People are conflicted, and though one can rightly say that both sides of the conflict are the same person, one can also, and more usefully say that they are not. If there is no conflict, one is single-minded, and there is no choice. — unenlightened

I don't understand why you think it is more useful to think of them as two distinct persons rather than to think of them as two distinct parts of one unified person.

It is only when there is a conflict, juice has virtues, and coffee has other virtues, that there is a choice. Choice is the resolution of conflict. — unenlightened

But choice is not the resolution of the problem in this instance. That's the issue, choice is more like the cause of the problem. The conscious mind, (being represented as the ant), makes a choice which the acting body, (being represented as the grasshopper), for some reason or other cannot uphold. From the perspective of the unified person, the ant is engaged in faulty decision making, making resolutions which cannot be kept. The resolution which cannot be kept is the cause of the conflicted state, it's not a real resolution of conflict..

4) A did this because electromagnetic impulses in his nervous and muscular system entered into a repetitive loop that was broken only after the 10th closing of the door. — MetaphysicsNow

This, 4), doesn't really qualify as an explanation because there is no reason given why the loop would repeat ten times then stop, rather than six, eight, or some other number of times. In the other possible explanations X has a reason for the ten times, but here there is no reason for the ten times, so it is not an explanation.

Now the point about control/will power disappearing completely from all human action comes into play, because if (4) does ultimately provide explanations for all actions, and is what takes away any element of will power or self-control being available for the action described in (3), it presumably also takes away any element of will power or self-control being available for the actions described in (2) and (1). — MetaphysicsNow

Since 4) is not a real explanation, this is not a point to be considered.

Here's the thing: the tree has no eyes. It has no mind. It cannot have any kind of conception of itself - I don't even know if "itself" is right. It has no space or time. It reacts to things according to its DNA and it also does things. I imagine that its reactions are a complete description of its experiences - experiences that are neither more nor less than signals in transit through the body of the tree. — tim wood

What the tree is doing is not properly described by "reaction". The tree is growing, and growing is not reacting. One is goal oriented activity, the other is not.

Agreed! But that is just the failure of language to accommodate the tree's living. It - the tree - doesn't follow; it doesn't go. It just is, from moment to moment. — tim wood

Nor is it correct to say that the tree "just is", because it is always active, growing, producing leaves, photosynthesizing, loosing leaves, producing flowers, producing seeds, etc..

I point out to you that there is a difference, I think a fundamental difference, between a living, growing, possibly beautiful and inspirational, tree and the pile of firewood it could be. It cannot be both. You appear to deny that. Please make clear how I could come and take ax to your tree and reduce it to firewood, and it is still your growing, living tree. If you're playing word games, I'm not interested. — tim wood

All right, now you given me the reason which I asked for. Now I can agree with you that there is a difference between knowing the thing as "tree", and knowing it as "firewood". You've disclosed that "tree" refers to a living growing thing, whereas "firewood" refers to an inanimate thing to be burned. Now you've given me an acceptable principle of differentiation, one is alive, the other is not. I would say that your argument is that to know the tree as a living thing is to have a better knowledge of it than to know it as an inanimate thing, and I agree. Do you agree with me, that we ought to have a certain respect for living things which we do not owe to inanimate things, we being within the class of living things ourslves?

Goal-striving seems to require a capacity for anticipation. How, in a tree? — tim wood

Do you not see anticipation in photosynthesis, seed production, and growing in general? How can anyone deny that these are goal oriented, purposeful?

The problem with your argument is that a living tree is not merely firewood and in fact is not even suitable in its present green condition to serve as firewood. It is therefore highly implausible that anyone would have seen a tree to be nothing more than firewood. — Janus

OK, if your point is like tim's, that the "tree" is alive, and the "firewood" is not, then I agree with you. As I said, to make this differentiation requires a further reason, and you have given it by distinguishing the one as being alive, and the other as not. Now the question is how does this differentiation qualify as knowledge? On what principle does the distinction between a living thing and an inanimate thing, i.e. being able to say that the tree is alive and the firewood is not alive, qualify as knowing something? Unless this distinction can be justified, then it is just another case of an arbitrary determination to say that one is alive and the other is not.

Another would surely be the myth of the Burning Bush and the dispensation of the Ten Commandments. — Wayfarer

Hmm, the Burning Bush might qualify to deny the distinction between a living tree and firewood.

Well it becomes necessary to assume the division of your second sentence when you have assumed the unity of your first sentence. The former is an act of identification which the ant makes and the grasshopper does not. Which kind of illustrates that they are not one and the same, just as their opposed decision/choices does. — unenlightened

If the grasshopper does not identify, then the grasshopper does not make any choices or decisions either. But this does not mean that the ant and grasshopper are not one and the same person. I do not make choices or decisions in my sleep, but the sleeping me is one and the same person as the wakened me.

