As I currently see it, there are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is the myth of the given. Somehow the grand edifice of critical thinking is supposed to be erected on one of two versions of the ineffable, either private intellectual intuition or private sensation-emotion. — Yellow Horse

As I understand it the myth of the given is the natural, but on examination fallacious, idea that things we can talk about appear to us directly, unmediated by any conceptual machinery.

It seems to me that critical thinking is generally supposed to be grounded on experience that we can all agree upon. I don't see how "private intellectual intuition" or even simply individual intellectual intuitions (which dispenses with the idea that individual intuition is private) could qualify as experience we can all agree upon as to their specific, as opposed to general, content.

Perhaps it could be said that sensation, taken to mean common experience of objects, could count as experience we can all agree upon, and emotion, taken to mean inter-subjectively well-defined feelings, might also; but the notion of privacy seems inapt, and undermining of the corroboration required for critical thinking, in this context.

critical thinking is generally supposed to be grounded on experience that we can all agree upon. — Janus

I suggest that you put 'facts' where 'experience' is.

Sure, according to one way of thinking about it facts is broader than experience, since there are some facts which we don't sensorially experience, but simply accept "on authority". On the other hand that acceptance of many facts, that we cannot individually confirm by "direct" experience, is certainly itself part of our common experience.

To me it seems that experience is playing the role of the given, but note that we don't put experience (the what-it-was-like) in an argument. We can and do report experience. A witness can testify.

This is why I suggest that facts are primary, while realizing that philosophers have many theories about what makes a fact a fact (including 'experience', the 'physical', etc.)

It seems to me that critical thinking is generally supposed to be grounded on experience that we can all agree upon. — Janus

I basically agree, so I'm really just pointing out that 'experience' is somewhat superfluous here, precisely because it is 'invisible.'

Moreover, let's do a thought experiment and pretend that Isaac Newton was a p-zombie. Is his work any less valid? What silly talk about p-zombies does for us is show that certain 'ghosts' (contact with 'experience' or the 'physical') are doing no work, bearing no weight.

Moreover, let's do a thought experiment and pretend that Isaac Newton was a p-zombie. Is his work any less valid? — Yellow Horse

I guess it wouldn't make any difference to the value of scientific work. But with the arts I think it would. There was a thread recently about AI generated poetry, and the point I made there is that poems are generally designed to evoke feelings and/or experiences.

On that criterion given that AIs don't feel anything, there can be no intent to evoke anything; which is why the poetry seems dead and derivative. The same would apply if you were a p-zombie; if you don't feel or experience anything there can be no intent to evoke feeling or experience, and no feeling or experience to evoke.

There was a thread recently about AI generated poetry, and the point I made there is that poems are generally designed to evoke feelings and/or experiences. — Janus

I agree, but we can imagine that Shakespeare was a p-zombie. Or that ten thousand monkeys got lucky on typewriters. The text is the text.

Even if AI never ends up giving us first-rate poetry, language already functions in its own space, like a machine, basically independent of its ghostly sources.

But what consciousness is, is a different question (and a hard question.) — Wayfarer

Prompted by the lack of conceptual progress over more than two decades, I am tempted to speculate that a computer program will not gain the title of International Master before the turn of the century and that the idea of an electronic world champion belongs only in the pages of a science fiction book. — David Levy

As science learns more and more about what consciousness is by learning more and more about how it functions, how it is comprised, and where it comes from, there will of course be people insisting that science really hasn't gotten to the essence of what consciousness is, which means nothing more than that science has not reproduced their personal idea of what consciousness is. The test then would be whether you can articulate something true about consciousness to a third party and that person a) agree with you, and b) find no better explanation for it in scientific literature.

Descartes introduced the proposed distinction between mind and matter. So you can where this goes. The 'bearers of primary attributes', which were conveniently describable purely in terms of physics, became also the primary focus, and res cogitans was relegated to being the ghost in the machine.

That's the philosophical sub-text, and I see no signs that you understand it. — Wayfarer

Ah. I do not agree with you on the idea's merit, therefore I do not understand it. :up:

What you've done here is describe the -of-the-gaps argument extremely well: "Science looks like it's got X and Y covered, however Z surely must be outside its reach!" Except then science starts work on Z too, and the machine gets a long-overdue exorcism.

I do have to wonder, though, at the sincerity of someone with an alleged interest in a phenomenon who puts their fingers in their ears when new facts start coming in. I feel this is a good litmus test for whether they're genuinely interested in understanding it or are really just protecting some subscribed-to or private belief in magic.

One's metaphysics = one's ontology + one's epistemology.

Agreed.

And then Kant came along an moved it along again. Then the phenomenologists took it up a notch. See Continental Philosophy for one.

