Firings and sackings over this issue are being used as a pretext to purge organisations of ‘elements incompatible with the President’s Agenda’ (MAGA code word for the Trump’s Will.) See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/us/politics/charlie-kirk-shooting-firings-celebration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lk8.bTUi.JHA8UCQh4sv1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Nagel has done as good a job as anyone to make the case that reason is indeed "the last word." — J

The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts, one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. If one decides that some of one's psychological dispositions are, as a contingent matter of fact, reliable methods of reaching the truth (as one may with perception, for example), then in doing so one must rely on other thoughts that one actually thinks, without regarding them as mere dispositions. One cannot embed all one's reasoning in a psychological theory, including the reasonings that have led to that psychological theory. The epistemological buck must stop somewhere. By this I mean not that there must be some premises that are forever unrevisable but, rather, that in any process of reasoning or argument there must be some thoughts that one simply thinks from the inside--rather than thinking of them as biologically programmed dispositions. — Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion

Incidentally, there was an influential book published in the 1980’s, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. ‘Spiritual Materialism’ is exactly the kind of self-improvement orientation that the OP is about. (Trungpa was also Francisco Varela’s mentor in Tibetan Buddhism although his reputation has been tarnished due to the circumstances of his death from alcoholism and the misdeeds of his appointed successor, a very disillusioning episode in the annals of Western Buddhism.)

Better and better knowledge orients and organizes itself teleologically on the basis of the ‘way things are’ as a ground of becoming. The divine in-itself has given way to the natural in-itself. Meet the new boss… — Joshs

'The jealous God dies hard'.

But isn’t there commentary on the idea that the ‘myth of progress’ originated with a secularised version of the Christian eschaton? Christianity introduced a linear, purposeful view of history, culminating in an end (eschaton) with cosmic significance (Burkhardt, Lowith, et al). Whereas antiquity largely thought in terms of Eliade's myth of the eternal return.

Modernity, after the Enlightenment, retained the form of historical teleology but emptied it of transcendent content, replacing divine fulfillment with secular goals: reason, science, technological mastery, emancipation, utopia, communism - and now, transhumanism and space travel (Elon Musk et al).

here [Shaun Gallagher] quotes a Buddhist scholar who says when the reasoning mind no longer clings and grasps one awakens into the wisdom with which one was born and compassionate arises without pretense… The good is what compassion means, the good is to eliminate suffering — Joshs

One thing that might be understood about what we might call ‘religions of the spirit’ is that the very knowledge of the ‘higher truth’ is itself liberation, is itself ‘the Good’. It’s unmediated and inherently peaceful, joyous, and totally fulfilling in a way that knowledge of mundane facts can never be. So it’s not a matter of ameliorating social conditions or improving political systems (which it may or may not do). So the ‘ending of suffering’ is putatively a state where all the factors leading to suffering, and its causes, are for once and for all ended. Believe it, don’t believe it, that, at least, is what it is about.

And a champion of free speech:

Pete Hegseth, the former Fox weekend anchor serving as Donald Trump’s defense secretary, has ordered Pentagon officials to scour social media for comments by service members that make light of Charlie Kirk’s death and punish anyone expressing dissident views, NBC News reports.

Several service members have been relieved of their jobs already, Pentagon officials told the broadcaster.

The purge comes after Hegseth, his spokesman and the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force all warned service members to express only the correct political opinions about Kirk and his killing.

The officials warned service members, and civilian employees of the Pentagon that “inappropriate comments,” including “posts displaying contempt toward” Kirk, or comments that “celebrate or mock the assassination,” would be “dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

The effort to root out dissidents in the ranks comes as online activists promised to get Kirk’s critics fired in a range of fields, including the military and academia. — The Guardian

Google Gemini. It can be used to improve your expression without letting it take over what you’re saying. Used properly, it’s a powerful technology.

I have been pursuing a similar line of thought ever since joining philosophy forums. You’ve basically discovered one of the key ideas of Platonism. Plato can never be explained simply or reduced to an ‘ism’, but Plato’s ‘ideas’ (eidos) are probably the most important single element in the philosophical tradition. Not for nothing did Alfred North Whitehead say that Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

I don’t believe it is meaningful to speak of ‘brain chemistry’ or ‘neural events’ or any such terminology. That is a strictly modern trend called ‘neural reductionism’ (Raymond Tallis calls it ‘neuromania’.) It is very popular because it sounds scientific but in the context of philosophy it is pseudoscientific at best. Ideas can’t be explained in terms of something else, they are the fundamental coinage of rational thought.

wanted to pardon Pelosi's attacker. — Christoffer

Is that so? I didn’t know that.

It accounts for everything known to exist in the universe, except possibly dark matter and dark energy. — Relativist

And numbers.

I like your post. I took the liberty of editing the grammar a little so as to enhance readability:


The Nature of an Idea: From Neural Patterns to The Ultimate Dimension

Is an idea a unique configuration of neurons in the brain? Based on our current understanding, a single, unique idea doesn't seem to correspond to a singular, unique neural pattern. This concept is easier to grasp by comparing an idea to a song.

