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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 09:38am PT
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I could very well be wrong but I think what Werner is saying in his unique way is that we are not physical beings having a spirit experience but rather spirit beings having a physical experience.
Yeah, I get that he's a panpsychist. At least he comes out and says as much. And everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if they can't recognize that's all it is.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 09:55am PT
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And everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if they can't recognize that's all it is.
he's a panpsychist.
That's all it is. A neat little box. Hey Werner, I hope you have heating in there.
tone.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 10:31am PT
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Largo can speak for himself (usually with lots of words) but basically it comes down to:
Something/Nothing
which is a juicy dichotomy the sum of which is asserted to represent everything... though it can be confused with the equally legitimate:
Everything/Nothing
which makes defining "Nothing" problematic... and is the root of Largo's difficult, albeit it earnest, defense of his "fundamental insight."
As far as I can see, Largo hasn't decided on which of these he is pushing... none the less, there is some major work for him to do, as we have discussed in the abyss of the past-posts on this topic spanning many threads.
In particular, I believe that Largo has posited that there is a causal relationship which schematically goes like this:
Nothing → Something
that is, Largo claims that there is a procedure for connecting with "Nothing," he does it through meditation (I presume)...
interestingly, we can ask if there is also a relationship:
Nothing ← Something
and what the nature of that connection is... now there need not be any symmetry that causally links the two lobes of the dichotomy...
But it is important that this dichotomy has the union:
Everything = Nothing ∪ Something
and in particular, Nothing ∩ Something = {}
Defining the connection of the two becomes a problem, at least one can talk about the nature of Everything, and the relationships of sets within it...
If the alternative dichotomy is chosen, that is, Nothing and Everything, then the discussion gets a bit trickier... and perhaps takes the discussion in a direction that Largo didn't intend in the original OP...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 10:33am PT
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Well, last I checked the definition of panpsychism, it was a belief in universal consciousness. Is there some aspect of "spirit beings" that doesn't fit that 'box'?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 10:37am PT
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a physicalist's concept of panpsychism is that it posits consciousness as a fundamental property of matter... that all matter "has" consciousness.
the major criticism of this idea is simply that, at least as initially defined, "consciousness" is attributed to humans alone... making the generalization to a physical property a dicey maneuver to explain a "difficult problem", i.e. what is "consciousness."
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2017 - 10:41am PT
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Agreed, awareness is a state of mind and it simply ceased to exist - as in poof, gone - which is how emergent properties are want to come and go. Again, relatively pointless.
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Nope. Problem is you are IMO half right about much of what you say, but as you have it posited above, awareness is a property of mind, a function that is tied to content and data processing.
Where you lose you way is in sticking to a philosophical belief that the brain sources or creates the whole conscious process, or else you have to introduce some magical stuff like ether or whatever. This is the same idea that my physicist friend likes to ridicule with his quantum field cracks, that the type A physicalist will always attribute the existence of any thing or phenomenon to particles, or stuff, or in this case, attributing conscious entirely to the physical brain. Which, in his words, is like saying the quantum field is "created" by the tiny shite that glitches in and out of existence WITHIN the field. Are the two inseparable? Of course. But it is this endless interplay between something and nothing that gives rise to whole Magilla. You're trying to make awareness a mind state, when in fact all the mind stuff and states occur within the field or on the stage (to use figurative language) or the borderless screen of awareness.
But if you have never done any direct work on awareness itself, all of this will appear as data processing. Problem is that just gives you a Touring machine, which has no inner sense that is either a machine nor yet that it is processing any content.
When you don not approach the mind problem with an integrated POV of both 1st and 3rd person perspectives, you will arrive by default at an "observer independent" belief about consciousness. And from that perspective you get exactly what Healyje arrived at. No way around it.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 12, 2017 - 10:52am PT
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But the question of how the mind emerges is on par with how life emerges - it's not going to be answered or solved in this thread by anyone's experience, speculation or religion.
So? We shouldn’t think about it, talk about, explore ideas?
Evolution in and of itself is no complete answer to the issue simply because the structure of a universe mediated by the laws of physics had within it from the moment of its inception the potential for both life and mind. That structure and its order are predicate to all things including evolution itself. In that sense mind, like life, is written into existence as part of the structure of what is. What the mind can do is know through experience. Knowing, awareness, experience, consider what occurs when we look at the latest images of some distant planet, the inherent satisfaction of knowing: what is that or what is the certainty of our own awareness?
