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Matthew Christopher Bartsh

 Discussion on answer by Annika: Is Th…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Aug 7, 2024 21:20
That should give you plenty to shoot at :)
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Aug 7, 2024 21:19
By the way, I added quite a bit of text to my answer about half an hour ago.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Aug 7, 2024 21:17
@Dcleve Good idea to reply here. But I don't see anything by you on this page that addresses the points I made in my SE answer.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Aug 6, 2024 20:46
@ScottRowe I wrote a long reply to you and decided to post it as an answer instead of here. Here's the link: philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/115839/58715
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Aug 6, 2024 17:52
@ScottRowe True. It has been called "the hard nonproblem of consciousness".
 

 The Symposium

A Party Space for Philosophy.SE! Both philosophy and mundane c...
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 11, 2023 05:08
@Olivier5 You are repeating yourself. I told you already that a p-zombie is an important concept in philosophy, with the luminary Dan Dennett even saying that all humans are p-zombies. It sounds like you are conflating the zombie of mythology with the p-zombie of philosophy. Or are you trying to be funny?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 10:37
@RyderRude Bye :)
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 09:48
@RyderRude "u have to give another definition of "me" before we can discuss things further" I don't have to do anything. If you are tired finding out how wrong you are, go ahead and ragequit. I would find it amusing.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 09:46
"my experience is a primitive in my framework. " I don't care about your framework.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 09:45
"How do you know?" is just a conventional way of phrasing in English. A figure of speech. It doesn't imply that I think you (an individual person with subjective experience) exist beyond a user name and some process that generates text, possibly an AI or a team of people. I could have said, "How is that provably the case?"
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 08:46
It's similar to the question of whether Captain Kirk dies on the Enterprise and another being similar to him comes into existence on the surface of the planet when he gets "beamed down". If there is no experiment that can decide the question, then it is meaningless.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 08:44
@RyderRude Instead of saying "I know X", you could say instead, "X is provably the case." How do you know saying the former is justified? Saying "I know X" is the traditional way of putting it, but so what? Lots of traditional ways of thinking and talking have turned out to be just hot air. Maybe neither "me" nor what you call "this internal mode existence" mean anything. I if you disagree, please describe an experiment that could demonstrate it.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 06:52
@Olivier5 PUI?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 06:50
How do you know that there is such a thing as your internal mode existence?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 10, 2023 06:49
@RyderRude How do you know that there is such a thing as your "experience", or what you call "me"?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 9, 2023 13:50
@RyderRude And how do you know that you have qualia?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 9, 2023 12:18
@RyderRude
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 9, 2023 12:17
"the laws of physics do not allow beings to exist that are completely identical to humans from the outside but have no internal qualia.
or, i should say "nature does not allow it"" You are assuming what you are setting out to prove. That is called arguing in a circle, isn't it?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Dec 9, 2023 12:13
@Olivier5 A p-zombie learns lessons in exactly the same time, and exactly as well, as the "normal" human being that he/she/it is identical to when examined "from the outside", i.e. using objective tests. And a p-zombie has no qualia, by definition.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 30, 2023 19:57
How can qualia be a biological necessity when the behavior of the organism is not affected by them. Survival of the fittest and so on is not affected by the presence or otherwise of qualia. Can you tell me what qualia are necessary for?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 30, 2023 19:54
Also, a p-zombie is not a chimeric being. According to Dennett we are all p-zombies, in a sense, at least.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 30, 2023 19:52
Chalmers says that by definition a p-zombie behaves normally, meaning it is is indistinguishable from a normal human being except "from the inside". No objective test can detect p-zombie status, by definition. The absence of qualia is the only difference between a p-zombie version of John Smith and the original John Smith, by definition. I was using that meaning.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 30, 2023 19:52
zombies "behaving normally" (whatever that means)." seems a bit strange. It's meaning seemed clear enough to you (presumably) and to me, the first time you wrote it.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 30, 2023 19:52
@Olivier5 "If, as I believe, qualia are biological necessities, then a person missing them cannot behave normally." is what you wrote. So to then write, "I am not that interested in chimeric beings, like unicorns and zombies, even those unicorns and
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 14:35
You aren't paying attention, it seems. Let say it again: By definition, p-zombies behave normally.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 14:34
I meant, Chalmers may not in fact have invented the p-zombie idea.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:17
Oh, and Chalmers may not in fact have invented the idea, but only popularized it. I vaguely recall that another philosopher came up with it ten or a hundred years earlier, gaining little attention (rightly, in my arrogant opinion).
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:11
By the way, I think Chalmers is essentially talking nonsense.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:10
Like most people, including many professional philosophers, you have failed to understand what exactly a p-zombie is, as defined by the inventor of the idea, David Chalmers.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:09
By definition, p-zombies do behave like normal folks.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:07
As a comment on this question: philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/99377/58715
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:07
"
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:06
Therefore, that some of us lack qualia is not logically impossible. What is implausible is that, p-zombies lacking qualia, they would behave like normal folks.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 15, 2023 07:06
@Olivier5 Talk I guess. You wrote, "@MatthewChristopherBartsh There's a serious question behind the joke, which is the hidden presupposition that we all share fundamentally the same kind of conscious experience, the same type of dasein, or lack thereof. This assumption of a common human condition is not obviously true. One could say it is an approximation, since in reality we are all different in many ways.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 14, 2023 15:49
Or click the link I posted in a reply to you.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 14, 2023 15:48
Th top right corner of the screen where we were talking has a square speech bubble with two horizontal lines across it. To get here from there click on that speech bubble and see the menu that drops down and then click in that menu on "chat" (to the right of "Philosophy").
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Nov 14, 2023 15:41
@olivier5 Wassup
 

