also about emergence, there are whole sections of philosophy that discuss the trickiness of emergence and reduction- how it is that the whole reduces to its parts. Weak and strong emergence, which I think you were alluding to. We know that new entities supervene on their constituents, but we aren't clear on how.

-Classifying different types of emergence doesn't change the nature of an observable phenomenon like human conscious states.
We can talk about Emergence if you want but your starting point needs to be anchored on our current epistemology and go from there. You shouldn't start from the actual metaphysical claim you have the burden to prove!

Quoting schopenhauer1

An Idealist, for example, could make the claim that emergence could never take place without an observational standpoint.

Facts of reality render that claim wrong.

-"There has to be "something" for which emerging happens in."
_Correct. We observe physical systems producing emergent phenomena ,either Synchronic or Diachronic. (Taxonomy of emergence).

Quoting schopenhauer1

Sort of a container.

No the analogy of a container is wrong since Diachronic Emergence wouldn't be possible. (persistence after the causal mechanism ceasing to exist).

Quoting schopenhauer1

Otherwise, we get ghostly new entities from fiat, which itself has to be explained.

The new emergent phenomena are observable, measurable and most of the times quantifiable. We can affect them and manipulate them by changing the setup of the responsible process. Ghosts do not share the same qualities.

Quoting schopenhauer1

In other words, answering it by giving its constituents would simply be circular reasoning and not a sufficient answer.

"Answering it"? I am not sure your statement is on topic. We identify the Necessary and Sufficient mechanisms responsible for the emergence of the phenomenon.
We do it so well, that we can even make predictions when specific aspects of a mechanism is damaged (brain injury, pathology, intoxication) ,we can make diagnosis and design surgical and medical protocols to treat and improve the quality of the emergent property.
THERE is nothing circular in this approach.
The suggested magical idealistic ontology of the phenomenon has nothing to contribute to the discussion other than stating "wow its so different so a magical source should be hiding behind it".
Sorry this is not Philosophy!

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Philosophy vs Pseudo philosophy.

Right, and but that is smuggling in value statements as if they were objective fact about what comprises what.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-Classifying different types of emergence doesn't change the nature of an observable phenomenon like human conscious states.
We can talk about Emergence if you want but your starting point needs to be anchored on our current epistemology and go from there. You shouldn't start from the actual metaphysical claim you have the burden to prove!

Not getting where you are coming from here. Rather I am saying science can certainly tell me the empirical findings of said phenomenon. It does not (at least now, possibly never because the answer might never be empirical) tell us how it is that emergent phenomena supervene on its constituents.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

Facts of reality render that claim wrong.

Which are based observationally. Convenient.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

-"There has to be "something" for which emerging happens in."
_Correct. We observe physical systems producing emergent phenomena ,either Synchronic or Diachronic. (Taxonomy of emergence).

Right observing. Already in the equation.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

No the analogy of a container is wrong since Diachronic Emergence wouldn't be possible. (persistence after the causal mechanism ceasing to exist).

Still doesn't bypass it. You are assuming the consequent again.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

The new emergent phenomena are observable, measurable and most of the times quantifiable. We can affect them and manipulate them by changing the setup of the responsible process. Ghosts do not share the same qualities.

Yep they are observable indeed. And I did not say "ghosts" but "ghostly" big difference in what I am conveying.

Quoting Nickolasgaspar

"Answering it"? I am not sure your statement is on topic. We identify the Necessary and Sufficient mechanisms responsible for the emergence of the phenomenon.
We do it so well, that we can even make predictions when specific aspects of a mechanism is damaged (brain injury, pathology, intoxication) ,we can make diagnosis and design surgical and medical protocols to treat and improve the quality of the emergent property.
THERE is nothing circular in this approach.
The suggested magical idealistic ontology of the phenomenon has nothing to contribute to the discussion other than stating "wow its so different so a magical source should be hiding behind it".
Sorry this is not Philosophy!

It's the same problem as other posters are making. Being incredulous isn't philosophy, rather. However, even the way you are phrasing is distorting the questions at hand. Rather, what is the nature of this emergence from its constituent parts?

You are making an odd antagonism. Most philosophers are not denying empirical claims. Functionally, the science carries on, no matter what the argument behind the metaphysics and epistemology is, so not sure what has got you so annoyed besides just general incredulity over and over.

Quoting Joshs

... pre-given capacities or attributes.

Aristotle begins with living beings that have certain capacities, including consciousness. If one starts here there is no answer to a question that is not asked, no solution to a problem that is not raised. No hard problem, or so it seems Dfpolis would have us think.

I suspect that if Aristotle were around today he would not be an Aristotelian. For one, in line with contemporary science, his concept of matter or material (hule) would have undergone a radical transformation. He would retain his focus on intelligible wholes and living beings, but he would no longer regard matter itself as something unformed. Matter or material is self-forming. Matter too is "being at work", energeia. A living organism is not simply a whole but a whole of wholes, a system of systems, self-organizing structuring structures.

Reply to Joshs
I wanted to point out that Bateson's statement goes beyond your observation regarding us being social animals. If the image of a Cartesian self is a mind stuck in a particular body is at one end of the scale, Bateson is looking at mind at the opposite end that excludes anthropomorphic models of an activity.

A certain stripe of 'physicalist' and 'meta-physicalist' needs the Cartesian end in order to claim title to a contested real estate. That fades away pretty quickly when one leaves the pool of Narcissus. That is why I responded to your post about Nietzsche to wonder about the uses of 'laws of nature'. They require a formal introduction to any party they are invited to.

Quoting Joshs

Aren’t we all Kantians now , including those physicists who extend the scope of Quantum theory?

There are certainly many who have been confused by Kant. I am not one.

Quoting Joshs

I know of no major theorist who has rejected

I reject it, and I do not find myself alone in doing so.

Quoting Joshs

his key premise, that the mind contributes to the organization of our experience, and this organizing, categorizing and synthesizing activity of the mind is the condition of possibility for empirical knowledge.

I see Kant's thesis as the mind imposing, rather than organizing, content. Our minds do organize content, but that is hardly a Kantian insight, as the idea precedes him by millennia, with the traditional definition of scientia as organized knowledge.

The conditions for empirical knowledge were outlined by Aristotle in De Anima. They are (a) that the world be intelligible (if it were not knowable, it could not be known), (b) that we have a mind capable of being informed by that intelligibility, and (c) that we have the capacity to actualize both potentials in a single act by which the intelligible informs a mind capable of being informed to produce actual knowledge. Absent any of these conditions, we could not have empirical knowledge. None of this involves, or needs to involve, the mind imposing forms of thought as Kant believed.

I would ask you to reflect on your claim, "this organizing, categorizing and synthesizing activity of the mind is the condition of possibility for empirical knowledge." It is prima facie impossible. Why? Because the mind could not possibly organize, or categorize facts it does not know. If it synthesizes a judgement, that judgement is neither empirical nor a fact. Thus, empirical knowledge must precede organizing and categorizing, being the precondition for those activities, rather than the reverse.

Quoting Joshs

Are you rejecting Kant’s central premise or offering a critique of Kant which preserves this premise?

I am rejecting the premises that (1) the mind imposes forms on experience, (2) we cannot know noumenal reality (the ding an sich), and (3) that we synthesize facts. We know reality, but not exhaustively, as God does. We know it in a limited way, as it relates to us.

Quoting Joshs

This is a bold and risky move for an outsider to philosophy of mind.

I would not call myself "an outsider." There is no club to which one must belong. One must only study and reflect -- and I have done both for decades.

Quoting Joshs

you are turning your back on an entire community of thought.

Not at all. Having studied them, I can see what is common to most schools in the community. I am open to suggested refinements, but I think that most subscribe to the SM.

While you say I am ignoring an entire community, another critic says I cited too many sources. [De gustibus non est disputandum..

quote="Joshs;784300"]As a result, much of what was formerly attributed to the non-physical in the form of the subjectively mental can now be placed within the category of the objectively natural and material( although ‘physical’ is a more contentious term).[/quote]
No doubt. Many things are "attributed." I am more concerned with the justification of such attributions. Having a doctorate in physics, I have a reasonable idea of its explanatory capacity. It does not extend to the intentional theater of operations. I am open to correction.

Quoting Joshs

This give the subjectively mental little to contribute other than an affective feeling of what’s it is like to experience.

Then you will have little difficulty in disposing of the seven problems I have enumerated. I only ask you to be critical in accepting the "common wisdom."

Quoting Joshs

For you, by contrast, epistemology, logic, Will, intentionality, propositionality and mathematics still belong to the subjective pole as pre-given capacities or attributes.

You have a very mixed bag here. Some are contentless capabilities, while others are laboriously elaborated sciences.

God is the completion of scientific analysis -- the end of the line of causal explanation. If you think that everything has an explanatory dynamic, then there must be an end of the line of causality, for mathematical induction allows us to show that an infinite regress is an inadequate explanation.

Reply to Dfpolis There is a theme associated with Aristotelian and Thomist philosophy that arises from the hylomorphism of Aristotle. It is conveyed in this passage:

if the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

“Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.

From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.; Macmillan Co., 1941

This is part of a more general thesis that knowledge involves the union of knower with known:

In knowledge we become intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas “form” is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them:

The perfection belonging to one thing is found in another. This is the perfection of a knower insofar as he knows; for something is known by a knower by reason of the fact that the thing known is, in some fashion, in the possession of the knower. Hence it is said in The Soul that the soul is “in some manner, all things,” since its nature is such that it can know all things. In this way, it is possible for the perfection of the entire universe to exist in one thing.

De veritate 2, 2

Is this something considered in your philosophy?

Reply to Dfpolis Quoting Dfpolis

Are you rejecting Kant’s central premise or offering a critique of Kant which preserves this premise?
— Joshs
I am rejecting the premises that (1) the mind imposes forms on experience, (2) we cannot know noumenal reality (the ding an sich), and (3) that we synthesize facts. We know reality, but not exhaustively, as God does. We know it in a limited way, as it relates to us.

At this point in my reading of your work, I find I understand it most coherently by placing it within a pre-Kantian and likely pre-Humean historical context. That is, despite your embrace of Aristotle, your thinking on God and nature is much more compatible with Enlightenment philosophical ideas circa 1650-1750 than anything produced in Classical Greece. I suspect the clarity of your work would greatly benefit by close readings of the writings of Spinoza , Locke and Leibniz. This is the wheel I think you’re reinventing.

Quoting Dfpolis

I would ask you to reflect on your claim, "this organizing, categorizing and synthesizing activity of the mind is the condition of possibility for empirical knowledge." It is prima facie impossible. Why? Because the mind could not possibly organize, or categorize facts it does not know.

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts, it organizes and categorizes the manifold of sensory intuitions according to the categories of the understanding.

Reply to Fooloso4

Quoting Fooloso4

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts, it organizes and categorizes the manifold of sensory intuitions according to the categories of the understanding.

I don’t think this will make sense to him. I really think he is operating from a pre-Kantian and pre-Humean framework.

Reply to Joshs
I am disappointed by this remark.

It is one thing to challenge a point of view and another to ask for shared judgement in your register.

This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

I am writing an article for publication in a Thomist journal rebutting this idea. I laid some foundations in my two articles on the evolution in Studia Gilsoniana, where I argue the relativity of the species concept.

I hold, against Aquinas, that (1) we can encode universal representations materially (as exemplified by connectionist models) and (2) have an intellectual knowledge of singulars/individuals.

Aristotle is quite clear that the senses already separate form from matter. We also have intellectual ideas of singulars, which abstract away temporal variations.

Quoting Wayfarer

This is part of a more general thesis that knowledge involves the union of knower with known:

I think that the union of knower and known is independent of the thesis that the essence of intellectual knowledge is universality.

for Aquinas “form” is the principle of perfection

This thesis needs elaboration. Form is the principle of actuality of individuals, who strive toward perfect self-realization. There is no universal form. Universals are abstractions, existing only in the minds thinking them. If they are well-founded, they have a sound basis in reality. Still, they have no independent existence and are descriptive, not normative. Thinking that they are normative is the basis of moral condemnation of, and prejudice against, individuals whose self-realization is not "normal."

Quoting Wayfarer

Is this something considered in your philosophy?

I agree with the quotation from De Veritate, and speak of it in terms of "shared existence." Shared existence is an essential aspect of knowing.

Reply to Dfpolis So I take then that you don't subscribe to scholastic realism concerning universals? 'Universals, strictly speaking, only exist in minds, but they are founded on real relations of similarity in the world. Scholastic realism goes beyond moderate realism and affirms that universals also exist transcendently; but instead of having a separated existence, transcendent universals exist in God's mind.'

Quoting Joshs

At this point in my reading of your work, I find I understand it most coherently by placing it within a pre-Kantian and likely pre-Humean historical context.

That is its context, though I agree with Hume's observations on the lack of necessity in "causality" as he defines it.

Quoting Joshs

hat is, despite your embrace of Aristotle, your thinking on God and nature is much more compatible with Enlightenment philosophical ideas circa 1650-1750 than anything produced in Classical Greece.

