I'm guessing you're not a realist. Is an object of the senses different to an object in the world? — Andrew M

I do think of myself as a kind of realist; I used to say I am a logical realist. I think this is kind of like Kant's notion of being an empirical realist. The objects of experience are objectively real in the sense that they are reliably available to be be perceived. It seems obvious from experience that they do not depend on anyone's, or even everyone's, perception of them in order to be said to exist in this sense. So, I have long thought that the empirical object is merely a formal identity, a kind of independent fact. Perhaps it is, as you said of mind earlier, an abstraction over the material. What is the material? Is it some kind of ultimately constituent substance? Or is 'material. just an adjective that signifies what is the most general quality possessed in common by all the objects of our senses?

So, the empirical object seems to be just the logical projection of our in-common perception and conception of objects into the 'noumenal background'; in this sense it is a legitimate, if taken pragmatically, but an illegitimate, if taken substantively, objectification of the non-objective; or perhaps it would be better to say of the proto or evenmeta-objective. This 'position' of mine really is not either idealist or realist in the commonly understood sense, because I do not posit either mind or matter as constitutive.

So, getting back to our dinosaur example; we say that it is a fact that the dinosaurs existed prioir to the advent of any mind that could say that it is a fact. But then the question is: was it is a fact 'back then'? Facts are not material entities, they are of or about material entities, so if dinosaurs existed back then; it must also have been a fact back then that they existed. But the 'ofness' or 'aboutness' of facts means they are intentional; and intentionality can be understood only in reference to minds.

The other way to go is to say that it is a fact now that dinosaurs existed back then, but it could not have been a fact then, because there were no minds back then that it could have been a fact for. But then it would seem to be unintelligible to say that dinosaurs existed back then, because if they existed it must have also been a fact that they existed.

If we want to say it was a fact back then, it seems we must posit a mind for which it was a fact; and this would be tantamount to positing God. The same problem exists right now, in regard to the almost infinite number of purported facts about the universe that we have absolutely no knowledge of, or cannot even begin to imagine. The logic of our experience, common sense, says such unknown facts must exist, but how can it be intelligible to say that they exist if there is no mind or consciousness for which they exist?

The logic of our experience, common sense, says such unknown facts must exist, but how can it be intelligible to say that they exist if there is no mind or consciousness for which they exist? — John

The truth of logic doesn't take an existing mind. God is non-existent. A realm outside space-time, outside existence, which remains true no matter what. The infinite of meaning is so without existence. For example, the unknown world everyone is dead. This doesn't exist at the moment. It will never be known to anyone. Yet, it still means.

One of the pitfalls of this discussion is misunderstanding "say." We forget we are people who exist and a speaking about something we don't know. It is certainly intelligible for us to talk about this. In this respect, the unknown world is still for us. Who the unknown world means to, and so is amounts to us talking about something, is already answered. It matters to us. We are saying they exist. To say their is no mind and consciousness for which theses unknown things exist is to ignore our own existence. The unknown world doesn't need someone to know it or live through it to be for someone. It just needs someone to be aware of it and speak about it.

I agree with that too, but it conceals more than it reveals, especially in the way it is used by Ryle and Dennett. In effect, the ghost is declared unreal, and all that is left is the machine. — Wayfarer

I agree that, per ordinary usage, machines (and robots) are insentient. But you seem to accept that it is possible, in principle, to create a sentient machine - which we would recognize as a being with rights. The issue then is what would explain the difference between the sentient machine and the mere machine.

Would there be some immaterial substance or properties in addition to the matter it is composed of? Or would our mental terms be abstractions over the matter it is composed of?

It seems to me that we can intelligibly hold the latter view while also holding that their pains, desires and beliefs would be real.

But you seem to accept that it is possible, in principle, to create a sentient machine — AndewM

Why do you say that I think that? I don't actually believe it, I was simply pointing out rhetorically, that if a machine really was able to think, then it would no longer be a machine but a being.

