So I dont't understand what you are saying here, especially what you mean by "2 divides 1 and 3". One divided by two produces a half, and three divided two produces one and a half. But it doesn't make sense to say that two acts as a division between one and three in the way that you propose. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry. I should have said "separates", not "divides".

So it looks like you disagree with my premise that counting is a form of measurement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you think of a form of measurement that is not counting - apart from guessing or "judging"?

Since you claim that starting to count something is sufficient to claim that it is countable, then if we maintain consistency for other forms of measurement, puling out the tape measure would be sufficient to claim that the item is measurable. — Metaphysician Undercover

I disagree. Since this is not an argument, it seems inappropriate to reply.

I'm saying that in the presence of an inconsistency between ZFC and computable notions of mathematics, coupled with the obvious uselessness of of non-constructive cardinal analysis, the theological origin of ZFC becomes conspicuous. — sime

OK. Obviously I'm not in a position to comment.

which is a conclusion that Cantor accepted because it resonated with his theology. — sime

Are you suggesting that is a reason for rejecting his conclusions? Either way, I would suggest that we leave Cantor's theology as a matter between Cantor and his God.

Why do you think the proposition that the natural numbers is countable does not contradict the proposition that the natural numbers are infinite, in the way I explained? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends, as I explained earlier, how you define "countable". I don't say that it's just all just a matter of definitions, but it's probably a good idea to get those agreed so that we can be sure we are talking about the real issues. As it is, we don't agree and so we never get to identify and discuss the real issues.

That's exactly right. To say that 2 is between 1 and 3 is to say that it serves as a medium. However, in the true conception and use of numbers, 1, 2, 3, is conceived as a unified, continuous idea. This unity is what allows for the simple succession representation which you like to bring up. No number is between any other number, they are conceived as a continuous succession. To say that 2 comes between 1 and 3 is a statement of division, rather than the true representation of 1, 2, 3, as a unity, in the way that the unified numbering system is conceived and applied. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what you mean by "serves as a medium". I accept you are right to observe that the numbers are defined as a succession. (I don't know why you call the successor function a representation of something, but let that pass...) But the point of a succession is that every step (apart, perhaps, from 0) has a predecessor and a successor. That is what it means to say that n is between n-1 and n+1. It is not wrong to say that 2 unites 1 and 3 and it is not wrong to say that 2 divides 1 and 3. But it is wrong not to say both.

"Infinite" means limitless, boundless. The natural numbers are defined as infinite, endless. limitless. All measurement is base on boundaries. To say a specific parameter is infinite, means that it cannot be measured. Counting is a form of measurement. Therefore the natural numbers cannot be counted. To propose that they are countable, is contradictory, because to count them requires a boundary which is lacking, by definition. — Metaphysician Undercover

This just turns on your definition of what it is to count something.
Using a ruler to measure a (limited) distance means counting the units. Obviously, we need enough numbers to count any distance we measure. So having an infinite number of numbers is not a bug, but a feature. It guarantees that we can measure (or count) anything we want to measure or count.
I maintain that if you can start to count some things, they are countable. You maintain that things are countable only if you can finish counting them., It's a rather trivial disagreement about definitions. But I do wonder how it is possible to start counting if I can only start if I can finish.

If I recall correctly, he specifically said "habit" rather than "rule", which suggests naturalizing logic, and indeed I think that's where he was headed. — Srap Tasmaner

There's a lot that could be said about that. It is tempting to classify some rules as habits. Habits neither have, nor require, any kind of justification. They are what they are and that's all that can be said. Rules, on the other hand, can provide justifications and, just for that reason, are, mostly subject to justifications. Some rules do not have, and do not require, any further justification - especially if they set the standard for right and wrong. So these are like habits in that they do not require justification and unlike habits in that they can provide justification. (I'm sketching here.)

We do not find numbers in nature, not in the same way we find trees and rocks and clouds. Did we then make it all up, our mathematics? Is it just a game we play with arbitrary rules? — Srap Tasmaner

That's true. But as soon as we recognize a tree, and recognise this is a different tree and this is the same tree again, we have have sown the seeds of counting. Not so much in the case of rocks and even less to in the case of clouds.
I don't think we make mathematics up like a story or even like a game (although the comparison can be useful). But it is a mistake to move from saying that we make mathematics up to saying that it (or its objects) don't exist. They don't exist in the way that trees and rocks do, but that shouldn't be a problem.
I don't like saying we discover or recognize mathematics either. It's not wrong, exactly, so long as we don't compare such discoveries to what explorers like Columbus do, thus positing a world of mathematics comparable to the physical world we live in.
Mathematics shares features with other practices in our lives and so comparisons can be useful. But I am unable to adopt any one comparison as the whole truth. (Comparison is always partial and involves differences as well as similarities.)
I'm in favour of naturalizing, if that means locating things in our lives and practices. But one has to acknowledge that there is a somewhat different project, at least in relation to mathematics, which is the search for foundations for a structure (as opposed to a set of practices).

If you think Meta has convincingly shown that numbers do not exist, then I suppose that's an end to this discussion. And to mathematics. — Banno

No, I don't think that @Meta has shown that numbers don't exist. I'm inclined to think that he doesn't believe that, either. He has been explicit that he rejects what he calls Platonism, but I don't think it follows that he thinks that numbers do not exist. I'm not sure he even rejects the idea that there are an infinite number of them - since he realizes that we can't complete a count of the natural numbers. I do think that we can't get to the bottom of what he thinks without taking on board the metaphysical theory that he has articulated.

I think that it is not necessary for the infinite number of numbers to exist in my mind. All I need to have in my mind is S(n) = n+1.
— Ludwig V
This is Aristotle's finitism. — frank

I didn't intend it to be. Surely, it works like this - Aristotle thinks that infinity cannot be real if we cannot complete the count. I intended to say that infinity is real even if we cannot complete the count, because the successor function tells us so.

Per Aristotle, infinity exists in potential. The actual is always finite. Set theory, by handling infinity as a set, appears to be defying finitism. This is an unresolved issue in phil of math. Someday it may result in a shift in thinking about set theory. — frank

Yes, I'm aware of that - and of the startling results that followed when his view was set aside and infinity was treated as real, thus enabling the invention/discover/development of the calculus.
Come to think of it, one might argue that Aristotle does not actually say that infinity doesn't exist, just that it exists ("in potential"). But everyone thinks that something that potentially exists doesn't exist and it would be perverse to suggest otherwise, I suppose.

Ramsey suggested that universal quantification is actually an inference rule: to say that all F are G is to say, if something is F then it's G.) — Srap Tasmaner

I didn't know that came from Ramsey. But it is in the same spirit. Instead of having to remember each specific F and that it is G, and that my list of F's is complete, we just have to remember a rule.

People decided that this would be really good, and so the system was designed and maintained that way. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you do know that the series is infinite without completing the count of them all.

Deduction from false premises produces absurdities. That's what Zeno is famous for having demonstrated. — Metaphysician Undercover

Zeno, if I remember right, thought that he had developed a proof that change is impossible. It is other people who treat his proof as a reduction. The catch is that they have not yet discovered which of his premises is false.

But the issue is whether an infinite quantity is countable. Any finite quantity is, in principle countable. But, since "infinite" is defined as endless, any supposed infinite quantity is not countable. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's just playing with words. We agree on the facts.

I'll give you a brief description why abstract "ideas" are classed as potential by Aristotle. This forms the basis of his claimed refutation of Platonism, and provides the primary premise for his so-called cosmological argument which demonstrates that anything eternal must be actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

I thought following paragraph very interesting. It made sense of your arguments. Not that I agree with it.

