The dog doesn't think about its own expectation. Expectation is belief about future events.
— creativesoul
Surely this proves too much. It proves that the dog cannot act purposively. — Ludwig V

I don't see how. There is no need to think about one's own beliefs about future events in order to have beliefs about future events.

Let me try to be a bit more constructive.

'Can a qualitative difference between humans and other animals be found in what humans "do" differently rather than how humans "are" different?'

— Thales

..... by reflecting on the question. — Ludwig V

Thank you, Ludwig V, for reflecting further on my question, and trying to rescue me from myself. I don’t even think my mother would do that! :cool:

Suppose that, in the end, there wasn't a qualitative difference between homo sapiens but a number of differences in degree, on a spectrum. (I think that's likely to be the truth of it). Why would that matter? — Ludwig V

I agree that some differences between homo sapiens and other animals are “differences in degree, on a spectrum.” For instance, it could be argued that my singing and a lion’s roaring could be put on such a spectrum. And I absolutely agree that it wouldn’t matter. In fact, I would be proud to take my place along lions (and other animals that bark, screech, hoot, etc.) on the same spectrum.

On the other hand, there seems to be something (qualitatively) going on here as well.

Because whenever animals use their “voices,” it is for some survival reason – e.g., mating, warning, etc. And that’s it. Animals don’t use different voice “genres,” or plan out concert schedules, or reserve venues, or collect money, or issue tickets, or require dress codes, etc. These are activities that, it seems to me, appear on a completely different spectrum from “survivability.”

Although humans can (and do) use their voices for survival reasons – e.g., yelling at an attacker to scare him away – they are also able to sing for a lot of other reasons. In addition, humans employ a great number of different genres when they sing. Consider jazz, opera, gospel, pop, country, blues, rock and roll, classical and hip-hop as examples – which mostly have no survivability purpose. (I’ll admit sometimes singers are getting paychecks by which they “make a living,” but certainly most singing is for enjoyment, expression of emotions or some other “human” reason.)

I would argue that it would be a category mistake to place animal voices anywhere on the spectrum(s) of nightclubs/music halls/radios/gin joints, where listening to music is free/cheap/expensive, the dress code is casual/festive/semi-formal/formal, and reviews are available via TV/newspapers/blogs/casual conversation. It just doesn’t make sense to talk about animals this way.

Well, as a postscript, I now see that this discussion has continued down a decidedly different path (principally by Janus and Wayfarer), so if you want to just ignore my rambling here, I’m fine with it. My argument seems pretty naive anyway.

Do you have a cogent argument for how it becomes the case that any creature could begin thinking about their own previous thought and belief? All timekeeping presupposes that.
— creativesoul
I did include a citation about biological clocks. I don't see how that presupposes or requires 'thinking about own previous thought and belief'. Yet another caveat added in order to exclude other species. — Vera Mont

Biological clocks? I'll have to look closer. I suspect there's some equivocation going on here. Clocks do not keep time in the sense we're discussing. Clocks have no thought/belief. Time keeping requires that. We use clocks to keep time. Clocks do not use themselves to keep time.

As best we can tell, time keeping practices were existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.
— creativesoul
From what can you tell that? Stonehenge? Obelisks? Athens' Tower of the Winds? They don't say much, except that humans have been keeping public time since the beginning of civilization. those practices may have been named and described. — Vera Mont

So... we agree here then.

Before that, humans had to depend on our own sense of when to wake, when to eat, when to move to the summer camp, when to hunt, when to preserve food for the winter. Whether anyone named that or not, we don't know.

There may be a conflation between our reports of animal thought/behavior, and the animal's thought.

Dogs are always in the moment and unreflective.
— creativesoul
Now, there is a bald, naked, unsupported statement.
you can have it. I'm done here. — Vera Mont

I've given several arguments replete with definitions/criteria in support of what I've claimed. I'm often too verbose, but it could be boiled down to a few simple arguments.

I do not see how that gets you out of the pickle you're in.
— creativesoul

I’m guessing anyone thinking deeply enough about stuff he doesn’t know, gets himself into a pickle of some sort or another, sooner or later. — Mww

Well, I would concur that no one has been picklefree. :wink:

Seems your pickle is one of logical consequences. I have no issue with the 'problem' of other minds. I have no issue with knowledge about mindless conditions. I have no problem admitting and explaining the minds of language less creatures/non human creatures. I have no problem drawing and maintaining the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief.

