Subjectivity and Science [Archive] - Page 4

Dancing David

12th February 2008, 09:06 AM

Yes, I agree in a sense. However, there is now the awareness that no individual is really doing this, and that no meaningful point of observation actually exists. You can still be a scientist if that takes your fancy, for sure, or if you think there are good things to be found with science.

Now that just appaers to be an asserion to me. How do you reach the conclusion that "no meaningful point of observation actually exists"?

Show your work and how you got there please.

For a discussion I will present the following framework:

1. There are the world and the things in the world. The ontology doesn't matter.

2. Certain Things In And Of Themselves are able to have experiences. Which have refferents to other TIAOT.

3. Some TIOAT are able to communicate regarding these experiences. Which have referents to other TIAOT.

4. Neither experience or communication are exact in the correlation to other TIAOT.

5. Some thoughts, experiences and communications are apparently subject to isotropy, in that they will approximate the behavior of TIAOT and that they can predict the behavior of TIAOT and that they appear to be consistent in predicting the behavior of TIAOT.

6. Some thoughts appears to have the ability to establish causal relations in the behavior of TIAOT. In that given a set of relations between TIAOT and one changes the set or relations one can predict the changes in behavior of the TIAOT.

7. 'Objective' is a label applied to thoughts that use isotropy and reductionist causal relations to determine causal relations between TIAOT.

So where is it that you can state there is "no meaningful point of observation actually exists" when it comes to the above framework?

John Freestone

12th February 2008, 10:21 AM

John, we can agree to disagree, no problems. I'm not here to bash anyone unless they're claiming super powers...or trying to sell me magic detoxifying footpads.

It's just that I'm relatively new to this whole "science is a belief" idea, as I said upthread I've only ever seen it related to ID vs Evolution and in that context it was more being used as a weapon without any real explanation as to why I should consider it as "fact"

If I were to try and boil your stance down to one sentence and try to relate to science as a belief I find myself coming up with...well...opinion. But I'll try anyway.

Suppose we take Einstein's famous equation E=MC Squared

That basically says that energy and mass are the same thing and I would put your stance as putting more weight to the idea that mass ( material ) is actually energy and therefore science is failing to take this into consideration when it discusses materialism.

From your post, I gather you're taking the opinion that science reduces everything to matter, and completely discounts energy, which, if true, would lend credence to the idea that science functions as a belief system.

Energy-Matter:
No, misunderstandings gallore, I'm afraid. I was happily discussing the issue of the subject(ive) problem using 'matter' as a shorthand for energy-matter, aware of their interchangeability and also not really considering their dual nature much of a concern. Then along came Dancing David, if I remember rightly (pardon me DD if I'm wrong), telling me in response to my discussion of materialism and the problem of the universe not actually appearing much like matter as normally thought of by ordinary folks that there wasn't any matter, it was all energy, and it behaved as waves everywhere, always, and he hoped that cleared it up for me.

Of course, what it did was introduce a red-herring. I, being relatively ignorant of 21st Century particle physics (understatement of the year), took his word for it and asked what difference it made to the question (which we established was none at all), and also (ironically) asked why materialism was called materialism. If I remember right, I also stated that I had thought that light, for instance, behaved as particles under some circumstances and waves under others, and that there was at least some controversy about what it all meant. This was the state of play the last time I watched Open University, but that might be 5 years ago.

Various other people then lectured me on the understanding that matter and energy are interchangeable, which, as I said, I knew already. Strangely, no-one seems to have argued with DD about there only being energy and it always behaving as a wave. I could also get into questions about whether 'particle physicists' are just using the same kind of shorthand we use when talking about 'materialism'. I might also question whether the idea of quanta of energy and waves are compatible imagery, or whether quanta (packets) are not rather more like particles, but I can't be bothered. It does, however, reinforce the general ignorance science somehow manages to translate into nearly having a theory of everything, so thanks for that.

Science as Belief
I'm surprised this needs explainaing again, but I guess you're actually struggling with it more because of all the red-herrings we've been wading through.

You consider Christianity a belief system because it has certain ideas that define it, most notably the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the one and only incarnation of God. Science says everything is matter, and that matter behaves according to laws that apply in all circumstances. These, like the incarnation of God, are axioms. One is reinforced by dogma, the other is reinforced by....erm....dogma. Ok, that's harsh, but let's just note how incredibly difficult it seems to be for anyone to raise the question without being labelled insane, having a jesus complex, wanting to preach, being unable to deal with harsh possibilities, and all the rest of the hostility I found here. Old hands even warned me it would come. But it is more complicated than that. It is reinforced as much by habit and the difficulty of inventing another form of science that could possibly look for evidence of non-physical entities. The very idea of looking is wrapped up in physicality. We look because of the light reflected or emitted by matter. So I did acknowledge that the question was unfair in that sense, and belonged not to science, but philosophy. This challenge came up early on, and I reminded us that the board was for philosophy and religion.

Incidentally, it is even more amazing that the scientific-belief-system of the forum as a whole legitimised the scientific-believers on the philosophy and religion forum to bully philosophers and religious people, as if our views didn't belong here. Articulett even told me to 'evolve then join the conversation', as if it were her conversation, her board, her forum and she was talking to me from further up the evolutionary tree. She seemed not to notice that I started the conversation, or to consider whether other people's views should have equal rights to hers.

Anyway, I hope that helps. Science is a belief system because it concerns beliefs that fit its philosophy - its underlying metaphysical assumptions - so your other examples are also scientific beliefs (the firewalking one and this energy-is-matter one). I don't quite see what's so hard to understand. If someone's in a pub and says they're a scientist, I generally know what kinds of things they believe. If the guy next to them says they're a Christian, I generally know what kind of things he believes, and I wouldn't see anything odd about the scientist saying "I'm a scientist. I believe that the only thing in the universe is matter/energy".

The Christian would then say "What? Well explain to me how you're aware then?"

And the scientist would say, from what I understand, "I'm not. I just think I am. I'm a deluded zombie...you throwback moron!"

It is about this time that Buddhists at the next table would politely intervene and clear up all the misunderstandings by chanting and ringing a bell and reminding us what Prince Siddartha said about everything being Void and the importance of being nice to people.

Sorry, I've just lost the will to discuss this sensibly anymore! :blush:

Nick227

12th February 2008, 10:37 AM

Now that just appaers to be an asserion to me. How do you reach the conclusion that "no meaningful point of observation actually exists"?

Show your work and how you got there please.

Well, it's fundamental to a non-dual system that you cannot be separated from it. You can experience separation, but it's held that this separation be regarded either as "illusory" or at least in some way intransient.

In order to have a point of observation from which to make an objective statement, it is needed to have separation. There needs to be a clearly demarcated or at least agreed boundary, such that the observing system be regarded as distinct from the observed. A non-dual system can provide the experience of this, but cannot provide the actuality.

Thus, if you were to personally consider the question of "how the world is," you would no doubt make use of your thoughts, experiences, insights, and beliefs, and construct a perspective which you could write down or articulate in some way. However, from non-duality, all of these experiences, thoughts, insights, and beliefs are merely arising in awareness, along with the experience that any of them belong to you. They are happening, but so what? They are simply passing on through.

Nick

lupus_in_fabula

12th February 2008, 11:27 AM

You consider Christianity a belief system because it has certain ideas that define it, most notably the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the one and only incarnation of God. Science says everything is matter, and that matter behaves according to laws that apply in all circumstances. These, like the incarnation of God, are axioms. One is reinforced by dogma, the other is reinforced by....erm....dogma.

There’s a grave difference between your examples. Jesus being the incarnation of God is the unquestioned point of departure for the system, whereas everything being matter/energy seems to be a conclusion derived from observations, so far (although being temporary in a sense that should evidence against this notion come about, it would change). It’s also possible that it’s neither matter nor energy, but we don’t know that, we don’t know what the “uber-stuff” really is or could be, matter/energy seems to be the best bet so far? Science is susceptible to change its basic assumptions, could Christianity do the same and still be called Christianity?

Look for neutral monism if you want to find a middle ground between the physical and mind, in terms of metaphysics.

Dancing David

12th February 2008, 12:49 PM

If you sit and observe thoughts passing through the mind, you may notice that the desire to act on a certain thought is not necessarily proportional to the relevance it has to the situation which caused its arisal. Thus, people constantly make decisions that are if not irrational, certainly not the best of the possibilities they evaluated as options. For example, our means for deciding on which woman or man to go out with often reflects far more a subconscious decision that an aware one.

thanks for your patience in trying to understand what your POV actually is. I think you will find that i do try to understand what you are saying.

When it comes to the decision making capacity, often labeled as judgement or impulse control, I still find the use of the word subconscious to be a loaded value added word.

For example in the sexual or physical attraction area there are a lot of factors that would go into not making a rational choice, and thank goodness, rationality is not an integrated area.

-imprinting through conditioning, there might be phases of life where people imprint (not like ducks but through conditioning) on all sorts of complex behaviors: gender identity, sexual role behaviors and atrraction. I for example have a thing for women who are shorter than I am. I think this is because the first set of women I bonded with were shorter than me, so take intense emotional experience, insert a certain body type and I have attraction
-the chemical thing which is rather poorly studied but greatly hinted at. Certain people seem to be attracted to each other for possible chemical exchanges.
-personality attraction: certain people seem to seek out a partcular type of personality, again most likely conditioning.
-emotional signals : like I think this person is abusing me, I think this person is nice to me.
-learned tolerance and acceptance, i am blind sided by people who use quiet agrresion and passive agression, lots of conditioning there

As you can see I favor conditioning but i feel that there are biological windows and reasons for when and where conditioning occurs.

Thus, I submit, it's valid to ask, "By what mechanism does this take place?" There are a whole choice of thoughts which I might act on in response to a certain situation, yet I chose this one. Yet, if I really had to look at it logically, I wouldn't have done so. Why should that be?

the simple answer is because we have multiple channels through which we process information and a contingent history, as well as internal stimuli. Logic is a tool and not always the best one. Frequently people ruin their lives by staying with the person they rationalize as being good for them, when their emotions give them other signals. And versa visa.

If you just watch the process take place in your own mind, you will see that a certain thought becomes acted upon, not necessarily through logical evaluation of its potential, but because it just seems as though it is more my thought. There is a heightened sense of identification present for this specific thought, and this overrides the conscious evaluative process.

Well attachment to self and the dependent attachment to pleasure and avoidance of displeasure are real problems and part of conditioning as well.

However a notion of 'self' and 'future self' are usefull in helping to learn impulse control.

I disagree that the notion of 'my' is soley the poor acting agent. i am a pluralist and see many avenues to which people make poor choices.

In trying to ascribe a mechanistic pathway to this phenomenon, it seems to me that it is clearly subconsciously driven, and that it is motivated by an innate desire to become more conscious.

Well that is a great asummtion, also one I disagree with. i can see many , many paths being taken, kind of a sum over histories.

By causing one specific thought to be acted upon, in preference to others which are more logical or reasonable, the individual begins to "act out" the subconscious drama, thus creating the possibility to become aware of it.

Sort of agree there, but I think people act out emotions.

Thus, it seems to me, there is a subconscious drive to raise self-awareness present in all humans.

yes and no, some people are motivated to avoid self awareness.

I say the source is libido, to use the classical term, because this phenomenon is clearly subconsciously driven, particularly prominent in sexual activity, and clearly relating to seeking behaviour.

Well, it is just kind of vague and there are almost no hard wired drives in humans, there are a whole lot of learned and conditioned responses. But only a limited set of instinctual behaviors that usually disappear at age 3 months.

Can you explain to me the mechanistic route of this process in associative networks?

Nick

Sorry I will have to reread the post to answer correctly.

Associative learning works due to the potentiation and attenuation of individual neurons, growth of neurons and the interactions of the shebang.

Dancing David

12th February 2008, 12:51 PM

Odd, I figured you might say that! I believe Existential Anxiety is in DSMIV now though. I don't know about the other questions, I'm sure you could contact the authors of the papers. I also know John Hopkins did a study with psilocybin and 60 patients. No doubt it's around on the web somewhere.

Nick

I was just saying that research on the effects of psychoactive substances is not the same as using them as medicines.

Dancing David

12th February 2008, 12:54 PM

There is no “external” material world outside your consciousness. There are no objects, there is no light, nothing like and earth or stars or galaxies. Consciousness is your world, the only one you know and will know, the only one that exists and will ever exists.

