This has lead to central governments being intrinsically weak and has made it possible for armed bands simply moving from one country to another. Military coups have been frequent and now you could talk about a Coup-bloc forming in the Sahel as the armed forces have been in the end the only working (and financed) part of the government. — ssu

Does this in any way mean that the military might be able to provide more stable government than the civil sector?

When I think of governments in central Africa, I think of instability, corruption, revolution, violence, coups, terrorism, war lords, and extreme poverty. There have been crises there my entire life. How much of that vision is my western parochialism? Are there any areas of peace and stability.

I read parts of Mungo Park's "Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa." If I remember correctly, he travelled up the Gambia River and down the Niger in the period between 1795 and 1805. He painted a picture of a region made up of small, relatively peaceful and prosperous kingdoms. It's a really good book. He wrote well, but died very young. I should go back and finish it.

↪T Clark :roll: — 180 Proof

A sadist, or a fiction…or an impartial force of nature, or is aware of and protecting us from a much wider range of horror and misery than we can comprehend or is part of a pantheon…hardly just the two possibilities you mention.
I mean, its all made up so a decent exercise of ones imagination is all thats needed to show its not just sadist or bust. — DingoJones

You put it better than I would have. Now I don't have to comment. Thanks.

From an old thread "The Problem of Evil"...
The only deity consistent with a world (it purportedly created and sustains) ravaged by natural afflictions (e.g. living creatures inexorably devour living creatures; congenital birth defects; etc), man-made catastrophes and self-inflicted interpersonal miseries is either a Sadist or a fiction – neither of which are worthy of worship.
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

This particular argument has always struck me as intellectually dishonest. Is there no God or is God evil? You can't have it both ways. Make up your mind.

But what do you think? — ssu

Interesting. Thanks. This is an area I know just about nothing about, so I don't have much to contribute, but I will be paying attention.

How does Boko Haram fit into this? Are they one of the Al Queda/IS franchises you mentioned?

There are two sides and one of them doesn't make sense. — FrancisRay

And this is where this particular argument always ends. It's only a question of how long it will go on till it peters out. And then in a day, or a week, or 10 minutes, it will just start up again. I'll see you then.

I've always liked travelling. I still like the smell of diesel fumes because they always meant riding on a bus to me. I love wandering around cities looking at buildings. On the other hand, like @Tom Storm, I'm lazy. I like my lounge chair, books, iced coffee, and my computer. I think my wanderlust decreased when I had children. Travel with family can't be as easy and free.

I did have to spend time on the road some when I was working. The longest period was for about 6 months living in residential motels and eating out every night. It's fun for about two weeks. After a while it gets really depressing, at least for me.

Like most things in life, I think it comes down to a matter of temperament. My fantasy of travel takes into account my pleasure in seeing new places and my sedentary nature. That involves hiring a driver and riding all over the country in a limousine, RV, or private bus. Stopping on a regular basis to stay in nice hotels. Booking with a travel agent who can plan my itineraries and take care of any details, e.g. reservations, local guides, ideas for activities. As a less expensive alternative, I'll just keep sitting here on my ass, reading, talking philosophy.

The OPs position is more open minded so needs less wriggling on the hook. — FrancisRay

I guess I see it more as imagining a hook so you have something to wriggle on.

there's two sides to the debate. — FrancisRay

I share the view of you and Chalmers as to the amount of sleight of hand that goes on in consciousness studies. It's an epidemic. . . — FrancisRay

I think many of us on the other side of the argument would agree with, obviously, different opinions about who is doing the prestidigitation.

Gathering Evidence by Martin MacInnes — Manuel

I said to myself "Ah, a book on epistemology. I think I'll take a look." It's not about epistemology.

a great New Yorker article on contemporary philosophy of mind. — Quixodian

Thanks for the link. I read the article but I don't think it adds anything new to our perennial discussions about this subject. What are your thoughts on that?

By the way, is my understanding of the meaning of that phrase, which I discussed in my previous post, correct? — T Clark

Looking on the web, it doesn't seem to me this is what epistemic cut means, but I'm not sure.

You misinterpret how “physical” is being used in its juxtaposition to mental. It doesn’t mean “physics” as you seem to be using it. There is a way in which atomic, chemical, biological are physical events that are different in kind than qualia, ideas, what-it’s-likeness and so on. This is what I mean by taking this distinction seriously. — schopenhauer1

I did understand what you wrote, but I don't think the distinction you are making is important in this particular context. As I noted, the universe is just out there wiggling around. We're the ones who put labels like "physical" and "mental" on stuff. Your the one who chose this particular epistemic cut.