Dogs do not think about their own expectations as a subject matter in their own right.
— creativesoul
I only read their actions. You read their minds... — Vera Mont

Not quite. Rather, I take account of how meaningful thought, belief, and experience emerges, what it consists of, what that requires, and I apply that along with current scientific knowledge to any particular candidate under consideration.

We need not read another's mind in order to know how minds work.

Much of what you've been offering is quite agreeable. It seems that you may think some of that contradicts what I'm saying when it actually supports it.

Well, I would concur that no one has been picklefree. :wink: — creativesoul

It saddens me that I can't find the Burger King ad about Nicholas, who would rather eat hamburgers pickle-less.

Nicholas? Who's that?

:razz:

I eat them a variety of ways. Some pickleless, but just pickles and mustard suits me at times.

Nicholas? Who's that? — creativesoul

I'm likely a bit older than you. BK commercial from late 60s-early 70s. Not sure I'm remembering it word for word, but...

There once was a boy named Nicholas
Who would rather eat hamburgers pickle-less
So off he did bounce to proudly announce
"I'm a very nice kid, but particle-less"
Now the Burger King lady said, "Nicholas,
"if you'd rather eat hamburgers pickle-less
"Then all I can say is have it your way."
[Nicholas] "'Cause anythinh else is ridicle-less."

:lol:

Yup. A bit before my time, but sounds like an effective ad.

Right?? It seems to have done the job! :rofl:

Thank you, Ludwig V, for reflecting further on my question, and trying to rescue me from myself. I don’t even think my mother would do that! :cool: — Thales

You give me too much credit - or maybe you thought I was patronizing. I was, selfishly, trying to work out a space in which we might have a constructive debate.

Animals don’t use different voice “genres,” or plan out concert schedules, or reserve venues, or collect money, or issue tickets, or require dress codes, etc. — Thales

No, they don't. But they do have voices and they do do something that is at least akin to singing. But we can bat this back and to forever without anything of any interest emerging.

Because whenever animals use their “voices,” it is for some survival reason – e.g., mating, warning, etc. And that’s it. — Thales

Surely we do sing for mating, warring, etc.

certainly most singing is for enjoyment, expression of emotions or some other “human” reason. — Thales

I don't know about "most", but some is. How do you know that wolves don't howl at the moon, for example, for the enjoyment of it?

My starting-point is that human beings are animals. We have bodies in the same way that they do. We have instincts which dominate our lives just as they do. Pretending we are not animals is something that are very much tempted to do, because we spend much time and effort trying to distinguish ourselves from them. But most animals do that in one way or another. For the most part, species prefer not to share their homes, roosts or whatever with other species. So that desire is shared with other animals as well.

When someone tries to find some respect in which humans differ from animals, what I hear is a desire to pretend that they are not an animal. But they eat and sleep and do all those animal things. How are they not animals - admittedly an animal with over-developed capacities? But that doesn't change the foundation.

Also, walking is moving our feet. For simplicity, it's the word we use instead of spelling out the whole process. I don't say;
While upright, which is possible thanks to visual cues and the delicate workings of my inner ear, I moved my feet, alternating them, always placing the rear one in front of the other, until I found myself at the store.

instead, I just said I walked to the store. — Patterner

Well, that's what identity theorists say about consciousness vs neural activity. There are arguments against identity theory (other than epiphenomenalism), and similar arguments could also be deployed against the identity of walking and putting one foot in front of the other. But whether it's identity physicalism, reductive physicalism, emergence or anything else besides eliminativism, epiphenomenalism is supposed to argue against that on the grounds that consciousness appears to be superfluous if neural activity does all the causal work. My reductio aims to demonstrate that this argument is based on a misunderstanding of causality.

My starting-point is that human beings are animals. We have bodies in the same way that they do. We have instincts which dominate our lives just as they do. Pretending we are not animals is something that are very much tempted to do, because we spend much time and effort trying to distinguish ourselves from them. But most animals do that in one way or another. For the most part, species prefer not to share their homes, roosts or whatever with other species. So that desire is shared with other animals as well.

