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You just cut my sentence. You keep only referring to the causal side , and you omit the materialist side by cutting out the end of the sentence :"but it stills originates in physical interactions within a network".I never said it was causal only, i said it has both characteristics. Cutting my sentence in two will not make this more true.You considered that a deterministic perspective would be to say that it's not the concept that was causal, but rather electrical and chemical signals in my brain which caused me to have those expectations.I think that thoughts (expectations for example) are the result of physical interaction within a network. So by your standard I fit the determinist category?And the fact that I fit this category implies that there is no point discussing this?I think the determinism that is not allowed here is the one regarding origins of humans behaviour. Not the one talking about the physical origin of thoughts.This was still interesting, thanks for your input.

I never said that subjective experience is causal.I said that consciousness can be seen as a loop. It can have an influence on thought, but it stills originates in physical interactions within a network.And the fact that I consider the program as part arbitrarily imposed and part tweakable is not contradictory in the sense that i think it has both characteristics. I agree.

I don't see it. Can you give more details?

I think logic is an emergence of the practice of reasoning and communicating in intelligent animal, it is the only way to understand the program. That is why it came to existence.Language is the best example of how programmed we are, we think in a language, we use logic within it, there is no reasoning without a language. With language we literally shape the means of expression of our consciousness with arbitrary rules, like any program. Consciousness brings the ability to tweak the program, to question our perception of reality.It is not epiphenomenal if we can tweak it.

Isn't this is a fancy way of saying that you are a very intelligent ape, a very intelligent flesh robot? I agree that consciousness can be seen as a loop, stimulating brain activity, so I am more on a deterministic and materialistic side rather than on the side of epiphenomenalism. But the start of a loop is still the brain, the central nervous system, which evolution lead to the emergence of intelligence and consciousness, not the other way around, once intelligence is there, i totally agree that it can stimulate brain activity and growth.I said I fit in this materialistic approach because i consider any thought as the result of physical interactions in the brain. But I agree that the thought could lead to new physical interaction in the brain. Do you see a difference between an ape and a "flesh robot"? Because we are apes, very smart apes.I am programmed , I just see humans as the only "flesh robots" able to tweak the program. That is a bit reductionist, but we are animals.

Hi Asheli,I think the best to convince someone about the emergency of doing something about our world, is to be able to find things that will resonate with him. It might be a specific subject, something that will happen in his life.Personnaly I have tried to convince my family to stop voting, to stop believing in banking racket, a lot of stuff...I haven't found a way yet. This can be extremely frustrating.Maybe you have to speculate on the fact that he doesn't give a flying duck. Can you love him and build a life with someone with whom you don't share philophical views?Personnaly my girlfriend is interested about all this when I talk about it to her, but she never initiate philosophical discussion.Even if i think it is frustrating, I think there are other way that she completes me, so I don't really care.

When I look at the first lines of wikipedia definition of morality: Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are "good" (or right) and those that are "bad" (or wrong).[citation needed] Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc., or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.[ I think this is where your friend has a point. The last sentence illustrate what your friend means i think. Like OtherOtie has said, this word might be too blurry for you to move forward in your discussion. Very interesting, I have a problem with the first statements though. Don't you think that disparities in the abilities of individuals for reasonning, conceptualizing and comparing makes the ideals not so universally understandable? In other words I don't think those abilities are equally distributed, therefore the degree with which we owe ourselves vary. 120+ IQ FDR listeners are definilty an elite. What we see as univerally preferable might not be for others. We cannot impose anything, so we got to spread the word and wait for people to make sense out of the freedom they own, i think this is very frustrating, this waiting process, i am losing patience as I see the abyss get closer. Does this conclusion make any sense to you?

Well if it was my wife , or my sister, someone that is still young and that I love, I would steal, especially if she is weakened by the illness. Even if she is dying from natural causes. I don't think I would consider UPB or universal ethics when faced with this kind of event. What is preferable on a large scale does not always make sense in particular events like these. I would assume the responsabilities of such action. But there is no way i am letting a loved one die, without doing as much as i can do. I would not go to the extent of direct violence. But stealing a medicine is not much compared to saving a life. The pharmacist has a robbery insurance, he will get reimbursed. But saving the life of a loved one is defenitly worth a few hundred or thousand dollars. months in jail as well. IMO

I believe in determinism, but also in free will. To me they are not contradictory.Intelligence and conscisousness are nothing more than ermegrgences of complex system made of physical stuff.I indeed see myself as nothing more than flesh. I think that inteligence is a miracle, an emergence that occurs so rarely in the organic world of Life that it makes it miraculous to me.If you imply that your free will and your consciousness are not rooted in natural realities (flesh, chemical and electrical fluctuations, evolution of the nervous system in Life, evolution of social beahvior as survival strategies), you are referring to the soul, or some kind of supernatural stuff. Aren't you? It sounds like it.What are you if not a flesh robot (when you say "flesh robot", i hear "animal", is there a difference in your mind?) "It's electrical and chemical activity in your brain that has caused you to advance your position."Of course it is. How could thoughts could possibly be other than the result of brain activity?

I also think that the Godel reference (even if it sounds interesting) is a bit too much. The mathematics analogy is too hard to grasp i think, and because it is toward the end, it hits like a hammer.I would take it off personnaly. I would also shorten the intro, and get faster in your first part.

