Your claim that I want to claim that there is only one kind of knowledge is false, and you should know better if you ever read what I write on these forums. I'm not denying that there are those other kinds of knowledge—I've said so on these forums many times myself. It is only propositional knowledge which is intersubjectively decidable or testable in terms of truth.

Procedural knowledge is not a matter of truth but of skill. Of course, that said whether or not someone possesses a skill is demonstrable if the ability in question is observable. In other words, whether one can ride a bike or perform open heart surgery is testable, but whether or not one knows the truth about the nature of reality is not. In fact, even whether or not one is in an altered state of consciousness is not definitively testable—because it relies on testimony, and it could be faked.

Perspectival knowledge is just knowing what logically follows from whatever presupposition are in play. If we assume that God created the world and that it is all good, all knowing and all powerful then...If there is no God and all of reality is just material, then...And so on...

Participatory knowledge is just knowing what this or that involvement or activity feels like. We cannot know what things feels like for others beyond what we can glean form their behavior and testimony. To say we know always presupposes self-knowledge and honesty on the part of those reporting their experience. The possibility of faking or self-delusion is always there. I can know what things feel like for me, of course, but that cannot really be rigorous intersubjective knowledge.

One of the points I've made to you more than a few times is the case of Osho. As I've said I've employed several sannyasins and also been friends with a few others, and acquainted with some through other friends. They make all the same arguments about Osho being enlightened as you would about the Buddha, the difference being that they actually knew the man himself. And yet you think he was a phony despite (I assume, perhaps incorrectly) never having met him.

So, all you have to go by are your own intuitions. What leads you to assume that your intuitions are better than the equally intelligent people I have met who were convinced he was the real thing? I predict you won't attempt to answer that question, and I think it is because you don't want to admit I am right. Your inability to answer that shows that personal intuitions are not intersubjectively testable knowledge of any kind, even though we might say they are perspectival and participatory (subjective) knowledge

Aren't exploration of those sorts of questions fundamental to philosophy proper? I know the analytical-plain language types don't think so, but then, they didn't feature in the original post. — Wayfarer

I don't believe there is any "philosophy proper"—philosophy is a multifarious thing. We have the diverse field of traditional metaphysics, we have post-Kantian metaphysics and critical philosophy, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, Pomo and so on.

I think Kant put paid to the idea that metaphysical truth in the traditional sense is attainable. Metaphysical questions as traditionally understood are undecidable, because there are no answers for which cogent evidence can be marshaled, and because there are no answers which are logically self-evident. So, answers to metaphysical questions are down to personal conviction, to one's own assessment of what seems most plausible or parsimonious.

I have no problem with speculative philosophy in the creative sense that it may present us with novel ways of thinking about things. Nothing wrong with exploring the imaginable possibilities, but I think intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge that the truth of such speculations cannot be known.

It's really down to Kant's "limits of knowledge", that Wittgenstein also echoed. Some would say that even Kant transgressed his own principles in claiming to know things which the logic of his own system, if followed consistently, denies the possibility of knowing.

There are themes and insights that are discernable in many different schools of philosophical and religious thought. When you say these are not 'testable', in fact, they are, insofar as generations of aspirants, students and scholars have endeavoured to practice them and live according to those lights, in the laboratory of life, so to speak. As for 'assessing the results of practice', there is an often-quoted Buddhist text on that question, the Kalama Sutta: — Wayfarer

The claim that some techniques work to change consciousness is not in dispute. I know this from personal experience both with meditation, art practice and hallucinogens. I'm questioning the metaphysical ideas that often accompany such practices, the claims to know by direct insight the true nature of reality and the meaning of life.

We've been over this before.

If someone can make an accurate prediction then this is a sign that they had knowledge of the future. — Leontiskos

If someone could make, not just one or two accurate predictions, but could consistently make accurate predictions that were not based on observation and calculation, then we might assume they had some hidden way of knowing what will happen. I know of no such case, so it is just speculation, unless you can present a well-documented case.