When numbers are assumed to be mathematical objects, these objects simply exist independently of any human mind. The supposed object is not in my mind, nor your mind, because it would be in many different places at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was going to put that argument to you. But I see it is not necessary.

In case you think I did not address this claim, 'having being within a system' is fiction. It can be said that Frodo Baggins has being within a system, but this type of being is well known as "fictional". — Metaphysician Undercover

And yet, Frodo Baggins exists - in the way that fictional characters exist. They can even be counted. Similarly, numbers exist - in their way.

It is absolutely necessary that the referenced infinity of numbers must have independent existence because it is absolutely impossible that they could exist within any minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not quite sure that I understand you. I think that it is not necessary for the infinite number of numbers to exist in my mind. All I need to have in my mind is S(n) = n+1.

It's just extending the way we talk about numbers. What started with the Biggest Number game gets extended into infinity, both ∞ and ω, the difference being that while ∞+1=∞, ω+1>ω; The first reflecting the teacher's answer "infinity plus one is still infinity", the second, the player's answer "infinity plus one is bigger than infinity". What we have is a division in how we proceeded, in the rules of the game, not in what "exists" in any firm ontological sense. It's chess against checkers, not cats against dogs. Neither set of rules is "true" while the other is "false". — Banno

Quite so. The difference is, however, that while we can work quite happily with both chess and checkers, it seems pretty clear that this game is not just an addition to the menu of possible ways we might amuse ourselves. @Metaphysician Undercover believes it is illegitimate in some way. It turns out that the disagreement turns on a metaphysical disagreement. Tackling that needs a different approach.

Advocating for new rules, new distinctions, new domains of discourse gives us a normative standard that is neither realist nor relativist. — Banno

A consummation devoutly to be wished for. But can you explain a bit what that standard is?

We know that the natural numbers go on for ever. Therefore it is impossible to count them, or that there is a bijection of them. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that the natural numbers go on for ever? Have you tried to count them and failed? That doesn't prove that they go on for ever.
But perhaps you have counted some of them. That's easy enough to do.
When we are counting numbers, it is natural to start at the beginning. But we could start at any point in the sequence, and go on as long as we like from there. So we cannot find any numbers that cannot be counted.
So they are countable in the sense that some of them can be counted and we cannot find any numbers in the sequence that cannot be counted.

Admlttedly, the step from there to saying that they go on for ever is an induction.
But it is not an induction like the conclusion that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. We can see from the first few steps that anything that emerges from the function will be a number (because it is the successor to a number) and this is nothing to stop the next number emerging.
So the induction is secure. I know that there is some debate about this, but that is the debate we should be taking up.

They could not have all come into existence therefore it is impossible that there is a bijection of them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ah, so this is about actual and potential infinities. My problem with that is that I don't see how the idea of a possible abstract object can work. In an Aristotelian system, as I understand it, the concepts of matter and potentiality are linked. But that only applies to physical or material objects. Since abstract objects are not material, I don't see how they can have any potential for anything.
I have to admit that much of the talk about functions, suggests that they produce their results only when we feed in values for the variables. This is misleading. The answers are "always already" defined, before we start calculating. Nothing more is needed for a number to exist.
The philosophical parameters for the debate what it means for a mathematical (abstract) object to exist are well enough defined, so that's the debate we are really involved in.

And the majority of people don't want the hassle of a local computer. They don't know how to program it. Basically everything will be just buy once... and then it continuously updates and you pay an annual payment. — ssu

Quiite so. I'm afraid I'm among those who doesn't want to be bothered.
And then you will be locked in for life.
Then I find myself thinking that it won't be so bad - there will be rebels and perhaps government actions. Who knows?
But it does drive home the point, that @BenMcLean mentioned. Unrestricted libertarian capitalism doesn't work for anyone except the capitalists, who enjoy their liberties at our expense.

I'm inclined to see President Trump, even at his worst, as an effect of the inevitable direction of the American political system and not as the cause or instigator of a historically unique evil. — BenMcLean

There are similar movements for similar reasons in Europe. So although @ssu is right about the reserve currency business, the squeeze has had similar effects elsewhere. But the solution is not fortress America, but a fairer economy and international trading system. But don't hold your breath.

I think the OP is still a very interesting topic to debate. I don't see it as a political thing, but more of an economic and commercial development that can be seen in many things. — ssu

I can see that moving towards subscriptions and rents is better business than selling people copies of software. That seems to need continuous updating anyway, so what's the point of owning it?
Still, the OP has a point. And I'm sure there's be a healthy trade in the data we all keep on the cloud.

Now it's obvious that your current administration is outright hostile to Europe, and Europe cannot at all rely on the US or it's military industrial complex. — ssu

Quite so. I think there may be people who think that things will get better once Trump's term ends. We'll see. But even if they did get better, I can't see that anyone with any sense would trust it/them again - not for decades into the future.

Never underestimate just how similar in reality European system is to the American one. — ssu

That's true. I was mainly interested in the question of principle and especially the point that it is possible for a right-wing government to embrace the principle - i.e. the labelling of welfare as inherently "socialist" or "left wing" is a mistake.
I confess I have no idea what the arguments were in the US about this.

If I paint a landscape from memory of a park I visited long ago, do I need to appeal to mental images to explain how I did it? Is it not explanation enough just to say, “I am trained to paint landscapes, I visited that park, and have a good memory, go visit the park and you can see how accurate the painting is.” I don't need to say, “I am good at painting the mental copy of the park I have in my mind.” There need not be any mental copy at all. — Richard B

Exactly. If you are painting from a mental image, how could you distinguish between mistakes you have made because you are not very good at painting mental images - though you might still be stellar at painting actual landscapes - and mistakes you made because you are not very good at painting actual landscapes even if your mental images are a bit naff.

there does need to be some limiting principle on how far to the economic Left I need to go in order to avoid Soviet style tyranny. — BenMcLean

Isn't that a moral and political question, rather than a strictly economic issue?
In any case, I doubt if it is reasonable to expect to draw those lines in advance. People are very inventive about the ways they misbehave and misuse their assets. Perhaps it is best to enable the state to make a judgement case by case (subject to criteria and subject to the law). Compare competition regulations.

EDIT. I meant to point out how different this authority is from the more traditional, aristocratic notiong. There is no sense of social responsibility attached to the domain of an individual under libertarianism. This doesn't mean that no-one feels such a sense, or that traditional mores were good at ensuring that individuals with power exercised it properly. But there is a difference here, and an important one. (No, I'm not recommending going back to the old ways).

In context, I was explaining the doctrinal implications of libertarian orthodoxy in policymaking. — BenMcLean

Yes. I was taking an opportunity to smuggle in a hobby-horse of mind. It seems paradoxical, but look at it this way. Society and the state define the limits of individual freedom. Within the scope of the freedoms that are allowed, each individual is (supposed) to be free to do whatever they wish. That means that they have total authority to determine what happens within the scope of those freedoms. Clearly, someone who owns more property, of whatever kind, has authority over that property - and pretty much unrestricted authority at that. Money effectively enables people to acquire and control resources of all sorts and so, the more money you have, the more resources you command.
(I'm ignoring, for the moment, the tendency of most people to feel the restrictions of not owning things and not enjoying the freedom that brings to decide what happens more than the opportunities they already have. That's a whole other can of worms.)

doing anything whatsoever which would actually address this problem requires abandoning the Cold War era Baby Boomer libertarianism on economics which has been a core part of the self-identity of the Republican party for nearly half a century. — BenMcLean

Yes. I expect they will move when the electorate does.