There is also nothing “internal” to consciousness. Feeling, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, language, etc. are also your world. Still, consciousness is merely the tip of the iceberg (notice that I said that consciousness is YOUR world, not THE world).

Consciousness is made of phenomena, yet it is caused by the noumena. As we have seen, phenomena comprehends both the world and the ego, the external and the internal, the objective and the subjective.

The noumena is, whatever it is, outside the reach of consciousness. For convenience we can say that the noumena is physical, made of quarks, quantum states, strong and weak forces, and so on. But we must never forget that such concepts are oversimplifications that serve a purpose (they are like anchors that let us to make predictions) but are not “real entities in themselves”. Particles and waves are ways of describing the noumena, nothing else, and nothing more.

The ultimate nature of what we call the universe is then the noumena, and every attempt to describe it will begin and finish in language. Different languages, different concepts and you might end with a different description. Valid or invalid only in the sense it can accurately predict phenomena, but not “truer” or “more accurate” or “better” outside its predictive capabilities.

Consciousness is all we can experience and I argue not even that.

However it appears that photons react with phototropins to create sensations.

:)

Robin

12th February 2008, 01:26 PM

I'd agree. It would also imply that the classic definitions of materialism have morphed to become idealism.
No, in order for Idealism to be true there would have to be the possibility of a complex/non-complex entity. I certainly 100% deny that something could be x and not x
I have no trouble with those "definitions" being used as axioms to allow you to define yourself as The Only Materialist In The Village.
You are just getting boring
How you are able to square your "100% denial" corollary #1 with your statement I addressed above in this post is what puzzles me, and which I continue to find illogical.
One thing that increases my certainty is that anybody who does not agree cannot find coherent arguments but is forced to rely on desparate, dishonest twitter like the above.

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 03:31 PM

Granted- but if nobody can actually grok the wholeness of the answer, what does it mean to say we understand?
And that is a very good question, and something that philosophers have been arguing about for 2500 years. :)

Let's face it, whether the argument is about free will or understanding whatever- human brains do have limitations. We do pretty well considering...
All true.

hammegk

12th February 2008, 03:50 PM

No, in order for Idealism to be true there would have to be the possibility of a complex/non-complex entity.
Perhaps that means something to you, and even others. I find it meaningless.

I certainly 100% deny that something could be x and not x
I'm glad you found something to be certain about. Don't think too hard about wavicles. ;)

You are just getting boring
Am not! :D

One thing that increases my certainty is that anybody who does not agree cannot find coherent arguments but is forced to rely on desparate, dishonest twitter like the above.
You found the courage to be "certain" about something above. If you could just muster the courage to choose a monism think how fulfilling that should be.

At any rate, that's enough discussion of our side topic, in this thread, for me.

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:04 PM

I don't believe I've provided an argument on consciousness. I only tried to explain BDZ's position on it.
Okay.

That perspective isn't really a confusion of parameter with function except within a given definition of what consciousness is. Change the definition and you change the parameter/function relationship. He is simply using a different definition. I think there is some utility in that approach.
Perhaps so. But you have to provide the definition. As we've seen with Martillo, who is now arguing about the existence of cheese, if you don't define your terms, you can't make any coherent statements.

In fact, behaviorists view things in much the same way. The separation between 'person' and 'environment' is not concrete when we discuss such interactions. We create strict boundaries so that we can discuss them, but we shouldn't reify those boundaries if this impairs understanding of behavior within a system.
The boundaries are real. The brain is an information processing system. The world is not.

We -- you and I -- are not really saying different things. I think the only difference between us is that you have more confidence in our ability to explain the world than I have. I have full confidence that we can explain consciousness, and it also pisses me off when folks come in and try to say that such explanations are theoretically impossible. That's why I tried to stay out of this conversation.
Agreed. That is indeed the thing that annoys me most in this sort of discussion - people who argue that because we do not yet have a comprehensive, functional theory of consciousness, that there cannot be one. The people who argue this point are usually ignorant of the vast advances that have been made in neuroscience over the last few decades.

Then you, more than most, should be able to appreciate that there may be vistas that we cannot reach, working in an area that is hard to conceptualize.
Well, no, I disagree entirely here. I routinely solve problems where I am entirely unable to visualise the problem space. As I was saying to Soapy Sam, I break down the problem into simpler components, into things I can visualise or conceptualise, and then reassemble the components into a solution. I have worked for twenty years on systems too complicated for anyone to hold the whole in their mind, and yet, those systems do get built, and for the most part, work.

Godel's Theorem is a real limit, but its application is quite specific.

Again, there is nothing woo here. We would simply be ignorant of these aspects of reality (if they exist -- and we could only speculate and not argue that they do). There is no way to offer proof of such things, only speculate on them. Is this consequential? Well, obviously not. Really, such speculation is a waste of time, but it might also be true.
But there is no evidence of such. They aren't in the same category as, say, leprechauns, in that they don't of necessity contradict what we already know. But they are the "Unknown of the Gaps".

Well, of course it is -- that is why it isn't really a problem. But it is the case that Mary's internal sensation of seeing 'red' is new information.
No, that's not quite right.

The lie is in the original proposition that she can know everything about seeing red without actually having that experience.
Sort of, but sort of not.

You can - in principle - understand the experience of seeing red without a photon of the appropriate wavelength ever impinging upon your retina. If Mary knew everything about vision, the knowledge of that experience would be included.

It does depend on what you mean by "see". If you are talking about visual perception from the retina onwards, then the problem is that the information is incomplete. If you are, instead, talking about the internal experience of seeing, then if Mary knows everything, she has already seen the colour red.

Bait and switch seems to be a favorite in philosophy of mind.
For immaterialist or dualist philosophy, yes. Sadly.

There are experiences that we are simply not capable of. We can think about them, we can conjecture, but we can't get to them. There are simply things that we cannot know.
Like what? Doesn't need to be specific, but a category of things.

I can't think of anything that isn't inherently contradictory. Who wrote "What is it Like to be a Bat?" Ah, Thomas Nagel, thanks Google. I can't know what it's like to be, say, a grain of sand, because grains of sand have no awareness. They're not, as Nagel put it, be-able things. BATs, as it were.

But other than that?

Yes, then we agree on that.
:)

We are talking about different things here. There is nothing woo about the Mary problem.
Well, some people do ascribe woo to it, but as you said, it's really just a bait and switch.

We can understand what is happening in a subjective experince, but we cannot share that experience -- even if we create conditions to mimic the same internal 'hormonal' environment that constitutes part of what we call 'feelings' (in part, because we are not the same substrate as the person having the experience, so interaction issues would dictate a difference). We can understand those process to the level of Mary understanding 'seeing red' while still in her white and black room (leaving aside the obvious neurological reality that she could never see color in the first place given that weird scenario). We can describe an amazing number of things. But we cannot know everything. I think you probably agree with this.
We cannot know everything, and for a very simple reason: Even if the "everything" we are talking about is just everything about the physical Universe, the representation of that information would necessarily be larger than the Universe itself. Which is problematic.

But I disagree to a large extent about the ability to share experiences. Experiences are just information, and information is substrate neutral. You don't run into fundamental problems until you start nitpicking with questions like "Can my mind remember experiencing your experience the same way that your mind remembers experiencing it?" Now, this requires extensive messing about with brain structure; it's easy with computers, a lot harder with people. But not impossible.

Yes, and there may be strangenesses that we cannot conceptualize in our limitations. Agin, they would be inconsequential because we couldn't know them, but they might be there. They would simply have no impact on us whatsoever. And, yes, I know this is pure speculation.
Sorry, that still makes no sense. Do these strangenesses affect the behaviour of these things? If so, then we can observe the behaviour, and conceptualise those observations. If not, then I argue that the strangeness cannot be meaningfully said to exist.

Of course it's not an argument. It isn't meant as one. It is a caution about our limitations.
Yes, that's true. A better response would be that we aren't required to imagine it, because we can observe it.

Yes, but a full explanation of the universe would amount to a formal system -- the axioms being the underlying physical constants that determine what is out there.
Given Quantum Mechanics, it's not clear that this is true either.

I'm afraid I do not share you confidence in our abilities to arrive at final explanations.
It depends on what you mean by "final". There are some questions that are not meaningful, such as questions about the interior structure of a black hole. (Black holes don't have interior structures.)

But I don't see any limits, apart from the purely physical.

There is much that we can explain. Consciousness is going to be one of those things -- I am almost certain of that -- since it arises from the workings of matter/energy, which is theoretically explainable at the level we see in our daily lives.
Agreed.

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:07 PM

On that I think we fully agree. Or, as Mercutio once said, "Metaphysics is largely a pantload."
That is an elegant summation, isn't it?

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:10 PM

Consciousness should be a verb. Can you point to "running", put it under the microscope? You can see a relation of parts that we call 'running', but where is the 'running' itself? It's just a verb that we treat like a noun.
Yes! Thank you!

I keep talking about process and function, but that's a much more concise way of putting it.

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:14 PM

Sort of along those lines, one of the weird things I have noticed when I try to look at decision making is that I don't think we make conscious decisions. We use what we call consciousness to direct attention to ideas and mull them over, but when it comes time for the decision........well, that seems to come from an unconscious well and reach consciousness after the fact where we seem to try it out and see if it fits.

At least, it seems so to me.
Yes, and that view is supported experimentally by Benjamin Libet's work.

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:20 PM

I'd agree. It would also imply that the classic definitions of materialism have morphed to become idealism.
As I said earlier (and possibly in another thread; I can't remember), there are some forms of Idealism that are entirely congruent with Materialism, that support science exactly as we know it now, and allow for the existence of cheese.

This does not include - as I also said - Plato's views, or Berkeley's.

Materialism hasn't changed, though; our understanding of the Universe has changed. Our terms have become better defined.

How you are able to square your "100% denial" corollary #1 with your statement I addressed above in this post is what puzzles me, and which I continue to find illogical.
Are you still denying the existence of cheese, Martillo?

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 04:25 PM

Cheeses of Nazarath!

You aren't the first with that concept. :D

Irrelevant twaddle is irrelevant twaddle.
That was my point, yes.

Or, since there is no coherent definition of consciousness, you may choose an axiom system that declares it non-existent.
I just gave you a coherent definition of consciousness. If you don't like it, you can go back to your cheese, but you can't claim the definition doesn't exist.

And you've already leapt the 1st person / 3rd person problem. Congratulations.
Normal humans learn to do this by the time they are two.

Is there supposed to be meaning hidden somewhere in that word-salad?
It means what it says.

I have some additional information about my thought processes that is very difficult to obtain objectively at present. But all other information corresponds.

Certainly unknown, and likely unknowable, but dream on.:)
Do you deny the existence of neurological and behavioural correlates of consciousness?

Robin

12th February 2008, 05:10 PM

Perhaps that means something to you, and even others. I find it meaningless.
It is only your central claim. If you find your claim meaningless then join the queue.
I'm glad you found something to be certain about. Don't think too hard about wavicles. ;)
On the contrary you should think a little harder about wavicles.
You found the courage to be "certain" about something above. If you could just muster the courage to choose a monism think how fulfilling that should be.
What is it about Idealists that they have this funny idea that you can somehow "choose a monism"?

Whatever the nature of existence it was so long before you or I ever came along.

Apathia

12th February 2008, 05:51 PM

Losing your consistancy of information in a black hole?
Kurt Godel threatening your complete theory of everything?
Quantum Physics leaving you feelings of uncertainty and questioning your confidence as an independant observer?

You need:

Dr. Kelvin's Classical Causality Tablets

Recommeded by four out of five Newtonian physicists to prevent Syncronicity.

(Contraindications may include anal retention and painful reductionism. Use only as directed.)

Robin

12th February 2008, 06:09 PM

PixyMisa

12th February 2008, 06:21 PM

Me either, but I'll take a dozen gross.

Apathia

12th February 2008, 06:28 PM

No one better say "synchronicity",or I'll vomit.

Oops! May cause sudden regurgitation. :D

Robin

12th February 2008, 06:32 PM

Does your pet theory lack evidence, rationality or common sense?
Is your metaphysic just metamagic?
Are your arguments tired and lifeless?

