For me, all we are, all we do, all we know, is derived from our interactivity with the rest of the world. I suspect there's a lot we don't know about the universe, though, and that interaction may include aspects of which we're not yet aware.

You speak a lot of sense.
I would add that there are likely things we are not aware of about ourselves which are with us at all times rather like the way we see our shadow cast by a light. Or even that we are the shadow cast by that we don’t know.

My issue is how one uses possibilities in further reasoning.

What I’m getting at here is that by examining feasible possibilities, one can see the orthodox explanations in a different light. This helps to develop a broader context and develop ways of thinking outside of the orthodox paradigm. Add into the mix the extent of what we don’t know, then one can in a sense break free of the orthodox. This is how mysticism makes use of philosophy.

An example, when contemplating being I sometimes imagine all beings are one being, manifest as many separate beings extended through time and space. So in a sense, all beings have a part of themselves which is that one being simultaneously, while living as many separate beings. This can become an axiom in a sense from which implications can be drawn about how this might offer a different view about what beings are and how they interact in the world. If I watch a murmeration of birds. Here in the U.K. you can watch vast flocks of starlings flying in formation. Displaying complex patterns which have through evolution developed the ability to confuse peregrine falcons. The flock is acting as one being in that moment. Are these birds watching each other to know how to fly in formation? Are they using some kind of telepathy? Are they literally being one being? Well in my example, they are one being, they are not watching each other, or using telepathy, but that part of themselves which is that one being. And through doing it in this way, they become extra responsive and gain an edge on the peregrine.

But...there's no reason to think this is the case- there's no evidence of it, and it's not entailed by accepted theory.

But there’s no reason to assume that it isn’t the case either. It’s a possibility, so having an understanding of what we don’t know helps us to not make assumptions, or broad brush conclusions about the world and existence. I’m not accusing you or any (with one or two exceptions maybe) of the posters here of doing this. As philosophers you are open minded about these ideas.

Now taking the idea a stage further, it brings into question what is natural, maybe only the neumenon is natural and all appearances, or phenomenon are artificial. For example, this whole big bang theory with reality emerging from a worm hole, or a singularity. It comes across like comic book pseudoscience. It makes more sense to me that what is going on is that extension (including temporal extension) is an illusion/projection (like the Truman Show) and that something more akin to the Hindu cosmogony, of transcendent being makes more sense.

I see your point, you could be seeing yourself walking in your mind. But you can also be in ignorance (in the politest possible sense) in your head too. This was my point, unless you are omniscient in your world, you are ignorant of it’s make up and origin.

You two should try a bit of mud wrestling for that (I’m joking). The Greek philosophers enjoyed a bit of wrestling.

It seems to me that you are in agreement. As long as you both accept there is something going on there that we haven’t quite got to the bottom of yet.

It seems reasonable to believe there's a great deal we don't know. But what use can be made of this fact? Does it lead anywhere?

Epistemic humility.
For me it helps to contextualise the things I do know, by realising how partial it is. Also it helps to remain open minded.

Regarding other "minds", IMO we can justifiably believe they exist in other humans, and in a diminished sense- in other animals.

Yes, but I was treating all minds on Earth as one group. I was asking about minds elsewhere.
It goes like this, there are minds with technology on earth which emerged naturally. Presumably there are other planets with minds with technology. Due to temporal variation in the development of planets and minds, there are likely to be minds far more advanced, in terms of technology (not to mention what’s going on in those other possible universes) than us. If minds are where artificial things come from (as in the example of humans), there could be highly advanced artificial things around. How do we know there aren’t artificial worlds, spacetime bubbles, universes out there? How do we know our world (known universe) isn’t artificial?

I was not talking about the world. I was talking about me, and God. :)

You see yourself standing, walking, listening and talking in the world, don’t you? So surely you can also see yourself not knowing much in the world too?

I covered that by referencing "anything inferred to exist by analysis of the universe", which means via accepted theory.

I understand your parameters and approach to this question, which I agree with. However, what we don’t know looms large to me. And yet you are sort of restricting what is natural to what has been deemed to be so by human thought. While we have no metric by which to measure how much of our world we know about and therefore, the extent of our ignorance.

I intentionally leave out mere possibilities. My definition is intended to identify what we can justifiably believe. This also applies to:

Do we know there are not artificial things outside the human mind?

Well we have one example of a mind existing. Something which is naturally emergent in biological life. So it seems reasonable to allow the possibility of other minds, creating other artificial things. Including highly advanced technologies. Which might for example have technology to control physical material, energy etc.
I say this because it seems reasonable to consider that human technology will be able to do such things in the future.