You know, the "evening person", and the "morning person" are one and the same person don't you? The ant surveys the future, while the grasshopper acts at the present, but they are one and the same person. This is why it is necessary to assume the division between intellect and will, which I referred to. The ant is making the decisions, prior to the time to act, but when it is time to act, the grasshopper must carry out what the ant has decided. The ant doesn't need to, and ought not, scare the grasshopper at all, because such antics are not conducive to a happy union. The person, who is the unity of the ant and grasshopper, simply requires will power to be successful in maintaining a stable union.

Someone earlier referred to paths of least resistance. That's the best way I can think of to think about life in itself. Somehow - no doubt in its DNA - it follows a path of what is, for it, a kind of least resistance, or greater reward. No telos at all. Looking at Aristotle is worthwhile. Arguing Aristotle is just so much of how many angels fit on the point of a pin. — tim wood

To say that it follows the path of least resistance already presupposes telos, because it is going somewhere, and to be going somewhere presupposes telos. It's like trial and error, this presupposes telos, because the agent practising trial and error must necessarily distinguish between error and success. Likewise, the thing following the path of least resistance must distinguish between resistance and non-resistance, in relation to where it's going (success). Otherwise it would just be swept along by natural forces. But this is not the case, it is an agent going somewhere, distinguishing success from failure, as the path of least resistance, in relation to this, going somewhere.

For the claim, sure. But is that claims in your backyard, or trees? Do you burn claims in your fireplace, or firewood? The OP is about how it is ante claims, before thinking. We can approximate that by trying to follow the lead of real being. Imagine you have one beloved tree in your backyard and I come to chop it down. What of your claims then? It cannot be both firewood and tree. Don't you see that? — tim wood

No, I will not allow you to invert our positions here. The claim was yours not mine. I call it "tree", you call it "firewood". You are the one claiming that it cannot be both. Even if you cut the tree down, I would still call it "tree" and you would call it "firewood". You haven't provided an argument for your claim that we cannot both know the same thing under different terms.

See, you need to give me reason for me to adjust to your claim. Trying to force me, by cutting down the tree does not give me reason. The application of force only makes me more steadfast in my resistance to your claim.

Socrates argues against this in the Protagoras. — Cavacava

I agree. In Plato's work, Socrates laid out these arguments, that virtue is knowledge, as what was professed by the sophists like Protagoras and Gorgias. For Socrates it was a matter of contesting and analysing the sophists' claims that virtue could be taught. The difficulties taken up by Augustine, the issue of one knowing what is right yet doing what is wrong, were those exposed by Plato's dialectics. This is the grounds for true freedom of the will. Not only is the will free from physical determinism (determined by physical causes), it is also free from intellectual determinism (determined by decisions of reason).

So I have to choose what to have to drink in the morning from a menu of tea, coffee, juice, water or nothing. I invariably choose coffee, but do not claim that I want to choose tea but cannot, because if I chose tea my wife would die of shock. I have to choose, and in choosing I have to believe that I am free to choose what I want. And then we do not call my consistent choices 'compulsive'.
But suppose my wife (or my therapist) convinces me that I ought to give up coffee, then I am conflicted; I love to drink coffee in the mornings, but I want not to drink coffee because bla bla. Every evening, I decide to have juice tomorrow, and every morning, I have coffee again. The bla bla reasons not to drink coffee are convincing, but do not make me want to drink no coffee, and to choose is to believe I can make the choice of what I want. — unenlightened

What this demonstrates is that deciding to do something, what we call "choosing" something, is not the same as actually willing oneself to do it. There is a division here, between choice and willing, which allows you to choose something (not to have coffee), but then not proceed with your choice (to end up actually having coffee). This disconnect between rational choice and the motivator for action is why breaking bad habits is so difficult. The rational choice comes from somewhere other than where the motivator for action comes from, and a further capacity must enable the individual to exercise control over the motivator, because it is not the rational choice itself which exercises control. That further capacity is "will power".

This is the issue which Augustine grappled with in his expose on free will. Socrates and Plato had produced arguments claiming that virtue was knowledge. But this was proven to be a deficient position, because one can know what is right yet still proceed to do what is wrong. Because of this issue, Augustine proposed a separation between intellect and will. This separation you have very adeptly demonstrated with your example. It is a very important separation and one which is often overlooked in philosophical discussions of "will", as people tend to associate "will" with choice and decision, rather than properly associating it with refraining from action.

But we would be much better served to associate "will" with the power to refrain from acting, rather than as the motivator, or source of action. "Control", as it is used in this thread, represents this capacity to refrain from acting. And this is "will", it is not the capacity to proceed, to act, according to one's choices or decisions, it is the capacity to prevent oneself from acting. In your example then, your inability to refrain from drinking coffee, after you've decided to do such, demonstrates a lack of will power.