Then try new

QMLite(tm)

Homeopathic QM Therapy *

An advanced formulation of QM diluted to homeopathic concentrations which is guaranteed to bring that glitter back to your twitter.

Guaranteed free from side effects (or any effects whatsoever)

* May not contain any actual QM

Jeff Corey

12th February 2008, 06:39 PM

Consciousness is all we can experience and I argue not even that.

However it appears that photons react with phototropins to create sensations.

:)

True. And also a large tree limb impacting the side of your head. And you go, "AAARGH" and another observer sez, "Wow, that must hurt, lad." And you sez, "Sure as bat guano, it did. Lucky me, if it war'nt fer you, I would never had this particular private event made public. So now, please piss off."

Apathia

12th February 2008, 07:00 PM

John Freestone

13th February 2008, 03:32 AM

The boundaries are real. The brain is an information processing system. The world is not.
That strikes me as an odd belief. I hinted before that you seem to fail to understand holism (you seemed to make a lot of fuss about the spelling).

The brain is part of the world. Positionally, the world encloses the brain. In terms of physical makeup, the brain and surrounding body are exchanging molecules through the blood supply (and presumably at the atomic level various other stuff is exchanged), and the external world is impacting on both the body and the brain constantly. There are particles (or is it wavicles ;) ) passing through the body system and the Earth, some not hitting anything, others impacting on cells, destroying DNA, you name it...

In temporal terms, the brain is a process intimately connected with human evolution and the whole evolution of life on Earth. Furthermore, there are ways of considering the whole of the world as doing nothing but processing information, and many biologists view life in purely informational terms. I am surprised that you don't see it that way too, the brain as a system for particular types of information processing relevant to the life of its body.

It makes much more sense to me to consider the boundary between mind and brain as real, because, although there may be correlates between brain states and conscious states, what I mean by the terms are persuasively different. A brain can be cut up and put it a fridge. A mind cannot (at least, I hope not).

lupus_in_fabula

13th February 2008, 03:45 AM

It makes much more sense to me to consider the boundary between mind and brain as real, because, although there may be correlates between brain states and conscious states, what I mean by the terms are persuasively different. A brain can be cut up and put it a fridge. A mind cannot (at least, I hope not).

But you have not explained why the mind should be seen as something other than a linguistic abstraction. Take Icheumonwasp’s advice a look at the mind from the perspective of a verb or a gerund. Sure, we can look at the mind as an image produced by the brain, and thus find a distinction, but why should that mean it’s also a fundamental property of the universe?

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:00 AM

Hi Nick 227!

I am not finding existential anxiety in the DSM IV-R could you provide that reference please?

I also looked up the PTSD and MDMA site MAPS, sort of interesting, sort of not, at least from the POV of a former mental health worker. It may prove to have benefit on a limited basis but I would be curious what benefit it would have over co-adjunct therapy with anti-depressants.

I am not saying anything about the war on drugs, but I am not sure there will be a medical benefit to psycodelia. I think it is an interesting political syance to take. But I favor the decriminalization of most substances of abuse anyway. (Maybe not methamphetamine and cocaine).

David

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:09 AM

For reference, I said:
and Dancing David said
Hi David

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I looked up isotropy at wikipedia and it has dozens of different meanings, but I would be happy to discuss this further. I'm more familiar with 'reductionism', so I could say that I don't know how to apply reductionism to my pet beliefs. Actually, I don't know what my pet beliefs are that you're referring to. Generally, I consider reductionism as one of the limitations of science, if that's any help, although when it began to develop systems theory and gained some understanding of holistic viewpoints, it still (naturally) used its external, 3rd-person conceptual modelling. Now, you will note that several people on the woo side here have been saying that consciousness is not a 3rd person phenomenon (my original proposition, since I called it 'subjectivity', and Nick sensibly said he preferred to talk about awareness), and also that it is not a singular, reducible phenomenon (either, as some state, because it requires things like language or, as others state, because at its most fundamental it is simply non-dual, or holistic in nature). If it is this pet theory you're referring to, then my meaning above was that, since subjective discoveries are subjective, the usual scientific tests to establish objectivity are not applicable. I was admitting a failing, in a sense, of my position, putting myself in your position, and seeing that everything I might claim is just in my head.

I don't know if any of that makes sense to you, but if you understand what I'm saying, you might reconsider: "If it is difficult or impossible to test then you haven't really thought about it." I have a particular feeling when I look at a blue sky that I call 'blue'. I wonder if it has any relation to what others feel when they look at a blue sky or use the name of the colour. I have no way of testing the theory that we have different (or similar) subjective experiences, have you? It seems to me that it is impossible to test, and that I have thought about it. It would seem to be the very basis of strength claimed by science that it avoids such subjective, untestable concerns. It sticks, as we keep being told, to dealing with the real world.

The thing is that the more I think about these questions, the more 'the real world' becomes exactly those interior, subjective realities - indeed, just the singular momentary one Here Now - and that all philosophy (including science) is modelling, abstraction, reduction of wholes into fundamentally unreal (holistically abused) parts. It's not useless, because it can make fridges and democracy, but one of the fundamental mistakes I see in science, again and again, is that assumption that reduction - or the approximated isolation of some feature from its embeddedness in nature - will not cause distortion of results.

Hi John, thanks for the response. I will get back to you on this, twere best answered not on the fly.

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:16 AM

No, I think I understand what you're saying, and these are fair points. There is no particular way that subatomic reality should behave, and by 'nonsense' I just meant to point to the weirdness that many others have noted at this level. However, extending this general point, I was just noticing how this philosophy we're calling materialism suggests solid stuff - atoms, then subatomic particles, still being smashed together in particle accelerators, I thought - but you say that there's no matter, just energy. I thought there were states of being that physicists argue about how to depict or describe, and certainly can't just call waves of energy. I am sincerely wanting to learn more. Have things changed since I learned that light, for instance, in certain experiments behaves as particles and in others as waves? Is it that there is only energy, but it comes in quanta, packets? And how does all that affect the 'subject'/'consciousness' question? Will this view of just energy make it easier for me to grasp the formation of subjective experience from the action of unconscious synapses? I would love to actually get my head round this process that Pixy describes as 'reflection' - actually, you know, visualise it so that I can go "Oh, I seeeeeee!". I would be disappointed to be a zombie, but at least I could relax and bask in that wonderful state of absolute knowledge. :D
I don't know what BAC is (USA?) - in Britain it used to be the British Association for Counselling. I guess it doesn't matter, since it is only there to provide structure for an insult.
Well, if you're really going to stretch everything I say to ridiculous extremes for the sake of putting me down, I'll mind my place, Guv. You're the expert. Dont suppose I could ave a quick look down yer microscope, could I? What am I saying....sorry Sir.

Much, thanks. I didn't realise science had cleared up so much confusion in the last few years while I wasn't looking. Why's it called materialism?

When I said "The really funny thing is that, just as geocentrism isn't actually wrong, but depends merely on a rather complicated attribution of the position of the witness (on Earth), and heliocentrism is not 'correct' in an absolute manner either (because all bodies are moving as a system, or, if you prefer, are orbiting around their collective centre of gravity, while the whole universe is in motion as well) ... materialism isn't wrong in an absolute sense, but also depends on maintaining a particular standpoint." ... you said:

What is meaningless, surely not that the orbits of bodies are round their collective centre of gravity, and thus 'heliocentric' is simply an approximate term? It's true you know, the sun isn't at the centre of the solar system (I know you know that). You must be referring to my metaphysical musing. It's ok to use your imagination, you know. Buses hurt, yes. Saying things that turn out to be silly doesn't kill you. Maybe someone else will see what I was grappling with and clarify it for me. You just never know. It's quite exiting not having sorted everything out, now I come to think of it.

Again this will take a long response, I admit that you touched the QM nerve and I got pedantic I will try to give you a nice referenced response.

The sort answer is that 'classic' or common conceptions do not apply ar small scales, what we call the 'hard' nature of matter is the repulsive force of EM. Energy comes in discrete packets, yet it is always energy.

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:19 AM

This and your last post are really helpful. It's wonderful when someone can translate woo into terms normal sceptics can understand! :p I'm obviously more evolved than an undercover elephant, because I wouldn't doubt evolution for a moment - given the rather paradoxical possibility you explored about a base (non-dual) state. This is very close to Ken Wilber's model, which involves evolution and external matter, but also considers that every holon (person, wasp!, cell, molecule, etc.) has an interior reality as well, which also evolves. Hence, he does not push consciousness down the phylogenetic tree, but sees consciousness as the evolutionary level of 'interior' arising with human beings (and interiors, he says, go all the way down). Also, he gets over the problem of this seeming like a duality, by suggesting that it is just a natural duality - a surface has to have an inside. His scheme relates various internal sensations or functions to their exterior physical forms - including relating different emotional/cognitive capacities to different evolutionary systems of the brain. (Integrative Psychology, 2000)

My first musings about the evolution of consciousness came from a fidelity to the same principle that seems so important in energy - neither being created nor destroyed - and indeed in our intuitive liking for monism rather than dualism - i.e. it seems odd if consciousness suddenly comes into being in the universe at some point of complexity, when its subjective quality - its qualitative quality (the 'qualia', like pain, anger, compassion, image, thought) are so utterly unlike the stuff you can pick up and stick under a microscope. If that difference and those principles are impressive, it adds weight to contemplations of consciousness being somehow immanent, a deep potential or 'the Ground of Being'. It doesn't have to lead to naive philosophies of God stirring the stars, but it does re-enchant the world that materialism has 'disqualified'.

So many points, this will also be a lot of writing. :)

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:23 AM

Oh, I thought there was some point to DD telling me that there wasn't matter, it was all energy. Maybe you two disagree there, and anyway, you've volunteered to answer for him. ...and also acknowledge that the difference doesn't affect the question of consciousness at all.

Well, I'm pretty busy meditating and such, and I have a huge book list I can't get round to reading...maybe if you did go into it a bit further, that might give me some hope that it might actually be worth reading. I'll level with you, Pixy. I think you're good at making up your own language and thinking it means something.

How about anyone else - anyone else able to explain how to build a conscious machine from a few transistors? Anyone else able to describe how to bridge the gap between stuff I can stick in the fridge and stuff I see in my head - from unconscious synapses to feeling like I'm here, alive, real? Any number of synapses/transistors you like, actually.

I wish I had a million dollars to wager.

You see, the thought experiment alone should demonstrate the logical impossibility of proving you could do such a thing. Say you made a robot that said it was conscious. How would you, as its inventor, prove to me, the good sceptic, that it was? That's the fundamental philosophical problem. Its concsiousness would be internal, not transferable by any means we know to any other being or committee for verification. Now from your point of view, you would no doubt equate behavioural clues with proof, but if you test your own consciousness, do you rely on behavioural data? I suppose in a Descartesian view you might - I'm thinking, so I am. Maybe this is where the experience of pure awareness blows all the reasoning out the water, and without it I have to admit there's nothing I can say to convince you you're not a zombie!

However, if you think science has won, you're wrong. I could construct an equally coherent argument that would resist all disproof you could throw at it - that you were a Divine Spark....especially if I'm allowed to refer you to a book.

Oh well, go in peace. Namaste and all that. :)

More to respond to carefully.

It looks like a duck, it acts like a duck. It is a duck.

there is a resolution to the paradox, we are all p-zombies!

Blessed Be!

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:26 AM

The thinking-behavior that you observe yourself doing isn't the sort of behavior that you can observe others doing. So why give the same name, "consciousness", both to your own thinking-behavior (as observed by you) and to others' different behavior (as observed by you)?

Weee all live in a p-submarine, a p-submarine , a p-submarine
...

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:29 AM

Hasn't explained how the experience of "I" arises.

Operant conditioning?

How about why the big bang occurred also?

Nick

Some questions have no answers. :cool:

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:34 AM

Well, of course it is -- that is why it isn't really a problem. But it is the case that Mary's internal sensation of seeing 'red' is new information. The lie is in the original proposition that she can know everything about seeing red without actually having that experience. Bait and switch seems to be a favorite in philosophy of mind.
.

Poor Mary, did we put her in the black and white room again?

Most likely she will see the 'color' as grey because she was never exposed to other colors and is past the age of development she can not percieve new colors, most likely. The cool question is , if we expose her to a limited number of colors, what will her response be to a new visual stimulus. I think she might perceive it as a shade of one of the colors she has been exposed to depending on the frequency response of the photo receptors. (Thank you Furi)

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:39 AM

I don't follow how this explains the experience of identification? Can you explain me more?