I can see me standing and walking, and hear me talking.

and not knowing much about the world you find yourself in.

Yes people like NOS4A2, don’t realise that it was their involvement in Europe and other spheres around the world which gave the US it’s dominance and superpower status. Now that they have become unreliable and untrustworthy their power will shrink, leaving a void for China to fill. Europe will now re-arm and keep Russia at bay without help from the U.S. Help which was offered in the knowledge that it was vital for the US interests in the fight against communism. That is why the U.S. remained a strong force in Europe, because they saw themselves as the defender of the free world against the spread of communism. This was their project, not a demand from Europe for them to provide security.

This is a pretty broad generalization when talking about a diverse population. I know indigenous people personally who would disagree with your statement, along with those who would agree.

I wasn’t referring to indigenous people living in modern civilisation. Rather indigenous peoples prior to their contact with modern civilisation.

They also tend to engage in murderous cultural norms, sexual assault, xenophobia and plenty of other pretty ridiculous things.

Yes, I know. I was specifically referring to how they regard the ecosystem they live in, usually a forest.

What hole do you have in mind?

Universes not causally connected, could include infinite universes entirely different to ours. But which is somehow constrained by human thought. If not a gap, a leaky sieve.

and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe.

That's tricky. Our knowledge of the world is in our heads, and that is (in a sense) made up - even though it corresponds to reality.

Yes, but we know it includes artificial things, so we will need to separate these out in some way. This is what philosophy is for presumably.
Do we know there are not artificial things outside the human mind? Well I think only where there are minds able to create them.

American presence there is the only deterrent Europe has ever had, and the only reason NATO stands any chance. The problem is you all have been taking advantage of the United States taxpayer for far too long without developing any way to defend yourselves.

Drinking the Kool aid again, I see.

D

Organisms, of which we are one, really, and, by that, I mean naturally, behave by evolved drives and conditioning. But for humans born into history (i.e., not prehistoric humans) our dialectical process--Mind/History--displaces our natures. We are born as a species, our drives are to bond and mate and survive together. Good and evil have no place. Mind displaces that with laws, the manifestation of those processes. And because yet another mechanism of that process is difference, not that but this, good and evil are inevitable; but not as a result of our natures.

Here’s the rub, it is the fall of man you are describing. When Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden, they were leaving their instinctive behaviours which had been shaped by evolution in their evolutionary niche. They had to develop new drives, motivations, goals to replace them. But what they didn’t realise is that those finely honed instincts and behaviours had been fined tuned for millions of years achieving a balance with their ecosystem and that it couldn’t easily be replaced. From that point on, humanity became destructive (this doesn’t include many indigenous societies who have learned to live in harmony with their ecosystem).

Why is the savage the better spiritual human being than the White man who comes with a gun and believes he is morally superior, and he needs to teach the savage about being saved and being moral? Is this justice of a god? Strange.

The White man is the savage and the Indian is morally superior. The White man has subverted the truth, twisted it around and inflated his ego. While all he’s doing is ruthlessly exploiting and destroying nature for his own selfish ends.
Wherever we encounter indigenous peoples they all say the same thing, They revere their environment and seek to live in harmony with it. They respect their environment and natural balance and inherent wisdom of the animals and plants they live alongside.

and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe.

This might need tidying up a bit. You might have left a big hole there for other things to sneak in.

I would define natural as everything except what is made up in peoples heads. Putting the emphasis on the human mind, the only place where artificial things are created.

If you say something is 'natural', what have you said about it?

Not a lot.
Natural might be code for what humans say about it informed by science and the world of human knowledge. Not very much really, if we are considering what exists. We are only experts about what we find in front of us.

While I do not dispute your points, I should clarify. As we inevitably have violence in our conditioning, the violence is not in our natures. Killing for food or territory, though evident in nature, is not the same as war, or murder. We cannot say lion's are murderous or evil. We alone have transcended nature

Yes, I agree with your premise, but there are tendencies in our natures which appear to be there from birth for certain people to be disrupters, a tendency for psychopathy, sociopathy etc.
Such that in any society these people can disrupt or take control and themselves have to be controlled. This might be an evolutionary development.

For me, nothing can fill that gap. No one will he able to give a characterization of the intrinsic stuff talked about in the Chalmers' quote of my previous post. And this is just the nature of how descriptions and explanations work in an information processing system like a brain, imo. There are inherent limitations such as described by the munchausen trilemma.

