I don't think Congress is the final arbiter of a determination of whether Trump is guilty. That being the case, each Secretary of state can and should make there own determinations. If Congress disqualified Trump from election on the basis of insurrection after having acquitted him, that would be contradictory. However, it is not Congress, but the Secretaries of states who are currently making the determination. The Secretaries simply are not bound by Congress' erroneous acquittal. To answer your question more directly: is it right to disqualify from election a candidate who has been acquitted by Congressional vote? The answer is absolutely; the Secretaries definitely still have that right. I think it is right both legally, and in this case, morally too.

Comment rescinded.

But seeing as he is guilty of insurrection, I highly doubt he will be acquitted.

Regardless of if he is acquitted for insurrection, I think the Secretary of each state still has a right to make their own determination of whether he should be disqualified from the ballot.

This is a good explanation of how the 14th amendment disqualifies Trump from the upcoming election. https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1222389987/donald-trump-maine-election-ballot-2024-supreme-court

Thank you for sharing that.

I don't know much about process philosophy; I am surprised that causal closure is not relevant to it.

I have to say, too, that the whole notion of "non-reductive physicalism" (nrp) is somewhat confusing to me. So it's difficult for me to parse it in process terms or in any terms.

NRP seems to stand in opposition to, as an alternative to, reductive physicalism.

I think it is Jaegwon Kim who forwards the argument against non-reductive physicalism. This argument can be picked-up by reductive physicalists who maintain that causal closure and causal exclusion prohibit non-physical mental events (or at least these principles render non-physical mental events casually inefficacious). This seems to me like a strong argument for physicalism. I myself am not an adherent to physicalism because I believe in supernatural explanations in addition to physical explanations.

the behavior of a boulder. — wonderer1

:lol: hey, that boulder's misbehaving, im gonna give it a piece of my mind!

There is ego and there is conscience. Therefore there is duality. Where there is duality there is choice. Where there is choice there is freedom. Therefore, there is freedom.

Existence is magical and fascinating. — Philosophim

Yes, it is! :100:

I won't get into it too far because I don't think this is the right thread, but I do believe I have a free will and I am not a compatibilist. Whether consciousness is entirely physical, or consciousness is non-physical, I am certain that I am free.

When I reflect on consciousness I try to think of it in physical terms to see your point of view. I put on my science helm (yes, it's a science helm and not a helmet), and I reduce all of reality to the level of atoms bouncing around in the void. Thanks Epicurus or Lucretius or Hobbes or whoever's idea that was. "Here are some atoms in this rock. But these atoms in my brain produce consciousness," I think to myself. And I wonder, "why are these brain atoms producing consciousness? What is special about them?" "Well maybe when you arrange atoms in that way they are conscious?" "But Not Aristotle," I say to myself, "that is entirely an ad hoc explanation and besides, why would the arrangement of the atoms matter?" And I am unable to answer. And that's the hard problem as I understand it. If you have an answer to that problem, I would be happy to hear it.

And I actually do think consciousness as we know it, whether it is itself physical or nonphysical, arises out of physical matter/energy.

How the physical activity produces consciousness is a mystery — Patterner

All we're worried about is the details in how the brain generates it. — Philosophim

I don't think those details are forthcoming Philosophim, and the reason why is that a physical account fails to include consciousness. I think you are right that the brain is necessary for consciousness. But I still have trouble seeing what it is, in physical terms, that is special about the brain and I think that we will never answer that question.

As Patterner pointed out, consciousness is not empirically observable. Water is empirically observable; so is hydrogen and oxygen. We can directly see and measure water as the product of hydrogen and oxygen. We cannot see consciousness as the product of neuronal activity in the same way.

You might say, "well we can observe consciousness viz. the reports of people." That's certainly true but I think it misses the mark.

The question, to my eyes, is really this: why is the brain conscious at all? Or perhaps to put the question more precisely: How is the brain different from non-conscious physical stuff? My answer is that it's not different and that's the mystery.

Do you see where I'm coming from?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that anatomy is the reason why someone engages in activities. A full account of why I, let's say, go for a jog, seems to require consideration of the subjective conscious experience, not just my physiology. If asked why I did this, I wouldn't say "because I have functioning limbs" or "because of my brain states prior to and during the jog." Rather, the reason I went for a jog is because I wanted to get some exercise.

Okay, gotcha, thanks for explaining.

What of your own question begging?

Because, again, consciousness is not a physical thing.
— NotAristotle — wonderer1

I think my argument is something like this:

If consciousness is physical then consciousness can be accounted for in physical terms.
But consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms.
Therefore, consciousness is not physical.

What about that argument is question-begging?

Just what is 'a physical thing'? — Wayfarer

Maybe I'm missing the boat, but when we say "physical" I think we mean things like atoms, brains, neurons, entire organisms, and so on. If consciousness is physical in the same way as the things I've just listed, then SH must be entirely physical, mustn't he? Because Sherlock Holmes would just be his brain, arms, consciousness etc.