Nick

This too will take some time.

I started in a post using TIAOT, we can see how that develops.

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 04:42 AM

For sure, they seem exciting things, mirror neurons. It certainly could be that in self-reflecting the behaviour of others we experience an emotional reaction and thus subconsciously develop empathy as well as behavioural changes.

I'm not really bothered with reading a book just to get into an argument with you, or a load of papers. I just go with what works, at the end of the day. If you want to believe that you are right because of this it doesn't bother me so much. Probably I would have cared about it a few years back.

I seem to recall it was Freud's 150th anniversary last year, or the year before or something. There were quite a few articles around about just how accurate a lot of his theories turned out to be. Of course, people argue about this too. But, not being a neurologist, it still seems to me reasonable to equate our dopamine circuits with libido. Wasn't Freud a neurologist to start with, anyway? I thought he drew models of brain activity based on his researches? Didn't he develop psychiatry just because neurology, at the time, couldn't account for what he was learning from investigating the unconscious of his patients? Maybe I'm mistaken.

Care to give an example? I'd be happy to explain to you what I meant.

I'm sure there are charlatans in the trade. There are in most. We work a lot with group process which, incidentally, is not so expensive as a rule. What am I hiding?

Nick

Again, this will take a careful response.

It seems you are not saying, what makes it evident about there not being individual bodies that experience? (That is what i called hiding.)

John Freestone

13th February 2008, 05:03 AM

There’s a grave difference between your examples. Jesus being the incarnation of God is the unquestioned point of departure for the system, whereas everything being matter/energy seems to be a conclusion derived from observations, so far (although being temporary in a sense that should evidence against this notion come about, it would change). It’s also possible that it’s neither matter nor energy, but we don’t know that, we don’t know what the “uber-stuff” really is or could be, matter/energy seems to be the best bet so far? Science is susceptible to change its basic assumptions, could Christianity do the same and still be called Christianity?

Look for neutral monism if you want to find a middle ground between the physical and mind, in terms of metaphysics.Hi Lupus. Thanks for that. I have no preference for monism. It seems like another prejudice. If the universe were composed ultimately of mind and matter, or mind, matter, spirit and cheese, are human's going to change things by jumping up and down saying it's not neat enough?

I disagree about the point-of-departure-or-conclusion distinction you make. In all belief systems, beliefs are held, whether axiom or conclusion, until they're untenable any longer (or, as we've seen, beyond). Vast swathes of the Christian world, I imagine, would say that Christianity doesn't depend on Christ's singular incarnation of God, and that they believe that we are all 'God's Children', and Jesus was just a rather special case, or the first historical event of the incarnation of divinity, or whatever...so, yes, Christianity does reinvent itself and can even overturn its one-time axioms. Besides, if we had a time machine, we could analyse the life and times of Jesus and see how discussions led to the conclusion that he was The Son of God, demonstrating the fluidity between these concepts.

Similarly, while you might say that materialism is a conclusion of science and would change if non-material reality was discovered, there are some here who have defined science as having the starting principle that all there is is matter, and it has been used as a reason not to do subjective investigation.

Some authors describe spiritual work, for instance that of the ancient Rishis of India, as 'science', yet their science focused as much on the subjective as the objective. Subjective experiments could only be repeated one person at a time, but their 'subjective' reports of their findings added up to a respected* body of knowledge about how the mind and body works, and even about how the universe works.
*Ooh, look, an opportunity for people who haven't done any subjective science to indulge in a little woo-bashing!

That is different from what we moderns think of as science, but it's maybe not such a significant difference. It's like if everyone went into a private lab to do their experiments, came out with their conclusions, but no-one else in the scientific community could see the working out. Each scientist could describe how to set the experiment up, exactly how to conduct it, but any new experiment repeating the first would again have secret workings out that no-one else could see...the subjective bits. Even so, the conclusions could be compared and thus a kind of 'objectivity' constructed, in just the same way that modern science does. There was a lot that was observable, such as when people demonstrated that certain trance states allowed them to go into something like hibernation, hypnotic states where no pain is felt and bleeding is reduced, and the whole system of Hatha Yoga and its relationship to various states of health and disease.

Actually, is the level of subjectivity so different? Even if a team of scientists all understand the ins and outs of an experiment, they're just a team, and the community as a whole often argues about the methodology and conlusions. The working out isn't hidden at all, but its meanings and even its validity are often disputed. In just the same way, however, heaps of subjective minds add their consent to a conclusion until it slips quietly from interpretation to hypothesis to theory to discovery.

I know I'm moving away from the point a lot now, but then there's this problem of moving the goalposts on what is woo. Mind over body was pretty much woo at one time. Then the respectable face of science triumphantly announced it had discovered 'a possible mechanism' - hence the mind-body connection is now mainstream science (though still usually by subsuming mind into the unquestionable physical monism). The backward, superstitious mentalists who were ridiculed for a century don't get invited to the party or sent an apology. Science, wrong for all that time, is now the hero for being right and having proof, and history is forgotten.

And actually, the epicycles used to explain the anomalies of the current paradigm are astounding. There is only matter. That's it. Just matter everywhere. And energy, by the way. That kind of moves matter about a bit. Force and ****.

Gravity? Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but we can fly to the moon so we must have it pretty sussed, yeah? It's probably just a particle, cause it has to be. Everything's matter.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Oh look, the sun hasn't run out of fuel yet - ah, that's because it's creating energy - I mean, sorry, not creating energy, obviously - matter is being transmuted into energy - matter is energy and energy is matter. They're different, but the same, see? Here comes Einstein with an equation that will explain it.

Mind? Oh well, mind is just matter moving in mysterious ways. Possibly because it's kind of mysterious anyway and rather like energy, which is matter. It's like matter acting in a relationship - yeah, it's information! Hey, how postmodern is that?! There's information, which is just organised matter, and matter (or energy, remember?) is organising itself - because there can't be anything else, we decided that ages ago - which is why I don't actually have a mind, I just have a delusion of a mind - (and if I discovered anything non-physical I'd recognise it) - oh look who cares, it works. It gets us through the day and A&E is very happy and philosophy is a pantload. (Socrates said he was ignorant, end of.) Soon we'll be able to download ourselves and have a holiday actually inside the Internet. :cool:

Most of that was a general rant, Lupus, not a rant at you specifically.

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 05:23 AM

That strikes me as an odd belief. I hinted before that you seem to fail to understand holism (you seemed to make a lot of fuss about the spelling).

The brain is part of the world. Positionally, the world encloses the brain. In terms of physical makeup, the brain and surrounding body are exchanging molecules through the blood supply (and presumably at the atomic level various other stuff is exchanged), and the external world is impacting on both the body and the brain constantly. There are particles (or is it wavicles ;) ) passing through the body system and the Earth, some not hitting anything, others impacting on cells, destroying DNA, you name it...
All of this is true; none of it particularly relevant.

In temporal terms, the brain is a process intimately connected with human evolution and the whole evolution of life on Earth.
No.

Furthermore, there are ways of considering the whole of the world as doing nothing but processing information, and many biologists view life in purely informational terms. I am surprised that you don't see it that way too, the brain as a system for particular types of information processing relevant to the life of its body.
You can certainly view things this way. However, the divide is still real, consciousness is still brain function.

It makes much more sense to me to consider the boundary between mind and brain as real, because, although there may be correlates between brain states and conscious states, what I mean by the terms are persuasively different. A brain can be cut up and put it a fridge. A mind cannot (at least, I hope not).
A mind can indeed be fractured in just that way. There are a number of neurological syndromes presenting aspects of this, perhaps the most striking being the result of a corpus callosotomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosotomy) (occasionally used to mitigate severe epilepsy). The mind is divided into two with a stroke of a scalpel.

There's a huge spectrum of examples of that sort, which leave no doubt at all that - as I believe I have mentioned - mind is brain function.

The difference you are describing is a language problem. So too is HPC ("Hard Problem Consciousness").

JoeEllison

13th February 2008, 05:25 AM

Similarly, while you might say that materialism is a conclusion of science and would change if non-material reality was discovered, there are some here who have defined science as having the starting principle that all there is is matter, and it has been used as a reason not to do subjective investigation.

You make two pretty large mistakes here, that corrupt all of your thinking. First off, the idea of "non-material reality" is nonsense. If something can be discovered to interact with the material world in ANY way, we can call it part of that world, so it wouldn't bother any materialist worth his salt. If someone can actually display telekinesis in a controlled setting, for instance, then telekinesis becomes part of science. There's no problem with it.

Secondly, your claim that people reject "subjective investigation" because it would somehow invalidate materialism is flat-out wrong, and seems pretty dishonest as well. Subjectivity is rejected because it is unreliable and untestable. It can't do anything useful, and certainly could never compete with science or materialism on any meaningful level. Since there is no way to differentiate a "subjective experience" from a psychotic break, it serves no purpose to pretend that it is a valid investigative tool.

Sorry, chum... you can't just make stuff up and expect it to be taken seriously.

Ichneumonwasp

13th February 2008, 05:33 AM

A mind can indeed be fractured in just that way. There are a number of neurological syndromes presenting aspects of this, perhaps the most striking being the result of a corpus callosotomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosotomy) (occasionally used to mitigate severe epilepsy). The mind is divided into two with a stroke of a scalpel.

There's a huge spectrum of examples of that sort, which leave no doubt at all that - as I believe I have mentioned - mind is brain function.

The difference you are describing is a language problem. So too is HPC ("Hard Problem Consciousness").

One of the more interesting syndromes, and this relates directly to the issue of free will is akinetic mutism, resulting from bilateral anterior cingulate lesions. People so affected appear to have no will at all. They sit immobile though they may track people with their eyes. The few who have recovered from this state report having no real memory of anything that transpired during the time that they were affected. They are capable of motor function -- there is no damage to the pyramidal system, but they simply don't move as though they lack a will for action.

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 05:47 AM

And actually, the epicycles used to explain the anomalies of the current paradigm are astounding. There is only matter. That's it. Just matter everywhere. And energy, by the way. That kind of moves matter about a bit. Force and ****.
All the same stuff. Standard model. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model)

Gravity? Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but we can fly to the moon so we must have it pretty sussed, yeah? It's probably just a particle, cause it has to be. Everything's matter.
Yes. Gravity is also the curvature of space-time.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Oh look, the sun hasn't run out of fuel yet - ah, that's because it's creating energy - I mean, sorry, not creating energy, obviously - matter is being transmuted into energy - matter is energy and energy is matter. They're different, but the same, see? Here comes Einstein with an equation that will explain it.
Einstein didn't explain the fusion process itself, but he did establish the relationship between matter and energy.

Mind? Oh well, mind is just matter moving in mysterious ways. Possibly because it's kind of mysterious anyway and rather like energy, which is matter. It's like matter acting in a relationship - yeah, it's information!
It's information processing. As Ichneumon Wasp said, consciousness is a verb.

Hey, how postmodern is that?!
Not even slightly. It's physics. Postmodernism is pseudo-intellectualism for people who want to look clever but never mastered algebra.

There's information, which is just organised matter
No. Organised matter can be a representation of information, but it isn't information (unless you've switched to idealism). Here's how information is defined. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory#Ways_of_measuring_information) Note that there's more than one definition. Enjoy!

and matter (or energy, remember?) is organising itself - because there can't be anything else, we decided that ages ago - which is why I don't actually have a mind, I just have a delusion of a mind
I'd say illusion, rather than delusion. Mind is real. It's just not what you think it is.

(and if I discovered anything non-physical I'd recognise it) - oh look who cares, it works. It gets us through the day and A&E is very happy and philosophy is a pantload. (Socrates said he was ignorant, end of.) Soon we'll be able to download ourselves and have a holiday actually inside the Internet.
You mean "upload".

Most of that was a general rant, Lupus, not a rant at you specifically.
The thing is, your rant, while silly, is far more accurate than most of your serious posts.

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 05:59 AM

there is a resolution to the paradox, we are all p-zombies!
And zombies are moral beings.

Who just happen to feed on brainssss....

John Freestone

13th February 2008, 06:01 AM

My answer to that would be that I think the issue arises because of our language. I don't think we have a problem viewing processes as having a beginning and ending. Consciousness, in English is a noun. If it were a verb I don't think we would even be having this conversation.

