Mindful Matter

[Dancing David]

I believe that consiousness has arisen from a series of reverberating circuts in the biochemical mess in my head. I have yet to see any proof that there is consiousness outside of the material which houses it. Challenge one: so you think that consiousness is some sort of metapsychic phenomena, debate me.

I also believe in free will, yes I am contrained by the laws of nature, I must act within the framework provided. Challenge two :Prove to me that I don't have free will.

By the way purely semantic arguments should be demonstrated by thought experiments. Wether you like science or not I do!

Peace
dancing David

[hammegk]

You forgot the option "matter arises from mind". :(

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by hammegk
You forgot the option "matter arises from mind".
Okay, I'll bite. How does matter arise from mind?

[Nyarlathotep]

"What is Mind? Doesn't Matter. What is matter? Never Mind."

-Homer Simpson

[Dancing David]

I am interested as well, how does matter arise from mind?
I can imagine all sorts of things that you might be thinking but i would like to read it from your fingertips.

Peace
dancing David

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Synchronicity

Okay, I'll bite. How does matter arise from mind?
As a philosophy, try Idealism.

Read through the many dozens of pages in JREF forums concerning materialism. That would be a start.

Good luck in your quest. :)

[Ruby]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I believe that consiousness has arisen from a series of reverberating circuts in the biochemical mess in my head. I have yet to see any proof that there is consiousness outside of the material which houses it. Challenge one: so you think that consiousness is some sort of metapsychic phenomena, debate me.

I also believe in free will, yes I am contrained by the laws of nature, I must act within the framework provided. Challenge two :Prove to me that I don't have free will.

By the way purely semantic arguments should be demonstrated by thought experiments. Wether you like science or not I do!

Peace
dancing David

Dang, I should have studied harder in school!:rolleyes: :D

[Hypnagogiac]

Okay here's my two cents.
Originally posted by Dancing David:
I believe that consiousness has arisen from a series of reverberating circuts in the biochemical mess in my head.
Overall this is how I feel too. But there's still this weird nagging in my head- that life is somehow seperate from mind and body- like that whole "car & driver" analogy. Maybe this is just because I like life and/or because I've never known different. The whole idea of an "oversoul" appealed to me for awhile- just the idea that there's this sorta unconscious lifeforce out there that slips into vessels that can mobilize it (human, spider, moss, whatever, doesn't matter). In a way, consciousness seems completely seperate from the phenomena of life itself.

All this is just creative speculation, though.

(sorry, that was four cents)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Read through the many dozens of pages in JREF forums concerning materialism. That would be a start.
That way lies madness.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

That way lies madness.

~~ Paul

Not if the materialist/atheist finally understands that agnosticism is completely logical. ;)

[Dancing David]

I am trying to follow the current thread but I started this thread because there is so much going on in that one, I can't find the arguement which says how matter comes from brain, could you point me the place in the thread where it starts, or can you condense it here for me?

Excuse me matter comes from mind,not brain right?

I also this have learning disabilty that makes it hard for me to follow really long posts unless I can digest them a paragraph at a time, it has something to do with the way my brain works. I am trying to understand the current thread but need a diagram to follow it's convolutions.

So maybe a condesed version could be produced, as my mother says 'If you can't write about a thing clearly and concisely then you don't really understand it."

Thanks

Peace
dancing David

[hammegk]

One might say that choices exist:

1. Only matter exists objectively, and by some unknown -- and in fact unknowable -- methodology produces as a "quality" of itself "life". Energy is a subset of this "matter".

Humans are the currently known "most conscious" example.


2. Only mind/soul/"what-is" exists objectively and by some unknown methodology uses "energy" -- whatever that is -- to combine in unknown and unknowable ways to create what humans perceive as matter, which includes their physical bodies & brains.

Dualism -- mind/soul exists objectively and also matter exists objectively -- is actually a subset of and less parsimonious than 1.

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

----
quote:
1. Only matter exists objectively, and by some unknown -- and in fact unknowable -- methodology produces as a "quality" of itself "life". Energy is a subset of this "matter".
----

Again building strawman arguments against materialism?
An "unknowable" methodology produces life? Energy is a subset of matter?
This is Idealism vs. "strawman materialist".

I would really like to know why do you consider any possible "method of producing life" unknowable...

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Peskanov

I would really like to know why do you consider any possible "method of producing life" unknowable...

Repeating myself again: There will always be a god-in-the-gaps for materialists/atheists ... because, if one were to build -- let's keep it easy -- a bacterium starting at quark level & working on up through the biochem with the stuff we perceive as matter, and the critter "lives", we will never know if we just supplied a "material" shelter in the correct environment that life CHOOSES to inhabit, or if we created that life from our "matter as we perceive it". See the problem?

Something I will state unequivocably is that Agnosticism is a defensible position. Shall we recycle the warts of materialists/atheists -- life itself, energy, and hpc-lbf at human structure complexity? If you can reconcile those little problems I salute you.

