The point you're not seeing about Dennett is very simple: there is no in-principle difference between beings and things. — Wayfarer

The point you're not seeing is that if you want to support your claims about what Dennett is proposing you need to quote Dennett, not somebody else's opinion about what Dennett proposes. Is he that much of a "bogeyman" for you that you cannot bear to read him at all?

a position described as naive realism. — Wayfarer

No naive realism is the idea that the eyes are "windows" through which I "the perceiving soul" look out onto a world that exists out there exactly in every detail as I see it. This is obviously wrong since other animals (and to some extent even other people may) see the world differently than I do,

Then what would you mean when you said "we see the same objects (differently)"? — Srap Tasmaner

As my example indicates, we see different things, when we look at the same thing.

But I have no idea if this addresses remotely what the others are all on about.

we see different things, when we look at the same thing. — Tom Storm

I think that's exactly the right thing to say. Full endorsement from me.

The objects we interact with directly (though mediated by our sensory organs and intellectual apparatus) are not "external" to us. — Manuel

They are external to our bodies, though. Of course the way a tree looks is mediated by the visual apparatus and the light conditions, the way a rock feels depends on the skin as it does on the rock, the way the cicadas singing sounds depends on the ear as it does on the cicadas and the wind or absence of it, and so on, but none of that says anything to deny that the tree is "over there", the rock is on the ground at my feet, so I have to bend to pick it up, and the cicadas are at various distances in different trees.

Well, it's tricky. I believe they are external to me, that is something which existed prior to me, or human beings in fact.

We get into problems when speaking of "over there" and "next to me" or "close to my hand" and so on. If you aren't spatio-temporally located, how can you give coordinates to that rock?

From the Cicadas perspective where is the rock? At best you could say a Cicada would react to a rough surface of some kind, something with extension.

We can be confident abstract mathematical descriptions will hold of what we interact with, beyond that, it's very hard, because perspective must enter.

we see different things, when we look at the same thing. — Tom Storm

The question is, if you and I see them as being different, how do we go beyond those difference to see what it really is. There's no particular use pointing to the hypothetical 'chair', 'tree' or 'apple', as philosophy does, because in such cases you're just taking a random object as a stand-in. Of course we agree on such trivialities but when it comes to real world judgements, it's a different matter.

This statement assumes that there is some underlying object which is the same for all observers, that is beyond all differences of judgement, and that is what is really there. That is called transcendental realism - realism, because it assumes the reality of the object, and transcendental, because it is beyond the differences that observers might have about the object in question. 'The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding' ~ Kant, CPR A369


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I think the underlying problem is that any statement which relies on the conjunction 'it is' - for example 'the mind is just the brain', 'experience is simply the activities of neural connections' - is already depending on something for which there is no physical equivalent. And that is because there is no physical equivalent for 'it is' or '='. That is a fundamental element of judgement, and something for which there is not even an analogy in the natural world. It is only real as a primitive artifact of rational thought, where it is the basis for abstraction, and hence comparison and differentiation.

I think that is the upshot of the long history of discussion of the reality of universals. I think that what emerges from the Platonic tradition, is the view that pure understanding is only possible with respect to the objects of the intelligence (a.k.a. nous). That is why mathematical expressions are paradigmatic for certain statements; a=a is true in a way which 'that is an apple' cannot be (because it might be a replica or some other thing that is like an apple). All of our rational judgement comprise the synthesis of rational judgements with percepts (pace Kant) or with the concepts of things (the ideal forms of Plato). And I'm learning that the philosophy that best anticipates this is actually Thomism.

The problem with materialism is that it has taken only the quantifiable aspects of things as real. This goes back to Galileo, Descartes, and so on. Hence:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos p35

Dennett is simply speaking from that assumption, without understanding how it can be questioned. This is why Chalmers has sometimes asked humourously if he really is just a philosophical zombie.

We get into problems when speaking of "over there" and "next to me" or "close to my hand" and so on. If you aren't spatio-temporally located, how can you give coordinates to that rock? — Manuel

I don't have to give coordinates to know that something is on the ground at my feet, something else is over there, and something else is further away again in a different direction, and so on.

...we see different things, when we look at the same thing. — Tom Storm

I don't agree with that wording. Better: we usually see the same things, but perhaps we see them differently.

So back to your example:

When I stand in the desert here in Australia looking at sand and jagged scrub, I know my Aboriginal Australian comrades see food, water and an entire ecosystem of meaning and potential which is nothing but a howling void to me. We see different things. — Tom Storm

Overwhelmingly, you will see the same things. But someone else may see those things differently. We still see the acacia seeds, but do not know how to prepare them, or do not see them as food. And you might be shown how to see them as food.

That is, the world occupied by others is not incommensurate with our world. We share the world.