If you read De Anima, you will find that most of my theory is based on its analysis. I found Spinoza's more geometrico is an irrational approach (see my Metaphilosophy article). Leibnitz's monadology assumes Cartesian dualism, which I find wrong-headed. Locke misunderstood the nature of ideas, distorting epistemology. (See Veatch's Intentional Logic.) So, I think you misunderstand me.

Quoting Fooloso4

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts, it organizes and categorizes the manifold of sensory intuitions according to the categories of the understanding.

Not "according to the categories," as I understand him, but by imposing the categories. For example, Hume rightly found causality as he defined it lacked necessity. Kant saw the mind as imposing causal necessity on the succession of events.

Quoting Wayfarer

So I take then that you don't subscribe to scholastic realism concerning universals? 'Universals, strictly speaking, only exist in minds, but they are founded on real relations of similarity in the world. Scholastic realism goes beyond moderate realism and affirms that universals also exist transcendently; but instead of having a separated existence, transcendent universals exist in God's mind.'

According to Copleston, Aquinas is a moderate realist. So, Yes, and no. I am a moderate realist, and see God as having exemplar ideas in the sense of intending to create whatever He creates (which is what Aquinas holds). I do not think God has any universal ideas. I explained this in detail in my 2021 article. (http://gilsonsociety.com/files/847-891-Polis.pdf).

Quoting Fooloso4

his concept of matter or material (hule) would have undergone a radical transformation. He would retain his focus on intelligible wholes and living beings, but he would no longer regard matter itself as something unformed. Matter or material is self-forming. Matter too is "being at work", energeia. A living organism is not simply a whole but a whole of wholes, a system of systems, self-organizing structuring structures.

Aristotle already said much of this. https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC

Quoting Dfpolis

Not "according to the categories," as I understand him, but by imposing the categories.

The categories are the architecture of mind. They are not imposed in the sense that one can either impose them or not. They are the way the mind makes sense of sense data.

Reply to Dfpolis

I get a message stating that I cannot open files from Microsoft 95 or earlier

Reply to Dfpolis

A follow up. You skipped right over the point:

Quoting Fooloso4

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts ...

Reply to Paine Quoting Paine

?Joshs
I am disappointed by this remark.

It is one thing to challenge a point of view and another to ask for shared judgement in your register.

I was advocating for shared judgement in his register, not mine. Otherwise we will just be talking past one another.

Reply to Joshs
I see/hear your challenge to the thesis of the OP. I agree with an element of it but also am trying to challenge your statements. Are we, perhaps, talking past each other?

I figure this sort of thing has always been difficult to talk about.

Quoting Paine

?Joshs
I see/hear your challenge to the thesis of the OP. I agree with an element of it but also am trying to challenge your statements

What I wrote addressing the OP was just me swinging wildly trying to make sense of an at-first alien language. Now that I put it in the context of Enlightenment rationalism it starts to make sense, and its irrelevance to the post-Darwinian, post-Hegelian delineation of the Hard Problem Dennett and Chalmers are grappling with also becomes clear.

Reply to Joshs
You have mapped the problem to your satisfaction.

Quoting Fooloso4

The categories are the architecture of mind. They are not imposed in the sense that one can either impose them or not. They are the way the mind makes sense of sense data.

According to Kant's totally unnecessary theory. In reality, ideas such as Humean causality are empirical generalizations.

Quoting Fooloso4

I get a message stating that I cannot open files from Microsoft 95 or earlier

I have Windows 10 and can open all my files. Message me with your email address, let me know what you want, and I will send it in a format you can open (docx? pdf?).

Quoting Fooloso4

A follow up. You skipped right over the point:

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts ... — Fooloso4

Quite so. As Kant has no facts to be categorized, there is no basis for categorization, as the mind categorizes based on recognized content. The theory is incoherent.

Quoting Dfpolis

I have Windows 10 and can open all my files. Message me with your email address, let me know what you want, and I will send it in a format you can open (docx? pdf?).

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion.

Quoting Dfpolis

As Kant has no facts to be categorized, there is no basis for categorization,

,
The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind.

Quoting Dfpolis

...as the mind categorizes based on recognized content.

This assertion is not a refutation. Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions. You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent. It coheres quite nicely. The question [is - correction made] whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.

Quoting Fooloso4

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion.

They are available online and some are quite long.

Quoting Fooloso4

The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind.

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. It can only modify of our prior neural state. To categorize we must judge that we are dealing with an instance of a category, and judgements are propositional attitudes which, as Churchland notes, have no neural counterpart. Are you now abandoning naturalism?

Quoting Fooloso4

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions.

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing, not on a recognition of meaning -- which is required for categorization. So, you must either abandon Kant, or explain how neural processing can impose abstract a priori categories. (Connectionism assumes training, which may establish a posteriori patterns or associations. As I point out in my article, associations are not judgements.)

Quoting Fooloso4

You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent.

The theory is not incoherent because I disagree with it. Rather, I disagree because it is incoherent. Categorization requires judgement, which is not a sensory function.

Quoting Fooloso4

It coheres quite nicely.

Only if one does not reflect on the mechanisms it proposes.

Quoting Fooloso4

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.

This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way. Sensing and knowing are similar, but essentially different, as sensation does not involve concepts, which require awarenss of content.

Hi D.f., I just finished reading your article. I thought it was quite good, well written, and easy to read. I think you did a very good job of exposing the problems of the SM of neuroscience, and covered the difficulties from many different angles. However, I disagree with your conclusion which you draw from your proposed solution. Specifically, I disagree with your claims of bridging the dualist gap.

Quoting Dfpolis

The article rejects dualism as a framework, qualia as essential to consciousness, actual information in computers, and the reduction of biology to physics. It also clarifies the concept of emergence.

The Aristotelian duality of matter/form, potential/actual, does not provide the basis for a rejection of dualism as you claim, it only reinforces the need for dualism. I will attempt to briefly explain the issues in the following.

First, in the general sense, the separation between potential and actual is proposed by Aristotle as a sort of dichotomy. This means that your attempt to reduce, and resolve them into one, rejecting dualism, is a basic misunderstanding of these principles, in the first place. Consider the difference between potential and actual as analogous to the difference between future and past, in time. The difference between future and past is very real, and only a fool would deny this because, that it is real, is an idea which is fundamental to all human decision making in relation to action taking. It is only in a purely theoretical setting, imaginary I might say, that the difference between past and future might be denied. Now, as you describe, there is always an intermediary between the two, which relates them, and this is "the present" in time.

The intermediary can be apprehended in two different ways, as relational (as unifying the two), or as divisional (as a boundary separating the two). Regardless the two are distinct. Your example, the relativity of simultaneity does not demonstrate that the boundary does not exist, or is not real, it shows that the boundary is vague in our understanding, not well understood, allowing that constructive (conceptual) relations between the two distinct parts may be created in different ways, from different perspectives (frames of reference).

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided. What Aristotle showed was that the classic dualism of mind/body needed to be expanded to include all of physical reality. The broadening of this dualism under the categories of matter/form, potential/actual, would allow us to properly position the duality found within the living being, discovered through subjective introspection, in relation to a wider duality which encompasses all of reality. Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection.

The second point is that when you describe the Fundamental Abstraction (notice "the present" above is a fundamental abstraction) you improperly conclude that dualism can be rejected by excluding the need for a fundamental abstraction. Yes, it may be the case that if we could exclude the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, we could reject dualism, but we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction.

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism. So, you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side. The token side is not representational, therefore any understanding of what a token is, in itself, is not representationally based, but ontologically based. So the type/token distinction cannot be understood through representation alone because the token cannot be grasped. We need to apply some ontological principles. Therefore, we cannot avoid the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, as a basic ontological principle which separates the type from the token, rendering such a distinction as a valid distinction. And this necessitates a metaphysical dualism. To derive the Fundamental Abstraction we turn to our most primitive and basic intuitions such as the difference between past and future, mentioned above. And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological, is nothing but a fundamental abstraction itself..

The final point I'd like to make concerns your focus on the agent intellect, and neglect of the passive intellect. The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect. The agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception, "the agent", was somewhat taken for granted, as actual, formal, therefore consistent with the classical notion of an immaterial intellect. The problem they had was with how to understand the passive intellect. Aristotle demonstrated the need to assume a passive aspect which could receive impressions from the senses. To be a receptor requires passivity. And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter. So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions. And Aristotle states that this is a requirement for all intellectual activity.

So Aquinas was perplexed by the problem of assuming an immaterial intellect, as agent, active and immaterial, directly united with the immaterial soul, yet still having a passive aspect, i.e having some features of potential. I believe that what Aquinas suggested is that this passive or potential aspect of the intellect ought to be understood in terms other than "matter". This is consistent with your rejection of the term "matter". What Aquinas suggested is that this potential, or passive aspect ought to be understood in relation to time rather than to matter.

Quoting Dfpolis

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories.

It doesn't, the mind does.

Quoting Dfpolis

To categorize we must judge ...

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori.

Quoting Dfpolis

Are you now abandoning naturalism?

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism.

Quoting Dfpolis

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing

There are two issues here. The first is your mischaracterization of Kant, leading to your declaring it prima facie impossible and incoherent. The second is I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple".

Quoting Dfpolis

I disagree because it is incoherent.

It appears incoherent to you because what you are criticising is your own misrepresentation.

Quoting Dfpolis

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.
— Fooloso4
This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way.

It should be: The question is whether ...

Quoting Dfpolis

Sensing and knowing

I did not say sensing and knowing, I said seeing and knowing.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment upon my article.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided.

That is not my premise. I agree with your observations in one way, and disagree in another, more relevant, way. I agree that any distinction of one thing into two aspects may be called "dualistic." I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying Cartesian dualism with dualism in the first sense equivocates on "dualism." Aristotle does not see the psyche as necessarily thinking (res cogitans), or even as a thing (res). Thus, he is not a Cartesian dualist.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection.

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction

We can, as shown by the fact that Aristotle does in De Anima, as I and others have noted.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism.

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side.

So, we do not represent token observations?

The context of these remarks is methodological, not ontological. I am saying that the objection that introspective data is inadmissible because it is private is misguided. It misunderstands the methodological requirements of science. There is no requirement that observations be public, only that they be type-repeatable.

The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological

I did not discuss the basis of the type-token distinction in this article. So, it makes no such claim. If you want to see what I think about the relation between universals and instances, see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10, no. 4 (October–December 2021): 847–891 (http://gilsonsociety.com/files/847-891-Polis.pdf). There, I discuss the relation of the species concept (a type) to individual members of that species (tokens) (pp. 849-63).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect.

I address that in the article I am currently working on. I have fundamental problems with Aquinas's rational psychology. I think his notion the agent intellect does is flawed. I see the passive intellect as neural representations (the phantasm) being understood.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

he agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception,

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter.

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power."

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions.

Exactly! He also insists that the phantasm, a sensory, and so a material representation, is necessary to thought.

Thank you for your informed and intelligent comments.

Quoting Fooloso4

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. — Dfpolis
It doesn't, the mind does.

That is my point. Categorization cannot be a sensory function, and mind cannot categorize without first knowing, so Kant's theory is incoherent.

Quoting Fooloso4

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori.

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism.

Quoting Fooloso4

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism.

Okay. I am not concerned with understanding Kant, but with understanding reality. So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality? If not, let's not waste more time on Kant.

Quoting Fooloso4

I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple".

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words.

Quoting Fooloso4

It should be: The question is whether ...

Okay. But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Right, and but that is smuggling in value statements as if they were objective fact about what comprises what.

That value statement lies on objective criteria.
Pseudo Philosophy is:
1.Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion
2. and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises.
3.isn't corrected when discovered.
(https://www.richardcarrier.info/philosophy.html)
Chalmers's claims tick all three.

Quoting schopenhauer1

It does not (at least now, possibly never because the answer might never be empirical) tell us how it is that emergent phenomena supervene on its constituents.

-Again you are asking a "why" question in disguise. This is what emergent features do! This is why we classify them as emergent in the fist place. Just because you constructed an answerable question that doesn't make it a serious question and No....made up magical substrates do not qualify as an answer.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Facts of reality render that claim wrong. — Nickolasgaspar
Which are based observationally. Convenient.

-Observations are the foundation of our evaluations. You can not go around it. If you do then you will need to lower the standards and accept Every claim out there.

Quoting schopenhauer1

No the analogy of a container is wrong since Diachronic Emergence wouldn't be possible. (persistence after the causal mechanism ceasing to exist). — Nickolasgaspar
Still doesn't bypass it. You are assuming the consequent again.

-Your comment is irrelevant to the fact of Diachronic Emergent phenomenon (Where the low level system ceases to exist but the Emergent property persists).
(i.e. Photons even when the electron is at its resting state.)

Quoting schopenhauer1

Yep they are observable indeed. And I did not say "ghosts" but "ghostly" big difference in what I am conveying.

