This is all assuming physicalism is everything else that we have to fit consciousness into. Like Schop, I don't know anymore than anyone else does.

But we can make it broader than that. It's fitting the subjective into the objective, on the empirical grounds that the objective is what gives rise to minds that have experiences.

But yeah, if we're giving an account of reality that leaves out imagination, that's a problem. — Marchesk

Huh?

I'm not following you, really.

The point I was making is that properties have to be properties of something. Do you agree with that?

Sometimes I get the impression that what folks mean by "nonphysical(s)" is something like, "We're just not going to bother doing ontology and we're instead going to talk about things in 'functional' terms per common language."

Because the answer to philosophical issues is often found in language. — Banno

That wouldn't be the answer to where anything is located or what substance it's a phenomenon of, because it's not a location, and it's rather itself a phenomenon of substances.

Nonphysical stuff would be like "imagination", — schopenhauer1

So is imagination an example of nonphysical substance on your view?

Again, I was just trying to clarify something before moving on.

Next, I'd want to clarify that you agree that consciousness would have to be properties of something, because you didn't answer that in a way that makes it clear that you don't think that consciousness might exist but not actually be properties of anything. (Which wouldn't make any sense to me, because how could we have "free floating" properties? Again, properties and substances are inseparable; that goes both ways--basically the characteristics of something need a something to be characteristics of, and there is no something that has no characteristics, all somethings are some way or another.)

So then we'd have to figure out why you'd think that consciousness can't be properties of physical stuff, but consciousness can be properties of nonphysical stuff, whatever nonphysical stuff would be. (Where the latter question would again be a mystery to me; I can't make any sense out of the notion of nonphysical stuff.)

And very often (any slippery slope ethical dilemma, any artistic play with discrete perceptual categories, e.g. musical pitches), you want to work with the usage as it is, not precisified — bongo fury

Sure, depending on your aims. All I was saying is that the dividing line simply tells you about how people formulate their concepts, how they use words, and I was noting that going by any consensus doesn't give us a correct answer, just a common or conventional answer.

There is no correct answer for stuff like this, by the way.

Those are not properties of experience. — schopenhauer1

Right. At the moment I'm just trying to clarify whether you agree that all physical things "have" various properties. Because it wasn't clear to me on the earlier comment whether you'd agree with this.

(I'm putting "have" in quotation marks, by the way, because although that's a common way to talk about this, I think it's ontologically misleading. Physical stuff isn't something separate from properties, where substances can somehow can possess properties. Substances and properties are inseparable.)

Yes, I am. It is existent, but how is it that this property is metaphysically the same as the physical substrate. If properties are just "something" of the ethereal realm that are "slapped" onto the physical, you don't have much of a theory outside plain old dualism. — schopenhauer1

Wait, let's say that there are no people, just to make sure that we're taking perception, mentality, etc. out of the picture. Don't you believe that all physical existents "have" various properties? For example, wouldn't ice with a melting surface layer be much more slick than a tar pit, so that a rock (that weighs, say, a pound or a bit less) on its surface will much more easily be transported across the surface by, say, a steady 20 mph wind?

And the oven is also embedded in the language being used. That is, being able to use an oven involves dividing things up in such a way that there is a role for "oven" in what we do. The world is understood in such a way as that there are ovens in it.

Now I do not think that we disagree about this, so much as that it needs to be taken into account. — Banno

Why, though? Why would you start talking about language when it comes up? You could just as well talk about the factory where the oven is made, the trucks that deliver it, the laws that have to do with how the business that makes the oven exists as a business and pays taxes and so on, the geological processes that enable us to mine and produce the materials used in the oven's manufacture, the planetary evolution processes that are necessary for the geological processes to obtain,and on and on--there are a bunch of things like that we could bring up. Why focus on language?

Is it just because that's a pet topic for you? It's what you'd prefer to talk about?

But you're not addressing this: wouldn't consciousness have to be a property of something? Some sort of existent?

What I thought was a funny conclusion from much of these philosophies, is that neurons themselves seem to have a sort of magical quality.. If one does not bite the bullet on PANpscyhism, one bites the bullet on NEUROpsychism. In other words, the "Cartesian theater", the "hidden dualism", and the "ghost in the machine" (or whatever nifty term you want to use) gets put into the equation at SOME point. It just depends on exactly what point you want to put it in the equation. — schopenhauer1

Obviously consciousness is a property of something, no? Why would you think of it as being "magic"?