[Jethro]

Originally posted by hammegk
[...]we will never know if we just supplied a "material" shelter in the correct environment that life CHOOSES to inhabit, or if we created that life from our "matter as we perceive it". See the problem?That just screams out for Occam's razor.

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by hammegk
One might say that choices exist:

1. Only matter exists objectively, and by some unknown -- and in fact unknowable -- methodology produces as a "quality" of itself "life". Energy is a subset of this "matter".

Humans are the currently known "most conscious" example.


2. Only mind/soul/"what-is" exists objectively and by some unknown methodology uses "energy" -- whatever that is -- to combine in unknown and unknowable ways to create what humans perceive as matter, which includes their physical bodies & brains.

Dualism -- mind/soul exists objectively and also matter exists objectively -- is actually a subset of and less parsimonious than 1.

Thank You!
Okay, so there may be more than one choice, lets me see if I understand:

Choice 1: There is objective matter and that is all that exists.
Choice 2: There is this mind/soul/"what-is" that combines to create matter.

So do I understand the logic of statement two, mind is the source of the energy/matter which creates the universe? So is that saying there is an underlying consiuosness to the energy/matter of which the Universe is created. Maybe like "the universe is the manifestation of god's mind"?

I am not trying to create a strawman that you agree to, and I knock down, just reflecting back.

Peace
dancing David

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

---
quote:
we will never know if we just supplied a "material" shelter in the correct environment that life CHOOSES to inhabit, or if we created that life from our "matter as we perceive it". See the problem?
----

Not from the materialist framework. I am sorry, but from a reductionist aproach the propierties of what we call "life" are predicted to appear! Life can not choose to inhabit a bacteria or not, his chemicals behave following universal rules that also affect non living objects.

----
quote:
Something I will state unequivocably is that Agnosticism is a defensible position.
----

I have no problem with that. I agree we can't disprove solipsism.
BTW, are you suggesting that Agnosticism=Idealism? I guess no.

----
quote:
Shall we recycle the warts of materialists/atheists -- life itself, energy, and hpc-lbf at human structure complexity? If you can reconcile those little problems I salute you
----

We shall recycle if you want. Answers had been provided to show materialism is coherent, but you (I mean those here who reject materialism) have just ignored them attacking strawmans of your choice.
The core of those debates is, IMO, the hypothesis "the subjective world is a subset of the objective world".
Mary's red, P-Zombies, and other mind experiments allegedly falsify that hypothesis. Curiously, the usual fallacy that those problems presents is that some word definition along the chain includes (implicit) "the subjective world is NOT a subset of the objective world". Usually, these adendums come from an oposite framework and are far from proved...

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I believe that consiousness has arisen from a series of reverberating circuts in the biochemical mess in my head. I have yet to see any proof that there is consiousness outside of the material which houses it. Challenge one: so you think that consiousness is some sort of metapsychic phenomena, debate me.



yes, this has been argued round the clock on the "materialism" thread but I agree that there were many sub-arguments going on at the same time, so it might be worth returning to the central issue regarding the role of consciousness.

When one tries to find proof that consciousness is somehow separate from the physical world you inevitably enter into a situation where the particular fundamental philosophical position you take determines whether you can be allowed to find the answer to this question.

For example, most poeple can distinguish between the two concepts of matter and mind. Mind is the "inner" world and matter is the other "outer" world of physical reality, separate from the world of our experience. This might be regarded as a dualistic perspective of reality and I think its a perspective that we naturally fall into when going about our everyday lives without thinking what it really means. If one is to acknowledge that there is a real distinction between these two realms then one has to try to explain what the "mind" realm actually is and how it differs from the "matter" realm and also how the two interact (because from this perspective, matter clearly affects mind, eg, drugs).
If your question is phrased within this philosophical framework then there is a huge problem trying to show that the world of experience is separate from the matter of the brain because we can't start to describe mind in mathematical terms without refering to the other realm of matter.

Another approach is to accept that there is only one realm to reality. A materialistic position (debated to the death in the other thread) proposes that our subjective experience is the same thing as the physical process going on in the brain. So, if we were to have a complete description of the neuro-physical processes going on that correlate with a certain experience, there would be nothing left to explain. However, I see problems with the explanatory power of this approach that I will post when I have a bit of time for clarity.

Perhaps the only other approach is to propose that again there is only one realm but here the world we distinguish as the "objective" physical world is actually an intrinsic part of the mental world. There is no world "outside" of our experiences, so to ask whether there is evidence that consciousness is separate from the physical brain is to misunderstand the nature of reality itself (under this philosophical framework).

[Dancing David]

I suggest that if there is the meta-psychic it would have a testable hypothesis, at least subject to thought experiments.

My mind is part of reality and a product of matter. Why is it nessecary to know each step in the process to say that my mind is part of matter?