And I didn't say you said ghost. You said ghostly and I pointed out that the phenomenon doesn't share the same ghostly qualities.(or the other way around to be fair -"Ghosts do not share the same qualities.".
Either way the phenomenon is observable , measurable and predictable to a huge degree allowing us to develop technical applications.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Rather, what is the nature of this emergence from its constituent parts?

It depends what "nature" you are looking for. If you are looking for its contingency then its nature is physical and its taxonomy is Strong Emergence.
If you are looking for "why this emergent property is possible" then there is no question...its a pseudo philosophical questions that pollutes the well.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You are making an odd antagonism. Most philosophers are not denying empirical claims. Functionally, the science carries on, no matter what the argument behind the metaphysics and epistemology is, so not sure what has got you so annoyed besides just general incredulity over and over.

Wrong accusations are not philosophical arguments.
I am using the topic of this thread to inform people on the latest epistemology from relevant scientific fields so they can inform their premises. This also allows me to let them know how to demarcate Philosophy from pseudo philosophy.(meaningful from useless philosophy).

Quoting Dfpolis

mind cannot categorize without first knowing

That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact. According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories. There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. It is no more or less incoherent than Aristotle's claim that the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, the activity of the unmoved mover and God according to Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10 or possibly but not definitively human according to De Anima. Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting.

Quoting Dfpolis

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism.

It's not. It is an attempt to clear up your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Kant.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality?

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes.

Quoting Dfpolis

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words.

Here is what you said in context:

Quoting Dfpolis

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions.
— Fooloso4

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing

Quoting Dfpolis

But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article.

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect.

Second, this discussion has not been limited to the article. If you make claims about Kant or Spinoza or anyone else then those claims become part of the discussion.

Quoting D. F. Polis

no progress has been made toward a physical reduction of consciousness.

Why am I not surprised? :smile:
Good reference, BTW. :up: (Although I disagree with a few things.)
Here's the link for thos who want to read more: https://www.jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/download/1042/1035. It's a PDF.

Quoting Fooloso4

There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind.

Kant's categories were adapted almost verbatim from Aristotle, according to this entry.

Quoting IEP, Kant's Metaphysics

The mind’s a priori conceptual contribution to experience can be enumerated by a special set of concepts that make all other empirical concepts and judgments possible. These concepts cannot be experienced directly; they are only manifest as the form which particular judgments of objects take. Kant believes that formal logic has already revealed what the fundamental categories of thought are. The special set of concepts is Kant’s Table of Categories, which are taken mostly from Aristotlewith a few revisions

.

Quoting Fooloso4

mind cannot categorize without first knowing — Dfpolis
That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact.

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge -- for categorization is a judgement, . As Paul Churchland pointed out, there are no neural structures corresponding to propositional attitudes.

Quoting Fooloso4

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories.

This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism.

Quoting Fooloso4

There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind.

It is not the existence of categories that is incoherent -- that is merely an baseless conjecture. It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent.

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic.

Quoting Fooloso4

Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting.

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal? In my view, we need more premises to reach that conclusion.

Quoting Fooloso4

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes.

Aristotle argued that two millennia earlier. Aquinas concurred. So, what of value did Kant add?

Quoting Fooloso4

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words. — Dfpolis

I wrote "simply neural signal processing," meaning nothing more than neural signal processing, not that neural signal processing is simple.

Quoting Fooloso4

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect.

I have given my view of what the agent intellect does. If you think my view is wrong, please say why. If not, we need not continue in this direction. I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view. So, what Aristotle actually thought about the agent intellect is not relevant, unless it provides an argument against my view.

Quoting Dfpolis

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge -

So you've said. As if that settles the matter.

Quoting Dfpolis

for categorization is a judgement, .

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it.

Quoting Dfpolis

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories.
— Fooloso4
This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism.

First, a statement of Kant's position is not an argument in favor of it. Second, if one is a Kantian then what one claims must be supported by Kant. Just as if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle.

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian.

Quoting Dfpolis

It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent.

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions.

Quoting Dfpolis

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic.

So, your questionable claims about Kant do not relate to the topic of your paper. So we can move on.

Quoting Dfpolis

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal?

You are starting to face the problem. Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, what of value did Kant add?

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us.

Quoting Dfpolis

meaning nothing more than neural signal processing

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity.

Quoting Dfpolis

I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view.

You are doing more than that. You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.

Reply to Joshs
After setting my previously expressed peevishness aside, I became curious about your thinking in terms of periods of time. Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy?

Quoting Fooloso4

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it.

Only potentially. The intelligibility of a must include notes that elicit the concept <b>, as I explained in my paper. It is because of need to elicit <b> that we must be aware of a to categorize it as an instance of b.

Quoting Fooloso4

if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle.

If Aristotle deserves credit for my position, I try to cite him. I do not cite him as an authority.

Quoting Fooloso4

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian.

Quite true. It is citing Kant as an authority against my position that makes you seem a Kantian.

Quoting Fooloso4

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions.

No matter what you call the categorized content, the act of categorizing is an ace of judgement, requiring awareness, and hence knowledge, of those contents. Different sensory processing (e.g. of visual vs auditory signals) is not categorization. Only judgement of type is categorization.

Quoting Fooloso4

Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us.

So, you conclude that our intellect is immortal. I think the conclusion requires more reflection.

Quoting Fooloso4

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us.

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing." As far as I can see, Kant's position is unjustified. It is certainly irrelevant to my paper unless you wish to use Kant to attack scientific knowledge -- saying that science cannot study reality.

I do not recall any claim in Aristotle or Aquinas that we know the object beyond its relation to us. In fact, Aquinas is quite clear that we do not know the essences of things, except indirectly. Further, both insist that knowledge comes via sensation, which is to say via our physical interactions with the object.

So, again, what did Kant add of value?

Quoting Fooloso4

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity.

None of that says neural signal processing is simple. Further, I did not say "conscious is not the result of neural activity" without further qualification. I said that the contents of consciousness are neurally processed, but that such processing does not explain our awareness of those contents.

Quoting Fooloso4

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.

Do you have an example in mind? Note that not stating his entire position is not abusing his terminology. To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction.

Quoting Paine

Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy?

I did not understand that claim either.

Reply to Paine Quoting Paine

?Joshs
After setting my previously expressed peevishness aside, I became curious about your thinking in terms of periods of time. Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy?

You could be right. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Quoting Dfpolis

I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism. You say it in the op, "The article rejects dualism as a framework...", and you claim it in the opening page of the article, "Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism". I'm sure that if you meant that Aristotle's conceptual space provides the means for replacing a simple Cartesian dualism with a more complex dualism, you would have said so.

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible. If your intent is to reproduce and understand Aristotle's conceptual space for the purpose of applying it to some of the problems of modern science, that's one thing. But if your intent is to find principles for a rejection of dualism, which induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing and pretend to reproduce his conceptual space, that is a completely different objective.

The reason I'm so critical on this point, is that in our prior discussions you and I had disagreement as to what Aristotle says about where the form of the object comes from, when a natural object comes to have material existence. I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation.

It is an important difference, because by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter. This allows you to deny dualism, and cling to emergence. However, to claim that Aristotle supports this position is simply wrong, because it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality. Therefore form must be prior to matter, and come from a source other than matter.

Quoting Dfpolis

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental.

Aristotle's principal demonstration of the concept of "potential" is provided in his biology, "On the Soul", and he uses this concept to describe the powers of the soul, self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection. The secondary explanation of "potential" is in his "Metaphysics" where he works extensively to establish the relationship between potential and matter. As such, he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental. That the concept of "matter" is used as leverage against sophists who argued that change is not real, indicates exactly the opposite of what you claim. The concept is pulled from the subjective self, as the principle of continuity and identity, and applied to the physical, to validate the intuitive notion that a changing thing can maintain its identity as the same thing, despite changing. The sophists who would deny the reality of change would insist that at each moment the changing thing is a new thing, instead of allowing that the thing remains as the same thing, while its properties change.

quote="Dfpolis;784638"]The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.[/quote]

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism. It is actually the only real argument against dualism which you provide in the article.

[quote=Denis F. Polis, The Hard Problem of Consciousness
& the Fundamental Abstraction]What is at stake is replicability. Since science seeks universal knowledge, data must, with few exceptions, be replicable by competent observers. Replicability is a type, rather than a token, property. We can never replicate a token observation, only the same type of observation. It is as absurd to reject replicable introspection because its token is private, as to reject Galileo’s observations because he made them in solitude.

Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue. Since humans
are psychophysical organisms who perceive to know and conceptualize to act, physicality and intentionality are dynamically integrated. Ignoring this seamless unity, post-Cartesian thought
conceives them separately – creating representational problems. The Hard Problem and the
mind-body problem both arose in the post-Cartesian era, and precisely because of conceptual
dualism. To resolve them, we need only drop the Fundamental Abstraction in studying mind.

Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism.
Properties depend not only on an object’s nature, but also on how we conceptualize it. For
example, we can justifiably think of an apple as red, or as having a certain spectral response.
While the intentional and physical theaters of operation seem disjoint, our abilities to know
material objects and to will physical acts spans them. Thus, a conceptual rather than an
ontological partitioning of human nature underlies both the Hard and mind-body problems.[/quote]

The statement that each instance of observation is particular, unique, and cannot be replicated is an ontological principle. That the truth and reality of this ontological principle produces a representational problem is another issue. It does not make the ontological issue into a representational issue, it just shows a representational issue which manifests from the ontological issue. To reject the FA, and deny the ontological separation between the representation and the thing represented, as the means for rejecting both ontological and property dualism, is just an imaginary fiction. It is not based in reality at all, therefore it serves no purpose toward a philosopher's seeking of truth.

Quoting Dfpolis

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way.

To demonstrate my point, let's assume, as you say, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle. The something known is not simply the knower, or else there is just a supposed knower, and no knowledge. Therefore we cannot know anything about knowing without reference to the FA. This is Descartes' principle. The thinking is logically prior to the being, and the point is that we cannot get access to the being without the thinking. Therefore we must address the thinking first, of which the FA is a basic part, there is something separate from the thinking, which is thought about. To proceed without the FA is to put the being before the thinking, but this renders the FA, which is very real as an intuition and a priori principle, as unintelligible. As a result the whole act of thinking and consequently knowing, also become unintelligible.

Evidence of this unintelligibility is your statement "I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way". Your method of placing being as prior to thinking has rendered the a priori as unintelligible to you, so your response is that the truly a priori cannot be apprehended by you.

Quoting Dfpolis

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content.

I believe this statement is derived from your faulty interpretation of Aristotle. What you call "prior intelligibility" is characterized by Aristotle as potential. Prior to being "discovered" by the geometer, (brought into actuality by the geometer's mind), the principles of geometry existed as potential. Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation, just like the actions of an artist described above, creating a material object. The artist works to put form into the creation, and the form is not within the matter (potential) prior to the creation. So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect. The need for the "agent" intellect is to account for the real causal activity of the intellect, creativity.

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation. So if these intelligible objects exist independently they would have to exist as potential if it is the agent intellect which acts on them. However, the cosmological argument demonstrates that it is impossible for potential to exist independently of form, therefore the reality of such independent potential is denied. Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects.

Quoting Dfpolis

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power."

But don't you see this as an inconsistency? You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space. This is the problem which the Neo-Platonists ran into, assuming The One, to be absolute infinite potential. It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful. So we need to release this idea, which gives matter special power, creating inconsistency in Aristotelian conceptual space, and respect the force of the cosmological argument. Potential (matter) on its own could have no power to act. Therefore we need to assume some source of actuality, a Form, which is independent from matter, and prior to the existence of material objects, which produces an actual material form.

The seed of this idea is found in Aristotle's biology, the definition of soul which you cited, the first actuality of a body having life potentially in it. When we look at living things, we see that organization is within the body even at the most fundamental level. The body is organized as soon as it is a body, it comes into being as an organized, living body. Further, there must be an actuality which causes the existence of the organized body. As cause of the organized body, this first actuality must be prior to the body itself.

This is the principle which is drawn out further in his Metaphysics, to apply to all natural things. A material object consists of matter and form. And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is. Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else. As in the case of the artist, the form comes from somewhere other than the matter. And, absolutely speaking, there must be a Form which is prior to all material existence, so this reinforces the conclusion that the form comes from somewhere other than the matter.

Quoting Dfpolis

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing."

No, I am not a Kantian. As I said I was correcting your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of him.

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers.

Quoting Dfpolis

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.
— Fooloso4
Do you have an example in mind?

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (???? ???????ó?)'.

Quoting Dfpolis

To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction.

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting. Although, admittedly, it would take some effort to explain it. Better for you to just skip over it.

How do we experience coming to know sensible objects? As attending to, and becoming aware of, sensory contents. Thus, the agent intellect is our power of awareness – and its operation is
consciousness. Qualia are the contingent forms of actualized sensory intelligibility.

