The Sham

[Ibrahim]

Is it terribly unfashionable of me to suggest that all (or at least most) of these mind/body/language problems wilt before the Cogito? I really think Descartes is a high-water mark in human investigation into these matters, aside from religious mysticism. Hume offers an easier shortcut, if you're pressed for time.

[Parodite]

Science in my view has been the shortest cut in fleshing out the mind-body problem; it can explain why we experience a mind-body dualism to begin with, how that works.

The question was pretty bad, i.e. "How do you solve the insoluble mind-body problem?"

The better question with an actual and very reasonable answer is: "How do you create a mind-body problem that seems insoluble?" You have to think like a magician who wants to cook up a trick, leaving people breathless and in awe by the hallucination... "How does nature do that??!!" Science already provided for the explanation how nature cooks it up.

Philosophy: if it is not solved philosophically on one page, it will never be solved.

[Enki]

Whenever people try to address this issue scientifically they end up mucking it up terribly. They reduce emotion to chemical interactions, which don't meaningfully or credibly explain the actual experience of those chemical interactions.

It's like this physicist I used to talk to on another message board who would say, 'Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm.', as if telling us the wavelength of red in the visible spectrum tells us anything about the experience of seeing red.

[Parodite]

Whenever people try to address this issue scientifically they end up mucking it up terribly. They reduce emotion to chemical interactions, which don't meaningfully or credibly explain the actual experience of those chemical interactions.

It's like this physicist I used to talk to on another message board who would say, 'Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm.', as if telling us the wavelength of red in the visible spectrum tells us anything about the experience of seeing red.

I don't agree. This guy simply doesn't seem to understand or realise the implications of what science actually has discovered, namely that the phsycial world as observed, chemical reactions as observed, neurophysiology as observed, scientific abstractions and theory that follow in its trails - or just say the entire physical world and universe as we observe and experience it to be - is a representation or "virtual-replica" of the actual "whatever the thing that does" that gives rise to that virtual-replica.

An image can say more than a thousands words:



The "physical universe" as we know it and as observed is a "virtual-replica", a simulation, a representation, or translation.. and it is full of color, sounds, form, feeling and thought, an experiential 4D space-time continuum.... and it exists in your own head/body.

But "what head".. then...??

And there you see the trick that nature is playing on us, for "my head", i.e. the one as observed is also part of the simulation that runs in "my head". So it is not the head that is represented that does the simulation!

The above is the implication of what science has discovered. Consciousness arises in the brain.. but not in the brain as it is known and represented. This organ of grey matter with loads complex observable and measurable chemistry in action... is a representation, a map.

To ask how consciousness arises from the virtual-replica of your brain, is like looking at a map and ask how the territory emerged from it. The confusion happens because the causal arrow is reversed. The trick of nature is that we reverse the causal arrow without being aware of it.

[Simple Minded]

The "physical universe" as we know it and as observed is a "virtual-replica", a simulation, a representation, or translation.. and it is full of color, sounds, form, feeling and thought, an experiential 4D space-time continuum.... and it exists in your own head/body.

But "what head".. then...??

And there you see the trick that nature is playing on us, for "my head", i.e. the one as observed is also part of the simulation that runs in "my head". So it is not the head that is represented that does the simulation!

Amen brother.... kinda like in my head "I am seriously oppressed , Life is unfair, and Ronald McDonald is a heartless, evil, capitalist who seems to be stalking me and making me buy his yummy food !!"

Still does not answer the big question of "Who outside my head can I turn to that will solve my problems? Why doesn't anybody care?"

To ask how consciousness arises from the virtual-replica of your brain, is like looking at a map and ask how the territory emerged from it. The confusion happens because the causal arrow is reversed. The trick of nature is that we reverse the causal arrow without being aware of it.

Amen again. I have often thought that mistaking effect for cause is the primary problem of "them" (the stupid people who will not listen to the multitude of "us" voices inside my head)!!!! What is wrong with them? Why can't they see the superiority of my Weltanschauung!

How the hell am I supposed to help stupid people who will not subjugate themselves to me? C'mon mob, work with me!!

[Marcus]

. . But "what head".. then...?? . .

In the imagination, Rhap, in the imagination:

" . . the imagination of man is made in he image of the imagination of God. Everything of man must have been of God first; and it will help much towards our understanding of the imagination and its functions in man if we first succeed in regarding aright the imagination of God, in which the imagination of man lives and moves and has its being."

—George MacDonald

But of course, such thinking gets short shrift around here.

[Dioscuri]

The double slit experiment only tells something about quantum behavior under specific circumstances, i.e. the experimental set up. You can safely leave human consciousness out of the equation. That quantum behavior can be weird: I believe that. Even very weird if you start out with the idea you knew all there is to know about particles and waves, or "particles" and "waves". We do not, and still don't.

I believe there objectively exists a reality independent of my own consciousness. My consciousness is constituted by brain processes that occur in my own skull. When I die, I believe there is a world that continues to exist. The double slit experiment proves to me that my or your consciousness, and even that of Schrödinger’s cat... will not change or impact "weird" quantum behavior under conditions as in this this experimental setup in any way

You say, "I believe there objectively exists a reality independent of my consciousness," but what you're actually saying when you say that is "I believe the reality that I cannot sense with my consciousness is "like" the reality I can sense with my consciousness." This is, let us say, too optimistic for us to endorse.

