Creation ex nihilo means a creation out of nothing or from nothing. This is absurd.

Existence making something, namely that which is beyond itself (objectivity) is absolutely impossible for such a subjectivity could not even have the representation of an objectivity, much less be affected with the will to create it. — Blue Lux

You will have to do better. The claim of absurdity is not showing logical impossibility.

If existence is a subject, it can only be such in relationship to itself as object -- thus knowing objectivity. In understanding its own capabilities, it understands its power to share existence.

Yes, this is what Descartes has provided. However. Existence is not a subject. It doesn't seem to me that it is.

The only subject of Descartes would be consciousness. But consciousness is not existence. Existence is being and being preceeds essence. Consciousness is always consciousness of something it is not. Consciousness of consciousness is simply consciousness. There need not be an idea ideae of this. This is due to the illusion of the primacy of knowledge

If you go to a university library, you can look at the journals and see which ones have similar articles. Then look up the submission and format guidelines for the ones that interest you. If one rejects your article, make the improvements they suggest, and resubmit it, or submit it to another.

Existence is not a subject. It doesn't seem to me that it is. — Blue Lux

i took the following as granting subjectivity:

Existence making something, namely that which is beyond itself (objectivity) is absolutely impossible for such a subjectivity could not even have the representation of an objectivity, — Blue Lux

If Existence is not limited by essence, it can do any logically possible thing, including knowing itself -- which means it is a subject.

This is something I struggle with philosophically; the primacy of knowledge in terms of existence and consciousness. Sartre basically wrote a huge book about this called Being and Nothingness. But anyway... I still have my own questions and I am not the type to just regurgitate or resort to dogma.

What existentialism has delimited so far for an understanding of human existence is that consciousness is a type of being, but is separate from just any type of being, like that of the phone I am typing on. There is a difference between the being that has being as a question and the being that being would question. It seems the two are tied together intrinsically, but this connection or entanglement is not transparent.

Philosophical thought up until now, I think, takes for granted the conclusions made by Descartes about the subject, and furthermore about objectivity. There is this contention that consciousness is a subject and the world is outside of consciousness as object. This seems obvious. It seems that when I say something, for instance, "I am," 'I' am the subject that is predicated, determined by an existence, as if existence is a predicate. Kant has shown this is illusory. Being is not a predicate: being is the foundation of such a statement and is not a quality that one can have or lack. Existence is the base upon which we found knowledge of anything. Knowledge itself is not prior, and knowledge cannot speak in terms of being as a quality or predicate.

Consciousness is a sort of being, but it is not phenomenal. It is transphenomenal (Sartre). This is to say that consciousness is what it is not and is not what it is. Consciousness is what it is conscious of; however, it always escapes itself. It is not exhausted in the contemplation of an object so to be absorbed into that object to become a thing in itself. Consciousness is not a thing. The objects of consciousness, furthermore, are 'things,' but what makes a thing a thing? How is there something finite and singular that one can be aware of instead of simply everything? "Nothing is finite without an infinite reference point." This infinite reference point is consciousness.

Consciousness is 'founded' upon nothingness, and only upon this foundation can anything be. This is why we ask the question of why anything exists when it doesn't seem to have to exist, because consciousness, this transphenomenal being of 'the subject', is not unless it is (of) something it is not.

This is why Husserl's Intentionality is so significant. Because this prior problem of Descartes, this irreconcilable dualism of subject and object is at base an illusion. The two are one. However, another problem materializes--another dualism... That of the finite and the infinite.

Knowledge of something is inevitably infinite. One can not absolutely know an object so to be that object. This is why the primacy of knowledge is an illusion. All that we know is nothing (Socrates). This is not to say that we do not know anything, but that we know the Nothingness that is the foundation of our being so to have a conception of what we are not. This is the interpretation.

So what are we if there is no absolute subject? Are we nothing? Then what of the personality? What of this reference of knowledge in that 'I know something' or "Know thyself?"

Is, aside, the result of this a faith in monism? I do not believe so, because there is again the dualism of the finite and the infinite. In knowing thyself or knowing anything it seems that an ascertaining of infinity is essential. But this infinity is not the noumena. The essence of something is ascertained. The appearance of something does not hide the reality of that thing. It shows the series of its appearances: it is in itself an infinite series of appearances, contained finitely within an appearance. One can ascertain something, and thus apprehend its essence, which is its existence. The essence of existence is existence.

We are indeed 'something,' but this something is not a subject that is active or passive. It is beyond this activity or passivity, for the active and the passive is fundamentally athropomorphic. Our being is not something active or passive, the result of something or its own cause. It is uncreated, to be established in our own experience and with our own experience, aside from some sort of ideal of what we are that could possibly be proven with a statement... Which is precisely what Descartes wished to do... Found being upon the primacy of knowledge. The opposite is the case.

There is a facticity of human existence. Existence does not mean anthropomorphic existence. It is the existence of being, which is clearly not limited to what is human or 'consciousness.' The essence of consciousness is existence and it is in a sense capable of being anything it is (of). We cannot do any possible thing because of our facticity. But existence, that is, the existence of everything can do any possible thing, but only if it can. For is it not true that what can happen will happen?

There is a facticity of human existence. Existence does not mean anthropomorphic existence. It is the existence of being, which is clearly not limited to what is human or 'consciousness.' The essence of consciousness is existence and it is in a sense capable of being anything it is (of). We cannot do any possible thing because of our facticity. But existence, that is, the existence of everything can do any possible thing, but only if it can. For is it not true that what can happen will happen? — Blue Lux

But is being limited to human consciousness? How can we know that there is a being of anything other than consciousness, for is that not the 'method' by which anything supposedly 'other' materializes at all? Has this principle of Intentionality really provided a solution to the differences between idealism and realism? Is it true that there is any being outside of consciousness? Have the words merely changed? Is the dualism of the finite and infinite just a mutation? Intellectual subterfuge?

I don't think so. I think it is true that consciousness is consciousness only (of) something it is not and furthermore that human being is not being in relation to the world but being-IN-the-world. And this is Heidegger.

So, realities independent of matter are realities that can act without depending on any material object. — Dfpolis

You are claiming that there are realities which are independent of matter here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, I am only defining what I mean by "independent of matter" -- not making an existence claim. Examples could be Platonic Ideas, the "intelligences" Aristotle proposed to explain circular motion, angels, God as Aristotle's self-thinking thought or Ibn Sina's Necessary being. None of these require matter to exist, though many interact with matter.

Classically these realities would be understood as independent Forms. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of the ones I enumerated, I would only call Platonic Ideas "independent forms," and, as you know, I have no reason to think Platonic Ideas exist.

So what type of existence are you giving to these "realities which can act without depending on any material object? — Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle's Self-Thinking Thought is a good example. Its sole activity is complete self-awareness. (I do not conceive of God as so isolated, but Aristotle did.) So, I would classify them as intentional, not material beings. Lacking matter, they have no potential to be other than what they are and so are immutable.

If it ever ceased to be in the vase, it would cease to be the form of the vase. — Dfpolis

This is not true though. It is how we have conceptions, blue prints, plans, these are forms of things which are not in the material thing which they are the form of. — Metaphysician Undercover

Our idea of a vase is a projection both the matter and form of a vase. We know that a vase shape is not a vase. Only that form in the right kind of matter is a vase. For example, forcing a gas or liquid into that shape would not make a vase. At the same time, the concept of a vase does not specify the kind of solid a vase is made of.

Also, it is an abstraction, not the actual shape of any one vase. The form of a Ming dynasty vase is not the form of an Art Deco vase, still both evoke the concept <vase>.

Of course, real vases, the concept of vases and blueprints for vases are all related, but they are not the same. The form of any actual vase has detail abstracted away in the concept <vase>. Blueprints are two dimensional while vases are three dimensional. So, again, while related, the form embodied in the blueprint is different from the form of any actual vase.