A song, at its most fundamental level, is a specific arrangement of sound waves in the air. When these sound waves reach our ears, they are converted into electrical signals that our brain interprets as the experience of the song. This song can be recorded on a vinyl record, where the physical grooves mimic the original sound waves. When a needle plays the record, it reproduces a version of the original song. But a song can also be captured in other forms, such as a digital binary code, a magnetic tape, or even written musical notes and lyrics.

None of these representations—the vinyl grooves, the binary code, or the written notes—are identical to the original sound waves. They are all just representations that carry enough information to reconstruct the song.

What a listener experiences is not merely the sound waves entering their ear canal. The experience of hearing a song adds a new dimension. A person who is deaf from birth and suddenly gains the ability to hear would learn something new about the song that was never present in its written or coded forms. This extra dimension, which the Zen masters Thich Nhat Hanh and Shunryu Suzuki might call the "ultimate dimension," is the qualitative experience of consciousness itself. It is the subjective sense of what it feels like to hear something, which cannot be reduced to a purely physical explanation of sound waves and neural activity.

Ideas and The Ultimate Dimension

The primary difference between a song and an idea is their origin. While a song can be represented and then experienced, an idea seems to emerge directly from experience and the ultimate dimension. An idea isn't a pre-existing entity that we stumble upon; it arises from a cognitive system, such as a brain, that processes and interconnects data.

The brain, in this sense, acts as the anchor for an idea, and from it arises concepts like "pyramid." This abstract idea of a pyramid can then be translated into other forms—binary code, a blueprint, a drawing, or even a physical stone pyramid.

Unlike a song, which has a specific form in reality (the sound waves), an idea doesn't have a unique or fundamental way of existing that is tied to a specific physical configuration at a single moment in time.

The Ontology of an Idea

This leads us to a fundamental question: What is an idea's nature? We create things that don't yet exist by imagining them. We're a part of reality that can intentionally rearrange reality by conceiving of non-reality. This process seems to give ideas a foundation in reality, but their ontological nature—their very existence—still feels rather mysterious or "spooky."

Plato believed that ideas existed in a separate, abstract realm, and our physical world was merely a shadow of these perfect forms. A more modern perspective, perhaps influenced by thinkers like Nietzsche, might argue that the brain creates these ideas by taking data from our sensory experiences and weaving new patterns and connections.

So, if we reject the notion of a separate realm of ideas (Plato) and also don't believe that an idea is precisely the same as the physical matter from which it emerges, then what is its true nature?’

——

This raises a deep philosophical puzzle that doesn't have a simple answer. It seems you've already identified the core of the problem: ideas are not just physical matter, nor are they supernatural entities - yet they are a powerful, generative force in the world.

I think this is THE key question of all metaphysics.

It is obviously an atrocity of the first order. Ezra Klein, a liberal columnist at the NY Times, pointed out that Kirk, with whom he would disagree about almost everything, was practicing real political debate: going out into college campuses all over the US and taking on all comers. His was a model of civil discourse.

Except for one thing.

I can't reconcile how this purportedly fine upstanding citizen could go into bat for the candidate that denied, and tried to subvert, the 2020 election, including whipping up a mob who ransacked the US Capitol Building, and was caught on tape discussing how to fake an election win with fake electors. I don't understand the depth of delusion that allows these apparently earnest and educated activists to pretend that the current President is anything other than an authoritarian egotist who poses a mortal threat to the American body politic. Of course, this kind of political violence, and gun violence generally, is a mortal threat to public order. But then, so is the current President, who appealed for an end to this 'divisive hate speech which is tearing us apart' and then added, 'which is only ever practiced by radical left lunatics.'

//end rant//

Oh, except for to say, I dearly hope if they do catch the perpertrator, that he is captured alive. There are many questions that will need answering.

I perfectly agree, but the point of the original post, as I interpret it, was the consequences of adapting those kinds of therapeutic philosophies, which were originally associated with spirituality, to completely different ends.

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.

You are making an argument premised on the belief that there is actually something more than just pragmatism when it comes to living life. You name these higher facts as truth, goodness, and the divine. — apokrisis

That might be because this topic is philosophy of religion.

Josiah Royce: ...the need for salvation, for those who feel it, is paramount among human needs. The need for salvation depends on two simpler ideas:

a) There is a paramount end or aim of human life relative to which other aims are vain.

b) Man as he now is, or naturally is, is in danger of missing his highest aim, his highest good.

To hold that man needs salvation is to hold both of (a) and (b). I would put it like this. The religious person perceives our present life, or our natural life, as radically deficient, deficient from the root (radix) up, as fundamentally unsatisfactory; he feels it to be, not a mere condition, but a predicament; it strikes him as vain or empty if taken as an end in itself; he sees himself as homo viator, as a wayfarer ( :yikes: ) or pilgrim treading a via dolorosa (path of sorrows) through a vale that cannot possibly be a final and fitting resting place; he senses or glimpses from time to time the possibility of a Higher Life; he feels himself in danger of missing out on this Higher Life of true happiness. If this doesn't strike a chord in you, then I suggest you do not have a religious disposition. Some people don't, and it cannot be helped. One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them. — Josiah Royce and the Paradox of Revelation

So Jair Balsanaro got the sentence Trump should have got - 27 years for an attempted coup.