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness. You might as well say that we are conscious because we have the power of consciousness.

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step:

Quoting Dfpolis

My article made no claim about immortality.

Reply to Paine

Quoting Paine

Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy?

I don’t know what DPolis would say, but I like the way Rorty articulated the stakes. Rorty argued that Descartes “opened the floodgates to an entirely new conception of the difference between mind and body” compared with Scholastic and Greek thought. In other words, he didn’t invent dualism , he redefined its terms.

The novelty was the notion of a single inner space in which bodily and perceptual sensations ("confused ideas of sense and imagi­nation" in Descartes's phrase), mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression, and all the rest of what we now call "mental" were objects of quasi-ob­servation. Such an inner arena with its inner observer had been suggested at various points in ancient and medieval thought but it had never been taken seriously long enough to form the basis for a problematic. But the seventeenth century took it seriously enough to permit it to pose the problem of the veil of ideas, the problem which made epistemology central to philosophy.

Once Descartes had invented that "precise sense" of "feel­ing" in which it was "no other than thinking," we began to lose touch with the Aristotelian distinction between reason-as-grasp-of-universals and the living body which takes care of sensation and motion. A new mind-body dis­tinction was required-the one which we call that "be­tween consciousness and what is not consciousness…Once mind is no longer synonymous with reason then something other than our grasp of universal truths must serve as the mark of mind.”(Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature)

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism.

Yes, an Aristotelian approach is more than assuming an Aristotelian conceptual space.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible.

An introduction cannot exhaust intentions that take a full article to elaborate. It can only indicate the direction one intends to take. The article reveals my intentions.Quoting Metaphysician

Undercover

induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing

This is utter nonsense, and a sign of bad faith. Any article citing Aristotle must make a selection from his voluminous corpus. If you think I have twisted his meaning, feel free to say why; however, my purpose was not to interpret the Stagerite, but to credit inspiration. So, I fail to see that you are making a relevant point.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation.

You seem not to understand analogies. The analogues are partly the same and partly different, so one has to look beyond an analogy to understand its relevant aspect. Aristotle is careful to distinguish natural processes, in which change derives from natural or intrinsic principles (physis), from artificial processes in which change is imposed by an extrinsic agent. I explained this over 30 years ago in my hyle article, to which I refer you ("A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle," Modern Schoolman 68 (3):225-244 (1991) https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter.

I did not say that "the form of an object inheres within the matter." I said that, in natural substantial changes, hyle is the potential to a determinate form. What is potential does not "inhere in" anything, nor is it a property (Aristotelian accident), because it is not yet actual.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

This allows you to deny dualism

No, what allows me to avoid Cartesian dualism is Arsitotle's definition of the psyche as the actuality of a potentially living body instead of as res cogitans.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

and cling to emergence.

You are confused. If the hylomorphism allowed me to "cling to emergence," I would see it in every case of substantial change. I do not. If you read carefully, you will see that my argument for the ontological emergence of cosciousness is based on far more modern considerations -- the nature of mathematical physics as limited by the Fundamental Abstraction.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality.

Ultimately, it is. Proximately, it cannot be, because change requires a prior potential to new form. That is why the Unmoved Mover cannot change.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

As such, [t]he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental.

This is incorrect. First, the Metaphysics presupposes the analysis in the Physics and other works on nature. That analysis shows the necessity of prior potentials in natural processes. Second, nowhere does he "derive" potency from introspection. In De Anima he applies the distinction of potency and act to the analysis of sensation and intellection, based on a combination of first and third person data.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism.

As the first paragraph you quote shows, I use the type-token distinction only to show why introspective data is methodologically acceptable. It is the end of a previous line of thought. The second and third paragraphs you quote do not summarize the first paragraph, as can be seen from the fact that neither mentions introspection.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle.

You misunderstand the FA. It is not the fact that "there is a distinction between known and knower," but the methodological choice to attend to the object to the exclusion of the subject.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

we cannot get access to the being without the thinking

More fundamentally, we cannot think without existing. The order of knowing is not the order of existence.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation

"Creation" is an imprecise word. We need to distinguish between making what was potential actual, and making something with no prior potential (true creation).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect.

I cannot agree. If known content came from the mind, rather than reality, there would be no reason to expect it to apply to reality. The reason prior concepts apply to new instances is that the new instance is able to elicit the same, prior concept. If a new instance can elicit the concept, it can to so even when the concept it did not already exist.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation.

There is: our brain is informed by sensation. When a neural representation is actually understood (which is done by the agent intellect), no new representation is formed. If it were, it would not be the neural representation that is understood. It would be a different representation, the new one (which Aquinas calls the "intelligible species"). Since to understand a new representation is not to understand the neural representation, the passive intellect is the neural representation, not simpliciter, but as understood. Therefore, the passive intellect receives its content physically, and its being understood intentionally.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

the reality of such independent potential is denied.

I agree. The intelligiblity is neurally encoded in the mind.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects.

Not quite. Augustine had exemplar ideas in the mind of God. Aquinas reduced them to God's intention to create whatever He creates (see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10 (4):847-891 (2021) https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1005583).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space.

If you read my hyle article, you will find citations supporting my view.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful.

We need to distinguish secondary causality, which is the causality found in nature, from metaphysical actualization, which is what the cosmological argument relies upon. Aristotle is clear that hyle[i] is a kind of [i]physis (an intrinsic principle of change), a "source of power," and that it "desires" the new form in a substantial change. Thus, it is an active tendency, and not passively receptive, in the case of natural changes. In artificial changes, it is passively receptive.

Still, hyle is not self-sufficient. Its striving for new form can be traced causally upward to the Unmoved Mover, which is its ultimate source of power.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is.

At any moment, it is what it is. Potentially, corporeal being can be something else. It is because of this that we need a source of potentiality, i.e. hyle.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else

Its form must be determined by a prior potential, viz. its predecessor's hyle. Also, it must be actualized by something that is already operational/actual. That line of actualization can be traced to the Unmoved Mover. Still, the form cannot exist prior to the being, because the form is the being's actuality, and it is not actual before it exists.

Quoting Fooloso4

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers.

I think I have some answers. If answers were not attainable, there would be no point in inquiry. Philosophy is not a game.

Quoting Fooloso4

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (???? ???????ó?)'.

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding.

Quoting Fooloso4

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting.

True. But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover.

Quoting Fooloso4

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness.

The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics.

Quoting Fooloso4

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step

Because it is best to deal with each issue in a focused, rather than in a convoluted, way.

Quoting Joshs

“The novelty was the notion of a single inner space in which bodily and perceptual sensations ("confused ideas of sense and imagi­nation" in Descartes's phrase), mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression, and all the rest of what we now call "mental" were objects of quasi-ob­servation. Such an inner arena with its inner observer had been suggested at various points in ancient and medieval thought but it had never been taken seriously long enough to form the basis for a problematic. But the seventeenth century took it seriously enough to permit it to pose the problem of the veil of ideas, the problem which made epistemology central to philosophy.

I agree that neither Aristotle nor the Scholastics focused on issues of personal identity, and that I am concerned with them. So, to that extent, I am post-Scholastic. I also deal with modern science more than "Thomists" do.

I disagree that there is a "veil of ideas." Aquinas's concept of intelligible species was an innovation that led to Locke's absurd notion that we only know our ideas, and so, on to Kant.

Quoting Joshs

something other than our grasp of universal truths must serve as the mark of mind.

I am writing an article for the Thomist community in which I argue that intellection is not essentially universal, that there are physical representations of universals and that we have concepts of individuals. I also think that the notion of universal exemplars underpins prejudice and undermines natural law ethics.

Quoting Dfpolis

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding.

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.

Quoting Dfpolis

But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover.

If you use Aristotle's term but do not indicate that you mean by it something different than Aristotle did, then it is relevant. But it is not clear that you do mean something different. Why the obfuscation?

Quoting Dfpolis

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness.
— Fooloso4
The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics.

That is the question: what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?

You go on to say:

Consequently, consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is not a niggling anomaly that
can be ignored until explained as a neurophysical side effect, but an experiential primitive
essential to understanding human rationality. Certain concepts, such as , are
an experiential primitive accepted, not because they are theoretically reducible, but because they are epistemologically primitive – reflecting contingent realities that cannot be, or at least are not, further explained.

It is as if you said: "Hard problem? What hard problem? There is no hard problem. Consciousness just is. No further explanation is needed or possible."

Quoting Fooloso4

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled. As Joe Sachs points out:

... in Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10. Aristotle again distinguishes between the active and passive intellects, but this time he equates the active intellect with the "unmoved mover" and God.
— Wikipedia, Active Intellect

In addition to discussing where the activity emerges from, the agent intellect is presented as a limit to what can be called a 'personal capacity':

Aristotle, De Anima, 430a18, translated by DW Hamlyn:In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected, whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this nothing thinks.

The activity that brings our being into life is experienced through our thinking but not as something happening to us or a show we remember seeing. The activity that is immortal is not a personal dimension but is what allows all thinkers to think. What each of us experiences as thinking would not be possible without the agent. But that experience would also not be possible without the perishable individual. The perishable individual Aristotle is talking about lives in time:

ibid. 431a1:Actual knowledge is identical with its object. But potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but not prior even in time in general; for all things that come to be are derived from that which is so actually.

The things that come to be are either shaped by a process outside of them or sustained by an activity proper to their being. We particular individuals cannot know the Nous as itself, but we can distinguish between different types of potentiality:

ibid.431a4:It is clear that the object of perception makes that which can perceive actively so instead of potentially so; for it is not affected or altered. Hence this is a different form from movement; for movement is the activity of the incomplete, while activity proper is different, the activity of the complete.

From here, it is clear why Sachs says the formal cause is more than an intention like a plan to build a house before it is made.

Quoting Fooloso4

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.

Asked and answered.

Quoting Fooloso4

what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?

That it is not reducible to a physical process.

Quoting Fooloso4

It is as if you said: "Hard problem? What hard problem? There is no hard problem. Consciousness just is. No further explanation is needed or possible."

The ‘hard problem’ argument is aimed at a specific audience namely those reductionists who claim there is or can be a physical explanation for the nature of consciousness. It’s a hard problem for naturalism. But there is no such problem for those who don’t make that claim.

Reply to Paine :up:

Reply to Wayfarer
It is a problem for science even if one does not aim to reduce consciousness into an epiphenomenon.

It seems to me that the looking at all reduction as a closure is also a closure. I read Aristotle as trying to open doors on his terms. The failing of the Scholastics was to read him as the answer to everything.

Quoting Dfpolis

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.
— Fooloso4
Asked and answered.

Asked and evaded.

Quoting Dfpolis

what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?
— Fooloso4
That it is not reducible to a physical process.

At best you have pointed to Aristotle's idea of the active intellect, which he says is immaterial. It is not a process because it is unchanging. Your equating the active intellect with consciousness is just something you have claimed.

Reply to Paine

ibid.431a4:... for it is not affected or altered. Hence this is a different form from movement; for movement is the activity of the incomplete, while activity proper is different, the activity of the complete.

This lends support to the claim that the active intellect is an unmoved mover. It does not move but moves or causes the passive intellect to know.

Reply to Wayfarer

As @Paine rightly points out, it is not just a problem for reductionists. How is it that there are conscious beings? After all, not all beings are conscious.

Reply to Fooloso4
It does lend support for that claim.

It is interesting to me that the language in De Anima is more directed to recognizing different kinds of agency than coming to terms with a chain of causality. The distinctions being made about how the soul works are being measured by those who are ensouled: Change happens in this way in some situations but in other ways in others. A desire to be informed by our conditions, as well as they can be described at any time.

Quoting Fooloso4

After all, not all beings are conscious.

In my taxonomy, beings are differentiated from things precisely because they are animated (by soul, in Aristotle’s terms.) And you can see it in that even the simplest organisms embody intentional actions even if not conscious in any real sense, although that will sound too near vitalism for most.

Reply to Wayfarer Wasn't there a bit of a flame war here about this definition of being last year?

Reply to Tom Storm Whenever I mentioned my take on the meaning of 'ontology', SLX would go completely ballistic, but he's not around any more.

Quoting Fooloso4

At best you have pointed to Aristotle's idea of the active intellect, which he says is immaterial. It is not a process because it is unchanging.

I made no such claim.

Reply to Wayfarer
Are you guys referring to a specific OP?

Quoting Wayfarer

In my taxonomy, beings are differentiated from things precisely because they are animated (by soul, in Aristotle’s terms.) And you can see it in that even the simplest organisms embody intentional actions even if not conscious in any real sense, although that will sound too near vitalism for most.

This seems reasonable. I think Aristotle's idea of form is more applicable to organisms than the inorganic world.

Quoting Paine

Are you guys referring to a specific OP?