Peace
dancing David

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Peskanov

Not from the materialist framework. I am sorry, but from a reductionist aproach the propierties of what we call "life" are predicted to appear! Life can not choose to inhabit a bacteria or not, his chemicals behave following universal rules that also affect non living objects.
See the problem here? You request I grant your answer to the question under discussion, and then say you will "prove" things using that as a 100% certain axiom. Phooey.

I agree we can't disprove solipsism.
BTW, are you suggesting that Agnosticism=Idealism? I guess no.

No.

We shall recycle if you want. Answers had been provided to show materialism is coherent, but you (I mean those here who reject materialism) have just ignored them attacking strawmans of your choice.
The core of those debates is, IMO, the hypothesis "the subjective world is a subset of the objective world".
Mary's red, P-Zombies, and other mind experiments allegedly falsify that hypothesis. Curiously, the usual fallacy that those problems presents is that some word definition along the chain includes (implicit) "the subjective world is NOT a subset of the objective world". Usually, these adendums come from an oposite framework and are far from proved...
I have no interest in re-cycling, and I don't even agree that subjective / objective is the correct question. So far as I am concerned the problem lies with life / non-life interface. If you have a better -- falsifiable of course since you are following the scientific method -- answer than life is energy(certainly energetic), non-life is static, please advise.

Do you agree that dualism does not make logical sense?

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

----
quote:
See the problem here? You request I grant your answer to the question under discussion, and then say you will "prove" things using that as a 100% certain axiom. Phooey.
----

Let's see. A few posts ago you presented 3 choices: Idealism, Dualism and something which resembled materialism. About materialism you said something like "matter exists objectively and by some unknowable methodology produces as a quality of itself life".
My points:
- The 3 choices are axiomatic: idealism, dualism and materialism.
- Under axioms of materialism, life is a propierty of "systems" of matter, not of matter itself, and the metodology of it's aparition is not unknowable, as far as I know. In fact viable hypothesis are presented at good rate.

----
quote:
I have no interest in re-cycling, and I don't even agree that subjective / objective is the correct question.
----

That's a relief...

----
quote:
So far as I am concerned the problem lies with life / non-life interface. If you have a better -- falsifiable of course since you are following the scientific method -- answer than life is energy(certainly energetic), non-life is static, please advise.
----

I don't know if I understand you well. Are you saying that fire is alive, for example?
As far as I see, our whole planet is a very dinamic object due to it's position in a powerful gradient of energy comming from the sun. Life doesn't produce energy as far as we know, it only administers received energy.

----
quote:
Do you agree that dualism does not make logical sense?
----

At least one of the dualist views I have seen is logically posible: in this view, awareness has a one way interface with the matter. It just receives information from matter, it does not interact. Hence, it can be argued that is not physical.
I just simply see this option as redundant...

[BillyTK]

Can anyone please clarify this: my understanding of entropy is that it's the natural state of matter to return to its component parts, in which case it's impossible for mind to arise from matter (or more precisely, life to spring spontaneously from non-life). I'm not offering this is an argument against physicalism, just interested if this is a correct understanding of entropy?

[Peskanov]

BillyTK,

There was a very good post about entropy few time ago. However the forum search engine does not allow me to ask for "sun entropy source".
If anybody remenbers which thread could be...

If I understand correctly, the entropy law applies for closed systems. This means that if you measure the entropy of the whole universe you will see it increasing. However, if you measure subsets of this system, it's posible to find one decreasing.

Damn, I would love to find that post...

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Peskanov
BillyTK,

There was a very good post about entropy few time ago. However the forum search engine does not allow me to ask for "sun entropy source".
If anybody remenbers which thread could be...

If I understand correctly, the entropy law applies for closed systems. This means that if you measure the entropy of the whole universe you will see it increasing. However, if you measure subsets of this system, it's posible to find one decreasing.

Damn, I would love to find that post...
Thanks for the search tip and the explanation! I found this post by Flatworm (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=433079&highlight=entropy#post432410) which addresses all my concerns; is this the one you mean?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by BillyTK

Thanks for the search tip and the explanation! I found this post by Flatworm (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=433079&highlight=entropy#post432410) which addresses all my concerns; is this the one you mean?

Continuing to contemplate entropy and total energy in universe perhaps led Franco to his discussion of the implications of gravity, imo. I also see the force (hmm, is that "energy"?) of gravity as a mystery and approaching even The Mystery.



Peskanov ... Agreeing that dualism is redundant, we have 2 choices. Hmm, is fire "alive"? Please define "life".

My basic thought -- call it a belief -- is that *I* have lbf, and that my intent does effect the "reality" of my neuronal network. Seems to work that way for everyone as long as the dna built the perceived *body* within acceptable operating limits, and me works withing acceptable environment, not screwing up the operating limits either physically or chemically.

Continuing, *I* think. Which monism is the correct one?

[Peskanov]

BillyTK, yes, I think it is.

Hammegk;
The biological definition of life is good for me and cover all the propierties which I intuitively assign to it.

