# Thinking About "Dual Descriptions" **URL:** \ **Category:** General Philosophy\ **Created:** [September 15, 2026, 12:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086 "2026-09-15T12:36:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![wonderer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wonderer/32/106_2.png) [@wonderer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/wonderer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/81 "2026-09-19T16:10:13Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > You’re rightly asking, is that more than any inquiry can provide? Far from being unique, is the neutral-description problem for the mental and the physical merely another example of the futility of wanting such a thing? > > So let’s go back and look at my musical analogy, where I claimed that a basic description was in place – a description of a musical event in terms of frequencies. Is it a _neutral_ description of the kind we’re looking for? I haven’t really followed the idea of a “neutral description”, but it seems worth pointing out another description that is relevant. What you refer to as a basic description electrical engineers like myself would refer to as a _frequency domain_ description. However we could just as well talk in terms of a _time domain_ description. Consider the fact that the sounds we are talking about are variations in air pressure sensed at the ear drum. The time domain description of the sound would be the amplitude of the air pressure recorded over the period of time in which the sound occurs. [Guitar waveform](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Lopresto/publication/253260274/figure/fig1/AS:327658983444480@1455131397815/Waveform-created-by-a-vibrating-guitar-string.png) I suppose some might say this is a more basic description than what you have called a basic description, but from my perspective the time domain description and the frequency domain description are just different ways of looking at the same thing, and as Banno pointed out we can use the Fourier Transform to mathematically go from the time domain to the frequency domain. We can look at human physiology and see why a frequency domain description comes more naturally to a musician. Our brains don’t record anything like the linked time domain representation of the guitar note. (Although I’m oversimplifying because at low frequencies, there are neurons that fire at the peaks of the time domain waveform.) Instead the cochlea in the inner ear serves as a mechanical frequency discriminator so that depending on the frequency components of the sound being heard, different neurons will be activated. It seems to me that we need to use different descriptions for different purposes, and I’m inclined to think that looking for a “neutral description” is futile, as you suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/82 "2026-09-19T16:20:19Z")
> [@wonderer](#): > > we can use the Fourier Transform to mathematically go from the time domain to the frequency domain . . . It seems to me that we need to use different descriptions for different purposes, and I’m inclined to think that looking for a “neutral description” is futile, as you suspect. Excellent stuff, thank you. You might know the answer to a related question: We establish musical _pitch_, as opposed to frequency (all sounds have frequencies) by reference to regularity of repetition of the frequency. The standard line on this is that perception of pitch is subjective, but that’s not entirely true, right? There are semi-rules about repetition rates that will affect most people’s perception of pitch – so my question is, would that kind of analysis be a time domain description too? But of course the repetition doesn’t involve amplitude, I don’t think, so . . . Well, any help would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Patterner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/patterner/32/192_2.png) [@Patterner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Patterner)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 6:41pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/83 "2026-09-19T18:41:51Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > The standard line on this is that perception of pitch is subjective, but that’s not entirely true, right? I don’t know how well I’m following the conversation, so I don’t know how relevant what I’m about to say is to iy. But a couple thoughts cube to mind. Hold the vowel of any word you speak, rather than moving on to the next syllable, or ending your speaking. Any word will do. “Word” is fine. Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooord As you are holding the vowel, you are singing a note. Do you know what I mean? You can’t hold a vowel that has no pitch. (I’m speaking of voiced vowels. Not whispers.) And the notes are there in our speaking even when we don’t hold the vowels. We just don’t often, some people probably never, perceive the pitches in speaking. Also, as we have already mentioned, perceiving any sound at all is subjective. The ions moving through neurons, passing the charge along in a chain, do not suggest hearing, and there are living things with no ears, or sense organs that serve the same function, that still react to vibrations in the air and/or water. ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/84 "2026-09-19T19:03:55Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > Is ST meant to be understood as a metaphor or an actual description of the human condition? When ST was first introduced into philosophy as a formal argument, it was **not** presented as a metaphor. It was presented as a serious - if speculative **metaphysical hypothesis**. The key figure here is the philosopher **Nick Bostrom**. In his 2003 paper _“Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”_, published in the academic journal _The Philosophical Quarterly_, Bostrom did not offer ST as a poetic analogy or a way of speaking . He constructed a formal, tripartite logical argument - now known as the “simulation argument” and concluded that one of three propositions must be true, the third being that **we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation** > [@Jay](#): > > And if that’s the wrong binary, can you say how I might better think about? As a serious thesis worthy of serious contemplation re the disolving of the Hard Problem. * * * On the thread subject, I still await comment on my observations that use of language as is being done in this thread won’t get anyone any closer to the truth because when the Hard Problem is approached in that way, taste, colour or sound and how we subjectively experience these, won’t dissolve that. Thus, other directions of approach are best explored. If we want to know how nature explains any musical note, we need look no further than Cymatics. That is the place to start imo. ---