Possibly.

For one, say that someone is talking about stoves/ovens and what they do. You wouldn't assume that they're for some reason saying that stoves aren't embedded in the world, would you?

And a lot of what I'm doing amounts to pointing out that we use ovens to bake cakes, contra people suggesting that the actual baking part is a matter of people mixing the batter, cutting wheat to begin the process of making flour, or even suggesting that there's no such thing as ovens, or whatever other confused or intentionally ambiguous thing they might be suggesting.

Better to think of oneself as embedded in the world. — Banno

These sorts of comments annoy me to no end, because it suggests a ridiculous misreading of anything I've ever said or would say. I can only imagine that the people responding with comments like this are applying their own misconceived ideological templates to things that I say, as if I'm somehow responsible for the wonky templates the person is employing in their understanding.

In the sense that both share inevitability and pre-destination — Jacob-B

One couldn't believe in intelligent design where there's some indeterminism and free will?

I took some classics and literature courses through Extension when I was about 35. It was a good experience, but it was not for a degree. It would have been tough at that point in life to start college while working full time. People do it, but they have to have a lot of drive, and be well organized. Plus, it takes longer. Double plus, it's no longer really cheap. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, it's not necessarily easy to do, especially if someone has to work at the same time--if they have to support family for example, and as I said, it's not a good idea necessarily if one is going to go into a lot of debt (so one might need to stick to state schools in one's state of residency, go to community college first, etc.), but if one can do it, I think it's definitely worth doing, and it's worth getting it over with early if one can.

At that, I did my degrees spread out over almost a 20-year period, but I had career opportunities I didn't want to pass up. But I still wanted to finish school, too, partially because I didn't know how long those career opportunities would last. So I did school when I could, when I had or could make free time, etc.

Which, when you want to know about usage, is what you want to know. — bongo fury

Well, or if you want to know what people like (their preferences), or what their opinions about something are, etc., sure.

One grain of sand doesn't a heap make. Adding another will still not be a heap but carry this on for some time and we arrive at a heap of sand. The paradox is basically about how one grain of sand doesn't count and yet continue this for an adequate length of time and we have a heap of sand. Mathematically I think it can be stated as how 0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0 > 0? Each step doesn't count and yet after a certain time we have something that matters. I think it's about vagueness primarily because a heap is vague term. Any way what you should keep in mind about the paradox is simply that many nothings add up to something. — TheMadFool

A grain isn't nothing, by the way. It's just not a heap. Adding things to get something else isn't that unusual. We do it with things like houses, musical compositions, journeys by foot, etc.--all sorts of things.

Coming to objectivity we can consider it a method for arriving at truth. There may be many definitions of objectivity but what I want to stress on is the requirment that there be an adequate number of observations. A single person's testimony amounts to very little these days. Each claim , whatever it may be, needs corroboration if it's to fly in any epistemological setup. What is notable is just like one grain of sand, a single person or observation fails to be objective. Yet, just like many grains of sand in a heap, multiple people or observations make them objective. — TheMadFool

You're endorsing argumentum ad populums. There's no way around argumentum ad populums being a fallacy. What lots of people say only tells you what lots of people say.

16 to 26 years later — Bitter Crank

the time will seem like nothing then.

I added "you'll be glad you did it" rather than being 40 and 50 and thinking about maybe trying to go to school or doing something with your life at that point (which is what some people do if they wound up working at McDonald's or something like that for 20-30 years).

Also, your response to the OP is pure gold. Had a good chuckle as I read through it. In my mind your voice is Alan Rickman with a deadpan delivery dripping with condescension and sarcasm. — DingoJones

:razz:

Definitely it's better to go, and it's better to get a graduate degree if you can. Do it as soon as you can and get it over with. Just try to avoid going into too much debt for it--go to a school your family can afford (in conjunction with whatever scholarships, etc. you can get). If you can stomach it--if you're at all interested in something relevant, major in something with more practical value career-wise, just steer that in the direction of a career you'd actually be interested in.

