The freedom of identity a technically advanced consumer society facilitates (identity commodified / personal paralysis packaged as endless novelty) contains within it the anaesthetic that neutralizes a more valuable freedom, the freedom of resistance against an orientation towards the self that dictates that a self must consume even the self and in as many flavours as possible in order to fully experience itself. And is directed to do so through the conduits of mass media, celebrity culture, and social engineering technologies. — Baden

Is your opening OP concerned with, at least in part, the subtle ways that high-tech industrial societies subvert organized opposition (specifically, opposition to its meta-narratives for GDP productivity), both individual and collective, with incentives for egotistical self-involvement compatible with its baseline goal, promotion of materialistic consumerism. Under this influence, the united front against the tyranny of the elite ruling class is supplanted by being "cool," which means competing for the top spot amongst the property-laden, gadget-crazy, leisure time centered ruling class parading their egos across mass media via movies and music videos?

Consider, if you will, the one abiding thought that dominates my thinking: The world is phenomena. Once this is simply acknowledged, axiomatically so, then things fall into place. The brain is no longer the birth of phenomena, phenomena issue forth from phenomena, and what phenomena are is an open concept. Conscious open brain surgery shows a connection between brain and experiences, thoughts, emotions, memories, but does not show generative causality. Indeed, and this is an extraordinary point: If the brain were the generative source of experience, every occasion of witnessing a brain would be itself brain generated. This is the paradox of physicalism. What is being considered here, in your claim about gravity and its phenomenal universality (keeping in mind that gravity is not, of course, used in phenomenology's lexicon. But the attempt to bridge phenomenology with knowledge claims about the world of objects that are "out there" and "not me" is permitted {is it not?} to lend and borrow vocabularies with science. An interesting point to consider) is a "third perspective". Recall how Wittgenstein argued that we cannot discuss what logic is, for logic would be presupposed in the discussing. You would need some third perspective that would be removed from that which is being analyzed; but then, this itself would need the same, and so forth. This is the paradox of metaphysics, I guess you could call it, the endless positing of a knowledge perspective that itself, to be known, would require the same accounting as that which is being explained. An infinite regression.

But if you follow, in a qualified way, Husserl's basic claim that what we call appearances are really an ontology of intuition (though I don't recall he ever put it like this), whereby the givenness of the world IS the foundation we seek, the "third perspective" which is a stand alone, unassailable reality, then, while the "what is it?" remains indeterminate, for language just cannot "speak" this (see above), we can allow the scientific term "gravity" to be science's counterpart to the apparent need for an accounting of a transcendental ego in order to close the epistemic distance between objects and knowledge. — Constance

Rather than saying "the world is phenomena", I say "the world is noumena" and phenomena, via the agency of the brain, is a higher-order feedback loop i.e., a two-tiered construction.

The world as noumena entails the axiom plane, a parallel to the critical line of Riemann's zeta function.

Later for these things. Let me return to some basics of gravity_consciousness_language.

Note - cons = consciousness

The trick of cons might be that it's permanently inter-relational. I can't be fully reified.

Subjective mind with its sustainable personal POV is higher order feedback looping with vertical stacking. Let me elaborate.

Consider the world of the story in a printed novel. As we travel about with the book, does the world of the story travel about with us?

The world of the book examples insuperable context. Where is that world?

It’s not in the black ink marking the letters, nor in the words imaging the letters, nor in the white spaces of the pages contrasting the words-sentences-paragraphs-chapters of the novel, nor in the neural networks of the memory circuits and other cognitive circuits of the reader’s brain-mind, nor in the interplay of the reader’s life amidst the circumambient material universe, but rather in the vast micro-synchro-mesh of all of these things.

Where is the world of our conscious experience?

Just as a material object perceived through the lens of relativity presses down upon the stretchy fabric of spacetime, creating a gravity well of curved space, likewise a sentient being presses down upon the stretchy fabric of physically real inter-relatedness.

Inter-relatedness perceived through the lens of gravity-based cons becomes the curved space around the presence of a sentient being. In everyday language we call this personality and the influence of personality. Picture the super-fine linen of inter-relatedness of the everyday world of material things and human society, for example.

A person like you, Constance, or a person like me, or any person, exhibits being (to use some language of Heidegger) as a gravity well pressing down upon the micro-synchro-mesh of (physically real) inter-relatedness, thus making your presence felt as a warpage of the physical inter-relatedness. This is a kind of fluid dynamics, but the flowing is of physical-gravitational cons, instead of water.

The trick to understanding how sentience connects to its physical substrate, in this case, gravity, might be understanding that sentience is permanently interstitial. An interstice is a gap of empty space separating two material things. As an example, superfine linen is a mesh of cotton fibers separated by empty spaces. Well, the linen is no less empty space than it is cotton fibers. Where is the empty space of the linen? It’s defined by the cotton fibers as the interstices. Importantly, the interstices only exist inter-relationally. Remove the cotton fibers, arranged precisely, and the interstices cease to exist.

In parallel, remove the gravity-based micro-synchro-mesh of sentience grounded in the physical, and POV, the self of sentience, vanishes.

This is why the radiant presence of sentience is wholly missed by reductive materialism.

This is what David Chalmers, in different words, refers to in his exposition of the hard problem. The hard problem is all about the extreme softness, or subtlety of the physical presence of sentience.

Let’s take a look at the soft physicality of sentience.