And this talk about testable predictions is shifting the goalposts anyway, because the question is about purported direct knowledge of the nature and meaning of reality and being and of life, purported knowledge which has been claimed by different 'sages' and mystics in different cultures throughout history, and right up to the present. The claims they make are not testable predictions, and nor are they logically self-evident, so how are we to assess the veracity of what is claimed by them?

I would not be saying that if it was demonstrated that someone was able to reliably predict eclipses. If they were using observation and calculation and I did not understand how that was possible I would probably have believed that they must have direct non-empirically derived knowledge. In ancient times it was commonly believed that people could be given direct knowledge by the gods. We moderns are of a much more critical mindset when it comes to believing things for which there is no empirical evidence or logical support. Do you think that is a bad thing?

So you believe that the ancient philosophers ability to predict eclipses was based, not on observation and calculation, but on some direct insight into what would happen in the future? If so, do you have any evidence that that is so?

The kind oif direct knowledge I have in mind is the supposed knowledge of the sage into the true nature of reality, not foreknowledge of temporal events. In any case how could it be shown that foreknowledge of some event like an eclipse, if not based on empirical observations and calculation was anything more than a lucky guess. I suppose if someone could demonstrate such foreknowledge constantly, then that might give us pause. I am not aware of any well-documented cases of such reliable "direct" foreknowledge.

For example, if an ancient philosopher claims to have knowledge of an eclipse, and the eclipse occurs when they said it would, then their knowledge is confirmable. — Leontiskos

Yes, but that is empirical knowledge. We were discussing the confirmability of so-called "direct knowledge" or intellectual intuition I thought.

The person who claims to have that sort of knowledge propounds theses that are not accessible to the current paradigm, and if those theses are verified then you have evidence for their knowledge. This is the same way any new paradigm establishes itself. — Leontiskos

If those "theses" cannot be confirmed by logical or emprical evidence, then how will they be confirmed? Have such theses been justified in the past? Can you give an example?

What point is there to detachment if there's no emotion to experience the resulting tranquility? There is no peak without a valley. — Christoffer

What do you mean "no emotion to experience the resulting tranquility"? Who says there is no emotion for the Stoic? For example, say you love nature, and you enjoy nothing more than immersing yourself in its beauties. Say it's a peak experience for you—where is the valley (meaning downside not actual valley) in that?

The idea of not worrying about what you cannot change also ends up being ignorant for fixing issues of the world. It's easy to end up in a state of not caring. Emotions about what feels like cannot be changed is often a drive into innovation that do change. — Christoffer

The Stoic advocates learning to let go of concern over those things which cannot be changed. Things like death, illness, loss of loved ones. It doesn't mean you won't feel fear, pain or sorrow—it means that you accept those emotions as inevitable too—we cannot change how we feel, but perhaps we can let go of tendencies to excessively indulge such emotions out of addictive feelings of self-pity.

As to social change, why should I not work to better my circumstances and the circumstances of others if that is what interest me? On the other hand, what would be the point of working towards something I know is impossible to achieve?

You are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the Stoic message. I doubt you have read much of the works of the Stoics.

This seems a little too conclusive to me, but it basically affirms what I was suggesting about separating the two senses of "consciousness." I just think we have to be careful about putting limits on what science can or can't do. There's a natural tendency to regard "science" as meaning "everything we know now, which is all there is to know." A moment's reflection shows how wrong this must be; why would we imagine we have reached the End of Science? Or that we have the conceptual equipment to declare what science must be? So I'm willing to keep an open mind on whether both 21st-century science and phenomenology may one day be shown as antiquated descriptions of a much deeper understanding of reality -- one which, in 25th-century (e.g.) terminology, is understood to be scientific. — J

I don't know what led you to think I was suggesting that we have reached the "end of Science". We know what science consists in as it is practiced. It basically consists in observing, examining and analyzing what our senses reveal to us of the world. It is inherently a "third person" endeavour. Subjective experience cannot be the subject of science because it is not an observable entity or process.