It is mysterious enough that there is, in fact, something but the mysteries of experience and awareness cannot simply be delegated to evolutionary processes because those processes can’t explain the ordered universe central to their creation and of which they were an inevitable part.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 10:55am PT
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Where you lose you way is in sticking to a philosophical belief that the brain sources or creates the whole conscious process, or else you have to introduce some magical stuff like ether or whatever. This is the same idea that my physicist friend likes to ridicule with his quantum field cracks, that the type A physicalist will always attribute the existence of any thing or phenomenon to particles, or stuff, or in this case, attributing conscious entirely to the physical brain. Which, in his words, is like saying the quantum field is "created" by the tiny shite that glitches in and out of existence WITHIN the field. Are the two inseparable? Of course. But it is this endless interplay between something and nothing that gives rise to whole Magilla.
there are types of physicalists now? who knew... I always considered our ideas of particles and fields (Schwinger objected to the Feynman-centric view and created "Source theory," it didn't become popular, the basic reason being the prejudice that "Schwinger presented his ideas in a way that no one had a chance of understanding, and Feynman in a way that everyone thought they understood," and anyway, their apparently divergent views were always shown to be equivalent) as a calculation tool that allowed us to predict the outcome of experiments/observations.
The current field-theories are insufficient to understand a lot of phenomena, and for phenomena that are addressed, many of those field-theories require rather complex computation with problematic approximations to obtain a defendable answer.
For field-theory, really, the only philosophical issue is: does it calculate something that agrees with our observations/measurements? The conceit that there are deeper philosophical issues ("the interplay of something and nothing") doesn't enter into the discussion.
To the extent that "it matters" what the fields are, or the sources of those fields (the "particles") has to do with gaining insight to those difficult to explain phenomena...
It is possible that quantum-mechanics requires that we give up on the insistence that we have "realistic" theories.
That is a liberation, and one that philosophers might adopt when discussing "the mind."
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:04am PT
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Where you lose you way is in sticking to a philosophical belief that the brain sources or creates the whole conscious process, or else you have to introduce some magical stuff like ether or whatever.
Actually, I've merely stated the mind is an emergent property / function of the brain. I didn't specify type or emergence or how that emergence happens. Again, if you don't think mind is an emergent property / function of the brain then it is you - not I - that's sprinkling the fairy dust.
But if you have never done any direct work on awareness itself
I have.
You're trying to make awareness a mind state, when in fact all the mind stuff and states occur within the field or on the stage (to use figurative language) or the borderless screen of awareness.
Then they did the surgery on you when you were conscious I'm guessing, because if not then you somehow missed you were not aware and there was no 'operating' awareness while you were under. And that when you woke up - you then became aware. Awareness is a mind state. The mind is not a property of some "borderless screen of awareness" - that right there is either completely inverted nonsense or I'm using the word 'mind' for your 'awareness' and 'awareness' for your 'mind'. Take your pick.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:15am PT
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It is mysterious enough that there is, in fact, something but the mysteries of experience and awareness cannot simply be delegated to evolutionary processes because those processes can’t explain the ordered universe central to their creation and of which they were an inevitable part.
Seriously? Consciousness evolved and it is plain to see that both in extant species and the evolutionary taxonomy of life. Again, how it emerged is, like life itself, a mystery, but that it evolved and evolved in an observable manner is not arguable.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:22am PT
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If you were a point on a circle and you move along the limit of that circle you experience a sense of infinite movement along a line. The fact that you are merely going in circles may be unapparent. When you look at the earth from above the North pole you see that it spins counter-clockwise. From above the South pole it goes clockwise. To us mere mortals, the sun comes up and we experience it's warmth. It goes down and we have to chop more wood.
"How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?"
Fireside Theater
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:30am PT
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You can sit here in the waiting room, or you can wait here in the sitting room.
Fireside Theatre
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:33am PT
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we're all Bozos on this bus
You know who.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 11:45am PT
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Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein and the Dalia Llama walk in to a bar. Already sitting there is Jesus himself, Karl Marx, Some guy named Chalmers and some dude named Harris. The bartender is the guy that invented the Roller Coaster and is serving one up to Rodney Dangerfield. "Let's take a ride on my new invention.It goes up and down, around in circles, there's some water , and I even threw in some flaming sh#t-balls. The cool part is we end up where we started. Everyone rolled their eyes and sighed and got up and took the ride again. After it was over they all got real drunk. And Rodney drank the bong water again.
