And there is a distinction between going through a process and referring to a process, between experiencing a feeling and talking about a feeling. In saying "lived experience" we're putting the focus on what it's like to go through that experience, rather than merely referring to it. The "neglect of lived experience" is the neglect of what it's like to experience, rather than the neglect of the experience you listed in your resume when we decide whether to hire you or not. You not seeing the distinction does not mean we're "adding words to make it sound more intellectual/theoretical". — leo

You completely ignored that referring to experience is referring to something that was necessarily "lived," necessarily processual.

It's like running. You can't refer to running in a way that it's not dynamic and not something done by living things. There's a difference between running at the moment and referring to running that you did previously, but there's no need to qualify running as something that was action-oriented and that was something you needed to be alive to do.

How about describing what you see as strawmen, instead of expecting others to do the work for you? — leo

I already did so in my first post in the thread. You were repeating some of the same strawmen.

For example, no materialist neglects ("lived") experience.

First look at the etymology:

late 14c., "reality," from Old French existence, from Medieval Latin existentia/exsistentia, from existentem/exsistentem (nominative existens/exsistens) "existent," present participle of Latin existere/exsistere "stand forth, come out, emerge; appear, be visible, come to light; arise, be produced; turn into," and, as a secondary meaning, "exist, be;" from ex "forth" (see ex-) + sistere "cause to stand," from PIE *si-st-, reduplicated form of root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm."

One thing it's handy for, especially in the context of the scholastic philosophy from which the term emerged, is talking about the difference between possibles/potentials and actuals. Something closely related is instantiation of (platonic) forms, or instantiations of properties.

If you like - but it does not follow that one thing is not better than another. — Banno

Sure. Things are subjectively better or worse to particular individuals.

I'm confused at you asking if there's such a thing as religion and then proceeding to explain a cluster property characterization of religions, where you seem to have no question that there are some.

There is experience in the sense having knowledge or skill about some subject. — leo

That's an abbreviated way of referring to processes one has gone through which were "lived." It just seems like a stupid term, where we're adding words where there's no need to add words--adding words to make it sound more "intellectual"/theoretical. We can't come up with an example where simply "experience," unmodified by a redundant adjective, wouldn't do just as well.

How about addressing the fact that you're forwarding strawmen?

Well, if the novel takes place in a jungle village in Columbia, I have to imagine what that looks like. I have to make the images. In a film, the film shows me. I am more passive watching a film. And I tend not to use my imagination in any active way to wonder how i would feel when watching a film. When reading a book I might pause and do this. With a film I might do it after. With films I tend to just automatically identifty. This is not a problem with film, per se. I mean, I love films. It's like comparing bicycles and oranges, both of which I am fond of. Reading a short story - perhaps a more fair comparison - one I could finish in an hour and a half say, perhaps a novella, requires more work while I am experiencing it. I cocreate more. Poetry requries even more work, if it is fairly metaphorical or ambiguous. Fiction elicits, films show. Both can have subtext and symbolism and hidden deeper stuff and these can be pulled out - after for both, during with literature. But the basic process of experiencing the film is more passive. And that includes even watching with my wife, where we both yell stuff out at home, make guess and do more actively go after subtext while watching - though not if its a great film where we'd tell the other person to shut up. — Coben

That's fine that that's the case for you if it really is. The problem is that just because it's the case for you, it doesn't imply that it's the case for everyone.

There are a number of angles regarding why it may not be the case for everyone. A couple examples: one, someone could read a novel set in a jungle village in Columbia and not bother thinking about what it looks like. They could just read the words at face value and not think much about it beyond that. You might say something like "they're not reading right" if that's all they're doing, but that brings us to a second example:

It's a standard in filmmaking theory that you don't show anything, from any perspective, without there being a good reason for it. The reasons can vary, including things that are integral to plot, including foreshadowing, or they could be related to characterization, or background info, or symbolism, etc. This means that even the briefest of shots in the most "innocuous" montages are usually executed with this in mind (the standard has it that the shot should be removed otherwise), and ideally every element of every shot, including production design elements (sets, props, costumes, etc.), and including cinematography (the way the shot is framed, the angle, the lighting, the color processing, etc.), as well as just how shots are linked, the timing, etc. (editing), as well as sound (both ambient/environmental sound and music), etc. is just as it is for a reason. The reasons for these elements are not made explicit. We could be talking about something as simple as a three-second shot of an unoccupied office lobby with an automatic door opening cutting to a two-second shot of a streetlamp, say. And most directors follow this standard most of the time, even when we're talking about films that people typically call "popcorn" movies.

