I was going to bring up A Man Without Words. Someone here brought him to my attention several months ago. Ildefonso was born totally deaf. Nobody ever tried to communicate with him until he was 27. He literally had no language. — Patterner

This is what Stephen Pinker had to say in “The Language Instinct.”

In her recent book A Man Without Words, Susan Schaller tells the story of Ildefonso, a twenty-seven-year-old illegal immigrant from a small Mexican village whom she met while working as a sign language interpreter in Los Angeles. Ildefonso’s animated eyes conveyed an unmistakable intelligence and curiosity, and Schaller became his volunteer teacher and companion. He soon showed her that he had a full grasp of number: he learned to do addition on paper in three minutes and had little trouble understanding the base-ten logic behind two-digit numbers. In an epiphany reminiscent of the story of Helen Keller, Ildefonso grasped the principle of naming when Schaller tried to teach him the sign for “cat.” A dam burst, and he demanded to be shown the sign for all the objects he was familiar with. Soon he was able to convey to Schaller parts of his life story: how as a child he had begged his desperately poor parents to send him to school, the kinds of crops he had picked in different states, his evasions of immigration authorities.

An explanation is needed that can account for the phenomena we call mental or conscious. — JuanZu

The fact I might not be able to account for the phenomena right now doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation.

What is the neurological configuration from which we can deduce the glass of water as a conscious experience? — JuanZu

That is the essence of emergence. An emergent phenomena can be shown to be completely consistent with the principles of a lower level of organization. For example, all living phenomena must be consistent with the principles of physics and chemistry. That doesn’t mean that the emergent phenomenon can be predicted, constructed, or deduced from the principles of the lower level of organization. Again - the principles of biology cannot generally be deduced from the principles of chemistry or physics. In the same manner, mental phenomena cannot be predicted based on neurological or biological principles.

we could be beings without consciousness and without experience, and yet the neurological explanation would still persist and remain valid — JuanZu

That seems obviously false to me. Can you provide some evidence?

the mind is … something that objectively exists and has a set of abilities and properties, — MoK

I’m OK with that as edited.

it cannot be an emergent thing. — MoK

Of course it can. Life emerges out of chemistry. Chemistry emerges out of physics. Mind emerges out of neurology. Looks like you’re understanding of emergence is different from mine.

That is a very broad definition, which I don't agree with. — MoK

But that’s what it means. As I’ve said before, if you want to make up definitions for words, it’s not really philosophy. You’re just playing a little game with yourself.

But isn't your intuition that your mind is also a thing that you can ascribe qualities to? — RogueAI

No. I'm trying to think of it that way now, but not having any luck. — Patterner

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that something that seems completely obvious to one person is not even imaginable for another.

My view of art is that it is a form of language, and the expression through painting is just another way of speaking, writing, or grunting. — Hanover

I’m not being particularly facetious when I say maybe it is language that is a form of art.

It is interesting that you and I perceived the same -- The girl felt self-conscious about something. I guess the expression of her eyes and the innocent position of her hands caught our attention. — javi2541997

Collingwood says the purpose of art is to express the artist’s experience. Our goal in looking at art is to try to share that same experience with them.

I have big issues in thinking about the nature of inner and outer reality..The inner perspective is a way of focusing on the outer, but it is not absolute, because it may hold limitations of others's perspectives. It may end up with a form of philosophy shoegazing. Being able to look within and outwards simultaneously, in thinking of needs, self and others may be an intricate process in thinking about the experience of needs. — Jack Cummins

This will probably just confuse things, but I have come to think that all philosophy is inward looking, introspection. Everything we do here is looking at ourselves, self awareness. When we think we are looking out into the world, we are really only looking at ourselves, looking out at the world.

This probably is not the right place to take this any further. I don’t want to distract from your thread.

Girl with Peaches by Valentin Serov. — javi2541997

I was thinking about it some more. Maybe the girl was playing by herself, engrossed, and then someone, maybe one of her parents, came in and she became self-conscious.

Thanks for keeping this thread alive.

I can see that the dichotomy between inwards and outwards exist to some extent. However, the panorama of this may be a little more complex, — Jack Cummins

Sure, I was generalizing to get my point across. But I still think that generalization tells something significant about the differences between the two styles of philosophy.

The only mental event that comes to mind that is an example of strong emergence is the idea*. The conscious mind** can experience and create an idea. An AI is a mindless thing, so it does not have access to ideas. — MoK

There are plenty of other mental events that come to mind that might be considered emergent. As we’ve discussed previously, as I see it, the mind itself is emergent from the neurological and physiological processes of the nervous system and body.

Beyond that, this is a circular argument - your evidence that AI can’t think is that it is mindless, which means “having or showing no ability to think, feel, or respond.”