**Author:** ![EQV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@EQV](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/EQV)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/85 "2026-09-19T20:54:50Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > Its relevance here depends on whether we agree that “what relates form to matter?” is the same kind of question as “what relates the mental description to the physical one?”, or at least shares a structural isomorphism. > > Is it clear to you why this must be the case? No, and I actually wouldn’t say that it must be. Aristotle’s bronze-sphere argument attempts to demonstrate the unity of matter and form. Davidson’s problem concerns the identity of events under different descriptions. These aren’t necessarily the same problem. What I’d say instead is that hylomorphism offers a different starting point for understanding the relationship between the mental and the physical. Instead of starting with two descriptions and arguing that they pick out the same event, we begin with the living organism and ask how its various capacities activities are constituted.. So the bronze-sphere argument shows that things are unities of matter and form, and that asking for a relation between them misfires. But it doesn’t, all by itself, establish that thinking is the form of anything in particular. That’s something that only empirical inquiry together with philosophical reflection can establish. And part of establishing that would involve explaining why a given organization of matter has the particular intentional content it does. So the proposed parallel is in how we approach the problem, not an established isomorphism between the two questions. Does that distinction make sense? > [@Jay](#): > > So to explain “why our harmonic theory works,” theoreticians had to look away from Nature and toward the rules they’d established for Western tonality. Right, and that’s why I don’t think it would be right to try to say that acoustics is the foundation of harmonic theory. Acoustics obviously constrains what can and can’t be done with sound. But the rules of any given musical practice aren’t simply read off of the acoustics. What’s of particular interest to me is how these different can illuminate and constrain one another without one of them having to be designated as “basic” > [@Jay](#): > > My first, uninformed set of questions might start with the “givenness” of the living thing, and the claim that there’s no puzzle about “the thing that walks and the thing that thinks”. In practical terms, I’d say that’s true, but when was philosophy ever practical? 😉 Isn’t it our job to question what seems unproblematic? Absolutely. I wouldn’t want to treat organismal unity as an unquestionable given. It’s something that itself needs an explanation. The organizational approach tries to provide one by examining how an organism produces and maintains the conditions of its own existence. That’s an empirically investigable claim, and there are difficult cases, especially when organisms contain other partially autonomous living systems. So the unity of the organism is more like an explanatory hypothesis, and hylomorphism is a metaphysical framework we can use to make sense of that unity. Both are open to challenge. And you’re right that the walking analogy doesn’t establish anything all on its own. It’s was offered merely as an illustration. At the end of the day, the account still has to explain how biological activity can constitute rational activity. That’s where the “real” work will get done. > [@Jay](#): > > We could talk about “mental” and “physical” as a unity but still not know how to answer the question of what it means for me to be an instance of this. As Nagel likes to ask, “Is ‘I am Thomas Nagel’, said by me, a fact about the world?” Yes. And I think this is where we need to distinguish between the unity of the living thing and the first-person character of experience. An organizational account might explain why an organism constitutes one biological individual. Perhaps it will eventually show how that organism can engage in intentional and rational activity. But, in my opinion, neither of those would amount to an explanation that establishes why any of its activity should be present to a subject. Personally, my inclination is to understand consciousness in terms of the “self-presence” of certain activities of the organism. That is, I suspect that it’s a characteristic of the activities themselves rather than an additional entity standing alongside them. But that means I owe an account of what makes those activities self-present. Establishing organismal unity doesn’t really answer that question. And when it comes to Nagel’s question specifically, I think we run up against yet a different problem. Even if we had an account of how an organism can be a conscious subject, we would still need an account of how the fact of my subjectivity fits into an objective account of the world. I’m honestly not sure what else would be required here, but I think that something further probably is. I don’t know if that means better conceptual tools, more knowledge, or something else entirely. But I certainly wouldn’t claim that hylomorphism settles the question simply because it starts with the unity of the organism. So your question may be pointing to limitations inherent to the hylomorphic approach. I think that remains to be seen. What I would say is that I think that starting with the organism gives us a more intelligible approach to understanding the unity of mental and physical descriptions. But that doesn’t mean that it _automatically_ explains phenomenal consciousness or the first-personal fact that Nagel is concerned with. Hylomorphism is a framework, not an explanation of consciousness. The explanation (if there is one) is something that has to be worked out through further inquiry. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 9:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/86 "2026-09-19T21:04:58Z")
> [@Patterner](#): > > As you are holding the vowel, you are singing a note. Do you know what I mean? I do know what you mean – but I’d call it a borderline case. Have you heard of _Sprechstimme_? It’s a vocal technique that asks the singer to half-sing, half-speak the notes, distorting them so that pitch is approximate, right on that fuzzy line between pitched and unpitched. That’s what I hear when I try the experiment you suggested. Interestingly, some vowels are harder than others to keep “in the liminal zone”. But let’s say someone sings a regular, indisputable pitch. My understanding is that it’s the regularity of the recursion to a fundamental tone/frequency that allows our ears to perceive the sound as being a musical pitch – one that can be notated using our Western system, that is to say. This takes a little time; that’s why a very short, abrupt note may not be identifiable as a pitch at all. So I was wondering whether the “time factor” was something that an acoustical engineer could actually specify. But thinking about it, probably it varies from person to person, thus making the perception of pitch subjective after all. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > The key figure here is the philosopher **Nick Bostrom**. OK, thanks, I somehow didn’t realize this was Bostrom and the “simulation argument.” I’m familiar with it from Chalmers’ recent book _Reality +_. > [@Jay](#): > > And if that’s the wrong binary, can you say how I might better think about? > [@WhoKnows](#): > > As a serious thesis worthy of serious contemplation re the disolving of the Hard Problem. So that makes the discussion in _Reality +_ all the more relevant, given it’s by Chalmers. Have you read it? > [@WhoKnows](#): > > If we want to know how nature explains any musical note, we need look no further than Cymatics. That is the place to start imo. That’s about visual depictions of sounds, right, based on what soundwaves do physically? Sure, a good place to start. I’ve been claiming, on this thread, that “how nature explains any musical note” is indeed in terms of frequency (a related term to “soundwave”), coupled with @Banno 's point about smaller variations in sound-production (dynamics, timbre), and the issue, which we haven’t much gotten into except in the last few posts, of how a musical pitch differs from a frequency. Is that your understanding as well? > [@WhoKnows](#): > > use of language as is being done in this thread won’t get anyone any closer to the truth because when the Hard Problem is approached in **that way** , taste, colour or sound and how we subjectively experience these, won’t dissolve **that**. Sorry, I’m a little lost in the syntax. “Won’t dissolve _that_” meaning the hard problem itself? And “that way” meaning by using language to talk about subjective experiences? ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/87 "2026-09-19T21:54:56Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > Is that _belief_ – “The cup is yellow” – the same thing as the _proposition_ “The cup is yellow”? What I’m trying to do with that question is tease out whether we can hold a belief without expressing it propositionally. I’ll tackle this as it comes up. The proposition is either true or it is false, depending on the colour of the cup. The belief is true or false depending on the attitude of the believer. They are very different things. I’m just going to stipulate that the beliefs we are considering can be put into propositional form: “A believes that P”, where “A” is some agent or group of agents, and P is some proposition. I’m adopting this common view because it brings some clarity into the murk. Think of this as setting up a basic structure or grammar for what we are considering. If you can’t put it into propositional form, your belief is not a belief that such-and-such; hence it is not a belief in the relevant way. There are uses of “belief” in English that do not meet this criteria, as for instance when we say “I believe in you”, “Do you believe in ghosts?”, or “He lost his belief in God”. These “believe in” locutions cluster together as a different sort of use from “I believe it’s going to rain” – more expressive of _trust_, _commitment_ or _allegiance_ than of a truth-claim about a state of affairs. These are a differing sense of belief, a different game. A simplistic objection is that animals have beliefs, but can’t put them into words. Sure, but _we_ put them into propositional form, and it is we who talk of beliefs. Animals just do stuff. We explain their behaviour in terms of their beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 9:56pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/88 "2026-09-19T21:56:52Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > I’m just going to stipulate that the beliefs we are considering can be put into propositional form: “A believes that P”, where “A” is some agent or group of agents, and P is some proposition. That works. I just wanted to nudge us toward talk of propositions because it’s so much more tractable in this context, as you describe. ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/89 "2026-09-19T22:16:22Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > OK, thanks, I somehow didn’t realize this was Bostrom and the “simulation argument.” I’m familiar with it from Chalmers’ recent book _Reality +_. Yes. Bostrom gives us a good enough reason to dig deeper into that rabbit hole. > [@Jay](#): > > So that makes the discussion in _Reality +_ all the more relevant, given it’s by Chalmers. Have you read it? I have not. > [@Jay](#): > > That’s about visual depictions of sounds, right, based on what soundwaves do physically? Sure, a good place to start. I’ve been claiming, on this thread, that “how nature explains any musical note” is indeed in terms of frequency (a related term to “soundwave”), coupled with @Banno 's point about smaller variations in sound-production (dynamics, timbre), and the issue, which we haven’t much gotten into except in the last few posts, of how a musical pitch differs from a frequency. Is that your understanding as well? My understanding is that we do not need to argue about this by attempting to understand