If by apt you mean the most irreparably destructive and philosophically regressive force of the last 2000 years, then sure. — "StreetlightX

You frequently treat my posts with loathing and disdain. What I am advocating is not venomous, it's not regressive or any of the other negative epiphets you describe it with. I don't want to get into a slanging match - if you have a founded criticism of my views then I would be open to it- but I really think it is simply prejudice.

We are sensate bodies long before we are inference-mongering, reflexive intellects. — StreetlightX

Great. But what does that mean? How is being a sensate body not to be in an anticipatory or Bayesian modelling relation as a neuroscientist for instance would understand it?

As someone who believes in the primacy of the aesthetic as a grounds for knowledge, modelling relations constitute a highly constrained - that is, particular - form of knowledge, — StreetlightX

Why would one believe in that primacy? What is the argument?

And then how does aesthetics work as a method of knowledge (as opposed to say unargued, unsubstantiated, belief)? I've never seen that explained.

You frequently treat my posts with loathing and disdain. What I am advocating is not venomous, it's not regressive or any of the other negative epiphets you describe it with. I don't want to get into a slanging match - if you have a founded criticism of my views then I would be open to it- but I really think it is simply prejudice. — Wayfarer

But they are, they really are - just because you don't see it doesn't mean these ideas aren't fucking horrible. I can honestly think of no more morally repugnant and irresponsible idea than the notion that "nature doesn't contain its own cause." Have you ever once stopped for a moment to think about the implications of this idea? Can you imagine a more repressive statement for the affirmation of the status quo? The divine right of kings, which held humanity down in the shitter for so long, is nothing less than this idea. The idea that women are inferior, that sex is dirty, that the body is base, that manual labour isn't valuable, that white people are better than the rest of the world, all these ideas and more have found their basis in the awful, disgusting notion that 'nature doesn't contain it's own cause'. It's vile, a repudiation of any possible happiness other than what is mandated by some extra-natural Idea which would, if it could, make the world itself disappear so as to be frozen in the image of of Timeless Beautiful Utopia where no actual things ever happen. It's a hateful, inhuman idea.

Check out something like Mark Johnston's The Meaning of the Body or Maxine Sheets-Johnston's The Roots of Thinking. Deleuze and Levinas have also written some wonderful things about this, but I would not expect that'd you'd ever read them.

Check out something like Mark Johnston's The Meaning of the Body or Maxine Sheets-Johnston's The Roots of Thinking[/]i. Deleuze and Levinas have also written some wonderful things about this, but I would not expect that'd you'd ever read them. — StreetlightX

Sure. I've checked that kind of stuff out in the past and found it not compelling. I just wanted to see you support your claims in your own words for a change. Will the ideas seem so convincing when they haven't been cut and pasted?

Not with an attitude like that.

I can honestly think of no more morally repugnant and irresponsible idea than the notion that "nature doesn't contain its own cause." Have you ever once stopped for a moment to think about the implications of this idea? Can you imagine a more repressive statement for the affirmation of the status quo? The divine right of kings, which held humanity down in the shitter for so long, is nothing less than this idea. The idea that women are inferior, that sex is dirty, that the body is base, that manual labour is valuable, that white people are better than the rest of the world, all these ideas and more have found their basis in the awful, disgusting notion that 'nature doesn't contain it's own cause'. It's vile, a repudiation of any possible happiness other than what is mandated by some extra-natural Idea which would, if it could, make the world itself disappear so as to be frozen in the image of of Timeless Beautiful Utopia where no actual things ever happen. It's a hateful, inhuman idea. — StreetlightX

If I may: I don't disagree with your substantive points here, but I think there's another side to the story, which is that materialism has not--at least not so many have noticed--managed to correct "the chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism". Actually existing materialism demonstrates all the faults that @Wayfarer criticizes: it is crudely reductionist, it erases meaning, and it renders human beings as passive billiard balls rather than as active agents--thus it is just as supportive of the status quo as the philosophico-religious tradition you rightly rail against.

This means that a tactical alliance between mystics and progressive materialists might sometimes be a good thing, especially if those mystics are the only prominent advocates for human meaning beyond what we have. I mean, nobody in the realm of politics fits the bill.

I can honestly think of no more morally repugnant and irresponsible idea than the notion that "nature doesn't contain its own cause." Have you ever once stopped for a moment to think about the implications of this idea? Can you imagine a more repressive statement for the affirmation of the status quo? — StreetlightX

You're reading many things into my posts that I never say. Any religious philosophy would say that 'nature doesn't contain it's own cause' (although, perhaps oddly, I'm not actually advocating theism). It's simply an observation about the limitations of naturalism, as such: that the things, entities, forces, forms of energy, which can be counted, quantified and measured, don't account for the order of nature; that the 'order of nature' is something different to 'the nature of order'. And from that, you get 'the divine right of kings' and repression of women?

