Rationality is extremely important but would not work if other aspects of consciousness are not taken into account. — Jack Cummins

"Rationality ... would not work" for what exactly?

:lol:

So rationality and science are "totalitarian"?

Why then are we demonized/worshipped for our beliefs? We shouldn't be, right? — TheMadFool

Self-serving bias: people "demonize" those they disagree with and "worship" those they agree with especially when the social or political stakes are high enough.

So, I am really suggesting the importance of critical examination, alongside recognition of personal bias and values. — Jack Cummins

Well, the post you replied to where I describe "belief that" and "belief in" distinguishes between them critically in order to suggest that the latter only tells us about the "believer" and nothing about the object of belief (as the former can). Rationality and science are effective to the degree they "bracket" (epoche according to phenomenologists) or filter-out and minimize the vagueries and arbitrariness of how "personal bias and values" tend to confuse 'what is the case' with 'what is not the case' and vice versa. I don't see the cognitive / epistemic value, Jack, of what you're proposing. Our "personal bias and values" may be useful for parochial survival (i.e. shallow heuristics) but they are profoundly inadequate for discerning truths from untruths and establishing knowledge (i.e. deep algorithms which are explanatory or facilitate explanations). Philosophy reflects on this difference and, IME, to the degree philosophers reflect "critically", they prioritize knowledge over mere survival.

When I said 'stand back from beliefs, I did not mean that examining them is to be avoided ... — Jack Cummins

You said "stand back from beliefs critically" which seems like "avoid examining them" to me. CBT (though not philosophy itself) certainly engages "beliefs critically". What do you mean by "critically" if not by examination? Your point is inconsistent and thereby is lost on me.

He is (you are) not ONLY "defined by" his (your) "beliefs" which is why he could have changed them (you can change yours).

Even an "immortal" is mortal as well as finite and uncertain ... — 180 Proof

Therein lies "meaning" (i.e. the stakes of living).

You speak of the way in which beliefs 'may be avowals (ie. subjective appeals, or emotional declarations of trust)' and this may be where philosophy is needed to stand back from beliefs critically — Jack Cummins

What would be the point of us "to stand back from beliefs critically?" How are we to live an examined life (Socrates) if we "stand back from beliefs critically"? Philosophy that does not reflect on "beliefs critically" it seems is not (western / modern) philosophy but more like sophistry or pastoral ministry or self-help therapy.

A physical description of photons can only work if A) idealism isn't the case and B) they're not conscious. — RogueAI

Specifically to which (whose) "idealism" are you referring?

Everybody had a hard year

Everybody had a good time

Everybody had a wet dream

Everybody saw the sunshine

Oh yeah, (oh yeah)

oh yeah,

oh yeah

Everybody had a good year

Everybody let their hair down

Everybody pulled their socks up

Everybody put their foot down

Oh yeah ...

"I've Got a Feeling" (3:37)
Let It Be, 1970
writers Lennon-McCartney, 1968-1969
remixed by Giles Martin & Sam Okell, 2021
performers The Beatles

:point:

:roll:

:down:

:100: :smirk: Amen, comrade!

How is it even possible for mind to be "nonphysical" and yet causally interact with physical systems (i.e. brain-body-environment)? It's not, therefore what you call "nonphysicalism" is ruled out (vide Spinoza re: the 'dual-aspect monism / property dualism' dissolution of the MBP (i.e. substance dualism) ... for a start).

:up:

Mary cannot tell she's seeing red without first learning that what she is seeing is red. — InPitzotl

:up:

Is an orgasm a more complete, more data rich, description if the physical system of human reproduction? Not for me. — frank

One has nothing to do with the other, so of course not for me either.

The idea is that if you know everything about the physical aspects of sight, there's something extra you learn from actually seeing. — frank

And there's the fly in the ointment: the knowledge of color was not complete without (before) seeing color. Jackson's thought-experiment fails because of this incoherent premise and therefore implies nothing about physicalism.

:100:

Last week's Let It Be selections :point: Today (19.10.21) I've been listening to new re-mixed version so I'll post some of the de-Spector-ized tracks. The only one I couldn't find yet online with nearly CD quality was "Get Back" (Lennon's guitar solos are lost in the stereo separation (I guess) from the upload compared to the expressive clarity on the CD remix – too bad really because I'd like to celebrate the song here which I've never cared much for that now to my ear sounds much improved by this remix and a more soulful rocker.)

