Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. — Dfpolis

It isn't fully exhausted by the physical description though, that's the point. Survival of a living being, and the activities of living beings are not fully described by physical descriptions. The physicalist assumes that these activities could be described by physical description if the sciences advanced to that point. But the fact is that the physical descriptions of these activities remain incomplete. The non-physicalist (dualist) sees the necessity to assume an immaterial soul. If the descriptions were complete, as you suggest, there would be no issue here. But the descriptions are not complete, hence there are options.

What I an asserting is that the concept of matter is orthogonal to the concept of intentionality and so intentional operations cannot be reduced to material operations. Just to be clear, in physics, we distinguish material states from the laws under which they evolve. — Dfpolis

I want to know what you mean by "orthogonal" here. I assume that it means one thing is at a right angle to another. Therefore there is a point where they meet. Do you mean that "matter" and "intention" are two distinct ways of explaining the same thing (the point where they meet)? if so, then why would one not be reducible to a function of the other? Perhaps you mean "parallel", but then how would they interact? In any case, your use of "orthogonal" doesn't make sense to me, can you explain?

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. Our awareness of the state, on the other hand, is both and act in itself and points to the state it is aware of. So, it is intentional, while the original state is not. — Dfpolis

Yes, natural processes have ends, and as a result an intrinsic intentionality. That is the basis for Aquinas' Fifth Way to prove the existence of God and the reason I hold that the laws of nature are intentional realities. So, physicality is partly intentional. I am not denying that. — Dfpolis

Don't these two statements directly contradict each other? In the first, you are saying that the thing described is fully exhausted by the physical description. In the second you are saying that there is no such thing as something which is fully described by the physical description.

The physicalist assumes that these activities could be described by physical description if the sciences advanced to that point. But the fact is that the physical descriptions of these activities remain incomplete. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not this physicalist. Descriptions/explanations and whether they're sufficient etc. are about language, and as language, a large part of that is about meaning/interpretation, which is necessarily subjective. And whether any description/explanation of anything is sufficient, whether it's considered to "actually explain anything" etc. are about individual psychological factors (including and extending beyond language). What's the case ontologically has jackshit to do with anything we do with language (unless we're talking about what's the case ontologically with language, of course). And the whole idea of a "complete description" or "complete explanation" is just nonsensical. It's similar to ideas like "complete knowledge," "complete understanding," etc. Those phrases only reflect ignorance about what descriptions, explanations, knowledge, understanding are.

Still, I see myself often searching for the right word(s) to express what I think, and occasionally fail. Thus, my thoughts have priority over even my internal monologue. — Dfpolis

I relate to an experience like that, but I tend to interpret it in terms of condensation. I'm reluctant to classify this 'cloud' as an actual thought. — sign

Of course this depends on how you define "thought." If you define thought as conceptual ratiocination, as following a chain of well-defined steps, then it is not thought. However, it is meaning and awareness seeking articulation and expression. When I think, <No, that doesn't quite express what I mean> or <No, that's not the right word> I am aware of, I have a prior meaning to be expressed, and it is well-defined because it does not match the words I'm thinking of. In the same way, language grows because our current vocabulary is inadequate to express our meaning. So, we are not entirely limited by language, but see beyond what it can express.

It looks like I'm basically describing a position like James'. Note that 'experience' must change its meaning radically once the idea is grasped. It is a ladder to be thrown away. James has no choice but to use subject-object language in order to be intelligible as he tries to lead subject-object thinking somewhere rich and strange. — sign

I am not sure where that is. There is an identity in subject-object relations. The tree being known by me is, identically, me knowing the tree. These articulations merely express the same activity in alternate ways. So, while subjectivity and objectivity point in different directions -- toward the knower and toward the known -- in the act of knowing they are part of an inseparable act.

Mystics reject the subject-object distinction for their experience. I think it's because they're experiencing the even deeper identity of their existence being maintained by God and God maintaining their existence. Here the identity extends beyond the act of awareness to what we are aware of: God holding us in being.

James was very familiar with mysticism. You can see it not only in The Varieties of Religious Experience, but in his close friendship with Richard Bucke, the Canadian doctor and life-long atheist, who wrote Cosmic Consciousness after his own experience. The quotation you cite shows him struggling against an inadequate materialist framework to articulate this.

In sum, while in everyday, sensory experience, in the experience of limited being, we are justified in maintaining the subject-object distinction, in mystical experience, in awareness of the divine, we are not. We are not because our very existence is a Divine Activity.

One final point, and, I think, an important one. As I said earlier, we can only know potencies in their actualization or in the actualization of analogous cases. Yet, in the case of mystical awareness, however vague, what we are aware of is not a potency, but an activity -- the activity of God holding our potential open to us. In grasping this, we may be able to come to some knowledge of our unactualized potential, not because it is potential, but because it is actually maintained by God.

Thus, in synteresis and in the vague awareness of our potential, I see the on-going activity of God as essential to our self-realization.

Thanks for sharing that. — sign

You are welcome.

My influences are Christian, but this Christianity has passed through the 'fiery brook' of the Left Hegelians. For me the incarnation is central, and I suppose my mysticism inasmuch as I can keep and enjoy it is much like Blake's. — sign

As you may be able to tell, my religious background is Catholic Christian. The Incarnation is the central event, but here I'm writing for a philosophical audience, much of which does not share my beliefs.

Finally, for me religion is higher than politics. 'He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.' 'And He saw that it was good.' — sign

I see politics as an often troubled way of advancing the common good. When it does not, it is corrupt.

I'm sorry but I doubt that; or rather I believe that the idea of 'encoding' must be mistaken here. — Wayfarer

I am not sure why you think that, but OK.

I agree to the extent that neural encoding does not work like any other kind of sign. It is not an instrumental sign. We do not first apprehend our neural state and then infer its meaning. (Some have tried to explain consciousness as a type of proprioception. It is not.) Nor is it a formal sign. Signifying is not all all neural states do. So, the semiology of neural encoding needs further development.