But even if you take something less practical--like philosophy, merely having a degree (or degrees) will help your job prospects. As long as you don't go into too much debt for it, it's not going to hurt anything to go. It will only help you. I know it sucks thinking about 4-8 more years of school once you're finally done with high school, but the time flies by. When you're 40 or 50 the time will seem like nothing, and you'll be glad you did it.

If you'd be interested in military service, that's another good option that can help you with your schooling--you'll get training in the military that will help your career prospects, plus they'll help (or completely) pay for university outside of the military, too. That's something else that you don't have to do long term, but the benefits will be with you for a lifetime. And if you do decide to do it longer term, you can do 20 years or so and semi-retire already. You'll at least have a secondary income to supplement whatever else you decide to do with the rest of your life.

In my understanding, logic is consequent on the nature of being, and all being is traceable to God. So, logic is posterior, not prior, to God. — Dfpolis

Right, so then God could presumably make anything He desired logically possible.

But as you are often inclined to say.....how does that work, to which I say.....change the realm of the correspondence and you’ll have the how, at least from one point of view. — Mww

What realm are we changing it to, though?

The point I'm making is that the relationship of a proposition to, say, a state of affairs (if one is using correspondence theory) can only obtain via a judgment that an individual makes that the proposition "matches" or corresponds to the state of affairs. That relation can't obtain some other way that doesn't involve a judgment.

Naive realists think that what we humans call 'the physical world' has nothing to do with the active perceptual needs of us as a species. — fresco

Aside from a quibble about the word "needs" there (which I'll avoid for now as that would be a major tangent), the claim above isn't actually the case. Insofar as we go, insofar as our perceptions go, etc., then of course the physical world has something to do with that, because us, our perceptions, etc. are part of the physical world. We appeared because of what's possible in the physical world, including that life was possible, that life evolves, etc.

They don't understand that a picture of 'a world devoid of humans' is a current human construction useful for current purposes. — fresco

"A world devoid of humans," in quotation marks, since conventionally the usage of quotation marks is used to denote the phrase, or we could say the idea, certainly would be a human construction. What that phrase refers to without the quotation marks, however, is not a human construction. To think that it is is to commit the most rudimentary of conceptual errors that would suggest no understanding of the use/mention distinction.

Are you prepared to stick your neck out and say that potential solutions to current enigmas, like 'dark matter', will not not radically change are current concept of 'physicality' ? — fresco

First, I'm not pledging allegiance to anyone else's concepts. So whether some agreed-upon concept changes, that doesn't affect my views.

At that, it's not at all like I'm simply hanging on to the coattails of science, no matter what the consensus or popular views in the sciences are. I think that the sciences forward a lot of ideas that are nonsense.

Thinking is involved. It's just not the whole of it. — Banno

It's not the whole of it in the sense of what we're thinking about, what influences our thinking, etc. That's obvious enough, right? It's not like I'm arguing that there's thinking in a vacuum set aside from other things.

But the place where meaning occurs, where correspondence occurs, etc. is brains in the process of thinking.

Thus a proposition isn't true or false outside of this. It requires someone to think about it and to make a judgment about whether it corresponds (or coheres, or whatever relation we're using). It's not like the words on a page or a computer screen or anything like that can determine this themselves somehow.

Statements are generally about how things are. — Banno

How do you get to "about" without thought being present?

Nothing is ever written, spoken or displayed, that isn’t first thought. — Mww

I'm fine with that (even though there could be exceptions), but how does it help some truth-value not be a matter of judgment?

So your theory that meaning is thinking leads you to having an issue with truth.

Suppose instead that the meaning of a proposition is whatever you are doing with it. Then the meaning is a part of the world, not of thinking. — Banno

I wouldn't say it's an "issue with truth." It's simply an analysis of it.

It's not a matter of simply redefining meaning. It doesn't matter what we call anything. It's a matter of what phenomena occur where and how--whatever we choose to call the phenomena in question. Phenomena that occur outside of our brains (well, or outside of anything that would amount to mentality--I'm not arguing that mentality necessarily could only occur in brains) can't refer or correspond to anything.

