There are no pointers in life.

VazScep wrote:

logical bob wrote:No, that's not what I meant, although picking the right words is difficult.

My rule of thumb is to pick Old English and proto-Germanic words over Latin or French derivatives. Wiktionary is your friend.

Words like 'nose', and 'arse' come to 'mind'. Or 'horse'. But let me pick your brain about this one while I'm at it. 'Spoon' is a total standout in this regard.

Nor pointers to pointers, Jesus wept.

[aside]Best to ignore Cito in this thread, he's only playing word games with it -there's no actual on-topic content in them.[/aside]

DavidMcC wrote:This is the bit that is addressing the neuroscience and pshychology issue.

It's either Sean Connery or Humphrey Bogart, right? I won't play the sap for you, David, shaken or stirred.

Shpeshul shaush needzh a shpeshul shpoon.

DavidMcC wrote:[aside]Best to ignore Cito in this thread, he's only playing word games with it -there's no actual on-topic content in them.[/aside]

That's very much not the case, though I think that's gone over your head somewhat. There's a popular gambit on this forum where people want you to highlight in red the bit of the post where you said precisely what you said. Cito's posting isn't very amendable to that. It grows on you.

But hey, you told us that awareness is produced by brain processes and you're still wondering why no-one's applauding.

Cito di Pense wrote:...

Shpeshul shaush needzh a shpeshul shpoon.

Aha! Pissed! As I thought.

logical bob wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:[aside]Best to ignore Cito in this thread, he's only playing word games with it -there's no actual on-topic content in them.[/aside]

That's very much not the case, though I think that's gone over your head somewhat. There's a popular gambit on this forum where people want you to highlight in red the bit of the post where you said precisely what you said. Cito's posting isn't very amendable to that. It grows on you.

But hey, you told us that awareness is produced by brain processes and you're still wondering why no-one's applauding.

I told you that brains are more subtle than you seemed to think in your OP. They may be "just stuff", but it isn't inert stuff, as you implied.
As for Cito's off-topic rant being "over my head" - I couldn't care less where it was.
Cito's remarks are smart-arse, but ultimately vacuous.

VazScep wrote:

logical bob wrote:No, that's not what I meant, although picking the right words is difficult.

My rule of thumb is to pick Old English and proto-Germanic words over Latin or French derivatives. Wiktionary is your friend.

Tractable is also close to what I want, though that's Latin too. I've heard that advice before. They say you should try to write like George Orwell.

zoon wrote:

Thommo wrote:

zoon wrote:If everyone is a p-zombie, then what, in your view, would be a basis for differentiating sentience? (I would have expected that everyone being a p-zombie is another way of saying that sentience doesn't exist.)

Perhaps I'm thinking in legal/moral terms: if there are laws about not driving roads through forests, and somebody then claims that forests don't exist, they are no more than the sum of the trees etc, then the laws are going to need to be rewritten to describe just what kind of collections of trees are to be protected from roads. If we are p-zombies, then just what kinds of collections of molecules are to count as sentient for social purposes?

Which laws depend on that? Suppose someone is in a coma that may or not be permanent. You go up and shoot them in the head. Does your belief in their lack of ability to feel pain affect the law? Does ontology appear in law? If so where?

The government of New Zealand passed a law last year recognising animals as sentient, reported in the Independent here:

The New Zealand Government has formally recognised animals as 'sentient' beings by amending animal welfare legislation.

The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill was passed on Tuesday.

The Act stipulates that it is now necessary to 'recognise animals as sentient' and that owners must ‘attend properly to the welfare of those animals'.

“Sentient” is defined in the online free dictionary:

1. Having sense perception; conscious:
2. Experiencing sensation or feeling.

The mental entities of sense perception, or of sensation or feeling, are recognised in New Zealand law.

Ok, so do you think, in court, any decision is going to come down to the ontological status afforded to "sentience"? Or do you agree that three mentions in arcane clauses, none of which actually define offences, out of tens of thousands of words in a single law from a single small country don't make this into a significant issue? That questions of sentience (if they ever arise, which is far from clear given how small a role they play in the law) will be settled by pragmatic legal judgements and precedent based on observable qualities like species and not by ontology?

I don't see this ever mattering in court. It looks like, at the very worst, people will be charged based on behaviour, and the behaviour of animals. The same documents refer repeatedly to concepts such as "reasonableness" without affording them any special ontological meaning.

zoon wrote:I do agree with you, against the idealists, that all these mental terms are almost certainly reducible to physical ones. I also think that if/when science does enable us to understand our brains (and those of other animals) as physical mechanisms, then the mental terms would probably be discarded as crude, inaccurate and unnecessary. My argument is that for the time being we do not understand ourselves as physical mechanisms, instead we use the evolved prescientific concepts of mental entities, and those concepts do in fact work reasonably well for thinking about, predicting, and discussing each other. While that is the case, I think those mental entities may reasonably be regarded as having the same sort of reality as waves or forests?

I don't think they do. The idea of a mental "process"... well maybe, but entities like "A subjectivity" or "a red qualia"? These don't even enter into it. I can't see Habius qualium ever entering the legal lexicon.

DavidMcC wrote:I told you that brains are more subtle than you seemed to think in your OP. They may be "just stuff", but it isn't inert stuff, as you implied.

I don't know why you seem to think the OP was supposed to be addressing neuroscience and psychology. It's aimed at the principle concern of the philosophy forum, setting out ideas developed by philosophers and quoting other philosophers in the exposition. I didn't say or imply one thing about brains. It seems what you inferred might be different.

DavidMcC wrote:Thoughts and feelings roughly correspond to (or are the direct result of) neuronal firings in the brain, so our awareness is a product of those firings, rather than being something apart from them.

The product of something generally would be something apart. To call thoughts and feelings a result of neuronal firing is to make them epiphenomena, angels dancing on a cerebellum. And to be one side of a correspondence, even a rough one, thoughts and feelings would have to be sufficiently discrete and defined to be handled in that way. Unless you're just waving your hands.

logical bob wrote:

Thommo wrote:Just bookmarking for spectation purposes, since the reason for the thread was too many cooks in t'other one. Good luck, enjoyed the OP Lbob.

Thanks, and your contributions are always relevant and welcome. It was actually a post of yours that triggered the thought. You said recently that the easiest response might be to just accept you were a p-zombie. It prompted me to dig out a couple of books I hadn't looked at for a while.

Which books, btw?

Spinozasgalt wrote:

logical bob wrote:

Thommo wrote:Just bookmarking for spectation purposes, since the reason for the thread was too many cooks in t'other one. Good luck, enjoyed the OP Lbob.

Thanks, and your contributions are always relevant and welcome. It was actually a post of yours that triggered the thought. You said recently that the easiest response might be to just accept you were a p-zombie. It prompted me to dig out a couple of books I hadn't looked at for a while.

Which books, btw?

I recommend the one by Barych Spunoza.

Attention, everyone. Let's have an awed hush, please, for Cito di Pense.

Spinozasgalt wrote:Attention, everyone. Let's have an awed hush, please, for Cito di Pense.

Oh, go on wit ya. I wouldn't piss in your cornflakes if they were on fire and you felt an existential hunger you couldn't satisfy.

Spinozasgalt wrote::lol:

I like you, too. You're nice.

logical bob wrote:Cito's posting isn't very amendable to that.

People complain that I amend my posts too much; I only do it because I want people to go back and re-read the parts of my original posting they didn't get the first time through. The stuff I add is often, all too often bollocks. But then so is the first part. Welcome me to the club.

I fail to see the problems people seems to have with citos posts all of the time.