The causal chain explains how perception occurs, not what perception is of. — Esse Quam Videri

Yes. It seems to me that the fact that we do not perceive light waves as such is important. Light and sound are the means by which we perceive, not what we perceive.

By contrast, perceptual access to the Sun or a ship is sensory and causal, not mediated by beliefs or descriptions. — Esse Quam Videri

Exactly.

So while I agree that a relation cannot obtain to a non-existent object as such, I deny that this forces the conclusion that the object of perception must be a present mental item. — Esse Quam Videri

Quite so. But then one has to explain what a hallucination of a dagger is, if not a mental image. That's not easy, because most people are absolutely sure that, like Macbeth, they see a dagger that is not there. Hence, a dagger-like object. Illusions like the bent stick are easy - we can demonstrate that the stick in water should look as if is bent - it's an actual physical phenomenon. At the moment, I'm inclined to just say that Macbeth is behaving as if he can see a dagger, and believes he is seeing a dagger - but there is no dagger and hence no perception of a dagger.

The disagreement now seems to be about ontology — whether objects are momentary temporal stages or persisting continuants — rather than about logic or semantics. — Esse Quam Videri

At the moment, I'm inclined to think that this is just a question of different notations. I need to be shown that something hangs on the distinction.

As I have mentioned before, the interpretation I have used for years is that infinity means boundlessness, not a cardinal number. — jgill

I've thought about that, but always assumed that someone would then demand how I explain "unbounded but finite", which, I'm led to believe is also possible. I've sometimes used "there is no last term". Is there any problem with that? (Mathematically, I'm sympathetic layman.)

I wonder if and when physics will find uses for transfinite objects. Perhaps it already has. — jgill

I certainly woudn't bet against that. I'm only deterred from betting in favour by the fact that it could take a long, long time before it happened.

Then, "countable" was introduced as a term with a definition which contradicts the infinite extension of the natural numbers. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is just one example of the way in which, when you change one feature of a language-game (conceptual structure), you often have to change the meaning of other terms within that structure.
So, "countable" in the context of infinity cannot possibly mean the same as "countable" in normal contexts. In the context of infinity, it means that you can start counting the terms and count as many as you like, and there is no term that cannot be included in a count; the requirement that it be possible to complete the count is vacuous, since there is no last term. It's not a problem.

So, tell me how it is that you claim "it's a known fact that you can line up all the rationals"? Has someone produced this line of all the rationals, to prove this fact? Of course not, because it is also a known fact that this is impossible to do, because no one could ever finish. What's with the contradiction? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, perhaps it needs putting in a slightly different way. For example, how about "there is no rational that you cannot place on the number line"?
When you define the successor function - Successor(n)=(n+1) - you can see that there will never be a last number, and you don't have to try to write all the numbers down to do it. You can also see that each and every number is defined - or perhaps better, there is no number that is not defined. So you do not need to complete the task in order to see that the conclusion is true. In the relevant mathematical system, that is a proof that they all exist and can be located on the number line.
Is there something going on in the background here about actual and potential infinities?

What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that a socialist or quasi-socialist system could actually pay for itself without turning into Soviet style tyranny the way the libertarians assume? — BenMcLean

A lot depends on what you consider socialism to be, and opiniions differ on that.
But the important point is that the question does not really depend on ideology. The very first state to introduce systemic state welfare provision was - Prussia, in the 1880's, Bismarck was the Chancellor at the time and led the process.

In domestic policy, Bismarck pursued a conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans—not just his own Junker elite—more loyal to the throne and empire, implementing the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s. According to Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was:
granting social rights to enhance the integration of a hierarchical society, to forge a bond between workers and the state so as to strengthen the latter, to maintain traditional relations of authority between social and status groups, and to provide a countervailing power against the modernist forces of liberalism and socialism. — Wikipedia - entry on Otto von Bismarck

The whole problem is rooted in the question: does the state have the responsibility to care for its helpless fellow citizens, or does it not? I maintain that it does have this duty, and to be sure, not simply the Christian state, as I once permitted myself to allude to with the words "practical Christianity", but rather every state by its very nature. ... There are objectives that only the state in its totality can fulfil. [...] Among the last mentioned objectives [of the state] belong national defence [and] the general system of transportation. [...] To these belong also the help of persons in distress and the prevention of such justified complaints as in fact provide excellent material for exploitation by the Social Democrats. That is the responsibility of the state from which the state will not be able to withdraw in the long run. — Bismarck's Reichstag Speech on the Law for Workmen's Compensation March 15, 1884 See Wikipedia - Otto von Bismarck

The welfare state can be a judicious combination of realpoitik (enlightened self-interest) and Chirstianity, designed to frustrate liberalism and socialism. It is not even necessary to frame it as taxation. It can perfectly well be framed as insurance - (state subsidized if it is politically necessary).

This is clearly very, very bad but nothing in libertarianism can explain why it's bad or can prescribe any remedy for it, because as long as "it's a private company", nothing can be done. — BenMcLean

Thanks for the rest of your post. You add to my general alarm about the way the world is going. But it isn't true that nothing can be done. Capitalism can be regulated, and it is already regulated in many ways. One of the regulations is about monopoly and competition. If there was a political will, all those moves could be countered.
The deep danger in libertarianism is that it contains the seeds of authoritarianism. This development shows up the danger nicely. Whether or when people will wake up is another question. As Bismarck shows, an authoritarian regime is perfectly capable of buying its opposition off.

Presuming anything is the act of a conscious being, so it is certain that presumption of the physical world presupposes a conscious being. But we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings existed (at least on this planet) and, since we know of no conscious beings that exist without a physical substrate, we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any conscious beings in it.
— Ludwig V
This is a popular and seemingly knock-down objection to philosophical idealism. After all, how could the mind (or the observer, or consciousness) be fundamental to reality, as such, when rational sentient beings such as ourselves (and ours are the only minds we know of) are such late arrivals in the long history of the universe? 
It is this line of argument that is to be scrutinised here (sc. in the thread "About Time. — Wayfarer

Ok. I must admit, I have never thought of it as a knock-down argument. Perhaps that's because I don't really believe that such things really exist. in this case, it seems like a mere assertion, which I expected you to challenge directly. I did have my reply to your reply ready, but I guess you've taken the discussion in a different direction.
From my point of view, this is a case study of the concept of time to clarify the idealist thesis in general. In a way, I think case-by-case is a much more appropriate way to approach the question.

You haven't presented evidence that the world did not exist prior to consciousness. The only thing you've observed is that humans have measured change with units we call time, and you think that if there isn't a consciousness measuring change that change cannot happen. That's a big claim with nothing backed behind it. — Philosophim

No. I was expecting a challenge on that point. One aim in the argument was to demonstrate that our language is constituted to identify and describe objects that exist indepdently of it. Indeed, these are so pervasive that we are often deceived into thinking that a language-independent reality is being described, when it isn't. So the distinction is not always obvious.
There are other clues. In (modern) science, the methodological importance attached to experiments and observations depends entirely on the fact that they provided independent evidence that posited laws are correct or need amendment.

To begin with, it is important to be clear about what is not at issue. I am entirely confident that the broad outlines of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution developed by current science are correct, even if many of the details remain open to revision. I have no time (irony intended) for the various forms of science denialism or creationist mythology that question its veracity. I am well acquainted with evolutionary theory as it applies to h.sapiens, and I see no reason to contest it. — Wayfarer

Well, its good to see that we agree on so much. But then, I wonder what we disagree about. Berkeley makes a similar claim, which, at first sight, prompts the same issue. In his case, tracking the shifts in the meaning of the crucial terms is a fascinating exercise and can only increase one's respect for him.