I Dig a Pygmy
by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids ...
Phase One in which Doris gets her oats

"I, Me, Mine" (2:26)^^
Harrison, 1969-70

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAvZZEzPLM
"Maggie Mae" (0:50)^^
writers trad. 1757 (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starkey)

Oh, dirty Maggie Mae
they have taken her away
And she'll never walk down Lime Street anymore
Oh, the judge, he guilty found her
For robbin' the homeward bounder
That dirty, no good, robbin'
Maggie Mae
'Tis the part of Liverpool
They returned me to
Two pounds
ten a week,
that was my pay. — a Scouser fave from their skiffle days

The Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members ...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cxjzrfXMkao
"Dig A Pony" (0:39)^^
writers Lennon-McCartney, 1969

That was 'Can You Dig It' by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do 'Hark, the Angels Come'.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbNFLI720_U
"Let It Be" (4:03)^^
writers Lennon-McCartney, 1969
(guitar solo G. Harrison :clap:)


Let It Be, 1970 (35:10)
remixed by Giles Martin & Sam Okell, 2021^^
performers The Beatles

... and I hope we've passed the audition. — 30 January 1969, a rooftop, London, UK

:up: :cool:


NB: While this 2021 remix of "The Long and Winding Road" really does improve its listening pleasure, I just couldn't be bothered posting a link to the song after hearing how streaming it online does not do justice to listening to it on the new "Super Deluxe" CD.

Yeah, even when I agree with you. :smirk:

This is the Mary's room thought experiment:
[ ... ]
What's your answer? And what does it imply for physicalism? — frank

The thought-experiment does not imply anything about physicalism per se but does imply that before she ventured "outside", Mary's "knowledge" was, in fact, incomplete as a physical description (and explanation) of color.

The argument is that Mary's experience is new knowledge.

She has knowledge of something that isn't physical. — frank

That does not follow. Mary experiences "new knowledge" (i.e. a more complete, more data-rich, description of the physical system of (human) color-perception) which now includes her own particular physical sensorium: Mary's eyes are (visual cortex is) receptive of stimuli that trigger subtly differentiated neural-systemic affects which are strongly correlated to (i.e. adaptively selected for) specific, or discrete, light frequencies. Mary experiencing 'seeing color' is simply a particular instantiation (deducible experimental prediction) of her generic model (knowledge) of color itself.

Corollary: if "qualia" were only / mostly "non-physical" – wholly subjective, then e.g. auto traffic wouldn't stop at Red and color psychology wouldn't work for e.g. mood therapies, interior design / decorating, product marketing, fashion or cinema.

:100:

I wonder how they got that way. But I'm glad they did. I think they should be paid for it, too. That way they can keep doing it. Apparently it makes them happy and they are doing good. Win-win for everyone. — James Riley

:up:

Does your mechanic need to care for you to do a good job on your car? I'd settle for non-judgemental professional skill over emotive caring most days.

Human kindness is overrated. — Tom Storm

:up:

:flower:

... belief in God and life after death. — Jack Cummins

(Re: belief that) If one has a proposition attitude with respect to "God" or "life after death", then one has corroborable (public) evidence which are truth-makers of such truth-claims; where evidence is lacking and/or makes-true the negations of said truth-claims, holding such a propositional attitude is delusional. (NB: Churches, etc pimp such delusions as (apologetic) dogmas e.g. "the Nicene Creed", "the Sh'ma Yisrael", "the Šahādah", etc; and "new age" / conspiracy theoreticians (bs artists, propagandists, political paranoids, Woo-nuts, schizoids-in-general (Žižek re: "ideology")); and ...)

(Re: belief in) Otherwise, such "beliefs" may be avowals (i.e. subjective appeals, or emotional declarations of trust) instead, therefore not truth-claims at all like e.g. figurative idiomata or swearing, glossolalia or babytalk.

I am still not convinced that it is equal to the 'end' of history which Baudrillard spoke about, although his ideas are fairly vague and ambiguous. — Jack Cummins

I'm sure this is why I've never put much stock in his 'philosophical' jingles.

That may have been his goal in writing the Principia Mathematica with A, N. Whitehead. However, " the book was initially a success in that no one challenged its "completeness"… until Gödel came along with his incompleteness theorem." — Gnomon

Pedantic note: In the introduction to the 2nd edition of the PM, Russell acknowledges that in the TLP 1919 Witty had challenged its "foundations" before Gödel. According to this article, Witty 1919 & 1939, then Gödel 1944 significantly called into question the PM's "completeness" claim (among others).

You're the only one playing games, my man. And incorrigible to the point of self-refutation. I suspect now was right: take your meds, Alex (or change your prescription).