By the way, is my understanding of the meaning of that phrase, which I discussed in my previous post, correct?

Why is that?... So why would we not think what is already known to us, all of which is based on consistent characteristics, could’ve been predicted in principle? — Patterner

Perhaps it's a metaphysical position. I'm not positive it's true or that, if it is, it's truth can be demonstrated. It certainly is true for the foreseeable future.

Now, to contradict that, I'll make an argument that it is true. As Stephen J. Gould used to say, the world is massively contingent. If we reran the history of the world, things would turn out differently. [Vague arm waving about chaos theory and quantum mechanics here] Assuming life on Earth would get started at all, I've heard arguments that it would still have to be based on water and carbon for chemistry reasons. But would it still have to be based on DNA? After single cell life first developed, it just sat around twiddling it's thumbs for a couple of billion years before multi-cell life and sexual reproduction popped up. On the other side, I've heard arguments that life would probably look a lot like it does now because of converging evolution. Even if that's true, it still would be different in very significant ways that, it seems to me, would not be predictable.

predictions of the background microwave radiation — Patterner

I thought this was an accidental discovery by some geeks with a microwave detector in the 1960s.

It's nature is consistent. Not random or chaotic. The strength of gravity and the strong nuclear force, the speed of light, etc., are what they are. They are aspects of its nature that we have noticed, and we call them laws. — Patterner

Those are all just conceptual overlays humans have placed over the world. At bottom, there is only the world doing it's thing. The rest is just our trying to jam it into categories. See my previous post to @schopenhauer1.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/828994

It's true that we likely could not have predicted many of these things. There's way too much we don't know or haven't figured out. — Patterner

The claim is they are not predictable even in principle.

But us not being able to predict liquidity from three properties of H2O molecules doesn't mean those properties are not directly responsible for liquidity. — Patterner

I've already agreed that all biological processes are completely consistent with the laws of chemistry and ditto for all the rest of the hierarchy of scale. I think that's the strongest statement that can correctly be made. If you are saying more than that, and I think you are, I think you're wrong.

It seems to me that despite the novelty of biological systems, that they are not different in kind, then their chemical substrates. That is to say, they are still not anything like the loose definition I gave of mental events. They are still physical events, — schopenhauer1

Except I do think biological processes are different in kind from physical or chemical processes in the same sense that mental processes are different from biological/neurological processes.

it may be the case that "emergence" needs "something" for which to "emerge within" (i.e. a point of view). That is to say, assuming there are these "jumps" (which we call "emergent properties"), whence are these properties taking place? We, as the already-observing observer, have the vantage point of "seeing the emergence" but "where" do these "jumps" take place without a point of view? I guess, as another poster used to say, Where is the epistemic cut?. And also, how would that cut take place without an already-existing observer? What does that new enclosure (of the new emergent property) even look like without a vantage point, or point of view already in the equation?. — schopenhauer1

I've never understood the concept of epistemic cut. Does it mean, e.g., the break between chemistry and biology we're talking about? If so, we need to recognize this is an artificial break. It doesn't really represent some deeper sense of reality. I've been trying to fit it into a category and I'm not satisfied I've done it effectively. Is it metaphysics? Whatever it is, the universe without us in it is not aware of it. Is that the point you're trying to make? For me, that just means that the distinction between physical and chemical and biological and mental processes is also artificial. There's just the world wiggling around, doing it's thing.

Basically I am saying, we must keep in mind the incredible difference and distinction between mental and physical versus physical and other physical events. — schopenhauer1

Again, I don't get it.

On a more general level, it is an instance of the principle that information-based systems, which includes organisms, embody a level of organisation which defies reduction to physics and chemistry. — Quixodian

I have no problem agreeing with this. I agree that it makes sense to recognize that living matter is fundamentally different from non-living matter. I don't think it says anything that resolves the differences between our ways of seeing things.

But it grew up from itself within the framework of laws. — Patterner

Well, not really. It grew up from within itself in accordance with it's nature and then we called the pattern of that growth "laws." I don't think this is a trivial or nitpicky distinction.

Physics expresses itself as chemistry. But the new laws of chemistry are not unrelated to the laws of physics. If the laws of physics were not what they are, the laws of chemistry could not be what they are. The laws of chemistry emerged from, and are dependent upon, the laws of physics.