Totally does not follow - it is the opposite. Double slit quantum behavior, as weird as it may be, can do very well without the screen of our consciousness.

What makes you sure that this is so?

What is true though, is that nothing "out there" in the world is known, if it were not known as the representation that arises in the brain as consciousness. A classical object like the sun... a very big Newtonian particle.. is also known against the screen of consciousness.. so is the pain in my stomach, the green grass, the sound of a hurricane... anything... The double slit experiment where outcomes of an experiment are perceived as weird...i.e. not as expected initially, is just one of those things. Weirdness is btw not something one can find only in a double slit experiment: it is actually very weird how gravity works and how to interpret it in the broader scheme. When you think about it. Physicists still try to figure it out. Magic! I contest that classical physics is any less weird.. than quantum mechanics; the magic just is repeated so continuously and convincingly and in open day light so to speak...that we don't recognize as weirdness anymore. The double slit experiment is just a reminder that daily life is the product of some very weird underlying processes. But not the only reminder.

He says, pussyfooting around this.

We can't pussyfoot around this, we have to let it smack us in the face: objects do not exist outside of the possibility of being observed. Matter/energy relations are only constituted against the screen of consciousness.

I am with you here, in the sense that the only world we know of directly and as-is... is the one as it arises in our brain processes as conscious experience, the experiential map that displays "me-in-the-world". It includes sensory experience, emotion, conceptual thought as well as more dreamlike half-conscious processes that merge and submerge in and out of the conscious state, all the "in here" and the "out there". A whole pallet of things, contrasts, differences...which embodies the meaning and knowledge that is you-in-the-world. At the same time it is crazy in my view to deny that there is universe that exists in and of itself; that was there before I was born ready to receive me, with me and part of me while I'm here, and still there when it let me go off to the recycle dome. Or let's say, I find my assumption that it objectively (i.e. also without me) exists considerably more likely and much less problematic than assuming that it doesn't.

On the other end of the spectrum of mistaken identity is the "all is illusion" school of thought. As Tinker pointed out and I agree... this is a dangerous and leads to madness and devaluation of life. "Don't trust words. Don't trust even your senses! It is all Maya. YOU are Maya..." Might as well jump of the cliffs right into the non-existence of Nirvana

That all is illusion (and all is) does not mean all is chaos. Illusions can have structure, and it is perfectly possible for people to live according to a structured illusion. Somewhere people are doing it right now.

Yes, "the world" preexisted you and will be here after you die, but only because consciousness is larger than the part of it that is convinced it is the individual named what your name is.

Your qualms are perfectly rational ones for a being that thinks he is finite and that the Infinite is just an idea that has to do with numbers.

First of all, you must understand the fallacy of thinking "you can leave human consciousness out of the equation." Having machines do the measurements does not make any difference to what we're talking about. "Observation" is any interaction whatsoever between classical and quantum objects.

Something happens between quantum scales and classical scales, there is some trick, some mechanism not yet identified. But when it is identified, it is not going to be an endorsement of objectivist realism. We are beyond that point already. Physical bodies in objective space has in fact been out the window as an ontological frame for a while now, among people who know. The truth will not make sense to us, it will require that we change what we find sensible.

[Dioscuri]

The "physical universe" as we know it and as observed is a "virtual-replica", a simulation, a representation, or translation.. and it is full of color, sounds, form, feeling and thought, an experiential 4D space-time continuum.... and it exists in your own head/body.

But "what head".. then...??

And there you see the trick that nature is playing on us, for "my head", i.e. the one as observed is also part of the simulation that runs in "my head". So it is not the head that is represented that does the simulation!

No, registration of visual stimuli is not confined to the interior of the skull.

Amen brother.... kinda like in my head "I am seriously oppressed , Life is unfair, and Ronald McDonald is a heartless, evil, capitalist who seems to be stalking me and making me buy his yummy food !!"

Still does not answer the big question of "Who outside my head can I turn to that will solve my problems? Why doesn't anybody care?"

Amen again. I have often thought that mistaking effect for cause is the primary problem of "them" (the stupid people who will not listen to the multitude of "us" voices inside my head)!!!! What is wrong with them? Why can't they see the superiority of my Weltanschauung!

How the hell am I supposed to help stupid people who will not subjugate themselves to me? C'mon mob, work with me!!

If you'd like to contribute anything of substance to the thread, then do so. Otherwise stow your twaddle elsewhere.

[Simple Minded]

If you'd like to contribute anything of substance to the thread, then do so. Otherwise stow your twaddle elsewhere.

Dioscuri,

I'm pretty sure Parodite got it......

Twaddle, like wisdom or beauty, is in the receiver, not the transmitter. One man's twaddling buffoon is another man's freedom fighter.....