(Edit: The alternative seems to involve an unacceptable "othering" of indigenous folk. It's one thing to respect the knowledge eof first peoples, but quite another to claim they do not share our world)

You put a good case, Banno. I like the drama of my wording more, but yours may be more apropos.

There is something powerful in the idea of what we see being perspectival.

I like the drama of my wording more, — Tom Storm

Me, too. Which explains it's attraction. But I think it wrong.

Note the edit. There are moral imperatives implicit in the ontology one adopts.

Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos p35

I agree that the Galilean view of science may suck all the life out of living, inasmuch as it sees everything of any importance as being quantifiable. Importance itself is not quantifiable, though. There is nothing wrong with science per se, and the mathematical approach does nothing per se to undermine the value of life. We create the value of things by valuing them.

Btw I enjoyed this very much. — Kenosha Kid

Cool. I had fun with it. Just because we take our philosophy seriously doesn't mean we need to take ourselves as much.

I'd tell the boss that I had been slapped and how hard. — Kenosha Kid

Just what I’d hoped. Would you agree the empirical occurrence, and the quality of it, as reported, belongs properly to the concept of sensation? Do you think the conclusions follow from the proof? The intent of the exercise is in the question at the end, which was meant to pave the way for relieving the concept of perception from any internal predication, pursuant to the relative validity of the answers.

.....information flows from nerves to brains. We're in disagreement that this alone constitutes perception. — Kenosha Kid

I don’t think you said it was, and I know I would never claim it was. So we are not in disagreement with this. That perception is a brain function, is the major premise of our disagreement, you in the affirmative, me in the negative.

Perception is the organisation of these messages, not the messages themselves. — Kenosha Kid

Which forces the “empirical occurrence and the quality of it”....the message.....to remain internal, as you’ve maintained all along, and I understand it as such.
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In taking exception to your rendering, it is not incumbent on me to supply an alternative
— Mww

If your counterargument is that there is a different authoritative definition, you ought to be able to cite it. — Kenosha Kid

True enough, but I’m not counter arguing in favor of a difference, but in arguing in refutation of a stated claim.

Given that the criteria for the possibility of a conception is its definition, and, say, I delivered an authoritative definition for “perception”, you are then entitled to ask me to cite the criteria that supports it. OK, fine, but we’ve already got one: perception is a function of the brain. If I advance a successful refutation of that definition, which is my wont because I’m denying its validity, by showing how the criteria do not support it, beginning with the gedankenexperiment, then I don’t need a different definition. And in the case at hand, should I offer one, I might be susceptible to accusations of committing an informal etymological fallacy. A fancy-assed way of saying what was once acceptable now isn’t.

Not to mention.....and conspicuous in its absence.....nobody’s asked me for one.
———-

If I was _certain_ that a given perception was caused by a particular object, then I'd be saying that such an object is necessary. — Kenosha Kid

Of course, but certainty is a knowledge condition, so this statement is correct from that perspective. But the thought experiment attempts to show that the cause of sensation is entirely unknown. or, more accurately, knowledge of the object is not given, is impossible to derive, from the mere sensation of it, just as you yourself made explicit in your “hard slap”.

Regarding the proposition, then, all you’re justified in saying is, if you are certain a sensation is caused by an object, the object is necessary, and its existence is therefore given, and nothing else whatsoever.

There is no knowledge of the object, and there is no organization of any kind at this level of the system, therefore there is no inclusion of brain function.

If perception is a brain function, and there is no brain function at this level, there is no perception at this level. Or, perception was never a brain function in the first place, which grants the possibility that perception is something else entirely.

Refutation success!!!! YEA!!!! (Does the Happy Dance, feet just a-blur. Look it ‘im go, sawdust ‘n’ peanut shells ‘n shot glasses flyin’ all over the place.)

The question is, if you and I see them as being different, how do we go beyond those difference to see what it really is. — Wayfarer

Like many I have often festered over the idea of what 'really is' actually means. In the end, even for 'physicalism' all we think we know seems to be quantum waves - solid matter being a myth. I guess what you are searching for is capital T truth out there somewhere above and beyond the flailing of human perceptions and rationalism. Is this the appeal of idealism - this second set of books which makes sense of the first book? I just wonder if this can be achieved - despite recognizing the enormous literature and speculative work in the affirmative.

Yeah but "over here" and "over there" are just as much mental attributions as colours are.

A different thing, in that it likely applies to the external world, are some aspects of mathematics.

Ah, yes, another tabula raza know-nothing. Lazy is as lazy does, Harry. You prove my point. — 180 Proof

Yet it would have been less typing for you and more educational for me and others had you simply used the time you had in forming these snarky replies to just quote his explanation here, in this thread. :roll:

Tell me, 180: who in the world, or in all of history, has had a clearer understanding of what mind is and its relationship to brains, and how did they obtain this clearer understanding, so as I might understand why what someone else thinks about this relationship could be better than mine or anyone else's?