So, there is no single entity, no reified form, that passes from plan to physical vase to concept.

So the "form of the vase", without the accidents of the material vase, exists independently of the material vase. — Metaphysician Undercover

Look at this in a different way. Food, people and a urine sample can al be said to be healthy, but they are said so in different, but related senses -- by an analogy of attribution. Food is healthy, not because it is alive and well, but because it contributes to the health of those who eat it. A urine sample is not not alive and well either, but it can be a sign of good health. The meaning of "health" in these three cases is not the same (not univocal), but it is not entirely unrelated either.

In the same way, the "form" in a plan is not the same as the form of a real vase, but, as food contributes to health, the plan contributes to the making of a vase. In the same way, the "form" in the concept is not the same as the form in the vase, but it is a sign of the form of the vase. Thus, we are not dealing with one form moving from plan to implementation to cognition, but with three, dynamically related, analogically predicated, kinds of form

Something immaterial can be completely inseparable from matter... — Dfpolis

You keep insisting on this, and I've asked you to justify this assertion, which you have not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I do insist on this because being mentally distinguished is not being physically separated. I have also explained it to the best of my ability, but you insist that I fit my explanation to your Platonic preconceptions. As with our discussion of hyle, my view is never going to fit your Platonism. All I can do is ask you to put aside your commitment to Platonism and consider the facts of the matter without preconception. If you cannot do that, we had best agree to disagree.

If something is completely inseparable from something else, then it cannot be identified as a distinct thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hurray! That is why I am not a Platonist or a Cartesian dualist. Distinct concepts need not imply distinct "things" -- only different notes of intelligibility in the same thing -- like rubber and sphericity in a ball.

If B is material, then by the law of non-contradiction, it is impossible that A is immaterial because this would indicate that the same thing is both material and immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. Even formally, your argument makes no sense. As long as A and B are not identical, there is no reason they can't have contrary attributes. Being rubber is not being spherical, but a ball can be both. Rubber is material, but it is a category error to ask what sphericity is made of. Still, there is no contradiction in the ball being both spherical and rubber.

The reason this works is because logical atomism is nonsense. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between independent concepts and the things that instantiate them. One thing can instantiate many logically distinct concepts.

In order to provide that the immaterial is united with the material, you must allow that they are separable, and identifiable as distinct and separable parts, to avoid violation of the law of non-contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

They need to be logically distinct. They need not be separable in reality.

it can exist apart from matter, it is called "spiritual." — Dfpolis

Should I assume that for you, immaterial realities which are independent of matter, are "spirits" then? How is a spirit not a form? Why do you assume that a spirit, which is immaterial, can exist independently of matter, but a form, which is immaterial cannot exist independently of matter Do you think that a form is a type of spirit, or that a spirit is a type of form, since you class them both as immaterial? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, I am defining a term, not making an existence claim.

So, I am not "assuming" anything here. I am saying if something can exist independently of matter, then I'm going to call it "spiritual."

Forms, like the form of a vase or a mouse, have one defining characteristic: to inform the matter of the vase or the mouse. If there is not matter to be informed, then they cannot be what they are.

For some aspect of reality to be independent of matter (for me to call it "spiritual"), it must have at least one function that it can perform without matter. For example, if humans can know something independently of matter, they have a spiritual aspect. If everything we can do depends on matter, we have no spiritual aspect.

I don't see how a process could possibly have a determinate end. — Metaphysician Undercover

I said a determinate end at any point in time. That does not mean the process is over -- only that it is well-defined -- that it has a determine form in time -- and that that determinate form in time is its "end." Of course, if the process is part of a larger system, its end need not be the end of the whole. It can be a means to a higher-level purpose.

You named several natural processes you see as exhibiting purpose. Those processes depend on the operation of the laws of nature. If those laws did not operate in a determinate fashion, spiders could not construct webs to catch food. So, the determinate operation of the laws is means to ends such as you enumerated.

I don't remember your logical propagator approach, could you describe it again for me please. — Metaphysician Undercover

I gave it in my second post on this thread (the third post on page 1). "Logical Propagators" is printed in bold at the beginning of the section.

But order without any indication of an end ought not be mistook for a sign of intentionality — Metaphysician Undercover

We have many reasons to think nature is ordered to ends, but I can't talk about everything at once. I barely squeezed my discussion of evolution into 35 journal pages. ("Mind or Randomness in Evolution," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 -- https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution).

Right, but the point is that to produce a separation in the mind, which is impossible to produce in reality, is to produce a piece of fiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, fictions are statements that do not reflect reality. Our understanding generally reflects reality, but always in an incomplete way. To be incomplete is not to be fictional. All abstractions are projections -- partial understandings, but they may still be adequate to our human needs.

Activity (and change) is a characteristic of particulars, not universals. The number of atoms is simply a function of the water molecule itself, independent of human ideas about it. It is not merely potential information, it is actual information, even if the agent doesn't count the atoms or have a concept of numbers at all. — Andrew M

I'd say that if something is not involved in actual operations, it is entirely potential. So, the fact that the threeness of H2O is not doing anything of its own is sufficient to deny it actuality until it actually informs a mind.

Our discussion reminds me of a past thread entitled Is information physical. I'm curious whether or not you would agree that information is physical, in Rolf Landauer's sense. — Andrew M

I only read this far:

I am questioning whether information, generally speaking, is physical. I do have an argument as to why it not be considered physical, but I have found there is an influential point of view, from a researcher by the name of Rolf Landauer, that information is physical. The reason he says that, is basically because:

whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind. — Wayfarer

This seems to me to be confusing intelligibility with actual information. I follow Claude Shannon in defining information to be the reduction of possibility, and clarify by saying "logical possibility." Before we receive a bit in a message, the bit has been encoded and so in the real order it is actually a 1 or a 0, but to us, who have not yet received it, it is logically possible for it to be either. So, the kind of possibility that information reduces is logical, not physical.

That being so, actual information belongs to the logical, not the real order.

Of course, natural objects have the capacity to inform us. Encountering a horse elicits the idea <horse> not <rock>. But the capacity to inform is not actual informing, it is only intelligibility.

The case for coded messages having intrinsic information is even weaker. For example id we are using FM, we may decide that a frequency lower than the carrier is a 0 and a frequency higher is a 1, or we may decide the reverse. The signal has no idea what convention is being used, and so does not know if it means yes or no. The same is true of computer states. where not only is bit encoding arbitrary, but the order of bits in a byte or word is as well (are we to read bits right to left or left to right?).

So physical states can be intelligible, either intrinsically (as with horses) or conventionally (as with encoding). They are not, however, actual information until they act to reduce the logical possibilities open to some intellect.

I told you, a work of music, or art. It must be a sign because it has meaning, as is evident from the emotions which it arouses. — Metaphysician Undercover

Emotions are not meanings in the intellectual sense... — Dfpolis

No, they aren't. But when humans encounter or consider meanings which they find to be significant, they become emotionally attached to them. So the presence of these emotions is evidence that the humans involved have recognised meaning. OK? :chin:

Meaning that is not emotional is a game of signs and simulacra.

Let me begin by saying that I've never had much interest in post-Kantian European philosophy, so you can't count on me to know the detailed positions of many of the luminaries. (I've tried reading many, but what they said did not seem central or grab my attention -- perhaps because I'd already dismissed Descartes, Lockean presuppositions and Kantian speculations.)

i'm more subject-oriented -- trying to understand reality rather than theories and personalities. So, I know a fair amount about traditional logic (formal and material), science, the philosophy of nature, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, ontology and fundamental issues in ethics, and much less about speculative metaphysics, existentialism and post modernism.