Here's a good article: https://risingentropy.com/kants-attempt-to-save-metaphysics-and-causality-from-hume/

But, to construct this post, you assumed an ontology and its epistemology. So, you are more primary and before those concepts. And, because death, to verify this fact, you must be. You are. QED.

You are the gap you seek. None other. To deny this is to deny your reality as the player you are in all of this.

But, to construct this post, you assumed an ontology and its epistemology. So, you are more primary and before those concepts. And, because death, to verify this fact, you must be. You are. QED. — Clay Stablein

I take no issue with the cogito. I do take issue with the conclusion that, since it is the first thing I can be sure of, consciousness is the most essential thing of me. Nor does it follow that that is all I can understand of this thing of me. That is lazy thinking.

Welcome to forum, Clay!

It is a principle, not lazy. After the principle is digested and understood as nourishing all concepts that follow, all concepts DO follow. And the fun in that may be why people don't accept the principle of self before or preceding world. They 1) can't ("world" is too big) and 2) somehow actually know the order is self then world, but just ignore it so they can play around and have fun.

It is a principle, not lazy. — Clay Stablein

It's lazy, and also arrogant. "Oh look, there's a me! Well, that's all there is to learn about that..."

After the principle is digested and understood as nourishing all concepts that follow, all concepts DO follow. — Clay Stablein

Are you talking about First Philosophy? All of that "I can conceive of an infinite God" stuff? Descartes should have been treated with the same tolerance as a weirdo in a bar would be treated. A pat on the arm and a "Well, you enjoy your night, mate." [With apologies to Kevin Bridges]

The only things Descartes proved here were: 1) I can write the sentence "I can conceive of an infinite God" whether or not I can conceive of an infinite God; 2) people who already believe in God and need no proof are very accommodating. "Yes, Rene, I too can conceive..."

I take no issue with the cogito. — Kenosha Kid

Maybe you should take issue, though, with this philosopher's phlogiston.

But, to construct this post, you assumed an ontology and its epistemology. So, you are more primary and before those concepts. — Clay Stablein

What is this 'you' if not more language? Aren't 'you' assuming an ontology and an epistemology by assuming some ghost for whom the world is a spectacle?

Note that the ghost speaks English, and that 'meaning' (if we can talk about it sensibly at all) cannot be private.

Finally, you assumed that @Kenosha Kid was also this kind of ghost, even if you have no way of checking, given that these ghosts are invisible for scientific instruments, as usually understood.

I feel this is a good litmus test for whether they're genuinely interested in understanding it or are really just protecting some subscribed-to or private belief in magic. — Kenosha Kid

Like the cogito? The ghost in the machine?

What you've done here is describe the -of-the-gaps argument extremely well: "Science looks like it's got X and Y covered, however Z surely must be outside its reach!" Except then science starts work on Z too, and the machine gets a long-overdue exorcism. — Kenosha Kid

Not true. I've given a reason why, as a matter of principle, science as now understood is not suitable for the task. The reason why science can't tackle it, is because it's not an objective matter. So, therefore, you say 'well that means it must be subjective'. They're your only two choices. You ought to reflect on what forces that choice.

I provided a scientific account of why this is a problem, but as you have apparently ignored it, I will repeat it:

Traditionally, the neural binding problem concerns instantaneous perception and does not consider integration over saccades. But in both cases the hard problem is explaining why we experience the world the way we do. As is well known, current science has nothing to say about subjective (phenomenal) experience and this discrepancy between science and experience is also called the “explanatory gap” and “the hard problem” (Chalmers 1996). There is continuing effort to elucidate the neural correlates of conscious experience; these often invoke some version of temporal synchrony as discussed above.

There is a plausible functional story for the stable world illusion. First of all, we do have a (top-down) sense of the space around us that we cannot currently see, based on memory and other sense data—primarily hearing, touch, and smell. Also, since we are heavily visual, it is adaptive to use vision as broadly as possible. Our illusion of a full field, high resolution image depends on peripheral vision—to see this, just block part of your peripheral field with one hand. Immediately, you lose the illusion that you are seeing the blocked sector. When we also consider change blindness, a simple and plausible story emerges. Our visual system (somehow) relies on the fact that the periphery is very sensitive to change. As long as no change is detected it is safe to assume that nothing is significantly altered in the parts of the visual field not currently attended.

But this functional story tells nothing about the neural mechanisms that support this magic. What we do know is that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene (Kaas and Collins 2003). That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience. So, this version of the NBP really is a scientific mystery at this time. 1

This is not from a philosopher, but a professor of computer science. He explicitly recognises the 'hard problem of consicousness', which is precisely that 'the experience of being' cannot be made an object of scientific analysis. The neural binding problem is a correlate of this fact.