I have an interesting book, 'Why Us?' by James Le Fanu. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the reference. I found this review: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16544-review-why-us-by-james-le-fanu/.

As you can tell, while I accept good science, I too reject the overreaching claims of those who extrapolate beyond what we actually know.

one point is that all of the neural studies which attempted to understand the areas of the brain, or brain processes, involved in learning new words, via fMRI scans, were hopelessly inconclusive. — Wayfarer

I think that we can accept the idea of neural encoding because we know that data is, for example, transmitted from the peripheral senses to the central processing organ. (Aristotle figured this out long ago.) That does not mean either that we know all the mechanisms, or that the mechanisms are instantiated in the same way in every one. (I am thinking of the type vs. token distinction in the theory of neural representation.)

But the correspondence between the brain and the elements of meaning is nothing like that at all. What about people who suffer brain damage, and whose brains re-configure themselves to compensate? — Wayfarer

Clearly, the brain is very adaptable. To say that information is neurally encoded and processed does not mean that it can only be encoded or processed in one way.

But they do cast doubt on the idea of a kind of 1:1 relationship between brain function and content. — Wayfarer

That is not what I mean by "neural encoding."

I think the idea of 'encoding' is what I call a 'rogue metaphor' — Wayfarer

It can be. In my book I spend many pages knocking down false analogies between the mind and computers.

What does 'fully natural' mean here? The whole point about theistic philosophies, which I had the impression you accept, is that there is an element in the human, namely, the soul, which transcends the (merely) natural. — Wayfarer

Not in Thomism. Aristotelians and Thomists define the psyche/anima/soul as "the actuality of a potentially living being." In other words, all we are saying when we say that an organism has a "soul" is the fact that it is alive. That allows the possibility that some residue of life might survive physical death. Still, what survives is, in Aquinas view, not fully human -- only the residue of a fully human being -- say just our intellect (power of awareness) and will (power of commitment).

So, there are material and intentional aspects of unified humans, which are fully natural, but not all that is natural is described by physics for the reasons I outlined in my OP.

Something with which any scholastic philosopher would concur, I would have thought. — Wayfarer

Not as a philosopher, as a theologian. The standard Thomistic view is that humans are fully and completely natural. Unlike many Protestants, we reject the notion of a nature corrupted by original sin. If our nature were corrupt, it would no longer meet the definition of "human nature," so the idea is logically inconsistent.

What we, as Catholic Christians, hold is that what was lost in Original Sin was not intrinsic, but extrinsic -- a special relation to God -- one that empowers us to love unselfishly by drawing on the infinite resource of God. We see the possibility of this relation as restored by the Incarnation and life of Jesus Christ. Finally, when we speak of the "supernatural" mean what is empowered by this extrinsic relationship. "God is love, and whoever abides in love, abides in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16. So, we see cooperation for common ends as natural, but unselfish love as a supernatural act.

Things all share being, but they differ in how they share being. As matter and ideas have non-overlapping definitions, they are different. — Dfpolis

They do have overlapping definitions. They both have causal power. I said that and you agreed, right?

Yes. I am what has changed. One intent ended. Another came to be. I remained. The point in contention was whether there was continuity in the intent rather than in the intending subject. — Dfpolis

Right. So, like I said, intent is to you as color is to the apple. You still have yet to make a clear, coherent distinction between what is "matter" and what is "intent".

I don't understand your use of "intent" anyway. Most people use terms like, "ideas" and "mind" as opposite notions of "matter". In my mind, "intent" is "goal". Goal-oriented behavior is intentional behavior. Intent is your goal in mind that caused the action.

How is any of this an argument against my claim that matter has parts outside of parts? — Dfpolis

You said:

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought. — Dfpolis

If this were the case, then for what reason does the mind bend a straw that isn't bent, or create a pool of water where there isn't one?

Information surely has causes, many of which are material. In my message example, the transmission process is described by physics, but the apprehension of information is not. Nothing described by physics involves awareness per se. — Dfpolis

It seems to me that the apprehension would be just a continuation of the causal sequence. Tree rings still carry information about the age of the tree independent of any mind coming along and being affected by their existence (like becoming aware of their existence). If awareness isn't a form of knowledge about the world, then what is it and why still call it "awareness" if it doesn't fit the definition of "awareness" we already have?

I did not notice this. There is no reason to think that everything with causal power is material in any commonly accepted sense. The laws of nature are unextended and appear to be unchanging, so they have none of the characteristics thought to define material objects. Still they cause physical phenomena to operate as they do.

The common word for anything that can act is "being." — Dfpolis

The "laws of nature" is a human invention. There is just how things are, and then our explanations of how things are (laws of nature). Nature doesn't have laws. Humans have laws. Nature just is. Nature is deterministic if that is what you mean. It is logical.

Also, I haven't used the term, "matter" unless it was to quote you. I don't know what "matter" is, or would be. Everything interacts causally, so I don't understand the distinction being made between "matter" and "intent"/"ideas".

Effects carry information about their causes. Your post is an effect of your idea and your intent to communicate it. My reading it is another causal relationship being established. My response is then another effect of your initial idea's existence, etc., and it all takes time.

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. — Dfpolis

It isn't fully exhausted by the physical description though, that's the point. Survival of a living being, and the activities of living beings are not fully described by physical descriptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I was insufficiently careful. I should have said "fully specified." Obviously, we have no exhaustive understanding of reality. The possibility of surprise is always present. What I meant was that once we give a material state its intrinsic specifications, it is fully defined. Defining something does not exhaust it. On the other hand, when we say what an intention is intrinsically (a hope, desire, belief, etc.) it is not fully specified. We have to say what we hope for, desire to have, believe, etc. -- these are what the intentional states are "about" and it is the need for this additional element of specification that makes them intentional vs. material.

I want to know what you mean by "orthogonal" here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean that they share no notes of comprehension in their definitions. The image I have in mind is from Rudolf Carnap. He imagined a space spanned by independent truths as dimensions. Truths that are independent in this way are orthogonal, and cannot imply each other.