I am of the view that the word 'ontology' refers to exploration the nature of being, as distinct from the study of phenomena or the analysis of what kinds of things there are, which I said is the domain of science proper. I was told this was highly eccentric and idiosyncratic (in no uncertain terms) whenever I mentioned it (this was by a former mod, streetlightx, who is no longer a contributor. He was highly educated but often vitriolic in the extreme). Anyway, carry on, this is a digression.

Reply to Wayfarer
Leaving aside your detractors in the past, I have trouble matching your distinction between ontology and epistemology with Aristotelian and Platonic texts.

Is there some portion of that text that does that for you?

Quoting Dfpolis

I made no such claim.

Right, you did not say what I did not say you said.

Reply to Paine See e.g. this post and subsequent criticism. SLX posted a link to an apparently classic article by Charles Kahn, which I read pretty carefully, and which I think supports my interrpretation.

Quoting Wayfarer

I am of the view that the word 'ontology' refers to exploration the nature of being, as distinct from the study of phenomena or the analysis of what kinds of things there are, which I said is the domain of science proper.

This is good. What was the problem?

Quoting L'éléphant

What was the problem?

Basically the problem was that this particular mod hated my guts and would initiate or join any pile-on concerning myself. All water under the bridge.

Reply to Wayfarer Hahaha! :up:

Quoting Wayfarer

All water under the bridge

And this could be a topic of discussion all by itself. It's interesting that a small incident that occurred years ago can pop up in our minds when we deliberately relegated it to "water under the bridge" - or so we thought. This happened to me last week when a casual remark made by a high school classmate seventy years ago popped into my thoughts. It's partly the evoked emotion caused by the incident that fixes it firmly in the subconscious, available for re-annoying. :sad:

Not commenting on your remark, Wayfarer. It just brought the topic to mind.

Reply to Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer

Basically the problem was that this particular mod hated my guts and would initiate or join any pile-on concerning myself. All water under the bridge

If you miss him you can find him on Discord now. I had a little exchange with him there concerning Deleuze. The mod had to step in to keep him civil. Plus ca change…

Reply to jgill :cool:

Reply to Joshs :lol:

Sorry to go off-topic on this thread.

Quoting jgill

This happened to me last week when a casual remark made by a high school classmate seventy years ago popped into my thoughts. It's partly the evoked emotion caused by the incident that fixes it firmly in the subconscious, available for re-annoying. :sad:

It's my job to deal with people with a wide range of net worth so basically I'm trained to deal with why people say what they say. (Not to say I've mastered it, so once in a while I fall prey to it, too -- but a "professional" one like me :cool: rebounds back)

Time should have blurred that emotion in you caused by the classmate's remark. But know this, I bet that memory came back to you at the moment when you're not feeling well or your mind was pre-occupied with some disturbance not related to the past memory. You were just vulnerable at that moment, like an infection that you acquired.

Quoting L'éléphant

I bet that memory came back to you at the moment when you're not feeling well or your mind was pre-occupied

Indeed it did. I'm 86 and things I haven't thought of in years come back to irritate. :meh:

But so do good things. :smile:

Quoting Dfpolis

No, what allows me to avoid Cartesian dualism is Arsitotle's definition of the psyche as the actuality of a potentially living body instead of as res cogitans.

OK, I did not see in the article, how you moved form that definition of soul to your rejection of dualism. All I saw supporting the rejection was the passage I quoted, where you moved from a rejection of the Fundamental Assumption (a rejection unsupported in principle), to a rejection of both property and substance dualism.

"Soul" is defined as the first grade of actuality of a natural, organized body, having life potentially in it. Within Aristotle's conceptual space, as explained in his "Metaphysics", this type of actuality is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of that body, as cause of its existence as an organized body. Therefore we can conclude that this "form" which is called "the soul" is prior in time to the material existence of the living body, therefore independent from it.

So I ask you, how do you proceed within this conceptual space, to reject dualism? You state in your article, that matter and form are logically separably, but not physically separable. But this claim is useless to this analysis because a physical body is necessarily a combination of both matter and form. To separate matter and form would give us something other than a physical body therefore this is "physically" impossible. To separate the two would require something other than a physical process. So, Aristotle uses logic, a logical process of analysis, to show that form is necessarily prior to matter. therefore separate. And since this separate form is necessarily prior in time to the living human body which performs physical observations, the separate form is not physically observable.

Quoting Dfpolis

Aristotle is clear that hyle is a kind of physis (an intrinsic principle of change), a "source of power," and that it "desires" the new form in a substantial change. Thus, it is an active tendency, and not passively receptive, in the case of natural changes. In artificial changes, it is passively receptive.

This is completely unsupported and wrong. Nowhere does Aristotle insist that matter is "active" in any sense. In fact, the whole separation between potential/actual, matter/form, is designed by Aristotle to remove the confusion created by this idea. Assigning "active" power to matter is a mixing of the categories, which renders any conclusions you draw from this procedure as invalid. If he refers to matter as being "inclined toward...", or as having "urges", he is referring to the habits of a material body, in the Platonic way, not to matter itself.

Quoting Dfpolis

Its form must be determined by a prior potential, viz. its predecessor's hyle. Also, it must be actualized by something that is already operational/actual. That line of actualization can be traced to the Unmoved Mover. Still, the form cannot exist prior to the being, because the form is the being's actuality, and it is not actual before it exists.

This shows a bit of misunderstanding. The prior potential does not determine any future forms. It is the prior form (formal cause), in conjunction with the active form, acting at the present (as final cause) which determines future forms. Material cause is simply indeterminate possibility. The prior form, as formal cause is deterministic, however, the final cause, acting at the present is teleological. In the sense that the form of the object which will come to be (through the act of the artist), exists already in the mind of the artist, prior to its material existence (Metaph, Bk 7, which we've discussed previously), the form of the thing does exist prior to the natural thing's material existence.

Quoting Dfpolis

Ultimately, it is. Proximately, it cannot be, because change requires a prior potential to new form. That is why the Unmoved Mover cannot change.

Quoting Dfpolis

That analysis shows the necessity of prior potentials in natural processes.

Quoting Dfpolis

We need to distinguish between making what was potential actual, and making something with no prior potential (true creation).

Quoting Dfpolis

We need to distinguish secondary causality, which is the causality found in nature, from metaphysical actualization, which is what the cosmological argument relies upon.

Consider the above four quotes. You recognize the necessity of "prior potentials" in natural processes. You also recognize that "ultimately" there must be a "metaphysical actualization", and this is derived from the cosmological argument.

The two types of actualization, are discussed by Aristotle in "On the Soul" when he proposes the definition of "soul" as "the first grade of actuality". Aristotle's dualism is based in the logical need for two distinct types of "form", or order, one created by the human mind as formulae, and the other being the type of actuality which is prior to the material existence of material objects as the cause of them being what they are.

I suggest that it is somewhat disingenuous of you to recognize that Aristotle's conceptual space necessitates this duality of actuality (form), yet you assert that this conceptual space provides the means for rejecting dualism.

Quoting Paine

It is interesting to me that the language in De Anima is more directed to recognizing different kinds of agency than coming to terms with a chain of causality.

This is precisely the reason why Aristotle's "conceptual space" cannot be used to reject dualism. What he exposes is distinct types of agency. The two principal types of agency, or "form", cannot be reduced, one to the other. In fact the further we analyze them, in an attempt to reconcile them, the further apart they get, and the more obvious it becomes, that dualism cannot be avoided. This is why Aristotle's philosophy is central to the development of the concept of free will, and this is decisively dualist.

Quoting Wayfarer

Basically the problem was that this particular mod hated my guts and would initiate or join any pile-on concerning myself.

SLX showed extraordinary will power by completely ignoring me no matter what I posted. Banno is similar, but doesn't demonstrate the same will power, and succumbs from time to time.

It appears to me, that what's coming out in this thread, is that there is a form of scientism within which the practitioners attempt to reduce all forms of causation to a single determinist form. This is the manifestation of an urge to reject dualism for monism, and dispel the spiritual woo-hoo. The common method of procedure is to conflate formal cause with final cause, and represent final cause as a type of formal cause, instead of as a distinct form of causation. Ultimately this renders the whole of material, or physical existence as somewhat unintelligible, because the two are fundamentally incompatible.

That appears to be the modern trend in metaphysics, it's well demonstrated by apokrisis. Ultimately, Aristotle's "prime matter" ends up as the first principle, as prior to any ordered or formed existence. And, instead of recognizing the need for a prior actuality ("final cause"), which is demonstrated by Aristotle's cosmological argument, the actuality of ordered material existence (displaying formal causation) is said to "emerge" from prime matter. Of course this is repugnant to the rational mind, to think that order could emerge from disorder, and that is why we need to maintain a separation between pre-material final cause, and post-material formal cause, in the way that Aristotle demonstrated, so that we can maintain the intelligibility of the physical world .

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Of course this is repugnant to the rational mind, to think that order could emerge from disorder,

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this?

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

It appears to me, that what's coming out in this thread, is that there is a form of scientism within which the practitioners attempt to reduce all forms of causation to a single determinist form. This is the manifestation of an urge to reject dualism for monism, and dispel the spiritual woo-hoo. The common method of procedure is to conflate formal cause with final cause, and represent final cause as a type of formal cause, instead of as a distinct form of causation. Ultimately this renders the whole of material, or physical existence as somewhat unintelligible, because the two are fundamentally incompatible

I’m wondering how this relates to phenomenology, which it seems to me attempts to reduce all forms of causation to a single non-determinist form, thereby dispelling the spiritual woo-hoo without falling into materialist determinisms.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation:

[quote] If I have anything of a unity within me, it certainly doesn’t lie in the conscious ‘I’ and in feeling, willing, thinking, but somewhere else: in the sustaining, appropriating, expelling, watchful prudence of my whole
organism, of which my conscious self is only a tool. Feeling, willing, thinking everywhere show only outcomes, the causes of which are entirely unknown to me: the way these outcomes succeed one another as if one
succeeded out of its predecessor is probably just an illusion: in truth, the causes may be connected to one another in such a way that the final causes give me the impression of being associated, logically or psychologically. I deny that one intellectual or psychological phenomenon is the direct cause of another intellectual or psychological phenomenon – even if this seems to be so. The true world of causes is hidden from us: it is unutterably more complicated[quote]

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
I don't agree with the way you characterize the differences between agencies in Aristotle.

We argued about this extensively last year after you posted your thesis.

I still have to say what I said then:
"When I piece together what you ascribe to Aristotle, I don't understand it as a thought by itself."

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Lacking extraordinary will power I am going to respond.

The fact that you find it repugnant to think that order could emerge from disorder, tells us nothing about what occurs in nature or the rational mind.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

... pre-material final cause

You can posit a pre-material final cause but in doing so you part ways with Aristotle. The final cause is always the end or telos of some being and does not exist apart from it.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

... we need to maintain a separation between pre-material final cause, and post-material formal cause, in the way that Aristotle demonstrated

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I saw supporting the rejection was the passage I quoted, where you moved from a rejection of the Fundamental Assumption (a rejection unsupported in principle), to a rejection of both property and substance dualism.

I do not reject the FA. It has led, inter alia, to the science of physics. I only reject its adequacy in studying mind.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Within Aristotle's conceptual space, as explained in his "Metaphysics", this type of actuality is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of that body, as cause of its existence as an organized body.

You continue to be confused. First actuality is being operational. Second actuality is operating. While something actual must effect a change, the first actuality of organisms (their form) is being alive, and it is concurrent with them being able to act as they do.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So I ask you, how do you proceed within this conceptual space, to reject dualism?

As I said in the article and in my earlier response to you: by not treating psyche as a thing, but as a kind of actuality, we avoid Cartesian dualism.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

This is completely unsupported and wrong.

I referred you to my hyle article, where it is supported. I have no interest in repeating my explanations.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Material cause is simply indeterminate possibility.

That is the common view. It is not what Aristotle said. See my hyle article.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle's dualism

I am not arguing against having more than one principle in an organism (not against matter and form) as Aristotle recognized, but against having two things (res cogitans and res extensa) as Descartes thought. I've told you this a number of times before.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

one created by the human mind as formulae

Aristotle does not say that the human mind creates forms, but that it actualizes the intelligibility belonging to the form of the sensed object. He even says that in doing so, the nous becomes, in some way, the thing it knows. Thus, the known form is the form of the known.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

you to recognize that Aristotle's conceptual space necessitates this duality of actuality (form)

I have not proposed such a duality. Again, the known form is the form of the known.

Quoting Pantagruel

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this?

I think you two are defining "order" differently. Metaphysician Undercover means determinate form, and you are referring to the number of ways macroscopic properties can be microscopically instantiated -- for that is what entropy describes.

Quoting Joshs

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation:

Aquinas says that we cannot know essences (including our own) directly, but infer them from the actions flowing from them. Nietzsche (or maybe his sister) seems to want to do more, saying that there is nothing out of which what we observe to be dynamically continuous flows. I think that is metaphysically impossible, as potential acts are not yet operational. So, they cannot operate to make themselves actual. Consequently, something already actual must be the source of our phenomenological acts.