Hmm, so you think there can still be truth in a meaningful way even if determinism is true?

To assume that I am both conscious and just a physical thing and then to conclude that consciousness is just a physical thing would surely be begging the question.

Can you say more as to why determinism undermines truth or falsity?

Can't why I say something still be true or false, I'm just determined to say what I say? I realize this was a month ago so I understand if you don't recall what you were thinking about this topic.

:lol: good point!

I think the analogy to water breaks down because water just is that arrangement; it is that physical thing. On a physicalist ontology it is acceptable. Because oxygen and hydrogen and water are all physical things, it makes sense, in principle at least, how O and H could form H2O.

Not so with consciousness.

Why?

Because, again, consciousness is not a physical thing. I am happy to grant that, physically speaking, there are entire organisms, there are atoms, there are neurons and brains, etc. But where in the physical world is consciousness? Answer: it's not there, it is nowhere to be found in the physical world. So how does something physical (brains neurons etc.) cause/result in/produce something non-physical (and in a very limited circumstance)?

Besides, the problem is not only about not knowing what it is like to be another kind of being — Wayfarer

I just want to point out that I think this is not exactly the hard problem, rather it is what Ned Block has articulated to be the "harder" problem of consciousness. I could be mistaken about that.

There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — The Core of Mind and Cosmos

:up:

Physicalism only excludes non-physical concepts from modeling (i.e. explaining) how observable states-of-affairs transform into one another. In this way "the paradigm" is epistemologically modest, or deflationary, limiting its inquiries to only that which can be publicly observed – accounted for – in order to minimize as much as possible the distorting biases (e.g. wishful / magical thinking, superstitions, prejudices, authority, etc) of folk psychology/semantics. — 180 Proof

If physicalism is just an epistemological paradigm and not an ontological commitment, that takes a lot of the wind out of its sails, don't you think so?

No, the point of the argument is the hard problem. The hard problem has never claimed that consciousness is not physical, if we are regarding physical as matter and energy. Matter and energy has the capability to be conscious if organized right, just like water and hydrogen has the capability to be water if organized right. That's the point of the easy problem, to show that yes, they understand that consciousness is a physical manifestation of the brain. But will we ever be able to map consciousness objectively to what it is like to subjectively be conscious? That seems impossible. — Philosophim

I think the hard problem is not answering why consciousness is a physical manifestation, but why a physical manifestation should result in consciousness. And, it is quite unclear why any physical matter/energy arrangement should result in anything like consciousness. The consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms because consciousness is not a physical thing.

Consciousness...

describes the organism as a whole. sure
is a mode of biology. sure
is what he is doing. sure

I'm happy to concede all of those points and moreover to add that consciousness as we know it would not exist if not for the physical system that it is constituted by.

The problem though, the hard problem, is that when we consider the entire organism, or when we consider it at the physiological level, or at the neuronal level. or at the atomic level, or whatever level, we can't give an account of why that matter is conscious. It's obvious that there are conscious people, but why are they conscious? What, in physical terms, accounts for their consciousness. Again, we can't just point to the physiology. In fact, we can't point to anything physical. Why? Because as you said that will only amount to a description of the system in physiological or physical terms; it will not answer the question of why the matter considered is conscious.

Okay, but then I would ask you what about organisms is so special and different than other matter/energy arrangements that makes organisms conscious? Because of the physiology, right? But then, what about the physiology entails consciousness? It would make sense if organisms contained "consciousness atoms" and that is why they are conscious, but they do not; they are made of the same atomic material as other non-conscious matter.

I would think that the difference is that one is a subjective experience while the other is objective biological material; seems to me like a significant difference.

So I say, "how does physicalism account for consciousness?" And you say, "look, you have a brain and brain's are conscious! Therefore you are conscious NotAristotle! That's how we determine what things are conscious, by whether they have brains or not."

But then surely my reply is: "perfect, Nosferatu, now why is the brain conscious?" And how would you answer that in physical terms?

My understanding of the hard problem of consciousness is that it is a problem for a physicalist. Why is it a problem? Because the physicalist has not forwarded a physical account of why any physical system is conscious. Even if, as you suggest, some waveform of energy is responsible for consciousness, a natural question arises: why does that energy produce consciousness, while some other energy does not produce consciousness?

I think a wise person will seek wisdom. They will strive to know wisdom and to learn it. A mathematician strives to know math and excels in math. So, a wise person strives to know wisdom and excels in what is wise. And they seek wisdom because they love wisdom and enjoy wise actions.

"Nobody would call one just who does not enjoy acting justly." (NE, I, 1099a, 15-20).

This is in what being a philosopher consists.

Metaphysics, Book I, 981a (25-30).

According to The Philosopher,

"...yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience...and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the "why" and the cause."