Phenomenology attempts to deal rigorously with subjective experience. Whether it can achieve that is arguable. I'm not ruling it out. The real point at issue for @Wayfarer is the possibility of "direct knowledge" or intellectual intuition. Is it possible to have such knowledge of reality? Obviously, he believes it is possible, and that some humans have achieved such enlightenment. The problem is that if it is possible, you would have no way of knowing that unless you had achieved it yourself.

And even then, how could you rule out the possibility of self-delusion? What kind if argument could possibly show that such knowledge is possible, in fact not merely possible, but real for some? It could not be an argument based on empirical evidence, and it could not be a purely logical argument either. What other kind of argument is there? Personal conviction cannot be intersubjectively justificatory for anything.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of a "much deeper understanding of reality", but I have no idea what it could look like, and if it were not based on empirical evidence or logic, then what else could it be based on? In any case it would not be science as we now understand science. People who think like Wayfarer believe that such an understanding existed more in the past than it does today, but they would not call it science, unless by 'science' is intended something like the original meaning of simply 'knowing'.

Suck it up—where the world is going is not nice.

Can we differentiate between "consciousness" as a possible object of scientific knowledge, and "consciousness" as a lived experience of a particular subject? I think we can. — J

It is not the business of science to study the lived experience of subjects. That is the province of phenomenology, leaving aside the question of whether it delivers coherently and usefully on that. The epoche in phenomenology (bracketing the question of the existence of an external world) is the methodological counterpart to science's bracketing of questions about subjective experience. Those questions simply aren't relevant to the practice of the natural sciences.

I agree with most of what you say there, except for your characterization of the Stoics. I have been interested in and read the main works of the Stoics for years and I see their basic philosophy as being very simple—worry about what you can change and learn not to worry about what you cannot change. It is a philosophy of the inevitable, it posits no afterlife or immortality for us (just as the Epicureans do not) and rather counsels personal acceptance of mortality and all its attendant rigors as the way to peace of mind.

That's right, any well-schooled undergraduate should be able to spot the faulty reasoning, the unjustified conclusions in these kinds of arguments.

The irony is that @Wayfarer can offer only psychologistic explanations of how Western culture has arrived where it has with the additional assertion that we have lost something of the ancient wisdom, when most of the critiques of those ideas are not psychologistic in nature but purely based on critical thinking that examines what we have the best evidence for.

Psychologistic explanations of how idealist thinking is based on wishful thinking could be given, since those ideas which include the possibility of enlightenment, personal salvation and redemption including ultimately immortality would seem to be, for many at least, more attractive than the deflating realist idea that we have just one life.

Why is it not plausible that organisms with sensory equipment have evolved to perceive what is there? How long would we survive if our perceptions were not mostly accurate?
— Janus

Isn't the famous argument by Donald Hoffman and others that evolution does not favour seeing the world as it truly is, but rather seeing it in ways that enhance survival and reproduction. — Tom Storm

Presumably that argument is based on the understanding of evolution of species which is in turn based on the assumption that the fossil evidence is giving us an accurate picture of what organisms existed, when they existed and how they related to one another in terms of structural developments.

But the theory has no justification if it assumes that our senses, and hence the fossil remains, do not give us an accurate picture of the reality, or in other words does not give us an accurate picture of the evolution of species. It is a performative contradiction and as such I cannot take it seriously.

The argument that we all operate with similar mental structures cannot explain more than the common ways in which we perceive and experience, it cannot explain the common content of our experience. I've lost count of how many times that point has remained unaddressed or glossed over.

In any case we cannot understand those structures other than via science, and in vivo they are precognitive, part of the in itself, which would indicate that the in itself has structure, and so is not undifferentiated at all. Structure without differentiation is logically impossible.

If structure exists independently of any mind, then it exists independently of all minds, unless there is a collective mind, and we have, and could have, no evidence of such a thing.

I have sympathy for Wayfarer's account. — Tom Storm

Wayfarer's account does not consist in cogent argument, so in the context of discussion I have no sympathy for it. His account says that he understands something "deep and difficult" that anyone who disagrees with his conclusions doesn't, mustn't understand. This is the same game played by ideologues, would-be gurus and fundamentalists in all times and places. This is part of the problem, not part of any solution.

