What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication? — Isaac

"Implies" as in strongly suggest the truth of.
This should not be hard to understand.
You are trying to challenge that doubting implies that that there is a human being thinking or doubting. Why? Where do you think doubt comes from? Let's talk normal language.

This, I think, is "I(I) have a doubt (D)" in Russell's notation.

∃x(Ix∧∀y(Iy→y=x)∧Dx)

I see the existence of 'I' being declared, not logically implied.

How do you render it such that it is logically implied? — Isaac

Sorry, I don't do Russell's notation. Please try again.

Or please expound on the Aristotelian account of thinking or Descartes's cogito.

What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication? — Isaac

You seem to be confusing empirical and absolute truth. Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it.

But this is a truth of dualistic thinking. Since entities are formal collective representations of dualistic thinking and since we can say that reality is not beholden to suvh thinking, from the 'perspective ' of non-duality there is no thinking and there are no entities.

I like Zahavi’s critique of Chalmers’ position:

“Chalmers's discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as well go on in a mindless computer–or to use Chalmers' own favored example, in an experienceless zombie–then one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and in this case, epiphenomenalism thre — Joshs

That's clever.

I find myself less engaged in this matter as the pages pile up. The options seem to be:

1) There is a hard question. Insert explanation - generally something about metacognition and qualia.

2) There is not a hard question. Insert explanation - generally something about a category mistake or eliminativism.

Why does it matter? Is it mainly down to the role each perspective plays in supporting a contested ontology? Either 1) a physicalist monism (therefore keeping atheism safe from woo OR 2) an ontological dualism allowing for more traditional forms of Western theism OR 3) a non-physicalist monism (idealism), mysticism and the East? 4)?

Is this ever just about consciousness?

"Implies" as in strongly suggest the truth of.
This should not be hard to understand. — Caldwell

I'm afraid incredulity isn't an argument.

Where do you think doubt comes from? — Caldwell

Doubt is quite a complex state of mind, I think, but it usually seems to come from a having less data about a future prediction, or assessment than you feel you ought to have. I don't know how that's relevant to the discussion though.

Let's talk normal language. — Caldwell

I am. Normal language is made up. We invented it. We didn't discover it. When we use a word 'doubt' in conversation, it work because the other language users all know how to respond to its use. so if the word 'doubt' is used to refer to the mental state of a thinking being, it has not 'implied' one exists. We have not 'discovered' that one must exist simply by using the word. we've declared that one exists by using the word.

The plain English of Russell's notation for "I am doubting" is (something like) "there exists a thing "I" such that it has the property of "doubting"". It declares that "I" exists. It doesn't 'discover' or 'imply' it.

Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it. — Janus

'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. we made up the word 'thinking' as being 'that thing which these entities do'.

So we haven't discovered a truth of any sort. we just use a word a certain way and people know what to do with it when we do.

Se my response above. We declare there to be an "I" by using the term in the sentence "I doubt". We don't discover the truth therein.

1) a physicalist monism (therefore keeping atheism safe from woo OR 2) an ontological dualism allowing for more traditional forms of Western theism OR 3) a non-physicalist monism (idealism), mysticism and the East? 4)? — Tom Storm

4) Anomalous Monism

Appreciated. Davidson.

So we haven't discovered a truth of any sort. we just use a word a certain way and people know what to do with it when we do. — Isaac

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — Wittgenstein, PI 246

I don't see the point you're making. Wittgenstein here seems to be supporting anomalous monism if anything. He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to say - the internal coherence of the language. Still nothing has been discovered. We did not possess two facts and thereby deduce a third.

He's saying that if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used, it would not make sense to say "I doubt I'm in pain".

He's not saying if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used one can thereby deduce the necessary existence of the subject of that doubt.

This radical separation of cognitive processes from consciousness created a peculiar "explanatory gap" in scientific theorizing about the mind. — Joshs

This suggests that the origin of the explanatory gap is theoretical, if only the wrong theory wasn't chosen there wouldn't be one.. I can't see how this is so. One of these two propositions must be shown to be false to resolve the hard problem:

1. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of physical events taking place. (note that this does not imply epiphenomenalism).

2. We can't conceive how physical events can engender mental events, as an exhaustive inventory of physical events does not seem to imply mental events.

Does the choice of theory as described here impact either?