And as for the substantive claim - it is manifestly and demonstrably the case, with respect to the state of the hardest of hard sciences, in this point in time. I don't even have to make the case.

The shit you're seeing is on the inside of your spectacles, SLX.

If I may: I don't disagree with this, but I think there's another side to the story, which is that materialism has not--at least not so many have noticed--managed to correct "the chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism". Actually existing materialism demonstrates all the faults that Wayfarer criticizes: it is crudely reductionist, it erases meaning, and it renders human beings as passive billiard balls rather than as active agents--thus it is just as supportive of the status quo as the philosophico-religious tradition you rightly rail against. — jamalrob

True :( But at least now not even the science is on the side of the crude materialists; this is manifestly not enough of course, but that we can be educated on this stuff is the minimal, crude hope that I hold out.

You're reading many things into my posts that I never say. Any religious philosophy would say that 'nature doesn't contain it's own cause' (although, perhaps oddly, I'm not actually advocating theism). It's simply an observation about the limitations of naturalism, as such: that the things, entities, forces, forms of energy, which can be counted, quantified and measured, don't account for the order of nature; that the 'order of nature' is something different to 'the nature of order'. And from that, you get 'the divine right of kings' and repression of women? — Wayfarer

Yes, exactly right - religious philosophy, which has been instrumental in repressing the status of woman around the globe, and well, the 'divine' in 'divine right of kings' should tell you just how close that connection is. I'm not saying that you've said any of this - perhaps the chief problem is exactly that you haven't, that you don't recognize, in the horrible idea that "the order of nature' is something different to the 'nature of order', the lodestone of almost every and all justification of brutality and socio-political repression in history; a denial of agency and ethical responsibility - other than, of course, to the autocratic dictates of the so-called 'order of nature'.

I'm not just making this up - read up on the history of these ideas and the way they have been put to use - read something like Susan Moller Okin's Women in Political Thought or John Protevi's Political Physics, or Adriana Cavarero's In Spite of Plato, and see how the focus on the Ideal has came at the price of women, of manual labour, of the entire realm of the aesthetic - on basically the underprivileged and anyone who isn't a well off white dude.

I know a lot of what I say is non-PC and it gets on a lot of people's nerves, but I don't have a tenure to defend or anything in print. I spend my days writing instruction manuals for corporate IT systems and then I come to internet fora to discuss philosophical ideas. I understand how that the hatred of religion is a big part of the problem - we're socially conditioned into that, on account of the way religions were construed in Western history. Everyone is going through that, it is in Jungian terms part of the 'shadow' of Western consciousness.

But what mystical idealists are seeking is a relationship with the origin of order, an actual vital connection with what underlies everything. Whereas, most think of religion as a horizontal, historical institution, spread out in space and time, a part of the social order, a source of repression and conformity. Whereas what has always interested me is the source, the 'God that is not God' or the God beyond God (which I have since discovered is also even part of Christianity). But anyway, having a connection to that is an end in itself, indeed the only worthwhile end. It is and also is not religious - many who have sought it and taught it have been among victims of religious orthodoxy.

Anyway, I'm very pleased we have lanced this particular boil, you're a contributor whose learning I have great respect for, and I really don't want you as an enemy.

Went upstairs to watch TV only to hear f****ing Brian Cox declaring that 'the whole marvellous universe is just built out of very simple building blocks'. It's not true, Brian, for heaven's sake! Last night he was also on TV confronting this certified nut-job who has just been elected to the Australian parliament, and who believes that climate science is a global conspiracy. Last night, he was great. Tonight, he's just a lumpen materialist again.

What a strange world.

The point is that, in considering the "order of nature" to be outside nature, we draw meaning not in terms of the world, but in terms of fictions which are not the world. Our eyes turn away from agents, what they do to each other and how they act towards each other.

Life and knowledge become not an act to understand human life and it's interactions with the world, but rather a quest to ignore it. Instead of respecting the meaning of our lives and how we treat others, insight into life becomes a question of serving the supposed "order of nature."

The world is put aside to worship the order which lies outside. We fail to understand our lives and how they relate to meaning-- Kings rule because all that matters is the divine order, men dominate over women because "it's the order of nature," etc.,etc. Everyone is too busy looking at the utopia of God's authority to notice what's happening in the world.

By the 'nature of order', one might be referring to, for example, the sequence of prime numbers or other such intellectual objects and formal laws, which are not natural objects, or found in nature. They can only be intuited by a rational intelligence capable of understanding mathematical relationships.

We fail to understand our lives — WillowOfDarkness

Speak for yourself.