What the following argument turns on instead is the role of the observer in the constitution of time. — Wayfarer

"Constitution" is, I gather, a bit of a term of art in philosophy. It seems to mean the process by means of which we make things up, construct them. So your thesis is that we construct time.

So the claim is not that change requires an observer, but that time as succession—as a unified before-and-after—does. Without such a standpoint, we still have physical processes, but not time understood as passage or duration. — Wayfarer

This seems to be an acknowledgement of something that is observer-independent. But you suggest a different conception of time, which includes, what mere change, you say, doesn't include - succession or before-and-after or duration.

Physics relates states to one another using a time parameter. What it does not supply by itself is the continuity that makes those states intelligible as a passage from earlier to later. I don't understand this. Every morning, the sun rises, then it moves across the sky and finally sets. That seems like succession and continuity to me. The dawn is before noon and dusk is after noon.

However, I do accept that developing clocks changes things radically. — Wayfarer

A clock records discrete states; it does not experience their succession as a continuous series amounting duration. The fact that we can say “one second has passed” already presupposes a standpoint from which distinct states are apprehended as belonging to a single, continuous temporal order. — Wayfarer

I'm afraid you may have been hypnotized by the traditional clock-work (!) clock. But the first clock (and calendar) was (most likely) the sun. However, the moon also acts as a measure, and we have, for example, water-clocks and candle-clocks as well as electric clocks that do not tick. In fact, the ticking clock is also a process of change in the world and not really any different from any other clock.

So what is measured is a process in the mind-independent world and the measure is a process in the mind-independent world. Our contribution is to enable more accurate measurement; it does not create of constitute anything (except some units of measurement).

But the fact that we can compare any process with any other can create an illusion - that there is some absolute process with which any other process can be compared - absolute time and absolute space which exists independently of any actual objects or processes. But the concept of empty space and empty time is the result of our ability to compare processes and objects in certain respects and our ability to create an abstract framework for them. That's all.

In other words, the intelligibility of the world to you is a 'given' that isn't explainable in terms of something more fundamental. Am I misunderstanding you? — boundless

I don't find a clear meaning in the question whether the world is intelligible or not. I was trying to extract some sense from it, by paying attention to cases, rather than large generalities.

I was saying, perhaps not very clearly,
1. that in some cases, what we call disorder is disorder in a collection of objects (or processes) that we can recognize. So it is disorder among elements, but identifying the elements is a level of order. Here, the world is both ordered and disordered. It's a question of levels.
2. so in radical disorder (as in "the world is unintelligible") we could not even identify distinct objects or processes. What, then, would it mean, to say that such a world existed - not that it could be said, because we couldn't exist in it.
3. Sometimes, order in the world is something we recognize, and sometimes it is something we impost, in the sense that we choose which of many possible orderings we wish to pay attention to. In the latter case, it is a moot point whether one says that we recognize the order or impose it.

It seems to me that "The world is unintelligible" and "The world is intelligible" are a false dilemma. But even to consider it allows that it is possible that the world is intelligible, and even that possibility may be sufficient to say that the world is intelligible. I would rather say that the possibility is a methodological assumption which is indefeasible, because if our existing ways of understanding the world fail us, we can construct new ones. So there will never be compelling evidence that we must give up on that assumption.

The straightest answer I can give is that the world is partly intelligible and partly not. But even where we do not understand some part of the world, we wring from it such understanding as we can.

Does that help?

As for your other comments - perhaps look at the original post if you haven’t already rather than the passage in isolation? — Wayfarer

Well, yes, if I had read the whole piece, I would not have got so excited about the Wittgenstein reference. But now that I have, I don't see that everything that I said was so far off the mark as to deserve no reply. But then, one can't expect a reply to everything.
As I understand it, the practice of tying one's comments to quotations is to try to ensure that comments are directed at something specific. I think that's good practice, although it is sometimes rather limiting.

Its primary method is the epochē or “bracketing,” in which one suspends the “natural attitude” — the habitual assumption that the world exists just as we take it to do. This suspension is not a denial of the world; it is a way of clarifying the pure content and structure of experience without smuggling in our preconceived notions of what it means. The resemblance between Husserl’s procedure and the Buddhist practice of “bare awareness” in mindfulness meditation is not coincidental. — Wayfarer

What bothers me here is that the methodology of our physics makes a very similar move. It brackets those aspects of the world that cannot be handled by its methods. So my question becomes how phenomenology resolves what classical physics leaves out . In a sense, perhaps it does, but it sits alongside physics, insulated from it - as physics is insulated from phenomenology. Both are theoretical projects and result in the hard problem rather than solving or dissolving it.

The resulting puzzles — the Hard Problem most of all — arise not from the mysteriousness of consciousness, but from the misapplication of categories that cannot, by design, encompass them. — Wayfarer

Quite so. So phenomenology is part of the defence of consciousness, but not part of the solution of the problem.

... Bitbol’s central claim: the attempt to derive consciousness from material processes reverses the real order of priority. Whatever is presumed to exist in the physical world already presupposes consciousness as the field in which such ascriptions occur. — Wayfarer

As I understand it, you do not deny the truth of the naturalistic, causal account of the relationship. So what does "priority" mean here? Does it mean something more like "logical priority", in which Eucldi's axioms are prior to his theorems, but not temporally prior to them? Or something like Heidegger's "always already"?

But consciousness does not appear from the outside. It is the medium within which anything like “outside” and “inside” is first constituted. — Wayfarer

I don't see how consciousness can be both the medium withing which inside and outside are defined and at the same time one limb of the dialectical pair.
The solution is simple. It is to accept that knowledge is always of something, and therefore, most often, connected to the outside. Ditto consciousnes, experience, concepts etc. You seem to think that knowledge exists in its own right, quite independently of what it is knowledge of. But knowledge is defined in relation to its objects (and to its subject as well) So the supposed gap is bridged.

... Bitbol’s point is not that materialism is wrong in its domain, but that it becomes inappropriate — and conceptually unstable — when extended to the nature of conscious experience. — Wayfarer

I could say exactly the same about idealism.

But still, if it is intelligible it seems 'natural' to ask ourselves if there is a 'reason' of that intelligibility. — boundless

Well, my first reaction is to examine the question to work out what will count as an answer.

A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic. — Ludwig V

I think that's as good an answer as you are ever going to get.

Of course, you are free to avoid such speculations. But I find them very interesting, fascinating and so on. — boundless

Fair enough.

I don't think in terms of transcendence because the idea of a transcendent realm or reality seems unintelligible to me, or else simply a reification of a conception of this world into another imaginary register, so to speak, and I don't think the idea is at all helpful philosophically. — Janus

I think there is something to be made of the idea. For example, the table is somehow more than the sum of its parts. One might recognize this by saying that the table transcends its part. But there is no particular glamour or value involved here. It is just that the parts need to be integrated, arranged, put together in a certain way before the parts become a table. In addition, one can recognize that any description of the table will fail, in some sense, to "capture" everything about the table, so the object transcends the descriptions of it.

How the world 'is' independent from (sc. the representation ordered by our own cognitive apparatus) is unanswerable because we can't get out from our own perspective. I believe that there is a truth in there but at the same time, they overreach. — boundless

I agree with that - especially that there is a truth in there. Philosophy pushes into binary yes/no responses. But, for example, it is true that we can't get out from our own perspective. What idealists tend not to notice is that our perspective throws up problems that it cannot deal with. So we are forced to reconsider and develop a new perspective. The disruption is the world talking back to us.