Viewers need to think about these things. They need to actively think, "Why am I being shown an empty office lobby with an opening automatic door and then a streetlamp?" They need to think about the style of the lobby, the lighting, the angle, the sound, the timing, etc., and the same for the streetlamp, as all of these things can factor into it. Some viewers do not do this, and for example, this is one reason that some people have trouble watching silent films. Many would say that the viewers who just passively let seemingly innocuous montage shots go by--and this stuff is still a factor even in dialogue and "action" shots-- are "not watching right."

Is a tree dependent upon it's relations? — creativesoul

Everything, except for maybe elementary particles, supposing there really are any, and imagining that any could obtain in isolation, is, and is thus dependent on matter in dynamic relations. That obviously includes trees. You can't have a tree without particular kinds of matter in particular sorts of dynamic relations, both internally (internal to what we're considering "the tree itself") and with respect to external matter in dynamic relations, such as the sun, water, carbon dioxide, etc.

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'. — fresco

Any news yet on why you'd endorse or stress that point of view?

Perhaps if you were to lay out the reasoning that you want to claim leads inexorably from what I have said to what you claim here I therefore must agree with I will be able to show you where you went wrong. — Janus

The reasoning is this: in what way is devising character personality traits, for example, thinking in terms of one of these sensory patterns: visual, aural, olfactory, tactile, proprioceptive?

Further and for Heidegger, most of what does comprise discourse is what we do and not what we think or say. — Arne

What would be an example of discourse that's not what we think or say?

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'. — fresco

Why would you endorse or stress that point of view?

materialism . . . neglects lived experience, which in the words of David Bohm leads "people who want to hold onto spirituality to be incoherent in various aspects of their lives" and to a loss of meaning.

Materialism tells us we are nothing more than a bunch of particles moving according to unchanging laws, which implies that choice and will are an illusion and which leaves no place to spirituality. The problem is that many believe that science shows materialism to be true, including many scientists, while this is not the case, and that's what the article in the OP is about. — leo

Strawman, strawman, strawman.

And can we stop saying "lived experience"? What other sort of experience is there?

Then the mistake, imo, is that we can escape from the domain of 'language' at all.
As 'thinkers' all we have is 'language' — fresco

Could you explain why you'd believe this?

Allow me to attack it: How do you know the difference between subjective and objective? — tim wood

On philosophy of perception I'm a direct realist. I don't buy representationalism.

You observe the external brick. There's no good reason to believe that what you're observing is your mind as such, with some mysterious connection to some "possibly-external-who-knows-what," which is the alternative view amounts to.

I use "subjective" to refer to mental phenomena (which again, in my view is a brain functioning in mental ways).

"Objective" is the complement of that ("complement" in the set theory sense). So everything that's not in the set of mental phenomena (that is, in the set of brains functioning in mental ways).

Again, just to reiterate, I see these primarily as terms of physical location.

So the act of judging is something we do mentally. Hence, by the definitions above, it's subjective, not objective.

The content of "x is better than y" is a judgment that x is better than y, of course. That "better" judgment only occurs mentally. Nowhere that we look outside of brains functioning in mental ways amounts to a "better" property or judgment or whatever we'd want to call it.

You mentioned reasoning above. On my view, then, reasoning is subjective. It's a mental activity.

Before we go there, consider whether it may become a disagreement over how this or that is defined or understood: are you interested in digging through that layer? — tim wood

If you think we need to, sure.

Re the content being objective, the content of a judgment such as "Frank Zappa is a better composer than Haydn" is that the work of one is better than the other, no? How is that content objective? Isn't it just that Frank Zappa and Haydn and their work is objective?

I agree. If you and I and a bunch of other folks agree on something, then either there's something "out there" we agree upon, or there's a coincidence. Too many agreements for coincidence. — tim wood

So if you believe there are objective judgments, what is any evidence for them?

Er wait, later on you're saying that you agree there are no objective judgments. So what are you agreeing on above? What is "there's something out there" about in the context of a discussion about whether there are objective judgments?

Let's solve one issue at a time. Keep things simple so we can solve things and move on.