I am not the type to just regurgitate or resort to dogma. — Blue Lux

Excellent. The primary question in my mind is how adequate theories are to the full range of human experience.

consciousness is a type of being, but is separate from just any type of being, like that of the phone I am typing on. There is a difference between the being that has being as a question and the being that being would question. — Blue Lux

We need to be very careful in using "separate." I try to reserve the word for things that can be physically separated. Separate can also mean "dynamically independent" -- that the things we're talking about cannot interact. So, if you start by saying "consciousness is separate," you can create a lot of problems not found in reality. For example: (1) If there is no interaction between consciousness and the rest of existence, how can we know the rest of existence? (2) If they are separate, how our decisions have physical effects (the mind body problem. (3) Less obviously, we know ourselves in knowing the other. I only know that I can be aware because I am aware of objects. I only know that I can will because I will to do things. Thus, self knowledge is very problematic if our consciousness is separate.

A better term is "distinct." It means that the aspect of reality we are thinking about elicits a different concept than some other aspect of reality. The shape of a ball is distinct from its material, but shape and material are inseparable.

I see the questioning-being questioned polarity in terms of a subject-object relation. Unless I stand as a subject to some object, I can't question it. -- and that brings me back to the separation issue. Being in a subject-object relation is not being separate, but dynamically united. The subject knowing the object is identically the object being known by the subject. (These are just different ways of considering a single act)

It seems the two are tied together intrinsically, but this connection or entanglement is not transparent. — Blue Lux

Yes, they are, but no, it's not transparent how. Aristotle discusses this in De Anima iii in one of the most difficult passages in Western philosophy. He concludes that knowing is the joint (simultaneous) actualization of two distinct potentials. Before we are aware of an object, it is intelligible (has the potential to be known), but not actually known. At the same time, we have the potential to be informed, but are not actually informed (about the object). In coming to know, both potentials are made actual by the same act: the object becomes actually known and the subject actually knows in virtue of a single act. Thus, subject and object are united in the act of knowing. That means there is no separation to be bridged by some speculation.

Philosophical thought up until now, I think, takes for granted the conclusions made by Descartes about the subject, and furthermore about objectivity. — Blue Lux

Only post-Cartesian thought. Aristotelian and Thomistic thought has always seen Descartes as ignorant of the tradition and so confused. Doubt, in Descartes's sense, is not an act of intellect, but of will. Descartes writes that he was in his chamber, and so he knew his actual situation, but by an act of will, he chose to suspend belief in what he knew. As knowing is an act of intellect, not will, Descartes method did not challenge his knowledge, but his belief (his commitment to the truth of what he, in fact, knew.)

Modern philosophy wants to make knowledge a species of belief: "(causally) justified true belief," but it is not. I can know I'm in my room, as Descartes did, and choose not to believe it. I can go to a play or movie, know the events portrayed are fictional, but willingly suspend my disbelief to "enter into" the drama. In the primary sense, knowledge is an act of intellect, belief (and doubt), acts of will.

There is this contention that consciousness is a subject and the world is outside of consciousness as object. This seems obvious. — Blue Lux

Not to me. If I'm aware of seeing an apple, I have information on the apple as my intended object (the objective object), but the same act also informs me that I can see and be aware. Thus, I am also informed about myself (as the subjective object).

At the same time, the world is acting on and in me, informing me. If it did not, how could I be informed? The apple acts on me, penetrating me dynamically (existentially if you will). My representation of the apple is identically the apple informing me about itself. The representation is both mine and the apple's. The apple's modification of my sensory system is identically my sensory system being modified/informed by the apple. These are not two things, but the same thing being conceptualized in two different ways.

Kant has shown this is illusory. Being is not a predicate: being is the foundation of such a statement and is not a quality that one can have or lack — Blue Lux

Kant was hardly the first to recognize this. Aquinas is quite firm on the point.

Consciousness is what it is conscious of; however, it always escapes itself. — Blue Lux

When we are conscious of something, we are in a state of partial identity with the object we are conscious of (as I explained above). Still, consciousness does not escape us. We are aware that we are conscious -- that we have the power to be aware. There is no more to consciousness than that. There is no hidden power to be discovered. Consciousness is just a contingent fact of reality, viz. that we can be subjects in relation to objects.

Consciousness is not a thing. — Blue Lux

Right. It is a power humans have.

How is there something finite and singular that one can be aware of instead of simply everything? — Blue Lux

As Aristotle noted, things (substance = ousia) are ostensible unities. Systems with interdependent aspects. As we have finite minds and finite sensory capacity, we do not interact with everything equally, but focus on things we can point out (ostensible unities). The presence of physical things is mediated, and so more distant objects have less impact on us.

"Nothing is finite without an infinite reference point." This infinite reference point is consciousness. — Blue Lux

I think this is just word play. We have finite minds, and so we cannot grasp infinity per se. If we cannot and do not grasp infinity, it can't be a reference point.

We come to an understanding of infinity by the via negativa -- we start with knowledge of limited being, and then deny or mentally remove the limits. This leaves us without any positive concept of the infinite -- only the idea of removing determinations. As determinations inform us, the result is information-free.

Consciousness is 'founded' upon nothingness, and only upon this foundation can anything be. This is why we ask the question of why anything exists when it doesn't seem to have to exist, because consciousness, this transphenomenal being of 'the subject', is not unless it is (of) something it is not. — Blue Lux

Aristotle seems to have been the first to note that our intellect had to be determination free if it is to receive its determination from its objects. That does not make it non-being, but no determinate thing. It is not non-being because it is a power that is operative. If it were non-existent, if could not operate to make intelligibility actually understood.

This is what leads Aristotle to distinguish the active and passive intellects. The active intellect is our awareness -- our determinate power to make intelligibility actually known, The passive intellect is what is determination-free. It is our determination-free capacity to receive information.

This is why Husserl's Intentionality is so significant. — Blue Lux

As I pointed out, Aristotelians never had this problem. We always saw knowing as the union of knower and known described above

Consciousness is 'founded' upon nothingness, and only upon this foundation can anything be. — Blue Lux

I have no idea what this can mean. To be is to be able to act in some way. Consciousness is not a thing because it does not stand alone, Human consciousness is a power discovered in the organic whole that is a human person. So, it it is founded on anything, it is founded on a web of dynamic relationships.

Knowledge of something is inevitably infinite. — Blue Lux

No, all human knowledge is a projection (a dimensionally diminished map) of reality. To demand that it be exhaustive is to make Divine Omniscience the paradigm of human knowing. (I call this the "Omniscience Fallacy.") "Knowing" names something real humans actually do. The role of philosophy is not to deny that we do something we call "knowing," but to illuminate what is involved in doing it.

One can not absolutely know an object so to be that object. This is why the primacy of knowledge is an illusion. — Blue Lux

I have no idea what primacy you are denying here. Of course we cannot know or be known if we do not exist, so existence is prior to knowing -- an insight that goes back at least to Augustine. Still, we cannot will if we don't know the existential situation, so clearly knowing is prior to willing -- something also seen by Augustine.

This is not to say that we do not know anything, but that we know the Nothingness that is the foundation of our being so to have a conception of what we are not — Blue Lux

We do not "know nothingness" because it has no intelligibility to be actualized by our awareness, and it is impossible for nothingness to be a foundation because it no power to support anything. We know being, and then, by negation, come to understand the absence of being. So, our notion of nothingness is quite derivative and absolutely dependent on first grasping the notion of existence. To say that it can be the foundation of anything is unreflective word play.

So what are we if there is no absolute subject? — Blue Lux

I have no idea, again, what being an "absolute subject" could even mean. To be a subject is to be one pole in a subject-object relationship. To be an absolute subject, we would have to be an unrelated relatum. So, the idea is oxymoronic. We know ourselves in the act of thinking of the other.

In knowing thyself or knowing anything it seems that an ascertaining of infinity is essential. — Blue Lux

How can a finite mind know infinity? Only by first knowing what limits are, and then denying them. So, again, any knowledge of infinity is derivative on a prior knowledge of the finite.

The appearance of something does not hide the reality of that thing. It shows the series of its appearances: it is in itself an infinite series of appearances, contained finitely within an appearance. One can ascertain something, and thus apprehend its essence, which is its existence. The essence of existence is existence. — Blue Lux

Yes, appearance does not hide, but reveals a things essence -- not exhaustively, but in part.

