what I was fishing for here is any rational criticism of the presented necessity that non-dualism, this regarding the world as it’s known, entails a duality between a) a real (or ultimately real) and non-dual fundamental essence and b) a contingent fundamental essence of phenomena (etc.) which brings about duality in the world and which is ultimately illusory in full. — javra

For Hadot...the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things. Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done. Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions, are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta (=preceptors, students), despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. — IEP

I recommend Pierre Hadot's "Philosophy as a Way of Life" — Fooloso4

Philosophy in antiquity was an exercise practiced in each instant. It invites us to concentrate on each instant of life, to become aware of the infinite value of each present moment, once we have replaced it with the perspective of the cosmos. The exercise of wisdom entails a cosmic dimension. Whereas the average person has lost touched with the world, and does not see the world qua world, but rather treats the world as a means of satisfying his desires, the sage never ceases to have the whole constantly present to mind. He thinks and acts within a cosmic perspective. He has the feeling of belonging to a whole which goes beyond the limits of his individuality. In antiquity, this cosmic consciousness was situated in a different perspective from that of scientific knowledge of the universe... . Scientific knowledge was objective and mathematical, whereas cosmic consciousness was the result of spiritual exercise. — Pierre Hadot, PWL, pa 273

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. — Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

there is no problem conceiving something immaterial that exists by itself unless you are a close-minded physicalist. — Lionino

If the physical is naturally understood to have substantial or substantive existence, and it is upon that idea of substance that the notion of reality is founded, and the idea of a mental substance is untenable, then what justification would we have for saying that anything non-physical is real? — Janus

(FYI, this correlates with parts of something I'm currently working on.) — javra

What is your claim? — Banno

You do understand that in your quote, Ryle is setting out his target, not defending a doctrine. — Banno

Explaining how the ghost interacts with the machine is your problem. — Banno

There is a doctrine about the nature and place of the mind which is prevalent among theorists, to which most philosophers, psychologists and religious teachers subscribe with minor reservations. Although they admit certain theoretical difficulties in it, they tend to assume that these can be overcome without serious modifications being made to the architecture of the theory.... [The doctrine states that] with the doubtful exceptions of the mentally-incompetent and infants-in-arms, every human being has both a body and a mind.... The body and the mind are ordinarily harnessed together, but after the death of the body the mind may continue to exist and function. — Gilbert Ryle

Well, I gather you more or less agree with substance dualism, a notion that I cannot see as coherent. I decide to move my hand, the damn thing moves; I take the drugs, the pain goes away. I can't see how such facts can be made to fit Descartes without folly. — Banno

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Pp35-36

Perhaps "the randomness and information are essentially the same thing" simply means that you cannot compress something that is random or you will lose information (about the random sequence). At least that is the way I understand it. — ssu

Then there's "exist". Wikipedia tells us that "The word "existence" entered the English language in the late 14th century from old French and has its roots in the medieval Latin term ex(s)istere, which means to stand forth, to appear, and to arise." (Note that our use of the word has absolutely no basis in ancient Rome.) — Ludwig V

In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is.

Lionino is right, however that it arrived in English from Old French. — Ludwig V

And so a word (i.e. 'substantia') designed by the anti-Aristotelian Augustine to mean a low and empty sort of being turns up in our translations of the word whose meaning Aristotle took to be the highest and fullest sense of being. Descartes, in his Meditations, uses the word substance only with his tongue in his cheek; Locke explicitly analyzes it as an empty notion of an I-don’t-know-what; and soon after the word is laughed out of the vocabulary of serious philosophic endeavor. It is no wonder that the Metaphysics ceased to have any influence on living thinking: its heart had been cut out of it by its friends.