I do have to wonder, though, at the sincerity of someone with an alleged interest in a phenomenon who puts their fingers in their ears when new facts start coming in. — Kenosha Kid

That's what you're doing, though. Since joining this forum, you've displayed no comprehension of the philosophical issues, merely the complacent assumption that whatever philosophy science has not yet swept aside, it's only a matter of time until it does.

Aren't there always prior assumptions in everything we do?

In some cases at least, I think we might differentiate metaphysics and epistemics like so:
For some proposition, p, if attainable evidence is compatible with both p and ¬p, then further knowledge thereof is unattainable.
If p has ontological concerns then p is over in metaphysics.

So, in this sense, there's a certain kind of futility in metaphysics.

Either way, some such metaphysics can (rightfully) be called ridiculous.
And some can have ethical implications regardless.
And no manner of our metaphysicalizing can make it so.

Yeah, I disagree that we could imagine Shakespeare as a p-zombie, that any qunatity of monkeys could accidentally write his works and I also disagree with the machine analogy.

AI will never give us first-rate poetry; unless it evolves to be able to feel and care as humans can.

This is not from a philosopher, but a professor of computer science. He explicitly recognises the 'hard problem of consicousness', which is precisely that 'the experience of being' cannot be made an object of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

All this is just to make the obvious point that science cannot reproduce your own unique sense of feeling and consciousness.

It's obviously not obvious to everyone.

What you've done here is describe the -of-the-gaps argument extremely well: "Science looks like it's got X and Y covered, however Z surely must be outside its reach!" Except then science starts work on Z too, and the machine gets a long-overdue exorcism.

I do have to wonder, though, at the sincerity of someone with an alleged interest in a phenomenon who puts their fingers in their ears when new facts start coming in. I feel this is a good litmus test for whether they're genuinely interested in understanding it or are really just protecting some subscribed-to or private belief in magic. — Kenosha Kid

:up:

The reason why science can't tackle it, is because it's not an objective matter. So, therefore, you say 'well that means it must be subjective'. They're your only two choices. You ought to reflect on what forces that choice. — Wayfarer

Seems to be your false dichotomy, Wayf, not Kid's. Statements are either "subjective" (i.e. gauge/pov/subject-variant e.g. dispositions, avowals, etc) or "objective" (i.e. gauge/pov/subject-invariant e.g. propositions, claims, etc) and not their referents (i.e. things or facts) e.g. "consciousness".

And science can "tackle consciousness", even if only ever in principle, because nature produces and regulates it; and being a 'natural phenomenon' (ontologically) makes "consciousness" possible to explain scientifically within the bounds of natural, or physical, laws.

Since joining this forum, you've displayed no comprehension of the philosophical issues, merely the complacent assumption that whatever philosophy science has not yet swept aside, it's only a matter of time until it does.

Deny the history of scientific progress to your heart's content but that won't change the fact that, as Konrad Lorenz quipped, philosophy comprehends less and less about more and more, and one day might comprehend nothing about everything. (vide Heidegger, Derrida). Besides, as long as I've read your posts, Wayf, you've complacently assumed the obverse: that whatever science has not yet explained must - can only - be inexplicable, pseudo-philosophical, unparsimonious, woo (of-the-gaps). Usually well-sourced, thoughtful, woo, I'll grant you; but woo nonetheless. :mask:

Statements are either "subjective" (i.e. gauge/pov/subject-variant e.g. dispositions, avowals, etc) or "objective" (i.e. gauge/pov/subject-invariant e.g. propositions, claims, etc) and not their referents (i.e. things or facts) e.g. "consciousness". — 180 Proof

It's not a false dichotomy at all. The objective domain comprises what can be made subject to objective measurement. Objectivity is plainly important across a wide range of affairs. But the mind that makes judgements is itself never an object of analysis in this way. That's why behaviourism and eliminativism are the two most honest forms of naturalism: they acknowledge upfront that mind is something beyond the purview of the objective sciences. It's the one thing they get right.

And science can "tackle consciousness", even if only ever in principle, because nature produces and regulates it; and being a 'natural phenomenon' — 180 Proof

'Phenomena' are 'what appears'. 'The mind' is what phenomena appear to.

philosophy comprehends less and less about more and more, and one day might comprehend nothing about everything. — 180 Proof

Seems certainly true of a good many posters here.

Knowledge is generally useful; as a knowledge worker I'm very well aware of that. But knowledge has, not limits, but limitations; discursive knowledge as a mode of apprehension is not the be-all and end-all of human existence. Philosophy's task is to show us where the border of the knowable is, ideally to take us to the border, and drop us there. Any meaningful philosophy has to acknowledge the unknowable and allow us to come to terms with that, as well.