Would there be some immaterial substance or properties in addition to the matter [the machine] is composed of? — AndrewM

That's the nub of the argument. I said some pages back that I take issue with the way Gilbert Ryle understands the word 'substance'. To explain why is difficult, however. I think in Descartes' time, 'substance' had a different meaning to what we now give it; a 'substance' was the 'bearer of predicates', in other words, 'that in which attributes inhere'. There is really no counterpart to that idea in modern thought. What happened in the period between Descartes and the modern period, was the almost-universal conception that real substances are atomic or at any rate describable in such terms. So Descartes' 'immaterial substance' then becomes conceived as a kind of 'ethereal substance' that somehow acts through or on res extensia. But I don't think that 'res cogitans can be described or thought of objectively at all - it is not something that exists in the sense that bodies exist, at all. But that doesn't mean it is unreal - on the contrary, all such judgements as to what is real and what is not, what exists and what is not, are made by and in the mind.

This is very close to Husserl's critique of Descartes as described in 'The Crisis of the European Sciences'. Husserl also says that Descartes was correct to point to the fundamental nature of res cogitans, but then made the mistake of treating it naturalistically, i.e. as a component or part of nature. Really the word 'subject' is closer in meaning to Descartes' 'substance', because that connotes the idea of a 'being' rather than a 'thing'.

Underneath this, there is the issue that Descartes recognised modes of existence, i.e. different things exist in different modes. Now modern philosophy has generally abandoned that conception, so there is no way of translating his 'res cogitans' into the modern lexicon - it's like trying to depict a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional space.

So when Dennett insists that 'intentional agents' can be understood solely in terms of their actions, and not in terms of the content of their minds, it is a consequence of this absence or the loss of that dimension in modern culture. That is why Dennett's critics say that he ignores or explains away consciousness - I have already given some quotations which I believe illustrate that very clearly. As I see it, Dennett has more or less spent his whole career trying to show why Descartes' cogito is a groundless argument. So he thinks, and will freely say, that religious philosophers have devoted their careers to an illusion - and they would say the same about him! But what it would take for Dennett to understand that would be a real 'meta-noia', a transformation of outlook, a through-the-looking-glass change of perspective, not simply a verbal distinction. Perhaps also something like a gestalt shift.

Anyway, my working definition of mind is 'that which cognises differences'. This goes for very simple creatures - the ability to cognise difference and respond is identifiable even in bacteria. But rational minds are able to recognize abstractions and logic. and they do that by assigning and discerning meanings. So animals inhabit an 'umwelt' , whilst humans also inhabit a 'meaning-world', which consists of the operations and judgements of their minds in response to what they experience, see and understand.

Sorry for such a long post but this is central to the argument.

I'm asking for precision here. If you're referring to future laws of physics, then you should say so. If you are referring to them, how can you know what will be in them? — mcdoodle

Future laws of physics must respect current knowledge and experimental evidence.

Are you aware of Noether's theorem? If you are, how can you doubt that conservation principles will always be respected by the laws of physics?

I'll ask the question again. Do you think that the unification of the Standard Model with General Relativity will render the statement "Everything obeys the laws of physics" false?

Can you imagine the situation where a law of physics is falsified, and the scientist declares that certain particles at a certain time just happened to be NOT obey the laws of physics? Best of luck publishing that paper!

Well, panpyschic material is not more nor less undiscovered than your 'unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity'. They're both speculations. — mcdoodle

That is nothing more than an expression of ignorance. Yeh sure, the Standard Model and fairy-theory are intellectually equivalent.

This is the particular area I'm reading about at the moment in fact - those sciences where a mixture of mental and physical terms are accepted in scientific discourse, like the study of placebo effects — mcdoodle

Placebo effects!!?