I have suggested elsewhere on this forum, that existence is the bare capacity to act (to do any act), and essence is the specification of a thing's ability to act. When something acts to reveal itself - to present an appearance -- it is doing one of its possible acts and so is informing us of part of what it can do, an aspect of its essence. It could act, and appear, forever, and never exhaust its repertoire of possible acts -- even if it is a finite being -- for it may it may continually find itself in new contexts and relationships. So, even the most humble thing can be a source of constant surprise.

Because existence is indeterminate -- the unspecified ability to act -- and essence is normally limiting (a finite being can do this, but not that), the essence and existence of finite beings is never the same, it is always distinct. Since an infinite being can do any logically possible act, its essence does not limit its existence, So, for an infinite being essence and existence are identical -- the unrestricted ability to act.

the active and the passive is fundamentally athropomorphic — Blue Lux

Not at all. The active is what actualizes a potency, and the passive is what has its potency actualized. No potency can be self-actualizing because it does not yet exist. And, surely, the actualization of a potency is an act and so requires existence. There is nothing anthropomorphic in one thing having existence prior to another.

Our being is not something active or passive, the result of something or its own cause. It is uncreated — Blue Lux

If we were uncreated, we would never have come to be. As it is, we were potential and now are actual, actualized by beings that were fully operational when we were merely potential. Further, our next moment of existence is as potential as our first once was, and so we require on-going actualization (creatio continuo).

Which is precisely what Descartes wished to do... Found being upon the primacy of knowledge. — Blue Lux

This does a disservice to Descartes, who was a poor philosopher, but not that bad. The primacy of knowledge in Descartes is epistemological, not ontological. Cogito is not the dynamic origin of sum, but its sign.

For is it not true that what can happen will happen? — Blue Lux

No. Definitely not. You can got to the store at a certain hour, and you can stay home at that same hour. You will not do both at that hour. You may do neither.

Emotions are not meanings in the intellectual sense... — Dfpolis

No, they aren't. But when humans encounter or consider meanings which they find to be significant, they become emotionally attached to them. So the presence of these emotions is evidence that the humans involved have recognised meaning. OK? — Pattern-chaser

Yes, art my be redolent of emotional events that are very meaningful to the person. But, that meaning comes from within. It is not latent in the art. The art is not a carrier, but a trigger.

Of the ones I enumerated, I would only call Platonic Ideas "independent forms," and, as you know, I have no reason to think Platonic Ideas exist. — Dfpolis

OK, so you do not believe that immaterial things exist. I assume also that you do not believe that they are real. So I have assigned the name "materialist" to you. But then you claimed that immaterial things do exist, in an inseparable union with material things. I've explained why this is illogical, and you have yet to reply to this problem. So I'm back to the designation of materialist. You really do not believe in immaterial things.

So, again, while related, the form embodied in the blueprint is different from the form of any actual vase.

So, there is no single entity, no reified form, that passes from plan to physical vase to concept. — Dfpolis

Right, now consider what you've said here. Is the form of the vase, in the sense of the blueprint for it, or conception of it, not independent of the material vase? If you agree that it is independent, then you ought to allow that the form of the vase is separable from the material vase. And, as is evident in the case of blue prints, the form precedes the existence of the material vase, so the form is independent from the material vase, in an absolute sense. In no way is it dependent on the material vase. But, as a "cause" of existence of the material vase, we must assign to this independent form some sort of actuality, real existence.

In the same way, the "form" in a plan is not the same as the form of a real vase, but, as food contributes to health, the plan contributes to the making of a vase. In the same way, the "form" in the concept is not the same as the form in the vase, but it is a sign of the form of the vase. Thus, we are not dealing with one form moving from plan to implementation to cognition, but with three, dynamically related, analogically predicated, kinds of form — Dfpolis

I agree that the form which is the plan for the vase is not the same as the form which is in the material vase, because it does not contain the accidents which are proper to the material existence of a vase. Clearly we cannot say that the two distinct "forms" of the vase, the independent immaterial form, and the one which is united to the matter are "the same" in a strict sense as required by the law of identity, unless we can demonstrate continuity of the form, and show that being united to matter is just a change.. But this is not what is at issue here. The question is whether the form can exist independently of the material thing, Clearly it does, in the case of the plan for the thing. And, since the existence of this plan or form is supported by the human mind and soul (as attributes), which are elements of spirituality (and you assume these to be true independent, immaterial existents), then why is not the independent form an immaterial existent?

All I can do is ask you to put aside your commitment to Platonism and consider the facts of the matter without preconception. If you cannot do that, we had best agree to disagree. — Dfpolis

I've put that commitment to Platonism aside, and I've told you the logical problem with your description, irrelevant of any Platonism. It is because of this logical problem, which you still have not addressed, that I cannot accept your position.. If two things (such as matter and form) are united in such a way that it is impossible to separate them, then your claim that they are distinct things is invalid. There is only one unit here, a material entity, and your claim that there is matter and form is unjustified because one cannot be separated from the other.

They need to be logically distinct. They need not be separable in reality. — Dfpolis

As I said, if your logical principle is not supported by reality, then all you have is fiction. Why would I adopt, as an ontological principle, a designated fiction, something which is not only unsupported by observable reality, but stated to be impossible in reality? That would be ridiculous.

I said a determinate end at any point in time. — Dfpolis

There is no such thing as a point in time. That would make time discontinuous, but time is continuous. By the time you say "now", it is already a later time. If your "determinate end", or "well-defined" process, requires a point in time, then you need to reconsider.

No, fictions are statements that do not reflect reality. — Dfpolis

Correct, and that was my point. You claim that matter and form are logically separable, but not separable in reality. Therefore your separation of a material object into matter and form is pure fiction. This is why, even when I put aside any form of Platonism, I cannot accept your principles You insist that your separation of matter and form is fictional. So we're left with one thing, the material object. If you fess up to your materialism, and argue materialism, without the claim that there is something immaterial united to the material object, then you'd have a more consistent argument and a better chance at convincing me.

gave it in my second post on this thread (the third post on page 1). "Logical Propagators" is printed in bold at the beginning of the section. — Dfpolis

I don't see how your logical propagator argument can be used to conclude that if there is order then there is intentionality. You need to demonstrate that there cannot be order without an end. Your propagator argument seems to assume that if there is an end there is intentionality, but it doesn't account for the problem which I brought to your intention, that order doesn't necessitate the conclusion of an end.

Of the ones I enumerated, I would only call Platonic Ideas "independent forms," and, as you know, I have no reason to think Platonic Ideas exist. — Dfpolis

OK, so you do not believe that immaterial things exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

After my previous experience with you, and reading this response, I have decided that you are either arguing in bad faith or are constitutionally incapable of grasping the points I am making. In either case, it is my prudential judgement that responding to you further is a waste of my valuable time.

""

How can we know that there is a being of anything other than consciousness, for is that not the 'method' by which anything supposedly 'other' materializes at all? — Blue Lux

<Self> and <other> are concepts elicited by different notes of intelligibility in our experience. Expressing these concepts with different words (for example labeling instances of both concepts "other" or labeling them "self") does not change the fact that notes of intelligibility that evoke the <self> concept do not evoke the <other> concept, and vice versa. No mediation is required to grasp that <other> is identical to <not self>, and so no "method" is required to justify intermediate steps.

I think it is true that consciousness is consciousness only (of) something it is not — Blue Lux

If this were so, then we would be unaware that we are conscious of the other.