Exactly. So we'd no longer be able to peg any particular properties, any particular functions, to any particular part. Chemistry textbooks, for example, would have to read something like this:

"The empirical formula of the universe can be determined by its universal composition. Assuming 100g of the universe and calculating the number of moles of the universe, universe and universe . . . "

They can ask for your details and if you don't give it, then they can reject you — Coben

Sure, but then this would just amount to, "You're going to have a Visa problem if you don't have a social media account or two that you can reveal." Which is a bit different than what the objections to this are about. Of course, governments would have to be idiots to not realize that that's what this would amount to in that case.

By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. The scientific task becomes about figuring out how to reduce them to something physical, such as the behaviour of neural networks, the architecture of computational systems, or some measure of information.

Awareness/consciousness/experience are not taken to be "secondary." They're taken to be real (in the sense of "existent"), physical things, just like everything else. He's using "reduction" with at least a hint of a value judgment there, especially in combination with the "secondary" comment. Saying that consciousness is physical isn't diminishing it in any way or making it any less important.

Re his "intractable problems," the first is no problem. It's simply a fact about perspective. Re the cliched old "never gives us nature as it is in itself," there's no way to know that without knowing that nature in itself is different than our perspective of it, but if we know that, then our perspective provides knowledge of nature in itself.

Re his comment about physicalism, he's simply forwarding a strawman.

In a nutshell, this article seems to be the same old crap mistakes, misunderstandings, misrepresentations, etc. that people, including thousands and thousands of faceless Internet chatters, message board posters, etc. have been making over and over for decades, despite being told otherwise by people whose views are supposedly being criticized. It comes across like sleazy-salesman-like apologetics tactics because of that, or most charitably, as some sort of mental block for understanding the "opposition's" views.

Wouldn't it be more fruitful to have a discussion that proceeds from understanding (where we actually care about understanding) the other side's view, so that we could actually paraphrase the opposing view in a way that the opposition would agree with?

Merdwurdichliebe is correct in saying disputes about 'existence' have important psychological implications with respect to 'social norms of thinking', but IMO, philosophers are producing word salad unless they recognize that 'trees exist' is either a tautology in the sense that all concepts 'exist', or that the word 'tree', implies a contextual expectancy of potential interaction for the user. — fresco

The mistake is to believe that everyone is talking about language qua language.

There's no way for them to know whether you use social media or whether you're listing any particular names you've used. If they could know that they wouldn't need to ask you; they'd already know the answer.

This is likely to be akin to the "Are you a drug trafficker?" "Are you a terrorist?" etc. questions on the customs form. I guess if you are and you're dumb enough to answer "Yes" then it's worth finding that out.

It seems weird to me that any educated person could imagine that a society built on lies could long survive. — unenlightened

Societies aren't built on (the work of) politicians.

A lot of politicians seem to do little that has practical impact, actually. That's one of the problems with politics as it's practiced now.

That's all you focused on in that post of mine? — Coben

Yes. I tackle (what I consider to be) one issue at a time when responding.

Yes, perhaps I should have written, you don't just mean the land.

Sometimes people do just mean the land, though. It depends on the occasion, on what the person has in mind on that occasion.

Perhaps we should discriminate between the activity of judging and the content/substance of the judgment. The activity in every case belongs to and comes from the mind that makes it - the actor. But the judgment as judgment - even the word is suggestive - judges. What does it mean to judge? I offer, to assess according to some appropriate criteria. Even "appropriate" suggests something "outside."

Maybe less absurdly and more simply, 2+2=4, as a judgment, is always already in the mind that thinks it. But, it is not true just because it is thought; rather, as a theorem of a system of reasoning, arithmetic, it is true in virtue of the criteria of that system. The mind that judges, then, merely records what is an objective fact. The fact objective, the recording subjective. So far so good? — tim wood

If you're merely recording an objective fact, then there needs to be an objective judgment, right? Otherwise you're not merely recording an objective fact, but you're doing something unique, something not found in the extramental world with respect to objective facts.

(There are other things to address in your comment, but I want to go one step at a time, and keep things as simple as we can while doing that, partially to make sure we don't overlook anything.)

If you think there is something wrong with the distinctions I have made between the different kinds of thought then say what it is you think is wrong. — Janus

What's wrong is that you're attempting an idiosyncratically gerrymandered distinction ad hoc-designed to support a dubious claim--a claim you're forwarding out of some combination of personal preference, personal dispositions and apologetics for a silly bit of conventional wisdom--where I don't believe that you'd endorse the idiosyncratically gerrymandered distinction in other contexts.

So for example, you'd have to say--given the distinction you're attempting--that devising character personality traits, as well as dialogue, characters' thoughts, etc., when writing fiction involves no imagination.