In a more Aristotelian perspective, he points out that the habit of science is finding middle terms -- in other words connection making. Logic is invalid if we have an undistributed middle because then we cannot connect our premises with each other. As there are no connections between orthogonal terms, they cannot be reduced to each other.

I assume that it means one thing is at a right angle to another. — Metaphysician Undercover

It means that they are in different dimensions (of thought). As the origin/starting point is abject ignorance, that is what they have in common.

Do you mean that "matter" and "intention" are two distinct ways of explaining the same thing (the point where they meet)? — Metaphysician Undercover

Material and intentional operations are two distinct ways in which unified humans can act. Thus, we can separate them in thought, but not in reality.

Perhaps you mean "parallel", but then how would they interact? In any case, your use of "orthogonal" doesn't make sense to me, can you explain? — Metaphysician Undercover

Physical reality can be thought of by conceptualizing it as material states transformed by laws of nature. There is a basis in reality for both the concept <material state> and <law of nature>, but neither occurs separately. It is not that they inter-act as separate things (that is what dualists might think). It is rather that these are different ways of thinking about something that is what is is now and has determinate tendency be something else in the future. One and the same thing is, and has the tendency.

In the same way, one and the same human has a neural state and is aware of the contents encoded by that state, or has a commitment and changes its state to work toward that commitment.

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. Our awareness of the state, on the other hand, is both and act in itself and points to the state it is aware of. So, it is intentional, while the original state is not. — Dfpolis

Yes, natural processes have ends, and as a result an intrinsic intentionality. That is the basis for Aquinas' Fifth Way to prove the existence of God and the reason I hold that the laws of nature are intentional realities. So, physicality is partly intentional. I am not denying that. — Dfpolis

Don't these two statements directly contradict each other? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, but I could have been clearer. In physics we abstract physical processes into states conceived as static time slices (matter) and tendencies by which these states evolve into other states over time (laws of nature). The states are fully specified by the values of their dynamic variables (classically, by their energy, momentum, etc., or, quantum mechanically, by their wave functions). So, all physics has to tell us about what reality is at any given time is its intrinsic state specification -- and that is what I am calling the material state.

Still, when we look over time, we see well defined tendencies (the laws of nature) that meet Brentano's aboutness criterion. Just as my intention to go to the store is about me arriving at the store, so the laws that evolve an initial state are about it realizing a final state. So, physical reality is not exhausted by material states, it also has an intentional aspect in the laws of nature.

Things all share being, but they differ in how they share being. As matter and ideas have non-overlapping definitions, they are different. — Dfpolis

They do have overlapping definitions. They both have causal power. I said that and you agreed, right? — Harry Hindu

Things do not have overlapping definitions because they both exist. The basis of definition is not existence, for we can define things with no existence, like unicorns, but what they are (essences).

You still have yet to make a clear, coherent distinction between what is "matter" and what is "intent". — Harry Hindu

I have. Following Brentano, intentions are characterized by aboutness and matter is not. You might also want to look at my last response to Metaphysician Undercover.

I don't understand your use of "intent" anyway. Most people use terms like, "ideas" and "mind" as opposite notions of "matter". In my mind, "intent" is "goal". Goal-oriented behavior is intentional behavior. Intent is your goal in mind that caused the action. — Harry Hindu

What I am contrasting is materiality, as characterized by physics, and intentionality, which is characterized by "aboutness" -- by referring to something beyond itself, as a referent, target of action or desire and so on. If I used "intent" in a confusing way, I apologize. Intent can be goal directed, or it can be what is meant. I usually try to say "committed intent" when it is goal oriented.

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought. — Dfpolis

If this were the case, then for what reason does the mind bend a straw that isn't bent, or create a pool of water where there isn't one? — Harry Hindu

I am not saying we cannot imagine things in general, I am saying to imagine extension, we need to have a representation that has parts outside of parts and we cannot have that unless the representation is actually extended. We know for a fact that visual images are represented in an extended way that only sightly distorts the image in the posterior or visual cortex.

It seems to me that the apprehension would be just a continuation of the causal sequence. Tree rings still carry information about the age of the tree independent of any mind coming along and being affected by their existence (like becoming aware of their existence). If awareness isn't a form of knowledge about the world, then what is it and why still call it "awareness" if it doesn't fit the definition of "awareness" we already have? — Harry Hindu

Of course it is a continuation of the causal chain. The question is: is the final step, the received, encoded intelligibility becoming actually known describable by physics? Clearly, it is not because physics lacks a concept of awareness (because of the Fundamental Abstraction). So, no physics-based argument can conclude: "And so Harry is aware of the tree."

The "laws of nature" is a human invention. There is just how things are, and then our explanations of how things are (laws of nature). — Harry Hindu

We need to distinguish between what I call "the laws of physics," which are approximate human descriptions and the "laws of nature" which operate in nature and are what the laws of physics attempt to describe. If their we no reality described by the laws of physics, physics would be a work of fiction. It is not. Instead, we discover the laws in nature and do our best to describe them accurately. If they did not exist in nature, we would have no reason to observe nature to discover them. So, there are laws in nature, that instantiate Brentano's aboutness criterion (being about determinate outcomes), and so are properly called "intentional."

Everything interacts causally, so I don't understand the distinction being made between "matter" and "intent"/"ideas". — Harry Hindu

I explained this earlier today:

In physics we abstract physical processes into states conceived as static time slices (matter) and tendencies by which these states evolve into other states over time (laws of nature). The states are fully specified by the values of their dynamic variables (classically, by their energy, momentum, etc., or, quantum mechanically, by their wave functions). So, all physics has to tell us about what reality is at any given time is its intrinsic state specification -- and that is what I am calling the material state. — Dfpolis

Yes,, communication requires patience, thank you for yours.

I started reading that paper, although I don’t have time to read all of it right now. However, the term ‘genetic code’ has the following definition: ‘the means by which DNA and RNA molecules carry genetic information in living cells.’ Is this definition incorrect?