Because, it has no reason (I am using this word without any reference to 'purpose' here) to be intelligible, otherwise. It might be intelligible, yes, but I don't think there is any need for that. And yet, it seems that it is. It could be a complete 'chaos' and yet it is ordered. My question is: why is it so? — boundless

If it has no reason to be intelligible, it has no reason not to be. But this misunderstands what intelligibility is, in two respects. Intelligibility is always partial, never finished. What we understand generates new questions and hence new understandings. But also, the category of the chaotic is, curiously enough, a matter of perspective. A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic.

My own speculative answer is that even what we call 'mindless', 'inanimate' matter has a structure because it derives from a 'Principle' of both 'being' and 'intelligibility' (and this IMO is an 'argument' - speculative argument, not a 'proof' - of the existence of a 'Divine Mind'). — boundless

I'm really not qualified to speculate with you, I'm afraid.

Reduction by itself isnt necessarily a bad thing, but we want to aim for the right kind of reduction. Reducing phenomena to physical processes relying on objective causal mechanisms is concealing kind of reduction since it slaps abstractive idealizations over what we experience, hiding the richness of that experience. Husserlian reduction and Wittgensteinian seeing bracket the flattening generalizations of empiricism so we can notice what is implicated in them but not made explicit. — Joshs

I agree that reduction is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends, I would say, on the context, and there is a huge dose of pragmatism required here, rather than the simple-minded pursuit of truth. But I have to say, Wittgenstein's project seems to me the most promising approach. Husserl and Heidegger, for me, amplify and elaborate the range of theoretical stances available, but do not manage to arrive in the lived world. Perhaps Wittgenstein does not get there either, but he does identify where we need to go.

The aspect called physical reality comprises events and objects which in themselves are devoid of affect, relevance and mattering. They simply ‘are’ as neutral facts of the real. Relevance is a gloss we as subjects add to them. — Joshs

Well, there is a case for saying that relevance is not properly though of as something added to the neutral facts, but something that underlies the project of thinking of things as neutral facts. In other words, we pursue the project of understanding the world stripped of relevance in pursuit of our human lives. So that project needs to be seen in the context of our lives.

I was joking but it seemed to me that your use of adverbs like 'clearly' meant that it was impossible for you that I could be a panentheist :smile: — boundless

I thought you might be. Perhaps my response was clumsy. I must confess I didn't give a thought to your possible religious beliefs. If I offended you, I apologize.

Consider this analogy. Alice every time that plays a lottery, wins. Let's say that this reapeats for 10 times.
Our instinct is: it can't be "just a coincidence". We want an explanation of "what is really going on". Perhaps, we discover that the lottery system is rigged in her favour, with or without her knowledge. And then we discover how it is rigged and we can make an explanation of why she is winning.
However, someone else might just say: "well, it is unlikely but it isn't impossible. The game works as it should, Alice is just very, very, very lucky.". — boundless

Thanks. This is very helpful. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that we are lucky to be alive. Some people think that life is a bit of a curse.

So, here's the point. If, for instance, the mathematical structure of our physica models doesn't 'reflect' an intelligible structure of the "physical world as it is", our success becomes difficult to explain. We might just be lucky: there is no intelligible structure but somehow we manage to make models that work. Or there is an intelligible structure which is 'reflected' (albeit imperfectly) into our models that allows us to make successful predictions. — boundless

I'm finding it very hard to envisage the possibility that there may be no intelligible structure in the world. It seems to me that the fact that we survive and find our way about seems to me to demonstrate that there is. So, for me, there is no "if there is an intelligible structure...", only "Given that there is an intelligible structure..."
There is the possibility that quantum mechanics demonstrate that, at that level, there is no intelligible structure. But I maintain that the probability laws in quantum mechanics demonstrate that there is some structure in the world, even if there is some chaos. If there was none, there would be no probability laws.

There is an interesting and possibly confusing issue about how much of the structure we perceive in the world is imposed on it by us, and how much of it is recognized by us - i.e. does exist in the world independently of our perception of it. I don't have an answer for that.

Is there such a thing as an unintelligible structure? If there's a structure, it will be intelligible. If it's not intelligible, it won't be a structure.

Yes, but why should a 'mindless world' be intelligible at all? If conscious beings - and even more rational beings - are completely accidental product of 'blind' processes of a 'mindless world', why would such a world have a structure that can be truly (even if imperfectly) understood by them? — boundless

Why do you think a mindless world might not be intelligible?
I don't know that we are an "accidental" product of the processes of the world. That presupposes there is some purpose or system at work with a definite aim. I don't think there is. However, given that it was always possible that life would be generated by the world that we inhabit, it is not all that surprising that life did develop.
Your description of "mindless" and "blind" hints that you think there is some impossibility or unlikelihood of that happening by itself, as it were. Am I right? Why do you think that?
Perhaps the probability of life developing is small. But small probability events happen all the time. Ask any lottery winner. Consider the existence of any star.
Finally, given that we evolved to survive and even thrive in this world, it cannot be much of a surprise that we are equipped to understand it.

As for your other comments - perhaps look at the original post if you haven’t already rather than the passage in isolation? — Wayfarer

I guess I should. Give me a few hours.

This dissolves the dualism of the hard problem by showing there to be a single underlying process of experiencing accounting for the historical decision to bifurcate the world into concepts like ‘physically real’ and ‘real in other ways’. — Joshs

Your strategy is quite right. But I don't think your solution really works.
It the underlying process is a process of experiencing, then isn't it firmly located on one side of the dualism? One needs something that embraces - or even, I suppose, transcends - both sides.
You mention history, so you have opened the door to complication. It seems to me that the original decision happened in ancient Greece. But your characterization of it does not quite catch its significance. Plato - who may or may not have been the first - makes the division you describe. But, for him, the physical world was a world of shadows because it is a world of change. The true world was the changeless world of mathematics where the objects we call Forms resided.
That suspicion of the material world survived and was dominant in Western culture until Aristotle was rediscovered. It suited the Christian church perfectly. However, Aristotle, of course, brought the Forms back to earth and located them firmly in physical reality. Perhaps this was when the primacy of matter began, But materialism was not unknown to the ancient world - Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius.

Both Heidegger and Wittgenstein said that the best way to do philosophy would be to use poetic language. — Janus

I don't recall Wittgenstein's remark about poetry, but I'm prepared to believe it. I seem to remember that he says somewhere that one could write a whole book of philosophy that consisted of nothing by jokes. I wouldn't have expect jokes to be a forte of Wittgenstein's, who seems an extremely serious-minded person to me. But then, he loved cowboy movies. Perhaps we all have a lighter side. I hope so.

There’s a difficult point at issue here so bear with me. It is often said that ‘materialism says that everything is physical, and idealism that everything is mind or mental.’ That they are therefore structurally similar albeit constructed around different ontological elements. — Wayfarer

You don't actually reject this, and there must be some account of the two in relation to each other that brings out the agreements and the disagreements. Without some such structure, there wouldn't be a problem.

That dualism is exactly what phenomenology seeks to avoid. — Wayfarer

I guess this is the difficult point you mention. I'm not sure that I should pronounce on phenomenology at all. But if it is the epoche that you are talking about, I don't see how it helps. It seems to me more like a clear taking of sides - especially when the resulting project is called phenomenology which locates it in the world of phenomena - experience.