This 'position' of mine really is not either idealist or realist in the commonly understood sense, because I do not posit either mind or matter as constitutive. — John

In a pragmatic everyday sense, what you say about the objects of experience is similar to my own view. However I would instead say we are experiencing the world rather than projecting onto a noumenal background. The difference here is that I think we can investigate those objects and discover further objects of experience at a deeper level. For example, per our earlier discussion, I think our experience of (what we call) gravity is our experience of spacetime curvature. Also I would say our abstractions must eventually ground in something concrete, whatever that turns out to be.

The other way to go is to say that it is a fact now that dinosaurs existed back then, but it could not have been a fact then, because there were no minds back then that it could have been a fact for. But then it would seem to be unintelligible to say that dinosaurs existed back then, because if they existed it must have also been a fact that they existed. — John

I agree with your first sentence, but not the second. When we say that something is a fact, we are saying that it is proven or known. On this view it is intelligible to say that dinosaurs existed back then, but unintelligible to say that it was proven or known back then.

There are facts that are not widely known (little-known facts) but not, I think, unknown facts.

That is nothing more than an expression of ignorance. Yeh sure, the Standard Model and fairy-theory are intellectually equivalent. — tom

It's difficult to be precise about this stuff, but I think precision is a good idea. We haven't got to my personal views, although your remarks are becoming unnecessarily personal, we're just trying to discuss the right terms for the debate. Panpsychism is a legitimate area of philosophical enquiry, even if, like you, I doubt it's a goer. Your sentence 'Do you think that the unification of the Standard Model with General Relativity will render the statement "Everything obeys the laws of physics" false?' seems to me empty: it asks me to speculate about a future event that you seem to think is certain to happen in some way you don't explain. I don't know what's exclamatory about 'placebo effects': they're a puzzle that requires explanation, since they mess up a lot of drug trials, for a start. I'm doing a lot of reading about them at the moment, if you want some references.

So, for you there are no unknown facts about the universe that are yet to be discovered? Such as for example, whether some particular distant galaxy has a black hole at its center or is some very precise number of light-years across, or contains exactly so many stars?

Or would our mental terms be abstractions over the matter it is composed of? — Andrew M

I hope I can butt in to ask, one puzzle for me in this area is why some terms are deemed 'mental' and some 'physical' and where the border falls. For instance, a description of a chemical compound, while arguably an abstraction over more primitive physical terms, is deemed physical, but words like 'thought' are deemed mental. I presume the one is vertically constitutive of and the other is just supervenient on the physical, but I'm not clear. To describe someone's character I might call them 'hot-blooded' or 'cold-hearted' but these are understood to be mental descriptions.

I'm interested for instance in the practising medical scientist's use of terms. In dealing with pain in a phantom limb, for instance, the patient's belief seems central, and we have no idea what the physical equivalent of their belief in their limb is. So the working scientist has to engage in methodological dualism. And yet a different, theoretical scientist argues that this 'belief' is non-primary, even though they can offer no empirical model of explanation.

So, for you there are no unknown facts about the universe that are yet to be discovered? Such as for example, whether some particular distant galaxy has a black hole at its center or is some very precise number of light-years across, or contains exactly so many stars? — John

Right. If we find out those things, then we will have discovered new facts about the world, not existing facts.

Anyway, my working definition of mind is 'that which cognises differences'. — Wayfarer

Yes. And your definition is the flip side of behaviorism - the idea that it is the body that does things.

What I'm trying to suggest is an alternative to the idea that it is either the mind or body that does things. It is instead human beings that do things. Human beings have minds and bodies, but mind and body are two logically different categories. It is not, per dualism, the mind that is the subject of experience and the body that is the object of experience. Instead a human being is both the subject and the object of experience.

I hope I can butt in to ask, one puzzle for me in this area is why some terms are deemed 'mental' and some 'physical' and where the border falls. For instance, a description of a chemical compound, while arguably an abstraction over more primitive physical terms, is deemed physical, but words like 'thought' are deemed mental. I presume the one is vertically constitutive of and the other is just supervenient on the physical, but I'm not clear. To describe someone's character I might call them 'hot-blooded' or 'cold-hearted' but these are understood to be mental descriptions. — mcdoodle

I think they have a pragmatic origin. We understand other human beings to be intentional creatures and we develop mental language around that. That works well for humans, somewhat less well for animals and bacteria, and pretty badly for trees and particles. Coming from the other direction, we find commonalities between humans, animals, bacteria, trees and particles that we develop physical language for. They are logically distinct categories and the terms we use depends on the purposes at hand.