The standard Thomistic view is that humans are fully and completely natural. — Dfpolis

Thanks for your reply. But I had thought that all forms of Christianity accepted the immortality of the soul, and that ‘the rational soul’ was fundamental to pre-modern theology. Although I do note your distinction between what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘described by physics’!

Note this seminar. Addresses just these topics. Feser's lecture is on youtube.

Denigrating what I say because I am a theist is an instance of the genetic fallacy, verging on ad hominem. — Dfpolis

But you called naturalism vague and irrational without good justification. And as a theist, you have yet to show that you are willing to deal with the metaphysical problems of theism rather than just cherry-pick naturalistic science that you can bend towards the support of a theistic conclusion.

I simply do not see the abstract and limited consideration of data on which natural science is (rightly) based as rational grounds for the a priori of logical possibilities -- which is what metaphysical naturalists do. Their blindness with respect to their to the fundamental assumptions, their preference for the a priori over the a posteriori, and their unwillingness to consider fully what is logically possible run counter to the entire scientific mindset. — Dfpolis

That may be true of some naturalists perhaps - the scientistic and reductionist type who are monists or eliminativists. But I am arguing for the systems science/holist/process metaphysics/philosophical naturalism tradition - the one that follows on from Aristotle and Peirce in particular.

So maybe you are just unfamiliar with that distinction? Systems thinkers are holistic naturalists and not reductionist naturalists. Hence the semiotic twist which recognises that things like finality and meaning are part of nature too. The goal becomes to give a fully scientific account of that.

You have your project. I can have mine. My claim is that a systems naturalism is what modern science now clearly supports. Whereas religious belief still makes bad metaphysics.

While I agree that the mind does a great deal of modelling, I think it is an error to think of mind primarily as a modelling process. — Dfpolis

If you have thought about it so deeply, you could then quickly explain why.

The Peircean position would be that mindfulness does reduce to the absolute generality of a sign relation. Even the Cosmos is built of regulative habit. So the active interaction is the primary one. A contemplative or self-reflecting consciousness would be a secondary "luxury" that emerges with systems complexity. And psychological science says the self-aware human mind, with its inner world of thoughts and plans, is still primarily an active rather than a passive modelling relation.

Psychological science did go through its Cartesian era - cogsci back in the 1970s in particular. But now it has moved on to an embodied, enactive, ecological paradigm. The mind is understood as a semiotic relation rather than a computational representation. The world has moved on, thankfully.

There are integral human beings which have material and intentional operations -- operations describable by physics and operations that are not. I have given my reasons for holding that there are human operations not describable by physics. You have chosen not to rebut any of them. Instead, you are making dogmatic and unsupported claims as though I had not made my case. — Dfpolis

I haven't rebutted that point as it is the point I explained. As my approach to naturalism is semiotic, it fits my metaphysics that our abstract accounts of reality must arrive at this essential duality of matter and information. Or as I would prefer to say, local degrees of freedom and global constraints. And in fact, as I keep saying, physics now supports that duality. Indeed, it has discovered the basis for it.

It all starts with the complementarity of information and entropy built in at the Planck scale. Context and event become indistinguishable at the microlevel. So the basis of a semiotic division - one that can develop thermally with Cosmic cooling and expansion - is a modern empirical discovery. You can't now do metaphysics and ignore that fundamental finding.

Information is context - the downward causation that bears down with a degree of certainty to shape material events. And entropy is local disorder or the degrees of uncertainty that then, in mirror fashion, are the creative grain of spontaneity which give something undirected to be shaped and woven into a developing history.

A similar empirical revolution is now unfolding in the biophysics of life and mind. In just the past 10 years, we have learnt how the quasi-classical nanoscale is a special convergence zone - analogous to the Planck scale - where the kind of semiotics that underpins biology can get its foothold. Molecular machines can exert their regulative stability on the thermal storm of chemical entropy. An informational context - as provided by DNA - can actually switch the wild energies of that scale and keep it directed towards the building of larger scale structures.

So my metaphysics arises out the scientific revolutions that continue to roll. I've come round to Peircean semiotics because that is how the science has panned out. I didn't start with a view and then choose my evidence to fit.

No, meaning need not result in action. Meaning is found in theoretical reflection as well as in practical reasoning. What action results from being able to distinguish essence and existence, or knowing that we cannot prove the consistency of arithmetic? — Dfpolis

You are talking about minds at the top of the food chain. As a philosophical naturalist, my argument is developmental and evolutionary.

So I am saying, sure, we have a modern cultural tradition - an attitude that arose in the philosophy of Ancient Greece - where the human mind is understood as essentially contemplative. As Plato said, look inwards and the enlightened mind will simply remember the realm of ideas. We celebrate this rather mystic and passive notion of mindfulness, putting it above the pragmatic kind of thought that is in fact the basis for our everyday, rather habitual and uncontemplative, being in the world.

But that is easy to see as a traditional cultural prejudice, not a view of mindfulness that psychological science would support.

So meaning remains founded in the ideas or theories that we would be willing to act on - stake our lives on if necessary.

Sure, philosophy, maths, poetry, and all other kinds of "contemplative" thought are good habits to cultivate. They are socially supported because historically they generate pragmatic social value. We pay folk to reflect in theoretical fashion ... because we get stuff like new technology and better ways of organising society as a practical outcome.

So the meaningfulness of theoretical reflection is ultimately pragmatic. It comes back eventually to its social utility, even if it can be a very long return journey with any number of sidetracks and dead-ends.

The angle of your argument is always to take the complex extreme of mindfulness and present it as the monistically simple starting point. As with Socrates, the philosopher becomes then top of the tree. The end of a journey is made the beginning.

I - as a naturalist - prefer to travel back to the root. And biosemiotically, that would be the nano-scale machinery that regulates the thermal blizzard we call the chemical basis of life. I can see the "mind" at work there - the active downward causation of organismic purpose and plan.