But if consciousness is not a “something,” it is also not a “nothing.” It is neither a useful fiction, nor a byproduct of neural processes, nor a ghostly residue awaiting physical explanation. Instead, says Bitbol, it is the self-evidential medium within which all knowledge about objects, laws, and physical reality arise (here the convergence with Kant is manifest). Any attempt to treat consciousness as derivative — as some thing that “comes from” matter — therefore reverses the real order of dependence. The world of objects may be doubted, corrected, or revised; but the presence of experience itself, here and now, cannot be disconfirmed. — Wayfarer

There is much to agree with in the first sentence. I'm not sure I completely understand the second sentence, but it is certainly true that only people and, to some extent, other conscious beings can be said to know things. But then comes the slide. You put it more clearly in the OP

Bitbol’s central claim: the attempt to derive consciousness from material processes reverses the real order of priority. Whatever is presumed to exist in the physical world already presupposes consciousness as the field in which such ascriptions occur. — Wayfarer

Presuming anything is the act of a conscious being, so it is certain that presumption of the physical world presupposes a conscious being. But we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings existed (at least on this planet) and, since we know of no conscious beings that exist without a physical substrate, we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any conscious beings in it. You and Bitbol seem to slide from what is obviously true to something that is either obscure and not explained or clearly false.
If I had a clear explanation of what is meant by "priority" and "derive" here. I might understand better what you are getting at.
The last sentence of your quotation seems to be true, in a sense, although I do not think that the idea that there is a world of objects can be doubted or corrected or revised. However, it is true that many (most) specific assertions about that world can be doubted or corrected or revised. But I don't see the relevance.

But one takeaway is that both phenomenology and Buddhism are very much concerned with philosophy as lived, as it informs day to day or moment to moment existence. — Wayfarer

I can get behind that. I don't fully understand how the "theoretical stance", which is so popular in philosophy, and the lived world are related. But I'm clear that, in the end, philosophy needs to attend to both and recognize that the lived world is the context for the theoretical stance, not the other way round - unless, perhaps, you are Euclid. I'm sure you are aware that is a theme found, not only in Heidegger, but also in Wittgenstein as well.

Bitbol's "if consciousness is not a something, it is not a nothing either" rang a bell.

. “But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain.” Admit it? What greater difference could there be? “And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a Nothing.” Not at all. It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said. We’ve only rejected the grammar which tends to force itself on us here. — Wittgenstein Phil. Inv. 304

I don't claim there's any great illumination for us here. It's just a curiosity. Does Bitbol ever mention or quote Wittgenstein?

But this makes it sound as though there is more than one real world; that physics effectively captures the reality of an aspect of it (the physical) and we need another explanation alongside of it for something like consciousness. This is dualism, a reification of the hard problem. — Joshs

I agree with you that the hard problem needs to be dissolved rather than solved. But it is also worth remembering that the intention behind the arguments is precisely to stake a claim for the reality of consciousness - to put a block in the way of reduction. The arguments have succeeded, I think, in doing that. But they have presented us with another problem instead of the original problem.
Part of the problem is encapsulated by the confusion inherent in the idea of the "real world", "reality". The idea that physics captures the reality of an aspect of the world is meant to insist that there is only one world, which is thought of in many ways. These conceptual systems are related to each other in something of the way that different interpretations of a picture are related. They are independent, complete in themselves, yet, in a sense competing with each other, and, in that competition, co-existing. The picture of the duck-rabbit is really a picture of a duck and a picture of a rabbit and it is not possible for it to be both simultaneously; yet there is only one picture. It seems impossible and yet, there it is.

If instead we claim that the phrase ‘physical world’ is not describing a world that is real in the sense of being real independent of our conscious interaction with it, then we are doing phenomenology. — Joshs

So, in order to avoid consciousness being subsumed in physics, you subsume physics in consciousness. That just perpetuates the issue. Yet it is true that physics qua science was developed by human beings. But those human beings posited the world as something that existed independently of consciousness or at least of how consciousness happens to conceive of it. We cannot be true to consciousness, it seems, without being false to physics - and vice versa. The puzzle picture resolves our anxiety or at least to show that we can live with both.

This dissolves the dualism of the hard problem by showing there to be a single underlying process of experiencing accounting for the historical decision to bifurcate the world into concepts like ‘physically real’ and ‘real in other ways’. — Joshs

I don't think it does. We need some way of conceiving of a single process, but not one that dissolves the physical into the mental. We didn't need the dissolution of consciousness into physics either. Co-existence, co-dependency is the only way to go. Not that it is easy.

You might be disappointed by what I say now: I am a panentheist, so obviously, I regard the (Divine) Consciousness as ontologically fundamental — boundless

I'm not disappointed at all. Many people have beliefs of this kind that I do not share. You, in your turn, may be disappointed to learn that I have never been able to sign up to any doctrine of this kind - mostly because I find it too hard to make sense of them. For purposes of classification, I call myself an agnostic. I think we can co-exist.

No, merely stating and observing they work isn't an explanation. They could for instance work by pure 'luck'. — boundless

I don't understand what you are asking for.

The physical world seems intelligible, which seems totally ungaranteed if
the 'physical' was totally independent from consciousness. — boundless

"The physical world seems intelligible" means, to me, that we can understand the physical world. You use the word "seems" which suggests that you think that might not be the case. I agree that we do not understand it completely. Is that what you mean? I can't see what it might mean to say that our partial understanding is an complete illusion, as opposed to partly wrong.
Conscious beings evolved in the physical world, and evolved the means for understanding that world. If those means had failed to understand the physical world, our species would likely have died out long ago. No?

What gives you a guarantee that the 'better' account isn't also illusory if there is no intelligibility? — boundless

There is no guarantee. In fact, past experience supports the idea that any given account will be superseded in due course. I see no reason to suppose that there will ever be a final, complete account. The thing is, each account generates new questions.

Yes, what it is like cannot be subject to ontological analysis, even though we may be able to give inadequate verbal descriptions of it. The descriptions, if they are to be intelligible, are always in terms of sense objects and bodily states, sensations and feelings. — Janus

I'm always fascinated by the fact that a question that seems, on the face of it, to have a perfectly straightforward answer manages to persuade us that it has no proper answer at all. The descriptions are gestures towards what escapes description. But if the description is not the real thing, it cannot substitute for the real thing in our experience.

What the 'explanatory gap' and 'hard problem' arguments are aimed at, is precisely that claim. That everything is reducible to or explainable in terms of the physical. That is the point at issue! — Wayfarer

Well, that's a good point. But doesn't idealism fall into the same trap in reverse? The solution, if there is a solution, is to understand the two apparent foes in their relation to each other.
Here's an attempt. (I'm channelling Ryle here, but I'm sure that won't prejudice you.)
An accountant knows everything that goes on in the library - it all shows up in the accounts, one way or another. So every book registers in the accounts. But all the accountant (qua accountant) knows is how much the books cost, how much the shelving for the books costs, etc. What accountants don't know is anything about what is in the books - the stories. You have to read them to know that. (There's a by-way here about the meaning of "in" the books. What's in the books, you might say, is paper and ink or maybe words and pictures. Where is the story? Well, it is not outside the book, that's for sure.) You could say that the accounts include everything that goes on in the library, but miss the point of the library, which is what the stories and ideas in the books. That does not mean that the accounts are irrelevant. On the contrary, they are essential if the library is to function properly.
We could tell a similar story about all the other people involved in the library, both inside it and outside it. The whole story needs all these points of view if the institution is to be understood properly.

At this point? Justifying building stuff because our lords have said it's time to accept the inevitable. — Moliere

The story of the roll-out does justify a feeling that it has been imposed, rather than introduced. There's an impression that the policy is to get it out there and embedded and sort out any problems afterwards - or don't sort them out and force us to accept whatever we are given. But the world was ready for it. How come? It's been a dream for decades.

