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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>The terminology used in philosophy tends to be overly convoluted in comparison with other fields. Take anything Hegel wrote as an extreme example. On the other hand, terminology in mathematics or physics always has a very precise meaning. Much of philosophy is an attempt to force rigor and precision onto inherently vague and subjective concepts. We must ultimately accept that our intuitions and conceptual understanding of ourselves and the world is only very loosely based on reality. Trying to force rigor and objectivity onto our conceptual understanding is doomed to arbitrariness.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There is no fundamental issue with vague and abstract intuitive concepts. Art relies and flourishes in such things. The problem is forcing arbitrary structure onto these concepts such as philosophy is wont to do. Someone can write a treatise on the true structure and meaning of a painting. But this would be intellectually dishonest because a painting, much like identity and mind, carries no fixed meaning or rules. Let art be art and laws be laws.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0in'><b>From: </b><a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat</a><br><b>Sent: </b>Tuesday, March 2, 2021 5:39 PM<br><b>To: </b><a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">ExI chat list</a><br><b>Cc: </b><a href="mailto:danust2012@gmail.com">Dan TheBookMan</a><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [ExI] Chalmers</p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 3:46 PM Hermes Trismegistus via extropy-chat</p><p class=MsoNormal><extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org> wrote:</p><p class=MsoNormal>> That’s the problem with philosophers. They like making up their own terminology. It can be</p><p class=MsoNormal>> difficult to distinguish the gibberish from the coherent. In this case Chalmers is trying to say</p><p class=MsoNormal>> that something is reducible if the workings of the whole is explainable in terms of the parts.</p><p class=MsoNormal>><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>> In my experience philosophers try to explain their theories in the most complicated way</p><p class=MsoNormal>> possible to obfuscate potential errors. Politicians use the same technique and seeing</p><p class=MsoNormal>> exactly where the error is can be difficult. I suggest you read something more intellectually</p><p class=MsoNormal>> honest such as a physics or mathematics book.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>That's the problem with overgeneralization and double standards. I</p><p class=MsoNormal>find it hard to think of an area of discourse that does end up</p><p class=MsoNormal>inventing terminology to make it easy for those involved to discuss</p><p class=MsoNormal>their views and try to make progress. Engineering, mathematics, logic,</p><p class=MsoNormal>history, anthropology, film criticism, etc. Can you think of one?</p><p class=MsoNormal>Maybe you can, but this is hardly a vice -- if it is one at all --</p><p class=MsoNormal>that philosophers have a monopoly on.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Often, too, there's two ways you can approach terminological problems.</p><p class=MsoNormal>One is to use an existing term -- usually one that already carries an</p><p class=MsoNormal>ordinary meaning or set of meanings -- and stipulate what you mean by</p><p class=MsoNormal>it that is more precise or just plain different from ordinary usage.</p><p class=MsoNormal>That runs the risk of outsiders (and even less perceptive insiders)</p><p class=MsoNormal>misunderstanding the meaning. (An example of this is 'work' and</p><p class=MsoNormal>'power' in physics. These are words that came from ordinary usage and</p><p class=MsoNormal>have a more precise meaning in physics. This can easily confuse the</p><p class=MsoNormal>lay audience.)</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The other is, of course, to come up with new terms. This has the</p><p class=MsoNormal>virtue of less confusion with a term already in wide use. It's easy to</p><p class=MsoNormal>see how this can befuddle outsiders (and insiders). I don't think it's</p><p class=MsoNormal>an act of intellectual dishonesty though. (Of course, it can cover</p><p class=MsoNormal>intellectual dishonesty, but so can using an existing term in a</p><p class=MsoNormal>different way: that can be used easily to bait and switch people in</p><p class=MsoNormal>any field.)</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By the way, though Chalmer's book is a classic and often sold as an</p><p class=MsoNormal>intro book on the subject, it seems to me not to be an intro... Not if</p><p class=MsoNormal>you're looking for a work on philosophy of mind more along the lines</p><p class=MsoNormal>of 'I'm new to philosophy, including philosophy of mind, and just want</p><p class=MsoNormal>to get my feet wet.' I believe a book in that regard is Smith and</p><p class=MsoNormal>Jones _The Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction_. (I haven't read John</p><p class=MsoNormal>Heil's entry into the Routledge 'contemporary introduction' series on</p><p class=MsoNormal>philosophy of mind, but the series is overall decent, so you could try</p><p class=MsoNormal>that one.) There's also Jaegwon Kim's _Philosophy of Mind_, which has</p><p class=MsoNormal>several editions. That's a bit more advanced, but still quite good.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Also, there's the issue of how much you want to invest in a book. I</p><p class=MsoNormal>mean invest in terms of effort to understand. If it's a struggle, then</p><p class=MsoNormal>you can blame the author, but you can also blame yourself. It's not</p><p class=MsoNormal>always the author's fault that someone has picked up a book that's</p><p class=MsoNormal>really not for them. (I believe Chalmers was targeting an audience of</p><p class=MsoNormal>fellow philosophers or at least philosophy undergrads and not the lay</p><p class=MsoNormal>audience.) For instance, you think mathematics is clear and honest. I</p><p class=MsoNormal>have dozens of mathematics books -- mostly graduate texts -- that are</p><p class=MsoNormal>not books I read before bed or after a few beers. I certainly don't</p><p class=MsoNormal>speed read them. For me, they're a struggle, but kind of a worthy one.</p><p class=MsoNormal>(That said, I often give up the struggle after a few chapters. To be</p><p class=MsoNormal>fair, some are more for reference.)</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Regards,</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dan</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>_______________________________________________</p><p class=MsoNormal>extropy-chat mailing list</p><p class=MsoNormal>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</p><p class=MsoNormal>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>