Philosophy Discussion Forums

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 11:38 am About mind/body identity: the situation is in fact very simple. The subject's existence in the world means that it has a relationship with the world, and because the world is material, the relationship has two sides: from the subject's side it is what we know as consciousness of the world, and from the side of the world it is the body. Two perspectives to one and the same relationship. Ontological identity but conceptual incompatibility. Can we agree on this, Consul?

Well, there's a conceptual dualism between phenomenological or psychological concepts of mind/consciousness and physical/physiological or neurological concepts of it, but it doesn't follow that there is also a corresponding existential dualism between (irreducibly) different (kinds of) properties. There's also a perceptual dualism, because experiences aren't introspectively perceptible as neural processes, and neural processes aren't extrospectively perceptible as experiences; but, again, it doesn't follow that there's also an existential dualism between (irreducibly) different (kinds of) occurrences (facts/states/events/processes).

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 10:51 am

Consul wrote: ↑July 4th, 2019, 4:50 pm A subject has but isn't a subjective point of view!

So you think your body is what you are? But you say you have a body.

If I am a body, I have body parts such as arms and legs; but then I have a body only in the sense of having corporeal properties.

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 10:51 amWhat you? You could have another kind of body. So you are not your body.

The ontological question of what kind of entity I am is a complicated issue, the discussion of which would require a new thread. But to lay my cards on the table, I affirm and defend animalism, the view that I am an animal, a human one. (Being an animal entails being an organism, and being an organism entails being a body.) I also believe that I am essentially a human animal, in the sense that I couldn't have been or couldn't become some other kind of thing such as a horse or a flower.

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 10:51 amThe subject has many points of view to the world. These points of view are individual subjects, each having its own perspective to the world, i.e. consciousness of the world.

No, that's incoherent, because a subjective point of view is not itself a subject with a subjective a point of view. What IS a point of view doesn't HAVE one!

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 10:51 amAnd you are right: the subject has points of view, without them it is nothing. Nevertheless, it is a necessary component of any rational ontology.
So I see the situation a bit differently compared with your interpretation.

Subjects have a subjective point of view or perspective because they are egocentrically located somewhere in space and time. A "transcendental" point of view is an impossible view from nowhere and nowhen!

Consul wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 2:15 pm ...a subjective point of view is not itself a subject with a subjective a point of view. What IS a point of view doesn't HAVE one!

I was a bit imprecise here, but I would say it this way: the subject always has a point of view to the world to be able to exist, and without any point of view it is a mere abstraction. Its various points of view correspond various individual subjects and their successive experiences in subjective time.

Subjects have a subjective point of view or perspective because they are egocentrically located somewhere in space and time. A "transcendental" point of view is an impossible view from nowhere and nowhen!

I would turn the picture upside down: because the subject needs a body to exist in the material world, it must locate itself in space and time.

Tamminen wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 11:38 am About mind/body identity: the situation is in fact very simple. The subject's existence in the world means that it has a relationship with the world, and because the world is material, the relationship has two sides: from the subject's side it is what we know as consciousness of the world, and from the side of the world it is the body. Two perspectives to one and the same relationship. Ontological identity but conceptual incompatibility. Can we agree on this, Consul?

I know of only the material world so it seems natural to conclude all is material. On the other hand, it seems that of all the things existing in reality, it is likely that the human race is only aware of a tiny fraction. So it is not clear to me if all is material or not.

How does quantum entanglement work? That spooky action at a distance. Maybe there is something else apart from the material reality we know of that is co-located for the distanced entangled particles that allows them to synchronise?

I am a deist and I think God caused the BB. How did he evade the fallout if he is material?

Chili wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 1:08 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 12:24 pm I'd say you were talking rubbish on more than one level.

You seem to be going with your gut, rather than offering methods - or even reasons - for your conclusions.

There's not much to say here. Why not unpack your Zeus (ahem!)comment and say why you think it makes sense?

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 4:56 pmI am a deist and I think God caused the BB.

Why did God do that?

Consul wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:13 pm

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 4:56 pmI am a deist and I think God caused the BB.

Why did God do that?

I believe he/she/it is benevolent and would equate intelligent life with goodness. Whilst it is true there is evil in the universe, the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes. It should be that civilisation tends to perfection with time and there is plenty of that. So the creation of a life supporting universe would be seen as good and desirable.

Or maybe he got bored. Maybe he did it because he could - create a whole life supporting universe from nothing - if you could, you would, just to be flash.