The issue was whether there is a difference between having decided what to call the thing, and knowing what the thing is.

No, they would have known that firewood falls or can be broken or cut from trees, that trees have other uses to animals and humans and so on. — Janus

I don't think so, they could just look at the things which we call "trees" as firewood. That's what we're talking about, calling the same thing by different words. I called it "tree", tim called it "firewood".

You are making them into two distinct things, but that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about knowing what a thing is. One person knows the thing as "firewood", another knows it as "tree", the same thing.

The point is that knowing what it is as firewood is parasitic upon knowing what it is as tree, and obviously not vice versa. — Janus

I don't agree. You do not need to know that it is a tree in order to know that it is firewood. In fact, the knowledge of "what it is" quite possibly began with people knowing it as "firewood", before they came to know it as "tree" because much knowledge is derived from usage.

You seemed to be speaking as though it were purely arbitrary in relation to understanding whether someone referred to it as 'tree' or "firewood" — Janus

In relation to "knowing what it is", it is arbitrary. One can know what it is as "tree", or one could know what it is as "firewood". If you think that one is more properly "knowing what it is" than the other, then you need to refer to a further reason. But that reason is something other than knowing what it is.

Your point?

Did you forget to count their interaction? — apokrisis

I couldn't count "interaction", because that's what you left out. Look:

The whole shapes the parts, the parts make the whole. — apokrisis

All you have described is the activity of the whole, and the activity of the parts. There is no description of any interaction. As I said, this requires "how" or "why" the whole shapes the parts, and "how" or "why" the parts make the whole. Otherwise you have not described the interaction

This is thin ice. Observe - name - know. You imply that the knowing is of the thing; but all this knowing is, is of the observations. To you a tree, a glorious exemplar of life, worthy of appreciation for all kinds of reasons - leave it alone! To me, firewood; its cold; chop it down! Your "no fundamental difference" becomes an abstraction. — tim wood

I can't see your point. You haven't explained how knowing what something is differs from deciding what to call it. I decide to call it "tree". You decide to call it "firewood". What would make you think that one of us knows what it is but the other does not?

I object too to a quality in your reduction that I'll call recursive, meaning that it - your process - always reaches back into itself, thus and thereby always secure in what it achieves because always solidly connected to its origins. And never free. Recursion never leaps. You have not allowed for the "I don't know" that enables the leap. Tree? Or firewood? Not both. Can you reconcile? I think you cannot, because both sides are based in decisions each side made. Will understanding finally tilt the scale one way or another? Maybe, through suspension of decision. The point is that when observation and analysis are done, there is always - still - a choice to be made. — tim wood

I don't see how you can say that I haven't allowed for "I don't know what it is". Obviously, if you do not know what to call it, then you do not know what it is. Also, why can it not be both, "tree" and "firewood"? I see no reason for the claim that it cannot be both. There is no reason why we cannot both know what it is, each knowing it by different words. Further, there is no need to reconcile. I have my reason to call it "tree", and you have your reason to call it "firewood". There would need to be a further reason to make reconciliation necessary.

It causes the parts that construct it to exist. — apokrisis

"It" here, being the thing which causes, refers to constraints. So the constraints do more than constrain, they actually cause the existence of the parts constrained?

It's a feedback loop. The whole shapes the parts, the parts make the whole. — apokrisis

As you commonly profess a triadic metaphysics, don't you think that you are missing something in this model? You have two dichotomous elements, the parts and the whole. You say that the whole shapes the parts. What you are missing is (to refer to the op) "the reason" why the whole shapes the parts. Or to put it in more scientific terms, "how" the whole shapes the parts. This is where we find "constraints", they exist as the third element in your triadic system, property of neither the parts nor the whole, or perhaps both.

So for example, let's suppose that in an instance of this type relation, the whole is the community, what we call "society", and the parts are the individual human beings. Now let's assume that there are some sort of "constraints", laws, mores, rules, conventions, etc., which we assume regulate the activities of the parts, making them properly parts of the whole. The individual human beings can only be said to be parts of the whole if they act accordingly, otherwise they might go off as independent agents, misfits, exercising their own free will to be reclusive as a hermit, or in some cases one might choose to be destructive and wreak havoc on the established community, possibly aligning oneself with some odd sort of "whole".

So the parts have freedom to act as they will, and they will only act as parts of the whole if they apprehend a "reason" to. But if we look from the perspective of the whole, we ask "how" does the whole constrain the parts. You can see that the question of "how" is answered with "reason", such that how the whole constrains the parts, is by giving each part a reason to behave as a member of the whole. Now we can ask what does it mean for a part to have a reason to act as a member of a whole.