I understand that the question is incoherent at best. Clearly you don't understand that the only "infallible" expressions are tautologies which are necessarily devoid of content. Oops! :yikes:

Mathematics is computational but computation is not mathematics. :roll:

You only paraphrase yourself (re: the paper's Abstract and Introduction) and do not explain anything clearly enough for a non-genius like me (us) to warrant my (our) time studying your "infallible" paper. Your "model" is pseudo-scientific, sir, in so far as it deduces physical facts from categorical "first principles" rather than from a hypothetical conjecture and therefore is not subject, even in principle, to experimental falsification. It is also bad philosophy because it proposes to "explain everything" which, therefore, necessarily does not explain anything (i.e. (A) "map = territory" begs the question of mapping the territory; (B) "map —> territory" is, at minimum, a category error). But wtf do I know, right? :sweat: Perhaps the Nobel Committee will summarize your "work" someday in the press release announcing your long overdue Physics Prize.

Before I used to believe the USA is a great nation with exemplary democracy, politics, strong economy and power. However with the recent event of Corona pandemics and the government changes, my beliefs on the USA have changed a lot. — Corvus

The USA began as a Roman patrician-like slave republic that forcibly surrendered slavery in order to remain a republic. A century of racial apartheid followed. (Then I was born.) Now a half-century or so later, about half the population wants slavery back or, at a minimum, apartheid again – at any intellectual or moral or civilizational cost! These folks are heavily armed, many are radicalized, and would rather destroy the USA in order to save the USA from any prospect of a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, and prosperous future.

My beliefs about my country have changed a lot too ... since the neoliberal-über-alles Reagan-Thatcher years of privatizing profits and socializing costs and nationalizing corporate debts whereby fiscal austerity (adversely impacting median and below incomes the most) was incrementally underwritten by deliberate policies of shifting the national tax burden from the upper 10th percentile of incomes to state and local tax burdens on the median 40th & above percentiles of incomes. And who voted for that? Those who least expected to – who felt the most entitled not to – get assfucked so openly, blatantly, and lubelessly. They blame it on everyone – anyone – else except our Corporate Masters and themselves. So now groomed for two generations, like molested children & battered spouses, these folks beg rabidly for "the good old days" and "making America great again" and "lynchings" (by cops, courts, churches, etc) as a national pasttime. Kind of scary, my friends, considering this old, once and future slave republic is still a global hegemon with several thousand active ICBMs, etc.

(Yeah, I'm American citizen of color PTSD'd by being a late 20th century American struggling with and through 21st century America.) :death: :fire:

Ego-death? Ah, but you don't buy into that idea, believing[proposing] instead in Ego-transcendence[suspension] or something like that. Do you mind jogging my memory too? — TheMadFool

This post should do. And this post too. Lastly, Fool, this post on mysticism to aufheben (i.e. sublimate) the other two.

:fire: Moral of the story: I'm gonna need a bigger boat. — TheMadFool

Great scene, great cast, great movie. My little brother and I had nightmares all summer long after seeing Jaws at Long Island drive-in with my (crazy) uncle when it first came out. :monkey: :up:

By the way, very Buddhist (anattā).

??? No idea what this reply has to do with my previous post.

:point:

What I mean by 'atavistic ... metacognitive bottleneck of self-awareness' is an intelligent system which develops a "theory of mind" as humans do based on a binary "self-other" model wherein classes of non-selves are otherized to varying degrees (re: 'self-serving' (i.e. confabulation-of-the-gaps) biases, prejudices, ... tribalism, etc). — 180 Proof

:up:

But then you're using ordinary language! Are you saying you're spewing nonsense? — TheMadFool

:smirk:

I have seen very little effort from those who claim the theory is wrong, to first understand the theory. — Alexandre Harvey-Tremblay

I have seen very little effort from you, sir, to summarily explain the 'theory' that would recommend anything more than cursory interest by anyone reasonably well-acquainted with physical sciences or philosophy. :shade:

That seems to be a semantic quibble. A morally responsible agent ... — Gnomon

Your quibble, G, not mine. The rest is non sequitur.

Humanoid descendants without "self-awareness"??? — Gnomon

I didn't say that.

Artificial Intelligence (1) without a self-image would also (2) lack free-will. Because it would (3) not be able to distinguish Self from Non-self.

I disagree with this.