When someone tries to find some respect in which humans differ from animals, what I hear is a desire to pretend that they are not an animal. But they eat and sleep and do all those animal things. How are they not animals - admittedly an animal with over-developed capacities? But that doesn't change the foundation. — Ludwig V

Absolutely true in all respects. But I see the opposite. I see people denying there is anything different about us. As though any animal is capable of being educated and made able to build a skyscraper, build the NYC skyline, develop calculus, write string quartets, build the internet, and have these same conversations. Despite being very similar in almost all ways, we can think in ways no animal can. The proof is, literally, everywhere we look.

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. — Janus

I'm afraid it is very controversial. The disagreement centres on "cause". There's a definition which circulates in philosophical discussion and this definition itself is, in my view, suspect. — Ludwig V

By "cause" I mean something like "provides the necessary conditions". I'm not thinking in terms of "linear' efficient causation, although that too arguably plays a part. There are always going to be problems with our attempt to formulate ideas of causes and conditions, given that those formulations are inherently dualistic and given that the reality is, presumably, non-dual.

That said, we are concerned with what it seems most reasonable to say, while acknowledging that our words can never capture the reality.

give rise to that decision or action — Janus

You've moved away from the troublesome concept of cause to something vaguer, which masks, to some extent, where the disagreement is. — Ludwig V

So, here is where I think your misunderstanding of my argument is. To my way of thinking if a set of conditions gives rise to another set of conditions then the former could rightly be said to cause the latter, at least within the scope of what seem to be reasonable ways to think, while not extending to a claim of exhaustively capturing what is going on.

You refer to "when I decide to act or simply act". That seems to posit the possibility of acting without deciding to act, which seems absurd, and certainly won't help the neurophysiologists, who are looking for causes of action. — Ludwig V

It seems to me that very many even most of our actions happen without conscious decision. I think it is only meaningful to speak of decision when we are self-consciously aware of deliberating over what to do. We can posit that unconscious decision-making takes place, but then it becomes, as is so often the case, a terminological issue. Same goes for positing unconscious intentions. Are these unconscious decisions and intentions just rationalizations after the fact? If not what could they be other than neural activity?

Then we need to think about planning, preparing, trying - where do all these fit in? — Ludwig V

To my way of thinking planning and preparing can be parts of deliberation, Trying is just doing it seems.

The dualists explained "simply acting" by positing that they took place very rapidly or unconsciously, which I think most people now recognize as hand-waving. Neurophysiologists are doing the same thing. The difference is that they are waving their hands at physical correlates.
It's a mess. — Ludwig V

For me there is no separation between the physical processes and the semantic or qualitative aspects of our lives. They are all of a piece and only seem separate due to our inherently dualistic thought and speech.

So I don't believe the meaningful qualitative dimension of our lives would be possible without the physical. However I don't buy the reverse argument that because the very idea of the physical is a part of our meaningful qualitive experience and judgment that it follows that the physical universe could not exist without the presence of percipients capable of apprehending it. So i think in that sense it is most reasonable to say that the physical universe is both ontologically and temporally prior.to perception, experience and judgement.

Moreover, merely replacing the mind by the brain leaves intact the misguided Cartesian conception of the relationship between the mind and behavior, merely replacing the ethereal by grey glutinous matter. — Wayfarer

What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. The counterpoint to that—thinking of the mind as ethereal is the equally retarded sibling.

You will probably both disagree with me,
— Ludwig V
:rofl: — Patterner

I did notice what was going on. But were going off on a discussion of epiphenomenalism and walking. I didn't feel I had much to contribute to that - and my bandwidth is rather limited.

I guess there are those who say the neural activity isn't experienced as wanting to have milk. Rather, the neutral activity is wanting to have milk. Experiencing the neural activity vs. the neural activity being the experience. The latter being the case if we are ruled by physical determinism. In which case, the "wanting to have milk" is, I guess, epiphenomenal, and serves no purpose. — Patterner

I agree with your beginning. But, as you predicted, I don't agree with your ending. ("neutral" is a typo for "neural", I assume.)
Monkeys and Shakespeare. Think of someone who has never seen or conceived of a calculator. They may press keys and random and watch the changes shapes on the screen. They have no idea of the meaning. The causal sequences are working away behind the screen. Some of them are calculations, some are not. The significance of what is going on escapes them.
But we know how the calculator was set up and the correct sequences of keys to press in order to execute the calculations we want to make.
The causal sequences on their own cannot distinguish between calculations and random numbers. They work in just the same way whatever keys are pressed. Only when you know how the calculator fits in to human lives can you grasp their significance.
It seems to me a complete misunderstanding or misrepresentation to say that the screen display is an epiphenomenon. The screen display is the point of the whole exercise.
Causal sequences in the brain are described in a way that is designed to ignore the significance of what is going on. Unless you know how they fit in to human life, you cannot grasp that. Wanting to have some milk is the point of the causal sequence, not an epiphenomenon.
(This involves rejecting the idea that a causal sequence always undermines the rational, human understanding of what is going on. The progress from a brain state of thirst to walking to the shops is causal, but is what enables me to do what I want to do. The reductionist deterministic view of causal sequences only reflects the fact that we only pay attention to causal sequences when they have gone wrong, and prevented me from doing what I want to do.)
Does that help?