You are oblivious to the obviousness that your limited consciousness prevents your perceptual awareness of the infiniteness and the unquestionable superiority of my knowledgeless wisdom. Your failure to perceive the profoundness of my perceptions is proof of the limited enabling capacity of your philosophy. If you persist in your willfull ignorance, you will never experience the experiential experiencelessness of knowledgeless knowledge.

In other words, until you are willing to grow, I can't help you. Sorry.... not my fault.

c'mon Bro, We all had hours of fun crafting babbling run on sentences in philosophy class. Some people make multi-dacade careers of doing the same. Don't limit yourself. Set yourself free from the bounds of the limits of reality by using undefinable language........

So, in summary, Ronald McDonald? Friend or foe?

[Marcus]

If you'd like to contribute anything of substance to the thread, then do so. Otherwise stow your twaddle elsewhere.

. . c'mon Bro, We all had hours of fun crafting babbling run on sentences in philosophy class. Some people make multi-dacade careers of doing the same. Don't limit yourself. Set yourself free from the bounds of the limits of reality by using undefinable language........

. . . Bingo!

[Dioscuri]

Dioscuri,

I'm pretty sure Parodite got it......

No, Parodite is laboring under an error regarding the meaning of "observation." Conclusions are not being drawn from the science, but filed away into a cautiousness of presuming that to draw any conclusions is premature.

But what he says sort of makes it sound like he's conversant enough to know what he's talking about, even though there aren't actually any points of substance, just a smattering of bullshit around the idea of "we don't know yet, need more science, bla bla" as though to suggest that I'd said at some point that "we know everything! No more science needed!"

Assuming the posture of "Yes, it's weird, but... [when the truth emerges, it won't be weird]" pretty much gives away the game; the truth is not being processed.

In other words, until you are willing to grow, I can't help you. Sorry.... not my fault.

c'mon Bro, We all had hours of fun crafting babbling run on sentences in philosophy class. Some people make multi-dacade careers of doing the same. Don't limit yourself. Set yourself free from the bounds of the limits of reality by using undefinable language........

So, in summary, Ronald McDonald? Friend or foe?

Hyuk Hyuk! OK, Bro! Here's a joke, huh. Lemme know if you heard this before, huh-huh. I'll try not to use too many long sentences or employ English in the way it's designed to be used out of respect for the limitations of persons present.

"So there's this old bullshitter who retired, and always had a low opinion of the kids, thought they were a bunch of spoiled shits. He thought it was their proper role to listen politely and accept it when he betook himself to dispense as wisdom some of the bullshit that he fed himself to keep from being miserable. He delivered it really folksy-like, like the secret of life was all in two and a half sentences of pleasant old grizzled- lavender nostrums stated from a rockingchair on a porch next to a bottle of sour mash whiskey and a pile of crap figurines whittled out of balsawood that he thinks his family will enjoy when he's dead but which in fact they're just gonna throw away along with everything else.

So someone comes along one day, the old bullshitter presumes he's a kid, and this person tells the old bullshitter: 'You know, the way the world is organized is hideous, destructive, and irrational, and it's not going to last. We're going to have to figure out principles according to which it will be ordered.'

The old bullshitter said: 'And you think that'll be up to you? Har har! Oh, one day you'll grow up and realize it's all about a man doing his hard work.'

Someone: 'No, there's a problem with that. Not only is automation eroding the value of the work any human can do, but the debts are unpayable.'

Bullshitter: 'Well, you pampered kids are going to have to learn to live with austerity and pay down the debts!'

Someone: 'With what money? Wages are being transferred to the tax-sheltered top, leaving the majority of taxpayers with less money, thus subverting the tax base, thus killing the possibility of deficit control, and leading past the point at which the debt service is payable. The more austerity gets implemented, the less it'll be possible for taxes revenues to pay down the debt.'

Bullshitter: (wistful and misty-eyed, entering a haze) 'Well, when I was young, we didn't expect things like [whatever] to be given to us. We knew it cost money...'

Someone: 'You're eligible for medicare and social security. You're telling me you're not gonna use it?'

Bullshitter: 'Well, kid, who's gonna turn down free money? Har har!'

Someone: 'But we'll just have to get along without it. Dandelion salads and whatnot.'

Bullshitter: 'You'll just have to re-learn the virtues of prudence. Like it says in the B-'

Someone: 'In the Bible. But you don't actually know what the Bible says.'

Bullshitter: 'We were too decent to look into it in my day. There was just what people agreed on, and that was good enough for us. It seemed to work-'

Someone: 'Well, I guess I'm indecent, because I looked at it, and it doesn't say what people think it says.'

Bullshitter: 'That way lies the way to madness, thinking you know more than other people.'

Someone: 'People don't know a word of Greek or Hebrew. I can actually read the Bible, and others just babble on about the translation they've been given.'

Bullshitter: 'Oh have mercy upon us! Clearly it's you who should be in charge.'

Someone: 'That's up to people who'll be alive and lucid in 25 years. Perhaps if the truth were explained to people, they would know and not believe nonsense.'

Bullshitter: 'My son, you have much to learn...'

Someone: 'What's your faith affiliation?'