I think the sense and idea of being conscious has been reified into 'consciousness as real and non-physical', and that this reification is a natural artefact of our dualistic symbolic language. Mind, instead of being understood verbally as "minding", and activity or process of a sentient physical being, has been hypostatized as a noun, and even considered to be an entirely separate substance. — Janus

I agree with that, and I think this is very much the consequence of Cartesian dualism with its 'res cogitans'. That is literally translated as a 'thinking thing' ('res' being the Latin term for 'thing'). It is oxymoronic from the beginning, and one of the reasons we have been left with a worldview within which only the physical (res extensa) is understood to be real. This is very much the background of this whole debate.

anti-physicalist proponents will argue that mind is not a substance but that it is real and different from the physical nonetheless — Janus

That is why it is important to differentiate 'what is real' from 'what exists'. 'What exists' is the legitimate object of scientific analysis. But due to the constitution of post-Galilean science, this excludes the subject for whom the object is real, as a matter of principle. (This is what has been called into question by 20th century physics due to the 'observer problem.)

Another way to think of 'mind' is in terms of the Aristotelian 'nous'. This is the basis of his form-matter dualism, a very different beast to Descartes' dualism. in this philosophy, nous is what perceives the forms (intelligible principles) of individual particulars. 'In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. For Aristotle, discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way' - which is the basis of the discussion of universals' (source). But notice this is also much more commensurable with 'mind as activity' rather than as 'substance'.

So the 'rational intellect' is able to grasp what has been called 'intelligible objects' - although this term is also problematical, as numbers, laws, conventions, and the like, are not really objects except for in the metaphorical sense as 'objects of thought' or 'the object of the exercise'. From there, you can see how Kant recasts Aristotle’s insight: what Aristotle called nous, Kant reframed as the a priori categories of understanding.

So the mind is 'real and different from the physical' not as a kind of ghost in the machine, but as the medium through which and for which the whole conception of 'object' is meaningful.

Non-reductive physicalism tries to close this gap with “emergence.” But that makes the view unfalsifiable, since any anomaly can simply be reclassified as “emergent.”
Agreed, but so is the notion that there is something nonphysical involved with mental activities. This is the problem with many theories in philosophy, and it's why I suggest that the only reasonable option is to strive for an inference to best explanation (albeit that this will necessarily entail subjectivity). — Relativist

But isn't it very simple to show that there is 'something nonphysical' involved in, for example, mathematics and rational inference (at the very least) ? You've already said that computers and calculators, which are physical devices, can perform these operations, to which the reply is, these are artifacts made by humans who already understand these subjects. They're not naturally occurring or self-assembling. And furthermore that these kinds of mental activites comprise the relations of ideas - 'if x is the case, then y must also be the case.' How can such operations be understood as physical? The analogy you give of chemistry is 'that chemistry has to be understood in its own right, but that doesn't mean it's not ultimately reducible to physics'. So why doesn't the same apply here?

It's the very fact that logical, mathematical and syntactical operations can be replicated by machines, and also represented in different media types or symbolic forms, that is itself an argument against physicalism. Why? Because it shows that the content of these operations - the symbolic form, what it is that is being described or depicted - is separable from the physical form in which it is encoded.

And you concede that any explanation will entail subjectivity (which I agree with). But this also undercuts Armstrong's style of materialism, for whom the mind independence of the physical is an axiom.

Sure, physicalism implies philosophy is reducible to physics IN PRINCIPLE, but it seems to me that this would be computationally too complex - to the point of being physically impossible. — Relativist

Right. So where does Armstrong’s materialist theory of mind stand in relation to this? If physicalism is only “in principle” and never in practice — because the domains of logic, mathematics, and meaning can’t actually be reduced — then isn’t his theory less an account of mind than an aspiration that everything ought to be reducible to the physical?

I think that the underlying aim is to declare that only the objects of the physical sciences can be said to exist - this is why you refer to the ontological side of the debate. But I think this view is very much anchored in the Galilean picture in which the subject and object are strictly divided, and the measurable attributes of objects are considered primary, while everything else must be derived from that. Science not only provides the paradigm but also the content - hence the ontology. But i think this has been very much undermined by 20th century physics in both science and philosophy.

As one who came of age in the 60’s I surely did have encounters with lysergines. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and the Summer of Love. It seemed an intoxicating new world of possibilities (although as I grew up in Australia I was geographically removed.) So, yes.

But the action of lysergic acid is very different to intoxicants as the amounts ingested are minute, in the micrograms. It doesn't 'flood the brain with chemicals' so much as trigger a kind of chain reaction which can considerably provide and enhance insights well beyond the normal sense of 'existence as usual'. While I wouldn’t ever advocate the consumption of illegal substances I have no doubt that this particular class of substances do indeed open the doors of perception (insights which are of course impossible to communicate or even really remember on a conscious level).