About your thought, I have the problem of determinism or quasi-determinism. Sorry if the post is long, but I don't know if you are familiarized with "error control" systems.

If the brain is a system that works following a known set of rules for small, universal components, (put neurons), any external agent who influence it should show a break of these rules. And this has not been the case in the study of neural nets.

More important:
When a human design a machine, he states the basic rules of working, and then he study how to avoid external forces in the machine which could break the rules: dust, vibration, strong magnetic fields, etc...
The brain, (designed by evolution or by god, it does not matter) has tons of compensation mechanism to avoid "error".
The problem: we have observed a set of rules on neural nets, we have observed mechanism to protect this rules, so: where is the external agent? And why would the brain "protect itself" against it?

Umm...I think your view seems dualist, maybe I am understanding you badly?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Peskanov

Hammegk;
The biological definition of life is good for me and cover all the propierties which I intuitively assign to it.
Well, we agree that defines "biological life".

About your thought, I have the problem of determinism or quasi-determinism.
Could you explain your concerns in a bit more detail please?

Sorry if the post is long, but I don't know if you are familiarized with "error control" systems.
Yes.

If the brain is a system that works following a known set of rules for small, universal components, (put neurons), any external agent who influence it should show a break of these rules. And this has not been the case in the study of neural nets.
Yeah, and we can probably agree the brain is not a "neural net" -- it is itself & "mind", perhaps.

More important:
....The brain, (designed by evolution or by god, it does not matter) has tons of compensation mechanism to avoid "error".
The problem: we have observed a set of rules on neural nets, we have observed mechanism to protect this rules, so: where is the external agent? And why would the brain "protect itself" against it?
Again *I* am not a "neural net" imo. My brain -- part of *me* -- has some similarities to computing AI neural nets perhaps.

Umm...I think your view seems dualist, maybe I am understanding you badly?
When I started participating here I considered myself a dualist. I am no longer. Which monism makes most sense is my current thinking, and I lean more & more to Idealism (metamind shall we say?).

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

----
quote:
Could you explain your concerns in a bit more detail please?
----

If we are able to build a formal model of the brain (based in observation) which correctly predicts person's behaviour, this makes materialism more realistic imo.
When I see what has been acomplished with the "brick" of the brain, the neuron, I think than that formal model is possible, and very probable.

----
quote:
Yeah, and we can probably agree the brain is not a "neural net" -- it is itself & "mind", perhaps.
----

Errr...yes. But for materialism, the most probable hypothesis for the mind is to be the configuration of the brain (very close to hardware running software).
Maybe like a chess play...The board, the pieces, and the position of the pieces form the play.
But from an Idealist POV, I don't know which rol the brain has.A reflection of the mind perhaps?

----
quote:
Again *I* am not a "neural net" imo. My brain -- part of *me* -- has some similarities to computing AI neural nets perhaps
----

Well, artificial neural nets were modelled upon real neurons. It's true that following studies has shown real neurons have a more complex behaviour than the original artificial model.
I go back to my earlier suggestion: If I (hypothetically) could show you the whole information circuit, how it enters, how it is processed, and exits, then which would be you position between materialism/idealism? Would it change?

----
quote:
When I started participating here I considered myself a dualist. I am no longer. Which monism makes most sense is my current thinking, and I lean more & more to Idealism (metamind shall we say?).
----

Don't you think that the metamind model is far more complex than the materialist one. I certainly feel so.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Peskanov
If we are able to build a formal model of the brain (based in observation) which correctly predicts person's behaviour, this makes materialism more realistic imo.
When I see what has been acomplished with the "brick" of the brain, the neuron, I think than that formal model is possible, and very probable.
Brain models are certainly possible. The question will be is it "alive and conscious". How would that ever be demonstrated?

If it self-replicates by building another one (I assume robotic I/O), without human instruction to do so, would it be alive? The copy?

If it's built -- from let's say quark level -- up through DNA & as a "replicated human", and it seems to all purposes sentient, did we create the life, or just provide a structure "life" can use to display humanness?

But from an Idealist POV, I don't know which rol the brain has.A reflection of the mind perhaps?
It provides structure in the perceivable world (perceivable to all life I'd say) to exhibit human attributes using the perceived body as I/O & storage. That would be one way to see perhaps.


If I (hypothetically) could show you the whole information circuit, how it enters, how it is processed, and exits, then which would be you position between materialism/idealism? Would it change?

Most likely not until you address my point on creation v. use-by.


Don't you think that the metamind model is far more complex than the materialist one. I certainly feel so.

Yet you don't stumble a bit going from objective, inert "matter" to life and on up to human level expression, knowing that when science looks for matter -- the A-tom -- all it finds is "energy".

We can agree to disagee for the moment. Meanwhile *I* think & enjoy the life that is all around me. Again where do you draw the line non-life to life, and why there?