This is not the same as asking the reason why a part is a member of a whole, such as why is an atom a part of a molecule, because the part (the human being) is a free agent with a free will. If it were the same, and the atom were such a free agent, it could choose (having a reason) which molecule it would be a part of. How would one molecule, as "the whole" give a free willing atom with choice, a reason to join with it, when the molecule which is produced by the joining doesn't even exist until after the atom joins up?

It makes a difference. If we decide what things are, then we can reasonably differ. If on the other hand we know what something is, then we cannot reasonably differ. — tim wood

There is no fundamental difference between deciding what things are, and knowing what things are, because all we can do is decide what something is, and having made that decision constitutes knowing what that things is. However there is a difference between assigning a name to a thing, and assigning a name to a property of a thing.

Consider what constitutes "deciding what things are". We assign a name to an object, say "tree", and we have decided that that thing is a tree. We have decided that this thing is going to go by the name "tree". But is it really a tree you might ask, and how do we "know" that it is really a tree. So we look to a definition, what is required of a thing in order that it be called "tree". Here though, all we have is more words, such that "what" a tree is, is just more names which make up a description. However, the descriptive words refer to properties of the thing. Therefore, "knowing" that it is a tree is just a matter of deciding what the properties are, in the sense of giving them names which are consistent with the words used to define "tree". And there can be no fundamental difference between deciding what a thing is, and knowing what a thing is, in the sense that both are a matter of assigning words, though one is assigning a name to the thing, and the other is assigning names to the properties of the thing.

Do you sense the indifference of life itself, here? — tim wood

So we have the very same issue with "life" itself. First, we can ask are we pointing to a thing, and assigning the name "life" to it, or are we saying that there is a property of things which we call "life". We cannot point to the thing called "life", but we can say that it is a property of many different things. Therefore we need to avoid this talk of "life", as if what it is, is a thing, rather than a property of things.
What life is, is not a thing, it is a property of things.

So again, the same semiotic story of self organising constraints. — apokrisis

Constraints cannot organize themselves because that would be self-causation, meaning the thing exists prior to its own existence, to cause its own existence. A constraint cannot cause anything unless it exists. So it cannot cause its own existence because that would mean that it exists before it exists.

We cannot even determine what someone is thinking about by interpreting what they are saying? — Arkady

That's absolutely correct. My saying this represents a very small portion of what I am thinking about at the moment, which is a very small portion of what I am thinking about in the span of five minutes. Furthermore, there is a very good possibility that I am being deceptive, and what I am saying doesn't represent what I am thinking at all. And that does not even consider the deficiencies of interpretation.

So it should be quite clear that we cannot determine what someone is thinking by interpreting what they are saying.

The very fact that we're having a conversation falsifies that spurious claim. — Arkady

The number of times I've had to reply to this non sequitur argument at this forum is amazing. That you and I can hold a conversation says nothing about your ability to know what I am thinking. The existence of deception ought to dispel this faulty conclusion.

Trees - news to me - are apparently amazing, dynamic and engaging in behaviours often described in anthropomorphic terms. See two books, The Secret Life of Trees, The Hidden Life of Trees. — tim wood

The Hidden Life of Trees is very informative. Wohlleben is very knowledgeable, and the book offers a vast supply of facts. It appears like a tree is "upside down", its roots are actually its brain. The plant's brain is not seen by us, because it is subterranean, and because of this we assume that a plant has no brain.

Where I feel compelled to question that, is because in the overall story, the human brain is a novelty, something that has only come to exist in the blink of an eye, in evolutionary terms. — Wayfarer

If you would read the above mentioned book, you would see that the human brain is not all that different from the brain of a tree. The big difference being that the human brain is above ground, in the air, allowing the human being the freedom of motion which plants do not have. That freedom of movement requires that animals think about completely different things from what plants think about, so their brains are quite different.

For the most part, the world's response to the crisis in Syria was to make it worse. — frank

The situation in Syria has been getting worse for a long time, and will most likely continue to get worse for quite some time. What you call "the world's response", is probably not very relevant to this disintegration.

brain weighing up possibilities is a brain experiencing a situation with perceived options that they care enough about in order to make a decision re which options to choose. — numberjohnny5

So there are "options" which are perceived. These options are non-physical things. If these non-physical things, the options that is, are not real, then it is nonsense for the brain to consider them as possibilities; because if there are not any real options, determinism is what is the case, so there is no reason for the brain to consider options which have no reality.

I suppose you believe that options are somehow real, and therefore physical? Perhaps you could explain how an option is physical?

I'm afraid not, and it's interesting that you believe that's the case. — numberjohnny5

Clearly it is the case that your talk refers to non-physical things. You have talked about properties, possibilities, and now "options". All of these are non-physical things.