Its role is not as an internal agent or ho-munculus that issues commands, but as an order parameter that or-ganizes and regulates dynamic activity. Freeman and Varela thus agree that consciousness is neurally embodied as a global dynamic activity pattern that organizes activity throughout the brain.” — Joshs

Does this mean something?

He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to say - the internal coherence of the language. — Isaac

I don't see that he's only talking about "the internal coherence of the language". It does not seem to be by definition that it makes no sense for me to doubt whether I am in pain.

There's a useful paper i'd recommend reading with regards to Wittgenstein's relation to Dennett's views:

Consciousness demystified: A Wittgensteinian critique of Dennett's project

That’s a great article. Thanks for sharing! :up:

It does not seem to be by definition that it makes no sense for me to doubt whether I am in pain. — Luke

In what way? I'm trying to get how a fact about reality is supposed to be implied by a fact about language. The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as makes "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical, makes "I doubt I'm thinking" garbage... But these are facts about the use of the word 'doubt', they're not about logical necessity.

If, for example, I declare that 'whatsits' have 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' have 2 it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But this says nothing about the necessary existence of either.

If I use a word 'doubt' and it's sensible use requires also an 'I' to do the doubting, this likewise says nothing about the necessary existence of either.

I'm trying to get how a fact about reality is supposed to be implied by a fact about language. — Isaac

I think this would be a good topic for a thread. Don't have time to start one.

I think this would be a good topic for a thread. Don't have time to start one. — bert1

In my view, it's the essence of the confusion here. We use words 'consciousness', 'I', 'thinking', 'redness', 'experience'... And there's an expectation that the objects of science have to match up causally with those words.

I cannot see, nor have been yet presented with, any reason at all why they should. Human language can contain any word at all and those words can be used successfully without any necessity for there to be a scientific object or event matching that word.

As I gave the example of earlier, early scientists used to refer to 'ether' and each would know what the other meant. Their use of the word didn't create a necessity for science to explain what 'ether' was. It doesn't exist, there's no such thing.

The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as makes "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical, makes "I doubt I'm thinking" garbage... — Isaac

Why is "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical?

But these are facts about the use of the word 'doubt', they're not about logical necessity. — Isaac

If "the internal coherence of language" is about logic or logical necessity, then so is the use of the word "doubt".

If, for example, I declare that 'whatsits' have 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' have 2 it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But this says nothing about the necessary existence of either. — Isaac

Right, it's logically implied.

If I use a word 'doubt' and it's sensible use requires also an 'I' to do the doubting, this likewise says nothing about the necessary existence of either. — Isaac

I agree that the use of a word does not necessarily imply the existence of something. But do you deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc?

Why is "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical? — Luke

Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we treat the data as being already given. It's part of the definition.

Again, all this might not actually be the case (where by 'actually the case' I mean scientifically demonstrated in some way). It's just the way we declare things to be when we use the words that way.

If "the internal coherence of language" is about logic or logical necessity, then so is the use of the word "doubt". — Luke

It isn't. Necessity is a modal concept. That which must exist. The only way I can see it entering into logic is modally - if X then Y. So we could say "if the word doubt refers to a scientific object/event, then it implies there's a thinking subject also as a scientific object", but simply using the word doesn't cash out that modality.

Right, it's logically implied. — Luke

Indeed, as above. If there are 'whatsits' with 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' with 2 then it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But since there might not be either, the existence of either and the truth of the statement "'whatsits' have more arms than 'thingamabobs'" is undecidable.

I agree that the use of a word does not necessarily imply the existence of something. But do you deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc? — Luke

No. Hence anomalous monism. I'm denying that our calling these entities into being with our language creates a necessity for science to explain them.

Consider the 'path of the stars through the heavens'. Such a folk notion is well understood and very few people would be confused by it. A thousand years ago, it would have been the only understanding of the night sky. But science cannot explain the path of stars through the heavens. There's no scientific explanation for their trajectory and momentum. The don't move. We do. Science showed that our folk notion was just wrong. It didn't explain the movement, it showed there was no such movement. Someone, nowadays asking "but how do the stars move across the sky, what propels them?" would never get an answer from science, which satisfied them.

I see no reason why our folk notions of our psychology should exist as scientific objects in need of explanation any more that the apparent propulsion of the stars stands in need of explanation.