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

----
quote:
Brain models are certainly possible. The question will be is it "alive and conscious". How would that ever be demonstrated?
-----

You can look at the evidence (compare reactions/display emotions, communicate with it, etc) and judge it enough for you or not. Exactly equal with humans :)

----
quote:
If it self-replicates by building another one (I assume robotic I/O), without human instruction to do so, would it be alive? The copy?
----

I don't see any sacred meaning in the term life. I mean, we built that word (ovserved a set of properties and put a label on it), and we are free to put the frontiers where we like. Call it "artificial life" if you want.

----
quote:
It provides structure in the perceivable world (perceivable to all life I'd say) to exhibit human attributes using the perceived body as I/O & storage. That would be one way to see perhaps.
----

The problem is determinism. If I observe my brain, and I am able to register the whole process of a decission (for example) and match it with formal rules, then I claim I am seeing my mind in action.
Imagine you see a machine reflected on a lake. Looking that reflection you deduce it's logic. IMO, it does not matter if this image is distorted or indirect if you really understood the inner nature of the machine.

----
quote:
Most likely not until you address my point on creation v. use-by.
----

In my view, "used by" applies to entities. Is a chess board "used by" it's games? Is "life" an entity, instead of a property of other entities?

If I program an algor. to create noise in the screen:
1.-Am I using the program to create the noise?
2.-Is the noise using the program, and my person, to exist?
In my terms, correct answer is 1.

----
quote:
Yet you don't stumble a bit going from objective, inert "matter" to life and on up to human level expression, knowing that when science looks for matter -- the A-tom -- all it finds is "energy".
----

Because I dont think "life=energy", but "life=a use of energy". This comes from observation.

----
quote:
Again where do you draw the line non-life to life, and why there?
----

I repeat: we (mankind) invented the word, and we can draw the line wherever we want....
My personal opinion? I think complex IA is perfectly posible in a far future, and I don't care too much about putting the label "life" to it or not. BTW, I also reckon I don't like the perspective of having digital super-smartasses around us :)

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Peskanov
....
You can look at the evidence (compare reactions/display emotions, communicate with it, etc) and judge it enough for you or not. Exactly equal with humans :)

Nah, I don't think passing the Turing test will do it. *I* know at 100% certainty one thing; *I* think. To avoid the meaninglessness of solipsism, I'll agree you (and other humans) also have a spark of life/consciousness -- and I'll even suggest libertarian free will for all. Although TheLawsOfMind may be as strict on mind as TLOP are on matter; if so, still no lbf. :(


I don't see any sacred meaning in the term life. I mean, we built that word (ovserved a set of properties and put a label on it), and we are free to put the frontiers where we like. Call it "artificial life" if you want.
Again, phooey. There are many types of "life" that we agree occurs, has occured, and will continue without regard to humans.

And if the world is at heart inert matter, there is a line somewhere between life & non-life.


The problem is determinism. If I observe my brain, and I am able to register the whole process of a decission (for example) and match it with formal rules, then I claim I am seeing my mind in action.
Imagine you see a machine reflected on a lake. Looking that reflection you deduce it's logic. IMO, it does not matter if this image is distorted or indirect if you really understood the inner nature of the machine.
Er, oh. Don't you wonder what that observing *I* you sense might actually be? That is what my *I* thought we were discussing.

In my view, "used by" applies to entities. Is a chess board "used by" it's games? Is "life" and entity by itself, instead of a property of other entities?
Seems to make better logic than inert matter creating it, at least to me.


If I program an algor. to create noise in the screen:
1.-Am I using the program to create the noise?
2.-Is the noise using the program, and my person, to exist?
In my terms, correct answer is 1.
I may have to change my thinking about your "spark of life" if you are actually just a Turing machine.


Because I dont think "life=energy", but "life=a use of energy". This comes from observation.
Yes, I can see we disagree.


I repeat: we (mankind) invented the word, and we can draw the line wherever we want....
See my comment above. I fully disagree.

My personal opinion? I think complex IA is perfectly posible in a far future, and I don't care too much about putting the label "life" to it or not. BTW, I also reckon I don't like the perspective of having digital super-smartasses around us :)
Yeah, I think complex AI is possible, and not too far in the future. If it turns out that IS life and its striving, who will win the human v. conscious-living-machine struggle for supremacy?

PS. How can the terminators ever miss a human target, or for that matter overlook it. ;)

[Peskanov]

Hammegk,

----
quote:
Nah, I don't think passing the Turing test will do it. *I* know at 100% certainty one thing; *I* think. To avoid the meaninglessness of solipsism, I'll agree you (and other humans) also have a spark of life/consciousness -- and I'll even suggest libertarian free will for all. Although TheLawsOfMind may be as strict on mind as TLOP are on matter; if so, still no lbf.
----

But your bias is showing here; you are ready to assume a spark of consciousness in a natural human, but not in an artificial one? Also you are assuming a universal relation between life and consciousness, despite much life not showing the propierties we relate to consciousness. A question of empathy? Using this axiom, idealism look more attractive, of course.
About lbf, after reading this forum for some months, I simply can't make head or tails of the idea. I am going as far as saying the concept is contradictory and therefore impossible in materialism & dualism & idealism.