Anyway... — numberjohnny5

You haven't addressed any of my criticism of your ontology, principally, that you deny that non-physical things are real, but you support your physicalist argument by referring to non-physical things. Now you are denying that you are referring to non-physical things. Unless you can show me an option or a possibility which has physical existence, then surely you are referring to non-physical things.

I didn't realise, no. It's difficult for me to grasp how non-physical things exist (even if you say that properties are non-physical), and at the time, I was hoping you'd clarify that for me. That's why I asked you a direct (non-rhetorical) question. — numberjohnny5

As it is difficult for you to grasp that non-physical things exist, it is equally difficult for me to grasp that physical things exist. I have extreme difficulty grasping what it means to exist. When I started to understand what "exists" means, I started to realize that it's more logical to assume that non-physical things exist than it is to assume that physical things exist. This is expressed by Descartes' "I think therefore I am". However, I see the need to assume that physical things exist as well, therefore I lean toward a dualism.

It depends how we use "large" -- whether it's a mental property of our minds assigning things as "large" (the concept "large" is a thought) in terms of relative scales, or whether we're referring to non-mental properties of things that actually take up more space than other things, say. There are no "comparisons/measurements" that are non-mental though. — numberjohnny5

My point is that it is impossible that there is such a thing as a "non-mental property". If something takes up more space than another thing, this is a judgement made by a mind.

It's not that it's not like a sequence of brain activity that involves perceiving the situation, weighing up possibilities, making a choice, and making sense of the consequences of that choice. That's all (conscious) brain activity; and it's constantly doing/juggling multiple things sequentially; and this is all happening while nonconscious brain activity is working too. — numberjohnny5

Let's say that a brain is "weighing up possibilities" as you describe. What is a "possibility" other than a non-physical thing?

Do you see why I hit your questions with other questions? Your way of speaking has inherent within it, the assumption of non-physical things. You claim that your ontology allows for no such non-physical things, but you're always referring to them in your speech. So I ask you, how can you talk about these non-physical things, "properties", and "possibilities", as if the brain is doing something with these non-physical things, while you deny that these things have any reality? This is why wayfarer says your ontology leaves you in a position of meaningless nonsense. You insist that the brain is doing something, but all the material which it is working with, when it is doing this, is non-existent nothing. But you, in order to make it appear like what you are saying is somehow intelligible, speak of this non-existent nothing, as if it were something. So all you do is contradict yourself, or behave in an extremely hypocritical way at best, talking about all these non-physical things as if they exist, but then denying that they exist, as an ontological principle.

Metaphysician Undercover has been too patient trying to help you understand your errors and as a result has allowed you another opportunity to become enthused by the verbosity of your own loquaciousness. — MetaphysicsNow

"Loquaciousness", that's a new word for me, I'll have to remember that. Numberjohnny goes on and on, talking about how the brain is using non-physical things like properties and possibilities, in mental processes, then denies all reality to these non-physical things. If these things are not real, then the brain is doing nothing, working away with no material to work with, therefore doing nothing.

Numberjohnny gives us a similar problem in relation to the physical world when saying everything is in flux. In talking about "changing relations", it is implied that there are static things which are being related to each other in this expression of change. Numberjohnny keeps referring to these static things and in the same breath denies that they are real. It's an ontology of denial, denying the reality of what is being talked about, and this renders the talk as nothing more than loquacious nonsense.

The proportion of children lacking a powerful, instinctive "will to like" is precisely 0%, by the way; an observation that sheds plenty of light upon this issue. — Mariner

I think we need to remove the ambiguity from "like" here. I see that babies "like" in a selfish way, such as they like to eat, but to develop this type of "like" into a meaningful "love" is another thing.

Unlovingness is 100% taught. — Mariner

I agree that unlovingness is 100% taught, but this doesn't mean that lovingness isn't also 100% taught. These things develop from a capacity, and the same capacity lends itself to the two opposing characteristics, the good or the bad.

A person who does not "want to like" is a waste of atoms. — Mariner

Now that's not a very loving thing to say Mariner. What if it takes being loved to be able to learn how to love? Consider a child, younger than yours perhaps, who has not yet developed the will towards liking, which you describe. That person is not a waste of atoms despite not yet possessing this "want to like". And if young children can develop this will toward liking, by actually being loved, then why can't others? The older people might just be thrown aside as "a waste of atoms" because no one cares about them.

Firstly, in my ontology, all existents are constantly changing. There are no "static-instants", for example. That means that both (objective) facts/events/states of affairs and mental events (which are subjective facts/events/states of affairs) are constantly changing/in motion. Any existent at time T1 is non-identical with itself at any other time in the past or future. — numberjohnny5

If everything is constantly changing, then there is no such thing as a state of affairs. To assume that everything is changing, and that there are states of affairs is contradictory. So in your claimed ontology, facts or truths cannot be expressed as states of affairs.