I'm interested for instance in the practising medical scientist's use of terms. In dealing with pain in a phantom limb, for instance, the patient's belief seems central, and we have no idea what the physical equivalent of their belief in their limb is. So the working scientist has to engage in methodological dualism. And yet a different, theoretical scientist argues that this 'belief' is non-primary, even though they can offer no empirical model of explanation. — mcdoodle

A practicing medical scientist is interested in what works. So if using psychological language brings about the desired physical changes, then it makes sense to do that. Further research could be conducted to find out what is physically happening. I wouldn't say the belief is non-primary. It's just language at a different level of abstraction that may or may not be appropriate. But the philosophical point here is that nothing in addition to, or contrary to, the physical is going on.

What I'm trying to suggest is an alternative to the idea that it is either the mind or body that does things. It is instead human beings that do things. — AndrewM

Well, that's true from a common-sense viewpoint, but from the viewpoint of philosophical analysis, it leaves many questions unanswered. (And to be honest, I think I'm aiming at someone standing behind you X-) .)

So, what was the fact prior to its discovery?

By the definition ("something known or proven") of a fact given earlier, the question doesn't make sense. Since no-one knew about the state in question, there was no such fact at the time. --e.g. dinosaurs existed, but it was not a fact. At least until some entity knew about them.

Prior to discovery or knowledge, there is no fact to be anything.

You seem to be failing to acknowledge that there are understood to be both ontological and epistemological facts. So it would have, from the moment of their advent until their existence was known, been an ontic but not an epistemic fact that dinosaurs existed. It is both an ontic and an epistemic fact now, if it was indeed an ontic fact that they existed.

I'd say the point of this distinction between existence and facts is to avoid the confusion of that very distinction. What exactly is the difference between ontological and epistemological fact? Is something that is known (e.g. a dinosaur) different from the state that exists (e.g. a dinosaur)?

"Ontological fact" is a distinction without difference. We use it to refer to states of existence we talk about, states of existence we know. -- "Dinosaurs were an ontological fact."

It's no different to saying: "I know dinosaurs existed."

In the context of the relationship of knowledge to existence, this is rather important. It means we are still treating the question of unknown existence as if it was known-- no wonder it always appears bizarre to say an unknown existed.

The point of seperating existence and fact is to disrupt this confusion. Dinosaurs existing is a fact. We know about it. What the "ontological fact" and "epistemological fact" distinction is trying to do is incoherent. If we are speaking about something, it is known. "Ontological" and "epistemological" fact cannot help but be one and the same.

To seperate between existence and fact is a different. It doesn't bring with the baggage that what exists must be unknown. Dinosaurs both existed and are fact (as someone now knows about them). The fact a state is unknown at some time is no longer understood to mean a state is never known.

Thus, for example, we can say that prior to being discovered by humans, no-one knew about dinosaurs for millions of years. Their existence is no longer dependent on someone knowing about it. In our understanding of the facts, we are aware dinosaurs existed without people knowing about them.

So, what was the fact prior to its discovery? — John

As Willow points out, there wasn't one. I'm just following standard usage here - the OED defines a fact as "a thing that is known or proved to be true".

We don't call things facts unless we think they are established knowledge. Aliens may well exist, but we wouldn't say it was a fact, we would say it was a conjecture or an opinion.

I see that Wikipedia defines a fact as "something that has really occurred or is actually the case". In that sense, we could say that it was a fact back then that dinosaurs existed. But all we're saying is that dinosaurs existed back then. Is this sense of the term actually serving any useful function?

