First, there is no way of knowing, or of testing, whether animals have emotional states. ‘Thinking animals’ is also a contentious claim, as what ‘thinking’ implies, and whether animals are capable of it, is vaguely defined and probably untestable. — Wayfarer

I am surprised, shocked actually, to hear you say this. I find it hard to believe that anyone who has seen animals, much less owned them as pets, would not understand that animals have the same kinds of emotions we do and that those emotions fill the same role as ours. To deny this conflicts with with my personal experience and my understanding of ethology, human psychology, and biology. Evolution does not build new genetic and organic structures from nowhere. It builds them out of what is already there. The bones of our inner ears started out as the jaw bones of fish. Ditto with our mental capacities.

I don't propose we get into a discussion about this here. I'm interested in the subject but I'm not qualified to make my case any better than I have here. It would also be out of the scope of this discussion as expressed in the OP.

Thanks for the recommendation, although I don’t do very well with horror movies. I tend to sit hunched over with my hands covering my eyes.

horror stories about the results of a strongly religion based 'understanding' of psychology. — wonderer1

The world of science and technology is full of its own horror stories.

I enjoyed your OP. It's well-written and clear. I found a lot to disagree with and I think you make many over-broad statements that aren't necessarily consistent with my understanding of ethnology, human psychology and cognitive science, and sociology. I also think your tone is a bit presumptuous - expressing your opinions as fact. On the other hand, I was surprised to find I agree with you on some important points. Some thoughts:

All thinking animals (such as birds and mammals) appear to be hardwired to try to improve their emotional state. That one seeks after the "good" and tries to avoid the "bad" seem to be intrinsic to what "good" and "bad" are. Thus, hedonism is the default value system for animals such as ourselves.

Hedonism works fine for most animals because they aren't as smart as us and have very limited ability to imagine good and bad beyond their physical needs. But humans have imagination, so that we can invent good and bad that have no relation to our actual needs. — Brendan Golledge

I agree that a lot of human and animal motivation and behavior is hardwired, but I think your take is over-simplistic. As I understand it, animal, including human, behavior doesn't aim at improving their "emotional state." It aims at maintaining the equilibrium of their living systems - homeostasis. Emotions are, among other things, a sign that things are out of balance and a motivation to act.

It seems to me that the most generalized way of avoiding belief in falsehoods that feel good is to disbelieve in the statement, "Feeling good is intrinsically good." This would mean belief in an objective morality. That means that there is a distinction between what is actually good and what feels good...

Choosing an objective morality is very hard, because all values are arbitrarily asserted. This is because of the is-ought dilemma. There is no way to take a physical measure of goodness. So, moral argumentation only works when the person you're arguing with already shares at least some of your arbitrarily asserted moral values. Humans are extremely social creatures, so we most-often take our objective morality from social pressure, which is usually (but not currently in the west) rooted in tradition. It is hard to do anything else but look outside of ourselves for guidance, because values are arbitrarily asserted, and the primary thing inside of ourselves that we can use as a reference is that we want to feel good, which is not a basis for an objective morality, as discussed above. So, people are always looking outside of themselves for some guidance on what they ought to do. — Brendan Golledge

This is confusing. You say you are looking for objective morality, but you also acknowledge that moral values are arbitrary. Perhaps a better word would be "formal" rather than "objective."

If humans are hardwired to lie to themselves to make themselves feel good, then it becomes clear that our opinions are not to be trusted. A great deal of our energy is spent in foolishness, and most of our personal opinions are false. — Brendan Golledge

This is one of those presumptuous statements I was talking about. As I've said, we are not hardwired to make ourselves feel good by lying. Can our opinions be trusted? Sure, maybe, sometimes, often. This is the biggest issue in western philosophy and you've side-stepped it with six words - our opinions are not to be trusted. You say we spend a lot our time in foolishness - more pontification on your part.

I believe that religion at its highest is conscious attention paid to one's inner state. Buddhism and Christianity (I pay most attention to Christianity because it is in my tradition) are the religions most concerned with this. This is why these are virtually the only two religions that have a concept of monasticism; these religions believe more so than other religions that inner work is good for its own sake. These two religions provide their own objective moral framework for the believer to use as a yardstick in his own inner work. — Brendan Golledge

Now we get into the part where I agree with some of what you say. My goal in life is to become more self-aware, what you call paying conscious attention to my inner state, and philosophy is one of the ways I pursue that goal. I can't speak with any authority about Buddhism or Christianity, but I question your assertion those two religions are the ones most concerned with that. My personal adult experience is with Taoism, and, as I understand it, it is all about self-awareness.