So "objective relations," as the ways in which particular things/properties interact with other things/properties, are constantly changing, through time T1, T2, T3, and so on. — numberjohnny5

Further, T1, T2, and T3, cannot refer to anything real in such an ontology. Things are always changing, time is always passing. So such designations correspond to nothing real, and the claims of truth you refer to cannot be true either because T1 etc., cannot refer to anything real. There is no such thing as the points in time indicated by T1, T2, T3, etc., according to that ontology, so to premise such is to make a false premise. And you will not make any true conclusions when you start from false premises.

(1) Why you're deflecting the question back to me? — numberjohnny5

I expected that you'd recognize that the question was a rhetorical question. You asked me how do non-physical things exist if they have no properties and my answer (by way of rhetorical question) is that properties are non-physical things. So it doesn't really make sense to ask about the properties of properties.

(2) It seems you're implying that I haven't done enough philosophising because if I had, I would share the same conclusions re properties being non-physical as you do. — numberjohnny5

So, Ill now ask you the question. Do you or do you not apprehend properties as non-physical things? Take the property "large" for example. Many physical things are large, so it is impossible that large is any particular physical thing.

(3) Why is it that in the handful of times I've asked anyone how to try and explain to me that non-physical existents obtain, they never actually try to accomodate me or give me a straight answer in terms of ontology? (That's rhetorical, but I'd be open to an answer.) — numberjohnny5

It appears to me, like you do not adequately understand what "ontology" is. Ontology consists of the assumptions which we make about existence, and we always have our own reasons for the assumptions which we make. So my ontological assumption is that non-physical things have existence no less than physical things.

As to "how" they exist, non-physical things exist as non-physical things, just like physical things exist as physical things. Physical things, are apprehended through the senses, they are called sensible objects, like particular entities, rocks and trees, etc.. Non-physical things are apprehended by the mind, they are called intelligible objects like universal ideas, concepts like "large", "red", etc..

It's not clear to me in what capacity you'd like an explanation of a physical brain state making a choice. I'll make a first attempt though. (Btw, when I refer to anything that exists, even when I mention "state", I do not presume they are static things. They are constantly changing/happening.) — numberjohnny5

How can you say this without contradiction? If a so-called "brain state" is constantly changing, then it is not a state, it is as you say, a "happening", which is a changing. So let's not call it a "brain state" any more, because that's misleading, let's call it brain activity. However, there are ideas which remain unchanged within a person's mind, things like numbers and words. How do you think that the numeral "2" stays the same, as the numeral "2", within my mind, if all there is in my mind is brain activity? How does the numeral "2" stay in my mind as a static object, if my "mind" is only accounted for by brain activity?

The kind of physical state that can make a choice is a mental state that has will and makes choices within particular contexts. For example, the physical state of thinking "I want to shut down my laptop" can (it doesn't have to) result in other conscious processes causing particular motor (efferent) pathways to move (exhibit/inhibit) particular body parts to shut down the laptop. — numberjohnny5

So let's readdress this question. There is brain activity which corresponds to me thinking should I or should I not shut down my computer. Then I make a choice and proceed with the appropriate activity. What, other than the non-physical mind, causes the actual choice? It cannot be the brain activity which is the cause of the decision, because the brain activity is considering the options, weighing the possibilities, and the choice causes the end of this brain activity, to be replaced with a different activity, the movement of the body parts. The brain activity cannot cause the activity of the bodily parts directly, because a choice is required. Nor is it something external, which is the cause, because the choice comes from within me.

"Truth" is a property of propositions/claims, and propositions are assertions (made by individuals/minds) about what is the case. — numberjohnny5

As a physicalist, I assume that a proposition, for you, exists as a bunch of physical. words. In order for those words to be true or false, don't you think that they need to be interpreted?

If we can all agree that there are at least the two distinct Realms, Physical and Conscious, then we need to understand how things that happen in the Physical Realm can cause things to happen in the Conscious Realm. — SteveKlinko

The best approach, I find, is to reverse this position, and look at how things in the conscious realm cause things in the physical realm. The evidence of a temporal priority is much clearer this way, and we can proceed toward understanding this priority through concepts such as final cause and free will.

You mean that the idea that it doesn't is derived from theistic necessity. — apokrisis

What's "theistic necessity"?