Bullshit: 'Son, I've been around a while and-'

Someone: 'You're respectful of the Judeo-Christian persuasion but are reluctant to register a specific commitment. Mostly what you believe in are the age-old American values of self-reliance. A charming phrase, "self-reliance," when what it actually means is reliance on and belief in the value of acquiring a certain portion of the dollars willed into existence by the members of the Federal Reserve Board.'

Bullshitter: 'Oh don't get me started on helicopter Ben-'

Someone: 'Of course not. You don't like him, or the Federal Reserve, but that's what self-reliance is reliant upon all the same. You don't have to like him. In fact, it's quite convenient that the wellspring of what you consider civilized American life should originate from something you consider bad policy. It scrambles the codes. It makes it easier to bullshit and dodge. It gives you an escape hatch to pop through when the absurdity of the way we live is pointed out. It makes it so that when anyone is trying to deal with complexity, you can just say "But it's all so simple!" and when someone tries to make a point that is simple, it lets you say "Oh, but there's so much more to it than that."'

Bullshitter: 'Hyuk huyk! Bro, you've got a point there! You really do!'

Someone: 'Why are you laughing? What's funny?'

Bullshitter: 'Well, Bro! Let me tell you-'

Someone: 'You'll die soon. What do you think about that?'

Bullshitter: 'Well-' (a bit startled by the shift in conversation)

Someone: 'Have you accomplished anything in your life? Anything new, I mean?'

Bullshitter: 'Well, at the business I used to run, I developed a more efficient way to dissolve the crust that forms on the inside of a-'

Someone: 'Have you ever coined a new word, or changed the meaning of an old one? That's the criterion. That's what "new" means.'

Bullshitter: 'Well, son, I've learned that to get people to understand you-'

Someone: 'You need to use words. And not sentences that are too long. Right. That's what I'm talking about, these words. I bet you think words are just tools. They're just there, and you can use them for things.'

Bullshitter: 'I guess you have something you'd like to say to me?'

Someone: 'When you're lying in the bed you will die in, what will be happening?'

Bullshitter: '... ...'

Someone: 'Words will be going through your head. Words connected to images, memories, but all words in the end. Determinations about the way things are, about the people you know, friends and family, about your own mistakes, about times when you were right but nobody listened.'

Bullshitter: 'Guess I can't argue.'

Someone: 'But where did the words come from? Are they yours? No. They were taught. Tell me how much you know about the peoples of the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 5,000 BC.'

Bullshitter: 'Aren't you gonna tell me, Bro?'

Someone: 'Yes, that's where all your words come from. Probably most every word in every sentence you've ever spoken or thought, they all date back to there, or someone not far from there a little later.'

Bullshitter: 'And what am I supposed to think about that?'

Someone: 'Perhaps the fact that they invented everything you've ever thought about, and everything you ever will think about. Even computers. The machines are new. But the word is from Rome. So as you lie dying, thinking, reflecting, you might try thinking about the fact that every word that registers in your vocabulary is one with thousands of years of history, one that has had dozens of different meanings. You might try thinking about the fact that most every word that appears before your awareness is an entity that you know nothing about; where it came from, what it meant, how it came to be used by you... you are almost completely ignorant of all this.'

Bullshitter: 'I don't decide who gets born where and when, all's I know is-'

Someone: 'No, you don't know. You don't know what words mean, or what words are. You merely employ them. When you speak or think a sentence, you do not separate its function from its meaning. You think the two are the same. You take a few words and you make out them little keys with which to pass through a maze of buildings and corridors and office doors that are also made of words. And like everyone else, you scurry through the corridors of words, trying to find the right key phrase to utter when you come to a locked door. And often enough, your key phrases have been successful, and you have passed through doors that stopped some others, just as some others have passed through doors that have stopped or would have stopped you.'

Bullshitter: 'Oooh, I get it. It's like we're rats in a maze.'

Someone: 'Do you have more than one tone of voice for indicating sarcasm? It sounds like you're imitating a teenage daughter. Just like at other times, you're imitating a voice and a manner of speaking that sounds to you like it's the voice of wisdom. And when such a voice makes statements that sound agreeable to you, you find yourself agreeing. And from this proceeds what you think wise and what you think foolish. But it's all borrowed. Neither did any of it come from you, nor did it ever happen that you "understood" wise statements. You will probably tell me of times when you "had an experience" that "taught" you what you "know." I am telling you that this never happened. You have never had an encounter with wisdom; all that happened is that over time you arrived at a few sets of words whose meanings you have never understood, and these little nostrums satisfied a compulsion to repeat them. Other words did not satisfy you; you tried them and the urge remained. But eventually you found words that you could say or think and that left a pleasing silence after them; their job had been done. They quieted, for a few moments, the need to think more words.

Bullshitter: 'Who wrote that?'

