It truly doesn't matter what happens after death. It's just hard to be rendered something that stiffens and rots. But surely the dead have the last laugh. Surely.

All matter on Earth is moving at least at the rate the Earth moves, which is really fucking fast. Faster than our fastest vehicle, much faster. But we're right beside it, in motion. So we don't see that it's all just a blur.

I think the multiverse is lame. It's a good plot device for resurrecting dead characters, and that's it. How redundant are infinite worlds? Completely redundant. People get wishy-washy about it, like it's based on their choices, which is only equally as stupid as a different universe for each separate way a blade of grass is turned. Sean Carol...bizarrely myopic.

We utilize brains to perceive brains. That's the real hard problem, IMO. Why, in the first place, grant your brains magical clarity to infinitely perceive things as they are? I say there's a huge gap in the translation between information and information processing.

Mysterians, with an A, aren't irrational. On the contrary, we're the only ones facing the fact that total global perspective is simply impossible. Here on Flat Earth everything seems steady. We seem solid. From a grander perspective, nothing is this tangible.

It isn't even a wooey problem if the brain does create consciousness, as that's still no explanation of what consciousness actually is. Which brings us full circle to Chalmers.

Neither are we fully aware of the parameters of the reality in which it exists; nor, most likely, will we ever be.

As a Mysterian, I can accept that the brain has a big correlate to consciousness, but not that it's comprehensive. Even if it "creates consciousness," that doesn't automatically entail any particular philosophy, if you accept the big picture.

We have to learn to embrace the mysterious and work backwards from there, elucidating with honesty that which is uncontrovertible fact from that which doubt (even the smallest inkling) can be cast upon. And that's most things.

If we're to be honest. Which I'm sure we're not.

But the fact is that experience precedes language, and experience is consciousness, and no matter how deep we dig, we remain on the surface. Bodies are not inside brains; people are not inside brains. Though the brain has a strong correlate in examining what we animals do and are like.

We're still "out here" though, not inside our heads. And really, if the brain NEEDS oxygen, then even trees produce our consciousness. And, of course, the rest of our vital organs, which do not exist "inside the brain." The true nature of consciousness is surface level. We're whole bodies, whole people, interacting with a completely mysterious environment.

I ain't seen no answers yet! Where are we?

Our experience of ourselves does not reduce to the brain. Most of our conscious lives are out here on the surface.

Thank you. I think I agree.

What were you trying to say?

A complete description of how the human brain relates to the cosmos?

Anyone? Anyone?

No? Then stfu.

He didn't succeed in any of that. Like all men, is only recalled in the heart, whatever that entails. Unevolved and thus buried deep in DNA.

There is no answer. I can't explain you, and you can't explain me. We are entirely different, experiencing machines...but why? Why are there identities and peculiarities in a world devoid of chaos?

How things seem is on the surface. We have meteors crashing into planets, and then we have life, which avoids all obstacles. But why, if the essence of everything is a void of reason?

So...what we are conscious of is an illusion...except our interpretation of our brains?

What's the difference between these fields and convenient math?

It's an illusion like time is an illusion, existing in a broader sphere than we can possibly comprehend.

I loathe it when people say we're just here to spread our genes. People are and aren't their genomes, and it's completely ignorant of the fact of personhood, that life is overwhelmingly regarded as worth it.

Genes may be predisposed to valuing the human experience, but why?

Is Dennett claiming not that consciousness is an illusion, but the human experience is?

That's how it would seem to me, but I regard the human experience as the most indivisible thing we can know. And, if it's not eternal, that doesn't mean it's an illusion.

So I think we must parse this word "consciousness" from "the human experience," which we all know to be real and more profound than words spoken.

I suppose Dennett would argue it's less profound, but that's really juvenile, to me. Even if this all ended tomorrow, the story would be just as incredible. Imagine all the strokes of luck that have gotten us to this point.

But I digress: to explain consciousness requires a comprehensive explanation of both the brain and the environment in which it exists. The whole universe, in other words, including Time.

Anything less sophisticated than that is truly milquetoast: a placeholder for a lack of a much grander perspective.

The alternative is like saying "clouds produce water"; i.e. it's true, but isn't a description of water.

And, furthermore, to be human is an authentic mode of behavior. So, I think what Dennett says is that it's based on a lack of perspective, which is utterly true, but, in my view, that makes it no less real or authentic. Surely not a complete illusion, incomplete as our perspective is.

If genes hold this all together they're as loaded a word as "love" at least. If you're going to reduce everything, why not to the formal expression of its results?

I'm a Mysterian. There are no answers I'm particularly interested in. I just understand that reality is ineffable, to a delineating degree.

We can tell certain limits.

You wouldn't understand or care, yet you speak.

Such a simple way of viewing things. Nice fractions.

I don't see the sense in it. It's no explanation. It's simply a means of saying "It's complicated" and hoping for the best.

It isn't complicated. And there's no rhyme or reason. There's a surface level that throws all philosophy out the window, and if you can't attest to this you're a schmuck.