I believe that many Christians mistake their own private conscience as the voice of the Holy Spirit. This would explain how it is possible that there is so much confusion in the church, while each individual believer is so sure that he's right. Anyway, this insight made prayer easy for me. I just sit quietly without distractions and wait for some thought or "voice" to pop into my head. I consider what it has to say and maybe have a dialogue with it. This is how one orders one's inner world. — Brendan Golledge

You describe your inner world as if it's the only way to see these things. It's not. On the other hand, I also have experienced that voice pop into my head. For me, that voice is not how I "order my inner world." It is a sign that I have done so.

There are books that have been written on how to do inner work, but I think this is the most important piece of advice. It is simply to be quiet, not distract yourself with anything, and pay attention to the thoughts that spontaneously arise from within one's self. With practice, you will be able to teach yourself about yourself. — Brendan Golledge

That's my cue to roll out one of my favorite quotes. I try to use it at least once a month here on the forum.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. — Franz Kafka

your opinions are probably flattering lies — Brendan Golledge

Such disrespectful arrogance. Why should anyone listen to you?

there is a structure to one's inner world which can be studied, understood, and manipulated. However, one's inner state can't be shared with other people the same way one can take measurements of physical bodies, so that one's study has to always be personal. — Brendan Golledge

I don't disagree that it might be difficult to study our and other's inner lives, but it certainly is not impossible. We do it all the time - colloquially and scientifically.

a genuine area of study in its own right, which as of yet has no name. — Brendan Golledge

I don't know what this means.

When properly understood, I think religion, psychology, and morality are all actually only one subject. — Brendan Golledge

This doesn't strike me as a particularly true or particularly useful way of looking at things.

In the hyperreal number line, it's wrong. — alan1000

It's not wrong, it's inapplicable.

I like Ghost Dog (1999) as well. — Jamal

"Ghost Dog" is the other Jarmusch movie I've watched besides "Paterson." I didn't love it, although I at least liked it enough to watch the whole thing. If I don't like a movie much, I generally give it half and hour and then stop watching.

A point is an abstract mathematical entity which doesn't correspond with any phenomenon in the world of our everyday existence
— T Clark
I disagree. — noAxioms

Even if we disagree, the OP still doesn't make sense. Whatever a point is, a line is the same kind of thing and a line is continuous by definition. A line is expressed as f(x) = mx + b, which means it is defined for any real number "x."

The individual in question says easily debunked nonsense constantly out of ideological drive. It is better to feed the comments to ChatGPT and let the machine do the job than waste brain cells on drivel. — Lionino

Perhaps you should consider not participating.

Are you claiming that something which is an abstraction cannot exist? — MoK

It exists in your mind, your imagination, but not in the physical world. I can imagine a point. I can also imagine a line, which is continuous.

I don't think we're getting anywhere. I'm going to leave it at that.

The center of mass of your body is a point. The center of mass of your computer is a point as well. There is a distance between these two points. The question is whether this distance is discrete or continuous. — MoK

A point does not exist in the everyday world. It is an abstraction, and idealization - imaginary. It has no size. It 's zero dimensional. It does not take up space. A center of gravity is a point and, as such, is also an abstraction, imaginary. And, as I noted, a continuum is also a mathematical idealization. It doesn't exist. It's imaginary.

A continuum exists in the same manner that a point does.

By continuum I mean a set of distinct points without an abrupt change or gap between points — MoK

A point is an abstract mathematical entity which doesn't correspond with any phenomenon in the world of our everyday existence. The same is true of a continuum.

Saying that 'the object doesn't exist without an observer' isn't necessarily the same as saying that it vanishes or becomes non-existent in the absence of one. — Wayfarer

I wouldn't toss this in except I know you are sympathetic to a Taoist way of seeing things. I think Lao Tzu is saying something similar to what you are. These are from Stephen Mitchell's version of the Tao Te Ching.

Verse 1 (excerpt)
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Verse 40
Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

Isn't this a bit loose? What exactly does an 'objective way' entail? Even Hoffman and most idealists would say there is an objective world. Isn't the key issue what is the nature of the world we have access to and think we know? — Tom Storm

The existence of an objective reality is a presupposition we make in order to allow ourselves to make our way in this more or less existent world.

A couple of thoughts.