It is arguable that this mindset is a significant contributor to the problems humanity faces. I have no sympathy for it. And I have experience; when I worked as a landscape contractor I employed quite a few followers of Osho, and Da Free John and I was entangled for years, many more years than I otherwise would have been, with the Gurdjieff Foundation due to my being married to a woman who was devoted to the "spiritual leader" there. Now there was nothing really sinister I ever witnessed about that organization, and I knew hundreds of people there from all walks of life and most of them were decent people.

Now, of course Wayfarer will say they, Gurdijieff, Osho, and Da Free John were charlatans, not the real deal like the Buddha, but their followers will just say he doesn't understand: the exact same "argument" Wayfarer constantly presents to his detractors. How do we know what shenanigans the Buddha might have got up to with his disciples? All we have are scriptures written many years after the death of Gautama.

Of course, the principle of letting go of attachments may well be a good one for personal tranquility and peace of mind, but all the superstitious, otherworldly stuff is the real problem. It leads to devaluation of this life. For me what is important is how one lives this life, because that's all we know.

Wayfarer pushes the idea of direct knowing, of intellectual intuition. I have no problem with someone following their own intuitions, or even their own fantasies: I do so myself, but I am not arrogant enough to count my intuitions or fantasies as reasons for anyone else to think or believe as I do. Doing that opens the door to ideology, guruism and fundamentalism, as I said earlier, and I will have no truck with that.

It does seem to be the case that our mind - our particular cognitive apparatus, with its characteristics and limitations - 'creates' the world we experience from an undifferentiated reality. — Tom Storm

I don't think it is the case at all. It seems implausible that a completely undifferentiated, amorphous "reality" could give rise to the vastly complex world, with all its regularities and the shared experience which makes it possible to study and understand its workings.

I agree that we are pre-cognitively affected, and that everything we do understand is only on account of our cognitive capacities. We know, form observing animal behavior that they perceive the same environments we do, albeit in different ways according to their sensory equipment.

All we know about how we are affected precognitively comes via observation, analysis, conjecture, prediction and experiment, in other words via science. All we know about the way the world works is only possible via observation, analysis, conjecture, prediction and experiment, via science.

Why is it not plausible that organisms with sensory equipment have evolved to perceive what is there? How long would we survive if our perceptions were not mostly accurate? Do we reject such an idea just because we cannot know and understand absolutely everything with absolute certainty?

The only cogent arguments are those which are justified by observation and logic. What possible argument can there be to support the veracity of intellectual intuition or direct knowing other than personal conviction?And personal conviction is not an argument at all, it is only effective when "preaching to the choir', and I don't see how that is going to help us with our common problems, considering how different people's personal convictions are; following that path can only lead to more division.

No, it has nothing to do with "limits of understanding". That's just a ploy you're using to try to justify your nonsense. You're saying something incoherent—"neither existence nor non-existence"— and just plain wrong. There is no reason whatsoever not to think the Universe existed before there were any minds.

I don't care if you ignore me, that's your prerogative. I didn't address you anyway, you responded to something I said addressed to someone else.

As I’ve patiently explained many times, I do not say that nothing exists without the mind. I say that without the mind, there can be neither existence nor non-existence. — Wayfarer

The same error. Proposing that nothing can be said and then saying something for which there can be no warrant.

What do you know about time? Please tell us.
— Corvus
Later. — Banno

Nice :lol: I can almost guarantee he won't get it.

What time might be, or indeed anything might be, in the absence of any mind whatever, can a fortiori never be known.
— Wayfarer
And yet some go a step further, as in this thread, and insist that time does not exist, when at most they can only conclude that they can say nothing. — Banno

Yes, this is indeed the "step too far"—saying that we cannot know anything about anything without the mind (well, duh!) and then concluding that therefore nothing exists without the mind. The epitome of tendentiously motivated thinking!

The world is not a static frame with objects in it, it is a process of reflexive self-change , and our sciences, arts and other forms of creative niche construction particulate in this process. — Joshs

I presume you meant 'participate'...anyway I haven't anywhere said the world is a static frame with objects. It becomes that in the discursive telling, though.