Sometimes, philosophize less.

I think the hard problem is that people have a surface level/qualia, too, that can't be explained through dissection.

We are not brains and a spine; we are whole bodies and whole personas. Nothing will ever be more definitive of us than our whole lives, and something remains to be said for the surface level of things that expresses itself more than is possible to measure.

Obviously, you're not going to find a person inside their brain.

Hard problem as opposed to the simple problem of why it's so sensible for dead matter to coalesce and go around identifying itself as people?

I'm confused?

You can't explain consciousness without having objective, universal perspective as to the environment in which it exists. I'm not sure why it's so often posited that we have anything like that.

You could* figure out the brain produces it and you still wouldn't know how it relates to, for instance, time.

*You couldn't because you'd have to implicitly, magically, grant the brain universal perspective.

I mean I get the claim that activating neurons creates consciousness... We know we're conscious and we surmise the brain is made of active neurons...

A sufficient explanation? No. Essentially just pointing at things, not to be rude.

I don't know how old you are, but... I'm an idealist, and the existential nightmare is still persistent. Eventually, with luck, you stop trying to make sense of things. Because logic is decidedly not at the root of how society is structured, and people are largely ignorant of that fact by persuasion. As for happiness...no...that's not even supposed to be a permanent state of affairs. Me, I'm contented with tranquility.

Fantasies like the infallibility of human perception?

What is the physical, material, and if your "conscious mind" is so feeble, how can we trust you to ascertain any of that?

I think there's something to be said for life, as we know it (which is, by-and-large, a fulfilling thing.)

One could argue that the universe is naturally conducive to fun and celebration. I'd say so. But why? And you can't reduce it, and people generally get annoyed if you try.

It's the way it is, matter loves being matter.

It seems like if you're proposing there's a God you're saying anything that seems random may not be.

I'd like to know how you prove that randomness isn't actually orderly. Really you're just postulating an equally imaginary thing: a lack of anything.

What begs Occam's razor is just a matter of opinion. What's more complicated: true chaos or true order, and is there really a difference?

How would someone who identifies themselves as a person ever be able to distinguish true chaos from order, and why can't God be true chaos?

To me, describing "very little" as nothing is an attempt to jump the theistic gun, hoping there's no room for God in "very little," but of course there is as we have no idea how long it could have endured to have time to come from anywhere, or...even what time is.

So it seems disingenuous to imply anything can really be nothing. It's impossible to conceive of nothing without never having existed at all, and even then.

I think to blame is how superstitious religion has been over the years. Some scientists have the unfortunate propensity to conflate that with the notion of a higher power or higher order of existence, if not totally "God" itself.

I don't see why we ought to close our minds to the possibility that this universe works, at least, in tandem with higher levels of intelligent awareness.

Um...I'm not calling you unintelligent at all, but also not not saying you're conceited.

I just think we're seeing this all wrong. We know it's futile to grapple with abstraction, abstract as life forms are, so some try to quantify them by saying their personality is an illusion. Or something. I'm a big dummy, but that's how I see it.

To put in a different way, the consensus has steered away from viewing each other in a classical light.

:up:

It isn't conceit that creates "haunted heavens." If Heaven is whimsical, it's only because we don't have a way to quantify the meaning of humanity. We haven't quantified the personal identity, nor can we. Vacant tombs...placing living man at the forefront of everything and human endeavor on a pedestal...now that's conceit. The pot doth call the kettle black, methinks.

The idea that nature is a zombie or "something scary/ugly" is just contrary to experience and what seems to be.

It's weird that what seems to be is classified as wishful thinking and "as things aren't," pragmatic.

One can be small without being absolutely doomed.

Assume the lack of God and assume that's the scientific presumption. Assume, assume, assume: Science.

I'm saying we're both insane, whether God exists or not. I do happen to be a theist, but how can I live in congruence with that which I cannot fathom? And if God doesn't exist, I'm just that much more insane.

Insanity is action incongruous with truth, so yes I'd argue everything human is insane to some degree. We don't have perspective to know the wherewithal of ourselves, others, or virtually anything.

Uh...I don't care what you name God...

I couldn't possibly be wrong if I'm right. I'm gonna go now and let you atheists try to solve the mystery of your anal retention.

Shoulda figured you'd call me on that, but I disagree anyway.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio.

Lots of imaginary things are true. Unicorns, for example.

So existence isn't random or determined, but...arbitrary?

I am a theist, I believe in Holiness anyway...but how does God ever know that it wasn't created by the real God to believe it is God? And how does the real God know that, etc.

lol It's so confusing. I'm out! Time to put this idiot to bed.

I don't think there is a gap. If X is possible, X is actual. There's no such thing as a possible thing that isn't actual, except in colloquial terms.

I'm not sure if there's a philosophy centered around what philosophers mean when they say "possible." One only needs to know that God is possible to prove God exists, IMO.

The only things that can't possibly be known to be false are truths, as it's possible God exists and knows all things, true and false, and God can't possibly know Itself to be false.