My daughter and I are reading "The Power Broker" together. It's 1200 pages long, but we only read 100 pages a month and then get together to talk about it. Neither of us would have the perseverance to read the whole thing otherwise. It's about Robert Moses who was in charge of building parks, highways, and public housing in New York City and surrounding areas starting in the late 1920s through 1968. It's fascinating. He was a monomaniacal proponent of cars and an opponent of public transportation. He transformed the City and much of Long Island and the rest of the state into his personal automobile dependent kingdom. He also had a tremendous influence on other cities in the US as well as overseas. I don't know how much of what you call motornormativity you can blame on him, but he certainly was a pioneer.

Here in the US, being able to drive is a cultural rite of passage. When I was 16, I got my license on the day after my birthday. The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. Of course, that is partly because getting around without a car is difficult, but still, it's very compelling.

What do we think? — Wayfarer

After making my previous post I went on to read the following responses. It's pretty clear people here generally define "consciousness" differently. This is what has lead to much of the disagreement here. It's hard to separate those disagreement from more substantive ones.

Consciousness is the capacity for experience — Wayfarer

This is the way I've been using the word in this discussion and, as I understand it, this is the issue Chalmers is talking about when he says "hard problem."

For sure. Chalmers thoroughly treats this and eventually has to go to that weird proto-panpsychism type of thinking to get a 'by degrees' system that would account for 'consciousness' we see in the world. — AmadeusD

I think it's a simple question without a current answer - do deer see pictures and hear sounds in their head in a similar manner to how humans do?

i was just pointing out more clearly this extends in both directions. Dismissing is probably the thing to be guarded against though, i guess, rather than twisting oneself in circles over a nonexistent problem. — AmadeusD

I have made what I think are reasonable objections to the hard problem many times here on the forum. I never convince anyone and no one ever convinces me or those who agree with me. At this point I usually say the whole thing is just metaphysics, but I'm not sure that's true in this case.

Another problem with this particular issue - different people use different definitions of "consciousness" without clarification. The hard problem refers specifically to the difficulty of explaining how biological/neurological processes are expressed as experience. It doesn't necessarily apply just to humans or even our near relatives.

Solving a problem that isn't there is always going to look abysmal, but equally would ignoring one that is. — AmadeusD

As I wrote in my response to Wayfarer - both sides of the discussion think their position is self-evident and dismiss the other argument.

Not seeing a problem does not amount to grounds for dismissing it. — Wayfarer

I think both sides of the discussion think their position is self-evident and dismiss the other argument.

nothing you’re saying indicates that you are facing up to that problem. — Wayfarer

As you know, many of us don't think there is any problem to face up to.

Bad faith arises when individuals attempt to escape the burden of this radical freedom by denying their own capacity for choice...Do we go on living in bad faith and deny the issues for the sake of not ending this thing? — Rob J Kennedy

It's not clear to me if you want to discuss whether Sartre's idea of bad faith is a good way at looking at freedom and responsibility (Hint - no, it's selfish, lazy, and irresponsible). If that's not what you're looking for, I'll leave it at that.

As I see it, none of that has anything to do with your personal situation. How can doing something because some philosopher might think you should be an act of radical freedom? You don't owe Sartre anything. You also can't use him to get you off the hook for a personal decision.

Philosophy is not a problem solver, it is a way of think that can be used to solve problems. — Sir2u

Yes, exactly.

I don't think apokrisis meant it as a definition or criterion of demarcation, but of he did then it's of little relevance as an explanation of consciousness. — bert1

Perhaps he'll come and set me straight.

I only brought it up, cuz I flashed on that being us, — Mww

Have you seen "My Dinner with Andre?" Two guys talking for an hour and a half. It's a movie I enjoyed, although the philosophy discussed is a little goofy.

You won't find apokrisis theory in a dictionary. — bert1

Is that the definition of "definition" - what is included in a dictionary? Would definition of "definition" be included in a dictionary? Apokrisis theory might be found in a technical dictionary of psychology. So, anyway, let's change "definition" to "description." Is that better?

It's not what we mean by 'consciousness'. — bert1

It's not what is meant by "consciousness" in everyday speech, maybe. Is this what we mean by "life?"

Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from matter that does not. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. — Wikipedia - Life

As far as I can see, that's the same level of description we're talking about.

Is " a system is conscious if and only if it models its environment and makes predictions based on that model" a robust theory of consciousness? This theory could no more be used to create an artificial consciousness than the Wikipedia description could be used to create artificial life. I don't see how this would be any more capable of telling us how experience arises than one based on biology and neurology. I also don't see why this could not develop by naturalistic evolution.

Or, I misunderstood what you wrote. I took…..

it is reasonable to call into question the mind-independence of the objects of cognition.
— T Clark

…..as characterizing objects of cognition as already being mind-independent, which is possible if objects of cognition and objects of Nature are treated alike. — Mww

When I said "objects of cognition", I was quoting Wayfarer incorrectly. He meant it the way you do.