 Discussion between Gareth Rees and Ma…

Imported from a comment discussion on literature.stackexchange...
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 30, 2023 18:06
@GarethRees When I clicked on the question mark in the circle at the top right in the editing box, I couldn't find an "Advanced help" link to click on. I clicked on all the links there, but couldn't find anything relevant, not even using control F quite a bit.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 30, 2023 16:51
@GarethRees I tried it out and it worked. Thanks. BTW, three, four or more spaces seems to produce the same result, correct me if I'm wrong. Your link to "editing help" is great. Could you please tell me where else I can find a link to "editing help", as I couldn't find one.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 29, 2023 20:58
@GarethRees May I inquire how you were able to fix the formatting of the first five lines of the "Ode to the Comic Spirit" in my new question. I am impressed, because I tried for a long time to fix it, and could not.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 29, 2023 14:45
@GarethRees May I know why you didn't ping me in your last comment?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 29, 2023 14:42
@GarethRees "Priestley assumes that his reader is flexible enough not to have trouble with this!" Does the exclamation mark mean the same as a smiley emoji here? If so, is this an attempt at protecting yourself with a smile"? :)
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 23:43
And what do you think "harvest brain" means?
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 23:39
Oops. I forgot to add quote marks to that quote. That should have been "The “ Ode to the Comic Spirit ” strikes the same note in its opening lines :

Sword of Common Sense ! —

Our surest gift : the sacred chain Of man to man : firm earth for trust In structures vowed to permanence : —

Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain !

In both passages, it will be noticed, the intimate relation between the Comic Spirit and common sense is insisted upon, and it is impossible to go any further without stopping to consider what exactly is meant by “ common sense ""
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 23:37
The formatting got messed up during the copypasting, but you can see that "Common Sense" is capitalized by Meredith in his verse. However, Priestley does not capitalize it when he quotes this. I found this strange and I am wondering whether I should add this point to the question. It seems be an example of cavalier disregard for capitalization by Priestley.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 23:32
The “ Ode to the Comic Spirit ” strikes the same note in its opening lines :

Sword of Common Sense 1 —

Our surest gift : the sacred chain Of man to man : firm earth for trust In structures vowed to permanence : —

Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain !

In both passages, it will be noticed, the intimate relation between the Comic Spirit and common sense is insisted upon, and it is impossible to go any further without stopping to consider what exactly is meant by “ common sense "
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 23:25
@GarethRees "Priestley capitalized and italicized Essay because that's part of the title (in some editions), for example, the 1897 edition is titled An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit." That would be something good to include in the answer, I would guess.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 28, 2023 18:05
@GarethRees I think your answer is quite good, and I am seriously considering upvoting it. I proposed a minor edit just now, because "have to understand this as a summarization of Meredith" made be stop and wonder whether "of Meredith" could mean " by Meredith".
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 27, 2023 21:14
@GarethRees I think I succeeded in staying clear of what the quote means, even while casting doubt on whether it meant anything in context (which of course leaves open the question of what it means on it's own - certainly it's remarkably popular and the question of what people think it means is still of interest to me. And arguably the author has no say over how it is interpreted now, as an isolated saying, with "Comedy"'s initial capital invisible at the start of the sentence.
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Sep 27, 2023 21:14
@GarethRees If I was successful in not speculating about what it means, it seems to me that you were too hard on yourself, and should have left the answer, perhaps adding a bit more speculation about the meaning or meanings of the quote to compensate for the use of similar or even overlapping quotes with the question. By the way, do you think I was too critical of Priestley and/or Meredith?