----
quote:
Again, phooey. There are many types of "life" that we agree occurs, has occured, and will continue without regard to humans.
And if the world is at heart inert matter, there is a line somewhere between life & non-life.
----

Yes, I am sure there is a lot of phenomena unknown to mankind. And we don't even have labels for most of it! Life is a label we build to clasify some things we observed. Every child comes an age in which he learns to make that distinction. And this is evidence of the complexity of the concept, because learning what is life is not done very early. IMO, "Life is..." comes much later than "*I* think"!

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quote:
Er, oh. Don't you wonder what that observing *I* you sense might actually be? That is what my *I* thought we were discussing.
----

Well, I thinked I was defending the materialist answer to this question... :)

----
quote:
Seems to make better logic than inert matter creating it, at least to me.
----

To me it seems "simple evolving into complex" versus "complex building for itself". I find the first option aesthetically nicer. My bias, I guess...

Btw, about your thought of "life creating a support for itself"...This implies that life existed before it's physical support, and that life is actually something different from it...And it also implies that a relation exist between both entities. But then it comes the problem of the reflection I stated before. If I can see it's guts working without flaw...Where is that creative entity? These concepts are really hard, some implications scape me...

----
quote:
Yeah, I think complex AI is possible, and not too far in the future. If it turns out that IS life and its striving, who will win the human v. conscious-living-machine struggle for supremacy?

PS. How can the terminators ever miss a human target, or for that matter overlook it.
----

One of the finest/original ideas I ever seen about this topic comes from Stanislaw Lem masterpiece, Cyberiad (a fantastic book about philosophy, don't get fooled by it's title). The characters of the histories are robots in a universe of robots. In one history, a legend is told about "prehistoric beings made of soft albumins". Scientists laugh about the idea, but a few eccentric ones even suggest that the universe has cycles of "life based on metal" and "life based on meat"! :D

PD: I am out a few days, anyway I will look to reply when I come back. That is, hoping my memory will serve me well!

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by hammegk

Brain models are certainly possible. The question will be is it "alive and conscious". How would that ever be demonstrated?



More fundamentally, the question is whether the poeple or animals I observe possess consciousness and how that can be demonstrated.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I suggest that if there is the meta-psychic it would have a testable hypothesis, at least subject to thought experiments.

My mind is part of reality and a product of matter. Why is it nessecary to know each step in the process to say that my mind is part of matter?

Peace
dancing David


Perhaps a far fetched thought experiment from your perspective might be interesting. If consciousness is a product of the physical workings of the brain, lets say certain computations, then it would be possible in principle to produce consciousness out of silicone - a computer. Lets say that one day we actually achieve this.

Would it not then be possible to act out these computations using any physical medium we wanted, as long as the logical relations are follwed ? What if we could create a consciousness from handshakes using the world population ? If we did this, where would the consciousness be locallised ?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by davidsmith73


More fundamentally, the question is whether the poeple or animals I observe possess consciousness and how that can be demonstrated.
Actually, you can't. That's why the best I've come up with is to agree you also have *something* -- I call it my *I* -- that thinks.

That is my 100% certain datapoint.

[ShottleBop]

Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality (http://home.att.net/~sandgryan/book_promotion.html) has one of the more lucid descriptions of idealism I've come across. It is written in the context of a critique of Objectivism, but it is also a good introduction to several aspects of philosophy in general.

[hammegk]

ShottleBop, thanks for the cite.

Any chance you might provide as much synopsis of what you got regarding "what is Idealism" as you would be willing to?

Even a sentence or two is better than nothing. :)

[ShottleBop]

The author used to have the text of his book posted, which is where I read it. Now, you can read it online (by following the links to his publisher, iUniverse), but you have to advance a page at a time. I do not have a printout with me. I will post sometime during the week, when I have the printout. I hesitate to try to post from memory, because I find that I have the same problem with philosophy that I do with tax law: I can remember it for short periods of time--enough to carry on a decent conversation about what it is I've just read. Long-term, I retain only vague outlines.

[Dancing David]

Hammegk: So , it would seem that the argument rests on wether or not anyone can prove where life comes from and what consiousness is. Thank You for your patience.

DavidJ: Where are you headed ? I think that there are reverberating biochemical messes in the heads of many creatures that I would choose to label as 'mind'. So I don't object to the idea that 'mind' could arise from some sort of reverberations in a silcon based mess.

Peace
Dancing David

[Blue Monk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

That way lies madness.

~~ Paul

You got that right. I'd rather remove my own liver with a spoon.