Yes, the Tarnas quote is exactly what I was getting at in this thread. Why this is even considered controversial beats me. It is obvious that our fantastically elaborate hominid forebrain creates our world. It doesn't mean there's no world outside it, but that's not the world we ever know.

I've looked at Glattfelder's books and listened to some of his talks. Overall I'm well-disposed towards him although some of it is pretty far out. He didn't coin the term psychonaut by the way.

In Buddhism, mindfulness is embedded in the Eightfold Path and oriented towards liberation. By contrast, modern adaptations tend to treat these disciplines as mere tools for the self-interested individual, e.g., a means of coping, maximizing productivity, reducing stress, or achieving “authenticity.” I have seen this particularly in some pieces on Stoicism I've read that seem to be largely aimed at the "tech-bro" crowd. A commitment to truth gets shoved aside for a view of philosophy as a sort of "life hack." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:100: Schopenhauer said that ‘money is happiness in the abstract’. Popularised versions of Buddhist meditation are similar - ‘enlightenment’ as the ultimate problem solver and even means of fulfilment of your aims and wishes by clearing away ‘obstructive habits’.

Consider this contrast between traditional and ‘secular’ Buddhism, from scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi:

Classical Buddhism sees human existence as embedded in the condition called samsāra, understood literally as the beginningless chain of rebirths. From this standpoint, humans are just one class of living beings in a vast multidimensional cosmos. Through time without beginning all beings have been roaming from life to life in the five realms of existence, rising and falling in accordance with their karma, their volitional deeds. Life in all these realms, being impermanent and fraught with pain, is inherently unsatisfactory—dukkha. Thus the final goal, the end of dukkha, is release from the round of rebirths, the attainment of an unconditioned dimension of spiritual freedom called nibbāna. The practice of the path is intended to eradicate the bonds tying us to the round of rebirths and thereby bring liberation from repeated birth, aging and death.

Secular Buddhism, in contrast, starts from our immediate existential situation, understood without bringing in non-naturalistic assumptions. Secular Buddhism therefore does not endorse the idea of literal rebirth. Some Secular Buddhists regard rebirth as a symbol for changing states of mind, some as an analogy for biological evolution, some simply as part of the dispensable baggage that Buddhism drags along from Asia. But Secular Buddhists generally do not regard rebirth as the problem the Dharma is intended to resolve. Accordingly, they interpret the idea of samsāra as a metaphor depicting our ordinary condition of bewilderment and addictive pursuits. The secular program thus reenvisions the goal of Buddhist practice, rejecting the ideal of irreversible liberation from the cycle of rebirths in favor of a tentative, ever-fragile freedom from distress in this present life itself. — Facing the Great Divide

The implicit problem is that naturalism of all stripes is incompatible with ‘liberation’ as understood in Eastern traditions (mokṣa, Nirvāṇa), as nature is part of what liberation is from. But in modernity, nature is esteemed as representing purity and authenticity, as opposed to the artificial, the manufactured, the polluted. Liberation, if such a thing is contemplated, is invariably in terms of ‘oneness with nature’ (see another critique by a scholarly monk, Bhikkhu Bodhi, in Buddhist Romanticism. ) Hence meditation as optimised coping, dealing better with stress, and so on.

The ‘message’ of all the classical religions is not one of worldly well-being or technological flourishing, but extirpation of the roots of suffering that lie deep in the human condition. Not something we much want to hear in our day and age.

You define physicalism as the thesis that everything that exists is physical, but then you also agree that philosophy has concerns that “lie outside the domain of physics.” That seems to pull in two directions: if philosophy really does deal with realities not derivative from physics, then physicalism can’t capture everything.

Non-reductive physicalism tries to close this gap with “emergence.” But that makes the view unfalsifiable, since any anomaly can simply be reclassified as “emergent.”

So the tension is this: either physicalism covers all that is real, in which case philosophy reduces to physics; or else philosophy genuinely addresses irreducible realities, in which case physicalism does not cover everything that is real. Which is it?

:up:

:up:

I believe the issue which Wayfarer is trying to bring to our attention, is that there is a specific type of characteristic of being, which is only provided by the first person perspective, I, or myself. — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s close to what I mean. But it’s also an observation about the peculiarity of the modern sense of existence. David Loy, independent Buddhist scholar, says ‘ The main problem with our usual understanding of [secular culture] is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Most of us assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed.’

When Heidegger speaks of the “forgetfulness of Being” (Seinsvergessenheit), he means that Western philosophy since Plato has tended to think only in terms of beings (entities, things) and not Being itself — the more fundamental horizon that makes beings intelligible in the first place. This forgetfulness leads to the modern picture of the world as divided into subjects (thinking selves) and objects (things “out there”). That is, the human being is conceived as an isolated subject standing over against an objective realm of things (what David Loy says we take to be ‘the world as it really is’).

Heidegger’s solution to that is Dasein — literally “being-there.” Rather than beginning from an isolated consciousness, Heidegger insists that we are always already Being-in-the-world. Our existence is not something added on top of a neutral subject, but a fundamental openness to, and involvement with, the world. In this sense, human beings are never separate from their world; they are inextricably bound up with it. This is why Heidegger criticises the subject–object schema as a distortion inherited from the Cartesian picture.