Quoting Fooloso4

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being.

Exactly.

Quoting Dfpolis

the number of ways macroscopic properties can be microscopically instantiated -- for that is what entropy describes.

Interesting. I have heard entropy characterized as the tendency to disorder or randomness, negentropy as the opposite. I'm also familiar with the information-theoretic usage, which some people believe overlaps. Order arises out of disorder, it's a natural(istic) fact.

I just reviewed the entire thread, didn't find any reference to the microscopic instantiation of macroscopic properties (other than when you brought it up just now).

Reply to Dfpolis Quoting Dfpolis

Aquinas says that we cannot know essences (including our own) directly, but infer them from the actions flowing from them. Nietzsche (or maybe his sister) seems to want to do more, saying that there is nothing out of which what we observe to be dynamically continuous flows. I think that is metaphysically impossible, as potential acts are not yet operational. So, they cannot operate to make themselves actual. Consequently, something already actual must be the source of our phenomenological acts.

I know this is straying off-topic, but I would love to know how your readings of Aquinas and Aristotle influence your political leanings. This, and the moral philosophy that goes along with it, is where one’s views really matter in the world. Would it be fair to say you sympathize with social conservative perspectives on many matters?

Quoting Pantagruel

I just reviewed the entire thread, didn't find any reference to the microscopic instantiation of macroscopic properties (other than when you brought it up just now).

That is because we were not discussing entropy, or even order per se.

Quoting Joshs

Would it be fair to say you sympathize with social conservative perspectives on many matters?

No, I respect the human person, so, I am socially liberal except for abortion, where the problem is complex. I see a distinction between being alive and being a person, and rights as prospective.

I do not think that there is a universal exemplar idea to which persons should conform. Rather, I think that each individual is unique, as is their self-realization (which I see as the basis of morality).

I came across some notes on philosophy while house cleaning that read:

"My notes,

If an object exists physically then it is affected by physical matter.

And if an object is physical matter then it can affect physical matter.

By observation, thought can affect physical matter and be affected by physical matter so thought is physical matter."


It seems to present a logic problem but it might not be air tight. However, if there is an alternative what is it? My view is that consciousness is a special case of physical matter that has evolved or emerged.

Quoting Mark Nyquist

If an object exists physically then it is affected by physical matter.

And if an object is physical matter then it can affect physical matter.

By observation, thought can affect physical matter and be affected by physical matter so thought is physical matter."

First, this line of thought does not preclude intentional realities from acting on physical reality.
Second, it does not show that purely physical operations have intentional effects. We can and do know physical things and events, but we do not know them without first turning our attention to them. So, knowing physical things requires a prior intentional act, i.e. choosing to attend to them, and that choice is an act of will.

Reply to Dfpolis You are right. That's maybe why it seemed incomplete to me. It needs specific context.

Reply to Wayfarer
I looked for support for your idea in the paper and did not find it. Perhaps you could point to what appealed to you.

The essay is interesting and I will quote the part I think speaks to Aristotle's project:

Charles Kahn:To put the matter in a nutshell, the ontological vocabulary of the Greeks lead them to treat the existence of things and persons as a special case of the Bestehen von Sachverhalte. It is remarkable that not only onta but every other Greek word for "fact" can also mean "thing", and vice versa:-(Cf. chremata = pragmata in the fragment of Protagoras; ergon in the contrast with logos: "in fact" and "in word" gegonota as the perfect of onta, etc.) This failure on the part of the Greeks (at least before the Stoics) to make a systematic distinction between fact and thing underlies the more superficial and inaccurate charge that they confused the "to be" of predication with that of existence.
It may be thought that the neglect of such a distinction constitutes a serious shortcoming in Greek philosophy of the classical period. But it was precisely this indiscriminate use of einai and on which permitted the metaphysicians to state the problem of truth and reality in its most general form, to treat matters of fact and existence concerning the physical world as only a part of the problem (or as one of the possible answers), and to ask the ontological question itself: What is Being? that is, What is the object of true knowledge, the basis for true speech? If this is a question worth asking, then the ontological vocabulary of the Greeks, which permitted and encouraged them to ask it, must be regarded as a distinct philosophical asset.

If I had been in Kahn's class as this lecture unfolded, I would have asked about how this feature of the language should be understood against the background of Aristotle's specific statements about predication and demonstration in his Metaphysics and elsewhere.

Reply to Paine Which would be a great question, and one which I am in no way qualified to answer. I will find the passages I thought significant a little later when I have some time.

"Consciousness" conflates two completely separate things: intelligence and qualia

All claims made of consciousness must be true of both at the same time, or else you aren't referring to consciousness, but just intelligence or qualia.

Intelligence
These are your thoughts. Every time you choose to do anything, it's your intelligence that chose to do it.

Qualia
Qualia are instances of living experiences. You experience your thoughts, senses, and emotions, among other things.

Somehow, your intelligence knows all of your qualia, but they are completely separate concepts and things.

Quoting Leftist

Somehow, your intelligence knows all of your qualia, but they are completely separate concepts and things.

They have to be united in the act of knowing.

Quoting Pantagruel

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this?

Wikipedia tells me "In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality." Care to state your case?

Quoting Joshs

I’m wondering how this relates to phenomenology, which it seems to me attempts to reduce all forms of causation to a single non-determinist form, thereby dispelling the spiritual woo-hoo without falling into materialist determinisms.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation:

I think non-determinist causation would be considered by most as spiritual woo-hoo. I tend toward agreement with the Nietzsche quote though.

Quoting Paine

When I piece together what you ascribe to Aristotle, I don't understand it as a thought by itself."

Of course it's not a thought by itself it's a vast multitude of thoughts. And the problem with any multitude of thoughts is to maintain consistency throughout them all. it appears like you never got to the point of understanding the consistency the way that I do. That's most likely due to my inability to express myself clearly. Metaphysical principles are not easily expressed.

Quoting Fooloso4

The fact that you find it repugnant to think that order could emerge from disorder, tells us nothing about what occurs in nature or the rational mind.

The problem with this principle, that order emerges from disorder, is that it is completely unintelligible to think of order without a cause for it. Therefore positing it as a real representative principle is to premise that some aspect of reality is unintelligible. This is self-defeating to philosophy because it kills the philosopher's desire to know by assuming that this is something which cannot be known. That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy, because "God" is in principle the highest form of intelligibility, yet fundamentally unknowable to human beings in their current condition. This inspires human beings to better themselves in the effort to know God.

Quoting Fooloso4

You can posit a pre-material final cause but in doing so you part ways with Aristotle. The final cause is always the end or telos of some being and does not exist apart from it.

Yes, that would be God. And Aristotle spoke of God, so I don't see why you think I part ways with Aristotle.

Quoting Fooloso4

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being.

It is what is known as the cosmological argument, where he demonstrates in his "Metaphysics" the need for an actuality which is prior to material objects, as the cause of the first material form. All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. But a potential requires something actual to actualize it and become an actual material form, because potential cannot actualize itself. If the first actuality coexisted with potential, it would be just another material form, and this would produce infinite regress. So the first actuality (as a final cause, known in theology as God's Will) must be prior to, and distinct from material forms.

Quoting Dfpolis

First actuality is being operational. Second actuality is operating.

This is somewhat incorrect, and really shows that you are the one confused, because "being operational" is a capacity, a potential. It is the potential to operate. If we do not maintain this description, that "being operational" is a potential to operate, then we have no difference between "being operational" and "operating". This is the principle whereby Aristotle showed that all the powers of the soul are properly characterized as potencies, rather than actualities. Since they are not operating all the time, they are all potentials which need to be actualized in order to operate. Therefore we cannot say that "being operational" is an actuality. Aristotle described it more like having knowledge, and notice that the actuality of having knowledge is provided by the thing which has the knowledge.

As such, and to maintain consistency with Aristotle's conceptual space, this capacity of "being operational" must be attributed to the matter of the living being, not the form or "soul". And this is why Aquinas attributed to the potential, the properties which we call "habits".

However, as demonstrated in his "Metaphysics", in his discussion of how it is that a material body comes to be the very body which it is, rather than something else, Aristotle describes a need to assume an actuality which is prior to the organized material body, as the cause of it being the organized body which it is. And, as stated in his definition of soul in "On the Soul", this "first actuality", which is necessarily prior to the organized material body as the cause of it being what it is, is what he calls "the soul". This is what has the knowledge.

So, we have your stated potential "being operational", and the actuality of operating. We need to assume a "first actuality" which actualizes the potential to operate (described by you as being operational), causing the actuality of operating. It is impossible that the actuality of operating causes the potential to operate (described as being operational) to actually operate, because actually operating is posterior and the cause needs to be prior. And we cannot, as you claim, say that being operational is itself an actuality because then there would be no difference between "being operational", and "actually operating. So Aristotle separated these as potency and act. Therefore we need a further "act" which is responsible for causing the potency of being operational, to actual operate, and this is "the soul".

Quoting Dfpolis

I am not arguing against having more than one principle in an organism (not against matter and form) as Aristotle recognized, but against having two things (res cogitans and res extensa) as Descartes thought. I've told you this a number of times before.

This is your hypocrisy. You tell me you are only rejecting Cartesian dualism, and that you do not reject other dualisms. But in your article it is clearly stated "Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism." And your op here states "The article rejects dualism as a framework...".

You clearly propose a means for rejecting dualism. Then when you are criticized concerning how effective the means would be, you claim that you're not really trying to reject dualism, only one special idiosyncratic type of dualism. That's why I accused you of being disingenuous. Why don't you just take the honest route, and accept that your means for rejecting dualism does not work? Then you might start to embrace dualism as the means toward true understanding.

Quoting Dfpolis

Aristotle does not say that the human mind creates forms, but that it actualizes the intelligibility belonging to the form of the sensed object. He even says that in doing so, the nous becomes, in some way, the thing it knows. Thus, the known form is the form of the known.

Again, this is incorrect. There is a very explicit difference between the form of the sensed object, being a particular, complete with accidentals, and the form which is intelligible to the human mind, being a universal, consisting only of the essentials. So it is impossible that the human mind actualizes the form of the sense object, because it actualizes a completely different form, what we call an abstraction. The form of the particular is completely separate from the abstraction and is not the same form at all. If he says that the mind "in some way" becomes the thing which is known, then this is clearly metaphorical.

Quoting Dfpolis

I have not proposed such a duality. Again, the known form is the form of the known.

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of Aristotle. A material object consists of matter and form, and in having matter the actuality of that material object, which is the form of the material object, has accidents which are unknown to human beings. The known form does not consist of the accidents. This is the purpose of the law of identity, to expose this type of sophistry. A thing is the same as itself. It is not the same as the known form or else there would be more than one of the same thing.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

it appears like you never got to the point of understanding the consistency the way that I do.

That is certainly one possible explanation.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Wikipedia tells me "In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality." Care to state your case?

I actually covered a lot of my views relating thermodynamics and information theory by way of cybernetics in the dialog with ChatGPT I just posted in the Lounge. There is a lot of preamble because I needed to contextualize the discussion to make sure the neural net was weighting things correctly. The history of the conversation appears to change the nature of the response to any given question.

There is an additional portion to the chat I had subsequently that brings in the concept of analog computing, which is interesting because in it information is instantiated as form/structure. I might take that a bit further so I haven't appended it to the main dialog yet.

Reply to Paine Kahn's essay mentions Aristotle in a few places. I've gone back and looked at the passages I highlighted. My original contention is that there is a distinction to be made between 'being' and 'existence' that is not generally made in the modern philosophical lexicon. Naturalism presumes that what exists, and what is, are co-extensive or coterminious. Whereas, I argued, the original meaning of ontology was not simply an exhaustive catalogue of everything that exists, but is nearer to 'the meaning of being'. In support of this, I quoted an etymological dictionary which pointed out that the term 'ontology' is derived from the first-person participle of the verb 'to be' - which is, of course, 'I am'. (This is the point which the ex-moderator used to hysterically denounce.) Note also the resonance with the Biblical definition of God, viz, 'I am that I am'.

One passage which I refer to in support of my contention is:



This makes almost exactly the point I am seeing to make: that 'what exists' is only ever an aspect or facet of 'what is', which has to be grasped through the 'unitive vision' which I believe the fragmentary poem of Parmenides is testimony to. Of course, this is grounded in my interpretation of the mystical basis of Parmenides vision of 'to be' - Parmenides and the other early Greek sages are much nearer in spirit to the Buddhist and Hindu sages than modern philosophers generally (cf. Peter Kingsley, Thomas McEvilly). Of course, there is always a resistance on this forum to such ideas on the basis of their affinity to religion, this being a resolutely secular (not to say misotheist) ensemble of individuals (which incidentally I respectfully differ with on the whole).

In any case, 'knowing' in this sense is much nearer to a form of gnosticism - not in the sense specific to the gnostic sects, but in the sense that the kind of knowledge or insight being sought was itself transformative and not simply propositional or formulaic.

