compatibilism

[Iwannaplato]

I agree. Further, not only is there no "stuff" that we call mind, there is no physical stuff either; no brain, no anythings, only experience .

Your close, but you've let your extreme view turn to solipsism. It's like saying I eat, but there is only eating, there is nothing I eat. I love, but there is only the love, I don't love anything. I experience, but there is only experiene, I don't experience anything.

A contentless experience, an experience of, "nothing," is, "no experience." If you have an experience, that is just what everyone else means by stuff. It's only the name of actual experiences.

Do you have experiences? Are they all identical? Can you describe them? Whatever you describe as your experience, that is what everyone else means by stuff.

Of course there is only experience, but experience of nothing is no experience, and whatever the something one's experience is, that is physical existence. You don't have to call it that, just so long as you understand that's what other's mean by physical existence. When they have those experiences just like those you have called seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, they call the details that are seen, heard, felt etc. the actual experience, the, "stuff," they experience.
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I'm not this kind of radical phenomenalist but one could argue that what we call experience, is hallucinated into subject perception object. But really there is just this flow of experiencing. It's not that there are no objects, since the concept itself, in this belief system, is a hallucinated concretization using what are in fact not facets of experiencing, since there is no such thing. Likewise the self as experiencer. There is just this flow of experiencing. This is NOT saying that there is only mind. Since that is part of the hallucinated, or cultural, model of subject perception object. All that is actually found is this experiencing. Of course, since language is based on this assumption that reality has these parts (S;P;O) it will seem an analytic truth that when 'we' experience we experience something. It's built into the cultural assumptions or ontological assumptions in language.

I don't think we can just say 'that's wrong and we can prove it.' It's not what I believe, but I think it's 'safe' from disproof, in part because it is parsimonious. Which of course does not mean it is right. And I don't. But there are some other good working hypotheses out there, and I tend towards them.

[Immanuel Can]

I am not about to play, "can you prove it," with you.

So you can't.

I only need to prove it to myself.

Okay, then tell me the way you use to "prove" it to yourself. If you're a rational person, that'll be good enough for anybody.

...and I don't have to explain myself to anyone else. Especially not to you.

You do not "have to," it's true. But if you have a rational explanation yourself, it shouldn't be hard at all to say what it is.

[RCSaunders]

RC,

there are more properties than just two.

Of course, but in context, as it pertains to my substance dualism or your property dualism, dualism refers to two broad categories of substances or properties. In my case: mind and body/brain; in yours: mental and physical.

Mind is the unique kind of consciousness of human beings which actually consists of three characteristics of its own, volition (which requires conscious choice), intellect (which makes it possible and necessary to learn), and rationality (which makes it possible and necessary to think and reason), and all three are interdependent, none possible without the others.

As I see it: mind is comprised of reason, conscience, and free will, and it, mind, is not a property but a substance in its own right.

Conscience is just a feeling, a physiological reaction to what one thinks and believes, like any other emotion. It is determined by what one thinks, like the feeling of apprehension of fear when thinking about a pending operation or visit to the dentist or the feeling of anticipation when thinking about having a good meal. Conscience is the feelings one has when thinking about their own choices and actions relative to what they already believe is right and wrong. A person who believes it is wrong to not eat a defeated enemy, will feel guilty about not doing it (as some Fiji Island cannibals did). Conscience cannot tell you what is right or wrong, it is only a reaction to what you already believe is right and wrong. One feels the pangs of conscience only when contemplating or choosing to do what they already believe is wrong. Those who do not believe something is wrong will never feel any sense of guilty conscience even if what they do is wrong. No feeling can tell you anything other than what you are feeling. Why you have the feeling and what causes it must be discovered rationally.

As I see it: ... mind, is not a property but a substance in its own right.

I am not trying to change your mind, and not arguing a point, but am curious how you expect someone else to understand what that means. What kind of, "substance," would that be: solid, liquid, gas, or what? I'm serious. I know what it means to say air is a substance, and diamonds are substances, and sand is a substance. But I have no idea what it means to say, "mind is a substance." What kind of substance. What is substantial about it? It can't be seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted. It cannot be detected in any way as any other substance can.