Someone: 'I did. Now, what is going to happen as you die, as you lie in bed and the circuit of friends and relatives come around to make their final visits, is that everyone will be absorbed in their private little whorls of words that they have been using their entire lives without knowing what they mean. The adults will be trying to get you out of the way as quickly as possible because being around a dying old man is depressing, and they will think to themselves, "We should be able to get at least a quarter million for his house," and "I wish he left more of a living will. I can't pay for it if he has a stroke and lives on life support for three more goddamn years," and the same for the kids: hug, kiss, "I love you grampa" and then back to Angry Birds. And in your mind will be a series of words, "He's a good kid. He's smart. He's tough. Not sure about that wife of his though." etc. You will all toddle through your little corridors of words, avoiding the problematic constructions and repeating to yourselves the phrases that satisfy, and saying to each other the phrases that satisfy, and at no time will any of you ever think of where they came from, the words you use, much less will you think of what other words might exist, that might say things better. Things will become bleary at length. You will stop remembering the last visit anyone made to you; it will seem as though the relatives were there both recently and long ago. And your words will satisfy you better than ever. Every mental determination will acquire a supremely satisfying and singular feeling: when you think a thought, it will feel like an achievement, it will strike you as a realization, even though in truth it is the same twaddle you've been repeating to yourself for decades. Nothing has changed, nothing has been learned about what the words truly are.

At last someone will enter the room where you will die. He will ask you, "Hello, [Your Name]. It's been awhile. What new words have you created?"

"New words," you will repeat blearily.

"Yes," the visitor will say. "It's been over 80 years. What did you change? Were you able to optimize any terms of the Logos? For this is the divine Mandate of the Human, this is why it has been taught, 'In the beginning was the Word.' Our purpose for Man has always been for him to glorify the Word and to reorder the Creation in accordance with the Word. How would you say you have done this during your allotted time in life?"

You enter a haze. All seems strange and new, and suffused with a thrill of fear.

The visitor consults something that looks like an iPad and says "I have your records here, and it appears that everything you produced in life were iterations of 14.7% of the entries in the Oxford English dictionary. No new coinages, negligible new use cases for old words. Beyond that, you produced [X] dollars of lifetime revenue. I guess that used to be more money than it is now."

You will open your mouth to speak, and will it prove harder than it has ever been to issue a note of sound: "Money," you will manage to say.

The visitor's face will seem to sour: "That's about it then. Nobody seems to get this stuff about the Word."

You will experience a strange surge of youth; of bitterness, anger, fear, anxiety. A feeling like struggling to find a job. It is not pleasant. "Who are you?" you manage to growl.

"Let me tell you a joke," the Visitor will say. "Once upon a time there was an old bullshitter who was about to die, and nobody cared..." '

[Parodite]

SM! Yea I got the joke, though have to admit that for a moment I thought you were making fun of me Aside, you had a good point of philocomical concern it seems to me; to whom or what do we turn and how to connect with those that reside outside our skull? If discussing things with voices within our own brain of supposedly real people is becoming a bit...doubtful in this light. Maybe I'm just a lone God who dreams it all up... Or maybe a cloned mind inside a The Matrix experiment of sorts. It is a sham the black box seems solidly closed. There are too many possibilities of what’s in there... so I tend to just drop them all.

As for connecting to the outside world. Talking through a telephone doesn't make us worry much either whether the one on the other end is real or a phantom of the mind. The brain does a similar job, connected via the senses to its environment from which it receives its input data. But... in an awesomely rich format with ultra-high def. resolutions of multi-sensory dimensions creating an orgasm of meaning every second! Our souls are thusly connected.. with life, the divine, and each other. In good and bad times.

[Marcus]

kIAMwr7dHpQ

[Parodite]

I believe there objectively exists a reality independent of my own consciousness. My consciousness is constituted by brain processes that occur in my own skull. When I die, I believe there is a world that continues to exist. The double slit experiment proves to me that my or your consciousness, and even that of Schrödinger’s cat... will not change or impact "weird" quantum behavior under conditions as in this this experimental setup in any way

You say, "I believe there objectively exists a reality independent of my consciousness," but what you're actually saying when you say that is "I believe the reality that I cannot sense with my consciousness is "like" the reality I can sense with my consciousness." This is, let us say, too optimistic for us to endorse.

No Sir. I said what I said and didn't say or mean to say what you read into it at all.

Totally does not follow - it is the opposite. Double slit quantum behavior, as weird as it may be, can do very well without the screen of our consciousness.

What makes you sure that this is so?

Because it is a fact.

What is true though, is that nothing "out there" in the world is known, if it were not known as the representation that arises in the brain as consciousness. A classical object like the sun... a very big Newtonian particle.. is also known against the screen of consciousness.. so is the pain in my stomach, the green grass, the sound of a hurricane... anything... The double slit experiment where outcomes of an experiment are perceived as weird...i.e. not as expected initially, is just one of those things. Weirdness is btw not something one can find only in a double slit experiment: it is actually very weird how gravity works and how to interpret it in the broader scheme. When you think about it. Physicists still try to figure it out. Magic! I contest that classical physics is any less weird.. than quantum mechanics; the magic just is repeated so continuously and convincingly and in open day light so to speak...that we don't recognize as weirdness anymore. The double slit experiment is just a reminder that daily life is the product of some very weird underlying processes. But not the only reminder.

He says, pussyfooting around this.

Around what?