It is an article of faith that there are gods and souls, therefore Aristotle's hylomorphism must be scholastically rendered in a fashion that permits matter-less substantial form. — apokrisis

No, that's incorrect. It's a simple fact that Aristotle's cosmological argument, which appears to be derived from aspects of Plato's Timaeus, permits matter-less forms. The temporal relationship between universals and particulars, and the subject of how the forms, or ideas, which were until then supposed to be eternal, could interact with the temporal (material particulars), was extensively investigated in the Timaeus. That Christian theologians saw these principles as acceptable to their religion, though it attests to the acceptability of these principles, is really irrelevant to the logic of the argument, which needs to be interpreted and understood by the individual, interested, human minds.

So it appears like your rejection is based in an anti-theism bias. Instead of approaching this issue with a mind open to the possibility that immaterial forms are real, in which case you might proceed to understand and accept the necessity produced by the argument, you approach with a mind closed to this possibility. Faith in such entities, as you describe, is not required. All that is required is faith in one's own ability to understand, and an allowance for the possibility. The cosmological argument, by means of the necessity of the logic, transforms that faith in one's own ability to understand, into a faith in the existence of such immaterial forms, through the means of "understanding".

Materialism (or rather physicalism, if you accept hylomorphism) isn't a bias. It is a belief derived from rational theory and empirical evidence. — apokrisis

You're wrong here. I have pointed out to you, over and over again, the irrational parts of your theory. Your physicalism is based on empirical evidence along with the rejection of rational theory. Such rejection of rational theory can generally be attributed to bias.

So you are no longer content with the idea that substantial being is definitely both material cause and formal cause? — apokrisis

The idea that substantial being requires both matter and form is derived from a materialist bias. You start from this materialist bias, and when you try to prioritize matter as pure potential, the infinite possibility of apeiron, you realize that this is impossible. The pure potential, prime matter, must have some form or else formal being could never emerge. So you falsely conclude that substantial being is necessarily matter and form. However, if you would release that materialist bias, you might realize that matter is not a necessary condition for substantial being.

Sure, but I'd also like to know from you how non-physical things exist if they have no properties, and therefore no spatio-temporal location? I can't make sense out of non-physical things having properties and no location. — numberjohnny5

Ask yourself what is a property, and maybe you would realize that a property is itself a non-physical thing.

Intentionality is a mental state in my view, and mental states are brain states. Brain states are physical states. Brain states are comprised of properties and therefore, have location. If that's not enough, obviously ask me for more... — numberjohnny5

Intentionality is a view toward the future, and future things do not have physical existence. So let's consider a simple choice. I am deciding whether or not to shut down my laptop now. How is it that a physical sate, my brain state, can choose to bring about the existence either one of these two possible physical states, my laptop being shut down, or my laptop remaining on? How does a physical state have a choice concerning which physical states will follow from the present physical state?

think that if Mueller finds evidence of severe wrongdoing on Trump's part, they will offer him a way out, if they can keep it under wraps... — creativesoul

Keep it under wraps? Are you suggesting that Mueller would involve himself in a cover up?

Correct, the cosmological argument demonstrates that substantial being may be solely formal. That's why the Neo-Platonists posit independent Forms.

Thought cannot be anchored in itself, it must get its bearings from an 'outside' which indexes - provisionally and haphazardly, according to the vagaries of human interests and motivations - tokens and types as tokens and types. — StreetlightX

Do you support a separation, and therefore a boundary, between inside thought and outside thought? If so, what could such a boundary consist of? And, if such a boundary is real, wouldn't that separation be applicable in validating a real separation between types and tokens?

A real boundary gives real individuation to that which is within the boundary. Since the token is the particular, the token is the individual thing, referred to by "within" the thought itself, being bounded and separated from outside the thought. The "type" is something vague, foreign and outside, alien to thought. This is why the attempt to understand "the type" always turns frustrating, often ending in futility. "The type" can be understood through definition, but the definition may be reduced to individual words (tokens), each one producing a degree of ambiguity with respect to type.

Again, you have this fixation for either/or and missing my point - it is the dialectic of "possibly either/or" that leads you to the resolution, the synthesis, that is "definitely both". — apokrisis

This is not good at all. The attempt to reduce the possibility of one or the other, to "definitely both", is obviously a mistaken approach. In the vast majority of either/or questions, such a reduction is impossible. To approach such a question with the attitude of "definitely both" is nothing other than a mental laze. That lazy habit is just an unwillingness to take the required steps, necessary for understanding and proper decision making.

But conventions are a combination of non-mental things (the actual conventional patterns of behaviour and methods of conventional reinforcement) and mental things (conventions are essentially based on intentionality, and how people consistently think about and do/reinforce particular things). — numberjohnny5

OK, so to get to the point, I think conventions are essentially non-physical things. As you say, they are based in intentionality. Intentionality is a view toward what is wanted, and what is wanted is a state apprehended which has no physical existence. How do you reconcile this with physicalism?

