I don't think Schopenhauer's Will, if I understand it correctly, is something that can be inferred from the fact that we have wants, needs, or desires we try to satisfy. — Ciceronianus the White

Actually he does just that as one of his main proofs for Will in his book 2 of the World as Will and Representation.

And in fact, if we focus on the contexts in which we want something or to do something, we find instances when we can regulate our desire or refrain from indulging it. — Ciceronianus the White

It is not just motivations but voluntary movements of the body. Here is Schopenhauer:

As we have said, the will proclaims itself primarily in the voluntary movements of our own body, as the inmost nature of this body, as that which it is besides being object of perception, idea. For these voluntary movements are nothing else than the visible aspect of the individual acts of will, with which they are directly coincident and identical, and only distinguished through the form of knowledge into which they have passed, and in which alone they can be known, the form of idea.

But these acts of will have always a ground or reason outside themselves in motives. Yet these motives never determine more than what I will at this time, in this [pg 138] place, and under these circumstances, not that I will in general, or what I will in general, that is, the maxims which characterise my volition generally. Therefore the inner nature of my volition cannot be explained from these motives; but they merely determine its manifestation at a given point of time: they are merely the occasion of my will showing itself; but the will itself lies outside the province of the law of motivation, which determines nothing but its appearance at each point of time. It is only under the presupposition of my empirical character that the motive is a sufficient ground of explanation of my action. But if I abstract from my character, and then ask, why, in general, I will this and not that, no answer is possible, because it is only the manifestation of the will that is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and not the will itself, which in this respect is to be called groundless. — Schopenhauer

Judging from your quote, Schopenhauer effectively disregards what we want and do in his analysis. Instead, he presumes that there is a "Will" distinct from the ordinary "acts of will." Apparently, he thinks there must be something which induces us to act which is not what actually motivates us to act in a given situation, and this something is not motivated by anything. However, it is because of this something that we engage in "acts of will" which are motivated by "a ground or reason outside themselves." Sorry, but this makes no sense to me.

he presumes that there is a "Will" distinct from the ordinary "acts of will." — Ciceronianus the White

No, he doesn't. There is only one will that gets broken up into distinct acts by the form of time. The latter (which, being in time, are quasi-representational) are grounded in the former.

No, he doesn't. There is only one will that gets broken up into distinct acts by the form of time. The latter (which, being in time, are quasi-representational) are grounded in the former. — Thorongil

Well, he refers to "individual acts of will" which will always have a ground or reason outside themselves, and distinguishes them from what "I will in general"; but fine. It would still seem to me, however, that there is a distinction between the "individual acts of will" and what "I will in general." That distinction, presumably, is wrought by "time." So, what "I will in general" is outside time in some manner, I suppose, though it would seem to me that I am not. I rather doubt that there is anything "I will in general" so I don't need to struggle with how that is "groundless" as he says. "The Will" is starting to sound more and more like some kind of supernatural force.

Well, he refers to "individual acts of will" which will always have a ground or reason outside themselves, and distinguishes them from what "I will in general"; but fine. It would still seem to me, however, that there is a distinction between the "individual acts of will" and what "I will in general." That distinction, presumably, is wrought by "time." So, what "I will in general" is outside time in some manner, I suppose, though it would seem to me that I am not. — Ciceronianus the White

This all sounds correct.

I rather doubt that there is anything "I will in general" so I don't need to struggle with how that is "groundless" as he says. "The Will" is starting to sound more and more like some kind of supernatural force. — Ciceronianus the White

I'm not sure I understand the force of your seeming criticism here. It's not that esoteric. There's the act of running to the store, running to the finish line, running to get out of the rain, etc, and then there's running in general. We use and understand the language of X qua X all the time.

I'm not sure I understand the force of your seeming criticism here. It's not that esoteric. There's the act of running to the store, running to the finish line, running to get out of the rain, etc, and then there's running in general. We use and understand the language of X qua X all the time — Thorongil

The question I have is: What is it I will in general? I never "run in general" as I when I run I do so for a reason. I know what running is, true; however, I don't maintain that I run in general "outside of time" and for no reason, without any ground. I don't accept the idea of a kind of Platonic Form of running or "to run." Is the Will something similar?