epiphenomenalism is supposed to argue against that on the grounds that consciousness appears to be superfluous if neural activity does all the causal work. — SophistiCat

No, the conscious outcomes are the point, the meaning, the significance of the causal sequences. It's just that we ignore them unless something goes wrong.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal. — Patterner

Well, the fact that mental states make me walk to the shops demonstrates that epiphenomenalism is false.

My reductio aims to demonstrate that this argument is based on a misunderstanding of causality. — SophistiCat

Sadly, I don't know enough to understand your attempt. I'm reading all kinds of things. Haphazardly, since I'm just singing it. So probably unproductively. But maybe I'll get there. SEP seems helpful.

However, the difference between neural activity/consciousness and moving feet/walking is vast. I can't even see any common ground.

What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. — Janus

The review it was taken from is here.

("neutral" is a typo for "neural", I assume.) — Ludwig V

Yes. But not my typo. Stupid Siri, or one of them.

When someone tries to find some respect in which humans differ from animals, what I hear is a desire to pretend that they are not an animal. But they eat and sleep and do all those animal things. How are they not animals - admittedly an animal with over-developed capacities? But that doesn't change the foundation.
— Ludwig V
Absolutely true in all respects. But I see the opposite. I see people denying there is anything different about us. As though any animal is capable of being educated and made able to build a skyscraper, build the NYC skyline, develop calculus, write string quartets, build the internet, and have these same conversations. Despite being very similar in almost all ways, we can think in ways no animal can. The proof is, literally, everywhere we look. — Patterner

The difficulty is setting out the ways we're similar, and the ways we're unique. Our own thinking is bolstered by our own complex language use and all that that facilitates. Naming and descriptive practices are key. They pervade our thinking. They allow us to reflect upon our own experiences in a manner that is much more than just remembering.

Other animals cannot do that.

I'm familiar with Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. I read the book many years ago. I agree that it makes no sense speaking about the brain deliberating, making decisions and so on because that way of speaking belongs to the space of reasons, to the understanding of human experience and behavior. There is a sense in which activities of the brain are no part of human experience. We are "blind" to what goes on in the brain. However there is another sense in which deliberating, making decisions, judging and experiencing in general are not really separate from neural activity—they are the experiential dimension of neural activity, so to speak.

Well if you'd said that to start off with......

It isn't different to what I've been saying all along. My writing seems clear to me, but maybe I overestimate its clarity for others, I don't know.

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. — Janus

I'm afraid it is very controversial. The disagreement centres on "cause". There's a definition which circulates in philosophical discussion and this definition itself is, in my view, suspect. After all, it was developed more than 300 years ago and things have moved on since then. Allied to a popular metaphysical view - that the only "true" or fundamental reality is physical/material reality, it is inescapably reductionist. — Ludwig V

I'm with you here. That's what I thought Janus was saying, but apparently not.

Interesting that the very idea of 'causation' which seems so intuitively and even scientifically obvious, actually turns out to be a metaphysical issue, or at least it has since Hume.

The distinction I was seeking to make at the outset of that discussion was between efficient and material causation, or causes and conditions, and teleological causation, which is intentional. That does hark back to Aristotle, but then, there's been something of a revival of interest in Aristotle's philosophy of biology recently.

Part of the problem is that the scientific revolutionaries in the 17th century took an entirely rational decision that their physics would not and could not take account of anything that could not be represented as a measurable quantity that could be treated mathematically. There's nothing wrong with that decision, except the illusion that anything that could not be represented in physics was not real. — Ludwig V

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. (Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36) — Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 35-36

Of course this is the background to Chalmer's 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'.