Consciousness should be a verb. Can you point to "running", put it under the microscope? You can see a relation of parts that we call 'running', but where is the 'running' itself? It's just a verb that we treat like a noun.

Yes, that's a fair point, Ichneumonwasp, and I see Pixy agrees, which is nice. The only bit I puzzle over is "I don't think we have a problem viewing processes as having a beginning and ending." I do. Maybe you don't, or maybe you meant "We don't have a problem thinking of processes as if they had a beginning and an ending, which is a problem, because generally they don't". This is one of the odd things about cosmology, from a philosophical point of view. The universe is a process. Ok. It began. What? Sorry. Does not compute. Every other process I could think of appears to have something that set it in motion or caused it. I suppose this fits with certain cosmologies (religions) intuiting that there was no beginning and/or will be no end.

Anyway, seeing consciousness as the 'running' does help me to make sense of the materialist vision. It often seems like there are two views that are incredibly close, yet almost opposite. Like the materialists keep their awe in check, keep explaining all the 'meaning' as 'information' or 'result', even though they can be deeply impressed by the beauty and power of the world; then, people like me, who find it very hard to do that, who see so much intimation of depth, of 'meaning' inherent in that beauty and power, and find so much of that depth inside my own mind, that I can't go "Ah, but it could just all be stuff-and-illusion". I can see it both ways, and I have to say that both ways, it makes sense.

John Freestone

13th February 2008, 06:36 AM

You make two pretty large mistakes here, that corrupt all of your thinking. First off, the idea of "non-material reality" is nonsense. If something can be discovered to interact with the material world in ANY way, we can call it part of that world, so it wouldn't bother any materialist worth his salt. If someone can actually display telekinesis in a controlled setting, for instance, then telekinesis becomes part of science. There's no problem with it.

Secondly, your claim that people reject "subjective investigation" because it would somehow invalidate materialism is flat-out wrong, and seems pretty dishonest as well. Subjectivity is rejected because it is unreliable and untestable. It can't do anything useful, and certainly could never compete with science or materialism on any meaningful level. Since there is no way to differentiate a "subjective experience" from a psychotic break, it serves no purpose to pretend that it is a valid investigative tool.

Sorry, chum... you can't just make stuff up and expect it to be taken seriously.Oh get off your high horse, Joe. You think you understand reality better than me. I think I understand reality better than you. Or we're confusing our meanings. Please don't accuse me of being dishonest.

There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint, so science is a psychotic break. Investigating subjectivity is perfectly easy. People have been doing it for thousands of years and coming to very similar conclusions. We have been suggesting that it reveals the error of materialism, another dimension of reality, and there is a way to test it: you contemplate your own internal consciousness. Billions of people meditate and can attest to what we're saying. Please don't keep telling the half of the world who bother to go there that it doesn't exist or there's no way of finding out. You're like someone ranting that there's no point in going off to investigate the end of the world, because you'd fall off and not be able to report your findings. I'm not going to open the box because it must be full of woo!

Either that, or instead of saying that maybe scientists misinterpret the nature of the subatomic world - I'll just say that they lie and quarks are just made up. It's the same thing in reverse. I haven't seen any. I have absolutely no idea about whether they're real or not. Squirly lines on a photograph? They could do that in the darkroom when no-one's looking. Furthermore, I've heard rumours that even scientists say they're kind of relatively real. Particles, right? Wavicles. Woovicles maybe?

Objective schmobjective.

Ichneumonwasp

13th February 2008, 06:52 AM

The only bit I puzzle over is "I don't think we have a problem viewing processes as having a beginning and ending." I do. Maybe you don't, or maybe you meant "We don't have a problem thinking of processes as if they had a beginning and an ending, which is a problem, because generally they don't". This is one of the odd things about cosmology, from a philosophical point of view. The universe is a process. Ok. It began. What? Sorry. Does not compute. Every other process I could think of appears to have something that set it in motion or caused it. I suppose this fits with certain cosmologies (religions) intuiting that there was no beginning and/or will be no end.

Fair enough. That perspective is entirely valid. One way of looking at is lumpers vs. spiltters, I think. Really when you get down to it, if we accept monism then it's all just one long process and we 'create' artificial boundaries between different bits of the grand process.

Anyway, seeing consciousness as the 'running' does help me to make sense of the materialist vision. It often seems like there are two views that are incredibly close, yet almost opposite. Like the materialists keep their awe in check, keep explaining all the 'meaning' as 'information' or 'result', even though they can be deeply impressed by the beauty and power of the world; then, people like me, who find it very hard to do that, who see so much intimation of depth, of 'meaning' inherent in that beauty and power, and find so much of that depth inside my own mind, that I can't go "Ah, but it could just all be stuff-and-illusion". I can see it both ways, and I have to say that both ways, it makes sense.

I'm glad that view helps. If you really get down to brass tacks with most of the folks here and move away from the petty concerns within individual arguments, I think you'll find a lot of reverence.

Some folks like to come here for very specific purposes so it may seem like they are difficult to deal with. Articulett, for one, is quite clear that she often uses this place as a form of stress release, though she gets other things out of it too. I don't think her personality here matches her personality in the real world. As a teacher she gets fed up quickly with woo-sounding claims, so she jumps on people a little early. But I think I understand why, so I'm willing to cut her a lot of slack. I think the exchange between Pixy and I fits in the same sort of category. I bet over beers we would say the same thing (really we are anyway, just approaching from slightly different perspectives). I see him trying to protect against potential woo claims or woo ways of interpreting what I have been saying. Because, let's face it, there have been some very weird things said within the paradigm of looking at things more globally. Even otherwise sober people like Roger Penrose can arrive at conclusions that just don't hold up to scrutiny very well.

JoeEllison

13th February 2008, 07:17 AM

Oh get off your high horse, Joe. You think you understand reality better than me. I think I understand reality better than you. Or we're confusing our meanings. Please don't accuse me of being dishonest.

There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint, so science is a psychotic break. Investigating subjectivity is perfectly easy. People have been doing it for thousands of years and coming to very similar conclusions. We have been suggesting that it reveals the error of materialism, another dimension of reality, and there is a way to test it: you contemplate your own internal consciousness. Billions of people meditate and can attest to what we're saying. Please don't keep telling the half of the world who bother to go there that it doesn't exist or there's no way of finding out. You're like someone ranting that there's no point in going off to investigate the end of the world, because you'd fall off and not be able to report your findings. I'm not going to open the box because it must be full of woo!

Either that, or instead of saying that maybe scientists misinterpret the nature of the subatomic world - I'll just say that they lie and quarks are just made up. It's the same thing in reverse. I haven't seen any. I have absolutely no idea about whether they're real or not. Squirly lines on a photograph? They could do that in the darkroom when no-one's looking. Furthermore, I've heard rumours that even scientists say they're kind of relatively real. Particles, right? Wavicles. Woovicles maybe?

Objective schmobjective.
The fact that you're posting dishonest statements has nothing to do with your view on reality, and everything to do with your false statements about people presenting a materialist viewpoint. That's an integrity issue on your part, aside from your woo-tastic philosophical viewpoint. It IS telling, however, that woosters are very often forced to lie about the viewpoints of others, to make their own position seems less pathetic.

From a logical and honest standpoint, if you claim that there is no such thing as objectivity, you cannot then insert your own claims about reality. The only thing you can do is shut your mouth, because you have absolutely nothing to possibly add to our knowledge. You are saying that you can meditate, and come up with whatever you want, and that should be taken seriously. Fine, my meditation says that you are made of Styrofoam packing peanuts and Saran Wrap. I guess that's a valid point, since it came from my subjective investigation?

Your claims fail on the grounds that they are ****** stupid. Claims which BY DEFINITION have no way of confirming them, like yours, are indistinguishable from the delusions of a schizophrenic. You're wasting your time pretending that you can know things without learning anything... maybe a little more effort towards something real, and a little less narcissistic grandiosity would do you some good.

JoeEllison

13th February 2008, 07:19 AM

And zombies are moral beings.

Who just happen to feed on brainssss....
I've got dibs on a forearm... I'm an old school ghoul, I'll eat almost anything. :D

Stout

13th February 2008, 07:30 AM

Dancing David

13th February 2008, 08:29 AM

Hi David

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I looked up isotropy at wikipedia and it has dozens of different meanings, but I would be happy to discuss this further.

Isotropy in physics is specificaly the notion that the universe is equal in space and time (post inflation in the BBT). So what happens in one part of the universe will be reflected in another part of the universe. In that Force A applied to Actor B will produce change C, and that this will be true for all areas of the universe all other things being equal.

So if a photon interacts with an electron it will be the same sort of interaction across the universe.

Here is the wiki page which gives a wide range of meanings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy

I am using it in the sense that the universe behaves the same in all places and times, which is a huge axiom.

I'm more familiar with 'reductionism', so I could say that I don't know how to apply reductionism to my pet beliefs. Actually, I don't know what my pet beliefs are that you're referring to.

That the spiritual real is subject to testing and science. All things are open to the methodology of exploration. I can understand that one may wish to set aside certain areas and say that they are not open to exploration. Or that the methods of science will not apply to certain areas. And to that i say, tell me which area can not be tested and I will explain how I feel that it can.

John Freestone

13th February 2008, 10:08 AM

Woovicles

Excuse me....woovicles ???

That's just too funny.

John, I quite like the word and given that I wrote a lengthy response to one of your posts last night of science as a belief, but deleted it because even I couldn't understand what I was talking about. But, this morning I found inspiration in the word woovicle.

Is it your assertion that science's refusal, or inability to consider the effect of unseen forces like woovicles causing you to categorize science as a belief ?

Thanks. Oh it's a pity you deleted it - in my experience other people understand me better than I do myself when things get difficult! Someone might have translated it for you.

You're not trolling, are you? I'll try again. There's nothing special about science. Any thought is based on beliefs. A set of related thoughts, ideas that form theories and are meant to fit together into one whole theory as best we can - i.e. a philosophy - must surely be based on beliefs. You can't go into a lab and conduct an experiment without beliefs. Many of them are not even thought about or formalised. It seems to me a fundamental condition of humanity that we have limited perception of whatever might be perceived, and those limits are largely constructed by our beliefs, our assumptions. Pinching ourselves doesn't prove we're awake.

So we don't need to go too much into woovicles, it's just that that is where the beliefs begin to show up more obviously, because interpretation becomes so difficult and things are so counterintuitive.

Would you say that you believe that a statement has to be either true or false, and that logic is part of science? Is it a belief? Would you say that a particle of matter can be in two places at once? Is that a belief? How do you know? How do you decide what is just bleedin obvious and what needs to be discovered or deduced unless you are infallible?

Nick227

13th February 2008, 10:33 AM

Hi Nick 227!

I am not finding existential anxiety in the DSM IV-R could you provide that reference please?

Hi David,

I looked on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety) and it seems to be a branch of Anxiety relating to fear of death, or dealing with the issue of one day not being here anymore. This is also mentioned in a review of psilocybin's medicinal uses on Wikipedia. Interesting that they administer a tryptamine for it. Quite a novel approach.

Nick

Nick227

13th February 2008, 10:38 AM

It seems you are not saying, what makes it evident about there not being individual bodies that experience? (That is what i called hiding.)

Hi David,

The visual field of a person contains the body, for sure. Viewed as non-dual there are many objects around. But the experience of identification vastly reinforces the experience of individuality. There's a body, so what? There are thoughts, so what? Only identification creates this sense of "I/not I" polarity, this sense of a sharply defined region that is "I."

Nick

Bodhi Dharma Zen

13th February 2008, 11:15 AM

Excellent post!

Right, but what I think he is basically saying is that the world that you think is out there is not really what is actually out there. We create this world, in some sense.

Yes, precisely, still I would say that in every sense we "create" it. One thing is how we explain the invariances in perception, and another different to give such things a name (matter, god, nature). I used " " because this creation is in no sense related to its religious meaning.

Look at it from a science perspective -- what is really out there is a blooming, buzzing mess of strings comprising quarks, etc. with most of everything that we think of a solid being empty space. And add dark matter and dark energy to the mix -- we have no clue what they are and they comprise 95% of what is 'out there'.