All fun aside, I think what this thread could use is a facilitator. I'll bet MikeL has some experience or ideas about that from his work. Someone that is not actually participating but is familiar with the material and can help keep things on track. I'm not suggesting anyone in particular here, just throwing the idea out there.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 12, 2017 - 12:42pm PT
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MikeL,
It was Largo who referred to a computational model of consciousness. He is wisely silent.
If you have an example of what you consider to be a computational model of consciousness, I would be interested to hear about it.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 12, 2017 - 01:29pm PT
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Seriously? Consciousness evolved and it is plain to see that both in extant species and the evolutionary taxonomy of life. Again, how it emerged is, like life itself, a mystery, but that it evolved and evolved in an observable manner is not arguable.
Yep seriously:
Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation. How could it not? The proof being it is here. Evolution is not the final term here; the final term is the physical structure of the universe that allows for some things, including evolution, and disallows for others and that is a sublime mystery.
The bible puts it metaphorically: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."
If you read the term word as structure and the word God as the final term you get a fairly brilliant statement of reality.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2017 - 01:47pm PT
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Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation. How could it not?
Easily, but there are plenty of takes and spins along those quasi-religious lines:
“God is the light of the world and may his light shine before all”
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 02:27pm PT
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The bible puts it metaphorically: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."
If you read the term word as structure and the word God as the final term you get a fairly brilliant statement of reality.
Interesting idea. The Bible also speaks of thought, word and deed. A trinity if you will, god being the thought, the son being the word and the Holy Spirit being the deed.
God thought it, the Son spoke it and the holy spirit cooked the meal. but you have to throw in that it all just happened at once, the potential that is, and in space with time, it all becomes actual, in a very grand scale that is beyond the comprehension of one small piece, until that piece can grow large enough to encompass more and more. Which then brings to us to the unformed space regions beyond the current Master Universe that folds back on itself in sublime eventuation.
Just kidding.
Paul, I like how you think. I appreciate what you bring to the table. I also sense a certain nobility to this soup of endeavor we classify as humanity.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 02:43pm PT
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Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation.
this may be a profound observation, or it may be trite... but writ a bit larger, it is the essence of the "anthropic principle" that states that the universe is the way it is because were it otherwise, we would not exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
another twist on this was presented in the paper:
"Predicting the Cosmological Constant from the Causal Entropic Principle"
Raphael Bousso, et al., Physical Review D 76.4 (2007): 043513.
To calculate the cosmological constant (which exists in observation as the phenomenon of the accelerating expansion of the universe via "dark energy," of which the cosmological constant [CC] is a candidate) they take the tack of estimating the conditions for observers to exist, which they define in terms of "maximum entropy production" (you can read the paper if that captures your imagination).
Putting in reasonable values gets them very close to the observed value of the CC... without having to answer the question "what is mind?" which is equivalent to their requirement of an observer.
"The Causal Entropic Principle is based on two ideas: any act of observation increases the entropy, and spacetime regions that are causally inaccessible should be disregarded."
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"The same result also explains the so-called coincidence problem or “why now” problem. According to the Causal Entropic Principle, typical observers will exist when most of the entropy production in the causal diamond occurs."
"...we find that dust heated by stars dominates the entropy production, demonstrating the remarkable power of this thermodynamic selection criterion. The alternative approach—weighting by the number of “observers per baryon”—is less well-defined, requires problematic assumptions about the nature of observers, and yet prefers values larger than present experimental bounds."
what they are saying is that an apparently banal measure of the entropy production gives a range of values in agreement with observation, where as their attempt to answer the OP question in detail, fails.
The implication is that the likelihood of observers is best calculated not on the "special" attributes that defines an observer (per their attempt) but on "simple" thermodynamic considerations.
So there is the universe, with the potential to have "observers" from the get-go, but not through some ennobled accession ending in the crown of creation, but more emblematic of dust scattering star light.
Go figure...
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 12, 2017 - 03:00pm PT
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I'm not sure I could get through the paper you mentioned Ed, so thank you for putting it in simpler terms.
I hate to be the one to say it but I think the OP is a "trick question", unanswerable on so many levels. And so many levels and nuances that can easily bog down any serious inquiries, that in the end we may actually need the help of some kind of intelligence we lack at this point in time. AI? or do we just need to grow up a little.
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