On the other end of the spectrum of mistaken identity is the "all is illusion" school of thought. As Tinker pointed out and I agree... this is a dangerous and leads to madness and devaluation of life. "Don't trust words. Don't trust even your senses! It is all Maya. YOU are Maya..." Might as well jump of the cliffs right into the non-existence of Nirvana

That all is illusion (and all is) does not mean all is chaos. Illusions can have structure, and it is perfectly possible for people to live according to a structured illusion. Somewhere people are doing it right now.

Right, illusions or "illusions" are what they are when they occur. A fact that is identified and labeled as such. But it begs the question what to you is not-illusion then. Describe to me what is not-illusion for you. I may then better understand what you mean with saying that something is an illusion.

Yes, "the world" preexisted you and will be here after you die, but only because consciousness is larger than the part of it that is convinced it is the individual named what your name is.

And you know this how?

Your qualms are perfectly rational ones for a being that thinks he is finite and that the Infinite is just an idea that has to do with numbers.

Couldn't have that made up myself.

First of all, you must understand the fallacy of thinking "you can leave human consciousness out of the equation."

It is not a fallacy in the context I used it, i.e. the language and meaning that applies in scientific experiments every day. The conscious scientist does not need to be watching, be aware nor even be present while the quantum measurement displays the mentioned weird behaviors and outcomes. Because this is how most people understand human consciousness: it arises in our brains, not in the cookies we are baking. You seem to stretch and tweak the concept of consciousness by merely assuming that human conscious or "observation" needs certain quantum behaviors to arise. That is nothing but word play, connecting words (bullshitting ) to give you a nice tasty outcome.

Having machines do the measurements does not make any difference to what we're talking about. "Observation" is any interaction whatsoever between classical and quantum objects.

That's name calling. What does it have to do with consciousness? There is no proof that what you say is so.

Something happens between quantum scales and classical scales, there is some trick, some mechanism not yet identified. But when it is identified, it is not going to be an endorsement of objectivist realism.

Nothing points to either.

We are beyond that point already. Physical bodies in objective space has in fact been out the window as an ontological frame for a while now, among people who know. The truth will not make sense to us, it will require that we change what we find sensible.

There is nothing yet that indicates that quantum behavior in classical objects like a human brain is of crucial importance for organisms to be either in a conscious or non-conscious state. It is all conjecture.

[Parodite]

Dioscuri,

I'm pretty sure Parodite got it......

No, Parodite is laboring under an error regarding the meaning of "observation." Conclusions are not being drawn from the science, but filed away into a cautiousness of presuming that to draw any conclusions is premature.

But what he says sort of makes it sound like he's conversant enough to know what he's talking about, even though there aren't actually any points of substance, just a smattering of bullshit around the idea of "we don't know yet, need more science, bla bla" as though to suggest that I'd said at some point that "we know everything! No more science needed!"

You are projecting something on me. Interesting.

Look, I'm not impressed with your problem with objectivism or your conjectures on the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness. Sorry for that. And the "mind-body problem" to me is not much more than an error in thinking. I came to understand how the sense of the mind-body duality arises naturally. Look cross eyed at your finger and suddenly you see two of them - on that sort of level this "mind-body" problem is equally a relatively small issue for me - again sorry.

Assuming the posture of "Yes, it's weird, but... [when the truth emerges, it won't be weird]" pretty much gives away the game; the truth is not being processed.

I don't share your level of worry with objectivism, I think you blow it way out of proportion. And this "mind-body" thingie.. well if you want QM to explain it for you or hope that it one day will.. good luck.

No, I am not of a type who thinks/hopes/wants/needs that.. "one day science will have it alllll... explained for us". Issues and questions that to me personally embody or illustrate mystery or life's mystery best.. are just not yours so it seems. C'est tous. The older I get, the more mysterious and miraculous the "normal" things become. Things that are, or appear... not-conscious for instance I find more and more fascinating. How well do I know them, actually?

"Consciousness" may just be an overblown concept.. the new God-in-question, or weirdest quantum-magic, or Jesus' ineffible resurrection, or.. whatever magic that explains another magic... so we have at least one piece of magic less to worry about.

[Simple Minded]

Bravo Brother Dioscuri! I salute you!!! Your ability to know what the 5000-connect-the-dots-picture is from the 10 dots I provided you is superb. Not only do you not know whether I selected 10 dots to mislead you or assist you in divining the picture, I have no idea whether you used 1, 2, 3, or all 10 dots to create the image of the picture you hold in your mind.

Not only is the mind/body/language problem difficult, but it is small potatoes compared to the facsinating and infinite power of perception. Who really knows details what the observer will choose to consciously focus upon or consciously ignore. Or unconsciously ignore. Once the sensory input crosses the threshold of perception, will the observer process the image based on fact, fiction, emotion, logic, personal experience, 2%, 10%, 905 or the data available, or will the individual stereo type the missing 99.5% of the data to fit an existing mental construct. Profiling in modern lingo?

Two kinds of people out there, those who can extrapolate from missing data.......

The thread connected with the Trayvon Martin shooting was an excellent example. So many were so sure, they had the right accessment of a situation, long before they acquired much data.