That's true, as I see it.

Any one who disagrees with Corvus is a part of a conspiracy...

It's a now familiar play...

Yes, what Corvus is doing is symptomatic of the malaise in western civilisation. It's about to hit the wall. — Banno

:up: Yes, it's "us and them" and "doubling down" seemingly all the way down and more and more. It's very disturbing to see its playing out intensifying on the world stage. I guess this forum is a microcosm, although thankfully it's not all bad here.

Everything science says is a statement of subjective experience. Your subjective experience sits smack dab in the very heart of scientific concepts, by way of the intersubjective interaction which transforms subjective experience into the flattened , mathematicized abstractions that pretend to supersede it, while in fact only concealing its richness within its generic vocabulary. — Joshs

Science attempts to explain how and why what we all observe is the way it is. It is unquestionable that we, and the other animals live in and experience the same world. Nonetheless how we experience the same things differs from individual to individual.

Science records individual observations of phenomena and attempts to understand them in ways which are consistent with the vast and coherent body of scientific knowledge and understanding which has evolved over at least hundreds of years,

I agree with you that science deals in generalities—pretty much everything we talk about does. Symbolic language is all generalizing, and individual experience is very particular. Symbolic language cannot discursively present the living particularity and dynamism of experience—it can only do that allusively via poetry and literature.

:roll: Now you presume to speak for everyone else—just how low can you sink?

I would be astonished if consciousness as a phenomenon didn't turn out to be biological, and capable of scientific explanation. Subjectivity -- what it's like to be conscious -- may be a different matter. — J

It may be a different matter, or perhaps not. "What it's like to be conscious'—is that not a manifold of perceptions and bodily feelings? Surely animals have such manifolds, different to ours of course, and neither we nor they are conscious of all the different aspects that go to making up what might be described as simply a sense of being there that we and they may be more or less aware of.

I can't but agree. It would be better if OPs had to meet certain standards.

In my view you lack humility and have a deluded sense of your own abilities.

Closer to the latter. Good science should say, re consciousness and subjectivity, "We just don't know. Stay tuned." Scientism, in contrast, rules out the non-physical, and favors mechanistic bottom-up explanation. — J

I can't see how science can deal with the non-physical. And I also can't see how it can factor into any of our thinking, although I suppose it depends on what you mean by "non-physical".

I don't understand top-down explanations, explanations in terms of global laws and constraints as being non-physical.

Well, it seems obvious to you and me, but it's very difficult for a physicalist to explain how or why this can be. What sort of thing is a "judgment"? Does it have propositional content? Truth-value? But what could such things amount to, if everything is physical? BTW, it's still a problem even if we agree that subjects are real -- the Hard Problem, in fact. — J

I think the so-called Hard Problem is overrated, overplayed. It is a prejudice of mechanistic thinking that matter could not possibly perceive, experience, think and judge. Granted we don't understand how it happens, but the question being asked is perhaps an impossible one. If it is to be answered, I can't see how it could be anything but science that answers it. If it is unanswerable, then what conclusions could we draw from that?

It tells me that you are very lenient on your emotional writings to others, but very sensitive and paranoid on other folks response to your postings. — Corvus

:roll: Well you're wrong. What I write on here are not "emotional writings", not emotional apart from impatience and annoyance when people distort what I have written or do not respond to reasoned critiques reasonably but deflect and wriggle just as you do.

This: “without minds, there are no possible worlds" is what Corvus is maintaining. He thinks it a counter you your “It is possible for there to be a world without minds”. Of course, it isn't.

Corvus is incapable of shouldering critique. Been that way for years. Hence his response here is to attack you and I, to do anything but reconsider. — Banno

That's just how I see it too. I for one will not waste any more time. on his childish shenanigans.

Your stupidity is doing my head in. I'll have to leave you to it. You and your ilk are a large part of why philosophy is not taken seriously in certain circles. It's not enough just to make shit up, as you do. — Banno

Sadly, what you say here is true.