What is it I will in general? — Ciceronianus the White

Life.

The question I have is: What is it I will in general? I never "run in general" as I when I run I do so for a reason. I know what running is, true; however, I don't maintain that I run in general "outside of time" and for no reason, without any ground. I don't accept the idea of a kind of Platonic Form of running or "to run." Is the Will something similar? — Ciceronianus the White

It is more than mere Platonic universals in Schopenhauer's conception. Will is like an inner force that strives but with no aim. I think he vascilates between it being apparent in our voluntary wills, and our subjective inner experiences. Is Will akin to the inner "what it's like" aspect of things or is akin to the drive we have to move about to survive and pursue goals in general? Or is he tying the two together such that the inner "what it's like feeling" is like the necessary vehicle for which the Will can move forward in a world of subject/object dichotomy? Maybe @Thorongil has a take on this.

I don't miss Kant's point about the thing-in-itself verses the world as representation, I'm pointing out is a grave error. One of the biggest in Western philosophy. Our world is representation. In the end, anything we don't know always comes back to the world or representation. Unknown forces split our bodies apart. Some unknown things is deep space sends out a single which makes it snow all over the world. Everything always comes back to us, to what we know, to how we are affected, no matter how distant or stage it might be. Even the time before our universe is linked in representation to us, whatever it was: prior to us casually, the state of the world we are referring to now, something we lack information about. To be non-temporal and non-spacial it to be apart from the word in which we exist, no matter how distant or obscure. The "thing-in-itself" cannot exist. It can only be idle because it cannot pass in and out of existence, it cannot move or change: a logical expression which is never any state of the world.

Will is not simply every action though, but the underlying striving below the surface. It's context in language-dependent and situation-dependent instances are simply minor variations on the same theme. — schopenhauer1

This criticism misses the point. Will was never said to be every action. It cannot be. Since Will is an infinite, it cannot be any state of the world, any action we have willed. Since it is not language or situation dependent, it cannot be any act action or instance of striving.

No doubt Schopenhauer views it as a striving, but he is confusing the infinite expression of Will given by any action (i.e. any action involves someone trying to do something, a striving, a burden to get something done), for the instances of action and striving themselves. He then miss reads Will as a prior foundation for human action, desire and striving, as if Will was the ground in which our actions, desires and striving grew.

Our attention is shifted away from what constitutes any instance of our world, that it exists rather than not, and we become obsessed with the supposed "universal," Will, which grounds us all together. We start thinking of ourselves being put together be pre-existing universal of Will, rather than recognising we are always separate states of the world, linked with other states of the world, which express a whole, together. Just as Kant did before him, Schopenhauer is coveting the infinite, trying to turn our finite world into the infinite, so he can say it is, and is known beyond, how it appears in finite representation.

You are eating your own tail here. Schop's (and Kant's) point was you cannot use empiricism to ground empiricism. — schopenhauer1

I was never trying to so. The empirical has no ground. There is no reason why any state must exist or not. Schop and Kant are chasing something without any relevance. Absolute certainty about empirical states is not something required. In fact, it's incoherent. To have such certainty, we would need to posits states of the world as logically necessary, such there was no possibility there could be different states.

For us to do that we would have to be able to use empiricism (knowledge of our world) to ground empiricism (that our representations must always be correct). The inability of empiricism to ground empiricism is also why we cannot (as Kant and Schop want to) use logic to ground the empirical either. Since the presence of an empirical state is defined by whether or that state exists, no logical expression, such as Will or the thing-in-itself, can be used to ground the presence of any empirical state. Trying to do so is to commit a category error. It is to suggest that Will or the thing-in-itself are individual states of the world, such that their presence can be used to say that an individual empirical state must exist.

Is Will akin to the inner "what it's like" aspect of things or is akin to the drive we have to move about to survive and pursue goals in general? — schopenhauer1

I'm not seeing a great difference here. It's both I would say.

I agree with that answer, but I guess now it has turned to this notion (influenced by Wittgenstein) that one cannot even discuss this matter because there is --- "there" there.

No, there is a there, there.