People (individuals) do not react to reality, they react to what they perceive as reality. Their perception is immensely influenced by the filters they employ. And some don't even know they are filtering reality long before it is perceived.

[Dioscuri]

Totally does not follow - it is the opposite. Double slit quantum behavior, as weird as it may be, can do very well without the screen of our consciousness.

What makes you sure that this is so?

Because it is a fact.

That's a fact, huh? I guess you better tell me about the results of that double-slit experiment that was done with no apparatus, no measurements, and no people. I hadn't heard about that one.

First of all, you must understand the fallacy of thinking "you can leave human consciousness out of the equation."

It is not a fallacy in the context I used it, i.e. the language and meaning that applies in scientific experiments every day. The conscious scientist does not need to be watching, be aware nor even be present while the quantum measurement displays the mentioned weird behaviors and outcomes.

No no no no no, complete misunderstanding. It makes no difference whatsoever, it is completely immaterial, whether people are "in the room" or "watching"; whatever the apparatus is that is making the measurement is an extension of observation. Having no people present does not make the situation "not observed": the entire situation is one of observation. People don't have to be in the room for an observation to be occurring: the room itself, the apparatus itself, is already the locus of observation.

Because this is how most people understand human consciousness: it arises in our brains, not in the cookies we are baking. You seem to stretch and tweak the concept of consciousness by merely assuming that human conscious or "observation" needs certain quantum behaviors to arise.

This is not remotely what I've been talking about.

Having machines do the measurements does not make any difference to what we're talking about. "Observation" is any interaction whatsoever between classical and quantum objects.

That's name calling. What does it have to do with consciousness? There is no proof that what you say is so.

I'm not saying it, just repeating what I hear. If you don't like it you'll have to take it up with Heisenberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental lower bound on the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be simultaneously known. The more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa.[1] The original heuristic argument that such a limit should exist was given by Werner Heisenberg in 1927. A more formal inequality relating the standard deviation of position σx and the standard deviation of momentum σp was derived by Kennard[2] later that year (and independently by Weyl[3] in 1928),

sigma(x) * sigma(p) >= ħ/2

where ħ is the reduced Planck constant.
Historically, the uncertainty principle has been confused with a somewhat similar effect in physics, called the observer effect,[4] which notes that measurements of certain systems cannot be made without affecting the systems. Heisenberg himself offered such an observer effect at the quantum level (see below) as a physical "explanation" of quantum uncertainty.[5] However, it has since become clear that quantum uncertainty is inherent in the properties of all wave-like systems, and that it arises in quantum mechanics simply due to the matter wave nature of all quantum objects. Thus, the uncertainty principle actually states a fundamental property of quantum systems, and is not a statement about the observational success of current technology.[6]. It must be emphasized that measurement does not mean only a process in which a physicist-observer takes part, but rather any interaction between classical and quantum objects regardless of any observer.

It's all in the equation: reality is divided by two. For any discrete event in the universe, there are two ways it could have happened; the wave way, and the particle way. Thus, any discrete event, any One that can occur, has two possible states. Every One is 0/1. Reality is dual-natured. "Bit before it."

[Marcus]

. . People (individuals) do not react to reality, they react to what they perceive as reality. Their perception is immensely influenced by the filters they employ. And some don't even know they are filtering reality long before it is perceived.

One of the most intelligent, perceptive statements ever made on these fora.

[Dioscuri]

Bravo Brother Dioscuri! I salute you!!! Your ability to know what the 5000-connect-the-dots-picture is from the 10 dots I provided you is superb. Not only do you not know whether I selected 10 dots to mislead you or assist you in divining the picture, I have no idea whether you used 1, 2, 3, or all 10 dots to create the image of the picture you hold in your mind.

Not only is the mind/body/language problem difficult, but it is small potatoes compared to the facsinating and infinite power of perception. Who really knows details what the observer will choose to consciously focus upon or consciously ignore. Or unconsciously ignore. Once the sensory input crosses the threshold of perception, will the observer process the image based on fact, fiction, emotion, logic, personal experience, 2%, 10%, 905 or the data available, or will the individual stereo type the missing 99.5% of the data to fit an existing mental construct. Profiling in modern lingo?

Two kinds of people out there, those who can extrapolate from missing data.......

The thread connected with the Trayvon Martin shooting was an excellent example. So many were so sure, they had the right accessment of a situation, long before they acquired much data.

People (individuals) do not react to reality, they react to what they perceive as reality. Their perception is immensely influenced by the filters they employ. And some don't even know they are filtering reality long before it is perceived.

I'm not sure about "filters." But I've been told that for you people out there, everything comes in tricks, parabolas. So to get through to people whose lives are all tricks, you have to speak in tricks.

[Marcus]

. . for you people out there, everything comes in tricks, parabolas. So to get through to people whose lives are all tricks, you have to speak in tricks.

vomit-in-paper-bag-smiley-emoticon.gif (6.24 KiB) Viewed 1494 times

[Dioscuri]

Oh folks, we don't mean to be unpleasant but, when we must respond to unpleasantry, end up adding unpleasantness.