:up:

So are you claiming that theoretical explanation is not within the purview of science? — Leontiskos

Not at all. I'm claiming that theories cannot be demonstrated to be true, they can only be provisionally accepted on the basis that what they predict is always reliably observed.

I think there is all manner of bleed between the two spheres. — Leontiskos

I agree, of course. I think philosophy, at least epistemology and ontology/ metaphysics if not ethics and aesthetics should be informed by science.

For that reason 'objectivity' seems to be a concept which could only apply to consensus. — AmadeusD

I'd change that to "unbiased consensus".

It seems I'm talking about science, and you are talking about philosophy. I haven't claimed that philosophy can ever become an entirely objective endeavor.

Even science can only be objective in regard to what is actually observed. Theoretical explanation of what is observed are another matter.

Do you think we all do that, or do you think rather that we all have a natural tendency to do that; a tendency which can be overcome by critical reason?
— Janus

I don't know. Sure, some people change views, but then people also fall in and out of love. I'm not confident that it is reasoning that crystallises choices and values. And some people are just more obvious about their process. — Tom Storm

I did say "can be overcome by critical reason". I didn't say that biases commonly are overcome by critical reason. I think a clear and general view of human life would quickly disabuse anyone of the latter idea.

The way that the modern period in its progression has encountered the perennial problem of universals seems to be as follows:

1. If knowledge is objective, then it isn't subjective.
2. If knowledge is subjective, then it isn't objective.

(KO → ~KS)
(And the bijection also tends to hold)

What happens is that on this view in order to secure the objectivity of knowledge one must never talk about the subjectivity of the knower, and the subjectivity of the knower thus becomes a black hole. — Leontiskos

I don't get this. It's like the 'blind spot of science' argument. I just don't think anyone who has really thought about the question denies that science deals with the world as it is perceived by us. I've asked the question many times as to what 'including the subject' could look like in the sciences that investigate the non-human. The subject is simply not the subject of inquiry in those sciences, but of course the inquiry itself is carried out by humans (subjects).

Cheers.

It has long been noticed you have well established group of folks supporting each other when one gets criticism due to their ill manners. Hence no surprise. :wink: — Corvus

There have been no "ill manners". You are being over-sensitive. As far as I have witnessed Banno agrees when he genuinely agrees—and we have had our share of disagreements, so your fantasy of a "well established group" is looking a bit like a case of paranoia.

Taking critiques of or disagreements with your arguments personally makes doing philosophy in a fruitful way difficult if not impossible. It should be an opportunity to learn—to sharpen your arguments or find the humility to concede to a more well reasoned view.

In fact, this might be two distinct difficulties. First, as you say, subjectivity appears to be left out of scientism. — J

I'm not sure what you mean by "scientism" here. Do you just mean science or the obviously incorrect idea that everything about humans and other living beings can be explained by physics?

I think that subjectivity is rightly left out of science (unless you count sociology, psychology and phenomenology as sciences (and even there it would depend on what you mean by 'leaving out subjectivity'). Also 'objectivity' in my view should be taken to mean nothing more than 'lack of bias'.

What does it mean to "have an opinion" if there is no subject to judge? — J

There obviously are subjects (individuals) who make judgements, so what's the problem? Are you worried about the human lack of absolute certainty? Why does the reality that our ideas and beliefs are neural processes rule out the validity of giving and asking for reasons? I've never understood that view, and I've never heard a reasoned argument to support it. It seems perfectly obvious that our ideas and beliefs are both neural processes, and that they are held for reasons both valid and invalid, sound and unsound, and that they are all defeasible.

It certainly is experienced that way by me. But critics will simply say we've inherited the godless secularism of our age. We're in that fuckin' cave, Cobber. — Tom Storm

Yes, but is there any reason to think such a criticism is not tendentiously self-serving? Why should we give credence to arguments that lack evidence or logic to support them; arguments that are not really arguments at all, but mere polemical cultural tropes that are often in the service of misplaced moral crusades.