And thus there is both a basic duality - of information vs matter - plus its integration, as a living sign relation. We never get into the Platonic or Cartesian binds that are fuel for transcendent theistic arguments. That bad metaphysics gets cut off at the pass. Just as much as this triadic systems view also cuts off the bad metaphysics of monistic scientism at the pass.

Aristotle's process of information can be equated with Shannon's process of communication, and both can describe physical, biological, and semantic processing.

Many physicalists argue that reality can be explained by physics, and if physics cannot explain the totality of reality at the present time, it will in the future, as the science of physics advances. Here at TPF, that is often cited as the premise of physicalism, when supporters define "physical" as that which is studied by physics.

Yes, I was insufficiently careful. I should have said "fully specified." Obviously, we have no exhaustive understanding of reality. The possibility of surprise is always present. What I meant was that once we give a material state its intrinsic specifications, it is fully defined. — Dfpolis

But in saying that there is no exhaustive understanding of reality, aren't you also saying that there is no such thing as a material state which is fully defined? What is the case, is that there is always a gap between the description and the material state described, such that one is not completely equivalent to the other. You recognize this when you say that there is no exhaustive understanding of reality. However, you deny this when you say that a material state could be fully defined.

A similar empirical revolution is now unfolding in the biophysics of life and mind. In just the past 10 years, we have learnt how the quasi-classical nanoscale is a special convergence zone - analogous to the Planck scale - where the kind of semiotics that underpins biology can get its foothold. — apokrisis

Maybe one or two years ago you had provided a reference to a quite accessible paper (or two such papers), possibly published in a popular journal such as Science, about those nanoscale phenomena in biology/physiology. Maybe that was in the old Philosophy Forum. I'm unsure where I filed it. Might you be able to provide this reference again?

On edit: Maybe it's the paper that you mentioned in this post, but the link that you provided is now broken.

Try http://rpdata.caltech.edu/publications/Phillips2006.pdf

Phillips, R., & Quake, S. (2006). The Biological Frontier of Physics Physics Today 59

@apokrisis Thanks! That's likely the paper I remembered.

Here is a reference, in case someone again faces a broken link in the future:
Phillips, Rob & R. Quake, Stephen. (2006). The Biological Frontier of Physics. Physics Today. 59. 10.1063/1.2216960.

Many physicalists argue that reality can be explained by physics, and if physics cannot explain the totality of reality at the present time, it will in the future, as the science of physics advances. Here at TPF, that is often cited as the premise of physicalism, when supporters define "physical" as that which is studied by physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I'm aware of those misguided folks ;-), but I was just pointing out that not all physicalists think that.

On what terms would you define "physicalism" then? If all reality is "physical", as is how I understand physicalism, then why wouldn't "physics" be the discipline by which we could gain an understanding of all reality?

The idea is that physicalism isn't "latched on" to physics, and basically subservient to it, so that it's something like the "marketing team for physics" or "the ideological cheerleading team for physics."

Physics is studying the same stuff (as we posit as physicalists), as is chemistry, geology, meteorology, etc.--all the sciences are studying the same stuff.

Things do not have overlapping definitions because they both exist. The basis of definition is not existence, for we can define things with no existence, like unicorns, but what they are (essences). — Dfpolis

Oh boy - where to start?

First, I never said that the overlapping definition was that they both exist. I said the overlapping definition was that they both have causal power.

Second, unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is. Animals and ideas both have causal power though, so you have yet to get at the distinction between "matter" and "ideas". All you have done is replace one string of scribbles with another - "matter" and "ideas" with "essences". What do those scribbles refer to? What do they mean?

Following Brentano, intentions are characterized by aboutness and matter is not. — Dfpolis

How could there be pictures of unicorns if the idea of unicorns didn't have any causal power? Pictures aren't ideas. They are arrangements of matter that refer to their cause (the idea of a unicorn), just as a computer screen filled with scribbles refer to their cause (your idea and intent to communicate it). Tree rings are arrangements of matter that are the result of how the tree grows throughout the year (the cause). Tree rings mean the age of the tree through it's causal relationship. Both things (pictures of unicorns and tree rings) are effects that carry information, or mean, their causes. So there is an aboutness to matter as much as to minds.

You also left this part of out of what you were replying to:

Intent is to you as color is to the apple — Harry Hindu

What I am contrasting is materiality, as characterized by physics, and intentionality, which is characterized by "aboutness" -- by referring to something beyond itself, as a referent, target of action or desire and so on. — Dfpolis

And effects refer to something beyond itself - the cause. Causes refer to their effects. Your "aboutness" is the same thing as a causal relationship.

Of course it is a continuation of the causal chain. The question is: is the final step, the received, encoded intelligibility becoming actually known describable by physics? Clearly, it is not because physics lacks a concept of awareness (because of the Fundamental Abstraction). So, no physics-based argument can conclude: "And so Harry is aware of the tree." — Dfpolis

What do you mean "final" step? The "received, encoded intelligibility becoming" becomes the cause of the next effect. For what reason would you be aware in the first place? Isn't it to react (the effect), which then becomes another cause for another effect, which can refer all the way back to your "encoded intelligibility becoming"? "Becoming" is another one of those philosophical buzz-words that have no meaning.

We need to distinguish between what I call "the laws of physics," which are approximate human descriptions and the "laws of nature" which operate in nature and are what the laws of physics attempt to describe. If their we no reality described by the laws of physics, physics would be a work of fiction. It is not. Instead, we discover the laws in nature and do our best to describe them accurately. If they did not exist in nature, we would have no reason to observe nature to discover them. So, there are laws in nature, that instantiate Brentano's aboutness criterion (being about determinate outcomes), and so are properly called "intentional." — Dfpolis

Well, being that you have yet to make that clear distinction between "intent" and "matter", (they both have an "aboutness" (causal relationship)) determinate outcomes could just as well be material and intentional.