It's like asking for a scientific explanation of "2", or of "horses (the category)". There isn't one, they're part of folk psychology, they don't necessarily need to be part of scientific ontology.

That’s a great article. Thanks for sharing! :up: — Luke

From the article...

For him the desire to reify the "psychological" is bound up with the view that all language is essentially referential in nature. It is linked with the idea that the primary function of words is to provide names for objects. It is also bound up with the notion that the essential aim of language is to effect a simple form of communication. The idea that when I tell you what is "going on inside me" I use words like "sharp pain" to pass on information to you. If you are acquainted with "sharp pains" yourself, if you know what kind of things those words designate, then by analogy you gain an insight into my situation. For Wittgenstein, this picture of how language operates generates (and supports) the idea of an "inner realm of mental events" which looks non-trivially like the "mental realm" conjured up by Descartes' philosophy of mind.

It is the name-object view of language and its attendant metaphysics that Wittgenstein challenges

Exactly the same as the challenge I'm using.

Why does it matter? Is it mainly down to the role each perspective plays in supporting a contested ontology? Either 1) a physicalist monism (therefore keeping atheism safe from woo OR 2) an ontological dualism allowing for more traditional forms of Western theism OR 3) a non-physicalist monism (idealism), mysticism and the East? 4)?

Is this ever just about consciousness? — Tom Storm

I agree with you that if the only options were 1 though 3 this topic would not be very interesting to me. A 4th option , on the other hand, offers an empirically articulated model of brain, mind , body and environment and their interaction that allows is to understand many aspects of psychological functioning in a more satisfying way than option 1, 2 or 3.
I don’t care so much about whether we end up with a monistic or dualistic, a physicalist or idealist explanation. What interests me is how we can most effectively and harmoniously makes sense of phenomena such as memory, emotion, mood, perception, empathy, depression, ptsd, autism, language and social interaction.
For my money enactivist approaches in cognitive psychology do a better job of this than the alternatives, via a monism that avoids the kind of idealism championed by Wayfarer, Kastrup,, Hoffman, Kant and others.

To be fair, there are important differences between say, Kant, Hoffman and Kastrup. Sure, they could be called "idealists", but that's a bit like saying that Strawson and Dennett are both materialists, which they are, but vastly different in what the word entails.

These are perhaps heuristics, but they need not signal agreement in terms of entailment.



I know it was aimed at me at all, but I cannot resist making but some comments, as your post is quite useful.

1) I think there are many hard questions, we just happen to live in a time in which one problem appears to be the central focus of attention, and not others, which were "hard problems" that were never solved, but accepted: the nature of motion, for instance.

2) Yes - a category error. Eliminitavism like Dennett or Churchland is cute, but fruitless.

What's the difference between a physicalist monism and a non-physical one? Is consciousness not physical? Or alternatively, if consciousness is not physical, why isn't the rest of the universe non-physical? There seems to be a lot of "empty space" - very far removed from any ordinary notions of physical stuff we have in everyday life.

Not to mention "dark matter" and "dark energy", which constitute a combined 95% of the universe - the vast majority. Is that physical or not? What consequences follow from proclaiming one term instead of another one?

The substantial issue here, I think, is that of mind independence or no mind-independence...

This suggests that the origin of the explanatory gap is theoretical, if only the wrong theory wasn't chosen there wouldn't be one.. I can't see how this is so. One of these two propositions must be shown to be false to resolve the hard problem:

1. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of physical events taking place. (note that this does not imply epiphenomenalism).

2. We can't conceive how physical events can engender mental events, as an exhaustive inventory of physical events does not seem to imply mental events.

Does the choice of theory as described here impact either? — hypericin

We need to add a third option.

3. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of natural events taking place, but to understand how this naturalist account unites the mental and the non-mental, we have to jettison physicalism.

Evan Thompson argues:

“One way of formulating the hard problem is to ask: if we had a complete, canonical, objective, physicalist account of the natural world, including all the physical facts of the brain and the organism, would it conceptually or logically entail the subjective facts of consciousness? If this account would not entail these facts, then consciousness must be an additional, non-natural property of the world.

One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however — but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) — this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world.

…we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualist–that is, beyond the divide between the “mental” (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the “physical” (understood as not conceptually involving the mental).”