There’s a movie, 2011, “The Sunset Limited”, where the entire cast consisting of only these two rather excellent actors Jones and Jackson, engage in a pure Socratic dialectic, involving all sorts of one-idea/proposition-leads-to another kinda stuff, attempts by the one to get the other to concede a point, using premises without mutually granted relevance. — Mww

I'd never head of it. I'll take a look.

To what temperature do I have to heat this water to get it to boil? Prediction: it will boil at 100 degrees provided the following necessary conditions are met:
- sea level atmospheric pressure
- and all the obvious ones like having a heat source and a container that conducts heat etc
...when all these necessary conditions are met they will be jointly sufficient for the water to boil at 100 degrees. That is to say that even if one of the necessary conditions are not met then the water will not boil, and if all the necessary condition are met, they are jointly sufficient, which means the water MUST boil at 100 degrees. It can't not. — bert1

The boiling point of water was determined empirically. I'm not sure if it can be determined by theory. I looked on the web and couldn't find a definitive answer.

Applied to consciousness, a well-fleshed out theory will tell us the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to arise at all, and perhaps even go further and tell us what particular experiences a conscious thing will feel under what circumstances. So to take apokrisis preferred theory, the necessary conditions for x to be conscious are:
- models environment
- makes predictions based on that model
- for the purpose of building and maintaining itself as an organism (sorry if I got that wrong)
...and I presume these are taken to be jointly sufficient for consciousness. — bert1

This isn't a theory, it's a definition.

So apokrisis preferred theory makes a great reasonably clear prediction, because it specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions. — bert1

As I noted, this is not a theory, it's a standard you apply to an existing phenomenon to decide if it is living.

I didn't respond to this in my previous response.

In the interest of fair play, I can still ask how it is that you think it reasonable to question the mind-independence of objects of cognition, given the mutually agreeable presupposition that objects of Nature are not what is meant by objects of cognition. — Mww

Ah, now I see the problem. When I quoted Wayfarer I misunderstood "objects of cognition" as "objects of nature." Now that we've straightened that out, I do think objects of cognition are objects of cognition. After all, objects of cognition are also objects of nature.

To question the mind-independence of a thing, is to suppose the possibility that thing without a mind. — Mww

No, the opposite. Or did I say it wrong? Or did I misunderstand what you wrote? To clarify what I'm trying to say, I think reality is the result of the interaction between the physical world and our minds.

If the major function of a mind is pure thought, and the major contribution of pure thought is cognition, and the product of any cognition is an object, albeit of a particular kind, how can it be reasonable to believe objects of cognition may be possible without a mind? — Mww

I don't think the major function of a mind is pure thought and I don't think cognition is produced primarily by pure thought. For that matter, I don't really think pure thought exists. Or maybe I just don't understand what it is.

But there is nothing in that form of belief that is sufficient to suggest contingently on the one hand, or prove necessarily on the other, that the belief is not itself a mind-dependent object of cognition. — Mww

Is belief a mind-dependent object of cognition?... Yes, I guess it is.

the glaring self-contradiction of having to use mind in order to deny the very possibility of whatever functionality is supposed as belonging to it. — Mww

I don't see any contradiction. Are you saying a mind cannot think about itself? I can use a camera to take a picture of itself if I have a mirror.

A theory of consciousness should ideally be able to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing to be conscious, and explain why those conditions result in/constitute/realise consciousness. A physicalist theory, if it is to have any force, must specify the sufficient conditions, that is, what conditions necessitate consciousness, and explain why. — bert1

I don't think this is true, although I admit I'm not sure what it means. What does it mean for a theory to specify what conditions necessitate consciousness or any other phenomenon? What does it mean that a theory has force or is robust? Why must a theory specify what conditions are necessary for a phenomenon rather than just sufficient?

I think perhaps one point is that an organism that survives is an organism that is navigating an actual structure to the world, it must act sensitively to that structure and anticipate that structure in order to make sure it's paths keep within the kinds of bounds for it to survive. Surely, fitness payoffs will have objective places within that objective structure, with objective paths between any part of the world and some payoff or reward. Seems to me that even if there may be no kind of access to a single perspective-independent view of the world, an organism benefiting from fitness payoffs will need perceptual faculties that are synchronized to and can differentiate the actual structure of the world. — Apustimelogist

This makes sense to me.