Denigrating what I say because I am a theist is an instance of the genetic fallacy, verging on ad hominem. — Dfpolis

But you called naturalism vague and irrational without good justification. And as a theist, you have yet to show that you are willing to deal with the metaphysical problems of theism rather than just cherry-pick naturalistic science that you can bend towards the support of a theistic conclusion. — apokrisis

Yes, I did. I called it "vague" because when I read David Papineau's SEP article "Naturalism," that is how he characterized it. Even the present version of his article declines to offer a definition. I called it "irrational" after spending over two years researching, thinking, corresponding and writing about it, producing a book with a 23 page bibliography explaining precisely how and why it is irrational. In that effort, I was threatened with a law suit and confronted with other indications that many naturalists are less than open to criticism. I also posted a number of key arguments online to elicit responses. None rebutted my conclusions.

I'm always willing to discuss any supposed "metaphysical problems of theism." I do here and elsewhere regularly. I do not cherry-pick science. I accept all the usual data and have no problems with any falsifiable, well-confirmed scientific theory. My book contains hundreds of references to scientific texts and articles. What I have done is to take the science accepted by prominent naturalists and show that it does not, in any way, support their metaphysical positions. I have also shown how, in many cases, naturalistic philosophical commitments have undermined scientific reasoning and so the very fabric of science.

So maybe you are just unfamiliar with that distinction? Systems thinkers are holistic naturalists and not reductionist naturalists. Hence the semiotic twist which recognises that things like finality and meaning are part of nature too. The goal becomes to give a fully scientific account of that. — apokrisis

I am familiar with the system's approach, having taught a graduate course on the topic. I also realize that there are many flavors of naturalism. I outline the major ones in the first chapter of my book. The fundamental problem with metaphysical naturalism is its unscientific commitment to the a priori exclusion of logically possibilities, rather than how one proceeds after making that error. Finally, I too see the need for a full account of meaning, finality and other intentional realities.

My claim is that a systems naturalism is what modern science now clearly supports. Whereas religious belief still makes bad metaphysics. — apokrisis

I agree, but methodological naturalism is not metaphysical naturalism, and provides no support for it. Beliefs of any sort, religious or naturalistic, can properly motivate metaphysical reflection, but they cannot be the foundation for metaphysical conclusions, which must be adequately supported by our experience of being qua being.

While I agree that the mind does a great deal of modelling, I think it is an error to think of mind primarily as a modelling process. — Dfpolis

If you have thought about it so deeply, you could then quickly explain why. — apokrisis

Sure. Activities can not occur absent logically prior agents capable of doing them. So, modelling processes require the operation of agents capable of representing and reflecting upon the system being modeled. So, while you can consider modelling processes in abstraction from modeling agents, but the they cannot exist independently of modelling agents. Thinking they can is an instance of Misplaced Concreteness.

The Peircean position would be that mindfulness does reduce to the absolute generality of a sign relation. Even the Cosmos is built of regulative habit. So the active interaction is the primary one. A contemplative or self-reflecting consciousness would be a secondary "luxury" that emerges with systems complexity. And psychological science says the self-aware human mind, with its inner world of thoughts and plans, is still primarily an active rather than a passive modelling relation. — apokrisis

The notion of reduction seems to anticipate, to a degree, Shannon's definition of information as the reduction of possibility. I agree that there are laws operative in nature, and that they are instances of intentionality, as defined by Brentano. Further, I see the priority of action.

It is your claim of consciousness as being a "luxury," that I find problematic, though I would like to see how you support the idea. I am unconvinced by hand-waving allusions to emergence and complexity.

First, as I recently commented, all "emergence" means is that one believes that a certain basis is responsible for a new property, but has no idea how or why. Such ignorance is cannot motivate rational consent. Second, all "complexity" means is that what we are considering is too involved to grasp holistically. This, again, is no basis for rational consent. It simply allows us to hide our ignorance in the tangles of a mental jungle.

Complexity also takes us away from the essential simplicity of awareness, characterized by the unity of knower and known. (The subject knowing the object is identically the object being known by the subject.) So, the more ontological distance (complexity) we place between knower and known, between the mind and what the mind intends, the further we are from describing mental operations.

As my approach to naturalism is semiotic, it fits my metaphysics that our abstract accounts of reality must arrive at this essential duality of matter and information — apokrisis

We agree on the fundamental polarity here. I'm opposing material and intentional, you matter and information. The problem is that information cannot be a primary concept. Since it is the reduction of logical possibility, it presupposes the existence of logical possibilities to be reduced. Logical possibilities are possibilities in the realm of knowledge, and knowledge presupposes a knowing subject. So, we need knowing subjects (minds) to ground the concept of information -- as well as that of intentionality.

That means that minds are logically prior to information and cannot depend on information, as your emergence thesis posits.

It all starts with the complementarity of information and entropy built in at the Planck scale. Context and event become indistinguishable at the microlevel. So the basis of a semiotic division - one that can develop thermally with Cosmic cooling and expansion - is a modern empirical discovery. You can't now do metaphysics and ignore that fundamental finding. — apokrisis

I am sorry to disagree. I am well aware of the relation of entropy and information, but you seem not to know that the concept of entropy is based on different ways of conceptualizing thermal systems -- macroscopically and microscopically. It relates to how many microscopic states can give rise to the same macroscopic state. So, it is not ultimately a physical concept -- the physics is fully specified by the microscopic state -- but a representational (and so mental) concept. If we did not try to describe the intrinsic complexity of microscopic states simply, with a few macroscopic variables (e.g. temperature and pressure), the concept of entropy would not arise.

What this means is that entropy, instead of being a pure physical property, is one that depends on how knowing subjects conceptualize physical systems.

No, meaning need not result in action. Meaning is found in theoretical reflection as well as in practical reasoning. What action results from being able to distinguish essence and existence, or knowing that we cannot prove the consistency of arithmetic? — Dfpolis

You are talking about minds at the top of the food chain. As a philosophical naturalist, my argument is developmental and evolutionary. — apokrisis

Perhaps, but if we are to commit to theories as fundamental, they need to apply in all cases, not a select subset.