… thinking is defined as a process in which we work on known ideas with the aim of creating a new idea — MoK

No. Thinking is:

cognitive behavior in which ideas, images, mental representations, or other hypothetical elements of thought are experienced or manipulated. In this sense, thinking includes imagining, remembering, problem solving, daydreaming, free association, concept formation, and many other processes.

You’re using non-standard definitions again.

. It probably represents a far 'softer' form of thinking than in Western philosophy. — Jack Cummins

The way I think about it is that eastern philosophy looks inward and western philosophy looks outward.

Here are some thoughts from the Tao Te Ching - Stefan Stenudd’s translation.

Verse 44

Your name or your body,
What is dearer?
Your body or your wealth,
What is worthier?
Gain or loss,
What is worse?

Greed is costly.
Assembled fortunes are lost.
Those who are content suffer no disgrace.
Those who know when to halt are unharmed.
They last long.

Verse 46
When the Way governs the world,
The proud stallions drag dung carriages.
When the Way is lost to the world,
War horses are bred outside the city.

There is no greater crime than desire.
There is no greater disaster than discontent.
There is no greater misfortune than greed.

Therefore:
To have enough of enough is always enough.

My take on this - Desire for accomplishment, acclaim, status, wealth distracts us, makes it harder to be aware of, our Te, our intrinsic virtuosities, the voice inside us.

Chuang Tzu wrote - “ What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.”

The ‘original anthropology’ the OP refers to was associated with spiritual movements. For that matter, the original ‘therapeutae’, from whence comes the word ‘therapy’, was a severely ascetic religious sect concentrated around Egypt and Judea. They were highly ascetic: they renounced wealth, lived celibately, ate only the simplest foods, devoted themselves to study of the Torah and allegorical interpretation, and practiced prayer and meditation. — Wayfarer

Maybe my statement was too strong, but I still think philosophies and spiritual practices that don’t focus on those issues and be of value.

jerking off about their spiritual journeys. — Tom Storm

What would the forum be about if it weren’t for our jerking off about our spiritual journeys?

There may be many people who live very good, yet largely unexamined, lives. — Janus

There are, and any philosophy that doesn’t acknowledge that is fundamentally flawed as I see it.

There is a Taoist monastic tradition; the lifestyle is similar to Buddhist monks in broad outline, obviously with a different set of traditions. They embrace celibacy, etc. Hermetic life is also part of the tradition, obviously with Lao Tzu himself.

The role of the daoshi priests would be "esoteric practice" though, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is true, and my experience and understanding of those traditions is not very deep. But if you go back to the source - the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu - you find very little of that.

That might be because this topic is philosophy of religion. — Wayfarer

There is very little about religion in the OP. The sources identified in the first paragraph of the OP are social commentary. Philosophies that don’t focus on truth, virtue, or purpose are not somehow a sign of decadence.

I think there is a puritanical elitist element in the idea that modern self-help programs are merely watered down caricatures of the ancient "true" practices. I mean, if these programs really do help people to live better, more fulfilled and useful lives, then what is the problem? Is it because they don't really renounce this life in favour of gaining Karmic benefit or entrance to heaven? Is the most important thing we can do in this life to deny its value in favour of an afterlife, an afterlife which can never be known to be more than a conjecture at best, and a fantasy at worst? There seems to be a certain snobbishness, a certain classism, at play in these kinds of attitudes. — Janus

This makes sense to me. I don’t know much about Buddhism. The only Asian philosophy I have experience with is Taoism. That has always struck me as a reasonably practical and down home philosophy. As I understand it, there isn’t much talk about inevitable suffering, self renunciation, or esoteric practice. God has always struck me as an afterthought. I never felt any conflict between how I knew the world as an engineer versus how I knew it as a reader of Lao Tzu.

My attitude towards all philosophies, eastern or western is that their primary purpose is to encourage self-awareness. That’s certainly true of Taoism.

What is the mind to you? The mind, to me, is a substance with the ability to experience and cause. The mind cannot be certainly an emergent thing, given my definition of it. — MoK

Here’s the definition of mind from Wikipedia. It’s similar to other ones I found on the web.

The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances, and unconscious processes, which can influence an individual without intention or awareness.

It seems as though you want to use a non-standard meaning for the word. That’s your prerogative I guess, but it makes it hard to have a discussion with you.

This is a disturbing thread.

As a moderator, you should know that embedding videos is against forum guidelines. You guys made a big deal about it a month or so ago. Or did I miss some change in the policy?

The only mental event that comes to mind that is an example of strong emergence is the idea that is created by the conscious mind. — MoK

This certainly isn’t my area of expertise, but it has always struck me it is the mind itself which emerges from the human neurological system.