As far as I know all substances have properties that make them substances rather than just imaginary things. If mind is a substance, what are the properties of that substance, and how can they be known? I'm not asking you to answer that question, only explaining why I am having a hard time understanding what you mean when you say mind is a substance.

[RCSaunders]

So you can't.


Okay, then tell me the way you use to "prove" it to yourself. If you're a rational person, that'll be good enough for anybody.

...and I don't have to explain myself to anyone else. Especially not to you.

You do not "have to," it's true. But if you have a rational explanation yourself, it shouldn't be hard at all to say what it is.

Goad on. It's not going to work. You are becoming a pest, with your incessant insipid questions, like Age and VA.

Where do people like you get the idea others come here to be tested and judged by you? They don't. If your are really interested in further discussion you'll have to be a little less obnoxious.

I am not going to wast my time explaining how certain knowledge is not only possible, but necessary and commonplace to someone who cannot understand this obvious point I made earlier:

It must be terrible going through life being so confused that when seeing a cat spread across the road with it's head off and its guts pouring out, you are not sure whether or not it's dead.

It's absolutely certain, that cat's dead. (Can't believe I actually have to spell that out for you.)

[Immanuel Can]

...and I don't have to explain myself to anyone else. Especially not to you.

You do not "have to," it's true. But if you have a rational explanation yourself, it shouldn't be hard at all to say what it is.

Goad on. It's not going to work.

What? Asking you what proof you have?

Hardly a "goading." If it is, you're far too easily "goaded."

But I realize that if you had any, you'd have offered it already. So maybe it's just too much to expect, anyway.

P.S. -- As for the "cat," you're only probabilistically sure it's a "cat" at all, if its guts are all over the road. It could be a racoon, a small dog or an opossum, for all you know. Even if it has all the cat features, how sure can you be it's not a bobcat kitten?

So even that's not 100% certainty. It's just high probability...like all emprical knowledge is.

[henry quirk]

RC,

Conscience is just a feeling,

I have a narrower, somewhat more formal, definition.

how you expect someone else to understand what that means.

I suppose I don't.

It cannot be detected in any way as any other substance can.

Well, this agent, it's not like a conventional substance.

If mind is a substance, what are the properties of that substance, and how can they be known?

Well, you're one -- a mind (in a brain/body) -- what are your properties?

[Belinda]

Descartes believed something similar and he was brilliant. I think both you and he mistaken, not dumb or misguided. You certainly have better ground for your view than any physicalist who thinks the brain secrets consciousness like a ductless gland or it emerges by magic when there is enough complexity.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute. Why does it have to be some kind of, "stuff?" Isn't it enough to know being conscious, thinking, learning, and consciously choosing are things those organism do which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties, without requiring some additional substance or stuff? Especially since there is no evidence for any such stuff.

I agree. Further, not only is there no "stuff" that we call mind, there is no physical stuff either; no brain, no anythings, only experience .

You're close, but you've let your extreme view turn into solipsism. It's like saying I eat, but there is only eating, there is nothing I eat. I love, but there is only the love, I don't love anything. I experience, but there is only thr experience, I don't experience anything.

A contentless experience, an experience of, "nothing," is, "no experience." If you have an experience, that is just what everyone else means by stuff. It's only the name of actual experiences.

Do you have experiences? Are they all identical? Can you describe them? Whatever you describe as your experience, that is what everyone else means by stuff.

Of course there is only experience, but experience of nothing is no experience, and whatever the something one's experience is, that is physical existence. You don't have to call it that, just so long as you understand that's what other's mean by physical existence. When they have those experiences just like those you have called seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, they call the details that are seen, heard, felt etc. the actual experience, the, "stuff," they experience.

It's not solipsism because experience can't exist without other minds as part of the furniture of experience. If there ever was an eternal solitary experience it would be nothing but frustrated volition.
I endorse the rest of what you wrote .