So I am saying, sure, we have a modern cultural tradition - an attitude that arose in the philosophy of Ancient Greece - where the human mind is understood as essentially contemplative. As Plato said, look inwards and the enlightened mind will simply remember the realm of ideas. We celebrate this rather mystic and passive notion of mindfulness, putting it above the pragmatic kind of thought that is in fact the basis for our everyday, rather habitual and uncontemplative, being in the world. — apokrisis

While I agree that there is such a tradition, there is an equally ancient understanding that sound practical reasoning is essential to a well-lived life.

So meaning remains founded in the ideas or theories that we would be willing to act on - stake our lives on if necessary. — apokrisis

I don't see how you can continue to assert this while admitting counterexamples.

Sure, philosophy, maths, poetry, and all other kinds of "contemplative" thought are good habits to cultivate. They are socially supported because historically they generate pragmatic social value. We pay folk to reflect in theoretical fashion ... because we get stuff like new technology and better ways of organising society as a practical outcome. — apokrisis

That is the political reasoning for support. It is not the generally the reason individuals pursue these fields. Rather, as Aristotle says at the beginning of his Metaphysics, "All humans, by nature, desire to know." We have intellects that are naturally truth-seeking. We are curious and will pay a practical price to have intellectual satisfaction. Evolutionary psychologists may see this as having survival value. Aquinas sees this as reflecting a natural desire for God, Who is Truth.

The angle of your argument is always to take the complex extreme of mindfulness and present it as the monistically simple starting point. As with Socrates, the philosopher becomes then top of the tree. The end of a journey is made the beginning. — apokrisis

I don't think that's so. I am happy to admit that meaning often, perhaps even typically, can be cashed out in terms of consequent action. It is just that if we're looking for fundamental understanding, our theories need to address the full range of human experience, not merely the greater part of it.

I - as a naturalist - prefer to travel back to the root. And biosemiotically, that would be the nano-scale machinery that regulates the thermal blizzard we call the chemical basis of life. I can see the "mind" at work there - the active downward causation of organismic purpose and plan. — apokrisis

This is the basic datum of Aquinas' Fifth Way to prove the existence of God.

I had thought that all forms of Christianity accepted the immortality of the soul, and that ‘the rational soul’ was fundamental to pre-modern theology. — Wayfarer

Yes, Christians accept the immortality of the (rational) soul.

Aristotle wrote of vegetative, animal and rational souls, not as substances, but as mentally distinguishable aspects of human nature. The vegetative soul is simply our power of nutrition and growth, the animal soul our power of sensation and responsive movement, and the rational soul our intellect and will.

So, when I wrote of immorality as the survival of a residue (intellect and will) of a full human being, I was speaking of the rational soul. I did not use "soul" because Cartesian dualism has given it substantial connotations in did not have in the Scholastic era.

Intellect and will are seen as survivable because they have no intrinsic dependence on matter, but since humans are rational animals, the rational soul is not a fully human person. Theologically, this is seen as an argument for the need of a resurrection. Philosophically, no such argument is made.

But in saying that there is no exhaustive understanding of reality, aren't you also saying that there is no such thing as a material state which is fully defined? — Metaphysician Undercover

There is a conflict between the requirements of scientific and philosophical definition. As I am addressing a naturalistic or physicalistic position, it is reasonable to use the criteria of physics in speaking of material state definitions. That is what I have done. As my whole point is that physics does not give us an exhaustive understanding of reality, I obviously think that a specification sufficient to do physics is not exhaustive.

If we did not try to describe the intrinsic complexity of microscopic states simply, with a few macroscopic variables (e.g. temperature and pressure), the concept of entropy would not arise.

What this means is that entropy, instead of being a pure physical property, is one that depends on how knowing subjects conceptualize physical systems. — Dfpolis

Carlo Rovelli makes a very similar point towards the end of this lecture (starting roughly at the 42:00 time mark).

The idea is that physicalism isn't "latched on" to physics, and basically subservient to it, so that it's something like the "marketing team for physics" or "the ideological cheerleading team for physics." — Terrapin Station

But this doesn't really answer the question. How would you define "physicalism" such that the entirety of reality would not be subject to being understood by physics?

Physics is studying the same stuff (as we posit as physicalists), as is chemistry, geology, meteorology, etc.--all the sciences are studying the same stuff. — Terrapin Station

If it's all "the same stuff", and that stuff is described as "physical", and physics studies what is physical, then why aren't these other sciences just branches of physics? And why shouldn't we extend this principle to social sciences, and ethics as well? If the behaviour of human beings is nothing other than the behaviour of physical objects, then why shouldn't these subjects be branches of physics as well? I don't see how you can maintain a physicalist ontology without accepting that all these subject, including philosophy as well, ought to be classed as divisions of physics. Either some physical things are not the subject of study of physics (which seems absurd), or else some things are not physical.

There is a conflict between the requirements of scientific and philosophical definition. As I am addressing a naturalistic or physicalistic position, it is reasonable to use the criteria of physics in speaking of material state definitions. — Dfpolis

This is no different than the position which apokrisis supports, that there are differences which don't make a difference. A "naturalistic or physicalistic" position is an ontololcial position therefore philosophical. For the purpose of ontology, we cannot dismiss a difference, as not fulfilling the criteria of "a difference", just because they do this in physics. In physics, they may have standards whereby some differences may be dismissed as irrelevant to the work that they are doing, but in ontology, to say that there is a difference which doesn't qualify as a difference is simple contradiction.

As my whole point is that physics does not give us an exhaustive understanding of reality, I obviously think that a specification sufficient to do physics is not exhaustive. — Dfpolis

if you believe that physics does not give us an exhaustive understanding of reality, then why choose an ontology which contradicts this? In your ontology you have stated that you believe there is no difference between a material state as represented by physics, and the material state as it is in reality.