And yet we have to remember that all these are MERELY descriptive tools that allow us to make predictions. Nothing more, there is a "substance" (so to speak) behind the concepts, but as the map is not the territory, our concepts have not substance beyond the meanings we ascribe to them.

He isn't saying that there isn't really anything out there (actually he is, but I think that idea is tied to another basic concept, which is why I think it isn't a good place to start), but that what we experience isn't the 'real reality'.

Exactly, there are no tables and no spoons. Both are constructs, both conceptually and perceptually. Both are THINGS FOR US, not "in themselfs" (if such a concept was meaningful this is).

We all know that our perceptual systems filter an enormous amount of data that exists 'out there', but our brains also construct the means by which any of that data has meaning. We create meaning from that blooming, buzzing mess 'out there' through not only our perceptual filters but also our cognitive set-up.

Perceptual system works both filtering and creating the result. Its like abstract data in computer. Depending on how we choose to depict the information, it will have certain characteristics, but such are not in the input signal. Take, for instance, the info in a hard drive. You can convert it to a certain arrangement of photons in a screen, with certain shape and determinate design, and what you are seeing is related to the original info, but nothing like it. In other words, it is simply FOOLISH to think that you are seeing (or can see) the data of the hard drive as IT IS.

The deeper philosophical idea that underlies all of this -- again from a science perspective -- is that the universe itself may be a 'nothing' -- all the matter and energy may exactly balance so that in some grand equation it all equals one big zero. But we live within a momentary flicker (in the greater realm of an eternity) where all the forces of the universe are separated and we can experience time and matter and energy as a something. Despite this, it is all an illusion in the greater scheme of things.

Poetic, and correct!

Goes all the way back to Parminides in the western tradition. Everything is illusion.

And Shankara in the east.

But, even if it is, it's a damn persistent illusion and worth spending time working out the details in my opinion.

Agreed!

Bodhi Dharma Zen

13th February 2008, 12:11 PM

When we talk about scientific explanations, we are talking about predictive models. The thing about a predictive model is it makes predictions. And the thing about predictions is that you can check whether they are true.

And they are. Science explains things in a way nothing else does. Science works.

You got half right. Yes, science is about predictions, and yes, it can predict more than any other tool we have used (like religion). That said, science DOESN'T EXPLAIN anything, it describes some things and it is rewarded with good predictions some times.

That's the difference. An explanation assumes you know what is going on ("this is that" meaning: you grasp the territory) a description is, and always will be, a map, and nothing more.

Stout

13th February 2008, 12:14 PM

John...no, I'm not trolling. Like I said upthread, I'm new to this whole idea of calling science a belief, and although I tend to prefer accepting science as being the default position, or philosophy. I thought I'd at least try to understand the idea before rejecting it.

And seriously...I did spit coffee all over my monitor when I read woovicles:D

But why does science need to be based on belief ? Speaking in terms of black and white, or absolutes, it's a natural position to observe that if I hold a stone in my hand and let go of it, it will fall to the ground..always. Science calls this gravity, tells me that this force exists between all objects with mass and is dependant on the sum total of the masses in question.

Science even gives me measurements for those forces. So what belief is involved ? That gravity can be only one theory ? True, gravity isn't 100% understood but in order for science to be just a belief, wouldn't there have to be another, competing belief out there to contest with the scientific viewpoint that stones fall to the ground due to gravity ?

Wait...I've got one. God makes stones fall to the ground, it's God's will that stones should fall. But that just brings us back to another statement I made upthread about ( IMO ) having to subscribe to one belief system that you feel trumps the scientific viewpoint in order to accept that science is itself another belief system. That's all my faith free brain can come up with as a way to try and understand the science is a belief system, viewpoint.

That...and I thought woovicles might show some promise.

As to all statements being true or false, I suppose that would depend on a clearly defined set of circumstances that object or process were being subjected to. I almost went insane in organic chemistry due to all the variables that might cause, or might not cause a reaction to occur, or not occur, to produce what it is you're trying to produce.

As confusing as those variables were, there was never any suggestion of belief as a variable at all. There was no, unexplained, this reaction will only happen on tuesdays, or in the presence of the music of the mighty Led Zepplin. In short there were no wild cards,,or anything of the sort to suggest that something "else" might be going on other than A+B --> C

Is logic a belief ? I don't know, I suppose it could be called one, but science is going to test a logical conclusion to see if it is indeed, logical and will most likely reject a conclusion inferred by logic in the face of experimental evidence.

Particles of matter being in two places at once ? Logically, I'd say no. but were a scientist to show me that it were possible, then I would be forced to abandon my logical conclusion and accept yes, as a new reality.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

13th February 2008, 12:27 PM

Consciousness should be a verb. Can you point to "running", put it under the microscope? You can see a relation of parts that we call 'running', but where is the 'running' itself? It's just a verb that we treat like a noun.

Agreed, or how about a place (instead of a thing). The place in which the world occurs, the plateu where the story happens.

Nick227

13th February 2008, 01:39 PM

One way of looking at is lumpers vs. spiltters, I think. Really when you get down to it, if we accept monism then it's all just one long process and we 'create' artificial boundaries between different bits of the grand process.

It seems to me it is some form of process and that this experience of personal identity is merely a side-effect that arises in bringing into awareness the subconscious dynamic. Once this has been made adequately conscious, the experience of personal identity begins to dissipate.

The issue, or hold-up, or blockage, occurs because the exterior vision of the world that can develop as a result of this side-effect has a tendency to "lock up" and try and assert itself as a priori primary.

Nick

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 02:15 PM

You got half right. Yes, science is about predictions, and yes, it can predict more than any other tool we have used (like religion). That said, science DOESN'T EXPLAIN anything, it describes some things and it is rewarded with good predictions some times.
That is an explanation.

That's the difference. An explanation assumes you know what is going on ("this is that" meaning: you grasp the territory) a description is, and always will be, a map, and nothing more.
The description is a map, but it's not a description of a map, it's a description of a territory. You're sticking in an extra level of indirection where there is none.

articulett

13th February 2008, 02:37 PM

Yes, I sure as hell can't imagine why one would want to insert something into the materialism... it's like inserting god as an explanation to fill in some gap in understanding or to feel special without really saying anything useful.

I don't see the point. It sounds like word games to imply something but not really say anything at all.

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 03:47 PM

Stout

13th February 2008, 04:10 PM

Clearly, not only does science provides explanations, it is the only thing that does.

That's what I figure too, which is why I'm having a nigh on impossible time accepting that science could be considered a belief system.

Jeff Corey

13th February 2008, 04:45 PM

All they have is word games.

Just back on my previous point, with BDZ's absurd claim that science doesn't explain anything:

The purpose of explanations is understanding. And if you understand something, you know what it will do before it does it.

Clearly, not only does science provides explanations, it is the only thing that does.

Maybe he means science doesn't explain anything at the level he might prefer. For me as a behaviorist, finding a replicatable functional relationship between an independent variable and some reliable measure of behavior suffices at the beginning. Then generalizing from a number of these established relationships to laws is even better. Then attempting to falsify these laws to see how robust they are is the next step.
That's explanation.
Skinner stated that the goal of psychology was the prediction and control of behavior. The field has gotten much more "cognitive" or wooish since he wrote that, but it still works for me.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

13th February 2008, 07:28 PM

But I disagree to a large extent about the ability to share experiences. Experiences are just information, and information is substrate neutral. You don't run into fundamental problems until you start nitpicking with questions like "Can my mind remember experiencing your experience the same way that your mind remembers experiencing it?" Now, this requires extensive messing about with brain structure; it's easy with computers, a lot harder with people. But not impossible.

For me, its like arguing in favor of time traveling. There are to many puzzles when you make simply thought experiments than it is better to leave the hypothesis and wait for the answer.

articulett

13th February 2008, 10:05 PM

Science explains our origins better than anything else.

PixyMisa

13th February 2008, 10:57 PM

For me, its like arguing in favor of time traveling. There are to many puzzles when you make simply thought experiments than it is better to leave the hypothesis and wait for the answer.
It's actually the exact opposite of time travel. Time travel is logically possible, but physically impossible. Experiencing another person's experience is, depending on the definitions you are using, either physically possible or logically impossible.

Like HPC and the Mary thingy, the real problem is with philosophers not defining their terms properly.

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 01:01 AM

Hi David,

The visual field of a person contains the body, for sure. Viewed as non-dual there are many objects around. But the experience of identification vastly reinforces the experience of individuality. There's a body, so what? There are thoughts, so what? Only identification creates this sense of "I/not I" polarity, this sense of a sharply defined region that is "I."

Nick

Hmm,

I will try again. While there are concepts, thoughts and the like, there are also the experiences. So , yes, it can help to decouple personal attachment to thoughts and feelings, especialy regarding the notion of the self.

What I am pointing to is this:

Regardless of the ontology it appears that certain thoughts and experiences are limited to the individual bodies.

For example, the memories of a specific event seem to be bounded by an individual body, and while they may be communicated from one to another, they are not shared.

It is not the sense of 'I' that creates this, it appears that there are seperate bodies.

For example, the experiences that are associated with a body seem to be limited to a body, so 'this body' does not see through the eyes of 'that body' when they are sitting next to each other.

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 01:04 AM

Hi David,

I looked on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety#Existential_anxiety) and it seems to be a branch of Anxiety relating to fear of death, or dealing with the issue of one day not being here anymore. This is also mentioned in a review of psilocybin's medicinal uses on Wikipedia. Interesting that they administer a tryptamine for it. Quite a novel approach.

Nick

So, it is not is the DSM IV-R?

I saw what you linked to.

Could be great stuff, but for a long time , and since reinforced by chaos theory, I tend to look for simple processes that create complex behaviors.

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 01:06 AM

It seems to me it is some form of process and that this experience of personal identity is merely a side-effect that arises in bringing into awareness the subconscious dynamic. Once this has been made adequately conscious, the experience of personal identity begins to dissipate.

The issue, or hold-up, or blockage, occurs because the exterior vision of the world that can develop as a result of this side-effect has a tendency to "lock up" and try and assert itself as a priori primary.

Nick

I agree that ego identity is another tool, it sure is not always the best tool.

Again I feel the AHB stated it all very well, and that the eightfold path works well for me.

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 01:31 AM

Posted by Johm Freestone
Generally, I consider reductionism as one of the limitations of science, if that's any help,

It might seem that is an a priori bias.

While we can argue what the use of reductionism might mean in terms of philosophy, it is not the model that I talk about.
a. There is the apparent universe, the ontology of it is moot to this POV.
b. There appears to be separate bodies in the world and they occur at different scales, some combine and divide at different scales.
c. Regardless of the ontology, it appears that isotropy, IE causal relations, apply to the observable universe.
d. Reductionism in the sense that I use it is not the notion that all things are divided into ‘atoms’ but that all things seem to be comprised of multiple factors. Which is why I call my self a pluralist. Every where that the world is observed I seem to note that a plurality of players and forces exist. So it could be factorism, because it contains the notions that there may separate factors, blended factors and factors that are really expressions of the same ‘thing’, so again the ontology is moot.
e. It appears that one can try to explore the relation of different factors. And that this model can be applied to all systems that can be observed. Again through the apparent bodies in the apparent universe. Which is why I use the word apparent, not in the sense of obvious but in the sense of ‘that which appears’.
f. This kind of model can be used regardless of ones world view, it does not require separation of subject object, an assumption of division. It works under most world views. It works if you assume that all things are cojoined in multiple ways , it works if you assume that all things are comprised of separate players.
Why? Because it does not assume what the nature of the world or the apparent players in the world are. They could be spirits, they could be mind, they can be dead particles, they can be living particles. It doesn’t matter.
g If a player interacts in this way, is there an observable behavior/action/response/change/stay the same?

That is all. Observe and note.

although when it began to develop systems theory and gained some understanding of holistic viewpoints, it still (naturally) used its external, 3rd-person conceptual modelling.

Well again, I am thinking that it doesn’t really matter, when the terms of ‘double blind’ and the like are used it is about perceptual bias more than anything or communication.

From my POV the world view does not matter, I already assume that I am part and parcel of the world, I am interconnected to everything around me, I participate in a crazy world where energy is shared and effecting energy all around. There are observations that would indicate that is some strange way (currently modeled at the speed of light but again, based upon observation of the apparent world) I am interacting with stuff across the universe at extreme distance.