Coming back to what I will call - as vaguely as possible - the neurophysiological correlates of action. The neurophysiologists are positing all sorts of mental events - at least that is the language they use - which precede action. They don't seem to allow the possibility of "simply acting" - and if they did, it would mess up their search for physical processes that precede action. — Ludwig V

I really think neurophysiology is only relevant when you have a condition that prevents you making tea or going to the shop. 'I was going to go out, but I can't move my legs.' 'I was going to make tea, but suddenly my vision became blurry and I couldn't see straight.' Call the doctor! But 'the brain' is not normally a consideration.

I asked ChatGPT to provide a summary of Raymond Tallis' view:

Raymond Tallis coined the term "neuromania" to critique the overextension of neuroscience into domains where it may not have explanatory power. He uses the term to refer to the widespread tendency to reduce complex human experiences—such as consciousness, agency, culture, and morality—entirely to neural activity in the brain. Tallis argues that this reductionist view, which treats humans as if they are nothing more than biological machines driven by brain processes, is inadequate for capturing the richness of human existence, including our subjective experiences, social lives, and sense of meaning.

In his view, "neuromania" is part of a broader materialist trend in which the complexities of human thought and behavior are oversimplified and reduced to neuroscientific explanations. Tallis believes that this approach neglects the philosophical, cultural, and existential dimensions of human life, which cannot be fully explained by brain scans or neurochemical processes. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of understanding humans as embodied beings embedded in social and cultural contexts.

His criticism is directed at those who make claims that neuroscience can, or will soon, explain everything about what it means to be human, effectively ignoring other fields like philosophy, art, and the humanities.

I do notice the frequent assertions on this forum that, although neuroscience can't yet 'explain consciousness', they will do at some point 'in the future'. I would include that tendency under the same general heading.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal.
— Patterner
Well, the fact that mental states make me walk to the shops demonstrates that epiphenomenalism is false. — Ludwig V

The brain's activity could do these things without any subjective experience/consciousness anywhere. And I'm sure we're making robots that prove the point. But let's say we add another system into the robot. Let's call it a kneural knet. The kneural knet observes everything the robot is doing, and generates a subjective experience of it all. We built and programmed the kneural knet, and we know it absolutely does not have any ability to affect the robot's actions.

Isn't this what epiphenomenalism is saying?

It seems to me a complete misunderstanding or misrepresentation to say that the screen display is an epiphenomenon. The screen display is the point of the whole exercise. — Ludwig V

I agree.

Wanting to have some milk is the point of the causal sequence, not an epiphenomenon. — Ludwig V

I agree. Our subjective experience of it is not like the robot's. Our actions will often look like the robot's. But, with or without the kneural knet, the robot will do only exactly what it was programmed to do. Whereas I do not have programming that requires me to do only one thing from among what, to an outside observer, appears to be many possible options.

I don't see how. There is no need to think about one's own beliefs about future events in order to have beliefs about future events. — creativesoul

I'm waiting on the platform for the 5 pm train; it is 4.58; I expect (believe) that the train will arrive shortly. It doesn't. I am disappointed. Is it correct to say that I now recognize that my belief that the train will arrive shortly is false? It is correct to say that that constitutes a belief about a belief?
Why would it be incorrect to substitute "the dog" for "I" in that story?
I think you would reply that it is incorrect because the dog is unable to speak English.
However, I do not believe that attributing beliefs or knowledge to an agent is about what is going on in the agent's head. It's about making sense of what the agent does.

Despite being very similar in almost all ways, we can think in ways no animal can. — Patterner

That's true. But, since we are animals, the ways that an animal thinks are still available to us, so these special ways are grafted on to the ways of thinking that an animal thinks.
My favourite quick way of making this point is to remind you that we are perfectly capable of using language without any ability to formulate the rules that we are following. Articulating definitions and grammatical rules is grafted on to "wordless" thinking.

Of course this is the background to Chalmer's 'facing up to the problem of consciousness'. — Wayfarer

Certainly. But I don't think that formulating the problem in such a way that the problem is insoluble is particularly helpful. I wish I was sure that it was an unintended consequence, but I very much doubt it.

The brain's activity could do these things without any subjective experience/consciousness anywhere. — Patterner

The problem is that your thought-experiment only works if I pretend that I accept this. It begs the question. (This is about the P-zombies, isn't it?)