My theory is that the BB was caused by some sort of gravity bomb designed by an astrophysicist of a God. So he computed the requirements for a life supporting universe and designed a device that would result in such a universe.

That comes back to how did he escape the explosion. He is non-material or extra dimensional maybe. I am not sure.

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pm

Consul wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:13 pmWhy did God do that?

I believe he/she/it is benevolent and would equate intelligent life with goodness.

What's good about it?
Anyway, it would be illogical if my parents said that their creating me was an act of benevolence toward me, since you cannot be benevolent toward a nonexistent or not-yet-existent person.

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pmWhilst it is true there is evil in the universe, the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes. It should be that civilisation tends to perfection with time and there is plenty of that. So the creation of a life supporting universe would be seen as good and desirable.

First of all, if God is a perfect being (in a state of heavenly bliss), he cannot have any unfulfilled desires.

Your statement that "the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes" sounds like wishful thinking to me, especially when I see the current political state of the world, with liberalism and human rights being on the decline. In many countries in the world, including China, Russia, and Brazil, the "dark side of the force" has regained power.

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pmOr maybe he got bored. Maybe he did it because he could - create a whole life supporting universe from nothing - if you could, you would, just to be flash.

A bored perfect being? I don't understand why God would want to create a material universe. I think he couldn't have had any good reasons for doing so. A self-existent deity needn't be accompanied by anything or anybody else.

Consul wrote: ↑July 6th, 2019, 12:16 am

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pm I believe he/she/it is benevolent and would equate intelligent life with goodness.

What's good about it?
Anyway, it would be illogical if my parents said that their creating me was an act of benevolence toward me, since you cannot be benevolent toward a nonexistent or not-yet-existent person.

Well I enjoy the majority of my life - so it is good. On that basis, bringing a child into the world counts as a benevolent act

It could be some form of loneliness that caused your parents to create you and caused God to create the universe.

Consul wrote: ↑July 6th, 2019, 12:16 am

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pmWhilst it is true there is evil in the universe, the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes. It should be that civilisation tends to perfection with time and there is plenty of that. So the creation of a life supporting universe would be seen as good and desirable.

First of all, if God is a perfect being (in a state of heavenly bliss), he cannot have any unfulfilled desires.

Your statement that "the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes" sounds like wishful thinking to me, especially when I see the current political state of the world, with liberalism and human rights being on the decline. In many countries in the world, including China, Russia, and Brazil, the "dark side of the force" has regained power.

Deism involves a realistic conception of God. God is not seen as a perfect being. He does not have the 3Os. He is not infinite.

I think human progress is a matter of two steps forward, one step back. The world is safer/happier than it was 100, 500, 2000 years ago.

Consul wrote: ↑July 6th, 2019, 12:16 am

devans99 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2019, 5:22 pmOr maybe he got bored. Maybe he did it because he could - create a whole life supporting universe from nothing - if you could, you would, just to be flash.

A bored perfect being? I don't understand why God would want to create a material universe. I think he couldn't have had any good reasons for doing so. A self-existent deity needn't be accompanied by anything or anybody else.

Fundamentally, I think that all intelligences are similar in nature - animals have similar thoughts (and thus behaviours) to humans. I expect aliens, AI and God to have similar thought processes to us. So I think God would be bored. He might start out small by making lifeless things to entertain himself. Maybe a pool table for example. But he would move onto bigger and better things - ultimately creation of the universe.

Consul: A "transcendental" point of view is an impossible view from nowhere and nowhen.

Yes, impossible from nowhere and nowhen but not from everywhere and everywhen - that's obviously not a mortal perspective.

Consul: Anyway, it would be illogical if my parents said that their creating me was an act of benevolence toward me, since you cannot be benevolent toward a nonexistent or not-yet-existent person.

Sure you can, illogically pragmatic parents do it all the time: decide to have a child and then prepare for it, make sure they are in good physical and financial health to give birth to it and raise it well.

Consul: First of all, if God is a perfect being (in a state of heavenly bliss), he cannot have any unfulfilled desires

True, in Eastern philosophy they propose that the Universe is Maya, i.e, God's play or creative expression, he couldn't have been obligated to create it - but the evidence suggests that God is not perfect.

Consul: Your statement that "the amount of evil reduces as evolution progresses and civilisation reaches higher planes" sounds like wishful thinking to me, especially when I see the current political state of the world...

A few philosophers have taken this position, Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo come to mind, but the entire Universe, not just Earth alone, is the theatre for this progressive evolution. The terrestrial evolutionary experiment may fail, as you suggested, but it won't be the last Hurrah.