Is it possible to be too preoccupied with defending Descartes to see Midgley's point? — Banno

So his position is a bit more complicated than the simplified version that is usually considered in the literature. (And I do not know how to represent it more accurately.) — Ludwig V

Is there a philosophical perspective on language/meaning/truth/metaphysics that acknowledges this weak inter-definability and balance of dependence/independence of our core concepts? — substantivalism

No reason it can't do those things about itself. No reason it can't be the object of its own examination. — Patterner

This pecularity indicates, by my lights, that ‘being’ is a primitive concept and, as such, is absolutely simple, unanalyzable, and (yet) still perfectly valid. — Bob Ross

But ‘being’, as Aristotle tells us in Γ.2, is “said in many ways”. That is, the verb ‘to be’ (einai) has different senses, as do its cognates ‘being’ (on) and ‘entities’ (onta). So the universal science of being qua being appears to founder on an equivocation: how can there be a single science of being when the very term ‘being’ is ambiguous? .... — Aristotle's Metaphysics

do these so-called, alleged, primitive concepts need to be either (1) capable of non-circular definition or (2) thrown out? — Bob Ross

Are there pure and unanalyzable concepts? Put me in the affirmative/similar view column, re: the categories of transcendental philosophy. — Mww

You obliged me to warn me of the passage from Saint Augustine, to which my "I think, therefore I am" [has] some connection; I read it today in the Library of this City, and I truly find that he uses it to prove the certainty of our being, and subsequently to show that there is some image in us of the Trinity, in what we are, we know that we are, and we love this being and this knowledge which is in us; instead I use it to make it known that this self, which thinks, is an immaterial substance*, and which has nothing corporeal; which are two very different things. And it is something which in itself is so simple and so natural to infer, that we are, from what we doubt, whether it could have fallen under the pen of anyone; but I am still very happy to have met with Saint Augustine, even if it was only to shut the mouths of the little minds who have tried to rethink this principle.

Because we ascribe thoughts to thinkers, we can truly claim that thinkers exist. But we cannot deduce, from the content of our experiences, that a thinker is a separately existing entity. — Parfit, Reasons and Persons Sec. III

"We could give what I call an impersonal description" ~ Parfit, Reasons and Persons Sec. III;894990" — AmadeusD

The carpenter knows that his personal 'form of bed', the formula which he follows in building a bed, is not the most perfect, ideal bed possible, it is not the divine form of bed. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not, as you say, the "attainment of this insight" or an "innate capacity for enlightenment". It is the capacity to know. — Fooloso4

We must accept as agreed this trait of the philosophical nature, [485b] that it is ever enamored of the kind of knowledge which reveals to them something of that essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of generation and decay. — Plato, Republic, Book 6

God could appear in actuality — Astrophel

But who will doubt that he lives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? For even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts where his doubs come from, he remembers. If he doubts, he understands that he doubts. If he doubts, he wants to be certain. If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows that he does not know. If he doubts, he judges that he ougth not rashly to give assent. So whoever acquires a doubt from any source ought not to doubt any of these things whose non-existence would mean that he could not entertain doubt about anything. — Augustine, On the Trinity 10.10.14 quoted in Richard Sorabji Self, 2006, p.219

Descartes does not make clear to himself that the ego, his ego deprived of its worldly characteristics through the epochē, in whose functioning cogitationes the world has all the ontic meaning it can ever have for him, cannot possibly turn up as a subject matter in the world, since everything that is of the world derives its meanings precisely from these functions - including, then, ...the ego in the usual sense. — Crisis of the European Sciences, p82

Do you think Deacon's "constitutive absence"*3 is the missing link between Logical truth and Empirical fact*4 regarding Abiogenesis? — Gnomon

I suppose It comes down to the definitional difference between Ideal (what ought to be) and Real (what is) causation. — Gnomon

It occurs to me that maybe you could say that Deacon is trying to establish the linkage between physical and logical causation. Ran it by ChatGPT, it says that it's feasible.
— Wayfarer

I had to Google "logical causation". What I found was not very enlightening*1.

Apparently, Logical Causation is what Hume said was "unprovable"*2, perhaps in the sense that a logical relationship (this ergo that) is not as objectively true as an empirical (this always follows that) demonstration. Logic can imply causation in an ideal (subjective) sense, but only physics can prove it in a real (objective) sense.

Of course, even physical "proof" is derived from limited examples. So any generalization of the proven "fact" is a logical extrapolation (subjective) from Few to All, that may or may not be true in ultimate reality. I suppose It comes down to the definitional difference between Ideal (what ought to be) and Real (what is) causation. How is linking the two realms (subjective logic and objective science) "feasible"? Isn't that where skeptics confidently challenge presumably rational conclusions with "show me the evidence"?