Wtf is happening to these forums that are being invaded by these non dualist parrots?

Some people in both the idealist and the materialist camp (in much different fashions) want to claim that first person consciousness is an "illusion" of some sort. Is using the term "illusion" just another term for the "mind" and this "illusion" still has to be accounted for or can the concept of illusion have its cake and eat it too? In other words, can illusion really claim that the mind only "feels" like it exists, but does not really and that's the end of the story or does the "feels like" phenomena of illusion still have to be accounted for in some way? — schopenhauer1

I remember, very vaguely, a member touching on this issue a couple of months ago. Sorry, I can't find a link to that thread.

S/he said something to the effect that mind is nothing more than a name/label for the entire set of brain functions. The mind isn't a thing that exists independent of the brain but is just a convenient term for all that the brain does.

Think of a mobile phone. It has multiple functionality - you can make/receive calls, take pictures, make movies, play games, etc. We can give a name to the set of all these functions - call it something e.g. polly but as is obvious, polly is just a name you've given to the phone's multifunctionality and doesn't exist in the sense of something separate from the phone itself.

Likewise, the mind is simply a name for the many things a brain does and lacks an existence beyond the brain itself.

Perhaps in this sense the mind is an illusion.

I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this. :chin:

Illusions are often hypereal, occuring in contained situations, an illusion is also, "originally an illusion" by factor of it being something strange, sometimes not meant to be deciphered.

How absurd is it that we entertain such thoughts. "Your identity isn't real." Do you realize how messed up that statement is?

Is it all a part of some greater philosophy that posits us all as drones? It's absurd and extremely dangerous.

The meaning of illusion doesn't even suffice. We live it every day; it is real.

"Feels" like it is real is just an underhanded way of saying it seems like it is real, and all we have to go on is how things seem. And it seems a nefarious thing to say to me, that the mind is an illusion. That's something a serial killer would say.

No, there is a there, there.

Wtf is happening to these forums that are being invaded by these non dualist parrots? — personalself

Wow, you brought back one of my oldie but goody threads. Yes, the non-accounting for things like qualia and the primary experiences themselves is never accounted for. It is greedy emergentism if you will. You posit the very thing that you are trying to explain. Illusion is still something.

Likewise, the mind is simply a name for the many things a brain does and lacks an existence beyond the brain itself. — TheMadFool

So what is this integrated experience we feel in any given time? If you say "brain states" how are they the same? That's simply the hard question, not necessarily a claim that the mind is illusion, but in the same realm of discourse I guess.

"Feels" like it is real is just an underhanded way of saying it seems like it is real, and all we have to go on is how things seem. And it seems a nefarious thing to say to me, that the mind is an illusion. That's something a serial killer would say. — neonspectraltoast

Ha, I can understand that sentiment. It just seems to me positing a duality in different terms (illusion/real). The illusion itself has to be explained other than being a "seeming" event. What's funny is people keep saying that we are making Descartes' error over and over.. But no one seems to really qualify that. Not talking in terms of mind/body pretty much reduces to pansychism, but this doesn't seem intuitive or scientific.

How can the thing that keeps this all cohesive for us be an illusion. If the mind is an illusion, then everything is an illusion.

Clearly, the mind is real. Even illusions are, technically, "real." Ie. they do occur in objective reality. Likewise, the mind isn't something we can snap out of. It's something, and not because of a preference that it be something.

It's what allows us to have thoughts at all. And thoughts are defined as relating to emotion. If we had no minds, we wouldn't exist. But we do exist. Therefore, the mind exists.

So what is this integrated experience we feel in any given time? If you say "brain states" how are they the same? That's simply the hard question, not necessarily a claim that the mind is illusion, but in the same realm of discourse I guess. — schopenhauer1

As I said, the "integrated experience" is all the brain functions taken together and the word "mind" is just a label, perhaps for convenience of discourse, applied to it but, fortunately or not, the word "mind", the claim goes, doesn't have ontic significance in that it refers to something immaterial that exists apart from the brain.