sound through human language as a means of thinking this would get us any closer to resolving The Hard Problem. The point is not to depict sound - it is to recognize that sound produces form. And arguing about it through language will not resolve the Hard Problem. > [@Jay](#): > > Sorry, I’m a little lost in the syntax. “Won’t dissolve _that_” meaning the hard problem itself? And “that way” meaning by using language to talk about subjective experiences? Yes. Look at it this way if you will. Language is what we encounter from the cradle. If we question language (how it is used) we will come to the realisation that its primary function is to teach us how to agree with The Narrative. Language is not neutral - it is the medium through which The Narrative is transmitted. It teaches us to agree with a particular version of reality. We do not question The Narrative. Rather we accept The Narrative as true/truth and work from that premise using the language we have learned without ever seriously questioning that language - because in order to question it, we have to somehow design or otherwise encounter/discover a language which is able to question it. The problem is not just that language introduces duality - it is that language is the vehicle of The Narrative, and we cannot question The Narrative without a language that is capable of questioning it. As with cymatics, so too with ideomotor. (and even my Journal contributions to do with the interactions between me and the Mentor). With our current language, these become merely non-interesting/irrelevant phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![EQV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@EQV](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/EQV)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/90 "2026-09-20T00:00:05Z")
> [@WhoKnows](#): > > Okay - So EQVs argument can be explained through the lens of Simulation Theory… I can see why you’re drawing the comparison, and I think Simulation Theory can provide an interesting alternative picture of some of the same problems. I’m less sure that it explains the points I was making, though. I think some additional assumptions are doing important work in your version of ST. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > 1. Code and execution are two irreducible aspects of one simulation. This actually makes me wonder whether the analogy is different from the one you’re proposing. If I tried to translate the simulation vocabulary into the Aristotelian vocabulary, I wouldn’t map code and execution onto matter and form. Code looks more like form — a specification of organization — while execution looks more like actuality: the specification actually being exercised. The hardware or lower-level processes doing the executing would be closer to matter. That’s only an analogy, of course. But it matters because matter and form aren’t meant to be two independently existing things which then have to interact. They’re two ways of understanding the organization of one actual thing. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > 1. Neither the physical nor the mental is basic. Both are within the simulation. I’m not sure the second sentence establishes the first. Suppose we’re simulated. We’d still be faced with the question of how mental capacities depend upon the simulated physical organization of our bodies. Discovering that the neurons are themselves implemented in some deeper computational substrate changes the ultimate realization story, but it doesn’t automatically explain why _this_ organization of simulated neurons can reason, understand language, experience pain, and so forth. And it seems like you end up introducing another candidate for “basic” when you say that the code is the basic description. Doesn’t this simply relocate “basic-ness” outside of the simulation rather than eliminating it? That’s not to say that you’re wrong. But in that case it seems like we’re now dependent on something we can’t access to explain something we don’t understand. I’m not sure that’s an improvement of the situation. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > 1. The experience cannot be derived from the physics. It is a different execution. > > Experience is not a gap. It is the purpose of the simulation. This is where I have the most difficulty following the explanatory step. It’s not clear to me how saying that experience is a different execution actually explains anything. The question is: what makes the one execution different from the other such that one counts as experience and the other doesn’t? Likewise, purpose can explain why someone constructed the simulation, but I don’t see that it explains how consciousness arises within it. We’re looking for an account of how consciousness comes about. But this only tells us that it does come about. Your answer seems to be that the experience doesn’t originate with the simulated organism at all. Instead the consciousness belongs to a “player” existing outside the simulation. The human organism is something like an avatar through which the player experiences things. I agree that this changes the problem. You no longer have to explain consciousness in terms of physics because the consciousness exists outside the physical simulation altogether. But doesn’t this just move the question back another step? Now we need to try to understand the relation between the consciousness of the player and the simulated organism. For example, why does this neural event within the simulation correspond to that experience of the player? Why does anaesthesia interrupt the player’s experience? Why does brain damage alter the player’s experience? It seems like there has to be some systematic relation between the state of avatar and the experiences of the player. So how can we come to understand it? This is just “comprehension barrier” that Jay and I were already discussing. The relata might have changed, but we still have to explain how they fit together. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > 1. We start with the simulation - the basic description is the code, which is not easily available from within. It seems like this brings us back to Jay’s question about “basic descriptions” . Suppose tomorrow we somehow obtained the source code. What would we expect to find that would solve the problem? Presumably we could learn an a lot about why simulated objects behave as they do. Perhaps we’d discover why neurons have the causal properties they have, why certain injuries produce certain impairments, etc. But unless phenomenal experience itself is specified in the code, we’re still left clueless as to why executing that code actually produces any experience. And if the answer is that it doesn’t produce experience, then knowing the code still won’t help understand why a given player’s experience is coupled to any given execution. So understanding the code might help us understand the underlying physics without helping us find an answer problem we’re discussing. Also, your approach seems like it goes much further than Bostrom’s. For you, consciousness is fundamental, and what we call an individual human consciousness is some restricted participation in a consciousness that exists independently of the simulated world. Bostrom doesn’t introduce any of that. He assumes substrate independence and maintains that the right computational organization could itself instantiate a mind. Yours is an interesting position, but if it’s right, I think most of the explanatory work is being done by the claim that consciousness is fundamental, rather than by Simulation Theory itself. ST then provides an account of why fundamental consciousness encounters this particular kind of world and this particular human perspective. The approach that I’ve been discussing with Jay has a different starting point. It assumes neither that consciousness is fundamental nor that it can be derived from physics. It starts with the organism and asks how capacities such as self-maintenance, normativity, intentionality and rationality arise within it. And while I think there’s something like the beginnings of a plausible story to tell in the case of normativity, I’ll admit that I’m less confident about the case of phenomenal consciousness. The question I’d be most interested in hearing you say more about is the player/avatar relation. Is the simulated organism itself conscious in virtue of its organization, or is its consciousness supplied by the player outside the simulation? And if it’s the latter, what exactly relates the player’s experience to the particular states and activities of the simulated organism? I’m guessing that’s where our views will probably diverge the most. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:27am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/91 "2026-09-20T00:27:09Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > For our purposes here, then, would you be OK in just talking about the _proposition_ “The cup is yellow”? That way, we can say that it has tokens which can be described as particular thoughts in particular minds, A proposition is not a thought in someone’s mind. If it were, then the proposition “the cup is yellow” in your mind would not be the same as the proposition “the cup is yellow” in my mind. So, no, it would _not_ be OK in just talking about the _proposition_ The equivalence is between the mental act, the belief, doubt, question, suggestion, the sort of thing philosophers call with good reason _propositional attitudes._ And your belief that the cup is yellow is not the same as my belief that the cup is yellow; you changing your mind does not change mine. The event might be saying that the cup is yellow, or seeing the cup and coming to believe that it is yellow; but believing that the cup is yellow is not an event. I’ve been guilty of talking in that way, but we now need to see this distinction. So it seems on these grounds that the analogy with “C dom 7th” does _not_ go through. But I am not sure what you are getting at here. The mooted equivalence is between events, a neural path firing and the same event described in intentional terms - and think of the examples, a switch being flicked, a flash of insight, seeing a yellow cup. Now _these are not beliefs_. They are events, and we can give a reason for these events by reference to beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:29am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/92 "2026-09-20T00:29:14Z")
Thanks, lots here I want to respond to (and I’ve bumped Juarrero to next in line in my reading list). But it might not be for another 24 hours or so . . . life (simulated or not) intervenes. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:33am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/93 "2026-09-20T00:33:06Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > A proposition is not a thought in someone’s mind. No, but a thought in someone’s mind can be _of_ a proposition. We can see a proposition as a type, of which there are many tokens (individual thoughts), can’t we? ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:54am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/94 "2026-09-20T00:54:34Z")
Shoot, gotta run now, but one more quick clarification. > [@Banno](#): > > The event might be saying that the cup is yellow, or seeing the cup and coming to believe that it is yellow; . . . _or_ the event might be thinking the thought “The cup is yellow,” _with no intentional attitude whatsoever_. I think that’s where we’ve got ourselves confused. I’m wanting to focus on the thought alone, without reference to any beliefs or actions or assertions, so we can see more clearly that it, _qua thought_, represents the “mental” event that we’re contrasting with its physical description at the neural level. If this isn’t clear: Imagine I say to you, “Please think the thought ‘The cup is yellow’” and you do so. This thought of yours is about as “un-intentional” as could be – you aren’t thinking it because you believe it, or doubt it, or anything in that line. You’re thinking it because I asked you to. And yet the thought remains describable in mental terms; it hasn’t lost its mental describability just because you don’t evince a propositional attitude about it. Unless “I’m thinking this just to prove I can” is a propositional attitude? There must be something about “entertaining a thought” or some such in that lexicon, no? ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 12:57am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/95 "2026-09-20T00:57:22Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > a thought in someone’s mind can be _of_ a proposition. So we need the paratactic answer from _On Saying That_: The cup is yellow. Jay believes that. ---