But do the things judged?

I acknowledge that inasmuch as a judgment requires a mind, then absent mind there is no judgment. Is that your criteria for "objective," that to be objective it must be absent mind? — tim wood

Subjective/objective are location terms. Objective things occur in locations other than minds (that is, locations other than brains functioning in mental ways).

The hammer the clerk shows you is objective. The location of it is not a brain functioning in a mental way. The location is the hardware store). The hammer, all of its properties, etc. are objective. The judgment whether it's useful, whether it's a better tool whatever job you have in mind (than other possible tools), etc. are subjective. The location of those judgments is a brain functioning as a mind.

The distinction is a lot like saying whether things are inside or outside of a refrigerator, a cabinet, etc.

Well, not people - just creatures; but I digress. — Shamshir

Non-human creatures that are capable of valuing things I'd consider people. I wouldn't say that persons are/personhood is necessarily limited to humans.

Sure, since mattering is a type of valuation. Only people value things.

When you say Canada, you do not mean the land, — Coben

People say "Canada" and refer to the land all the time. When I say "I'm going to Canada," I'm saying that I'm going to a particular physical location on the Earth. I could give you that physical location by GPS coordinates, by latitude and longitude, etc.

That's not the only thing that people can refer to by "Canada," but it's ridiculous to say that people don't commonly refer to physical locations, land, etc. by the names of countries, cities, towns, etc.

The object "salt" (with all its features) does not vanish even if you stop believing in it, or if we give it another name. But entities like "Canada" can vanish from one second to another, or be created. Just think what happened with "Yugoslavia" . — Matias

The land that we called "Yogoslavia" didn't vanish. We just started calling it something else instead. We could do just the same thing with "salt." We could call it something else instead.

One thing that "Canada" refers to is a particular stretch of land.

There was a moment in history when all those trees and mountains and rivers... existed, but "Canada" did not exist. — Matias

And in the past the chemical that we currently call "salt" existed, but "salt," the name, the concept, etc. did not exist.

What you're pointing out about Canada is a truism about all language.

In order for your claim to be true it seems to me it must be that there is no "objective." As to "better," if there is a better, it must have some basis for being better. But I think you deny the basis, and thus the better.

The only defense of your position that I can see lies in your denying even the possibility of the proposition - which is just smashing the pottery and then claiming there is no pottery. — tim wood

I'm not sure what you're saying in any of that.

It's very simple. "Better" is a judgment of preference, or a valuation of two or more different things being compared, where one (or more) of the different things is valued more than the others.

That judgment, that valuation (or indeed any judgment or valuation), does not occur in the world outside of minds.

Even those that believe there is no ‘better’ deem such a position ‘better’; — I like sushi

There is no objective "better," but I don't have the opinion that that fact is better than the alternative. There would be many advantages to an objective "better." So that might be better in my opinion. Unfortunately, it's not the case that there's an objective"better."

Supposedly Aristotle uses "imitation" somewhere between contemporary (artistic) "representationalism" and (artistic) "realism"--trying to represent something about the world and human experience in it, including emotional experience, more or less accurately (which might require exaggeration is some regards to stress something).

It seems questionable to try to graft this notion onto music and dancing as Aristotle does above, and obviously it doesn't work well for more formalist and/or some abstract approaches to art.

noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem;

"Essential qualities" are only determined by the way an individual thinks about his/her conceptual abstractions.

A "good" versus a "bad" poem is determined by individual preferences.

Both can differ from individual to individual.

I wasn't using "real estate" in a "technical" sense, which should have been clear by context.

I think that the person who would say that is very confused. Not the least reason for which is that "Actually exists" isn't a proposition.

How should we use it. As a verb? An adjective? — Merkwurdichliebe

:yum:

The distinction was between the imaginative effort required for novels that is not required for films/movies...

Denying that is foolish. — creativesoul

The "conventional wisdom" there is what's foolish. Try doing philosophy for once instead of just being an apologist for conventional wisdom.

What's the distinction you'd make between thought and imagination? Let's see if your distinction works for the purposes Janus wants his distinction to work for.

The questions your asking are in the domain of physiology, whereas the mereological fallacy is a philosophical issue. If you can’t see the distinction, then there’s nothing to discuss. — Wayfarer

So there isn't a whole versus parts when we're talking about physiology? Isn't the mereological fallacy a la Bennett & Hacker specifically about physiology--talking about brains versus a whole person?