As I said, the "integrated experience" is all the brain functions taken together and the word "mind" is just a label, perhaps for convenience of discourse, applied to it but, fortunately or not, the word "mind", the claim goes, doesn't have ontic significance in that it refers to something immaterial that exists apart from the brain. — TheMadFool

What are brain functions taken together then? At some point there is "something" that we currently refer to as mind, and at some point not.. You are simply restating the error with not recognizing the hard problem at this point.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1593650/What-is-Mind

Been there. Done that. No conclusion in 22K posts. :worry:

What are brain functions taken together then? At some point there is "something" that we currently refer to as mind, and at some point not.. You are simply restating the error with not recognizing the hard problem at this point. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, you're correct. I've simply repeated myself but perhaps only because you haven't addressed my point satisfactorily.

Let's start from ground zero then. What is mind?

If you will be so kind as to permit a conventional definition and not a philosophical one (although the two definitions will concur in relevant respects):

Google definition:

mind (noun):

1. the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

2. a person's ability to think and reason; the intellect.

The definitions 1 & 2 elucidates the point I've been trying to get across.

Definition 1 suggests there is thing, mind, separate from the brain itself but that exists in the same sense that a brain exists.

Definition 2, on the other hand, identifies the mind as an ability of the brain and isn't making an ontic claim about something immaterial that is different from the brain.

What people might mean when they say, "the mind is an illusion", could be when some of us switch meaning 2 for 1: we gather all the abilities of the brain under one banner and we call it "mind" and that's all there is to mind - it's just a convenient label for the myriad things a brain can do but lacks any kind of ontological import at all.

But even if, hypothetically speaking, the mind is purely the product of the brain, this tells us nothing about the quality of the mind.

The brain is constantly posited as something mundane, as if that's just common sense, but it isn't. Are our computers mundane? Our iPad's?

Yet they are nowhere near the complexity of the human brain.

You can say it's all an accident, but the universe is not accidental. It's arbitrary. It happens to be so, just as the mind happens to be so. It's not an illusion. Being a product of the brain wouldn't make it an illusion.

What people might mean when they say, "the mind is an illusion", could be when some of us switch meaning 2 for 1: we gather all the abilities of the brain under one banner and we call it "mind" and that's all there is to mind - it's just a convenient label for the myriad things a brain can do but lacks any kind of ontological import at all. — TheMadFool

Mental states are the internal aspect of what is going on in an individual subject. So, if you see an object, it's the feeling, thinking, sensation, and all the subjective things going on with an individual. The brain processes are the neurons firing, the neurotransmitters transporting, electro-chemical reactions happening, synapses, blood supply, etc. etc.

So the hard question of consciousness is not whether or not brain processes cause and are associated with mental states, it is why it is that brain states have mental (subjective "what it's like to feel/think" states) that correlate with the brain states. Thus we have all our theories in Philosophy of Mind.. Dualism (there is an irrevocable split in either substance or property between material and mental states), Materialism (everything is just brain states.. and hence mental states have to be explained somehow.. here is the "illusion" idea coming from people like Dennett), and Pansychism (somehow physical reality has a mental aspect to it). The problem is much more complicated than you are making it seem.

The problem with the Materialist conceptions is they keep pointing back to the brain states, but never quite figure out how mental states are brain states. Why would materials like neurons and chemicals have mental properties ("what it feels like" internal states)? The problem here is they will then make the move to say that mind "emerges" from material events. Again, what exactly then is "emerging"? This "feels like" is not the same as neurons, materials, chemicals, etc. If you just make the move from processes of the physical to mind without that explanatory gap being explained, you still have not explained the very thing that needs to be explained. You are making an illegal move, declaring "checkmate!" without actually doing so.

What experience do you have with illusion?
They are like swirling-in phenomenon that happen, again, in contained spaces.

So it sounds like the mind IS partly a illusion.

(the way it crept into position).

An illusion is a real thing that is misinterpreted as something else. A mirage is a real thing - a product of the refraction of light and how it is perceived by a brain with light-sensitive sensory organs. The image is then interpreted based on past (stored) experiences. It is incorrectly interpreted as a pool of water because it looks like a stored memory of a pool of water. When you realize that it isn't a pool of water, the perception doesn't disappear into a puff of smoke. It still exists, but is just interpreted differently - as refracting light, not a pool of water. The "illusion" becomes a real effect of real causes and is what one would expect to see give the proper explanation.