If we get scifi, we can imagine AI being created that then takes over control of the human world and entrains it to its own entropic purpose. It sets the world to work building more chip fabs, datafarms and power stations. Humans would just mindlessly clone AI systems in exponential fashion at the expense of their own social and ecological fabric. Big tech would attract all available human capital to invest in this new global project.

Oh wait ... [Checks stock market. Gulps.] — apokrisis

An interesting thought. I'd never thought of it that way.

What Hoffman is calling into question is the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. — Wayfarer

As I see it, it is reasonable to believe our cognitive functions result from the development of biological/neurological structures resulting from biological evolution. I also believe it is reasonable to call into question the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. I don't see any conflict between these beliefs.

In pre-modern philosophy, it wasn’t objects that were understood as being real independently of any mind, but their Ideas (forms or principles). That was the conviction behind scholastic realism, inherited from Greek metaphysics. Logical realism, which is related, says, for example, that logical laws and principles are real, insofar as they’re the same for all who can perceive them. So they’re mind-independent, on the one hand, as they’re not the product of your mind or mine, but they’re also only perceptible through reason, to be grasped by the intellect (as ‘intelligible objects’). But that implies a very different epistemology to objective or cognitive realism which put sensory experience at the centre of judgement about the nature of reality. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the history lesson. That's a serious comment.

It could be said that this simply characterises the outlook of post-modern nihilism. Strawberry Fields, nothing is real, nothing to get hung about. Maybe it’s just a consequence of our highly fragmented and confusing cultural moment that calls that into question. But the counter to that is that philosophers have always been concerned with capital T Truth. It’s a very difficult question to bring into focus, but through comparison of the historical schools of philosophical spirituality, it can be discerned. — Wayfarer

This is not a valid argument. Not really even an argument at all. All you've done is call my idea names (post-modern) and complain how it is causing the end of civilization. And the comment that "philosophers have always been concerned with capital T Truth" is irrelevant. There's nothing substantive for me to respond to.

"How is it exactly that experience is caused by/realised by/is identical with the functions of complex systems? Why can't all these things happen without experience?" — bert1

Who says they can't?
— T Clark

Physicalists, specifically functionalists — bert1

I don't think physicalists deny the existence of experience nor do they say that experience must accompany cognitive functions. Or have I misunderstood you?

The hard problem is how we get from no consciousness to some consciousness. — bert1

According to Chalmers, at least as I understand him, the hard problem is how to get from a physical, biological, neurological explanation of cognitive functions to experience.

A robust theory of chemistry will predict which systems are chemical systems. A robust theory of life will predict which systems are alive. (Although there may be an issue about the difference between definition and theory here.) — bert1

I think you're right - the issue you raise is about definitions, not theory.

This is where Plantinga's argument is relevant. He says that in naturalized epistemology reason and cognitive processes are seen to be grounded in evolutionary psychology and neurobiology. This means that our ability to reason is understood as a product of evolutionary processes that favor adaptive behavior.

Plantinga's argument contends that if our cognitive faculties are the result of evolutionary processes driven purely by survival, then there is no reason to accept that that they produce true beliefs, only that they produce beliefs that are advantageous for survival. — Wayfarer

The idea there is an underlying "objective reality" is also the product of our cognitive faculties. So is the idea of "truth." So are beliefs, ideas, knowledge, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, the ability to reason... To oversimplify in a provocative manner - we made all this stuff up using evolutionary mechanisms along with other factors, e.g. social interactions with our fellow humans. What does that do to Plantinga's ideas? I don't think it means they're wrong, it means they're meaningless. They're not even metaphysics.

I'd be interested in such a thread as well, but there are so many gaping holes in the EAAN, that it would be hard to pick a best objection to it. However, I do think it brings up matters well worth thinking about. — wonderer1

Yes, well, @Tom Storm did say it's a fun argument.

I think I might deny that there is no evidence for physicalism. I'm interested in what people think is evidence for physicalism. — bert1

Physicalism is a metaphysical position. It's a presupposition, an assumption you make to allow you to make sense of what you know about the world. It's not that there is or isn't evidence for it, it's that there can't be. I think that's what Wayfarer meant when he wrote

When I say there is no evidence for physicalism, I am referring to the metaphysical view that "what is real is reducible to physics." This claim is not something that can be subject to scientific demonstration. — Wayfarer

Alvin Plantinga's rather fun argument called the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN). If it comes up with apologists a lot these days. — Tom Storm

I read the Wikipedia article you linked. Interesting. After extensive research, reexamination of my understanding of evolution and cognitive science, and hours of contemplation I've come to the conclusion that it's the dumbest fucking philosophical argument I've ever heard. If someone will start a separate thread, I'll explain my thinking.