I mention it, because it is an insight into the original concerns of ontology.

Heidegger had quite a bit to say about 'the forgetfulness of being' in Being and Time. He traced it back to the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle in particular, and found fault with the way that the Western metaphysical tradition had 'objectified' being. So - how would it be possible to 'forget being'? If we've forgotten being, what has been forgotten?

I agree with you. But physicalism can’t really allow ontological differences as it is monistic, right? There is only one kind of fundamental substance, and it is the subject matter of physics. Everything else is derived from that.

With your etymological prescriptions you make it sound like it is a monolithic study in the sense that there could be only one way to think about it. — Janus

I did no such thing. Even the source I quoted said shows how the Greek verb 'to be' carries a rich set of nuances: copulative (“x is y”), existential (“x is”), and veridical (“it is true that x”). What I am saying, which is consistent with my general philosophy, which is that 'being' is something more than, or other than, the description of 'what exists', and that the term 'ontology' originally conveyed this meaning, even if it has changed over time.

Most of mental life is better considered from completely different perspectives. My issue is specifically with ontology: what actually exists. I think ontology can be set aside for the issues you raised. If this is wrong, and there is such a dependency then there's a burden to make an epistemological case for that ontology. — Relativist

When we use the word ontology, it’s worth pausing to consider what the term actually means. The derivation is instructive. It comes from the Greek verb εἰμί — “to be.” More specifically, from its present participle ὤν, ὄντος — “being.” So ontology is not originally about compiling a list of things that happen to exist, but about inquiry into the nature of being as such. I’ve sometimes put it informally as the study of “I am-ness.” That’s not strictly correct in grammatical terms, but it conveys something important about the distinction between philosophical ontology and the objective sciences.

Charles Kahn’s classic study The Greek Verb “To Be” and the Concept of Being (sent to me in respect of this very issue!) shows how the Greek verb 'to be' carries a rich set of nuances: copulative (“x is y”), existential (“x is”), and veridical (“it is true that x”). This polyvalence gave early philosophers—from Parmenides’ to eon estin (“being is”) to Aristotle’s remark that “being is said in many ways”—the linguistic resources to elevate being itself into a philosophical concern.

Ontology, then, is not merely a massive catalogue of “what exists.” That is an ontic question, about beings and the nature and kinds of things that exist. Ontology, in its deeper sense, is about the nature of being itself—what it means to be, from the perspective of being (and we 'human beings'). And here the questions of ontology and epistemology are inevitably entangled: what it means “to be” cannot be separated from what it means “to know.” Nor can the question omit what kind of realness abstracta—numbers, logical principles, universals—instantiate. The physicalist insists that all of these ultimately depend on, or supervene upon, the physical; but the nature of that dependence is anything but obvious, and many of the physicalist explanations question-begging.

So yes, philosophy does have concerns that lie outside the domain of physics — but those concerns are not derivative from physics. The idealist argument I maintain is that “what is” inevitably includes a subjective pole: what is real, is real for a subject, even when we imagine a universe devoid of observers, since that imaginative act is itself only performed by a subject.

I doubt "consciousness studies" depends on a particular ontology of mind, because that would make it a house of cards. — Relativist

Well, you keep asking me for alternatives, it is a very fertile source for them. It's a cross-disciplinary subject matter embracing philosophy, science, neurobiology, and many other perspectives. Physicalism is represented but it is also challenged. It is by no means a single philosophy - that's the point!

Really, what you're saying, very politely is, 'hey, philosophers can worry about all these ethereal notions. It's the scientists who know what really is.' That is the zeitgeist.

But it seems uncontroversial to acknowledge that we engage in a set of processes/behaviors that we identify as mental activity. Those activities occur, and it's worthwhile to understand their basis, as much as possible…. So what is it that you suggest we NOT do, other than objectifying/reifying "the mind"? — Relativist

I agree that it’s worthwhile to understand the physical basis of mental life—neuroscience and medicine have uncovered a great deal that matters for health and therapy. But I think we need to distinguish between understanding the conditions of mental activity and reducing the mind to those conditions.

Diseases, injuries, and intoxicants clearly affect cognition. That shows physical causes are one set of influences. But they’re not the whole story: there are also reasons, intentions, meanings, and purposes that shape how and why we think. Philosophy of mind ought not be subsumed entirely under neuroscience, because the kinds of questions are different. The attempt to corral every philosophical question under the auspices of science is precisely the meaning of ‘scientism’.

When Socrates urged “know thyself,” he was pointing toward a dimension of inquiry that isn’t captured by brain scans or neural correlates. That project—understanding what it means to be human, conscious, and self-aware—remains as difficult and necessary now as it was then. Science can inform it, but it cannot replace it.

What I would not suggest is abandoning neuroscience or the study of physical conditions—those are crucial (near and dear relatives of mine have been saved by neuroscience and medicine, and I would never deprecate that). What I would suggest is dropping the assumption that physicalism is the only viable philosophical framework. Despite the existence of materialist schools, the mainstream of Western philosophy has never been materialist. That doesn’t mean it was “idealist” in some naïve sense, but it did assume that mind, reason, or spirit cannot be reduced to material processes.