Electrons and other leptons get even stranger, in ways that I have a hard time getting to fit in my brain patterns.

John Freestone

14th February 2008, 04:50 AM

the real problem is with philosophers not defining their terms properly.Yes, from the point of view of the theoretician, the cartographer of reality. However, the real problem is that philosophers sometimes postulate that the definition of terms hampers other modes of understanding, some of which may reveal deeper truths. These territory-exploring views, such as the Buddhist, seek to develop bare attention, "Mindfulness", wherein objects reveal secrets about their (and our) nature unavailable to abstraction, reflection, measurement, etc. Hence, your reply to BDZ that the scientific explanation was not a map of a map, but a map of reality and he has put in an extra level, is moving in the wrong direction: the philosophy I think he is describing takes away the map level. Subject and object are found to be united, or there is no stable subject-personality-ego-soul witnessing separate events, or events are just arising (cf Nick227 on non-duality).

Nick227

14th February 2008, 04:53 AM

Hmm,

I will try again. While there are concepts, thoughts and the like, there are also the experiences. So , yes, it can help to decouple personal attachment to thoughts and feelings, especialy regarding the notion of the self.

What I am pointing to is this:

Regardless of the ontology it appears that certain thoughts and experiences are limited to the individual bodies.

For example, the memories of a specific event seem to be bounded by an individual body, and while they may be communicated from one to another, they are not shared.

It is not the sense of 'I' that creates this, it appears that there are seperate bodies.

For example, the experiences that are associated with a body seem to be limited to a body, so 'this body' does not see through the eyes of 'that body' when they are sitting next to each other.

It seems to me that you are attempting to construct a justification for objectivity that can exist in non-duality. But you are still proceeding from the assumptions of the objective mindset. There are thoughts, so what? There is a body, so what? There are other bodies, apparently experiencing other thoughts, so what? If none of this has any real, actual sense of identity innate to it, what does it matter?

The motivation to construct the objective mindset lies in the experience of identification. Without identification it could still be constructed, the raw materials are all still present, but where is the motivation? Where is the impelling force?

It is the experience that the thoughts are "your thoughts," and that other thoughts are not, that provides the motivation to construct the objective mindset and interpret reality through it.

Nick

JoeEllison

14th February 2008, 04:56 AM

It's actually the exact opposite of time travel. Time travel is logically possible, but physically impossible. Experiencing another person's experience is, depending on the definitions you are using, either physically possible or logically impossible.

Like HPC and the Mary thingy, the real problem is with philosophers not defining their terms properly.
The real problem is that philosophers sometimes intentionally avoid defining terms, to give them some wiggle room when they are slipping into blatant illogic. :)

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 05:23 AM

Yes, from the point of view of the theoretician, the cartographer of reality. However, the real problem is that philosophers sometimes postulate that the definition of terms hampers other modes of understanding, some of which may reveal deeper truths.
Those aren't philosophers. They're idiots.

These territory-exploring views, such as the Buddhist, seek to develop bare attention, "Mindfulness", wherein objects reveal secrets about their (and our) nature unavailable to abstraction, reflection, measurement, etc.Yeah, and that works sooo well, doesn't it?

Hence, your reply to BDZ that the scientific explanation was not a map of a map, but a map of reality and he has put in an extra level, is moving in the wrong direction: the philosophy I think he is describing takes away the map level.Maybe he thinks that's what he's doing, but what he actually describes, once you take away the waffle, is materialism.

Subject and object are found to be united, or there is no stable subject-personality-ego-soul witnessing separate events, or events are just arising (cf Nick227 on non-duality).That doesn't mean anything.

Ichneumonwasp

14th February 2008, 05:33 AM

Maybe he thinks that's what he's doing, but what he actually describes, once you take away the waffle, is materialism.

Properly speaking I think we could all say that what he is describing is monism. All monism must look the same, but folks seem to want to endow the ur-substance with some character and call it 'matter' or 'thought' or 'neutral'. I think BDZ, to use Western philosophy again, is going after Anaximander's definition -- the 'undefinable, or unlimited'.

Really, it doesn't matter since we must all be describing the same stuff, whatever the hell it is. So, in a way, yes, he is describing materialism, but I think he would say that stopping at matter is too limiting. For practical purposes, though, it amounts to the same thing.

All science can do is describe the rules by which the ur-substance works, not get to the heart of what it really is. So, what difference does it make what label we put on it?

John Freestone

14th February 2008, 05:40 AM

That's what I figure too, which is why I'm having a nigh on impossible time accepting that science could be considered a belief system.That is a belief. The problem you're having is that you (like most people, and almost everyone in our rationalist disembodied culture) haven't stopped thinking long enough to find something in your experience that you recognise as a fact, independent of belief. It's not easy; the mind takes quite some taming. If you sit and concentrate on your breathing, for instance, you can settle into reality deeply enough to notice it (yes - reality is actually here!), but for a long time you'll be thinking:- "Yes, I'm breathing. So what. That's because I'm a human being with lungs and I'm alive and that's what they do...God this is stupid and boring...they must be 'king mad these meditators...what on earth does he mean reality is actually here?...we discover reality with science...that's a basic fact of life...woovicles!...that's funny...is it tea time yet?..."

Or looking at an object is good - an orange or something. Trying just to see and not think. I remember my first attempts. It feels like someone's told you to take part in a seance or something. Utter garbage. But with patience and practice, it's like the magic eye pictures, (a 3D experience is folded in 2D) - except you're kind of removing dimensions.

Revisiting Pixy's question: "Yes, but does it do anything?" Read almost any Buddhist treatise, and you'll find that "Clear Comprehension" (following from Mindfulness or Bare Attention) is put forward as the only solution for humanity's suffering, since it dissolves greed, hatred and ignorance. Michio Kaku suggests that a fusion reactor would end human conflict by producing unlimited free energy. :confused:

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 05:50 AM

Properly speaking I think we could all say that what he is describing is monism. All monism must look the same, but folks seem to want to endow the ur-substance with some character and call it 'matter' or 'thought' or 'neutral'. I think BDZ, to use Western philosophy again, is going after Anaximander's definition -- the 'undefinable, or unlimited'.
Not a concept I find particularly useful. If it interacts with other stuff, we define it by its interactions. If it doesn't interact, it cannot be meaningfully said to exist.

Really, it doesn't matter since we must all be describing the same stuff, whatever the hell it is. So, in a way, yes, he is describing materialism, but I think he would say that stopping at matter is too limiting.
Problem there is that his notion of matter is stuck in the 16th century. Possibly the 16th century BC.

For practical purposes, though, it amounts to the same thing.
Absolutely.

You can call it physicalism - identical to materialism in all respects; only the name has changed. You can call it naturalism - materialist behaviourism. You can construct idealist ontologies that are also outwardly identical to materialism.

What BDZ is doing, though, is saying "OMG, materialists are teh dummies! Here's my l33t new framework!" And comes up with something which, once you decode his turgid, insult-sprinkled writing, is isomorphic to materialism.

All science can do is describe the rules by which the ur-substance works, not get to the heart of what it really is. So, what difference does it make what label we put on it?
It doesn't. The reason I keep correcting BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and previously Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk, is that they think this makes a difference.

As you say:

Really, it doesn't matter since we must all be describing the same stuff, whatever the hell it is.
Interesting Ian believes in reincarnation.

Nick believes that the world is ruled by a shadowy cabal of immortal alchemists.

This isn't just metaphysical nitpickery; this is serious woo.

BDZ hasn't said he believes in any such thing, but he feels compelled to tell everyone they are wrong anyway.

Martillo likewise.

John, so far, seems far less dogmatic and more open to understanding other's views and criticism of his ideas, so kudos to him for that.

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 05:54 AM

That is a belief. The problem you're having is that you (like most people, and almost everyone in our rationalist disembodied culture) haven't stopped thinking long enough to find something in your experience that you recognise as a fact, independent of belief.
No, that is not the problem.

It's not easy; the mind takes quite some taming. If you sit and concentrate on your breathing, for instance, you can settle into reality deeply enough to notice it (yes - reality is actually here!), but for a long time you'll be thinking:- "Yes, I'm breathing. So what. That's because I'm a human being with lungs and I'm alive and that's what they do...God this is stupid and boring...they must be 'king mad these meditators...what on earth does he mean reality is actually here?...we discover reality with science...that's a basic fact of life...woovicles!...that's funny...is it tea time yet?..."
Which tells us nothing.

Or looking at an object is good - an orange or something. Trying just to see and not think. I remember my first attempts. It feels like someone's told you to take part in a seance or something. Utter garbage. But with patience and practice, it's like the magic eye pictures, (a 3D experience is folded in 2D) - except you're kind of removing dimensions.
Which also tells us nothing.

Revisiting Pixy's question: "Yes, but does it do anything?" Read almost any Buddhist treatise, and you'll find that "Clear Comprehension" (following from Mindfulness or Bare Attention) is put forward as the only solution for humanity's suffering, since it dissolves greed, hatred and ignorance.
Yes. And how is that working out for them? Oh, it's completely ineffective, you say? How about that!

Michio Kaku suggests that a fusion reactor would end human conflict by producing unlimited free energy. :confused:
Really? How odd.

Ichneumonwasp

14th February 2008, 06:02 AM

Here's a thought as relates to monisms.........

We define words in only one way -- in relation to other words, other concepts. So, what do we do with the ultimate substance of the universe? We can't define it in relation to anything because it is everything.

We can label it for convenience sake, but that's it. There is no further step to be taken except to describe through science how it acts.

So, can we stop all the materialism, idealism crap and move onto something more productive?

Like winning Powerball.

John Freestone

14th February 2008, 06:05 AM

Quote:
Subject and object are found to be united, or there is no stable subject-personality-ego-soul witnessing separate events, or events are just arising (cf Nick227 on non-duality).
That doesn't mean anything.That's right. :)

John Freestone

14th February 2008, 06:12 AM

Yes. And how is that working out for them? Oh, it's completely ineffective, you say? How about that!Hard to know what the world would be like without the great spiritual teachers, but you're confusing unfinished progress with failure. The point is (assuming that the philosophy is correct, which I think I've gathered you don't), there is no other solution available. One hindrance is the tendency to dismiss it as woo without testing it. If it's right, that is in fact the only hindrance.

John Freestone

14th February 2008, 06:15 AM

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 06:18 AM

Hard to know what the world would be like without the great spiritual teachers, but you're confusing unfinished progress with failure.
Um, what progress have they made?

The point is (assuming that the philosophy is correct, which I think I've gathered you don't)
It's not so much that the philosophy is wrong, as that they cannot produce a coherent definition of their beliefs.

there is no other solution available.
There is no solution available.

There is one thing that we know dissolves greed, hatred, and ignorance. However, it also dissolves charity, love, and understanding. And everything else.

Not a real win, in my opinion.

One hindrance is the tendency to dismiss it as woo without testing it. If it's right, that is in fact the only hindrance.
Test it? We'd love to test it! First, produce a coherent operational definition. Then we can construct a test. And then we'll see.

69dodge

14th February 2008, 06:31 AM

Revisiting Pixy's question: "Yes, but does it do anything?" Read almost any Buddhist treatise, and you'll find that "Clear Comprehension" (following from Mindfulness or Bare Attention) is put forward as the only solution for humanity's suffering, since it dissolves greed, hatred and ignorance.

I've never meditated, so I don't know. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it does those good things. Still, what has that got to do with whether consciousness is due solely to brain activity, or in general with whether science is basically the right approach to understanding the world? Why couldn't meditation dissolve greed and hatred anyway, even if meditators weren't in touch with any deeper reality but rather were simply having a particular sort of experience, due, as are all other experiences, to brain activity of one kind or another? I don't see the connection at all.

69dodge

14th February 2008, 06:36 AM

Yes. And how is that working out for them? Oh, it's completely ineffective, you say? How about that!

Well. Be fair. Presumably it can be expected to work only if everyone does it, not just them.

hammegk

14th February 2008, 06:39 AM

The reason I keep correcting BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and previously Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk, is that they think this makes a difference.
One difference it makes is the ability to allow other people to have ideas different than yours.

John, so far, seems far less dogmatic and more open to understanding other's views and criticism of his ideas, so kudos to him for that.
The casual, and not so casual readers will make up their own minds as to which side of this debate will be furnishing members of the next Spanish Inquisition to root out heretics.