Pure philosophy hasn't made a dent in unraveling the mysteries of mind. Classical philosophy is a dead end here. One needs to move into a mix of neuroscience and modern philosophy to make any progress. Chalmers, with his Hard Problem, is a leader in these efforts. Also, Zen practice leads to experiential knowledge of the subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers

An illusion is a real thing that is misinterpreted as something else. A mirage is a real thing - a product of the refraction of light and how it is perceived by a brain with light-sensitive sensory organs. The image is then interpreted based on past (stored) experiences. It is incorrectly interpreted as a pool of water because it looks like a stored memory of a pool of water. When you realize that it isn't a pool of water, the perception doesn't disappear into a puff of smoke. It still exists, but is just interpreted differently - as refracting light, not a pool of water. The "illusion" becomes a real effect of real causes and is what one would expect to see give the proper explanation. — Harry Hindu

Right, but the hard question is asking what actually "is" this interpreting to begin with. A misrepresentation, is still a presentation, whether it has misplaced causes or not. A mirage exists against the backdrop of consciousness. What is the backdrop of consciousness itself? If you say neurons/physics, then you have went from one to the other without explanation, except the placeholder "It's an illusion!".

Mental states are the internal aspect of what is going on in an individual subject. So, if you see an object, it's the feeling, thinking, sensation, and all the subjective things going on with an individual. The brain processes are the neurons firing, the neurotransmitters transporting, electro-chemical reactions happening, synapses, blood supply, etc. etc.

So the hard question of consciousness is not whether or not brain processes cause and are associated with mental states, it is why it is that brain states have mental (subjective "what it's like to feel/think" states) that correlate with the brain states. Thus we have all our theories in Philosophy of Mind...Dualism (there is an irrevocable split in either substance or property between material and mental states), Materialism (everything is just brain states.. and hence mental states have to be explained somehow.. here is the "illusion" idea coming from people like Dennett), and Pansychism (somehow physical reality has a mental aspect to it). The problem is much more complicated than you are making it seem.

The problem with the Materialist conceptions is they keep pointing back to the brain states, but never quite figure out how mental states are brain states. Why would materials like neurons and chemicals have mental properties ("what it feels like" internal states)? The problem here is they will then make the move to say that mind "emerges" from material events. Again, what exactly then is "emerging"? This "feels like" is not the same as neurons, materials, chemicals, etc. If you just make the move from processes of the physical to mind without that explanatory gap being explained, you still have not explained the very thing that needs to be explained. You are making an illegal move, declaring "checkmate!" without actually doing so. — schopenhauer1

Firstly, I hope you remember the two definitions of mind I provided from Google. For me they reveal very clearly, in the difference between them, the conflation of brain abilities with something that is different to the brain, an immaterial mind that has the abilities. The fact that what is of concern here (thoughts) have the distinct quality of being non-physical makes this such an easy mistake that not commiting this error would've been even more surprising. I've again repeated myself but only to make it known to you that there are certain features regarding mental processes that appear inexplicable in terms of a physical brain.

Coming to the hard problem/question of consciousness, it seems to be claiming that the physical brain can't provide an account for mental phenomena. My reply to that would be to ask anyone who thinks that's true to take a close look at sleep. Where is the so-called qualia and "what it feels like" when the brain shuts down for the day? Doesn't this indicate that brain activity is necessary for qualia and "what it feels like"? Then when we awaken, when brain resumes activity, qualia and "what it feels like" are restored. Doesn't this show that the brain activity is sufficient for these experiences? Ergo, contrary to what the hard problem of consciousness claims, it seems brain activity is both sufficient and necessary for us to have the experience of qualia and what is referred to as "what it feels like".

This clearly demonstrates that we're making an error by positing such a thing as mind, either immaterial or made of a different substance, that experiences mental states and this takes us back to my original statement that the word "mind" is nothing more than a label we attach to the set of various mental states and which we mistakenly assume to exist distinct from and as real as the brain.

I am an Idealist, and I don't say that. Mind is very real. It's the only real thing out there.