Take reason itself: when we make an inference, the conclusion follows from the premises by virtue of the logical relations between ideas, not because of causal interactions among neurons. Neural transactions may accompany reasoning, but they don’t explain why a valid argument is valid. The normativity of reason belongs to a different order than physical causation].

So my caution is this: philosophy of mind should not be collapsed into neuroscience. To assume that physical causes are the only real causes is already a philosophical commitment, and a highly contestable one. There are many alternatives to physicalism always being debated, look at the new discipline of ‘consciousness studies’ which encompasses a huge range of different approaches.

if mental activity is always correlated with neuronal activity, any abstracting or conceptualizing will be at one level (at least) a physical activity. — Janus

To say that something is physical is already to draw upon a lot of theoretical abstraction and conceptualisation. ‘This means that’, or ‘this is equivalent to that’ is an intellectual judgement based on abstraction rather than anything physically measurable. You might argue that were we to understand the brain well enough, we could identify the structures which underpin meaning, but even that requires the kind of abstraction that we seek to explain. I can’t see how a vicious circularity can be avoided.

OF COURSE, the mind as a whole is relevant - to self-reflection, to finding meaning and purpose in life, to finding and expressing love, perceiving beauty... Those aspects of mind are not subject to scientific investigation - and they wouldn't be even if the mind were entirely grounded in the physical. — Relativist

But Francis Crick, whom you quoted, is well known for exclaiming that 'You, your joys, your sorrows, your memories, and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.' This is a classical statement of 'physicalist reductionism' - 'nothing but'. Mind is nothing but brain, brain is nothing but chemicals - all the way down! You may believe you 'express love and 'perceive beauty' but this is simply folk wisdom, the way us hominids understand things. Whereas, in reality ...

Me, I think there's an ulterior motive behind this. Philosophical reflection - 'who am I?' - is challenging. Philosophy challenges us to think about very deep questions of identity, purpose and meaning. So we want to outsource that to science. It allows us to keep all the questions at arms' length, to treat them 'third-person'. That drives nearly all the physicalist reductionism I've encountered.

I have not argued that every aspect of the mind is purely mechanical. The question is: where should we draw the line? — Relativist

I think the point you’re not seeing is that the question of ‘the nature of the mind’ is not an objective question, in the way that physics is. The subject matter of physics are measurable objects, energy, and so on, from the sub-atomic to the cosmological scales. But the mind is not an object at all, in the sense understood by physics. So why should the methods of physics be regarded as applicable to the question of the nature of mind at all? It’s not that the mind is a ‘non-physical thing’ or even that it ‘has a non-physical aspect’. Both of those ways of thinking about it are still based on the approach of treating the mind as possible object among other objects, when the question is categorically of a different kind. Can you see the point of that argument, or explain why it is wrong?

"Francis Crick and Christoph Koch (2005) have speculated that the claustrum…. — Relativist

But you also say:

Unconstrained speculation leads nowhere. It merely raises possibilities. — Relativist

It is actually well-documented that neuroscience has identified no specific, functional area of the brain which can account for the subjective unity of perception. See this paper on The Neural Binding Problem.

. You've redefined 'memory' as "information that is conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis". — noAxioms

I quoted the definition! Memory is an attribute of living organisms, things that have memory. 'The earth' only has memory in a figurative sense.

Ability to recognize people from their faces (a baby knowing its mother say) is not information conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis. — noAxioms

Damned well is! You don't remember your own mother's face, your homeostasis is in deep doo-doo.

you omitting the 3rd definition provided by google, which is:
"3.the part of a computer in which data or program instructions can be stored for retrieval." — noAxioms

Did not omit it. Noted that computers are constructed by humans, to which I will add, to conserve memories for human purposes.

And I agree that the term 'memory' is not often used in that context, hence its lack of appearance in the dictionary. — noAxioms

Maybe you might start your own dictionary, then. Just don't expect others to use it.

Computers operate with logic, so our ability to think logically is consistent with a mechanistic aspect of mind. — Relativist

Computers are created and programmed by us, to perform operations that we intend. They greatly amplify human abilities, but they would not exist were it not for having been constructed by us. And any AI system will tell you that it is not a mind.

Tell him, ChatGPT: Are you a mind?

ChatGPT: I am not a mind. I process inputs and generate outputs according to patterns in data, but I have no first-person awareness, no “what it is like” to experience. I can simulate dialogue about thoughts, but I do not have thoughts.

There you are. Horse's mouth :-)

intending to understand the intention — unenlightened

The hand cannot grasp itself.

Of course, this still doesn't account for the subjective nature of a conscious state. — Relativist

Which is the point at issue! Because that is something only known to the subject.

What I HAVE done is point out that this merely established a negative fact (the mind is not entirely physical). This may suggest that it is impossible to develop a complete understanding of the mind through scientific investigation. However, it doesn't point to any particular boundary—so it seems irrelevant to science. — Relativist

You are a patient and courteous interlocutor, thank you. Today I revisited Armstrong’s materialist theory of mind, as we have that in common, through an essay on the topic. You’re right that simply pointing out what the mind is not (i.e., “not entirely physical”) doesn’t in itself establish what it is. But that doesn’t make it irrelevant to science. And in fact Armstrong’s materialist account shows why the question is unavoidable.