It seems to me that we are all stuck in this same predicament of only having access to our own minds and the world as we perceive it through our own minds, so one is just as likely as any other to have a clear understanding of this relationship.

Please don't bother saying they are neurologists and it's their job to study brains. Studying brains is only studying your perception of brains without acknowledging the fundamental problem of how the mind appears compared to how brains appear and all of their knowledge of brains is only a result of how they appear via the mind. When science itself implies that "physical" objects are made up of the processes of smaller objects, which are in turn made up of smaller objects interacting, etc. ad infinitum, and that objects are mostly empty space, then our perception of "physical" objects doesn't match up to our explanation of the objects we perceive, and that includes brains and their neurons.

What good is cogitation without the senses? Well, not entirely senseless, but look at, say, deaf-blind people, they can read by only pressing their fingers over bumps on a page and get an extremely rich story out of that.

So the senses can be extremely poor compared with the cognitive reply. — Manuel

We know that the brain is adaptable and can repurpose processing power that was used for visual and auditory perception for tactile perception.

A better example would be what happens to people in a sensory deprivation chamber. After a while the brain creates its own input.

Nerve nets eventually started to group together in tighter clusters, which brains evolved from. Brains were selected for their ability to bring information from different sources (multiple senses) into a consistent whole creating a more fault-tolerant system where the information from one sense is used to confirm the information coming from another. Brains were also selected for their ability to attend to these sensory impressions focusing the attention from one part of the mind to another (think of continuing to look straight ahead while focusing your attention on the limits of your peripheral vision).

So it seems to me that primitive minds existed prior to the existence of fully evolved brains, with more complex brains adding to the functionality of the pre-existing mind.

I may sound like I'm leaning towards idealism or panpsychism, but I'm not. Supposing mind is the fundamental component of reality is just as much of a projection as supposing the world is "physical" - whatever that means. The mind is a process, and process is the fundamental component of reality.

Yeah but "over here" and "over there" are just as much mental attributions as colours are.

A different thing, in that it likely applies to the external world, are some aspects of mathematics. — Manuel

I see mathematics (in part) as consisting in precise quantification of distance. So, I see 'over there' and 'over here' as being expressions of physical distance, not merely mental attributions.

Yeah but "over here" and "over there" are just as much mental attributions as colours are.

A different thing, in that it likely applies to the external world, are some aspects of mathematics. — Manuel

Mathematics are as much mental attributions as colors are. After all, the symbols of math are made up of shapes and colors. Any alien species would probably use different symbols.

It's the relationships/processes that mathematics represent that are real (again it's processes all the way down, of which minds are a type of process). Mathematics is just a way to quantify these relationships/processes into useful objects of thought. It is the processes that are real and what the external world is like more so than the solid, stable, "physical" objects of the process of perceiving and thinking.

I actually don't mind labels much. As in, you can be a total idealist and say that we create the world with our minds. Or you can be a metaphysical dualist. If the arguments are interesting and persuasive, that's what matters. I only dismiss "eliminitative materalism", because it's just very poor philosophy.

Hmmm, I can see that argument. I think we agree that we have to consider sensations and intellect as different but closely inter-related "modalities" or "faculties", for lack of a better term. It could be that brains evolve prior to sense, it's possible.

Perhaps at some point "down the system" these things actually converge, in very primitive organisms but then they develop differently. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is that sense alone, is poor when compared to the intellect alone, in as much as we can separate them in actuality.



Oofff. Gets really complex here. I don't know how to express "here" mathematically. I guess if you add something in relation to you, say a Capital or mountain, then yes. But with nothing else to go on, over here is hard.

"There" can be expressed mathematically in so far as you have an object in mind which you can express in measurable units, as in, the Moon is 384,000 kilometers away from the Earth. But we remove here all phenomenal properties by saying this as a fact about the world.



Yeah. That's the elephant in the room. Didn't want to say this because then I'm put in a position of having to defend the existence of an external world, which I think should be taken for granted. But, it turns out, it needs a minimum of justification too.

While what you say is true, I assume that for reasons we don't know, these mathematical relations do hold to the extra mental world, such that it is true that there was a world 6 billion years ago and a "Big Bang" 13.8 billion years ago, not completely dependent on human beings.

A psychologist might talk about an internal dialogue. A surrealist thinks a dreamlike account is closer to the truth. In a Stephen King novel telepathic people are communicating their "inner worlds" in some quasi external realm.

Just have to look to context.

In the end, even for 'physicalism' all we think we know seems to be quantum waves - solid matter being a myth. — Tom Storm

Oooh. No, again, I don't agree.