It seems to me that if anything has extension, or is solid, then it must be infinitely divisible. But I don't see why that's a problem.

I hope you do not mind if I am a bit argumentative, but if space is something in the universe, then it must be somewhere, right? But where is space?

When I wrote these two objections, I thought to myself, "well these objections are quite good." But now that I reflect on the first I think to myself, "perhaps Zeno is confused about the difference between nothing and empty space." For surely there can be empty space between things without there being nothing there. But I must now admit that were Zeno to press the issue and say, "NotAristotle, what is the difference between empty space and nothing?" I will be at a loss to answer. How might we answer him?

If Zeno is engaging in mere sophistry, then he must only be appearing to say something true, but is not saying something true. But he either says something untrue because he does not know the truth or wishes to deceive us as to what is true. But then we have two reasons to answer the question, because by answering we may either avoid deception, or we may help Zeno know the truth. So let us re-examine the matter in earnest. Again I ask, how might we answer Zeno?

Here is another objection to ancient atomism that I think I came up with, but maybe I heard it somewhere I don't really recall...

Atoms are either something or they are nothing. If atoms are nothing then there is nothing, not something. But there is something, so atoms must be something. But if atoms are something then they must be made out of something. Since everything is made out of atoms, that means atoms must be made out of atoms. But if atoms are made of atoms then atoms are not indivisible. Therefore, by the definition of atoms, there cannot be any atoms.

Here is an objection against ancient atomism that I have heard:

Ancient atomism postulates two things - 1. atoms, and 2. void.

Now, between atoms there are two options that may obtain. Option 1 is that there is something between the atoms. Because everything is made of atoms, this something must be just other atoms. Therefore, on option 1, there are only atoms, not void. Option 2 is that there is nothing between the atoms. However, if there is nothing between the atoms, then those atoms are in direct contact, and again, there is no void, only atoms. Either way, there can be only atoms, not atoms and void.

I think this objection was proffered by Zeno.

Here is an interpretation of Aquinas' first way in argumentative format:

1. There is motion.
2. Motion is a kind of change.
3. Change is the actualization of a potential.
4. Something cannot actualize its own potential.
5. The actualization of something's potential must be done by something else.
6. There cannot be an infinite series of potentials that need to be actualized in order to actualize some potential (otherwise, no change could occur by the definition of infinite and by the definition of what it is to be an actualized actualizer).
7. Therefore, there must be a first unactualized actualizer (unchanged changer or unmoved mover).
8. This everyone understands to be God.

I find it to be a convincing argument. If you have objections, I can try to answer them.

Well, what do you say wonderer1, is the BiV brain different than a real brain by having more parts or by having fewer parts?

wonderer1: I should rather think that a BiV brain cannot be compared to a real brain; they are completely different.

NotAristotle: As you say wonderer1, but then neither you nor I are a brain in a vat. We may be utterly deceived by our senses, but it is not by being a brain in a vat.

wonderer1: But I insist that we are brains in a vat; it must be so.

NotAristotle: Well then when we say brain we must mean something like a real brain.

wonderer1: Very well.

NotAristotle: Let us return then to our original inquiry: you seem to have said that a real brain is different than a BiV brain. But is it different by having more parts or fewer?

wonderer1: Surely it is by having fewer parts NotAristotle.

NotAristotle: Well put wonderer1, for if it had more parts, then it could be placed in a vat, just like a real brain. However, we are saying that it is impossible to place a BiV brain in a BiV vat. And this must be the case on account of a BiV brain having fewer parts than a real brain.

wonderer1: Indubitably.

NotAristotle: And what of our neuroscientists? Will they not be very much surprised to find that parts of our brains are missing?

wonderer1: Perhaps not.

NotAristotle: How do you mean wonderer1?

wonderer1: Perhaps the parts of the brain that are missing are not essential to perception, but are extra parts.

NotAristotle: Ah, I see, so these extra parts are excised, leaving behind the parts that are necessary for BiV perception.

wonderer1: Precisely.

NotAristotle: But if the parts that are necessary for perception are left intact, then once again, it should be possible to place a BiV brain in a BiV vat. But again, we have said this is impossible.

wonderer1: That is so.

NotAristotle: Then the problem arises once again, that our neuroscientists will likely find that parts of the brain are missing that are necessary for perception.

wonderer1: As you say NotAristotle.

NotAristotle: It stands to reason then, that if we are brains in a vat, the evidence will amount to saying that it should be impossible for us to perceive, given that we would be missing parts of the brain that are necessary for perception. In short, if we are brains in a vat, we will be missing parts of our brain, and neuroscientists will be quite perplexed by that.

wonderer1: Surely what you say is true NotAristotle.

NotAristotle: Well then wonderer1 that is good news. For, unless you and I are missing parts of our brains, we are most certainly not brains in a vat.

wonderer1: Good news indeed NotAristotle.