Now a few more words about @Dfpolis' essay. I generally agree with his diagnosis of the malady of the 'post-Cartesian conceptual space'. I don't exactly agree with the specifics of his critique of it, but that this problem exists, and that its consequences are pernicious, I generally agree with. In my analysis, it basically stems from Descartes' designation of mind or consciousness as 'res cogitans' which means 'thinking thing' ('res' being Latin for 'thing or object')*. This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. So this, I entirely agree with:

[quote=DfPolis]Similarly, metaphysical naturalists project nature onto an a priori model defined over a restricted conceptual space. With historical myopia, they tend to see dualism as the sole alternative to physicalism.[/quote]

:100: :clap:

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. I trace the 'fundamental abstraction' to early modern science - a consequence of Cartesian dualism, and equally, the division of the world into primary and secondary qualities or attributes, with the primary qualities being the objects of physics and the secondary being assigned to 'mind' and thereby subjectivised and relativised**. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences.

There are other points that I agree with, and disagree with, but that will have to do for now.

-----
* I also have the sense that, had Descartes lived longer, or had had better successors, he could have answered many of the critics of his philosophy and elaborated it in the face of many of the objections. I have respect for Descartes' genius and his seminal contributions to the establishment of modern culture.

** Leading to the 'Cartesian Anxiety': "Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Metaphysician Undercover

There is no point in continuing to respond to you.

Quoting Wayfarer

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it.

I have no problem with your elaboration. My central point is that abstractions leave data on the table.

Quoting Pantagruel

I actually covered a lot of my views relating thermodynamics and information theory by way of cybernetics in the dialog with ChatGPT I just posted in the Lounge. There is a lot of preamble because I needed to contextualize the discussion to make sure the neural net was weighting things correctly. The history of the conversation appears to change the nature of the response to any given question.

The problem with something like the ChatGPT is that it tends to represent common, conventional ideas, sort of like Wikipedia, so this is not very useful for representing the peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of the thought of a specific philosopher like Aristotle. For example, in your question of hylomorphism it equates matter with substance. But this is not consistent with Aristotle's definition of substance in his "Categories". He proposes primary substance, and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual. And the individual is a combination of matter and form, not just matter. Secondary substance is species, and this is conceptual. Therefore your later question to ChatGPT, can there be form without substance, just plays on an unAristotelian meaning of "substance".

I also think that you need to be very careful to watch for equivocation, in using something like ChatGPT.

Do you accpet that a "system" is an artificial thing? So any experiments carried with a system are designed and ordered by the engineers of the system, therefore not necessarily giving a proper representation of what is natural.

Quoting Wayfarer

This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. So this, I entirely agree with:

The problem here is not so much Descartes' use of words, as it is the use of words in modern vernacular. In Descartes' time Aristotelian logic was still taught, and "substance" maintained its definition according to Aristotle's principles of logic, as that which substantiates, or grounds logic. Check my reply to Pantagruel above. At that time, the use of "substance" in chemistry was becoming the prominent use, over the logical definition, and this usage in chemistry was consistent with Aristotle's "primary substance". However, that primary substance (the individual) consists of a combination of matter and form, and that secondary substance consists of forms, was soon forgotten by the monist materialist mindset, so that substance in its common usage became equated with matter.

This is the separation which allows for the conception of "prime matter". When matter is conceived to exist as substance without any form, we designate the fundamental "substance" of reality as unintelligible. This is because "form" provides for intelligibility as that which is intelligible. So the cosmological argument is very significant and important, to demonstrate that substance must be formal, and the conception of prime matter as basic substance is a misdirected adventure into the unintelligible. A properly directed adventure into the aspects of reality which appear to be unintelligible is to assign principles which would bring those apparently unintelligible aspects into the intelligible through the process of understanding, not to assign principles which would designate the unintelligible as impossible to understand, eg prime matter.

So the fault is not in Descartes usage of "thinking substance" which is consistent with secondary substance, the fault is in the unnecessary narrowing of the mind by monist inclinations. We no longer recognize the terms of Aristotelian logic, to see that "substance" is what grounds logic, therefore substance must have a formal aspect.

Quoting Wayfarer

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. I trace the 'fundamental abstraction' to early modern science - a consequence of Cartesian dualism, and equally, the division of the world into primary and secondary qualities or attributes, with the primary qualities being the objects of physics and the secondary being assigned to 'mind' and thereby subjectivised and relativised**. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences.

I believe that the division of primary and secondary qualities was meant to be consistent with Aristotle's primary and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual, the material object. Secondary substance is the species, the type, which we use to classify the individual, "horse", "man", etc.. Notice that a judgement is required in the case of secondary substance, and that is why it is "subjectivised". So if we take the syllogism "Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore Socrates is mortal", substance or grounding, is provided by "is a man". We cannot take that actual individual (primary substance) and place that individual into the syllogism. So, we make an initial, primary, or fundamental judgement to classify the individual, and this classification acts as a stand in, or representation of the true properties of the individual; this is secondary substance. What we say of the individual, as a true representation within the syllogism, is secondary substance. You can see that the secondary substance is based in a human judgement in relation to a primary substance, and this less than perfect grounding is how logic loses certainty.

Quoting Dfpolis

There is no point in continuing to respond to you.

A very common response from the monist mindset, deny and ignore the complexity of reality. Ignorance is preferable to facing the reality of a complex world.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Do you accept that a "system" is an artificial thing? So any experiments carried with a system are designed and ordered by the engineers of the system, therefore not necessarily giving a proper representation of what is natural.

Systems are absolutely a fundamental feature of natural reality. I completely espouse Laszlo's perspective that the systems theoretic framework is a paradigm shift in conceptualizing the nature of reality, one which handily absorbs pseudo-problems like that of mind-matter, since mind-matter systems demonstrably exist and can be evaluated in systems-theoretic terms.

If anything, the relationship between "purely" artificial systems - qua models - and natural systems is of key interest to me.

I am using ChatGPT more as a way of fleshing out my own thoughts, as I'm already well-acquainted with the details of almost every answer it gives. However it does catch some stuff, and it even presents interesting novel points once in a while. The philosophical content is in my questions/statements, to which the responses are usually parenthetical.

Reply to Pantagruel
A "system" is a whole, and as such it requires a boundary, or principle at least, which validates its supposed existence as a united whole. Such principles are applied with degrees of arbitrariness. This is the point covered in my reply to Wayfarer above, concerning secondary substance. When the substance is a species, or type of thing (secondary substance) as is the case in systems theory, a human judgement is required which designates the individual thing being judged as fulfilling the conditions of the species, the type of system in this case.

In "conceptualizing the nature of reality" we need to have respect for this fact, that the representation of the individual is not the individual. That is the problem which dfpolis demonstrates above, by insisting that "the known form is the form of the known". This is the type of sophistry which Aristotle's conceptual space was designed to battle against. Simply stated, the sophistry manifests as the Parmenidean principle, being and knowing are the same thing.
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Therefore I suggest that you pay attention to the fact that "a system" in systems theory is a theoretical representation of a real "thing", not the thing itself. And, when "system" is used to refer to a real physical thing, in engineering, this type of thing is always a created thing. Therefore there is no way around the fact that "a system" is always artificial, whether "system" is used to refer to a theoretical representation of something natural, or whether it is used to refer to physical, engineered system. In both cases "the system" is a type, not an individual thing.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

A "system" is a whole, and as such it requires a boundary, or principle at least, which validates its supposed existence as a united whole.

Systems are functional entities characterized specifically by their differentiation with respect to an environment and their stability, among other things.

If a system isn't a real thing then certainly, by your logic, there are no real things. An atom is a system. And yes, it is an 'arbitrary' boundary if by that you mean at some point the atom didn't exist and at some point it will cease to exist. Again, if that is your definition of arbitrary, then we live in a Heraclitean world and the only thing that really exists is change.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy,

Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence.

Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual?

Reply to Wayfarer
I understood the quoted passage to be saying that the Latin word existere was too much like gignesthai (coming to be) for it to express the sharp contrast to that word given through the use of einai in Greek.

In Liddel and Scott's lexicon, the third use given for the word is: "to be as opposed to appearing to be, as esse to videri, ??? ????? ?????, the true story, Herodotus." I think that captures the emphatic quality Kahn is talking about.

Which "etymological dictionary" are you referring to? In Liddel and Scott, verbs are given according to their form as 1st person singular, active voice, in the present tense unless there is a reason not to do that. I don't know why the convention was established. The groovy new Cambridge lexicon (which I do not possess) uses the same convention but lists some parts of speech separately when it clarifies a specific use. The idea that one part of speech is more 'original' than another in the use of a verb is new to me. I am keen to see that argument in action if you can cite the source of it.

I don't know if there is an initiation into a 'gnosis' in Parmenides' thinking. It is interesting that Socrates refused to disparage him the way he kicked Heraclitus and Protagoras around in Theaetetus. Be that as it may, Parmenides is a poster child for Kahn's point about the strong separation between the language of Being from the language of Becoming:

Parmenides, Way of Truth,7, Wheelwright collection (Emphasis mine):Necessarily therefore, either it simply Is or it simply Is Not. Strong conviction will not let us think that anything springs from Being except itself. Justice does not loosen her fetter to let Being be born or destroyed, but holds them fast. Thus our decision must be made in these terms: Is or Is Not. Surely by now we agree that it is necessary to reject the unthinkable unsayable path as untrue and to affirm the alternative as the path of reality and truth.

Reply to Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer

*. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences.

How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? The implication is that for someone who has assimilated the insights of Descartes and those philosophers who followed and critiques him, to prefer Aristotle over Descartes is to re-interpret Aristotle from a post-Cartesian perspective. In this sense your ideas are much closer to Descartes than to Aristotle even as you draw on an Aristotelian ‘style’ of thinking generated from within that post-Cartesian framework. One might say that to return to Aristotle is to move farther away from him.

Quoting Wayfarer

This makes almost exactly the point I am seeing to make: that 'what exists' is only ever an aspect or facet of 'what is',

Isn't Kahn's point that existence is not an adequate translation of einia because to "step out" is to step out from something? Given Parmenides denial of not being, being cannot be a stepping out from something, from non-being. In addition, as @Paine pointed out, Parmenides' being precludes becoming.

Reply to Joshs

I think you overstate the case. It is not simply a matter of style but of philology and context. We need to be aware of how key terms were used and how they have changed over time. With regard to context, the beliefs and arguments he is directly and indirectly responding to as well as political constraints. The saying, attributed to Aristotle:

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

is applicable not only to his flight from Athens rather than face charges of impiety, but, as he learned from Plato, to speak in a theologically favorable way.

Reply to Fooloso4 Quoting Fooloso4

?Joshs

I think you overstate the case. It is not simply a matter of style but of philology and context. We need to be aware of how key terms were used and how they have changed over time. With regard to context, the beliefs and arguments he is directly and indirectly responding to as well as political constraints

Alrighty then. Can we not say that the beliefs and arguments , philology and context Wayfarer is directly and indirectly responding to are being reinterpreted by him from a post-Cartesian perspective even when he thinks he is reproducing a context of thought from 2,000 years ago?

Reply to Joshs

If you are referring to this:

Quoting Wayfarer

In my analysis, it basically stems from Descartes' designation of mind or consciousness as 'res cogitans' which means 'thinking thing' ('res' being Latin for 'thing or object')*. This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy.

I do not agree with him. I don't think Descartes plays a significant role in the work being done in cognitive science, but he does play a role in historical accounts. I don't think that Aristotle is of much help either. I do think it important to examine things in terms of wholes, but I also think that there are two senses of reductionism that are also important. The first is in terms of subsystems and the second the rejection of the supernatural.

Quoting Joshs

How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? The implication is that for someone who has assimilated the insights of Descartes and those philosophers who followed and critiques him, to prefer Aristotle over Descartes is to re-interpret Aristotle from a post-Cartesian perspective

My knowledge of Aristotle is slight but I've been impressed by the way that Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy preserves metaphysics. Accordingly, I don't agree with the wholesale rejection of classical metaphysics that pervades modern philosophy, although I agree it has to be constantly re-interpreted. It's not a matter of return to any kind of golden age.

That is also the origin of my interest in the nature of the reality of intelligible objects and Platonism in mathematics. My intuition about it - and it is only that - is that there was in pre-modern philosophy a conception of there being greater or lesser degrees of reality, whereas the empirical tendency in modern philosophy understands reality solely in terms of what can be determined to exist by science (within which something is either existent or not). In doing so, it looses contact with the category of 'the unconditioned'.

[quote=Ideas have Consequences, Weaver]Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence.[/quote]

Quoting Fooloso4

I don't think Descartes plays a significant role in the work being done in cognitive science, but he does play a role in historical accounts.

You misunderstand. What I'm saying is that Descartes' conception of 'res cogitans' as a literal 'thinking thing' - 'res' means thing or object - is the source of the self-contradictory notion of the 'thinking substance' and of Ryle's depiction of it as 'the ghost in the machine'. Whereas the scholastic depiction of reason, based on elements of Aristotle, was much more subtle. In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. For him then, discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. This is predicated on realism concerning universals, which is nowadays generally rejected (hence 'modern decadence'.)

