And Descartes had two arguments for God and one for the soul. Your trying to use them in a new way but it's the same old stuff

Again: don't tell me what you think I believe. You are the world's worst authority on what Bartricks thinks. And that's according to the world's undisputed authority on what Bartricks thinks: Bartricks. Show me how anything I have argued here presupposes that consciousness cannot arise from matter.

Yeah, er, I provided a defence of it in the OP. — Bartricks

No, you manifested it in the OP. I'd think, if you were serious, you'd welcome the invitation to provide a better illustration of your point.

He had two for God and three for the soul. You really need to stop talking about Descartes - everything you say is wrong!

Let's remind ourselves: you said you read his 5 meditations. 5! There are 6.

You said he published it in 1642. It was 1641.

Then you said you meant the French translation. But that wasn't published until 1647.

Now you're saying he had one argument for the soul. He gave three.

Who else have you read recently? Plato's Re: Pubic. (His important work on how to organize pubic hair). Aristotle's Nicolodean Ethics? (A series of dreary moralizing cartoons on how to build character, made by animators who attended his lectures).

All Descartes arguments are digestions of the same line of argument. And your argument is the resulting poop. Nothing new, same old smell

And your being creepy for always bringing up a previous discussion. I've read the works, got the dates of them mixed up, and forgot there was a 6th section to one. Ive probably read more Descartes than you. You assume meaningful consciousness can't come from matter. It must be frustrating that you can't refute it. This is a good time to examine your own motives

Well no, the evidence is that you don't know your stuff (yet are confident you do) and that you are not good at understanding what you read.
Now once more: how does the argument in the op assume that consciousness cannot arise from matter. Or can you not show that?

1. If our faculties of awareness are wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces, then they do not give us an awareness of anything — Bartricks

This premise is about "awareness" and much of the argument following is about "knowledge", but you don't seem to define either term here.

You seem to use knowledge in the way of "justified true belief", but importantly you only seem to count intentionally transmitted information as justifying a belief. But why is that?

States of awareness have representative contents. I am arguing that the only way a state can get to have representative contents is if there is a representer who is using it to represent something to be the case.

The issue is not to do with knowledge. It is to do with how mental states get to be said to represent something to be the case.

They can't by themselves, because they are just mental states. They can't tell you anything anymore than they can dance a jig. But if an agent is using the mental state to transmit information, then it can be said to be 'representing' (though in truth it is the agent and not the state that does the representing).

As we are aware of some things, we can conclude that our faculties are designed. And thus, our faculties are not products of unguided evolutionary forces

"Representer" is a word you just made up, and phonetic similarity to "representative content" isn't an argument. The term "representative" denotes a relation, not an actor.

Yes, I made it up. So? Relations have relata, yes?

I will speed this up by answering for you: yes.

When it comes to a representative relation, what are the relata?

Well, there is normally going to be someone to whom the representation is being made. Let's call them the representee.

Then there is going to be the vehicle of representation. Let's call that the representation itself.

And then there is going to be the one doing the representing. Let's call them the representer.

The representer needs to be an agent.

Can there be desires without a desirer? No. Can there be thoughts without a thinker? No. Can there be precepts without a perceiver? No. Can there be representations without a representer? No.

And I illustrated with clear examples. Examples where a representer is absent, but everything else is in place. And bingo, no representation occurs.

Bartricks and Echarmion, could I ask what you think information is? I asked before and you thought I wasn't being serious. Now Echarmion is using the phrase "intentionally transmitted information". Without good definitions it gets into the information pixie area with information riding on light beams and sound waves. I can check the dictionary myself to find common use but would like your thoughts.

I think what information is, in your terms, is representative content. Something held by our neurons. That way physical signals as input are just physical matter, period. We interpret physical input and hold it as representative content.

No, why are you talking about neurons? Information is always information 'about' something - so it must reduce to thinking activity. But 'information' is not the issue. The point is that to perceive something, or become in some other way aware of it, you need to be in a mental state with representative contents. That isn't in dispute. And what I am arguing is that such states, to be 'representing', have to have been placed in us by an agent.

What you're doing is focussing on the content of the representation. What I am arguing about is what it takes for it to be a representation.

So, help yourself to whatever theory of information you like - it doesn't matter for my purposes here. Let's just say your weight is 25 stone. That's the information. Again, don't sweat what information is. That's not the issue. That's like asking "what is weight?". Now imagine that a leaf grows in my garden and it has a pattern on it that seems to say "Nyquist weighs 25 stone". And I form the belief that you weigh 25 stone accordingly. That leaf did not tell me your weight. Right? It didn't 'tell' me anything. It was not representing your weight. It was just a pattern that I mistook for words. It was not telling me your weight, yes? Tell me you can see this - you can see that it is NOT telling me your weight.

Ok, it's your post. I'll just read.

But I asked you a question: is the leaf telling me your weight?

No, the leaf is not telling you my weight. You must have a British background. I'm 14 stone. Had to convert, I did.

Well, if you agree that it is not telling me your weight, then you agree that it lacks representative content. It is not representing you to weigh, er, 1 stone.

If you had made those markings on the leaf with the intent thereby of conveying to someone that you weigh 1 stone, and I see the leaf and think "Nyquist weighs a stone" then I have been told your weight, yes?