We could talk instead about "what you do with a proposition," whatever that's supposed to amount to--you'd have to present what it's supposed to amount to, present examples, etc., and then you could say just how that's supposed to have a relation to anything else, especially a la anything like a truth or correspondence relation.

You're saying that meaning is thinking, propositions are the meaning of statements, so the meaning of a statement is a thought, not a state of affairs? — Banno

Yes, obviously, if meaning is a subset of thinking, then we have no meaning if we do not have that subset of thinking.

Any analytic proposition is true in itself, without judgement related to it. “All bodies are extended”, “A = A” require no judgement whatsoever; — Mww

They do, because outside of thinking about it, those are just marks on paper or a screen that mean nothing, refer to nothing, etc.

Sure. We can work with that. — Banno

Right. So the first problem is that there's no meaning aside from someone actively thinking in a meaning-oriented manner.

We've been doing that in other threads, but okay, first, do you use the definition that propositions are the meanings of statements?

The very idea of a "state of affairs' is propositional; that affairs are in such and such a determinate state. Actuality, considered as the (human) mind-independent "in-itself" is indeterminate. It takes a sapient percipient to, in terms of some perspective or other, determine the indeterminate actuality as a factuality. — Janus

That's just the usual Kantian nonsense that's so prevalent among regulars on the board. I'm not at all a Kantian. I think Kant was wrong . . . and he was a horrible writer to boot.

A proposition will be true or false regardless of your or my judgement. — Banno

Right, but I ask, "How is that supposed to work, exactly?" And my conclusion is that it can't. The notion of it rests on a number of confusions, misconceptions, etc.

There are universal laws and properties in physics. How can equations apply to all instances? — Marchesk

I'm not a realist on laws existing as something independent of the "behavior" of particulars. And I'm basically a constructivist on mathematics and logic. I see them how we think about relations, and then we extrapolate from that thinking in a game-like manner, with it being something with strong social mediation, aided by the fact that aside from rudimentary usage, initial transmission is largely via organized social settings--mostly in classrooms.

I don’t think so, I just do not know the proper/formal terminology. I was hoping you would be able to understand what I meant. “Not actually red” in the sense that there is some difference between the two instances of red that in certain contexts (such as a discussion like this one) makes it important to recognise the distinctions that nominalism makes.
Anyway, I understand. — DingoJones

The distinction is one I pointed out in an earlier post:

"Keep in mind that nominalists are NOT saying that two separate things can't be 'similar in all (non-relational [to other thing]) respects.'

"They're saying that two separate things can't literally be the same, single thing. For one, it contradicts the idea that they're two separate things.

"This extends to saying that a property instantiated in two separate things can literally be the same, single thing."

So when we say that 2 is identical to 2, it doesn't matter if one two was written on a blackboard in 1972 and another on a whiteboard in 2019.

Is that because 2 is not an object? — Marchesk

It would be because you're not a nominalist, and you maybe buy real abstracts/abstract objects, you'd probably be a platonist re ontology of mathematics, and so on.

Concepts like "chair" are abstractions we perform where we mentally generalize some features and ignore others. If something matches the conception then we apply the name to that thing--basically we say that that particular fits the concept we've formulated. (And "essential" properties are the necessary requirements, per how we've formulated our concepts, to for us to don something by a concept name.)

So is it philosophically the case that composite objects don't exist? — Marchesk

There's no connection between nominalism and whether objects can be composites. Under nominalism, it's just that the parts and the object are particulars (that aren't identical through time on a nominalistic rejection of genidentity as well).

Which means you're not allowed to conceive of an object over time, since it's always different. — Marchesk

It's not that "you're not allowed to conceive of it." Your abstraction isn't literally the case objectively, and your abstraction/conception itself isn't identical through time.

So two things that are red are not actually red but rather two different colors that we just refer to as red as an approximation? — DingoJones

They're similar. It's not that "they're not actually red." It's that "actual red" isn't just a single thing. You're basically assuming platonism a la there being singular forms that are nevertheless somehow multiply instantiated in different things. On the standard nominalistic view, that idea is incoherent, and we don't buy any real abstractions (such as platonic forms).

Does a distinction between a property and something like a category or some other trait matter at all, or is that just another approximation we use for ease of language/reference? — DingoJones

I'm not sure what you're asking there.