(3) "Non-self" would be whatever AI "observed" that it could not control or it would have to use its executive functions to manipulate. (2) Such a system maps its environment to include itself ("self-image") as a token which is also a parameter (or axis) of its interactivity with (orientation to) its environment. (1) As far as "free will" goes, a compatibilist might say: 'as long as the machine is free of coercion by another agent, its "will" – executive functioning – is, for all intents and purposes, "free" no less so than that of a human (i.e. a deterministic, complex, ecology-bound, information-processing system)'. Btw, these three capabilities already have been implemented in a range of autonomous industrial military & commercial robots.

What I mean by 'atavistic ... metacognitive bottleneck of self-awareness' is an intelligent system which develops a "theory of mind" as humans do based on a binary "self-other" model wherein classes of non-selves are otherized to varying degrees (re: 'self-serving' (i.e. confabulation-of-the-gaps) biases, prejudices, ... tribalism, etc). Ergo: human-level intelligence without anthropocentric defects (unless we want all of our Frankenstein, Skynet-Terminator, Matrix nightmares to come true).

My own worldview is also based on the axiom of an eternal creative force. but remains agnostic about the deity's specific intentions [1]. I label that model as "PanEnDeism" because our current understanding of physics is information-centric. In that case, both the Creator (Enformer) and the Creation (Enformed) are essentially the same stuff : infinite Potential-to-Be. And Evolution is the creative work of enforming, as performed by EnFormAction. In other words, it's all Information from Energy to Matter to Mind, and from Alpha to Omega.

That said, I still must label myself as Agnostic, because my personal worldview is just an educated guess, not a revealed prophecy. And it's not beholden to any religious tradition. So, this rather abstract model of Reality does not provide any of the emotionally appealing mythical elements, that would serve as a popular religion. It's more along the lines of Plato's LOGOS, and Lao Tse's TAO :meh: — Gnomon

:ok: ... very Hegel and Bergson, Whitehead and Heidegger, and perhaps David Bohm too, which seems, IMO, an idealist analogue for the epicurean-spinozist pandeism I've proposed (mostly woo-free) above.

... 'mysterians' ... who believe that no computer, of the kind we know how to build, will ever become self-aware and acquire the creative powers of the human mind.

For our descendants' sakes, let's hope not. I think 'human-level artificial intelligence' without any unnecessary atavistic, evolutionary-baggage like that metacognitive bottleneck "self-awareness" would be optimal.

https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/33822 — Pussycat

Thanks for sharing this interview about David Bohm. :up:

... If I was dead they wouldn't get angry with me. If I had conveniently died in the mid-seventies after the Rock'n'Roll album or Walls and Bridges, they'd all be writing this worshipful stuff about what a great guy [ ... ] It's alright when you're dead, you see [ ... ] But I didn't die and that infuriated everybody that I lived and did what I wanted to do, y'know – which is look after me and the family. That was the central concern – to be a family and not lose that – which was more important [to me] than ... — 24 September 1980, NYC

Your paper is pseudo-science.

*virtual hugs to music lovers everywhere *
:love: :flower: :heart: — Amity

Somehow I've not heard (or do not remembering hearing) Dinah Washington's version of this song. Aretha Franklin's version (below) I've loved for decades, even more so if that's possible now realizing young Aretha sang it in honor of Ms. Washington just a couple of months after her passing. Thanks, Amity. :cool:



"What A Difference A Day Made" (3:32)
Aretha Sings the Blues, 1980
composer María Méndez Grever, 1934
performer Aretha Franklin, 1964

I don't agree that suffering 'gives life value', though, even if suffering seems inevitable. — Wayfarer

:up: To the degree we thrive (i.e. flourish – optimize agency), not only in spite of but because of suffering (i.e. by pro-actively reducing suffering), I think we give our individual and/or collective lives value.

There are epistemic distinctions which, more often than not, are confused, conflated, or elided:

• dispositions (subjective, private)
• avowals (subjective, doxa)
• suppositions (reflective, heuristic)
• propositions (semantic, mapping)
• theorems (deductive, proving)
• theories (algorithmic, modeling)

and I think e.g. Witty's 'meaning is usage of adequate (valid) moves in a language-game played against the background of a distinct form-of-life' makes explicit how discussions of "belief" usually go wrong or in circles just chasing their own tails.

"The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil," wrote Bertrand Russell in Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. He went on with this admonition: "Let us leave them to others and proceed with our honest toil."

The author^^ liberally helps himself to any postulates and implied assumptions that he believes he needs for his constructions, but bizarrely insists on misrepresenting his exercises as proof from first principles (coincidentally, the same "first principles" that one finds in physics textbooks). — SophistiCat

:100: :up:
(re: ^^extravagantly tedious pseudo-science.)