But I’m not worried about human replacement, just the regular old level of risk of letting humans amplify their actions without taking enough time to understand the consequences. — apokrisis

Yes, I have no doubt this will happen. I was mostly thinking about us being destroyed by our robot masters.

That would be exactly the "off the top of the head" reply I would expect from a real human expert on the issue. Or at least an expert wanting to be nice and fair and not too pejorative. What you would get if you paid some consultant wanting to cover all the bases and avoid getting sued. — apokrisis

Does that mean to you that the singularity is not and never will be a significant risk to humans?

The randomness introduced by quantum mechanical processes means that the Earth itself didn't even form in the vast majority of hypothetical timelines, nevermind all the variables and choices that led to my specific birth, or the coincidence that I was among the matter that formed a rare habitable planet in the first place. — Dogbert

Quantum mechanics doesn’t have anything to do with it. It also doesn’t matter whether or not there is an Earth. There are possibly sextillions of other planets in the known universe. It strikes me, with no specific evidence, life might be very common.

If you think about all the ways in which the universe could have unfolded, the percentage of those timelines in which my consciousness was elevated from commonplace matter into sapience is practically zero. — Dogbert

How do you know this is true? It doesn’t seem obvious to me at all. That doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong, just that it seems like an unsupported statement.

Mr. Gower would’ve lost his drugstore.
My brother would’ve drowned when he fell through the ice.
The old savings and loan would’ve gone out of business.
Mary would’ve been an old maid.

Questions about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, or welfare aren't merely about administrative effectiveness; they rest on moral judgments about the value of life, autonomy, and justice. Even framing them as ‘policy’ decisions already reflects a moral stance. — Tom Storm

Let’s say I think abortion is a bad thing and I would like to promote policy solutions to address that. Here are some suggestions - effective sex education, easily accessible birth control, medical and social support for pregnant women, support for adoption, affordable childcare…

How does your 'individualist' approach impact upon issues like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, welfare for poor people, etc. — Tom Storm

I don’t see these as moral issues. I see them as policy issues. Do the laws and regulations that address these issues protect and serve the members of society in an appropriate way?

I'm not sure I understand those quotes. If they're just saying that we make our choices based on our own conscience then we are bound to admit that that includes Pol Pot and doesn't get us very far in deciding what is right or wrong in society. — Tom Storm

I think we have had this discussion before. Dealing with Pol Pot doesn’t involve morality, it involves control. Things like that need to be stopped, not because they’re bad but because they hurt people. It’s a society‘s responsibility to protect its members.

Morality, as I understand it, applies to my judgments of my own behavior. How do I decide how to behave? Here’s my favorite quote from “Self-Reliance”:

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

agree. Different people have different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Which opinion is actually right and which opinion is actually wrong? How do we know? — Truth Seeker

Here’s how I see it - this is from Ziporyn’s translation of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.

This is how Emerson put it in “Self-Reliance.”

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.

How do we decide what should be legal and what should be illegal? — Truth Seeker

What is legal and what is right are not the same thing. Laws are a matter of control with the purpose of maintaining social stability. Much of what is called morality is the same thing.

C.G. Jung once said that the world only exists when you consciously perceive it. In that theory, only what I see truly exists. What I do not see, or what I am not aware of, therefore does not exist. — Jan

Welcome to the forum. Given my obsession with metaphysics, I will point out that Jung’s formulation is metaphysics and not science. On the other hand, it is my understanding that Schrodinger‘s cat was a thought experiment intended to show the absurdity of some interpretations of quantum mechanics, not as a serious explanation for an actual phenomenon.

In other words, you are comparing apples and oranges, or to use a word I recently learned, the explanations you described are incommensurable.

They intersect in the field of social ontology, which SEP says can be considered as a branch of metaphysics and which is, I suppose, a philosophy of sociology. — Jamal

Metaphysica of sociology. As in, what is a society (or subpart) composed of. — Hanover

Thanks for the link Jamal. Interesting. I’m partway through. It still strikes me as kind of a mishmash of sociology, psychology, social criticism, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. As is my wont, I find myself wondering how much of it is metaphysics and how much of it is science. As you probably know, I make efforts to keep the two separate.

One thing it does show me is that I need to spend more time understanding how to think about the metaphysics of science and in particular social science.

Thanks.

It's interesting because it's not the standard "language is use," but it's trying to explain the ontology of marriage (or any social event) itself, making it modern day analytic metaphysics far removed from the Cartesian type. — Hanover

Is it metaphysics or is it sociology?

Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung

Okay, then educate me. How do you understand Taoist wisdom. — L'éléphant

A bit out of scope for this conversation.

I'm interested in hearing about your experience with applying philosophy to your daily life. — Astorre

First comes daily life, then comes philosophy.