Quoting Paine

Which "etymological dictionary" are you referring to?

There used to be an explicit statement that 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of 'to be' (i.e. 'I am') on one of the online dictionaries, but it's gone now.

Quoting Fooloso4

Isn't Kahn's point that existence is not an adequate translation of einia because to "step out" is to step out from something?

I'm trying to grasp the distinctions that appear in pre-modern philosophy between existence, being, and reality. The verb 'to exist' is derived from 'ex-' (apart from, e.g. exile, external) and '-ist', 'to stand' or 'to be'. So to exist is to be separate, to be this as distinct from that.

I think it is generally assumed in the modern lexicon that 'existence' and 'being' are practically synonyms, that there's no significant distinction between them, but that in pre-modern thought it is a distinction that was recognised. See for instance from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

[quote=17th C Theories of Substance; https://iep.utm.edu/substanc/#:~:text=prior%20to%20modes.-,Degrees%20of%20Reality,-In%20contrast%20to ]Degrees of Reality

In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality.

God Exists and is a Substance

Furthermore, each of the philosophers we will discuss maintains (and offer arguments on behalf of the claim) that God exists, and that God’s existence is absolutely independent. It is not surprising then, given the above, that each of these philosophers holds that God is a substance par excellence.[/quote]

But even that is misleading in saying that they believed that God exists. God is transcendent, and 'existence' is what He is transcendent in respect of - beyond the vicissitudes of coming-to-be and passing-away.

I think, generally, in ancient Greek philosophy, there was scepticism that we know 'what truly is' by sense-perception. That is the subject of the 'knowledge of the equal' in the Phaedo.

Quoting Wayfarer

Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy

I agree with those who keep Aristotle and Thomas separate. One reason for this is that Aquinas' Latin distorts Aristotle's Greek. As it has been put: Aristotle was not an Aristotelian.

Quoting Wayfarer

So to exist is to be separate, to be this as distinct from that.

A being, ousia, substance is not just something distinct but something particular, some "what".

There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be', but all that 'is' is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and is not said to 'be' by a mere ambiguity. (Metaphysics Book 4, Chapter 1)

Quoting Wayfarer

There used to be an explicit statement that 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of 'to be' (i.e. 'I am') on one of the online dictionaries, but it's gone now.

Perhaps you meant this:
Ousia

The term ????? is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb ????, eimí, meaning "to be, I am"

Reply to Fooloso4 Probably I did mean that. What I was trying to differentiate was the philosophical sense of ontology as distinct from its modern conception of ‘study of what there is’ (not to mention its use in information technology). I thought that in its modern form, it simply becomes absorbed into the natural sciences thereby loosing its original meaning.

Reply to Wayfarer

The term ontologyitself is modern, 1720.

Reply to Fooloso4 Sure, picked that up too, and often paired with metaphysics.

Quoting Fooloso4

Perhaps you meant this:
Ousia
The term ????? is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb ????, eimí, meaning "to be, I am"

That leads me to think that my instincts were correct, and that the notion of origin is based upon a convention of the lexicon rather than a thesis regarding parts of speech in respect to how the word was actually used.

Quoting Pantagruel

If a system isn't a real thing then certainly, by your logic, there are no real things.

I explained in what sense a system is a material, physical thing (i.e. an engineered artificial creation). I also explained in what sense a system is a theoretical thing. Both of these are real. That is the advantage of dualism, it allows us to make this separation between what exists in theory, and what exists materially, providing for both to be real. Both are "real" unless you have a mind which is closed to the truth of reality, and therefore have a desire to restrict the reach of the word "real" to one side or the other.

Quoting Pantagruel

An atom is a system.

An "atom" is a theoretical representation. Atoms do not have independent existence in nature, and if given such in a lab, its existence, as a system, is an engineered system. Even the helium atom, which was classically believed to exist as an independent inert atom has been found to really only exist in nature as part of a larger structure. So the idea of "an atom" as a "system" is theory which does not accurately represent the natural existence of the things which it is supposed to represent.

Quoting Pantagruel

And yes, it is an 'arbitrary' boundary if by that you mean at some point the atom didn't exist and at some point it will cease to exist. Again, if that is your definition of arbitrary, then we live in a Heraclitean world and the only thing that really exists is change.

No, that's not what I meant. What I meant is as explained above. The arbitrary boundary is drawn between the thing represented by the system, and its environment. So for example, atoms in their natural condition exist as molecules, and the supposed boundary which separates the atoms from each other is an arbitrary boundary because this boundary doesn't really exist in natural things. The boundary exists in theory, and the application of this theory proves to be very useful in understanding things like physical reactions and chemical reactions. However, this theory leaves the electrons in a peculiar position, because they bridge the boundary between one atom (system) and another. This is where the usefulness of the model, or representation, begins to break down and loose its effectiveness. Another model has to be produced to show the interactions of electrons from various atoms because these cannot be properly classed as part of one system (atom) or another.

There is also evidence of a further problem with systems theory which is much more significant. There is an assumed boundary between the system and it's environment, and everything not within the system is "outside" the system. However, systems theory provides no means for a boundary to the "inside" of the system. So all things "not within the system" are modeled as outside the system and there is no means to differentiate which things are beyond the true boundary to the outside from things which are beyond the true boundary to the inside. These need to be two distinct boundaries.

So with your proposed system modeling of the atom for example, we can model the interactions of the electrons as occurring at the outside boundary of the system. Individual electrons may pass in and out side of a given system (atom) in this way. At the center of the system (atom) we have a massive nucleus. Each system (atom) has its own nucleus, and the nucleus of one system (atom) may interact with the nucleus of another system. Therefore we need to be able to represent direct nucleus-to-nucleus interaction of the two systems (atoms). But systems theory only allows one boundary as "outside" the system. Therefore any nucleus-to-nucleus interaction through the inside boundary gets conflated with electron-to-electron interaction through the outside boundary, and the systems theory provides us with no principles to distinguish these two.

Quoting Fooloso4

Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered.

Let me reveal to you, a discovery which I made for myself. The highest quality metaphysical material is found in theology. This tradition emerges from Plato, through Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas etc.. One cannot truthfully proclaim oneself to be a metaphysician without studying the relevant theology.

Quoting Fooloso4

Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual?

That would be Bk 9 Metaphysics. You ought to read it. It's very informative, especially in respect to his characterization of the nature of potential, or potency, and its relation to the actual. Here's a sample from chapter 8, but you need to read the whole section to get the complete context with the discussion of potency and possibility.

[quote=Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk9 Ch 8 1050b] Obviously, therefore, the substance or form is actuality. According to this argument, then, it is obvious that actuality is prior in substantial being to potency; and as we have said, one actuality always precedes another in time right back to the actuality of the eternal prime mover. [/quote]

The part concerning which I had a lengthy discussion with dfpolis previously, is BK7 Ch6-9. In Ch6 he explains in what sense a thing and its essence are the same, and in what sense they are not the same. Then in Ch7 he discusses the coming to be of things. He separates artificial from natural, and discusses the artificial, relying on examples. Artificial comings to be are called "makings". Thinking precedes the making, and the active principle, the form, proceeds from the soul of the artist. So we say that the artist puts the form into the matter. Then, after a lengthy discussion of the various different ways that natural things come to be, he concludes by the end of Ch9 that things formed by nature come to be in much the same way as things formed by art. This latter point is where dfPolis and I disagree.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Having grasped hold of a life raft you are unaware of how problematic all of this is. You overlook the problems because you believe Aristotle has given you the answer.

If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover.

But prior in time to these potential entities are other actual entities from which the former are generated; for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man, cultured by cultured—there is always some prime mover; and that which initiates motion exists already in actuality. (1049b)

There is no God who actualizes the potential of man. Man comes from man. Prior to this man is another man, but there is no prior to man.

It is also prior in a deeper sense; because that which is eternal is prior in substantiality to that which is perishable, and nothing eternal is potential. (1050b)

The world is eternal. There is no prior potential that is actualized. No God that get things rolling.

Reply to Fooloso4
I think Aristotle is framing eternity as a limit that we cannot approach without seeing our condition as unable to think about it past a certain point. In Physics, he says:

Physics, 223a15, translated by HG Apostle: It is also worth inquiring how time is related to the soul and why time is thought to exist in everything, on the earth and on the sea and in the heaven. Is it not in view of the fact that it is an attribute or a possession of a motion, by being a number (of a motion), and the fact that all these things are movable? For all of them are in a place, and time is simultaneous with a motion whether with respect to potentiality or with respect to actuality.
One might also raise the problem of whether time would exist not if no soul existed; for, if no one can exist to do the numbering, no thing can be numbered. So if nothing can do the numbering except a soul or the intellect of a soul, no time can exist without the existence of soul, unless it be that which when existing, time exists, that is if a motion can exist without a soul. As for the prior and the posterior, they exist in motion; and they are time qua being numerable.

So whatever 'eternity' is, it is not simply an infinite amount of what we have a little bit of. That conceptual boundary is touched upon in the De Anima passage I quoted explaining we can have no memory of the agent intellect as itself. Our thinking requires both the active and the passive working together.

The limit is also expressed in Aristotle saying:

De Anima, 431a1:Actual knowledge is identical with its object. But potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but not prior even in time in general; for all things that come to be are derived from that which is so actually.

Our experience of potential knowledge is exactly not what is suggested by Anamnesis in Plato:

Metaphysics, 1079b11, translated by HG Apostle: Above all, one might go over the difficulties raised by this question: What do the Form contribute to the eternal beings among the sensibles or to those which are generated and destroyed? For they are not the cause of motion or change in them. And they do not in any way help either towards the knowledge of the other things (for the are not substances of them; otherwise they would be in them) or towards their existence (for they are not present in the things which share them).

I don't know if this approach toward an eternal being is a theology or not but it is clearly different from a creation story which gives us a beginning to measure time with or a 'chain of realities' as depicted by Plotinus.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

An "atom" is a theoretical representation. Atoms do not have independent existence in nature,

Ye are quite mad lad. Bon voyage, enjoy the ride! :)

Quoting Fooloso4

If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover

From a certain mathematical perspective this is arguable.

Reply to jgill

Potentiality and actuality (including prime movers) do not exist apart from the beings they are the potentiality and actuality of.

Reply to Fooloso4

I was thinking more along the lines of infinite causation chains and original causes. Sorry to interrupt.

Reply to jgill

I thought that was what you had in mind. No problem interrupting the chain of interruptions.

Here's a mathematical question: how many posts does it take for a topic to move off topic?

Quoting Fooloso4

If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover.

There is nothing to indicate that the world might be eternal. and everything indicates that there is potentiality and actuality. So that possibility, that the world is eternal and there no potentiality or actuality is easily excluded as unreal. You might take the route of ignore and deny though, as that is a real possibility for you.

Quoting Pantagruel

Ye are quite mad lad. Bon voyage, enjoy the ride! :)

You obviously have no education in basic chemistry, so you take the route of dfpolis, deny the facts and ignore the reality.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

There is nothing to indicate that the world might be eternal.

In the Physics he argues that it is.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

there is potentiality and actuality.

The potentiality and actuality of what? There can be no potentiality and actuality of something that is not. Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So that possibility, that the world is eternal and there no potentiality or actuality is easily excluded as unreal.

The former does not preclude the latter. It not the denial of potentiality or actuality, but rather the affirmation that they are the potentiality and actuality of some thing rather than nothing.

Quoting Fooloso4

In the Physics he argues that it is.

Definitely, he does not. As argued in "On The Heavens", anything composed of matter is corruptible and not eternal. I suggest that you reread Aristotle's Physics, to see where you've made the mistake of misinterpretation.

Quoting Fooloso4

he potentiality and actuality of what? There can be no potentiality and actuality of something that is not. Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of.

"The world" obviously. You made the claim that the world is eternal and therefore not describable in terms of potential and actual. But the world is changing. Therefore it is describable by Aristotle's terms of physics, matter and form. And matter is potential, while form is actual. Therefore the world is describable in terms of potential and actual, these are matter and form. And, it is necessary to use these terms to account for the fact that the world is changing. As explained in "On the Heavens" anything composed of matter is generated and corrupted. Therefore we can conclude that the world is not eternal.

Quoting Fooloso4

The former does not preclude the latter.

The former precludes the latter under the conditions of your conditional proposition: "If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover."

This is Aristotle's argument that the world is not eternal. The world changes therefore by his principles of physics it consists of potentiality (matter) and actuality (form). Anything consisting of matter is necessarily generated and corruptible. The corruptible will in time pass away. Therefore the world is not eternal.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

anything composed of matter is corruptible

That is the point of the quote above:

... for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man ...

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The former precludes the latter under the conditions of your conditional proposition: "If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover."

You take part of the argument and argue against it as it it were the whole:

Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. If the world is eternal there has always been something with potentiality and actuality. No potentiality and actuality prior to the world.