I rather like Pierre Hadot's conception of philosophy. From the IEP entry:

The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. To cultivate philosophical discourse or writing without connection to such a transformed ethical comportment was, for the ancients, to be as a rhetorician or a sophist, not a philosopher. However, according to Hadot, with the advent of the Christian era and the eventual outlawing, in 529 C.E., of the ancient philosophical schools, philosophy conceived of as a bios largely disappeared from the West. Its spiritual practices were integrated into, and adapted by, forms of Christian monasticism. The philosophers’ dialectical techniques and metaphysical views were integrated into, and subordinated, first to revealed theology and then, later, to the modern natural sciences.

You've mentioned that you admired Hadot's Plotinus previously. I don't see how you can square that, and your professed admiration of Baruch Spinoza, with your apparent scientism.

As Hadot mentions, philosophy emphasizes rational comprehension. But pre-modern philosophical rationalism was not, however, materialist in today's sense, for the very simple reason that none of the pre-moderns - even up to and including Descartes - could possibly have agreed that reason itself was in any sense a physical faculty. Certainly the senses are physical but the faculty of reason is required to make judgements of meaning. And I say it is that faculty which can't be explained naturalistically, as it has to be employed to even arrive at an understanding of what 'naturalism' amounts to. Reason is prior to any particular theory, statement, or form of science. Hence Schopenhauer:

“[Materialism] seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemistry, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility - that is knowledge - which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result - knowledge, which it reached so laboriously - was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought 'matter', we really thought only 'the subject that perceives matter'; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it. Thus the tremendous petitio principii reveals itself unexpectedly.”

The reason why science can't tackle it, is because it's not an objective matter. — Wayfarer

And yet science is tackling it, obliging you, not I, to separate consciousness into physical and non-physical based on how much science discovers.

I provided a scientific account of why this is a problem, but as you have apparently ignored it — Wayfarer

As you note, he is not himself a neuroscientist or cognitive psychologist. The Templeton Foundation handsomely pays usually religious or agnostic and greedy scientists -- thankfully a minority -- to write articles sympathetic to Christian dogma. One man being paid by a religious institution to call time on cognitive science's endeavours and accept that there must be something irreducible and non-physical going on is not "a scientific account". It is a corrupt practise -- anyone who ever accepted a cent from the Templeton Foundation does so explicitly not as a scientist and to the chagrin of the scientific community -- and in this case is nothing more than the -of-the-gaps argument. It is a client of the Templeton foundation starting from the assumption that there are such things as intractable scientific problems, that subjective personal experience is such a problem for neuroscience, and concludes its assumption with typical circularity at the end.

Since joining this forum, you've displayed no comprehension of the philosophical issues, merely the complacent assumption that whatever philosophy science has not yet swept aside, it's only a matter of time until it does. — Wayfarer

There are lots of worthwhile philosophical endeavours, not least philosophy of science. Science has limits insofar as its models can never be known to accurately represent reality. The only sure thing science has is empirical evidence. If science cannot distinguish multiple models making the same verified predictions on scientific grounds, then any discernment made is philosophy. Also, there are scales of applicability. Science might be able to explain my aesthetic sense in principle, given my biology and history, but this is hardly an area where science can practically operate. I defer to science for placing insightful limitations on what explanations are worth considering, but there's still lots of considering to be done.

Again, characterising anyone who disagrees with you as failing to comprehend the issues is fallacious. I have sound reasons for rejecting that which, I am guessing from your beliefs, you are obliged to embrace and defend, but I don't expect you to do the same. The conflict is not about misunderstanding. It arises when limits are placed on what we can and cannot know. I will always be on Galileo's side.

'Phenomena' are 'what appears'. 'The mind' is what phenomena appear to. — Wayfarer

Alternatively, experiences are part of what mind is. Thus homunculus-free deflation, "what appears" is sometimes one end of worldly interaction, yours. Less excess of mental furniture at least.

characterising anyone who disagrees with you as failing to comprehend the issues is fallacious. — Kenosha Kid

I don't do that. There are people on this forum who are experts in all kinds of subjects to whom I would always defer. What I did was spell out the problem in a particular way, which you still haven't responded to. You're approaching the issue in terms of what kind of scientific problem it is, rather than asking whether it's a scientific problem at all.

One man being paid by a religious institution to call time on cognitive science's endeavours and accept that there must be something irreducible and non-physical going on is not "a scientific account". — Kenosha Kid

That article cited is published in the journal of The National Center for Biotechnology Information. It has nothing to do with the Templeton foundation. 'Oh, he's saying something critical about science, he must be religious!' Now who is biased? :wink:

You still haven't acknowledged, or even indicated that you understand, the issue of the intractability of the subjective unity of consciousness from an objective viewpoint, a.k.a. the hard problem.

I will always be on Galileo's side. — Kenosha Kid

I respect Galileo, but there's also an issue of the blind spot in science which will always be a consequence, not of his science, but of his philosophical attitude.