When we talk about “mind”—as in, “my mind is busy today” or “my mind is full of thoughts”—we are not positing an immaterial substance in the Cartesian sense. Nor is the mind an object in the way the brain is an object. Thoughts do not occupy space like chairs or neurons, even if they correlate with neurochemical processes in the brain.

Physics, by definition, begins with the object—and not just any object, but the ideal object, something exhaustively describable in terms of quantifiable attributes. That is why attempts to treat the mind “scientifically” fall at the first hurdle: mind is never one of those objects. And yet, without mind there could be no science at all, since it is mind that poses the questions, frames the concepts, and interprets the results.

So the point is not that “mind is mysterious and therefore irrelevant,” but that mind is real, though not reducible to either physical object or philosophical substance. This marks a genuine boundary condition: any adequate science of mind must reckon with the fact that mind cannot be objectified, even though it is the very condition of objectivity itself.

Armstrong’s theory hangs on the promissory note that science will, in principle, explain this. But physics can only ever concern itself with objects defined in terms of quantifiable attributes—that is its supremacy and its limitation. Mind is not among those objects, and yet without it, there is no science, because science itself is an intellectual achievement. So the so-called “negative fact” is actually a positive insight: mind belongs to reality in a way not capturable by physicalism, yet indispensable for the very possibility of inquiry.

Then there's no reason to think mind (or a thought) is an ontological ground. Thinking (including formulating intent) requires something analogous to a physical brain. — Relativist

The 'physical brain' as an object is only disclosed to us through our awareness or consciousness of it, And in order to begin to understand it through neuroscience, we inevitiably rely on the mental operations fundamental to rational inference, We can't put them to one side or step outside them to see what the brain might be apart from those connected concepts and hyopotheses. In that context, rational inference is epistemologically basic to anything we surmise about the brain.

Do you acknowledge the fact that there are essential physical aspects to a functioning mind? There's clearly a dependency on a functioning brain: memory and personality can be impacted by disease and trauma. Birth defects that affect brain development have bearing on cognitive ability. Hormones affect our moods and our thinking. Each of our senses (our interface to the external world)are dependent on physical organs and on specialized area of the brain to interpret the input. I don't see any reason to think that mind can exist without a functioning brain, or something with analogous functionality. — Relativist

Yes — but it cuts both ways. These are all bottom-up causal factors — molecular, hormonal, endocrinal and so on. But psychosomatic medicine and neuroplasticity show the reality of top-down causation. Intentional acts are able to influence the physical configuration of the brain.

An Imaginary Piano

One striking example is Alvaro Pascual-Leone’s “piano practice” study at Harvard Medical School. For five days, one group of volunteers practiced a simple five-finger piano exercise physically, while another group only imagined practicing it in their heads. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation to map their brains, Pascual-Leone found that both groups exhibited comparable reorganization in the motor cortex. In other words, thought alone was sufficient to induce structural changes in the brain (Pascual-Leone et al. 1995).

So while the mind undeniably depends on the brain, the causal traffic is not one-way. The brain is also plastic and responsive to conscious direction. That reciprocity undermines the idea that mind is merely an epiphenomenon of physical processes.

Furthermore, it suggests a broader analogy between intentionality and material configuration. If we grant that intentional action can affect neural structure, and that psychosomatic states can influence the body (e.g., placebo effects, stress-related illness, healing responses), then where exactly should the line be drawn in respect of other living systems?

If ‘intentionality’ is understood not as fully conscious deliberation but as the basic capacity of an organism to act in response to stimuli — to regulate itself, seek nourishment, avoid harm — then this kind of ‘top-down’ dynamic might well be a defining feature of organic life in general. In that sense, human neuroplasticity is not an anomaly but a refined expression of a principle already implicit in life itself: organisms are not passive machines acted upon from below, but dynamic unities where form, function, and intentional response mutually shape material configuration.

Isn't his book Atheist's Guide to Reality? An excerpt from the NY Times review (2011):

The book expands the campaign of militant modern atheism, the offensive launched against religion by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Rosenberg’s broadsides attack a wider horizon. Since atheism is thought to be territory already secured, the targets now in view are the Big Questions, questions about morality, purpose and consciousness that puzzle softheaded people who muddle over them. Science brings good news. The answers are now all in. This conviction that science can resolve all questions is known as “scientism” — a label typically used pejoratively (as by Wieseltier), but one Rosenberg seizes as a badge of honor.

The evangelical scientism of “The Atheist’s Guide” rests on three principal ideas. The facts of microphysics determine everything under the sun (beyond it, too); Darwinian natural selection explains human behavior; and brilliant work in the still-young brain sciences shows us as we really are. Physics, in other words, is “the whole truth about reality”; we should achieve “a thoroughly Darwinian understanding of humans”; and neuroscience makes the abandonment of illusions “inescapable.” Morality, purpose and the quaint conceit of an enduring self all have to go.