I will assume you agree. So what's the difference? Why in one case am I not being told your weight, and the other I am? Is the light hitting my retinas in a different way in one case to the other? No. Are the squiggles different? No. Am I acquiring a different belief in one case and not the other? No. Is it that one set of squiggles is reliably linked to your weight and the other not? No. So what's the difference? Why is one conveying information to me, and the other not?

Because in one case you - a representer - are representing something to be the case by means of the leaf and the squiggles, whereas in the other there is no representer and thus no representing going on.

Now generalize that to all representations. And if you do that, you get my conclusion.

I did edit from pound to stone. It's on topic enough to consider information conveyance as an encoding to physical matter, transmit as physical matter, then decode to information by the receiver.

Well, my previous post was rather pointless, wasn't it!? There's no reasoning with some people. Okay. Whatever. Light. Retinas. Rods.

I did say 14 pounds before the edit. My mistake...Chaos.

Yes, a very lightweight opponent.

Note as well that I am not claiming evolutionary forces cannot have built our faculties, I am arguing that 'unguided' evolutionary forces cannot be responsible for them, for then they would not be representing anything to us.

"We cannot believe what our senses tell us about the world because it is not presented to us by an agent.
If we accepted that there is an agent that is purposely sending the information then we can believe it." — Sir2u


That's not a quote from me! That's not my view! — Bartricks

Is this not confusing to you. I know it is not a quote of something you said, but it is saying almost the same thing as you are.
Our sense cannot give us believable information.

Perception denotes that which is involved in perceiving something. And you perceive something when you are subject to a certain kind of mental state known as a perceptual experience. This kind of mental state has 'representative contents' (though it is not the only kind that does) - that is, it represents something to be the case. And when that perceptual experience has been caused, non-waywardly, by its representative contents, then you are perceiving something. — Bartricks

You are very short sighted, you cannot see beyond the end of your own twaddle.

What I am arguing, in case you didn't know, is that unless an agent has designed the faculty that created that experience in you, it won't have any representative contents at all and thus won't qualify as a perceptual experience (just something that is introspectively indiscernible from one). — Bartricks

We all know what you are arguing, but I don't think many understand exactly how it could be possible.

Descartes argued that our faculties are designed by God and on that basis we can trust them. But that's not what I have argued, is it? — Bartricks

No you certainly have not claimed that. You just said agent instead of god.

And why the freaking hell do people have to capitalize the word god all the time?

Anyways, I for one have had enough. It was fun.

Yes, a very lightweight opponent. — Bartricks

...given you've chosen to open this can of worms, what does that make 250 stone me with my 15 stone cat?

When it comes to a representative relation, what are the relata?

Well, there is normally going to be someone to whom the representation is being made. Let's call them the representee.

Then there is going to be the vehicle of representation. Let's call that the representation itself.

And then there is going to be the one doing the representing. Let's call them the representer.

The representer needs to be an agent. — Bartricks

You can play all kinds of word games like this, but none of this actually serves as an argument that all representation must be intentional. You're just using that as a premise.

Can there be desires without a desirer? No. Can there be thoughts without a thinker? No. Can there be precepts without a perceiver? No. Can there be representations without a representer? No. — Bartricks

That's a clever sleight of hand here, but I notice that all your examples are about the passive, non-acting end of the relation. Only with representation do you suddenly switch to a supposed actor.

Rather than prove your point, your list merely makes clear that we usually conceive of our relation with the world as some dualism, where information enters our mind from an outside source.

And I illustrated with clear examples. Examples where a representer is absent, but everything else is in place. And bingo, no representation occurs. — Bartricks

Your examples are interesting, but you're merely using them as ammunition for your pre-existing beliefs, rather than really engaging with the concept of justification. You're not committing to an epistemological position, and so your argument can simply flow where it needs to in order to justify your view.

Take your "letters in the cloud". How do we conclude that the letters are unrelated to the actual cake? You state that this is so, but how is the observer on the ground supposed to arrive at this conclusion? Somehow that person needs to decide whether or not the clouds justify a belief. How do they do that?



I don't have a good definition of "information", I can only describe it. I'd say information is anything that changes a mental model in any direction, either increasing or Decreasing your certainty about a prediction or explanation. You can only gain information about things you do not already know, and the two are therefore related.

Information seems to be very basic to the way our models of the world function, since it seems to be connected to entropy.

Can there be desires without a desirer? No. Can there be thoughts without a thinker? No. Can there be precepts without a perceiver? No. Can there be representations without a representer? No. — Bartricks

You do realize you're trying to pass off the rehearsal of prejudices as reasoning.

Can there be moving without a mover? Can there be burning without a burner? Can there be growing without a grower? And yet, things move without agents intentionally pushing them, burn without agents intentionally lighting them, and grow without agents intentionally farming them.

I tried a post on another forum 'What is information?". It was a psychology forum. It didn't even come close to any consensus, just a wide range of opinions. Kind of like philosophy.

Relevance? First, why are you asking psychologists a philosophical question? Second, why are you asking questions when you've already decided the answer? Third, none of this is relevant to my argument.

They're not 'word games'. Address the argument.

They're not 'word games'. Address the argument. — Bartricks

There is nothing further to adress. You haven't argued that there must in some way be a representer, only moved language around to argue that when people commonly use the term they refer to a situation where there is a "representer". I think that's also wrong, by the way, because when we talk about representation, we often talk about what something represents to us, not necessarily what the creator of some text intended it to represent. But again that's talking about usage of words, not about the world.