Its role is not as an internal agent or ho-munculus that issues commands, but as an order parameter that or-ganizes and regulates dynamic activity. Freeman and Varela thus agree that consciousness is neurally embodied as a global dynamic activity pattern that organizes activity throughout the brain.”
— Joshs

Does this mean something? — hypericin

Yes, and to understand this you might start by googling ‘Enactivism’. Then I recommend The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson and Rosch and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind, by Evan Thompson.

To be fair, there are important differences between say, Kant, Hoffman and Kastrup. Sure, they could be called "idealists", but that's a bit like saying that Strawson and Dennett are both materialists, which they are, but vastly different in what the word entails. — Manuel

I agree that Kastrup and Hoffman have points of disagreement with Kantian Idealism. Kastrup, as I read him, is closer to Hegel , and even more so to Schelling. This is still a fair distance from the phenomenological form of idealism that motivates much enactivist thinking.

In so far as you believe than enactivism is the correct approach to these issues, can it be said that it is "a fair distance" from it.

But if one takes a kind of idealism to be true - say a variety of innatist idealism -then one could argue that enactivism is a fair distance away from it.

But that in turn depends on the strand of enactivism being elaborated, I would assume. And then there would remain only a difference in emphasis between one view and another.

As I gave the example of earlier, early scientists used to refer to 'ether' and each would know what the other meant. Their use of the word didn't create a necessity for science to explain what 'ether' was. It doesn't exist, there's no such thing. — Isaac

You can only say that because you have the advantage of the 20th century knowledge that the ether doesn't exist..

In the 19th century there were very good reasons for believing in the ether, we would have too if we lived then (if we were lucky enough to be educated). You didn't get to just say, "hey guys, ether is just a felicitous word, that doesn't imply it exists." That's because no one was arguing from it's use in language. You had to actually demonstrate the ether doesn't exist, that the good reasons were not good enough, which is not a trivial thing.

Consciousness :

It's nothing but a reflection of intelligence, as much intelligence is there that much consciousness can be seen, for example a plant, a dog they both are conscious, and the human being (homo sapiens) are the highest tool of that intelligence who gain that much intelligence during the course of evolution that their consciousness reflects onto itself and say "Who Am I", Intelligence is everywhere, from the RNA to Human, from a carbon atom, nucleus to a mountain or in the nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms in sun, that's why we say, our planet is concious itself and we are the highest state of consciousness for now, we can access higher stages of consciousness through self reflection and can be vertically evolved, or we can wait for another 1000+ years so that human intelligence increases and so is the level of their consciousness, but witnessing the contemporary reality, I personally feel homo sapiens would try to evolve horizontally as cyborgs, increasing their capabilities through AI, that would take them away from the actual gateway of knowing the reality and they would be more entangled in material world, they can only realise true consciousness when their bodies and they themselves remain pure to access true consciousness, but are they ready for that?

For my money enactivist approaches in cognitive psychology do a better job of this than the alternatives, via a monism that avoids the kind of idealism championed by Wayfarer, Kastrup,, Hoffman, Kant and others. — Joshs

Cool. Thanks.

You seem to be confusing empirical and absolute truth. Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it.

But this is a truth of dualistic thinking. Since entities are formal collective representations of dualistic thinking and since we can say that reality is not beholden to suvh thinking, from the 'perspective ' of non-duality there is no thinking and there are no entities.

I think from the perspective of non-duality the activity (thinking) and the entity (the thinker) are one in the same. There is no difference between a backflip and the one that performs it, for instance. The entity is the backflip. It's entity all the way down and any action is just the movements and contortions of that entity. So it is with consciousness.

What's the difference between a physicalist monism and a non-physical one? Is consciousness not physical? Or alternatively, if consciousness is not physical, why isn't the rest of the universe non-physical? — Manuel

Indeed. I guess idealists Like Kastrup would say that physicalism is itself a kind illusion and the universe is entirely mentation - material objects are what mental processes look like when seen from a particular perspective. Sometimes this strikes me as just the opposite of Dennett - instead of consciousness being a type of illusory phenomenon, the body is the illusion.

What consequences follow from proclaiming one term instead of another one? — Manuel

Good question - in the scientific realm of quantum fields what does physical even mean? The consequences of idealism vs materialism make little difference in practice to how one lives it would seem to me, except that idealism makes room for a reboot of the idea of the supernatural.

One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however — but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) — this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world. — Joshs

That's a fascinating point.