What seems most misguided and retrogressive to me is the very idea that the brain is merely "grey glutinous matter". That seems most simple-minded to me. The counterpoint to that—thinking of the mind as ethereal is the equally retarded sibling. — Janus

Oh, I don't think it is all that simple-minded. It is an attempt to gain a rhetorical advantage by labelling the phenomenon in a prejudicial way. If I'm feeling charitable, I try to ignore the label for the sake of the argument.

That said, we are concerned with what it seems most reasonable to say, while acknowledging that our words can never capture the reality. — Janus

I'm not that bothered about that supposed failure. It's a bit like complaining that a photograph doesn't capture the reality of the scene. Of course it doesn't - unless you allow it to by supplementing the coloured patches by empathetically imagining (remembering) being there.

Consider Wordsworth's famous lines "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven!" For me, they capture what it was to be Wordsworth in France before the Revolution. But not by reporting facts. Language has resources beyond that.

I don't think that formulating the problem in such a way that the problem is insoluble is particularly helpful. — Ludwig V

He doesn’t say it’s insoluble. I quoted it for its succinctness. But that is one paragraph - actually one half of one paragraph - from an entire book. Nagel’s suggestion for a solution is sketchy, but revolves around the idea of there being a natural teleology - a natural tendency for minded beings to evolve, which can be seen as a movement towards the ‘universe understanding itself’. As distinct from the neo-Darwinian picture in which we’re the accidental byproducts of a fortuitous combination of elements.

I'm waiting on the platform for the 5 pm train; it is 4.58; I expect (believe) that the train will arrive shortly. It doesn't. I am disappointed. Is it correct to say that I now recognize that my belief that the train will arrive shortly is false? It is correct to say that that constitutes a belief about a belief?
Why would it be incorrect to substitute "the dog" for "I" in that story? — Ludwig V

Maybe Hakicho?

He doesn’t say it’s insoluble. I quoted it for its succinctness. But that is one paragraph - actually one half of one paragraph - from an entire book. Nagel’s suggestion for a solution is sketchy, but revolves around the idea of there being a natural teleology - a natural tendency for minded beings to evolve, which can be seen as a movement towards the ‘universe understanding itself’. As distinct from the neo-Darwinian picture in which we’re the accidental byproducts of a fortuitous combination of elements. — Wayfarer

Hold on! I thought we were talking about Chalmers. But perhaps that's not important. I suppose I'll have to Nagel's book on my ever-lengthening reading list - and I'm a slow reader of philosophy books. I'm beginning to think I'll never catch up. But I would like to be fair to him in future.

An interesting idea. Back to Aristotle again. Perhaps.

I'm not sure that "a natural tendency" and "accidental by-product" are in flat contradiction. They could constitute different attitudes to the same phenomenon. (Except I have serious difficulties about "the universe understanding itself" - but then I don't have to go that far.) Evolution itself could be an example of how to make progress. It manages to posit a blind, purely causal process, which nevertheless manages to have the effects of a purposive process. Dennett argues at length that such a process deserves to be called "purposive", and, on the principle of the duck, that seems a reasonable proposal.

Maybe Hakicho? — Wayfarer

Indeed. I've been trying to remember that story ever since the example was proposed (by Vera, I think). I couldn't remember enough detail to construct a search that would throw it up. Thank you.

I'm a slow reader of philosophy books. — Ludwig V

Me too, and I have >500 .pdfs on my hard drive. I read a lot of excerpts, parts and reviews. Oh, and also synoptic overviews. There's far too much content to take on nowadays. My interest in David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel in particular, is because they are both opponents of philosophical materialism but from within a generally mainstream analytic context.

I'm not sure that "a natural tendency" and "accidental by-product" are in flat contradiction. — Ludwig V

Very much so, but let's leave that for now.

There's far too much content to take on nowadays. — Wayfarer

The most annoying tendency is for people to append very long lists with no comment whatever. Very unhelpful. They give the appearance of being the result of a search and little more. You can tell who's read a lot from the text itself (and the footnotes). Reviews are good, when they don't just repeat the publisher's blurb.

My interest in David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel in particular, is because they are both opponents of philosophical materialism but from within a generally mainstream analytic context. — Wayfarer

Opposing materialism is good. But I'm very ambivalent about the analytic mainstream. Yet it is the analytic mainstream I am opposed to and I have to admit that from time to time I come across ideas that I can take on board.

Very much so, but let's leave that for now. — Wayfarer

Agreed. One cannot pursue every rabbit that pops up.