There are cities wanting data centers since our lords have pointed: not just manufacturing, but energy firms and city councils. — Moliere

Well, yes. Everybody wants the latest thing. In a way, no different from the latest fashion in clothes or music.

Though, yes, the point is not what it actually does for us as much as it's what it makes for thems owning the architecture we are currently communicating with. — Moliere

Well, yes. The prospect of a fat profit is always an incentive.
But I think there's more than that to it. There's a prospect of finally getting workers who can do any job under any conditions without all the messy issues that come with employing human beings. There's a vision of god-like entities that will tell us how to solve all our problems. Disappointment will set in eventually.

Isn't science supposed to be explanatory? If science cannot answer the "what is it like?" question, isn't that a huge failure? — RogueAI

It might be that science is just not set up to answer questions like "what is it like". Myself, I don't think that question has an answer at all. The only way to know what it is like is to experience it.

a year ago. When plagiarism was considered shameful. — bongo fury

I think the problem is that AI doesn't fit into the standard ideas about plagiarism. If plagiarism is using someone else's work without acknowledgement, there's an issue about whose work the AI's work is.

To find out whether the bot were really as shameless as all that? Perhaps, having asked for and received from it full details of a source, it was remiss of them not to have politely sought clarification on whether these new details were indeed factual? — bongo fury

I have the impression that my informant did not believe the AI in the first place but found it hard to believe that it was wrong. As to the citation, either the AI did not, or could not, give one, or it did give one. It would take only a few minutes to see that the citation was wrong, so it was then necessary to check all the text to make sure it was not just a mistake about the citation.

As with a human, if a quote is given, then a citation must be provided. A human, or an AI, that quotes Pindar without giving a citation that can be readily checked can be ignored. — Banno

Yes. I don't understand exactly why they felt they had to go through all those texts. My point is really that once one realizes that the AI is not a magic fountain of truth, but needs to be treated as sceptically as a human being, one begins to wonder what the point of it is.
There are some things that it can do better than human beings. So let them stick to those tasks.

The physical world seems to have an intelligible structure. If consciousness isn't fundamental in some sense, how can we explain that? — boundless

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that consciousness isn't fundamental in some sense. I was just asking in what sense you think it is fundamental. Obviously, you don't mean in the sense that it is the causal origin of the world.

An explanation that explains why our conceptual models work that isn't reduced to a mere "they work because experience tells us they work". — boundless

So you accept that they do work. But if they work, they provide an explanation - that's what conceptual structures do, isn't it?

This kind of answer means either that:
(1) "it just happens that the physical world has an intelligible structure", i.e. there is no explanation, it's just so.
(2) "intelligbility is illusory". It appears that there the physical world has an intelligible structure but this isn't true. — boundless

I don't understand the first alternative. If the world has an intelligible structure, then there is an explanation why things are the way they are.
As to the second, it happens all the time that we think we have an account of the world and it turns out to be wrong. We just set to work to devise another, better, one.

I do accept both things. However, this doesn't exclude the possibility that some form of consciousness is fundamental as it is suggested by the second 'horn' of the dilemma. — boundless

It depends what you mean by "fundamental". Clearly, consciousness is not the origin of the physical world and does not exist independently of some physical substrate. That suggests that it is the physical world that is fundamental. So what do you mean by "fundamental".

The fact that there is no 'perfect model' that mirrors the way the world isn't enough to say that we get no knowledge of the 'things in themselves'. In other words, my question is: according to all these thinkers is there a reason why our predictive models work? Is it just a 'brute fact'? — boundless

You are right to think that our not knowing all about everything does not mean that we know nothing about anything. However, the reason why our predictive models work is that we test their predictive power. If they fail, we revise the model or abandon it. What more do you want?

nothing in the physical story seems to explain why pain feels the way it does, or why color experience has its distinctive qualitative nature. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure that there is a real question here. It seems to presume that pain might not feel the way it does or colour might have some different qualitative nature. But those possibilities seem like empty gestures to me.

he argues that current forms of physical explanation leave an unresolved conceptual gap between objective accounts and subjective experience, a gap that cannot be closed simply by adding more neuroscientific detail — Wayfarer

That's true. However, it seems to me to follow that the metaphor of the gap that can't be closed does not work. It assumes that the two sides of the gap are, somehow, in the same category or commensurable. But physics is designed to exclude anything that doesn't fit its methodology. Nothing wrong with that, until you start claiming that the physical world is the only real world.

As I said before, I see the physical world as an artificial construct, the real world being made up of consciousness and mind, which acts out certain things in the artificial world for some reason, or other. — Punshhh

There's no doubt that the physical world, as treated in physics, is an artificial construct, so I agree that it has no special claim to be the real world. However, I see consciousness and mind, as conceived here, as an off-shoot of that construct. The real world has both as natural inhabitants and co-existents. In the real world, physics needs conscious, mindful people and conscious, mindful people need the physical world.

Folk treat this as an "authority", but of course any authority here would be granted by the participants, not presumed. That is, if you disagree with the AI's response, then you could openly ask it for an alternate response, to ground your objection. — Banno

I heard an account from an academic that told of an AI, in response to a question, providing a factually wrong answer about Pindar; when questioned, it doubled down on its mistake by providing quotations to back up its claim. A long search through a lot of actual text in an actual library eventually proved that it was wrong. It had written the quotations itself. Many hallucinations will not be subjected to that level of examination. What earthly use is a machine like that? One might as well ask one's next-door neighbour.

Using AI in this context can be frustrating but it ultimately saves time and avoids tedium. It's also a very direct and fast way of understanding the ways that LLMs get things wrong generally. — Jamal

Nobody could quarrel with saving time and avoiding tedium. Your suggestions all seem sensible to me. If people don't find them useful, I'm sure they'll let you know.
But I'm very concerned about the way that LLMs get things wrong. Please can we think carefully about ways to trap harmful errors?

There is the SOA (snow is white)
There is also the SOA (snow, being white, is well known)
There is the problem of disconnecting the world from the thought of the world, when we only know the world through our thoughts.
Being known is a thought, but then being white is also a thought. — RussellA

I'm really quite confused. I lazily though that that-clauses would work - after all, thinking that snow is white and the fact that snow is white are perfection in order grammatically. But the state of affairs that snow is white doesn't sound right. Your way of doing is comprehensible, but not standard English. Which doesn't mean it's wrong. But there must be a standard English way of doing it. On the other hand this gerund business is very curious, yet seems to make grammatical sense. I had thought vaguely that "the state of affairs that snow is white was all one needed.
Then there's the business about states of affairs obtaining rather than existing. My intuition tells me that there is no need for that, but isn't certain.

Have a look at the relevant part of the article:-
SEP - States of affairs 1.1

We may have the concept of a possible world where there is the State of Affairs (snow is white), and we may also have the concept of a possible world where there is the State of Affairs (snow is black). — RussellA

I looked up the SEP - States of Affairs
In section 1.1, I discovered that states of affairs are in fact expressed by gerund clauses, as in "Charlie’s eloping with Ginger was surprising" or "Mary’s divorcing Charlie caused Charlie’s demise" or "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s being more than seven feet tall is well-known". I was somewhat relieved that they are related to facts and thoughts.
I think that this is all a philosophical mare's nest around a grammatical device in language. I don't say there is nothing here, and I'm prepared to be convinced.

he (sc. Wittgenstein) uses it (sc. the shadow metaphor)as a stepping stone towards dropping meaning in favour of use. — Banno

Since it doesn't occur in the Phil. Inv., one thinks it must be some sort of stepping stone. It didn't make the cut. But I think that's a pity - though no doubt he had his reasons. His discussion of pictures and sentences show traces of the TLP with its similarity of structure. Perhaps that's why it didn't survive into the PI.
He articulates meaning as use on pg. 4 of the Blue Book, but doesn't mention shadows until pg. 36. So whatever kind of step it was/is, he had meaning as use when he made it.

