Gestahl
19th April 2004, 03:37 PM
First off, I would like to respectfully request certain forum members who rub hammegk "the wrong way" to refrain from this discussion, because H seems to respond by closing down and not contributing as meaningfully to the discussion (no offense is meant to H, as there are two ways to deal when you get pissed, either quit, or just yell louder... I think the first is the better option). I will not mention names, but I think the people in question know. I think H actually has a lot to say, and I would like to hear it.
First... what exactly are you arguing H? I see a lot of glimpses of your thoughts, but never a good enough chunk to start thinking in your framework (or maybe I am not good enough at correlating all your posts). You have said Objective Idealism before, but all the resources I can find seem to speak just a little above my philosophical lexicon. Plus, that is just a label, and no philosopher thinks the same thing ;-).
Second, regarding HPC, I said I would get back to you on what I thought, and after a weekend of pondering (thank you again for that link), here is my response:
The problem that seems to exist between reality as philosophical materialism and reality as we experience it seems to be the irreducibility of experience. We can effect it, and we can study it, but don't know where it arises... In the article, the author (Chalmer I think it was) states that the concept of experiencing should be added into science, etc. This is not a very good statement on his part, because experience is necessarily personal and not verifiable objectively. I would prefer this to stay in philosophy. Thus it would seem inescapable that a dualism would occur.
The ability of an object to modify itself in a manner depending upon its previous "states" has two notable examples: computers and humans. One we ascribe consiousness to, the other not. Could we prove that it experiences things? No, I don't think we can. Could everything be an experient at some level? Could be. I think given our priveledged view point of our ourselves, all things might "experience" things and react to them, and we just happen to have a process that can do the functional aspects that we label consiousness, trying to make sense of it. This has the problem, though, of what part of me is doing the experiencing, and why does it seem centered in the brain? The answer is that that entity, collectively, is doing the processing, and thus is the "collector of experience" as a meaningful thing. This is then the only answer I can think of at the moment that does not appeal to emergent properties, "f*cking magic" (translated as the prior in scientific terms), or "Goddidit." Now how is this different than idealism, "all is mind"? Everything might experience something, but it needs a collector and processor to be able to turn it into anything meaningful and to even have the ability to realize it is experiencing. I.e. our nerves and atoms experience things, and transmit that experience to the brain in the form of ion graidents across membranes (I hate it when people think it is electricity, i.e. the flow of electrons. It is the status of ions' position across an impermiable membrane that does the trick.) I would say there is no experiencing separate from being affected by TLOP. I don't know if I have just moved the problem, or even come up with anything meaningful....
I think this may be a Godel sentence for our reality... a proposition that cannot be proven true or false. Even if we deterministically described the brain, we still won't have the answer to where our experiential sense of being arises (in my opinion anyway).
The real question is what do you trust? Do you trust your own devices inductively? I would say no, because people are horrible at self-analysis (this is no surprise... do you know any systems that can describe themselves perfectly?), and you have only yourself as a "priviledged observer." I understand the reasoning behind not accepting a priori that external reality exists, but it at least seems to, and seems to be fairly consistent among consiousnesses. How does the idealist avoid solipsism?
H, I eagerly await your responses (honestly, it seems you have thought a lot about this....).
First... what exactly are you arguing H? I see a lot of glimpses of your thoughts, but never a good enough chunk to start thinking in your framework (or maybe I am not good enough at correlating all your posts). You have said Objective Idealism before, but all the resources I can find seem to speak just a little above my philosophical lexicon. Plus, that is just a label, and no philosopher thinks the same thing ;-).
Second, regarding HPC, I said I would get back to you on what I thought, and after a weekend of pondering (thank you again for that link), here is my response:
The problem that seems to exist between reality as philosophical materialism and reality as we experience it seems to be the irreducibility of experience. We can effect it, and we can study it, but don't know where it arises... In the article, the author (Chalmer I think it was) states that the concept of experiencing should be added into science, etc. This is not a very good statement on his part, because experience is necessarily personal and not verifiable objectively. I would prefer this to stay in philosophy. Thus it would seem inescapable that a dualism would occur.
The ability of an object to modify itself in a manner depending upon its previous "states" has two notable examples: computers and humans. One we ascribe consiousness to, the other not. Could we prove that it experiences things? No, I don't think we can. Could everything be an experient at some level? Could be. I think given our priveledged view point of our ourselves, all things might "experience" things and react to them, and we just happen to have a process that can do the functional aspects that we label consiousness, trying to make sense of it. This has the problem, though, of what part of me is doing the experiencing, and why does it seem centered in the brain? The answer is that that entity, collectively, is doing the processing, and thus is the "collector of experience" as a meaningful thing. This is then the only answer I can think of at the moment that does not appeal to emergent properties, "f*cking magic" (translated as the prior in scientific terms), or "Goddidit." Now how is this different than idealism, "all is mind"? Everything might experience something, but it needs a collector and processor to be able to turn it into anything meaningful and to even have the ability to realize it is experiencing. I.e. our nerves and atoms experience things, and transmit that experience to the brain in the form of ion graidents across membranes (I hate it when people think it is electricity, i.e. the flow of electrons. It is the status of ions' position across an impermiable membrane that does the trick.) I would say there is no experiencing separate from being affected by TLOP. I don't know if I have just moved the problem, or even come up with anything meaningful....
I think this may be a Godel sentence for our reality... a proposition that cannot be proven true or false. Even if we deterministically described the brain, we still won't have the answer to where our experiential sense of being arises (in my opinion anyway).
The real question is what do you trust? Do you trust your own devices inductively? I would say no, because people are horrible at self-analysis (this is no surprise... do you know any systems that can describe themselves perfectly?), and you have only yourself as a "priviledged observer." I understand the reasoning behind not accepting a priori that external reality exists, but it at least seems to, and seems to be fairly consistent among consiousnesses. How does the idealist avoid solipsism?
H, I eagerly await your responses (honestly, it seems you have thought a lot about this....).