I am questioning whether information, generally speaking, is physical. I do have an argument as to why it not be considered physical, but I have found there is an influential point of view, from a researcher by the name of Rolf Landauer, that information is physical. The reason he says that, is basically because:

"whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind."
— Wayfarer

This seems to me to be confusing intelligibility with actual information. I follow Claude Shannon in defining information to be the reduction of possibility, and clarify by saying "logical possibility." Before we receive a bit in a message, the bit has been encoded and so in the real order it is actually a 1 or a 0, but to us, who have not yet received it, it is logically possible for it to be either. So, the kind of possibility that information reduces is logical, not physical. — Dfpolis

But Shannon's definition of 'information' was wholly and solely concerned with what is required to encode and transmit information. And the same can be said about most of the discussion about information in computer science and information technology. I don't think Shannon has anything like a general definition of information outside that context, and I don't know if it is possible to arrive at one, as the term itself is polysemic, i.e. its meaning varies, depending on the context and intention.

I know there is a tendency to say that 'information' can now be designated as a kind of explanatory sub-stratum underlying life, the universe and everything. On the one hand, this is typical of the approach of systems theory and semiotics. But the fact that biological systems encode and transmit information has also been used by intelligent design advocates as an argument for an originating intelligence (summarised here.)

In any case, the thread that the above quote was taken from was concerned with a metaphysical question, not a question about information science as such. The argument revolves around the idea that the same information can be represented in a variety of ways. On that basis, I argue that the information and the physical representation are separable - because you can exactly specify the content of some proposition, whilst varying the manner and medium of its representation. Rational intelligence is what enables the human mind to do this, and we do it quite instinctively, taking it for granted in some sense. But the faculty which does this, is not itself physical - in fact, it seems closely related to Aristotle's intuition of the 'active intellect'.


So as that is not a physical capability, then it suggests a form of dualism, which is close in some respects to hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism. It was in that context that I discovered the Brennan quote on 'sensible and intelligible form' that we have previously discussed.

As far as I'm concerned, mine is a novel metaphysical argument, although I would be happy to be proven wrong in this regard.

But Shannon's definition of 'information' was wholly and solely concerned with what is required to encode and transmit information. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree that Shannon was concerned with data transmission. That does not mean that, having abstracted a concept of information, that definition expressing that concept is inapplicable to other realms of discourse. If I actually inform you that your house is on fire, then the possibility that it is not on fire is eliminated, and so what is logically possible to you is reduced. This is a consequence of the Principle of Excluded Middle, which may be thought of as justifying logical possibility, and the Principle of Contradiction, that reduces it once we are informed.

the term itself is polysemic, i.e. its meaning varies, depending on the context and intention. — Wayfarer

Yes, most terms can be analogously predicated. The question is: Is being polysemic relevant here? When Landauer said ""whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind," was he using "information" in a different sense? I do not see that he was. He, like Shannon, is discussing encoded information. If you think they mean different things, please say what differences you see.

the fact that biological systems encode and transmit information has also been used by intelligent design advocates as an argument for an originating intelligenc — Wayfarer

the fact that biological systems encode and transmit information has also been used by intelligent design advocates as an argument for an originating intelligence — Wayfarer

I am familiar with ID, and don't think that it's a cogent attack on evolution. On the other hand, naturalists are certainly wrong in saying that evolution shows that nature is mindlessly random or that order can emerge from ontologically random processes. I take a middle ground in my paper "Mind or Randomness in Evolution," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution).

The argument revolves around the idea that the same information can be represented in a variety of ways. — Wayfarer

I agree: it can be.

the faculty which does this, is not itself physical - in fact, it seems closely related to Aristotle's intuition of the 'active intellect'. — Wayfarer

Yes.

So as that is not a physical capability, then it suggests a form of dualism, which is close in some respects to hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the logical independence of intellectual (intentional) and physical operations does not justify substance dualism a la Descartes. There is no reason a unified human person cannot act both intentionally and physically.

mine is a novel metaphysical argument, although I would be happy to be proven wrong in this regard. — Wayfarer

I do not recall seeing the independence of information on media used in this kind of complete argument previously, although many people, including me, have pointed out that information is independent of medium.

When Landauer said ""whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind," was he using "information" in a different sense? I do not see that he was. — Dfpolis

Again he is using 'information' in terms specific to 'information science' whereas I'm considering it in a broader and more philosophical sense and in relation to the metaphysics of meaning rather than information science as such.

The example I gave in the OP was that of the transmission of a single item of information across different kinds of media - semaphore, morse code, and written text. My argument is that the fact that the same information can be represented in such vastly different ways, says something very important about the nature of abstraction and representation, and indeed reason, which is generally taken for granted or not noticed.

This is an understanding that is still preserved in Neo-Thomism; a Maritain essay I have been referring to recently articulates this point, when he says 'what the Empiricist speaks of and describes as "sense-knowledge" is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously introduced intellective ingredients; sense-knowledge in which he has made room for reason without recognizing it.'

This 'extra ingredient' is itself reason, which is not explained by science, but which science relies on. It is nowadays almost universally assumed that science understands the origin of reason in evolutionary terms but in my view, this trivialises reason by reducing it to biology (a point which is central to Thomas Nagel's argument in his essays in The Last Word as well as in his most recent book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False .)

naturalists are certainly wrong in saying that evolution shows that nature is mindlessly random or that order can emerge from ontologically random processes. — Dfpolis

But that is the main point of contention between naturalism and its critics. In other words, to accept the truth of that, is to reject naturalism. (Again, Nagel questions naturalism's claims in this regard whilst not accepting a necessarily theistic alternative; he proposes a kind of naturalistic teleology, although that is enough for the mainstream to categorise him alongside with young-earth creationism :-) )

the logical independence of intellectual (intentional) and physical operations does not justify substance dualism a la Descartes. There is no reason a unified human person cannot act both intentionally and physically. — Dfpolis

I think the problem with Descartes' dualism is that it incorrectly reifies or "objectifies" the "thinking subject". This leads directly to Gilbert Ryle's "ghost in the machine" criticism and has become a fundamental component of modern materialism, by depicting the nature of mind in a way that is impossible to defend. This criticism of Descartes is spelt out in Husserl's Crisis of the European Sciences. But nevertheless, my view is that mind/body or mental/physical is a real duality so I'm a lot nearer to dualism than the alternatives.

There is no reason a unified human person cannot act both intentionally and physically. — Dfpolis

But that is still a dualistic way of expressing it. The scientific question is how to actually model that functional unity ... which is based on some essential distinction between the informational and material aspects of being.

For what it's worth, I say this has been answered in the life sciences by biosemiotics. Howard Pattee's epistemic cut and Stan Salthe's infodynamics are formal models of how information can constrain material dissipation or instability. We actually have physical theories about the mechanism which produces the functional unity.

The example I gave in the OP was that of the transmission of a single item of information across different kinds of media - semaphore, morse code, and written text. — Wayfarer

But also, these are just different ways of spelling out some word. So the analysis has to wind up back at the question of how human speech functions as a constraint on conceptual uncertainty.

Semiotics is about the interpretation of marks. So "information" in the widest sense is about both the interpretation and the marks together - the states of meaning that arise when anchored to some syntactical constraint. A definite physical mark - like a spoken word - is meant, by learnt habit, to constrain the open freedom of thought and experience to some particular state of interpretation.

The Shannon thing is noting that this is what is going on and then boiling it down to discover the physical limit of syntactical constraint itself. So given that any semantics depends on material marks - meaningfulness couldn't exist except to the degree that possible interpretations are actually limited by something "solid" - Shannon asks what is the smallest possible definite physical mark. And the general answer is a bit.

That analysis thus zeroes in on the point at which information and matter can physically connect. It arrives at the level of the mediating sign - the bit that stands between the world and its interpretation.

So it is confused to talk about a "single item of information" being transmitted in different mediums. If these are all just different physical ways of saying the same thing, then it comes back to different ways of "uttering that word". It is thus "uttering words" that is the issue in hand. So how do words stand for ideas? Or rather - rejecting this representationalism - how do words function as signs? As physical marks, that can be intentionally expressed, how do they constrain states of conception to make them just about "some single item"?