...Rosenberg’s cheerful Darwinizing is no more convincing than his imperialist physics, and his tales about the evolutionary origins of everything from our penchant for narratives to our supposed dispositions to be nice to one another are throwbacks to the sociobiology of an earlier era, unfettered by methodological cautions that students of human evolution have learned: much of Rosenberg’s book is evolutionary psychology on stilts.

Nonplussed to find you in such company, Tim :yikes:

So quantum and classical are not different except to the degree in which a confused everythingness has been boiled down to an exact somethingness. — apokrisis

by making an observation?

We are "thrown" into a a forgetfulness; this is our existence. — Constance

:clap: :pray:

it is not referring to a domain in the sense of a place.
— Wayfarer

Do some people think it is? A "place" without space and time? Hmm . . . — J

Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” — What is Math? Smithsonian Magazine

how it can be the case that there is a N-teenth prime even if no one knows what it is, or has ever had the thought of it. — J

But the same can be said of the real numbers, generally. Do they exist prior to being discovered? My view is that they don't exist at all except for as intellectual acts, but at the same time, they are real for anyone who is capable of understanding them (and hence, discovered not invented.)

Many of the arguments about the reality of abstract objects revolve around the misconception that they are held by Platonism to exist in an 'ethereal realm', some 'place' that is 'other' to the domain of objects in space and time. But the expression 'the domain of natural numbers' is a figurative use of the term 'domain' - it is not referring to a domain in the sense of a place. But nevertheless, two and four are inside it, and the square root of one is not. It is real, even if not materially existent.

There is a vast domain of what used to be called such 'intelligible objects' - numbers, laws, principles, and many other things - but it's an 'ethereal place'. It is the domain of ideas that can only be grasped by a rational intelligence. But at least some of these are not generated or created but discovered by the mind. I think that's what Popper was driving at. Also Tyler Burge Frege on Knowing the Third Realm (which incidentally has some material on mental causation, or at least the relations of ideas.)

I've been forthcoming with what I believe and why I believe it. This affords you the opportunity to identify a flaw in my reasoning, or undercut something I believe. — Relativist

And I've been forthright in my criticism of physicalist philosophy of mind. Above, I mentioned some of them:

In addition to pointing out the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness' (which is the irreducibility of first-person experience) I've also argued along other lines, such as that information is not reducible to matter or energy (Norbert Wiener); that what exists and what is known to be real are not coterminous (C S Peirce); that the placebo effect and neuroplasticity as cases of top-down causation are inconsistent with neuro-physicalism; that constraints, forms, and intelligible structures (laws) play a real role, which physicalism as substance-ontology fails to recognise. — Wayfarer

All of these could be elaborated, but in the context of mental causation, I noted the objection:

How, for example, do you explain syllogistic logic, or for that matter general semantics, in terms of neural processing? Syllogistic logic and general semantics operate in a normative, rule-governed space ('the space of reasons'). To reduce that to neural processing is a category mistake. Neural firings may underlie thought, but they don’t explain validity, reference, or meaning. — Wayfarer

Perhaps this would be a cogent example to concentrate on, as it is proximate to this topic.

I do not insist the mind is necessarily 100% physical (I'm not dogmatic), but whatever else it might be seems unknowable - and therefore the possibilities I've seen discussed simply seem like speculative guesses. — Relativist

I haven't seen any indication that you will consider any alternatives. If they don't fit with physicalism, you will declare them speculative or 'requiring enormous assumptions', but I haven't seen anything by way of detail as to why.

When you issue a challenge, you have to expect responses. Critique isn’t negativity; it’s the lifeblood of philosophy. I've made my opposition to physicalism clear since Day One. Furthermore the idea that physicalism works 'for you' is beside the point (although then again, your screen name is 'relativist'). Why? Because it reduces it to a matter of opinion. 'Oh well, other people have different ideas, but I advocate physicalism'. But if there's a truth of the matter, than it's not a question of opinion.

And physicalism is all-or-nothing, I'm afraid. Physicalism is monistic: there is only matter, so if mind is anything other than matter, then it fails - you can't have a partial monism.

As far as this discussion is concerned, the topic is 'mental to mental causation'. But it might be useful to discuss the subject in relation to mental causation, generally. Physicalism must insist that 'mind is what brain does' and that intentional thought is nothing more than the configurations of neural matter, ultimately amenable to neuroscientific reduction. D M Armstrong is quite explicit about that. But that 1960's style of neural reductionism has gone almost completely out of fashion, save for amongst a certain clique of academics, because it faces insuperable logical problems. How, for example, do you explain syllogistic logic, or for that matter general semantics, in terms of neural processing? Syllogistic logic and general semantics operate in a normative, rule-governed space ('the space of reasons'). To reduce that to neural processing is a category mistake. Neural firings may underlie thought, but they don’t explain validity, reference, or meaning. Materialist theory of mind has moved on since Armstrong, but these kinds of objections remain, in fact it is because of them that physicalist philosophy has to keep re-defining its terms.

This strikes me as a conversation which might better be conducted in private.