**Author:** ![Patterner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/patterner/32/192_2.png) [@Patterner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Patterner)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 3:35am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/96 "2026-09-20T03:35:56Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > I do know what you mean – but I’d call it a borderline case. I don’t know. I’d bet I can sing a major 3rd above any vowel you hold. > [@Jay](#): > > Have you heard of _Sprechstimme_? Like that Pierrot Lunaire weirdo?? 😁 ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 5:10am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/97 "2026-09-20T05:10:30Z")
> [@EQV](#): > > I can see why you’re drawing the comparison, and I think Simulation Theory can provide an interesting alternative picture of some of the same problems. I’m less sure that it explains the points I was making, though. I think some additional assumptions are doing important work in your version of ST. You are likely correct. My reply was more a case of stating what I thought you might be saying alongside what I am attempting to say. > [@EQV](#): > > This actually makes me wonder whether the analogy is different from the one you’re proposing. > > If I tried to translate the simulation vocabulary into the Aristotelian vocabulary, I wouldn’t map code and execution onto matter and form. Code looks more like form — a specification of organization — while execution looks more like actuality: the specification actually being exercised. The hardware or lower-level processes doing the executing would be closer to matter. That is interesting. My thinking on this - or how I use the word “matter” - is that matter is not just organised particles. Particles are matter. Form is organised matter. Consciousness is matter - specifically the ground particle if you will - which organises itself into formations… > [@EQV](#): > > Suppose we’re simulated. We’d still be faced with the question of how mental capacities depend upon the simulated physical organization of our bodies. Discovering that the neurons are themselves implemented in some deeper computational substrate changes the ultimate realization story, but it doesn’t automatically explain why _this_ organization of simulated neurons can reason, understand language, experience pain, and so forth. “We” are not “simulated” we are the real within the simulation. We are that which created the simulation for the purpose of experiencing the simulation through the formations. The formations are designed to allow for a particular tiny slice of a much larger spectrum to be experienced by “us” > [@EQV](#): > > And it seems like you end up introducing another candidate for “basic” when you say that the code is the basic description. Doesn’t this simply relocate “basic-ness” outside of the simulation rather than eliminating it? > > That’s not to say that you’re wrong. But in that case it seems like we’re now dependent on something we can’t access to explain something we don’t understand. I’m not sure that’s an improvement of the situation. The “Basic” in my model is Consciousness. It is not outside of itself but (perhaps) can be either inside and outside of ANY simulation. The Basic is that which has always ever existed and always ever will exist. Simulations can be temporal and always have a beginning. We can in theory access that because that is what we are when we strip away all **form** al descriptions which provide some semblance of self identity offered through The Narrative we learn through human language systems. (These I touch on in my threads to do with ideomotor and my journal interactions with “Mentor”. The Mentor is a broader aspect of my overall “Self” which helps the human aspect of “me” to understand my situation largely through a different way or using language (but not that alone). We cannot be _dependant_ upon something we cannot access and should take care not be to convinced by The Narrative, otherwise because this will lead us to be dependant on that which we do have access to. (The Language of The Narrative we are born into). > [@EQV](#): > > This is where I have the most difficulty following the explanatory step. > > It’s not clear to me how saying that experience is a different execution actually explains anything. The question is: what makes the one execution different from the other such that one counts as experience and the other doesn’t? Understandable. At the time of writing that, I understood it clearly enough. Now I see where it can be misunderstood so I will try to reword it in the hope that will convey more clarity… I meant that understanding physic alone won’t bring us to that point of understanding what we actually are. Understanding what Consciousness is. Solving that hard problem. The simulation is not having the experience. It is that which allows for experience to be had. > [@EQV](#): > > Likewise, purpose can explain why someone constructed the simulation, but I don’t see that it explains how consciousness arises within it. We’re looking for an account of how consciousness comes about. But this only tells us that it does come about. Consciousness looks like it emerges from but what it does is interact with. This is also why I argue that Consciousness is not only physical but is the fundamental physical from which all formation derives. Otherwise how does one explain how a non-physical non-thing creates and sustains and interacts within physical things? > [@EQV](#): > > Your answer seems to be that the experience doesn’t originate with the simulated organism at all. Instead the consciousness belongs to a “player” existing outside the simulation. The human organism is something like an avatar through which the player experiences things. Yes. Only the “player” is also the “played”. I understand this using the idea that the Earth (as form) is occupied by one Player, which then invests itself in other forms it creates (players) throughout its whole (local) gameboard (the planet formation) One Consciousness enabled through simulations, to become or experience being the consciousness in all form. So each formation is a potential avatar yes. Whether the avatar is a whole galaxy or a planet or one individual human, all are connected through