Yes, agreed, which is why in religious and mystical practice this tendency is acknowledged and there is an effort to get past, or around it. Through the practice one learns to subjugate the intellectual mind and seek new ways of relating to the world and being. Having done this for many years, I like you, have an unfillable gap. A gap which isn’t empty, but is rather undefined, kept clean, so to speak.

If what it is like to be something can be taken as a directly aquainted example of irreducible ontology, then it seems ontologies strongly emerge macroscopically.

Yes, but we can’t go past “seems” here. This is an example of human thought coming up with what seems to make sense. We might be mistaken, or viewing the issue through some kind of prism (metaphorically).

An issue is that if all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains, this emergent ontology seems not only epiphenomenal but also disconnected from our own reports about our own experience which would be due to the brains - this seems incoherent.

Yes, it suggests that there is more to it, wherein the raw experience and the presence of being in that experience is always the primary objective in animal evolution and behaviour. Just how the body achieves this might be more complicated, or novel, than we might at first imagine.

We should remember in this that we are creatures, living entities and we still haven’t got to grips with what it means to be alive. What that entails and enables. For example, it might be necessary for an entity to be alive to become a being. So our hypothetical super advanced AI robot will never be a being until it is alive.

For me, the most logical explanation is that any strong emergence is an illusion (and there is no scientific evidence for it anyway) and we actually have no intuitive, coherent sense of the fundamental "intrinsic" ontology of the universe, partly because of limits on how any intelligent system can work.

Yes, but that is admittedly a partial view. We should remember that we only have a partial understanding of our world, how it is produced, sustained and why it is here and why we are here. We are really in the dark on all these questions.

When I think about this stuff, it always invokes the imagery of the strange loop and munchausen trilemma that really be escaped from.

I would suggest a bit of lateral thinking, as a tonic.

The closest kind of fundamental "intrinsic" ontology I would pick would actually probably be something like informational (e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33286288/), but I don't even actually know what that actually really means; the generality of the concept is appealing, that is all.

Yes, that is interesting and monism is being tossed around a bit in there. I don’t see the appeal in going too deep into these analyses. The people doing it are trying to find out something new and this is how they do it. I do similar things in mystical practice, it’s deep complicated and usually doesn’t produce much in the way of results. But it’s also a way of trying to find out something new.

I think Trump backed down, he really didn’t want to start a war between Washington and New York. He would have lost.

Are we by nature hostile or evil? I think no, not by Nature. By history.

We evolved on the African plains, have you watched a nature documentary about what happens there in a natural setting? Everything is competing to eat each other.
Maybe if we had evolved in the forest like the mountain gorilla we would be different.

Yes, I can agree with that. It does still leave quite a large gap to be filled, though. Which is I suppose what this thread is about. The idea that physicalist accounts can go only so far and we should refrain from overstepping their explanatory power.

I’m not anti-physicalism, I just don’t see aspects of being in the same way. I won’t comment on what Wayfarer is saying about this, as I will almost certainly misrepresent him and confuse, or derail the discussion.

You seemed to answer my question about p zombies in your reply to Mww. What I’m saying about p zombies is that the physicalist account of the our world with conscious beings in is identical to what a p zombie universe would be like if described by a neutral observer. The p zombie would be processing information and internal mental states just as described by physicalism when physicalism is describing conscious beings. The only difference is that it would not be conscious. Absolutely everything else would be identical.

I don’t believe it, it’s just my preferred explanation*, I don’t hold beliefs. Yes, I am familiar with the interaction problem.
I don’t see it as dualism, although it conforms largely with what is understood as dualism. I see the problems around dualism as a human construct. So where one thinks of substance dualism, for example, I don’t see these as fundamentally different substances, just differing kinds of substance. I entertain both idealistic and materialist ideologies, both atheistic and religious. I don’t see all these divisions as problematic, but rather divisions we have created. That what people think about and talk about are narratives based on an incomplete understanding of our world, coloured by the human condition.That what we don’t know likely vastly outnumbers what we do know. That we really have no idea about existence, because our narratives are developed solely around what we do in the world we were born into. That the basis of the existence we experience is entirely unknown. This is evidenced in the dilemmas any attempt to determine, or understand what existence, or our existence in this world, we come up against.

Surely given the advances in scientific research and human intellect, we would have discovered, or understood existence by know. But we haven’t, maybe we are no further forward in this understanding than prehistoric people. Are we missing something?

Yes, I see that. It’s so difficult to tease out these positions.

The dualism point, for me depends on where one draws the line. It might be dualism, or monism depending on where one considers the divide between the two to be. So I don’t think this can be resolved, and shouldn’t be used as a means to shut down possibilities.

But the living brain is not a physical thing in space and time.