This 'extra ingredient' is itself reason, which is not explained by science, but which science relies on. It is nowadays almost universally assumed that science understands the origin of reason in evolutionary terms but in my view, this trivialises reason by reducing it to biology — Wayfarer

Biology ain't trivial. It is amazing complexity.

But anyway, reason is explained by the evolution of grammar. The habit of making statements with a causal organisation - a subject/verb/object structure - imposes logical constraint on the forming of states of conception.

Animals can abstract or generalise. That is what brains are already evolved to do. See the patterns that connect the instances. But with language and its syntactical form - one that embeds a generic cause and effect story of who did what to whom - humans developed a new way to constrain and organise the brain's conceptual abilities. We could learn to construct rational narratives that fit the world into some modelled chain of unfolding events.

So psychological science can explain the evolution of reason. Animals already generalise. Language constrains that holistic form of conception to a linear or mechanical narrative. Life gets squeezed into chains of words. Eventually that mechanical or reductionist narrative form became completely expressed itself as the new habits of maths and logic. Grammar was generalised or abstracted itself. A neat culmination of a powerful new informational trick.

Again he is using 'information' in terms specific to 'information science' whereas I'm considering it in a broader and more philosophical sense and in relation to the metaphysics of meaning rather than information science as such. — Wayfarer

This does not tell me that, or why, Shannon's definition of information does not apply. What specific difference in meaning do you see? Please remember that, as I have pointed out, the possibility by information is logical, not physical, possibility and logical possibility belongs to the order of reason.

This 'extra ingredient' is itself reason, which is not explained by science, but which science relies on. It is nowadays almost universally assumed that science understands the origin of reason in evolutionary terms but in my view, this trivialises reason by reducing it to biology ... — Wayfarer

I agree

quote="Wayfarer;209098"]But that is the main point of contention between naturalism and its critics. In other words, to accept the truth of that, is to reject naturalism[/quote]

That is why the subtitle of my book is The Irrationality of Naturalism,

my view is that mind/body or mental/physical is a real duality so I'm a lot nearer to dualism than the alternatives. — Wayfarer

As always, the devil is in the details. As a moderate realist, I agree that there is a foundation in reality for the concepts of <human intentional acts> and <human physical acts>. So, they indicate really different aspects of the person. Still, these are aspects of a single person, of a single substance.

I reject Descartes's opposition of mind and body. Obviously, the mind is dependent upon, but not fully explained by, the brain. So, the mind is partially of the body. Still, the brain's neural processing capabilities are only one subsystem of the mind. The other, which I call "the intentional subsystem" provides awareness and direction -- intellect and will.

But that is still a dualistic way of expressing it. — apokrisis

Yes, and inescapably so, because we have two orthogonal (non-overlapping) concepts. Such concepts cannot both indicate the same aspect of reality -- the same notes of intelligibility.

The scientific question is how to actually model that functional unity — apokrisis

"Scientific" in the old sense that includes philosophical analysis, not in the modern sense of being in the domain of natural science. My discussion ot the fundamental abstraction shows why this is so.

That said, I do have a model, discussed at length in my book, and in more popular form in my video "#21 The Two Subsystem Mind" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWuS8DXc1l0).

I say this has been answered in the life sciences by biosemiotics. Howard Pattee's epistemic cut and Stan Salthe's infodynamics are formal models of how information can constrain material dissipation or instability. — apokrisis

But intellect and will do far more than "constrain material dissipation or instability." They have the power to actualize intelligibility and to make one of a number of equally possible alternatives actual while reducing the others to impossibility.

these are just different ways of spelling out some word. — apokrisis

No, they are not. The are ways of encoding the same information in irreducibly different media -- thus showing that information is invariant with respect to differences in the physical properties of its material substrate.

So the analysis has to wind up back at the question of how human speech functions as a constraint on conceptual uncertainty. — apokrisis

This is just backwards. Thought is temporally and logically prior to its linguistic expression. If this were not so, we would never have the experience of knowing what we mean, but not finding the right words to express it. If we only thought in terms of existing language, we would never need to coin new words. And so, language itself would never have come into existence -- for it began when our ancestors first expressed their thought in protowords and found them understood.

So "information" in the widest sense is about both the interpretation and the marks together — apokrisis

...

So given that any semantics depends on material marks - meaningfulness couldn't exist except to the degree that possible interpretations are actually limited by something "solid" — apokrisis

And where does thought not expressed in marks or sounds fit into your theory? I have just shown its priority, but it finds no place in your model.

As physical marks, that can be intentionally expressed, how do they constrain states of conception to make them just about "some single item"? — apokrisis

By convention.

Biology ain't trivial. It is amazing complexity. — apokrisis

No one is denying that. Still, it is only biology, and so it has noting to say about thought per se -- and neither does semiotics, which assumes the capacity to interpret, to know concepts and judgements.

But anyway, reason is explained by the evolution of grammar. — apokrisis

Again, just backward of what history and careful reflection show. As I have shown in other posts, the cupola "is" expresses our awareness of the identity of the source of the linked concepts.

Animals can abstract or generalise — apokrisis

This is confused. Animals and neural nets can generalize by association. Forming associations is not abstracting. Generalization is a kind of unconscious induction on the Hume-Mill model -- effectively assuming that other instances will be like the ones we've already encountered. Abstraction is conceptual and so never unconscious, and it does not generalize by adding the assumption of similarity, but by subtracting irrelevant notes of intelligibility. See my video "#35 Induction and Abstraction" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvqcL9LILiA).

So psychological science can explain the evolution of reason. — apokrisis

Please! Reason requires consciousness -- almost universally recognized as the "Hard Problem," and one shown by Dennett to have no solution on naturalistic assumptions.

Eventually that mechanical or reductionist narrative form became completely expressed itself as the new habits of maths and logic. — apokrisis

This is entirely inadequate. If math we just a habit, then 2+2=4 would be true usually and occasionally wrong. In fact, 2+2=4 always and everywhere. If logic were only a habit, there would be no fundamental reason why you not both exist and not exist at one and the same time in one and the same way.

reason is explained by the evolution of grammar. The habit of making statements with a causal organisation - a subject/verb/object structure - imposes logical constraint on the forming of states of conception. — apokrisis

As I have said many times, 'the law of the excluded middle' didn't come into existence with h. sapiens. What evolved was the capacity to understand such principles, and it was at that point that h. sapiens began to 'transcend the biological' in some sense. That doesn't mean we don't bleed, feed, breed, etc. But it means that we're also in some profound sense more than just that. Be careful you don't totally cauterize the sense of wonder :-)

Biology ain't trivial. It is amazing complexity. — apokrisis

But that is not the reason that I say that biological reductionism trivialises reason. I'm not saying biology is trivial. The reason is, that viewing reason as an outcome of biology reduces it to a function of survival - which is the only criterion that "makes sense" from a biologists perspective. Which species survive and proliferate and evolve is the whole subject of biological evolution. But to then say that reason (language, abstract thought) can be understood in evolutionary terms reduces it to the functional equivalent of an evolutionary adaption. As Leon Wieseltier says in his review of Dennett's Breaking the Spell

Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.

Which, in turn, is the basis of the 'argument from reason' and Plantinga's 'evolutionary argument against naturalism' and is also a theme in those books of Nagel's that I mentioned. (Particularly his essay Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion.)

it is confused to talk about a "single item of information" being transmitted in different mediums. — apokrisis

What I mean is, the same proposition, idea, formula, or whatever, can be represented in different symbolic systems, and in different media - digital, analog or even semaphore. I can't see anything confused about that. What I'm arguing is that while in each case the representation is physical, the capacity to understand and interpret the meaning of those signs can't be understood in physical terms. What is doing that, what has that capacity, is not itself physical.

Yes, and inescapably so, because we have two orthogonal (non-overlapping) concepts. — Dfpolis

But what does orthogonality itself mean? They are two non-overlapping directions branching from some common origin.