From the SEP:

What might a fact be? Three popular views about the nature of facts can be distinguished:

A fact is just a true truth-bearer,

A fact is just an obtaining state of affairs,

A fact is just a sui generis type of entity in which objects exemplify properties or stand in relations.

Would you say the existence of the dinosaurs was a state of affairs? The point for me is that states of affairs are, and the existence of dinosaurs is, at least in part, an ineliminably conceptual, as well as a physical or material, matter.

No, I wouldn't - I don't see what purpose it would serve. I would just say that dinosaurs existed.

I see those definitions as language on holiday. They are an attempt to elucidate a sense of a term that serves no useful function and that no-one, except philosophers, cares about.

The existence of dinosaurs is not eliminably conceptual. But the words in that sentence are. The conceptual map is not the territory.

If the territory is utterly a-conceptual then how could our conceptual judgements bear any relation to it whatsoever?

It was Wittgenstein who said "the world is the totality of facts, not of things". I take that to mean the world is the totality of states of affairs, not the totality of epistemic facts. The totality of states of affairs constitutes the total nexus of relations between things, and things themselves are also, unless they be some kind of posited, but really incomprehensible, atomic simple, further complexes of relations. Relations are not physical, but rather conceptual, which leads to the conclusion that the world must be, at bottom, not merely brute non-conceptual entities, if the idea of such entities even makes any actual sense, but also the conceptual relations between them.

For what it's worth I think the idea of "language on holiday" is vacuous. There is no such thing; there is just language at work in multifarious contexts; none of which are presuppositionlessly priveleged. There is no one logic of usage; there are many logics of usage; and we cannot afford to ignore any of them if we want to gain a comprehensive understanding of what our experience and what we say about it logically commits us to.

If the territory is utterly a-conceptual then how could our conceptual judgements bear any relation to it whatsoever? — John

Because we differentiate features of the territory. But differentiating them is a cognitive and conceptual process.

The territory has its rivers and hills. But there is no map until we create one.

It was Wittgenstein who said "the world is the totality of facts, not of things". I take that to mean the world is the totality of states of affairs, not the totality of epistemic facts. The totality of states of affairs constitutes the total nexus of relations between things, and things themselves are also, unless they be some kind of posited, but really incomprehensible, atomic simple, further complexes of relations. Relations are not physical, but rather conceptual, which leads to the conclusion that the world must be, at bottom, not merely brute non-conceptual entities, if the idea of such entities even makes any actual sense, but also the conceptual relations between them. — John

OK, I'll accept the totality of facts in this sense for the sake of argument. And I agree that there were relationships between things (say, the dinosaurs and the earth).

So we have abstractions of matter. But the abstractions are not something separate from, or additional to, the matter. They are ways of looking at matter. However it still requires a cognitive process to actually look at and conceptualize matter in that way.

So we have abstractions of matter. But the abstractions are not something separate from, or additional to, the matter. They are ways of looking at matter. However it still requires a cognitive process to actually look at and conceptualize matter in that way. — Andrew M

Is what you are claiming that, the autonomous and complex entities, that appear in most of our explanations and indeed in our best theories, are not in fact real?

They are real. But our (conceptual) map is not part of the (physical) territory.

So, tigers are real, but our concept of them is not part of the physics underlying the operation of tigers?

Is that supposed to mean anything?

I'm saying that tigers don't depend on anyone's concept of them. That is realism.

But you said...

abstractions are not something separate from, or additional to, the matter. They are ways of looking at matter. — Andrew M

Now you claim tigers are real?

What's going on?

The concept of a tiger is part of our mental map. The tiger is not - it is part of the territory. The concept is not the referent.

So, the abstraction - i.e. the real tiger in reality, is not the same thing as your conception of the abstraction.

Seems obvious, why is that important?

It just came up as part of a discussion with John where he is arguing (as I understand him) that some things in the world, such as relations between things, are conceptual and thus imply intentionality.

My argument is that relations between things are instead abstractions. That does not, by itself, imply intentionality. But conceptualizing those relations does.