Is guilt an emotion? I’ve experimented with the concept personally, and I’ve never felt guilty for anything I can think of. I'm certainly familiar with regret, but if I try to fish around inside for guilt, I draw a blank.

How about innocance? Is it that an emotion? Indeed; to me they do seem more like categories that outside parties place you in. Are we all innocent or are we all guilty? — XTG

Guilt is definitely an emotion. It is feeling brought on by a recognition that oneself has acted in a way that was not right, "I made a mistake". It may be imposed on us by others, if it requires others to bring this to one's attention. But this is not necessary as an individual can recognize oneself to have done wrong. It is closely related to shame, and shame is related to embarrassment, which are the softer forms of recognition of one's own mistakes. Related to these are shyness, which is a fear of doing wrong. When an individual is prone to embarrassment and shame, that person might also be prone to shyness.

If you have no guilt it is immediately apparent to those around and we all mask who we are and what we think so we act out in a combination of how we are actually feeling and what we believe we should be presenting to those around us. — Robert Peters

Just like guilt may be evident as embarrassment, shame, and shyness, the lack of guilt may also be evident in the opposite emotions. However many people master the art of disguising their true emotions, so a confidence and bravado which you might think would indicate a lack of guilt, might really be an act which is covering up guilt. That is a very real problem, if one is trying to develop ways to recognize guilt in others. Different people behave in completely different ways, when they recognize that they have made a mistake. Some are inclined to confess, others are inclined to cover up.

With guilt it can build if you can't work through the process of making the situation part of your life. So the guilt grows and is perverted in your experience and thoughts. — Robert Peters

This experience, "the guilt grows", is probably the result of not knowing whether to confess or to cover up the mistake. This is another choice, and to make the wrong choice is to make a mistake, and to recognize that one has made a mistake is guilt. So making the wrong choice about how to deal with one's own guilt can create more guilt. Even a very simple mistake, like telling a simple lie in some cases, can manifest into a massive operation of cover up, if one is never inclined to confess. This brings to mind the question, is confession always the right choice, or is the cover up sometimes the better choice. How would one know? And, in relation to your subject, punishment, if punishment is the result of confession, doesn't this promote the thought that the cover up is always the better choice? But then the cover up can lead to a growing guilt.

If you had learned the conventional uses of the words and phrases in the piece of writing and were also assigning those conventional uses to the writing, then you or others could "accurately" interpret what the writer intended with the writing (assuming the writer wasn't lying, pretending, etc.). If you were using unconventional uses of the words/phrases in the piece of writing and assigning those unconventional uses to the writing, then you or others wouldn't be as "accurate" re the writer's intentions. — numberjohnny5

This is what I was trying to bring to your attention, the existence of conventions. I don't think it's the case that the meaning you derive "wouldn't be as accurate" without the use of conventions in interpreting, I don't thjink you could get any meaning at all without the use of conventions, because the interpretation would be completely random.

In any case, you recognize the importance of such conventions in relation to meaning. What type of existence do you think conventions have? They are not in an individual's brain, because they are shared by many brains. Where are they?

So, for example, I experience a boundary between the edge of the black text on this screen, in contrast to the whiteness of the screen, while still knowing that there is no actual boundary... — snowleopard

So the question is, what do you base this knowledge on, this "knowing that there is no actual boundary"? You perceive a boundary through sensation, but you claim that you cannot deduce a boundary. So your deductions are incapable of justifying your perceptions. But just because you cannot deduce a boundary, this does not justify the claim that you know that there is no boundary.

One assumption is that there is boundaries, and this is firmly supported by sensation. The other assumption is that there are no boundaries, and this is only supported by your inability to deduce their existence. However, if we start with appropriate premises we can easily deduce the existence of boundaries. We can premise that there are differences, and that difference requires a separation between one and the other, and that separation requires a boundary. It is not hard to deduce the existence of boundaries. So what could possibly support this "knowing that there is no actual boundary"?

I must be real bad today, the worst, I actually got a reply from you.

Forgiveness inspires confession.

Good luck in there.

Perhaps we're running into some issue of semantics here. — snowleopard

No we're going around in circles. You claimed that the recognition of things is entirely relational. I claimed that the recognition of myself as a thing is not relational. You said boundaries are unreal, so I asked how do you have relations without boundaries. Now you seem to be claiming that both of these, things, and relations, are unreal. Is that your point?

Not talking about a square in my mind. Talking about any square, the mathematical form itself, and not merely the concept of it, which would require a relation with a conceiver. — noAxioms

Wait a minute, what are you talking about, "a square" or "any square". The former is a particular square, the latter is a general idea allowing for the possibility of a particular. Am I correct that you are assuming a Platonic Form, "the mathematical form itself"? Doesn't this mathematical form exist as an eternal object?