I think there is a difficulty in depicting the mind in this way. Because the brain is a physical organ. True when it is alive and consciousness it is much more than that, but that organ is present in spacetime.
I would suggest that the brain hosts the mind, so is distinct from the mind, in that the brain is an apparatus performing the biological functions required for a mind to have a presence and interact within a physical body. So it is more appropriate to describe the mind as not a physical thing in space and time.
I hold that there is a mind independent of space and time, but that it is present in the world through being hosted by the brain (and the body). That the nature, or personality of that mind is formed alongside the body in the womb and is the body and mind and is and is not part of the world, simultaneously.

So that we find ourselves with a science and philosophy (in the Western tradition), covering only half of the story, the issue. The other half (the mind etc) has barely been discovered, or recognised.

1) illusionism - this means feelings are not directly physical because they exist exclusively in the mind- a mental construction. It depends only on mental causation (which I've defended). It also accounts for the action of pain-relievers, which mask the pain by interfering the brain's construction of the sensation.

Sounds good, I do think it’s important to bring emotions into this, which involves the endocrine system of hormones and pheromones. So to put it simply, this is a way that the body, as distinct from the brain, is involved in being. Emotions can be triggered in the body ( this can cause a bit confusion because the brain is a physical organ, acting as a gland, independently of the mind), the body informs the being and mind through hormonal activity. Which often works through feelings, urges, emotional states. You only need to look at the oestrogen cycle to see how that occurs.
So yes, feelings exist in the mind, to an extent. But I would suggest also that the mind isn’t consciousness, that consciousness is due to cellular activity (which does include the cells in the brain). But there is something about the being which draws all the instantiations of consciousness (from the cells) into the coherent form of an organism. This multicellular organism somehow acts as a singular conscious being. Who is then enhanced by the computational activity of the mind, hosted by the brain. And that feelings can occur in this instantiation, or singular conscious being, in complex and subtle ways among the complex interactions between the body, the mind and the emotions, acted out within consciousness (as described).

2) Feelings are due to some aspect of the world that has not been identified through science, and may never be. This is open-ended; it could be one or more properties or things.

To an extent, but I see no reason that it may never be, we just haven’t invented the science yet. I come to this from the opposite end of the stick, I work within a complex ideological system of spirit, soul and mind distinct from the physical world, but which interacts with the physical via beings. Beings that are organisms present in the physical sphere. So bridge the gap between the two. There simply isn’t any science working here, there is very little literature and most of it is embedded in religious traditions. So all there is is some ideas worked out by people like me, Wayfarer and a number of others on the forum, and thinkers, or priests within the religious traditions who work with the ideology therein. A ragtag band, of misfits with no overarching scientific, or philosophical grounding (theology accepted). So I can understand the skepticism of people working with a more formal ideology.

Or they promised not to show the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.

Yes there are some intelligent conservatives. They don’t last long in political party’s these days, they get pushed out by the populists. So those intelligent conservatives tend to get tarred with the populist brush.

I think that's what the lounge is for, a place to put to use our omniscience. That practice can be called omnipotence.

What does TDS stand for, Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome?

No, that’s omnimpotence.

If we had the means we would certainly create a world, a physical world. I would, wouldn’t you?

You are both describing a philosophical zombie, or a highly advanced AI robot. Neither are alive, or conscious.
Where in materialism is this gap addressed? (Other than reverting to the observation that materialism like science is only descriptive).

Hence the proof itself would be basically an idol and believing in the proof would be idolatry.

Well put, it would be impossible for us (or anyone) to prove the existence of God, even to ourselves. So it would only be idolatry. Even if God came down and said, “here I am”, we would be none the wiser.

This is not to disparage believers, because they have faith, which doesn’t require proof.

Existence negates God. God negates existence.

You can’t say that because you don’t know anything about existence, or God, for that matter.

I think this is plainly wrong, as a matter of principle. Not because there is some mysterious thing called 'mind' which somehow always escapes scientific analysis, but because the mind is never an object of analysis in the same way that the objects of science are. How this eludes so many people continues to surprise me.

Yes, it is surprising. There seems to be a leap made wherein the mind is seen as the one remaining anomaly not fully explained by biology and is seen as something which will be fully explained soon enough. So why continue with this notion that it is somehow different. This amounts to a bracketing out process.

And yet, some people seriously entertain solipsism and idealism - because they are not provably impossible. This is the sort of thing I'm complaining about. I'm fine with the focus you suggest.

I wouldn’t group idealism in with solipsism. The later is illogical, whereas I can see a strong case for idealism. I think you should revise what you mean by provably impossible, there aren’t really any philosophies which are provably impossible.