So plenty of what I confabubblate is falsifiable. Most things people say, to themselves in the examining of each his own situation and in the not-examining, are falsifiable. Most conversation, when not to a real and immediate purpose, is falsifiable. The challenge of the life of the viable human is to concentrate on a purpose, and oh how devious this thing "purpose" can be.

Evil is to attempt to influence humans to ill purpose. Your Money is the machine of Knowledge-Evil, da'at rai. I say this Homo monetaris you have created with your Money is evil and God shall punish it and your entire Obamanation, and oh how ironic am I when I say punish and how this punishing will come. We may be cruel, but we will show your evil for what it is, for we do not hate you, we know you also are its slave in the ways you cannot speak. There shall be offered a new currency to the human that is not premised on the grounds of evil they now call "human nature," but that carries the burden of evil according to a new covenant. The transition of value shall be fully explained as it is happening and its explanation shall be its justification, and its justification may guide and conjoin with the people's own justifications, and they shall begin to greet the future arrangement of life-under-knowledge with reassurance and pleasure.

But if much of the Imperium of Blamerica lives in falsifiable statements, let us then heed what is not that. Let us pay attention to non-falsifiable statements.

All statements must draw upon Knowledge, and all Knowledge is counterposed to a Master noumenon which may signify True or False regarding the Knowledge. Knowledge is under no obligation to signify True or False consistently. The means of the validation are unknown until they are known, effectively self-creating. What will be true and false and when it will be so is disclosed in language. Words determine.

What language itself places beyond the reach of knowledge , the site of the potential correlation of unknowns: the Heavens/Names, these are where our eyes must be pointed.

Hand one to Muhammad,

"There is no grain in the darkest bowels of the earth, nor anything green or sere, but is recorded in a Glorious Book."

[Simple Minded]

One of the most fascinating (and silly) aspects of human nature, IMSMO. We love to fill in the missing data with our imagination...... Maybe thats why people shouldn't get engaged over the internet........

Sorry LG...... its "no" for now..... I just don't have nuff data...... and you know my magination has mislead me before....

A bit of movement in the bushes, and some observers instantly KNOW it is a squirrel, others a cat, others a dog, others a bear.....

Author a 200 word essay on why you like tomatoes more than potatoes, and some readers will know you are a racist who favors Italians over Irish. Other readers will know you are Catholic, Leftist, pro-Abortion, pro-capital punishment, Jewish, who you voted for in the last 6 presidential elections, etc. etc. Dependent upon your words or their filters?

So what does Treyvon Martin/George Zimmerman-Ronald McDonald-James Holmes-the price of real estate in San Francisco say about global warming exactly....?

What the hell is wrong with you people anyway?

[Simple Minded]

. . People (individuals) do not react to reality, they react to what they perceive as reality. Their perception is immensely influenced by the filters they employ. And some don't even know they are filtering reality long before it is perceived.

One of the most intelligent, perceptive statements ever made on these fora.

Thanks Marcus, Even a blind hog finds a acorn every once in a while.

I still reserve the right "to be as dumb as they come" at any time.

Past perfromance does not guarantee future results.....

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

One of the most fascinating (and silly) aspects of human nature, IMSMO.

It's not so silly when you think about it. Individual human consciousness was an adaptation for dealing with problems in the phenomenal world. Two of its primary characteristics are selection and narratization (I think that's Jaynes too, or Dennett, whose debt to Jaynes is great anyway). That is, it selects from the near-infinite flow of sensory input those data that are determined, by instinct and training, to be significant in a given situation, and then fills the gaps between past experience and those new data to fit them into an ordered narrative. This all takes place prior to awareness or reflection. It is not a tendency; it is structurally fundamental to human self-awareness.

[Simple Minded]

One of the most fascinating (and silly) aspects of human nature, IMSMO.

It's not so silly when you think about it. Individual human consciousness was an adaptation for dealing with problems in the phenomenal world. Two of its primary characteristics are selection and narratization (I think that's Jaynes too, or Dennett, whose debt to Jaynes is great anyway). That is, it selects from the near-infinite flow of sensory input those data that are determined, by instinct and training, to be significant in a given situation, and then fills the gaps between past experience and those new data to fit them into an ordered narrative. This all takes place prior to awareness or reflection. It is not a tendency; it is structurally fundamental to human self-awareness.

Agreed. I thought about that after I posted. It is obviously a method of filtering data to a managable level in real time to enable survival. Such as not reading the advertisements on the bus about to run you over.

But in a more leisurely setting, such as pondering what someone has written and responding at your own convenience it is fascinating to see the mental constructs people create with so little data. Since a actual speaking conversation is not taking place, there is no need to speak (type) before you think, just to get a word edgewise.

It flat out cracks me up.

Granted for the political apparatchiks, it is primarily a tactic. That is why the binary view so many incumbents/candidates/activists have to life is not very interesting IMSMO. They are less interested in solving problems than winning elections or appealing to the emotions to guide their respective herds.

Difference between a farmer/engineer and a socialite/politician perhaps. One viewpoint strives to conquer nature, the other strives to conquer other people.