So that is the secret here. If we track back from both directions - the informational and the material - we arrive at their fundamental hinge point.

This is what physics is doing in its fundamental Planck-scale way. It is showing the hinge point at which informational constraint and material uncertainty begin their division. We can measure information and entropy as two sides of the one coin.

As it happens, biophysics is now doing the same thing for life and mind. The physics of the quasi-classical nanoscale - at least in the special circumstance of "a watery world of watery temperature" - shows the same convergence between information and entropy for the chemically dissipative processes that make life possible.

So this is the unification trick. Finding the scale at which information and entropy are freely inter-convertible. That is what then grounds both their separateness and ability to connect.

Talking about their orthogonality is one thing. But talking about their connection has been the missing piece of the scientific puzzle. That lack of a physicalist explanation has been the source of the mind/body dilemma.

But intellect and will do far more than "constrain material dissipation or instability." They have the power to actualize intelligibility and to make one of a number of equally possible alternatives actual while reducing the others to impossibility. — Dfpolis

What is constraint except the actualising of some concrete possibility via the suppression of all other alternatives?

So intellect and will are just names that you give to the basic principle of informational or semiotic constraint once it has become internalised as some conceptualised selfhood in a highly complex social and biological organism.

This is just backwards. Thought is temporally and logically prior to its linguistic expression. If this were not so, we would never have the experience of knowing what we mean, but not finding the right words to express it — Dfpolis

The old canard. Sure, fully articulated thoughts take time to form. First comes some vague inkling of wanting to begin to express the germ of an idea - a point of view. Then - like all motor acts - the full expression has to take concrete shape by being passed along a hierarchy of increasingly specified motor areas. The motor image has to become fleshed out in all its exact detail - the precise timings of every muscle twitch, the advance warning of how it will even feel as it happens.

And then when thinking in the privacy of our own heads, we don't actually need to speak out loud. Much of the intellectual work is already done as soon as we have that pre-motor stage of development. The inner voice may mumble - and stopping to listen to it can be key in seeing that what we meant to say was either pretty right or probably a bit wrong. Try again. But also we can skip the overt verbalisation if we are skating along from one general readiness to launch into a sentence to the next. Enough of the work gets done flicking across the starting points.

So you want to make this a case of either/or. Either thought leads to speech or speech leads to thought.

The neurobiology of this is in fact always far more complicated and entwined. But at the general level I am addressing the issue, Homo sapiens is all about the evolution of a new grammatical semiotic habit.

Animals think in a wordless fashion. Then "thought" is utterly transformed in humans by this new trick of narratisation.

If we only thought in terms of existing language, we would never need to coin new words. — Dfpolis

Huh? The point about constraints are they limit creative freedoms. But creative freedoms still fundamentally exist. The rules set up the game. Making up new rules or rule extensions can be part of that game.

Semiotics - if you follow the Peircean model - is inherently an open story. It is all about recursion and thus hierarchical development. You can develop as much complexity or intricacy as the situation demands.

And where does thought not expressed in marks or sounds fit into your theory? I have just shown its priority, but it finds no place in your model. — Dfpolis

In your dreams you have. :)

Animals and neural nets can generalize by association. Forming associations is not abstracting. Generalization is a kind of unconscious induction — Dfpolis

Get it right. Generalisation is the induction from the particular to the general. For an associative network to achieve that, it has to develop a hierarchical structure.

As always, the devil is in the details. As a moderate realist, I agree that there is a foundation in reality for the concepts of <human intentional acts> and <human physical acts>. So, they indicate really different aspects of the person. Still, these are aspects of a single person, of a single substance. — Dfpolis

I don't understand this division between intentional acts and physical acts. Isn't it the case that many physical acts are intentional? And, aren't all intentional acts physical because we cannot conceive of non-physical activity? How could an act be non-physical? Don't you find this distinction to be very impractical?

But what does orthogonality itself mean? They are two non-overlapping directions branching from some common origin. — apokrisis

When I say that two concepts are orthogonal, I mean that they do not share notes of intelligibility. So, they are not species of a single genus. If there is a common origin it is the null concept -- i.e. ignorance.

So that is the secret here. If we track back from both directions - the informational and the material - we arrive at their fundamental hinge point. — apokrisis

Not in terms of intelligibility which has to do with essence (specification). What thye have in common is existence, and we can trace it to God as its Source.

This is what physics is doing in its fundamental Planck-scale way. It is showing the hinge point at which informational constraint and material uncertainty begin their division. — apokrisis

There is no reason to think that things are ontologically indeterminate at Plank scales, only that our concepts break down -- which is an epistemological, not an ontological, problem.

We can measure information and entropy as two sides of the one coin — apokrisis

Actually we can't measure anything -- that is the epistemological problem.

biophysics is now doing the same thing for life and mind. — apokrisis

No, it's not. There is no naturalistic model of consciousness and no hint of one.

Finding the scale at which information and entropy are freely inter-convertible — apokrisis

You are confusing information as a logical concept with entropy which is a property of physical states. Entropy does not need to be known to play its role. information does. The fact that they share a common mathematical framework does not make them any more identical than apples and oranges. They also share a common math -- we can count them both.

That lack of a physicalist explanation has been the source of the mind/body dilemma. — apokrisis

No. Thinking that there is a physicalist explanation is the fundamental error -- as I showed in my discussion of the fundamental abstraction.

What is constraint except the actualising of some concrete possibility via the suppression of all other alternatives? — apokrisis

Constraint is not actualization. It is the reduction of (physical - not logical) possibility.

So intellect and will are just names that you give to the basic principle of informational or semiotic constraint — apokrisis

No, they are not. They do different things. So the difference here is ontological, not semantic.

fully articulated thoughts take time to form. — apokrisis

If thoughts took a nanosecond or an eon to form the problem would be the same. We can have determinate ideas for which there are no words. That is why language grows. New concepts require new words.

Then - like all motor acts — apokrisis

Ideogenesis is not a "motor act." It is the actualization of intelligibility. No movement can explain it. I suggest you read Dennett's misnamed Consciousness Explained. In it he shows why naturalistic assumptions are incompatible with the data of consciousness -- effectively falsifying naturalism wrt mind.

when thinking in the privacy of our own heads, we don't actually need to speak out loud. — apokrisis

Nor do we need to "speak" to ourselves. That is why we can have thoughts we lack the words to express.

The inner voice may mumble — apokrisis

Mumbling is having the words, but not enunciating them clearly. It does not explain lacking the words.

So you want to make this a case of either/or. Either thought leads to speech or speech leads to thought. — apokrisis

No. I'm pointing out which is more fundamental. Sure there are cases where words spark thought -- but they are derivative, not fundamental.

Homo sapiens is all about the evolution of a new grammatical semiotic habit. — apokrisis

Thank you for the faith claim.

Making up new rules or rule extensions can be part of that game. — apokrisis

Read what you wrote. If the rules constrain thought, we are constrained from making up new rules. So your theory is incoherent.

In your dreams you have — apokrisis

I do not need to convince you. I only need to make a sound case.

Get it right. Generalisation is the induction from the particular to the general. For an associative network to achieve that, it has to develop a hierarchical structure. — apokrisis

So how does that make it the same as abstraction -- which requires awareness?

Isn't it the case that many physical acts are intentional? — Metaphysician Undercover

The motivation for a physical act is not the act. Some physical acts are intentionally motivated, others are not. The difference is that intentional acts is characterized by "aboutness." They are about something beyond themselves -- a goal to be attained or hoped for, something we know or believe and so on. Physical acts are characterized by motion and change: parts moving and transforming into other parts.

And, aren't all intentional acts physical because we cannot conceive of non-physical activity? — Metaphysician Undercover

We cannotimagine not physical activity. We have no trouble conceiving it. I know pi is an irrational number. There is no change involved in my knowing it per se. Any change is only accidentally associated with it.