For sure, but that only speaks to the problem. Are people formal laws, prime numbers or intellectual objects? What about the rest of our world? No. They are far more than that. Indeed, they often confound the meanings of "order of nature": parts of the world act in ways we have never measured before, Kings cease to rule, men cease to have authority over women, etc.,etc. The world is always more than this notion of rational intelligence which is meant to give us everything.

Indeed, here you sound exactly like the materialist reductionist-- just worship the "order of nature" and you will have all the wisdom you ever need. Reduce life life to this formal law, this prime number, this underlying vital connection everything-- like measured atoms are to the materialist reductionist.

It is, in your words: "the only worthwhile end." Like materialist reductionist, you reduce life, only you do it to the idea of connection to everything rather than atoms.

The materialist reductionist is only dealing with the hangover of the immaterialist reductionist. Their inability to take consciousness seriously is because they've brought with them the idea of "the cause outside nature." The reason they deny consciousness is because they think it's impossible for a cause of consciousness to be within nature. In their minds, they have to exclude consciousness for material causality to make any sense. Like the immaterialist, they are too busy caught up in the worship of the order "consciousness is outside the material" to understand the world that's in front of them.

The materialist reductionist is only dealing with the hangover of the immaterialist reductionist. Their inability to take consciousness seriously is because they've brought with them the idea of "the cause outside nature." The reason they deny consciousness is becasue they think it's impossible for a cause of consciousness to be within nature. In there minds, they have to exclude consciousness for material causality to make any sense. Like the immaterialist, they are too busy caught up in the worship of the order "consciousness is outside the material" to understand the world that's in front of them. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This seems like a Straw Man to me. I have never encountered a physicalist (normally in the guise of a scientist) who denies the existence and causal power of abstractions. At the foundation of biology there is a theory of replicators, variation and selection, all of which are abstract. Information theory is explicitly counterfactual and computation is all about abstractions.

It is unsurprising therefore that physicalists believe that since life is caused by abstract entities, then so is consciousness. i.e. consciousness (whatever you mean by that) is a software feature.

Therefore physicalists are forced to conclude that artificial life is possible as are artificial minds, which would, of course, be artificial people. It seems rare to have a testable metaphysics, which seems a compelling reason to adopt it if only for methodological reasons.

Reductionism has been an extremely successful methodology in physics, but few physicists actually commit the error of believing that only explanations in terms of the laws of physics can be fundamental.

OK, so since you believe that consciousness is not a bodily state, I presume that means you also believe it is not a physical state; from which would seem to follow that you believe there are "states of the world" that are also non-physical states.

Nope. Conscious states are material. They are part of the same world as bodies-- just a different state of the world.

"Non-physical" is the immaterialist reductionism talking again. Supposedly, states of consciousness are meant to belong to a different realm because they are distinct from bodies. It's part of the ideology which denies existence to consciousness, putting it in another realm as if it had nothing to do with rest of existing states.

It's not abstractions which are at stake. The failure of the materalist reductionist is to ignore the presence of consciousness and it's relationship to causality.

The materalist reductionists are actually very good at abstracted causality. They give rules which measure causal relationships all the time. Where they fail is to describe causality in terms of the many present states.

Materialist reductionist pick out an abstracted causes to conciousness perfectly well (e.g. the brain). In this respect they are better than the immaterialism reductionists who just say "Consciousness woo."

They do not describe consciousness as a presence though. The one thing the cannot say is: "Material states of consciousness exist and are caused by various states of the world (e.g. brains).

Nothing is caused by abstract entities. Causality is always a matter of an actor and an effect. Things cause other things. The case against the materalist reductionist is not built on a failure to understand abstracted causality. It's argued on the basis of non-abstract causality-- on the failure of the materalist reductionist to describe causality in terms of the things which act.

What is evidently real may not be what is really real. — jamalrob

Inasmuch as materialism is a realist metaphysic, I see this claim as advancing some sort of phenomenalism or idealism, so we can no longer be talking about materialism. My claim is that, according to it, there should be no "evidently real." In saying that, we're still presupposing something other than what is alleged to be real, which simply will not do. Nothing could appear to be anything other than what it is were materialism, as realism, true. To admit the existence of appearances is to be a phenomenalist/idealist of some kind.

And the same would then go for Moby Dick and the mind: they exist, but they are nothing but their material parts (and processes?). — jamalrob

Moby Dick has no material parts, though.