This tells me you are not a theist. Philosophically minded theists often think they can "prove" God's existence through philosophical analysis.

I am, loosely a deist, a positive(theistic) leaning agnostic. For me mysticism is more important than theology. I am more interested in what we don’t know, than what we do know (something that can easily be accessed when required), that insight can be made through a realisation of what we don’t know. I realise that we can’t prove God’s existence, or to put it more strongly, if he/she were to appear before us, we could still not prove it, or demonstrate it.

Debating these issues is what drew me to learn a bit about philosophy.

I spent years debating with materialists and skeptics on the JREF forum before coming here. Lots of fun (and trolls).

Actually, he accepts science.

I should have been more precise, I should have written; (including the philosophical interpretation of our scientific findings) in brackets, rather than; (including our scientific findings).

but I object to declaring materialism (in general) false on the basis of the explanatory gap, while meanwhile taking flights of fancy (mere possibilities) seriously.

He’s not declaring materialism false, but rather its philosophical conclusions about the explanatory gap. They are not flights of fancy, it is genuine philosophy. As I say, I can see a case for idealism.

It will all be a democratic conspiracy.

The problem I have with this is that there are infinitely many possibilities. There needs to be a reason to pluck one from the infinite set of possibilities and see where it leads.

Well if one accepts this, it doesn’t lead anywhere, other than staring at yourself in the mirror (metaphysics ends up reflecting the nature of the world we find ourselves in). But I don’t accept that there are an infinite number of possibilities. Of the large number of possibilities which one could theoretically come up they can be arranged into two groups, those where there is a mental origin, or ones where there is a non mental, or physical, origin. These categories are derived from the two things we know for sure about our being, 1, that we are, have, a living mind and 2, there is a physical world that we find ourselves in. If you can provide an alternative to these two, I would like to know.

When it comes to philosophical enquiry into our existence, philosophy is mute, blind, it can’t answer the question.

He doesn't merely say, "here's why I don't accept materialism" (which would be perfectly fine by me); he insists materialism is demonstrably false

I’m not going to talk for Wayfarer, but the impression I had was that the philosophical interpretation of the physical world (including our scientific findings) is what he takes issue with. Namely that this interpretation oversteps the limits of what it can say about existence and being. There is a tendency to confine being to a physical process, described in biology, neuroscience etc, and some kind of rejection of alternative origins of existence, other than what is contemplated by astrophysicists. That it seems to disregard other philosophical fields in a number of ways(he has laid the detail of this extensively, so there is no point in me repeating it).

We see lots of philosophical theories tossed around, but I'm not seeing much of a defense of them- other than it being possibly true.

That is philosophy, about the possibly true. If it’s verifiably true, that’s science. Philosophy is about coming up with ideas and explanations that might play a sufficient role in an explanation for something not covered by, or amenable to scientific investigation.

It’s possible that one explanation of existence is an intelligent source (as opposed to a physical source). I see no reason to reject this possibility out of hand, because it can’t be demonstrated. Because it plays a useful role in further philosophical enquiry. If the entirety of philosophical enquiry is to be bracketed out, because it has shaky empirical foundations, then again we are doing the bracketing out that Wayfarer keeps pointing out.

Let me give an example of what I mean. (This is a rather crude example and I am not equating people who rely on more scientifically based thinking as animals. I am drawing the analogy with animals because they are operating in the physical world without philosophy, they are incapable of philosophising about what they are doing)
Imagine that a colony of ants started doing science, it’s arguable that they have already done this in their small way. They could in theory continue, given favourable circumstances to achieve many of the scientific advances that we have. But they would not be doing any philosophical analysis of what they are doing, they would be doing it out of some kind of physical necessity, rather than curiosity, or philosophical enquiry. It would never occur to them that there is any meaning to be gained, or understood from it. They would be doing it only because it works and fulfills a necessary role in their development, their modus operandi. Indeed they wouldn’t be doing any thinking at all, it’s not necessary, they would be merely following a step by step activity, blind to it’s significance.

What I’m teasing out here is that human insight is a valuable tool and to limit it is to reduce its value. It would take the ants a lot longer with a lot more trial and error to achieve our level of development. But I see no reason why they would not be able to get there eventually in principle. Like a chimpanzee at a typewriter. Who would by sheer chance write Shakespeare, but not recognise it as any different to the other pages of random letters it is typing.

It gives me happiness to think of the Native American point of view and attempt to be spiritually woke.

Yes, native and indigenous peoples knew the importance of living in harmony and balance with their ecosystem. We can learn a lot from them.