How could an act be non-physical? — Metaphysician Undercover

By not involving change in any essential way.

Don't you find this distinction to be very impractical? — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

As I have said many times, 'the law of the excluded middle' didn't come into existence with h. sapiens. — Wayfarer

The LEM really only "exists" as part of a system of thought - the three laws of thought, indeed. And even within logic - as Peirce pointed out - the LEM fails to apply to absolute generality. It's "existence" is parasitic on the principle of identity, or the "reality" of individuated particulars.

If you do share the view that individuation is always contextual - the big theme of Buddhist metaphysics? - then you would likely be keener to stress the socially constructed aspect of the LEM, not its Platonic reality.

The reason is, that viewing reason as an outcome of biology reduces it to a function of survival - which is the only criterion that "makes sense" from a biologists perspective. — Wayfarer

Well, the fact that "reason" had its genesis in evolutionary functionality doesn't really make it any less of a wonder how it has continued to evolve through human culture.

One view is that if mechanical reasoning goes to its own evolutionary limit, that will be expressed in the coming Singularity - the triumph of the age of machine intelligence. So when it comes to the rational elegance of the algorithm, be careful of what you wish for. :)

Of course, my own biosemiotic approach offers the argument against that. Intelligence remains something more organismal. But anyway, I think you are too quick to dismiss biology as "mere machinery" and so that is why you are always looking for something more significant about life.

What I mean is, the same proposition, idea, formula, or whatever, can be represented in different symbolic systems, and in different media - digital, analog or even semaphore. I can't see anything confused about that. — Wayfarer

Again, I think the problem is in calling it "the one thing" as if it were an individuated object. That is where the conflation lies.

A proposition is just some arrangement of words - a sequence of scribbles on a page. And a sentence is marked as starting at the capital letter, stopping at the fullstop. So using an understanding of correct punctuation, we can point to "an item" as if it were an intellectual object.

But that is just pointing at the sign, the marks, the syntax! And what you are interested in is the semantics, the interpretation, the understandings the marks are meant to anchor.

Which is where I say that is all about the contextual constraint of uncertainty. This is the opposite of a concrete object way of thinking.

The meaning of a proposition isn't IN the words being used. Our understanding of what is being proposed is produced by the way we restrict our thoughts in some effective and functional fashion. Seen in a certain contextual light, the collection of marks could seem to stand for some state of affairs.

Uncertainty remains. But what is for sure is how many alternative or contradictory readings we have managed to exclude. Most of the semantic work is about information reduction - how much of the world and its infinite possibilities you can manage to ignore.

So the written or spoken words are quite concrete and definite objects of the physical world. You can point to them, record them, play them back later, translate them into any other equivalent code.

But that is just the syntax - the signs formed to anchor your habits of interpretation.

Interpretance itself is the semantic part of the equation. And it does not exist in the way of a concrete object but as an active state of constraint on uncertainty. It is not a item to be counted one by one. Every sign could have any number of interpretations, depending on what point of view you bring.

Words tend towards limited interpretations because that is how a common language works. We need to learn the same interpretative habits so we can be largely as "one mind" within our culture. But constraint is what produces individuation. And it is a living pragmatic thing.

This leads to the information theoretic definition of information as "mutual information", or other measures where it is the number of bits discarded, or possibilities that are suppressed, which creates semantic weight.

I know a cat is a cat not just because it is cat-like in some Platonic generic sense, but because I am also so sure it isn't anything else in the possible universe. The number of other possibilities I've excluded add to the Bayesian conclusion that it can only be a cat.

As usual, this is the way the brain actually functions. Attention gets focused on ideas by inhibiting every other competing possibility. And this is easy enough to demonstrate through experiment. Thinking about one thing makes the alternatives less accessible for a while.

What I'm arguing is that while in each case the representation is physical, the capacity to understand and interpret the meaning of those signs can't be understood in physical terms. What is doing that, what has that capacity, is not itself physical. — Wayfarer

If science can see matter and information as two faces of the same physics, then why can't it understand even interpretation as a physical act?

We know neurons are doing informational things when they fire. We know they are forming a living model of their world.

Perhaps what we - at the general cultural level - lack is then a way to picture in our heads how informational modelling winds up "feeling like something".

And yet the irony there is we are happy to picture little atoms bumping about and thinking we actually understand "material being" when doing that. Any physicists will say, stop right there. We really have no idea why matter should "be like matter". Sure, we have the equations that work to produce a modelled understanding in terms of numbers that will show up on dials. But we are still stuck at the level of the phenomenal - the umwelt of the scientist.

So my approach is based on accepting that we are only ever going to be modelling - whether talking about matter or mind. The aim becomes to have a coherent physicalist account that is large enough to incorporate both in formal manner.

If science can see matter and information as two faces of the same physics, then why can't it understand even interpretation as a physical act? — apokrisis

Because it's not something describable in physical terms. What if it's 'meaning all the way down'? Even physics turns out to be a mathematical model - and where does the maths reside? What if the Universe is not fundamentally physical in nature? It seems to be pointing in that direction if you ask me.

If you do share the view that individuation is always contextual - the big theme of Buddhist metaphysics? - then you would likely be keener to stress the socially constructed aspect of the LEM, not its Platonic reality. — apokrisis

Buddhism doesn't concern itself with the origin of everything but with the origin of dukkha. That is part of the genius of Buddhism. But it's not entirely relevant in the context of Western culture, as our cultural dialectic grew up very differently to that. I mean, had a Buddhist culture given rise to modern science, then it might have taken a totally different direction to the way it's developed in Western culture (although that is of course a huge digression and I don't propose we explore it here.)

So my approach is based on accepting that we are only ever going to be modelling - whether talking about matter or mind. — apokrisis

And I don't want to say that you're wrong. You approach the subject through a scientific and bio-engineering perspective - as you say! And I've learned a lot of interesting things from it. Your approach is concerned with modelling, with understanding life and mind from the perspective of systems science, evolutionary biology and so on. But my overall philosophy - my 'meta-philosophy' if you like - is in a different kind of register. It is concerned with what in Indian thinking is called 'vimukti' which is another one of those hard-to-translate terms. But I say there are analogies to that in the Western philosophical tradition, so that's what I'm trying to pursue. I get that not everyone (in fact hardly anyone) is on board with that, which why I often think I should refrain from posting here. (But if there's one thing I've always been, it's talkative. I have trouble shutting up. )

- Because it's not something describable in physical terms.

We have very good evolution simulators out there, which you can even run on your cellphone. You can easily see your critters learning to interpret different stimulus in different manners, creating 'meaning' from the interaction with the world.

Evolv.io was really limited, but its the one coming up to mind right now.

- Even physics turns out to be a mathematical model - and where does the maths reside?

This meme need to stop. It lasted long enough already.

- Perhaps what we - at the general cultural level - lack is then a way to picture in our heads how informational modelling winds up "feeling like something".

There is that. As of yet, talk about qualia are always just 'making it up as they go along', even if it is very well informed or sophisticated. We havent decided yet how to talk about it, really.

There is also that, beyond what you put your finger on, we live in an intellectual culture which, for a large part, has decided that since science had not yet said much about qualia, its chance had come and gone, and every other option was equally valid. 60 years of neuroscience and you still dont have an answer as to how neurons firing could produce a 3 dimensional field of view inside the mushy confines of a wet lump of flesh? Then I guess it could be panpsychism? Quantum particules being created in the synaptic cleft? Access to the realm of pure Ideas?

And then there is simply misinformation, or a lack of curiosity about things which might contradict us. While philosophers are still stuck working out colour ontology, scientists and corporate interest have been busy working out the hardware part of colour perception. We can now identify people who have atypical perceptions, even to the point of being able to say that someone can perceive a colour we cant. We can correct many of these atypical situations and give to people colour perceptions they never had before, and know that these corrections bring them closer to typical perception. Slowly but surely, we are figuring out the terms of this new domain, and these terms are purely scientific in nature.