Actually, I think de Chardin, with his Christian tinted bifocals, presumed that man was the crown of creation, but Aurobindo was not so pollyanna-ish, he contended that if man does not outgrow his juvenile traits, he'll be an evolutionary dead end.

Felix wrote: ↑July 6th, 2019, 5:37 pm

Consul: Anyway, it would be illogical if my parents said that their creating me was an act of benevolence toward me, since you cannot be benevolent toward a nonexistent or not-yet-existent person.

Sure you can, illogically pragmatic parents do it all the time: decide to have a child and then prepare for it, make sure they are in good physical and financial health to give birth to it and raise it well.

My point is that it's nonsensical to say that it's good (or better) for a nonexistent person to become existent, or that parents are good to their nonexistent child when they bring it into existence.

Consul wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 5:35 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 4:41 pmBoth "property" and "emergence" are abstractions, so in both cases it's simply a well-established lie that they view qualia as real.

I'm not sure what you mean by "abstraction", but (conservatively) reductive materialists and nonreductive ones (who are general realists about properties [qualities/quantities]) think that experiential/phenomenal qualities are concretely real.

Atla wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 4:41 pmSo you too deny having actual experiences, and you also deny denying it. As I said that's a pretty serious condition (reminds me of Dennett).

Yes, among the materialists there are guys such as Dennett, who aren't what Galen Strawson calls "real realists" about (phenomenal) consciousness but merely nominal realists or pseudorealists. In my view, Dennett is in effect an eliminative materialist, because the sort of consciousness he acknowledges isn't really (phenomenal) consciousness but something else.

Note well that I'm not like Dennett, because I am a really realistic materialist about phenomenal consciousness aka subjective experience!

"Physical stuff" IS it's "property".

If you do the trick of making property into an abstraction and then turning it into something real again, you took one thing and turned it into two different things. This should be obvious btw.

So you are now talking about physical stuff plus experiential/phenomenal qualities. Of course there is again, zero known evidence for two different things existing, so I see you little different than those who talk about God.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 5:27 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 4:46 pm
As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

We may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

But you have not stated a problem here.

I've stated the problem many times.
Again: you don't even realize what the core problem of philosophy is, most people don't. You seem to lack the necessary intelligence.

Consul wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 10:54 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 4:46 pm As usual you dodge the issue of qualia and talk about something else.

No, I don't, since to talk about consciousness—by which I mean phenomenal consciousness—is to talk about qualitative subjective experience.

"I myself am hesitant to use the word 'qualia' and its singular, 'quale', because they give the impression that there are two separate phenomena, consciousness and qualia. But of course, all conscious phenomena are qualitative, subjective experiences, and hence are qualia. There are not two types of phenomena, consciousness and qualia. There is just consciousness, which is a series of qualitative states."

(Searle, John R. The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1997. pp. 9-10)

Atla wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 4:46 pmWe may knock out parts of the brain/mind, stop them from working, we can stop people from remembering things, we can dismantle self-reflection etc. but that in no way implies that those "unconscious" states didn't have qualia.

It's incoherent to ascribe qualia to a (phenomenally) nonconscious state, since any mental state having or containing qualia is thereby (phenomenally) conscious.
(I use "quale" in the narrow technical sense in which it is used in the philosophy of mind and psychology, and not as a general synonym of "quality". A phenomenally nonconscious mental state can certainly have or contain qualities which aren't qualia in the narrow sense of the term.)

Note that to say that a nonconscious state cannot have or contain qualia is not to say that there cannot be any cognitively unaccessed or even unaccessible conscious states with qualia!

Also note that by "conscious state" I do not mean a mental state of which its subject is cognitively conscious but simply a subjective experiential state consisting in the presence of mental "impressions" or "ideas" (images)!

People like you and Searle, who don't realize that the English word "consciousness" refers to a mix of two (or more) different components, have not even understood what the core problem of philosophy is. Let alone how to solve the problem. This is why Western philosohy is a dead end.
You will never understand consiousness before you realize that the two components have basically nothing to do with each other.

Atla wrote: ↑July 12th, 2019, 3:41 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑June 20th, 2019, 5:27 pm

But you have not stated a problem here.

I've stated the problem many times.
Again: you don't even realize what the core problem of philosophy is, most people don't. You seem to lack the necessary intelligence.

Obviously not.
You seem to lack the vocabulary to state a problem.