>:O

I find Cox irritating at times as well. The current crop of science popularizers is pretty poor, in my opinion. There's too much ass kissing of pseudo-science like string theory, parallel universes, and the like. That and I find it hilarious the patently absurd claims so often made about the big bang. These guys need to take a basic logic course something ferocious.

and see how the focus on the Ideal has came at the price of women, of manual labour, of the entire realm of the aesthetic - on basically the underprivileged and anyone who isn't a well off white dude. — StreetlightX

What a load of crock. First of all, whatever effects the political appropriations of philosophical or other ideas may have, that says nothing whatever as to their truth or falsity, except insofar as these ideas are intrinsically political to begin with. Social Darwinism, for example, is to genuine Darwinism as fool's gold is to real gold. It's not an intrinsically political idea to begin with, so to blame Darwinism for whatever deleterious political effects are done in its name would be absurd. Second, the kinds of oppression you cite are found throughout history and across the globe. Might there have been a fanciful utopian notion in the heads of those white Christian slave traders who enslaved by the thousands "black dudes" and others? Yes, but so too might there have been a similar idea at work in the minds of Muslim North African slave traders who enslaved by the thousands "white dudes" and others. I repudiate all progressivist and utopian projects, but to suggest that this is also to repudiate certain other philosophical ideas which may stand, unjustifiably, at the base of such projects is to fallaciously impute guilt by association. There might truly be an eschaton, but if so, the point would be not to immanentize it.

What political appropriation? If you think classical philosophy hasn't had it in for the body, if you think it hasn't constantly and repeatedly devalued sensation, if you think it hasn't, time and time again, denigrated the value of manual labour, if you think it hasn't consistently placed women in an inferior position to men, if you think it hasn't striven after the timeless and the eternal, and if you think these things are merely incidental to any philosophy which would 'find the cause of nature outside of nature' or somesuch, then either you've a poor grasp of the history of philosophy, or you're OK with those sorts of positions. These things are not 'political appropriations' - they're written right into the fabric of those philosophies. When someone says "this limited, tiny sphere of being is what I think matters more than anything else' (be it spirit or molecules or God), then by definition everything else is of a lesser value.

That time and time again what seems to 'matter' is what so happens to shore up the status quo is not just a happy accident. When, in the Great Chain of Being, women are placed a step or two above animals, but not so high as man, it doesn't exactly take a ingenious act of creative 'political appropriation' to translate into societal doctrine. And I say this about any doctrine of reductionism, into which I include idealism (it's in the damn name) no less than base materialisms.

So more like a philosophical appropriation or expression of politics, rather than a political appropriation of philosophy.

Nothing is caused by abstract entities. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Speaks the arch-reductionist! This is patently false. People are abstractions and we cause lots of things. We alter physical reality to comply with our cultural preferences. You cannot explain why a collection of copper atoms sit in Trafalgar square without reference to Winston Churchill, his cultural significance, historical events such as war and causes of war, and that in our society we like to make bronze statues of important people.

That seems to be it, which is precisely backward to me.

If you think all of your examples cannot be met with counter-examples, then you are hopelessly naive. Plenty of philosophical systems overly exalt the body, greatly value sensation, cheer labor, and place women on a par with or even higher than men. And am I really to be told that idealism, of all philosophies, is the great unchallenged majority view throughout history? That is sheer, unadulterated nonsense. From my perspective, which is not a totally uninformed one, it has always ever been an embattled minority position and subject to scoffing "refutations" of the kind provided by Dr. Johnson's foot in response to Berkeley's writings, for example.

These things are not 'political appropriations' - they're written right into the fabric of those philosophies. — StreetlightX

Hogwash. When in your armchair you raise your scepter and cast judgment over "idealism" in smug confidence that such a weighty abstraction is utterly translucent of what it signifies, while assuming that what it signifies cannot but be linked to some nefarious plot to make people lazier, lower their opinion of the female sex, and other bizarre insinuations, then you're merely shadow boxing with me and providing a raft of hasty generalizations.

When someone says "this limited, tiny sphere of being is what I think matters more than anything else' (be it spirit or molecules or God), then by definition everything else is of a lesser value. — StreetlightX

But you are simply adding values, sensation, social equality and nature to the list. So all claims still need to be argued.

For instance, you seem to be appealing to nature and yet railing against hierarchical organisation. Perhaps you just don't understand hierarchies sufficiently well, but there is plenty of reason to believe nature truly has to be hierarchical.

So maybe - almost certainly - you are projecting a Romantic fallacy on the world. And arguably nothing has done more harm to modern civilisation than the unnatural confusion that is Romanticism (as a way of life, as opposed to some diversionary cultural fun).

If something is physical you should be able to explain how it is so. Its easy to explain how the body, for example is physical. To support your contention then you should be able to explain how conscious states are physical.

Such descriptions are not abstract. In pointing out the connectionss of things in causality, atoms, statues and people, we are doing the opposite of abstraction-- we haven't supposed talking about the how the world works is just a matter of speaking in terms of measured atoms or the mathematical equations of physics.

I did in my previous posts: states of conciousness are states of the world, are linked in its causality, making conciousness of the same realm as any state of the world.

This is in no way a description of the physicality of consciousness.