[RCSaunders]

t's not solipsism because experience can't exist without other minds as part of the furniture of experience. If there ever was an eternal solitary experience it would be nothing but frustrated volition.

You really believe if some disaster killed all human beings except you, you could have no conscious mind? It seems to me, that would just be unlimited freedom to do anything one could choose to do with no other human being oppressing you. It might be limited, but it would be totally free. I can't imagine a less frustrated volition.

[RCSaunders]

RC,

Conscience is just a feeling,

I have a narrower, somewhat more formal, definition.

how you expect someone else to understand what that means.

I suppose I don't.

It cannot be detected in any way as any other substance can.

Well, this agent, it's not like a conventional substance.

If mind is a substance, what are the properties of that substance, and how can they be known?

Well, you're one -- a mind (in a brain/body) -- what are your properties?

OK, Henry. Thanks for you views and being reasonable.

[Belinda]

t's not solipsism because experience can't exist without other minds as part of the furniture of experience. If there ever was an eternal solitary experience it would be nothing but frustrated volition.

You really believe if some disaster killed all human beings except you, you could have no conscious mind? It seems to me, that would just be unlimited freedom to do anything one could choose to do with no other human being oppressing you. It might be limited, but it would be totally free. I can't imagine a less frustrated volition.

Other finite centres of experience would be part of remembered experience. Moreover other minds are not confined to human minds; all living beings including plants are centres of experience.

Please remember that minds are not ' stuff ' as we have agreed. It is only 'stuff' that perishes.

[Belinda]

RC,

Conscience is just a feeling,

I have a narrower, somewhat more formal, definition.

how you expect someone else to understand what that means.

I suppose I don't.

It cannot be detected in any way as any other substance can.

Well, this agent, it's not like a conventional substance.

If mind is a substance, what are the properties of that substance, and how can they be known?

Well, you're one -- a mind (in a brain/body)

-- what are your properties?

(I coloured that coloured bit.)

Henry, if a man is a separate mind in a separate brain/body, how do mind and body connect with each other ? We know they do connect as we experience mind knowing what body does.

[henry quirk]

Henry, if a man is a separate mind in a separate brain/body, how do mind and body connect with each other ? We know they do connect as we experience mind knowing what body does.

Well, I'm goin' full whacko here, B: take care not to get any of my craziness on you.

Man is a composite of mind & matter or spirit & flesh. Two very different things melded together irrevocably. Neither worth spit without the other. Man isn't an embodied spirit bidin' his time till he can cast off his meat suit. Man is both mind and meat, together. Man is an amalgam, an alloy.

[RCSaunders]

... other minds are not confined to human minds ...

They are the only minds I know of. "Mind," is the attribute of human consciousness that differentiates human beings from all other organisms. There isn't any other kind of mind.

[Iwannaplato]

... other minds are not confined to human minds ...

They are the only minds I know of. "Mind," is the attribute of human consciousness that differentiates human beings from all other organisms. There isn't any other kind of mind.

Of course definitions of words like mind can make a difference here, but you don't think other animals have minds?

[Walker]

You can make it simple just by saying what the two substances are.

Don't know how to work google, eh?

Anywho: in context, it's mind and brain. That is mind is one substance and brain is another.

And, yes, I know I'm wrong and dumb and misguided for believin' such things: you can spare me the lecture & essay.

Descartes believed something similar and he was brilliant. I think both you and he mistaken, not dumb or misguided. You certainly have better ground for your view than any physicalist who thinks the brain secrets consciousness like a ductless gland or it emerges by magic when there is enough complexity.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute. Why does it have to be some kind of, "stuff?" Isn't it enough to know being conscious, thinking, learning, and consciously choosing are things those organism do which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties, without requiring some additional substance or stuff? Especially since there is no evidence for any such stuff.

Evidence doesn’t appear by magic … and no one said it does, despite your implication.

It’s logical to assume that an organism with limited senses cannot sense all forms, under all conditions. Therefore, it’s logical to assume that humans with limited senses cannot perceive all evidence.