Same with chemistry expressing itself as biology. — Patterner

You say "not unrelated to." That makes you seem like a spokesman for reductionism, which I know you're not. I say "not predictable from." To me, that is the essence of why reductionism doesn't work.

I think in principle, even if the level of mechanisms are different, there is at essence, a reducibility by way of organic chemistry from biological formations to chemical ones. This cannot be said of mental states to its physical components. — schopenhauer1

I don't see any reason to believe this is true. What makes you think it is?

2) Point of view. That is to say, emergence itself has in the background, the fact that there is already an observer of the "emerging". This does get into ideas of "does a tree make a sound if there is no observer", but there is a reason that trope is so well-known. We always take for granted that we have a certain point of view already whereby events are integrated and known. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand. How is this different in my way of seeing things verses your way?

As it says, that mental events are such a different type of phenomenon, that it would be an abuse of the concept to equate it with the physical correlates without explanation other than "other things in nature work thusly". — schopenhauer1

I've acknowledged that mental events are different kinds of things than physical, chemical, biological, and neurological events and processes. I think you're saying that those differences mean that the analogy I am making doesn't work. I don't agree. It's like the old SAT questions - chemistry is to biology as neurology is to [X]. Correct answer is C - psychology.

Is that not exactly how the universe was constructed? — Patterner

The universe wasn't constructed, it grew up from itself, from within. That's what reductionism misses.

you do acknowledge the difficulties of reductionism — Quixodian

You and I have been in similar discussions before and I've tried to make my attitude towards reductionism clear. See my previous post to @Patterner.

Have you read "More is Different" by P.W. Anderson? — T Clark

I have no problem saying chemistry "manifests" as biology. But it is still reducible to the chemistry. — Patterner

I'm still here because we've moved away from talking about consciousness and toward the nature of the hierarchy of scales, which I am really interested in. Have you read "More is Different" by P.W. Anderson?

…the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.

The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y… — More is Different - P.W. Anderson

I wonder if we could have anything we would call a city without buildings. — Patterner

Aren't we getting into Aristotelian causes? A building design could be considered a building without materials. A city plan could be considered a city without buildings.

Yes, I think I understand your position and it seems like you understand mine. And there we are.

But can biology be reduced to chemistry, or is there an attribute that biological organisms possess that non-organic chemistry does not? — Quixodian

No, biology can not be reduced to chemistry. That's not at all inconsistent with the argument I'm making.

Now I really am done.

Isn't every biological process a chemical process? — RogueAI

No, not at all. As I said to @Patterner and @Quixodian, chemical processes manifest as biological processes, they are not the same thing.

It's more that I don't understand where you are coming from because it seems incredulous to me that you don't recognize the difference in kind and not just degree between the sensation of red, or seeing an apple, versus the physiological correlates such as electromagnetic frequencies, optic anatomy, neural anatomy, and the like. — schopenhauer1

I do recognize the difference in kind between neurological processes and mental experiences. I just don't think it matters. I don't think neurological processes are the same as conscious experience. I think neurological processes express themselves as conscious experiences in the same sense chemical processes express themselves as biological processes.

I think that's enough for me till the next discussion.

mental states are identical to brain states — RogueAI

No more than biological processes are identical to chemical processes.

I look at it this way... If we saw a skyscraper made entirely of liquid water, we would be stunned. To put it mildly. The properties of water and/or H2O molecules do not allow for such a thing. — Patterner

It is the essence of a hierarchical view of scale that processes at one level must be completely consistent with the rules of all lower levels. Biological processes can't violate chemical principles, but chemical principles are not adequate to determine biological principles. Principles of building design must consider the properties of building materials.

The case of consciousness seems even more unfathomable. — Patterner

Back to the unbridgeable chasm. Some people see it that way and others don't. As I noted, that's where the argument runs into a brick wall.

But, while everything about the brain and body are physical, consciousness does not seem to be. — Patterner

Back to my architectural argument. The properties of materials and characteristics of buildings are physical, but at the next step up, the properties of cities are not. They are social, economic, organizational, political.

How is it that those same physical things and processes are making something very different at the same time? That seems to be asking quite a lot. — Patterner

To vastly oversimplify, chemistry doesn't make biology, it manifests as biology. That's one of the ways it is expressed in the world. In the same way, neurology doesn't make consciousness. Consciousness is a manifestation, an expression, of neurology.

