Philosophy Now Forum

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 19, 2018 6:17 pm As I have said before what you say makes perfect sense to me from a philosophical perspective
But I cannot accept it as there is no evidence for it and this is something that I actually require
But I do not see why a difference of opinion should be a barrier to try and learn more from you

Brent.Allsop wrote: ↑Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:14 pm The leading consensus building survey topic on consciousness is the “Theories of Consciousness” topic. There is only one camp that has any amount of consensus, and that is “Representational Qualia theory”.

In other words, this theory predicts there is some set of physics, possibly some we already abstractly know all about, that is the physics of the redness we experience. Each sub camp is predicting various candidates for the physical properties we experience as redness.

For example, “Representational Functionalism” predicts “functionality” is primal, and that a redness qualia can “arise” from many physically different computational systems correctly implementing the “redness” functionality.

“Representative Materialism”, on the other hand predicts that physical matter is primal - without the right matter, no redness.

without the right matter, no redness.

This is somewhat better, but it talks about matter being primal, which is wrong. As far as we can tell "matter" and "qualia" are one and the same thing. It's just a Western centuries long superstition to divide the world into two such categories.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 1:55 pm Atla wrote on qualia and matter:

This is somewhat better, but it talks about matter being primal, which is wrong. As far as we can tell "matter" and "qualia" are one and the same thing. It's just a Western centuries long superstition to divide the world into two such categories.

Few philosophers are superstitious; you have the wrong word.

My main point is that east and west are both right. Qualia, and matter, are two perspectives for describing reality or as some call it 'nature'.

But the West is literally talking about two things, or one primal thing and one illusion. Not about two made-up perspectives.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 2:35 pm Atla wrote:

But the West is literally talking about two things, or one primal thing and one illusion. Not about two made-up perspectives.

The west's talking about qualia and matter as two ontic substances is limited to substance dualists. Neutral monists hold that mind and extended matter are both the case and that mind and extended matter are both perspectives on nature , or reality.

The main defect of neutral monism is that it still assumes a neutral substance, but reality has no substance.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:49 pm Atla wrote:

The main defect of neutral monism is that it still assumes a neutral substance, but reality has no substance.

My main source for neutral monism is Spinoza. For Spinoza nature does not have substance but is the unique uncaused substance.

Your "but reality has no substance" contains not one but two propositions. One of those negates substance , and the other ("has") proposes attribute.

When we get to the ultimate uncaused substance the concept of substance metamorphoses into something incomparable .

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:49 pm When we get to the ultimate uncaused substance the concept of substance metamorphoses into something incomparable .

What's the point of talking about some substance anyway, when it's just an unnecessary mental projection.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:50 am "The point" is always somebody's point. My point , or agenda, is to combine philosophy east and philosophy west in a whole understanding, for me largely inspired by the immediate need to protect the biosphere within twelve years as we are told.

Although it's true that several interpretations of Advaita propose something similar to substance too, they reify the Brahman too much. Such interpretations of Advaita are ultimately defective too.

Brent.Allsop wrote: ↑Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:14 pm I tried to read through some of this but couldn’t get to far. There was too much meaningless stuff, (especially in the list of stuff that was being argued against) which I’d imagine has no expert consensus support at all. How many people here have read all 316 posts, to date? Will anyone read any of this a year from now? Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could say, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone is trying to say here? In a form that would be useful, which maybe people would want to read, going forward as things progressed.

Rather than writing hundreds of responses like this, it would be much more efficient if everyone would work to build expert consensus on the best theory over at Canonizer.com (a wiki system with camps).

The leading consensus building survey topic on consciousness is the “Theories of Consciousness” topic. There is only one camp that has any amount of consensus, and that is “Representational Qualia theory”. Nobody has been willing to even put forth a camp even close to “physicalism” so why even bother, if no serious thinkers support this kind of thinking anymore? This leading camp describes a theory that is also verifiable, or falsifiable, if you will. Or at least, it describes a way to verify or falsify various theories of what qualia are (described in the many sub camps). It describes how to detect qualia, or if you will “eff the ineffable”, by not being “Qualia Blind”.