Theologically, this is seen as an argument for the need of a resurrection. — Dfpolis

Do you mean Christ specifically, or do you mean like in the book of Revelation, or both? I find your position intriguing and also relevant to my current New Testament studies. Furthermore, I would be interested in a new thread discussing the survival of the rational soul from brain death if you would be interested in leading it.

First, I never said that the overlapping definition was that they both exist. I said the overlapping definition was that they both have causal power. — Harry Hindu

Which is the same thing. Nothing can act (cause) unless it exists and any putative thing incapable of acting in some way is indistinguishable from nothing, and so does not exist.

Second, unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is. — Harry Hindu

Let us not equivocate. Unicorns as such do not exist. The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn.

Since things have to act on us to make themselves known, anything we can know of a being is based on something it can do. So, we can think of what a thing is, its essence, as the specification of its possible acts.

Traditionally, "essences" are the basis in reality for species definitions. For example, humans are rational animals because we can do what animals do, and also think rationally. This is a logical projection of what a thing is, underwriting universal predication.

Ontologically, there is no reason to think that all the individuals of a logical species participate in some invariant universal Form such as a Platonic Ideal or Exemplar Idea. Generally, we can attribute the characteristics shared within a species genetic factors such as common biological descent or being engendered by shared a physical process such as orogenesis or crystallization.

So, in my view, humans, for example, can have individual essences. While sharing many abilities, we may each have unique dispositions and talents.

In sum, while we need a universal concept of essence to underwrite logic, ontologically, we need to allow for individuals to have essences with unique variations.

As for animals and ideas, they have different essences because they can do different things. A goat can eat grass, but the idea of a goat can't.

What do those scribbles refer to? What do they mean? — Harry Hindu

An essence is a specification of possible acts. The correlative concept is existence, which adds the note that the specification is not merely abstract, but operative -- having, as you say, causal power.

How could there be pictures of unicorns if the idea of unicorns didn't have any causal power? — Harry Hindu

If you are thinking of efficient causality, it is because the people who conceive them have causal power. If you are thinking of formal causality, of how the idea informs the image, it is because the acts of agents can be informed by their concepts and imaginings.

I'm not saying ideas have no causal power, only that they have no existence/causal power independent of those thinking them.

Both things (pictures of unicorns and tree rings) are effects that carry information, or mean, their causes. So there is an aboutness to matter as much as to minds. — Harry Hindu

Not quite. Material states are intelligible, but until they are actually understood, that intelligibility is not operative. Smoke can indicate fire, but in itself, it is just combustion products, and does not actually indicate anything. It is only when a subject recognizes that it is smoke, that it can indicate fire. If the subject mistakes it for dust, it will not indicate fire.

In the same way, we tell the age of a tree from its rings, but only if we know that there is one ring per year. In each case, we need the operation of an interpreting mind.

And effects refer to something beyond itself - the cause. Causes refer to their effects. Your "aboutness" is the same thing as a causal relationship. — Harry Hindu

Again, they do do so only potentially, not actually. When I count the tree's rings, I'm actually enumerating its age. When the rings are not counted, but merely countable, there is no actual enumeration of age, only the potential to enumerate it.

What do you mean "final" step? — Harry Hindu

I mean the step in which the physically embodied intelligibility becomes actually known.

For what reason would you be aware in the first place? Isn't it to react (the effect), which then becomes another cause for another effect, which can refer all the way back to your "encoded intelligibility becoming"? — Harry Hindu

You are confusing efficient and final causality. The question I am raising is: what actualizes intelligibility, making it actually known. The question you are raising is what is the purpose of doing so.

"Becoming" is another one of those philosophical buzz-words that have no meaning. — Harry Hindu

Aristotle defined it quite precisely: "Change is the actualization of potency insofar as it is still in potency." As long as we are in the course of actualization, but not yet fully actualized, we are becoming.

Well, being that you have yet to make that clear distinction between "intent" and "matter", (they both have an "aboutness" (causal relationship)) determinate outcomes could just as well be material and intentional. — Harry Hindu

I think the distinction is clear to most readers of the forum, as it is to most philosophers. I am sorry if I have been unable to communicate it to you.

I have no idea how your consequent relates to your antecedent.

Thanks for the reference.

The problem is that information cannot be a primary concept. Since it is the reduction of logical possibility, it presupposes the existence of logical possibilities to be reduced. — Dfpolis

What "information" presupposes depends on how it is defined. Shannon defined information as communicated code (which can apply to physical, biological, and semantic processing), not as "the reduction of logical possibility" (which can only apply to semantic processing).

Defining information as communicated code presupposes a dataset (vocabulary) and constraint(s) (syntax), not mind.

Code being: transformed, translated, or converted data (asymmetries) which are elements of a vocabulary (energy/mass and/or symbol set) arranged according to a syntax (principles of structural constraint).

Let us not equivocate. Unicorns as such do not exist. The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn. — Dfpolis

As I already pointed out, it is you that is equivocating - using terms like, "matter", "ideas", "being" and "essences" without any clear explanation of what those things are.

Let's go back and read what I wrote:

unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is. — Harry Hindu

You basically repeated what I said.

Unicorns as such do not exist. — Dfpolis

is the same as saying unicorns don't exist as animals.

The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn. — Dfpolis

Right, the effects are not the cause. A picture of a unicorn isn't a unicorn either. It is the effect of the idea of a unicorn.

So when you use the string of scribbles, "unicorn", what do those scribbles refer to? If it refers to your idea of a unicorn, then "unicorn" is an idea of a unicorn. If it doesn't refer to anything as such, then what do you mean when you use those scribbles?

As for animals and ideas, they have different essences because they can do different things. A goat can eat grass, but the idea of a goat can't. — Dfpolis

Then the grass would be a different essence than the goat. All you have done is redefine "thing" as "essence", and that throws a wrench into your explanation of "matter" and "ideas". Each idea does different things and would therefore be a different essence. How would you know that you have an idea of a horse as opposed to a unicorn, if those ideas didn't do different things?