But in your case, the first step is recognizing the distinction, even if for semantic or historical reason, if not substantial ones of ontology. — schopenhauer1

I recognize the distinction between mental and physical events and processes in the same sense that I recognize the distinction between chemical and biological events and processes. The fact that you don't is an indicator of how unlikely we are to come to agreement.

But what physical properties, at any level, explain the various aspects of consciousness - such as my experience of blueness, or my awareness at different levels - that exist on top of the physical properties that explain vision and behavior? — Patterner

First off, I appreciate the clear, direct response. I've been in a lot of discussions about consciousness and it always comes down to this. I keep telling myself not to get involved, but the subject is right at the heart of the kinds of issues I like best. Even when it never gets resolved, I get to reexamine my understanding of how the world and my own self-awareness work.

I think what bothered me most about this particular iteration of the conflict is it's blatant circularity. The evidence that there is a hard problem of consciousness is that it consists of mental processes which can't be studied by science because of... the hard problem of consciousness. Of course, as I noted, all these arguments come down to this same contradiction.

It is superficially so, but not actually, no. — schopenhauer1

As often is the case, you confuse your refusal to engage in discussion with making a coherent argument.

Just saying, "that's the way hierarchies and emergence work" doesn't explain how mental comes from physical processes. — schopenhauer1

As I pointed out, the relationship between chemistry and life is analogous to the relationship between neurology and mind. Are you saying there is a hard problem of biology too? If that's true, then there must be a hard problem of chemistry also. Otherwise how to explain all those atomic processes all mixed up with chemical processes.

Do you see a distinction between something that is mental versus a physical process? What you did was just go from process to process and not process to X (mental). — schopenhauer1

I was making an analogy. Higher levels of organization, e.g. mental processes and life processes, are a mixture of higher level processes and processes from lower levels of organization, e.g. chemical processes and neurological processes. That's the way hierarchies and emergence work.

The neuron fires (process/behavioral). The neurons fire (process/behavioral). The networks form (process/behavioral). The sensory tissues/organs are acted upon (process/behavioral). A line or shape is processed in a visual cortex (mental). An object is perceived (mental). An object is recognized (mental). A long-term potentiation (process/behavioral). A memory is accessed (process/behavioral). "Fires together, wires together" (process/behavioral), associating one thing with another (mental). — schopenhauer1

How is that different from ADP chemically reacting (chemical process) to create ATP, which releases energy (chemical process) to power the reactions (chemical processes) that create cellular components (life processes) and operate cellular systems (life processes).

And please don't ask me to go into more detail. I'm already at the end, beyond the end, of my level of competence.

The human condition is our self-awareness. We must deal with our Zapffean programming. Science is a pursuit. The human condition is our very being. The human condition is primary to scientific artifices. — schopenhauer1

I like this. I looked up Peter Zapffe. His ideas are interesting. I'll take a look.

Does anyone still believe a “method” of science really exists, and that it essentially defines and differentiates science as a sui generis human endeavor? — Mikie

Yes, of course. I do think there is a scientific method, although it certainly isn't the simplistic one people often identify - hypothesis, experiment, results, theory, repeat as needed. It's not a specific method, it's an epistemological process that can lead to many different approaches.

The scientific method is really the only thing that makes science science. No scientific method, no science. It always seems to me people who want to claim there isn't one are just trying to be all iconoclastic and post-modern and stuff.

Sorry, I have to go to bed now.

This is all in my head but I began to wander whether anyone else can really contemplate without a discussion - not even an internal one. — believenothing

Thinking need not be worded thought. — I like sushi

the back and forth of internal dialogue — Paine

ideas generated without words and then modified and justified consciously. — T Clark

We can think in images, but that is not abstract thinking. — Janus

Contemplation, worded thought, internal dialogue, modified and justified consciously, abstract thinking - we're using different words, is it clear we are all talking about the same thing?

Yes, you can. Thinking need not be worded thought. — I like sushi

Contemplation need not be worded? That had occured to me, but how are we supposed to discuss a lack of discussion? — believenothing

I agree with @I like sushi, although I guess it depends on what you mean by "contemplation." In my experience, most of my thinking, and just about all my creative thinking, takes place without words, although there is certainly a back and forth, with ideas generated without words and then modified and justified consciously. Other people have said they don't experience it that way.

If you try to sacrifice yourself, the secret service knocks you unconscious and drags you to the shelter. — NotAristotle

So be it. Then let them decide who the other person will be while I'm unconscious.