[ShottleBop]

From the version of Scott Ryan's book that was posted on his website in 2001:

. Rand appears to share the fairly common view that idealist epistemology is “subjectivist.” But this characterization is based on a misconception, or at least on a hidden assumption.
The idealist claim, as expressed vigorously by Thomas Hill Green especially in his Prolegomena to Ethics, is that the relations involved in knowledge are themselves constituted by intelligence. However, this claim is an impediment to objectivity only on the assumption that relations “out there,” in “real” reality, are not constituted by intelligence. Absolute idealists and several sorts of theist would claim that this assumption is just wrong: “objective reality” itself is the product of an Absolute Mind, a Divine Intelligence Whose thought actively constitutes, or manifests as, the existing intelligible order of things.

Of course I am not here trying to mount a case for this “strong” form of objective idealism. Nor do I think Green himself made a successful argument for it. He seems to have thought it was self-evident, and I happen to share his intuition on this point. However, it is important not to confuse intuitions with conclusions, and I certainly have not offered anything like a proof of the claim. I am merely pointing out that even this strong claim does not devolve into subjectivism.

For present purposes I shall be satisfied with the weaker claim, for which I have argued to some extent, that the world consists of (or at least includes) real universals, at least some of which can be directly grasped by the mind, and that everything which exists is in principle intelligible. And we have already seen that Rand, for all her dismissals of idealism, universals, nonsensory intuition, and the “primacy of consciousness” premise, relies on this weaker form herself at numerous key points.

Moreover, Rand’s claim is questionable on other grounds. If God created the universe (the latter term meaning “all that exists other than God Himself”), then this fact itself is just the way things really are. Theism is not a denial of the “primacy of existence” premise as Rand has initially formulated it; every theist in history has held that God exists, and that His existence is logically and/or causally prior to the existence of anything else. (And why the existence of a divine Creator should amount to a denial of the Law of Identity is more than I can fathom.)

Rand’s further formulation—that the universe is independent of any and all consciousness, including God’s—is a simple nonsequitur. But Rand seems to conflate three distinct claims, holding that her axiom actually says the “universe” is independent of “consciousness” altogether merely because it is (allegedly) independent of human consciousness, when she has not even established the latter as a corollary of her “axiom.” (We have already seen Leonard Peikoff allow for the possibility that the universe we know is not independent of human consciousness.) The leap from “existence exists” to atheism is doubly unwarranted.

Of course if all she means is that God cannot create “existence as such” if God already exists, we shall simply agree. But this is a trivial point that has no bearing on the truth or falsity of theism. We have already seen Hugo Meynell (in The Intelligible Universe) expose an important ambiguity in the term “world”; Objectivism uses words like “existence” and “universe” with the same ambiguity.

Nor, again, is Rand entitled to make even this trivial point, since her epistemology should not allow her to speak of “existence as such.” Cf. the following mystical insight (or is it a “rational intuition”?) from Nathaniel Branden:

I became an atheist at the age of twelve when one day . . . I had . . . [what I would call] a spiritual experience. I was hit by a sudden sense of the universe as a total, in all its unimaginable immensity, and I thought: if God is needed to explain the existence of the universe, then what explains the existence of God? . . . [If] we have to begin somewhere, isn’t it more reasonable to accept the existence of the universe—of being, whatever its form—as the starting point of everything? (Begin with existence itself, I would later learn to say, as the ultimate, irreducible primary.) [The Art of Living Consciously, pp. 188-189; emphases his]

Our discussion in the preceding chapter has already replied adequately to most of this. What we must note here is that Branden is perpetuating an error he clearly learned from Rand: “existence” cannot be an “irreducible primary” in a philosophy that, on its own terms, should be unable to regard “existence as such” as anything other than an unreal abstraction.

Not that it is clear what “existence” is supposed to mean anyway; Objectivism seems to treat is as some sort of attribute or existent in its own right. Some remarks of Blanshard’s are apt:

It is idle to search beneath the surface of things for an indescribable something called existence, which is neither a quality nor a relation nor any complex of these. The existentialist pursuit of this will-o’the-wisp has been an unprofitable quest; it has developed a baffling mysticism whose object is without content, and its dark pronouncements about existence preceding essence leave its critics curiously helpless, since nothing definite enough for a clear refutation is being said. And what would be the gain, from the philosophic point of view, if the unfindable were somehow found? One is tempted to quote William James’ sardonic advice to the troubled philosopher to seize firmly on the unintelligible and make it the key to everything else. At any rate, it seems to me that if existence, in this sense—assuming it is a sense—were to vanish from the universe tomorrow, leaving all the qualities and relations of things what they are, we should never miss it. [“Interrogation of Brand Blanshard,” in Philosophical Interrogations, Sydney and Beatrice Rome, eds., p. 255.]

At times Objectivism does seem to seize on the unintelligible and make it the key to everything else; its own pronouncements on “existence” sometimes recall those of the existentialists (and Rand is in fact committed to the existentialist view that “existence precedes essence” whether she puts it in this language or not). At other times, when Objectivists remember that, on their philosophy, there simply should not be any such thing as “existence as such” or “being, whatever its form,” we learn—as we have repeatedly learned throughout the rest of this volume—that by “existence” Objectivism really intends the physical existents which are allegedly given in axiomatically-valid sensory perception.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that by “existence” Rand, Peikoff, Branden, et alia mean merely “presentation in sensory-perceptual experience”—perhaps with a certain vividness or resistance to the will. This meaning is simply masked by the occasional insistence that one is saying something important when one speaks of “existence as such.”