"Caesar is a General" is true IFF Caesar is in the extension of "...is General". — Banno

I'm a bit bothered about this. Caesar was not always a General, so would ("Caesar is not a General" is true IFF Caesar is not in the extension of General) also count as timelessly true?
It is clear that there is no contradiction here. Yet contradiction seems only to require that p and not-p are never true of the same object simultaneously. We need time to apply that law, but timelessness doesn't have time.
It's just that necessary/analytic/a priori truths are clearly timelessly true. Both hypotheses are true, but it is the formula as a whole (p IFF p is true) that is timelessly true, not the constituent sentences.

In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false. — On the very idea of a conceptual schema

Yes. One remembers that sentence. I'm still a bit hesitant, because I think that the distinction is useful, even if it is not always apposite.

But I cannot understand that if in a possible world there is no apple, there still is the apple’s haecceity — RussellA

Is it possible that the haecceity in question is the haecceity of the possible apple?
Really, there is no making sense of this. I know it is not proper philosophy. Some poets make fun of similar issues.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
etc. — Hughes Mearns

Or there's "The Railroad Station" by Wilawa Szymborska.

Yep. There is something quite odd about such ghost-apples. — Banno

Wittgenstein makes a major feature of what he calls "shadow" objects in the Blue and Brown books.

The next step we are inclined to take is to think that as the object of our thought isn't the fact it is a shadow of the fact. There are different names for this shadow, e.g. "proposition", "sense of the sentence". — Page 32 Blue Book

He explores the idea in some detail.

But the actual world can only exist at one moment in time. — RussellA

The idea that only the present exists is really very odd. "Present" only has meaning in the context of "Past" and "Future". They all exist in the fashion that's appropriate to them. They form a conceptual system, and claiming that only one of them exists is like forgetting that "North" only has meaning in the context of "South" (and "East" and "West").

We might posit two more states of affairs, D and E, to account for these changes, but then we have changes between A and D, D and C, C and E, and E and B, requiring more states of affairs. And so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's the argument. What's your solution? To posit that all change takes place instantaneously between states of affairs? That's absurd. It is clear that most changes take place continuously over a period of time. Look around you.

And it's not that simple. If we redefine "state of affairs" as you suggest, such that 'state of affairs" covers all of reality, then all you have done is produced a false description of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that reality is different from my version? Because of that argument? It is not a description of reality, but a reductio ad absurdum of a certain way of thinking about reality.
I did not say that "state of affairs" covers all of reality. I did allow that there are some events that do not fit in to that category.

This is the principal reason for Aristotle's duality of matter and form in his physics. When one state of affairs changes to another, the form or formula changes, but matter provides for the underlying continuity between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. So there is no need to insist that all change occurs between states of affairs. I don't agree with his metaphysics, but it does solve the problem he was facing.

What other ways? Do you mean to define words so that they reflect the way that you want reality to be, rather than the way that it is? That's not very good ontology. — Metaphysician Undercover

I like to define words so that they do not produce absurdities.

The reason is the argument presented by Aristotle. Suppose at some time we have state of affairs A, and at a later time state of affairs B. Since these two are different we can conclude that change has occurred in the time between A and B. As philosophers we desire to know and understand this change. We might explain the change with a third, distinct state of affairs, C, which occurred between A and B, but then we have a change which occurred between A and C, and between C and B. We might posit two more states of affairs, D and E, to account for these changes, but then we have changes between A and D, D and C, C and E, and E and B, requiring more states of affairs. And so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

So it does depend on the definition of "state of affairs". Aristotle's argument is indeed a good reason for changing that definition, to allow that states of affairs can comprise change. Problem solved!

This is the principal reason for Aristotle's duality of matter and form in his physics. When one state of affairs changes to another, the form or formula changes, but matter provides for the underlying continuity between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I knew that was why Aristotle constructed his system. But I don't think it would be helpful to adopt it now that we have other ways of explaining it.

Right, so what I am talking about is something which cannot be placed in that category. The name "state of affairs" cannot be used to refer to this. — Metaphysician Undercover

I thought so. Can you give me a reason for restricting the term in that way?

EDIT
On reflection, there is a bit more that I can say.

I have no doubt that change can be accommodated as a "state of affairs".
@Banno has already given an example, I offer "The plane is flying from London to Edinburgh" is clearly a state of affairs. But it is a process which will not change (much) as long as it is flying. That is, it is a continuous process, which occupies time.
We can also easily accommodate changes in the process. The plane may fly faster or slower, lower or higher, but all these changes are easily accommodate as states of affairs.
"The plane is taking off" also seems like a state of affairs. But it is accelerating, which means that its speed is changing. In this case, the speed is not just changing but the rate of change is changing. )The place accelerates faster as it travels down the runway.
But none of that presents a problem. What might present a problem is the fact that to speak of accelerating involves a concept of speed at an instant, But speed is defined as distance covered in a period of time, If the period of time is infinitely close to zero, it seems problematic. But the calculations work perfectly well, so I don't see that as a problem either.
But there is a problem here. If the plane started moving at 1:00, are the wheels turning at 1:00? In which case, it has already started at 1:00. Or are we to say that the wheels are stationary at 1:00? In which case, the plane has not yet started moving at 1:00. We may end up saying that the wheels were moving at infinite velocity at the moment of starting.
In other words, limits and boundaries do present problems and we may have difficulty saying what the state of affairs is at 1:00. This is not really a problem about states of affairs, but about boundaries and limiis. We need to recognize that they belong to neither of the states of affairs that exist on either side of them; these are in a different category and do not occupy space or time.
I think that this is the problem you have in mind when you talk of change between states of affairs.. But, I hope you can see that the problem is not about all changes, particularly not about changes that are processes and occupy time. It is about a certain kind of change, which is a boundary or limit. Nor is it a problem that affects just talk of "states of affairs". The same problem occurs whenever those changes occur and would face us whatever notation we decide to use.

If you reject the sound logic, and simply refuse to accept that there is any part of empirical reality which cannot be describe as states of affairs, then you are in denial. — Metaphysician Undercover

When we reach the limits of what "states of affairs" can do for us, and there is still more reality to describe, we must devise a new way to speak about it. — Metaphysician Undercover

It all depends on how you define "state of affairs". "Description" is simply a name for specific kinds of language, mostly those that are true or false. "State of affairs" is simply a name for what the description is a description of. It has very little content, like the word "thing".
There are also metaphorical descriptions, which are more complicated - but are often the engine that generates new kinds of description. When we have invented new kinds of description, "state of affairs" is extended to include those new kinds of description.
In other words "state of affairs" is just a correlative to "description", and is no more limited than "description".
You seem to have a more limited idea of what a state of affairs is. But it is just a question of definition, not of the nature of reality.

In both cases we are referring to something that does not exist. — RussellA

You keep saying that. But I don't understand what it is that we are referring to. What's worse is that you are saying on one hand that this object must exist and that it doesn't.

We can talk about Sherlock Holmes who does not exist, and Meinong’s logic can deal with non-existent objects, such as round-squares — RussellA

In a sense, both halves are true. The difficulty is that Meinong, IMO, doesn't explain anything, but simply assigns names (labels) to the problems. What we need is a way of seeing through the problems so that we can understand that they are illusions created by our misunderstanding of language. That's what the logical analysis is intended to do.