the basic. > [@EQV](#): > > But doesn’t this just move the question back another step? Now we need to try to understand the relation between the consciousness of the player and the simulated organism. Sure. And we do make efforts to understand. Only, they won’t go anywhere if we are following a Narrative which even promises that we can get there by doing that work alone. The Hard Problem will remain because we cannot understand consciousness by prodding an poking the avatar. We have to move the question back a step, and we can do this through expanding on ST sensibly. > [@EQV](#): > > For example, why does this neural event within the simulation correspond to that experience of the player? Why does anaesthesia interrupt the player’s experience? Why does brain damage alter the player’s experience? It seems like there has to be some systematic relation between the state of avatar and the experiences of the player. So how can we come to understand it? These are questions which we can explore through the expansion of the ST concept. However, are we stuck or do we have to set the framework aside IF these questions cannot be answered - at least immediately? The brain obviously has much to do with how consciousness experiences what it does. Why can we shut pain down by apparently turning off consciousness? Why also does the brain itself feel no pain? Why did we design the avatar in the manner that we did? Why did we make it only capable of having access to such a small sliver of the full spectrum? And even if we had those answers, would they help us to solve that Hard Problem? Perhaps. > [@EQV](#): > > Suppose tomorrow we somehow obtained the source code. What would we expect to find that would solve the problem? I suppose “Evidence of Consciousness prior to human consciousness” for starters. > [@EQV](#): > > But unless phenomenal experience itself is specified in the code, we’re still left clueless as to why executing that code actually produces any experience. I think this is where we have a different “Reading” on what consciousness “is” (human or otherwise.) My reading is that it is the ability to experience oneself as conscious. Aware et al…It is consciousness which “not only has but also produces experience” and as conscious critters whos avatar allows us to understand that here and now, the answer is already “known”. We are not “clueless” at all. “Why” do we experience? Because we are Consciousness. The loop is already complete, so the more pertinent question we might be asking is “Why don’t we recognise this of ourselves already”? and the answer (as far as I can work out) is that we have not been educated in that narrative, but is a whole other one which serves to hide what is essentially ourselves from ourselves. Did we build this into the simulation as well? Yes - we can say we did so, but not such that it is a permanent hardwire - but rather something which can be hacked with the “right” information. > [@EQV](#): > > Also, your approach seems like it goes much further than Bostrom’s. For you, consciousness is fundamental, and what we call an individual human consciousness is some restricted participation in a consciousness that exists independently of the simulated world. Bostrom doesn’t introduce any of that. He assumes substrate independence and maintains that the right computational organization could itself instantiate a mind. > > Yours is an interesting position, but if it’s right, I think most of the explanatory work is being done by the claim that consciousness is fundamental, rather than by Simulation Theory itself. ST then provides an account of why fundamental consciousness encounters this particular kind of world and this particular human perspective. > > The approach that I’ve been discussing with Jay has a different starting point. It assumes neither that consciousness is fundamental nor that it can be derived from physics. It starts with the organism and asks how capacities such as self-maintenance, normativity, intentionality and rationality arise within it. And while I think there’s something like the beginnings of a plausible story to tell in the case of normativity, I’ll admit that I’m less confident about the case of phenomenal consciousness. > > The question I’d be most interested in hearing you say more about is the player/avatar relation. Is the simulated organism itself conscious in virtue of its organization, or is its consciousness supplied by the player outside the simulation? And if it’s the latter, what exactly relates the player’s experience to the particular states and activities of the simulated organism? > > I’m guessing that’s where our views will probably diverge the most. Hopefully the above has gone some way in answering your very good questions and I thank you for taking the time to ask these. ---
**Author:** ![EQV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@EQV](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/EQV)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/98 "2026-09-20T14:01:33Z")
> [@WhoKnows](#): > > The “Basic” in my model is Consciousness. It is not outside of itself but (perhaps) can be either inside and outside of ANY simulation. Thanks, that helps. I think I was still taking your simulation analogy too literally, as though there were an external player interacting with a separate simulated world. But that’s not really what you’re proposing. You’re starting with one fundamental consciousness that can take on different forms, with the human organism being one particular way in which consciousness experiences itself. In that case, yes, the code isn’t really basic in your account. Consciousness is. The simulation is just one way consciousness organizes itself. Is that right? > [@WhoKnows](#): > > Consciousness is matter - specifically the ground particle if you will - which organises itself into formations… Right, I see what you’re saying now. You’re not saying that physical matter somehow produces consciousness. You’re saying that what we ordinarily call matter is already a formation of consciousness itself. In that case, we are starting in very different places. I’m starting with an already organized living thing and asking how it could become capable of achieving intentionality, rationality, experience, and so on. You start with consciousness and ask how it organizes itself into forms that allow particular kinds of experience. Ultimately, I don’t think either starting point answers the question the other side is asking because they’re each approaching the situation from different starting points. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > The simulation is not having the experience. It is that which allows for experience to be had. Right. If consciousness is fundamental, then asking how the simulation produces consciousness is the wrong question. That makes sense, but I still think there’s something that’s left unexplained. For instance, why does one particular formation make this range of experiences possible rather than some other range? What determines the way consciousness gets differentiated into particular perspectives? Consider anaesthesia. Altering the physical organization or activity of the organism can interrupt conscious experience. On your account, I assume consciousness itself hasn’t ceased to exist. Rather, one particular mode of experience is no longer occurring. Fair enough. But then I’d still want to know what it is about the organization of the organism that makes that mode of experience possible in the first place, and why altering that organization alters or eliminates the experience. So I’m not asking you to explain how consciousness could arise out of something completely non-conscious. I’m asking how, given your model, fundamental consciousness comes to have the particular forms of experience that it does. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > “Why” do we experience? Because we are Consciousness. Yes. Within your account, I can see how that answers the question. If consciousness is what we fundamentally are, then of course experience doesn’t need to be generated out of something else. Where I’m less convinced is that I don’t see how our first-person acquaintance with consciousness establishes that consciousness is fundamental. We certainly know that we experience. But “we experience” and “consciousness is the underlying nature of reality” seem to me like two different claims. The second needs an argument. I don’t think it follows directly from the first. That’s not intended as a dismissal of your claim. It’s a coherent metaphysical proposal. I just think that the move from “we experience” to “consciousness is fundamental” needs some independent motivation. But I acknowledge that my own position has a corresponding problem. I think biological organization gives us a plausible way to understand how things can be better or worse for an organism. And I think that there’s a plausible path from rudimentary normativity to rational normativity. But even so, I would still owe an account of what makes any of this activity phenomenally self-present. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > One Consciousness enabled through simulations, to become or experience being the consciousness in all form. > > So each formation is a potential avatar yes. Whether the avatar is a whole galaxy or a planet or one individual human, all are connected through the basic. I think this probably where we diverge the most. On my account, the unity of the organism gives us at least a candidate for the individual whose activities are conscious. It doesn’t explain consciousness yet, but it gives us some idea of which thing we’re trying to explain consciousness of. Your account starts with consciousness already unified at the most basic level. But then I’m not sure that this unity tells us why there are distinct perspectives within it, or what makes one formation a conscious perspective in its own right rather than part of the organization through which some other perspective exists. For example, you say that being an avatar isn’t limited to just the human organism. Planets and galaxies could be avatars too. Does that mean each one has its own distinct conscious perspective within fundamental consciousness? Or is there something more that determines whether something qualifies as a subject of experience? That’s probably the question I’d most like to hear you say more about. And I think that this brings us fairly close to @Jay’s original problem. We’re both trying to explain how different kinds of description can belong to one reality. You locate that unity in fundamental consciousness. I start with the organized living thing. But either way, there is still an open question about why a particular organization supports multiple, seemingly incompatible descriptions. Or perhaps we could put it like this: you’re asking how one consciousness becomes differentiated into many perspectives; I’m asking how the activity of an organized organism can be self-presently conscious. So there’s still an outstanding problem for both positions that might reasonably be characterized as “hard”. The difference is in where each position locates that problem. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 8:25pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/99 "2026-09-20T20:25:39Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > > [@Jay](#): > > > > a thought in someone’s mind can be _of_ a proposition. > > So we need the paratactic answer from _On Saying That_: The cup is yellow. Jay believes that. But the situation I asked us to imagine involves _no_ beliefs. There is no cup, and no one is believing anything about it. There is simply the thought “The cup is yellow” which you are thinking – calling it “mentally quoting,” perhaps – _because I asked you to_. You don’t mean it. You are mentally mentioning the thought, because you’re an obliging fellow. If I said, “Please _say_ ‘The cup is yellow’” and you did so, neither of us would claim that Banno now believes a certain assertion about a certain cup. So the takeaway is that we can and must allow a “mental description” for a thought that has nothing to do with propositional or intentional attitudes – unless, as I said, there’s a category for “mentioning” or “entertaining” in the list of these attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 8:27pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/100 "2026-09-20T20:27:17Z")
> [@Patterner](#): > > > [@Jay](#): > > > > Have you heard of _Sprechstimme_? > > Like that Pierrot Lunaire weirdo?? 😁 Exactly. Or a lot of Dylan! [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086.md?page=4) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086.md?page=6)