I see you and the scientifically literate of your mindset, abetted by the choir of Articuletts, with the tongs and hot irons; not BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk (and me).

The primary catechism appears to be: I Believe In Evolution; Only Matter Exists. (And god does not.)

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 06:58 AM

Hence, your reply to BDZ that the scientific explanation was not a map of a map, but a map of reality and he has put in an extra level, is moving in the wrong direction: the philosophy I think he is describing takes away the map level. Subject and object are found to be united, or there is no stable subject-personality-ego-soul witnessing separate events, or events are just arising (cf Nick227 on non-duality).

That's correct. But this is very difficult step. I can't really blame people like Pixy when they don't get it. They are accustomed to think in maps and territories, and forget that they naively assume that there is always a real, concrete territory, that we are cartographers and that every map is more real than the previous ones.

In other words, they are as naive as any other woo.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 07:02 AM

Science explains our origins better than anything else.

Science explains, science explains.

No.

Using science to make tests, our theoretical framework attempt to describe our origins. Their success, or lack of, depends on the number of concepts fitting observations and relational evidence. So far naturalism is the most encompassing of such TFs

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 07:22 AM

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 08:21 AM

Not a concept I find particularly useful. If it interacts with other stuff, we define it by its interactions. If it doesn't interact, it cannot be meaningfully said to exist.

Are you emotionally attached to the word "materialism"? You have recognized that what matters is the facts, and facts are facts, independent of beliefs. If it doesn't matter what we believe, it matters even less how we call them, they are what they are whatever the name we label them with.

Now, "materialism" is old, better terminology exists. That's why I choose the later, we are in a skeptical forum after all.

Problem there is that his notion of matter is stuck in the 16th century. Possibly the 16th century BC.

No. This is convenient for you to think. Lets take a dictionary definition NOT mine.

"Materialism. Philosophy. The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter."

That is what is 16th century, where you are trapped.

You can call it physicalism - identical to materialism in all respects; only the name has changed.

Wrong. Again.

"Physicalism is also called "materialism", but the term "physicalism" is preferable because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more sophisticated notions of physicality than matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles. Some philosophers use the term "materialism" to denote descriptions based on the motions of matter and "physicalism" for descriptions based on matter and world geometry (see: Stoljar 2001)."

Deal with it.

What BDZ is doing, though, is saying "OMG, materialists are teh dummies! Here's my l33t new framework!" And comes up with something which, once you decode his turgid, insult-sprinkled writing, is isomorphic to materialism.

Yet, it is named different, and this alone have some implications, for instance, its less wooish.

BDZ hasn't said he believes in any such thing, but he feels compelled to tell everyone they are wrong anyway.

Not everyone, just normal woos, pseudo skeptics and naive materialists.

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 09:32 AM

It seems to me that you are attempting to construct a justification for objectivity that can exist in non-duality. But you are still proceeding from the assumptions of the objective mindset. There are thoughts, so what? There is a body, so what? There are other bodies, apparently experiencing other thoughts, so what? If none of this has any real, actual sense of identity innate to it, what does it matter?

Hmm, I sort of see where you are headed but I would say to you that it doesn't matter.

I may or may not exist and as you put it earlier "I don't care" or in a more detached mode "It doesn't matter".

I really don't care and you seem to be projecting all sorts of stuff on to me for it.

So what?

So there are the experiences. That is all that there is as far as the living being which may or may not be.

You seem to have slipped into some extreme form of nihilism.

I doesn't matter if the identity is real or not. As in the common usage, it is there just for communications.

And appearances are all there are, or experiences or whatever.

The motivation to construct the objective mindset lies in the experience of identification. Without identification it could still be constructed, the raw materials are all still present, but where is the motivation? Where is the impelling force?

I really don't care about impelling force, I am rather simple minded and transparent. If something is there to be experienced and the pysical body can have that experience then it is what it is.

What implication are you heaeded towards. i am saying that the identification doesn't matter.

You seem really hung up on something that I don't understand. Perhaps trying to explain it would help.

It is the experience that the thoughts are "your thoughts," and that other thoughts are not, that provides the motivation to construct the objective mindset and interpret reality through it.

Nick

the experiences are what they are. Are you saying that there is an experience that is not limited to a physical body?

You have hid and avoided this question from the start and semantic defintions will not cahange it.

Experience is all that is.

What other point of reference for communications is there?

Ichneumonwasp

14th February 2008, 09:51 AM

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 10:01 AM

Ichneumonwasp

14th February 2008, 10:55 AM

Dancing David

14th February 2008, 01:33 PM

One difference it makes is the ability to allow other people to have ideas different than yours.

The casual, and not so casual readers will make up their own minds as to which side of this debate will be furnishing members of the next Spanish Inquisition to root out heretics.

I see you and the scientifically literate of your mindset, abetted by the choir of Articuletts, with the tongs and hot irons; not BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk (and me).

The primary catechism appears to be: I Believe In Evolution; Only Matter Exists. (And god does not.)

Hiya Hamme!

Welcome back, I have gone even farther since the last you visited, I think that i just use materialism as a common label. Functional objectivism seems to clunky.

I think evolution seems likely and that I can't tell if energy/matter are all that exist. I haven't seen any evidence that it dualist yet.

It really doesn't matter if energy is conscious or not.

I thought the new spanish inquisition was the neocons!

:)

JoeEllison

14th February 2008, 01:45 PM

One difference it makes is the ability to allow other people to have ideas different than yours.

The casual, and not so casual readers will make up their own minds as to which side of this debate will be furnishing members of the next Spanish Inquisition to root out heretics.

I see you and the scientifically literate of your mindset, abetted by the choir of Articuletts, with the tongs and hot irons; not BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk (and me).

The primary catechism appears to be: I Believe In Evolution; Only Matter Exists. (And god does not.)
That's an an incredibly childish, and actually pretty consistent(!), position you've taken there. You have nothing to add to our knowledge, nothing of any import to share with anyone, and the fact that people notice the intellectual bankruptcy of your position isn't a hint that you need to rethink things. Instead, it feeds into the pathetic persecution complex that seems to always lurk just beneath the surface of woo beliefs.

You're allowed to have any viewpoint you want, and you're lying if you claim otherwise. You don't have a right to be taken seriously, though... and you aren't. :cool:

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 02:12 PM

Well. Be fair. Presumably it can be expected to work only if everyone does it, not just them.
As I said. ;)

Anything will work if everyone does it, so the insight of these great teachers is basically zip.

PixyMisa

14th February 2008, 02:14 PM

One difference it makes is the ability to allow other people to have ideas different than yours.
You can do that anyway. That doesn't make those ideas true, valid, or even coherent.

The casual, and not so casual readers will make up their own minds as to which side of this debate will be furnishing members of the next Spanish Inquisition to root out heretics.
Ad hominem.

I see you and the scientifically literate of your mindset, abetted by the choir of Articuletts, with the tongs and hot irons; not BDZ, and Nick and Martillo and John, and Interesting Ian and Undercover Elephant and Hammegk (and me).
Ad hominem.

The primary catechism appears to be: I Believe In Evolution; Only Matter Exists. (And god does not.)
Strawman.

Hi Hammy, how you been?

articulett

14th February 2008, 02:21 PM

I believe in reincarnation... of sock puppets.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

14th February 2008, 04:06 PM

I believe in reincarnation... of sock puppets.

Now you are officially a clown.

Apathia

14th February 2008, 06:32 PM

I believe it would help, for all the interested, to map our particular views, in order to not using the same terms with different meanings. I'm not saying that the following depiction is the best, but it is a start. We all have to answer simple questions. Maybe then we can do some map and circular discussions could be avoided. Feel free to add more questions.

1) What is the universe made of?

2) Is consciousness in the universe? and if it is (whatever that is), its constituyents are the same as the rest of the universe?

3) Which tools can we use to find out what the universe is made of?

4) Is the question about the ultimate constituents of the universe important in the first place?

Ah, an entry level post!

1.) To me it's a dubious question. We bring this whole "Made of" thing to the table. Is there something we experience that we can declare the Substance? Like velcro, for example? Or is it our reality's stuff as opposed to some other reality's stuff? (and how would you know?) Is it stuff all?
All we can really talk about is what we in our niche of the scale of things experience. Science describes the behavior of what we experience, nothing more. It's WYSIWYG.
I have a subjective inclination to saying that the world of experience is the very world of reality.

2.) Consciousness isn't a stuff. and it's not an ultimate reality. It's just a way of seeing. In a manner of speaking consciouness is in the universe. In another manner of speaking, the universe in consciouness. But consciouness is just a manner of speaking.

3.) In a manner of speaking, the universe is made of our tools.
And as we writers know, "The universe is made of stories."

4.) There are a few people who try to live as if reality were stone dead matter or, on the other hand, flighty ideals, or both, to their general misery.
But fortunately, most of us don't live in consistancy with these fantasies of metaphysics. So, to all practical purposes it hardly makes a difference. It certainly doesn't to the Scientific Method which can be properly followed by both a Hindu Idealist and a physical naturalist.
A skeptical perspective on the matter would be of use to anyone addicted to shallow ideologies about ultimate substances.

Nick227

15th February 2008, 10:22 AM

Hmm, I sort of see where you are headed but I would say to you that it doesn't matter.

I may or may not exist and as you put it earlier "I don't care" or in a more detached mode "It doesn't matter".

I really don't care and you seem to be projecting all sorts of stuff on to me for it.

So what?

So there are the experiences. That is all that there is as far as the living being which may or may not be.

You seem to have slipped into some extreme form of nihilism.

I doesn't matter if the identity is real or not. As in the common usage, it is there just for communications.

And appearances are all there are, or experiences or whatever.

I really don't care about impelling force, I am rather simple minded and transparent. If something is there to be experienced and the pysical body can have that experience then it is what it is.

What implication are you heaeded towards. i am saying that the identification doesn't matter.

You seem really hung up on something that I don't understand. Perhaps trying to explain it would help.

the experiences are what they are. Are you saying that there is an experience that is not limited to a physical body?

You have hid and avoided this question from the start and semantic defintions will not cahange it.

Experience is all that is.

What other point of reference for communications is there?

Experiences are also constructed by the objective perspective. You can't experience without someone who is experiencing. That's my opinion, anyway. It's not a question of experiences...there are things, er....thing-ing. To a lively and interested mind perhaps it doesn't seem so exciting.

As to nihilism, this is not a nihilist perspective. It's a straight-down-the-line non-dualist perspective. The feelings that come up as a result of encountering non-dualism direct on are the feelings that the person is pushing out of awareness. The notion that non-dualism is nihilist is a common one, not because it has any veracity, but because people usually cling to any semblance of meaning in their life regardless of whether it has validity or not. They are frequently not so concerned with truth if it doesn't look like they want it to.

If you don't like non-dualism then why not just say so? If it makes you feel a lack of meaning I think it's better to say this. I find that more honest, personally.

Nick

Dancing David

15th February 2008, 01:02 PM

Experiences are also constructed by the objective perspective. You can't experience without someone who is experiencing. That's my opinion, anyway. It's not a question of experiences...there are things, er....thing-ing. To a lively and interested mind perhaps it doesn't seem so exciting.

As to nihilism, this is not a nihilist perspective. It's a straight-down-the-line non-dualist perspective. The feelings that come up as a result of encountering non-dualism direct on are the feelings that the person is pushing out of awareness. The notion that non-dualism is nihilist is a common one, not because it has any veracity, but because people usually cling to any semblance of meaning in their life regardless of whether it has validity or not. They are frequently not so concerned with truth if it doesn't look like they want it to.

If you don't like non-dualism then why not just say so? If it makes you feel a lack of meaning I think it's better to say this. I find that more honest, personally.

Nick

See there you go trying to fit me into your categories, for someone who supposedly doesn't objectify things, you sure seem to be motivated to objectify and categorise my thoughts and behaviors.

Kind of strange that.

I can try to try to communicate with you but it seems that you either are just pigeon holing me without trying to understand my POV or you are just lecturing me on the way that I should be using words. I am really trying to understand where you are trying to express yourself, but you don't seem interested in common language.

I am thing that is thinging but you tell me that i am not thinging appropraitly.

Whatever.

:)

If I am a thing, and I am thinging, I notice that my two eyes things differently, is that okay?