The table, the road, the wall are all solid; they are not going to give way on you. Hm. I might be wrong about the table - those legs might be a bit wonky. But if they do collapse, it will not be because they are quantum waves.

Talk of things being solid is grounded in our everyday interactions with solid things, wonky things, liquids, and so on. It's nothing o do with quantum.

Like the previous example, we've different ways of talking about stuff. Acacia seeds can also be seen as food; tables as solid. Different word games for different purposes.

Reminds me of Goodman's "irrealism" and his talks of versions.

I mean, we can do that, yes, but the thing is attributing the least things possible to objects, unless necessary to make sense of experience.

This statement assumes that there is some underlying object which is the same for all observers, — Wayfarer

No, it doesn't. It's just that there are things we agree on - that is a handful of acacia seeds, that is a solid table, and so on.

Is the table really solid? what is that word, "really", doing there? Pointing down a philosophical garden path.

Like many I have often festered over the idea of what 'really is' actually means. — Tom Storm

There used to be a relationship between this and the kind of 'enlightenment' that is subject of the other thread. Well - almost. The reason being, that enlightenment in the Western tradition had a much more mathematical and rationalistic bent than its Eastern counterparts, although there are still many points in common (Russell points this out in his chapter on Pythagoras in HWP). But I think what is being sought through that expression of seeing 'what really is', is a grasp of the totality, the 'unitive vision', which sees the Cosmos as an ordered whole (actually, 'cosmos' means 'ordered whole'). Whereas now we're so utterly emerged in the minutiea of specilisations that the forest is no longer visible for the trees (or even the bark, for that matter.)

There's one independent scholar, by the name of Peter Kingsley, who really explores those lines. Check out this review.

The table, the road, the wall are all solid; they are not going to give way on you. Hm. I might be wrong about the table - those legs might be a bit wonky. But if they do collapse, it will not be because they are quantum waves. — Banno

The reason these examples keep coming up, is because one of the fundamental assumptions of The Enlightenment philosophers was that what was real was ultimately - there's that word again - atoms, which were purportedly physical bodies. 'All I see', said Baron D'holbach', 'are bodies in motion'. Francis Crick - 'you - your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will - are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Which is also what Dennett says. So the claim is that what 'really is' the case, are the fundamental constituents of physical matter. And that's why the realisation of quantum physics about 'wave functions' and the indeterminate nature of sub-atomic particles is significant. They're like the Cheshire cat's grin.

Is the table really solid? what is that word, "really", doing there? Pointing down a philosophical garden path. — Banno

Don't worry Banno at the end of the garden path your coffee cups and spoons are all nestled safely in their respective places.

I mean, we can do that, yes, but the thing is attributing the least things possible to objects, unless necessary to make sense of experience. — Manuel

I just meant that people use "internal" and "external" in different ways that might sometimes conflict.

Why attribute the least things possible to objects?

Talk of things being solid is grounded in our everyday interactions with solid things, wonky things, liquids, and so on. It's nothing o do with quantum. — Banno

Ok, good, I understand what you are saying. Can I ask what is the principle which underpins the perspective you use here to select 'real world' experience over a knowledge of QM? I understand that in human experience the object is solid. Do we privilege this because we can't avoid the realities of, for instance, a head on crash with the 207 bus to Shoppingtown?

Don't worry Banno at the end of the garden path your coffee cups and spoons are all nestled safely in their respective places. — Wayfarer

AH, good. There is some hope for you, then, when you eventually find them.

Like many I have often festered over the idea of what 'really is' actually means. — Tom Storm

Austin's view clarifies this. "Real" is a word that obtains its use in contrast to other words. It's a real painting, not a fake; it's a real $50 note, not a forgery. It's a real lake, not a mirage. It's a real table, not an illusion.

But philosophers will play silly buggers and forget this, ending up asking things like

how do we go beyond those difference to see what it really is. — Wayfarer

(His emphasis). Here the word "really" is not contrasted with anything; that's the first step on the garden path. What is the table really? A table.

Can I ask what is the principle which underpins the perspective you use here to select 'real world' experience over a knowledge of QM? — Tom Storm

I'm not choosing one over the other. They are different contexts, different word games, with which we do different things.

It'd be much like privileging democracy over chalk. It makes no sense.

(additionally - and I'd be happy to be corrected here - so far as I am aware, there is no notion of things being solid in quantum mechanics. SO the proposition that "the table is not solid" could not be made therein, at least not without a debatable degree of interpretation)

(edit: Mary Midgley is particularly clear and readable on these issues.)

The point being, by your continual reduction of the subject to rhetorical devices trivialities, like tables, spoons and cups, you're actually missing the point of philosophy proper, which really is the discernment of what is real, in just the sense you give. What you're missing is the larger context in which the question is meaningful, which is why you can't make sense of it.