@Kevin " P1. You told me I'm wrong about how I am addressing your challenge. P2. You told me that telling people that they are wrong is disrespectful to their perspective. C1. You are not respecting my own perspective about how to address your challenge. C2. You put forward a rule that I must follow, but you don't have to. If we can't hammer out something as simple as this, I can't imagine we could make any progress in a discussion about advanced metaphysics. " I never meant to say that you were wrong, i never put forward any rule.When I said " i think you should respect my perspective"all i meant was to say that i thought acknowledging my perspective would make more sense than categoricaly rejecting it.I cannot convince you that Searle's framework is wrong from my persepective if I don't get in at the root of the concept you use, into your framework. And you cannot convince me my framework is wrong by keeping using Searle's vocabulary and angles (status function, ontological subjecticvity) because they just don't fit in my view.Those framework are just too different.I guess I got frustrated because you kept using Searle's realm of concept, which still makes no sense to me., without adressing what was wrong with my framework.I never said it was wrong, i never made a moral judgement on your doings. I meant that it was not productive.And the thing that I found not productive was not the fact that you told me that I am wrong, but the fact that you categorically refuse my framework.Refuting the existence of a scientific framework on the matter of existence like you did makes no sense to me, but I never said it was wrong to do anything.Anyway, I didnt mean to discredit your opinion from a moral ground. All I meant is that i thought it was not productive.Of course you don't have to do anything. I apologise if I gave you this impression of judging your method, I might have poorly express myself. That is what i thought as well, my choice of title for the thread is actually reflecting my opinion on the question.Existence seems to be the epicenter of this matter.Existence can be discussed as linguistic construction. A formulation of reality based on consciousness.Or it can be discussed as a "natural state". Which doesn't need consciousness to exist.This is where Kevin's view and mine set apart. If you allow me (and if i am not being wrong this time):You earlier mentionned that when you got scared in the bushes from an imaginative tiger, the only thing that was objective and real were the chemical and eletrical signal in your brain. Am I right?So even though you cannot touch those signal, you can measure them, therefore they have objective existence.So your fear was real because its components are real (measurable brain stimulies). But the tiger was not real, because only in your head.Now if I say that a concept like a unicorn is present in your brain as electrical and chemical stimulies, where am i wrong in saying that those electrical and chemical stimulations (measurable and ontologically objective) are real?I think I totally fit in this category: "A materialist, determinist perspective would be to say that it's not the concept that was causal, but rather electrical and chemical signals in my brain which caused me to have those expectations. That the concept is just fluff on top in an epiphenomenal sense, and that neurological activity causes the conscious experience and never the other way 'round."When you say:" When I use the word "exist" I mean to say that it is causal. The way in which it is causal is either subjectively experienced or occurs in the world and is something we can measure (objective). And that's why I really like the distinctions John Searle makes between different senses of the words "objective" and "subjective". It's a much more accurate way of looking at these issues to avoid any potential equivocation. " That is exactly where we disagree.I think that existence can only be backed up by Nature.Since we all use Language to talk about anything, everything we talk about fits in ontological subjectivity (specifically as a collective intention as Searle says), I don't see the point of his categories. To take the previous example I took regarding the definition of Searle's categories:Can you explain where the difference between a "claim which conforms to reality" and "those things we can touch / measure"?Because your example are: a tree and a 26 years old human, so what is the difference between those two entities?How does the fact that you are 26 is not ontological objective? You are an entity that can be touched, your age can be measured.How does the fact that you named this entity "tree" is not Ontological subjectivity (Language,biological classification, collective intention like Searle says)?

Well this is very interesting!I think you make a lot of good points, and you are very clear, good writing!Personally , i find your article a bit long compared to the original article. But this is personal taste, as your thorough analysis can explain the length of your reply. This was a lot of fun to read, very interesting, that Gödel reference is intriguing!I might pick it up. I personally would balance for Holmes view, but only slightly, you definitely got me wondering. I would love to debate these matters with you.I am not sure "if there's enough interest in the topic to continue spending time on it." I can't estimate the audience for this kind of things, i liked it though. Is it not finished? almost looks like it.

I don't think it can be wrong if it is occasional.I think the stress of moving to a new place is a good reason for her to ask proximity.

I am respecting your perspective( from which angle you attack this subject), i am just taking a different one.I acknowledge your view (the linguistic and philosophical framework you establish), I don't agree with it, because i think it makes no sense, this is the point i am trying to make by analysing the terms you use.You decided to adopt Searle's view, i respect that. And I will attack this position with arguments (like the tree/you analogy to counter the epistemic and ontological objectivity difference).I made the thread, I just assumed (wrongly apparently) that you would de-constructed the scientific framework i mentioned (scientific)before invoking a new one (Searl's) that you know is true. Addressing each other framework is pretty much taking things from the beginning for me.

Mysticism has a very unstable definition. This reminds me of a movie I watched on Ayahuasca and DMT. Fascinating stuff.I think it could all be described as interaction or malfunction within the brain, but there is definitely some stuff going on beyond scientific understanding.The immersion in an alternative reality could be dangerous. But like dreams, some surely can be constructive or positive. Maybe, i dont know.