The modern critical mind has dispensed with God because there is no need for it other than for those who, on account of childhood conditioning or insecurity in the face of the knowledge of suffering and death, cannot rid themselves of the comforting fantasy. Why should we wish to live in thrall to tradition, as Hegel said, "Under the aegis of tutelage"?

As you no doubt know I have no problem with people's personal faiths, but they have no place in philosophical discussion just because there is no critical, evidential or logical support for them. When people delude themselves that their personal faiths must be objectively true, then the door to fundamentalism has swung open. Ideology is the greatest scourge of humankind in my view. In extremis, people will kill and die for ideologies, and that really is absurd.

I have no significant commitments to any particular perspective except that my intuition and observations suggest (to me) that life is intrinsically meaningless. But we do generate contingent value and meaning collectively and individually through experience. — Tom Storm

But you do think that some worldviews are more plausible than others, no? For example, why should we think that life is inherently meaningful in some overarching way, when there is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case, and no logical reason why it should be the case?

Of course, life is not meaningless to individual humans or other animals—we all have things that matter to us.

We are emotional creatures. It seems to me that our reasoning and preferences are shaped by our affective relationships with the world, and we then construct post hoc rationalizations. — Tom Storm

Do you think we all do that, or do you think rather that we all have a natural tendency to do that; a tendency which can be overcome by critical reason? I see broadly two types on these forums and in my experience of philosophical discussions with my university friends: there are those who want things to be a certain way and spend time and effort marshalling evidence to support their biases, and there are those of a more scientific spirit, who are open to changing their minds if they find reasons or evidence more compelling than what they have been aware of.

I also generally prefer Bach' music to Mozart's, although in my assessment there are some profound pieces from the latter. Beethoven and Bach are my two favorites.

It blows my mind that a clump of matter is aware of its own existence, its own awareness, its own thoughts. We are aware of some things that no other species is. — Patterner

I agree it is a source of wonderment. I'm glad to see you are apparently not one of those who go on to insist there must be something more than the merely material going on.

But then this makes me wonder about that:

The blind laws of physics do not bring about everything that can exist. We are doing things that the universe cannot do without us. Knowingly and intentionally, which are qualities no other part of the universe possesses. — Patterner

Why could not mind be an emergent material phenomenon? I agree that mind cannot be explained in terms of physics, but then neither can geology, chemistry, biology, ethology, ethnology, economics, psychology, the arts and so on.

It is one thing to say that there are many things which cannot be explained in terms of physics and another to say that those things are therefore the result of something beyond the physical or material.

The point here was about logic, but you seem to talking about your own imagination. Anyhow this is not even main topic in this thread. Please refrain from posting off-topic trivialities. — Corvus

Logic is about what we can coherently imagine.

and if yours cannot imagine a world without minds then I can only pity you.
— Janus
Should it not be self-pity on your part? :lol: — Corvus

Why take it personally? I don't believe you cannot imagine a world without minds, so I wasn't saying I pity you, I was saying I would pity you if you really could not imagine a world without minds. That is not the same as saying you cannot imagine a world without having a mind. You seem to be confusing the two.

Indeed it is. There is a distinction between “it is possible for there to be a world without minds”, ↪Janus account, and your “without minds, there are possible worlds”.


You may well be right that this last is false. But it is not what is being suggested. — Banno

Did you mean "your “without minds, there are no possible worlds”"?

You are one of the people I respect most on TPF. I can't remember ever seeing you lose patience, which is more than can be said about many, including myself. I wish you well and hope you continue to contribute.

What do you mean by trivially true? Why is it trivially true? — Corvus

It's trivially true because it's obvious that only minds imagine. It's not even worth stating it's so obvious.

It says nothing about the ability of a mind to imagine anything.
— Janus
Isn't it obvious? Imagination is a mental operation which is one of the functions of mind. How else would you imagine something without mind? — Corvus

Are you being obtuse on purpose? The point is not that you need a mind in order to imagine, the point is that that bleedingly obvious fact says nothing about what particular things are possible for the mind to imagine. It says nothing about whether the mind can imagine a world without minds.

Anyway, I know my mind can imagine a world without minds, and if yours cannot imagine a world without minds then I can only pity you.