Do you think Deacon's "constitutive absence"*3 is the missing link between Logical truth and Empirical fact*4 regarding Abiogenesis? I'm afraid that proving a definite connection is above my pay grade, as an untrained amateur philosopher. What is ChatGPT's philosophical qualification? :grin:

*1. What is the difference between logical implication and physical causality? :
Logical implication refers to the relationship between two statements where the truth of one statement guarantees the truth of the other. Physical causality, on the other hand, refers to the relationship between events where one event is the direct cause of another event.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/logical-implication-vs-physical-causality.1015629/

*2. Hume Causation :
Hume saw causation as a relationship between two impressions or ideas in the mind. He argued that because causation is defined by experience, any cause-and-effect relationship could be incorrect because thoughts are subjective and therefore causality cannot be proven.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-metaphysics-of-causation-humes-theory.html

*3. Causation by Constitutive Absence :
According to Deacon, the defining property of every living or psychic system is that its causes are conspicuously absent from the system
https://footnotes2plato.com/2012/05/23/reading-incomplete-nature-by-terrence-deacon/

*4. Causal and Constitutive explanation :
It is quite natural to explain differences or changes in causal capacities by referring to an absence of certain components or to their malfunction. . . . .
most philosophers of explanation recognize that there is an important class of non-causal explanations, although it has received much less attention. These explanations are conventionally called constitutive explanations
file:///C:/Users/johne/Downloads/Causal_and_constitutive_explanation_comp.pdf — Gnomon

Selves are a very interesting and vivid and robust element of conscious experience in some animals. This is a conscious experience of selfhood, something philosophers call a phenomenal self, and is entirely determined by local processes in the brain at every instant. Ultimately, it’s a physical process. — Thomas Metzinger

You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4

Compare the realm revealed by sight to the prison house, and the firelight within it to the power of our sun. And if you suggest that the upward journey, and seeing the objects of the upper world, is the ascent of the soul to the realm known by reason, you will not be misreading my intention, since that is what you wanted to hear. God knows whether it happens to be true, but in any case this is how it all seems to me. When it comes to knowledge, the form of the good is seen last, and is seen only through effort. Once seen, it is reckoned to be the actual cause of all 517C that is beautiful and right in everything, bringing to birth light, and the lord of light, in the visible realm, and providing truth and reason in the realm known by reason, where it is lord. Anyone who is to act intelligently, either in private or in public, must have had sight of this. — Republic Book 7 517b

“Yes,” I said, “but the argument is now indicating that this capacity, present in the soul of each person, the instrument by which each learns, is like an eye which cannot turn to the light from the darkness unless the whole body turns. So this instrument must be turned, along with the entire soul, away from becoming, until it becomes capable of enduring the contemplation 518D of what is, and the very brightest of what is, which we call the good. Is this so?”

I can't imagine Dennett arguing the way Henry does. — Astrophel

It is said that the Buddha was the quintessential phenomenologist — Astrophel

You might not agree, but I argue, once one sees that any of the varieties physicalism or materialism and their counterpart, idealism, is simply the worst and most inhibiting metaphysics that we all carry around with us, and it is carried with an implicit unbreakable faith. It is a reduction to dust, as Michel Henry says. — Astrophel

The inversion of culture in “barbarism” means that within a particular socio-historical context the need for subjective self-growth is no longer adequately met, and the tendency toward an occultation (i.e. concealment) of the bond between the living and absolute life is reinforced. According to Henry, who echoes Husserl’s analysis in Crisis, such an inversion takes place in contemporary culture, the dominating feature of which is the triumph of Galilean science and its technological developments.

Insofar as it relies on objectification, the “Galilean principle” is directly opposed to Henry’s philosophy of immanent affectivity. For Henry, science, including modern Galilean science, nonetheless remains a highly elaborated form of culture. Although “the joy of knowing is not always as innocent as it seems”, the line separating culture from “barbarism” is crossed when science is transformed into scientist ideology, i.e., when the Galilean principle is made into an ontological claim according to which ultimate reality is given only through the objectively measurable and quantifiable. — SEP, Michel Henry