Be that as it may, the premise that “existence exists” tells us nothing whatsoever about what exists, and cannot—if we are careful with our language—be used to infer that matter exists altogether independently of mind. (And in fact Branden himself acknowledges—ibid., pp. 201-202—that matter and consciousness, which are clearly not independent of one another in a causal sense, might both arise from some more fundamental reality that is capable of explaining both of them in a way that they do not seem to explain one another.)

Rand, however, is clear that her “primacy of existence” premise is supposed to have atheism as a corollary; she says that the “primacy of consciousness” premise amounts to “the notion that the [nonconscious] universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both).”

But even if this were correct, it would show only that God could not have created “existence as such,” which we have already acknowledged. If the physical universe is a product of an eternal consciousness, then that consciousness presumably exists. That the world we know might be the creation of a divine consciousness does not in any way negate the “primacy of existence” premise; Rand has simply assumed that possibility away by implicitly equating “existence” with the physical universe.
For it is fairly clear from her remarks on “basic constituent elements” that by “nature, i.e., the universe as a whole,” she does mean the physical universe. And her objection to the argument, “If there is no God, who created the universe?” makes sense only on the buried assumption that the physical universe itself is self-existent. This, of course, is the very assumption the propounders of the offensive argument would deny: the physical universe, we have said, just does not seem to be the sort of thing that is even self-explanatory, let alone capable of explaining all the apparently nonphysical features of our world. Those of us who believe in intelligibility will therefore continue to hold out for “mystical insight,” with or without Rand’s blessing.

What has all this to do with her epistemology? Rand is presumably thinking here of her claim that the fact of awareness implies both that one is conscious and that something exists of which one is conscious. She wants to argue that because consciousness always has content, the object of our awareness is always something other than our awareness itself.

Of course it is; but this point applies just as surely when we are thinking of Sherlock Holmes as when we are looking at a table. This bare-bones “realism” means only, as Josiah Royce puts it, that “an object known is other than the idea, or thought, or person, that knows the object. But in this very general sense,” Royce continues, “any and every effort to get at truth involves the admission that what one seeks is in some way more or less other than one’s ideas while one is seeking; and herewith no difference would be established between Realism and any opposing metaphysical view. Idealism, and even the extremest philosophical Skepticism, both recognize in some form, that our goal in knowledge is other than our effort to reach the goal” [The World and the Individual, p. 95].

Rand has thus offered us a false dichotomy, which she has generated through her assumption that the fundamental constituents of the universe do not matter to her thesis. That they do not matter is one of the very points at issue. If nearly any version of objective or absolute idealism is correct— if, for example, Timothy Sprigge is right that (as he argues in The Vindication of Absolute Idealism) the fundamental constituents of existence are little nuggets of “experience” or T.H. Green is right that (as he maintains in his Prolegomena to Ethics) relations, in order to exist, must be constituted by an objectively existing intelligence—then neither “existence” nor “consciousness” is “primary”; either one considered alone is an abstraction which, in reality, cannot occur without the other. But on any such view, we are not justified in equating “existence” with “nature” or the “physical universe.”

[c4ts]

So she is holding atheism and dualism to be true in the same sense, which is contradictory?

[davidsmith73]

I see a large problem with the materialistic monistic approach to consciousness. This approach views a qualitative experiences as embodying a physical process. For example, my experience of red is equivalent, in terms of existence, to the physical process we attempt to ascribe to that experience.

To put it simply, the problem here is that materialism clearly identifies two realms, not one - a physical process and qualia.

Although materialism reduces these two realms to equivalence, ie redness is the same thing as a physical process, it does not offer an explanation as to how or why there appears to be two realms in the first place. In other words, why do some special physical processes (eg in the brain) have an experiential component to their reality ? Indeed, materialism would simply not have an answer to this question because its central tenet says that once the physical process has been described fully in mathematical terms, there is nothing left to explain about redness.

To me this is a denial of the clear distinction between redness as it appears to our experience and the physical process as it appears to our experience (what the neurons are doing etc).

[Dancing David]

There are no sensations without senses, to say that 'red' exists outside of the sensation of the color red does not make sense. red is a label I apply to the experience of the sensation.

Outside of sensation it is a specific wavelength of light. If there were never creatures to have the experience then it is just a specific wavelength of light.

How does this create two realms?

There is no perception outside of the physical process ( as the buddha said: if there was a self behind the eye, would you not see better if you plucked out the eye?)
I understand that there are qualitative experiences but how are they not based in the biology of consiuosness?

(I will try to read the post again but rand just drives me nuts.)

Thanks
Peace