The feedback looping of a memory circuit contains subjective-mind, POV-of-the-self content. Its presence, however, is not simply in the electro-magnetic current flow of the feedback loop, the gravitationally-modulated physical medium of cons. It’s a feedback loop precisely because the first pass of the cognitive circuit is the noumenal part, the thing-in-itself of physical cons. Noumenal cons is the collective cons of the sentient universe. Once noumenal cons feeds back upon itself as a memory loop, the phenomenal part of physical cons propagates. Memory resides in the echo or interstices separating noumenal cons from phenomenal cons. The feedback process is the second pass wherein a sampling rate via comparison captures some (not all) of the noumenal part of cons as memory.

Phenomenal cons is rooted in memory, or the sampling rate of the second pass. Intuition = low sampling rate (gut reaction). Full cognition = high sampling rate (reflection).

The trick of understanding cons is that it is an echo of what has already happened in the noumenal part. Our cons experience of our existence is a memory.

Where is the world of existence? We must ask ourselves “Where is memory?”

Memory resides in the interstices of the modulations of higher-order cognition i.e., first pass_second pass EM current. It’s the ghostly memory within the mesh of inter-relatedness. It’s a cloud-like distribution of the modulations of interwoven empty spaces.

It’s the ghost misting within the feedback looping of memory.

Bartricks,
You ask if Christianity has a sound philosophical reason for believing God created the world.

I surmise Christianity makes a metaphysical commitment to creation of the world by a conscious, intelligent designer.

By this belief, existence has an innate design and also a purpose that gives the bible a role to play as teacher and guide to humanity regarding how it should live its life.

Evidence of the Christian commitment to creation by intelligent design is opposition by some Christians to evolution without a supernatural intelligent designer.

This reveals another aspect of the Christian metaphysical commitment. It says life creation is peer-to-peer, meaning life only from prior life.

This opposes some physicalist persons who posit life arising from lifeless organic compounds sparked by lightning into life.

There is something here. but the language has to change. First, remove the science-speak, for you have stepped beyond this, for keep in mind that when consciousness and its epistemic reach is achieved by identifying object relations as gravitational in nature, and then placing the epistemic agency in this, as you call it, logos, you are redefining gravity as a universal, not law of attraction, but connectivity and identity, and I do remember thinking something like this was a way to account for knowledge relationships: identity. The distance is closed because there is no distance between objects that are not separated. And I mentioned that Husserl did hold something like this, but the "logos" was not scientific, it was a phenomenological nexus of intentionality. And since gravity is at this level of inquiry a strictly naturalistic term (to talk like Husserl), the description of what this unity is about has to go to a more fundamental order of thought, phenomenology. Gravity is now a phenomenon, an appearing presence. Ask a phenomenologist what a force is, what the curviture of space is, and you will first have see that these are conceived in theory and they are terms of contingency. One doesn't witness space or forces, but only effects from which forces are inferred and the names only serve to ground such things in a scientific vocabulary.

Not gravity, with its connotative baggage, but phenomena, for this is all that is ever witnessed, ever can be witnessed. If it is going to be a universal connectivity of all things, I do think you are right to note that there is this term gravity that abides in everything and binds everything. I would remove the term and realize this connectivity does not belong to a scientific logos. It must be a term that is inclusive of the consciousness in which the whole affair is conceived and the epistemic properties are intended to explain. And this consciousness is inherently affective, ethical, aesthetic, and so on. For the nexus that connects me to my lamp and intimates knowing-in-identity is always already one that cares, in interested, fascinated, repulsed, and so on. A connection of epistemology not only cannot be conceived apart from these, it must have then as their principle feature, because these are the most salient things in all of existence. — Constance

Of course, gravity sounds a lot like God, then. For God is, sans the troublesome history and narratives, a metaethical, meta aesthetic metavalue grounding of the world.

You may not agree with the above, but for me, I think you are on to something. Gravity, I will repeat, never really was "gravity", for this is a term of contingency, See Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity for a nice account of this. When the matter goes to some grand foundation of connectivity, are we not in metaphysics? Or on its threshold? — Constance

I'm very grateful to you, Constance. Thank-you for you time, attention, knowledge and wisdom as applied to my thoughts about the mode of the phenomenon of consciousness.

I can see, in an early state of understanding, not yet in sharp focus, some of the truth of your claim consciousness is more at metaphysics than at physics. I therefore see value in developing my thinking towards effecting the transition suggested.

I'm supposing, tentatively, that physically grounded consciousness as metaphysics has for one of its essentials the phenomenon/noumenon relationship. This directs my research towards Husserl and, before him, Kant.

Encouragement such as you've given me motivates my presence here.

that's not what you said I said. You said:

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science.
— ucarr

I didn't say or imply either of those things. — T Clark

Don't confuse "easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science." with "easily solvable with the objectivist methodologies of science." I know you know neuroscience is hard work.

...As far as I can see, there's no reason to think that consciousness can't be understood in terms of principles we already are aware of. I don't see any hard problem. — T Clark

By my account, you trivialize the subjective/objective distinction when, firstly you declare the (objectivist) "principles we already are aware of" are good enough to cover both the objective and the subjective and secondly when you deny without argument the hard problem.

ad ho·mi·nem | ˌad ˈhämənəm |
adjective
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining: vicious ad hominem attacks.

Your insult, as I said, was directed against me, not against my argument. Your confirm the truth of this with your following statement,

...it was an insult. — T Clark

Well, an insult is a personal attack having nothing to do with a debate about ideas.

The fact you don't recognize the difference tells me everything I need to know about whether or not to take you seriously. — T Clark

You make a lot of declarations unsupported by arguments. In this conversation you refuse to answer a central question about your assumptions. I always support my declarations with arguments. Usually I answer honestly tough questions that threaten my argument with implosion. By these standards, I'm much more serious than your are.

No, I've never thought of it. Tell me briefly how a "surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity" would do what needs to be done here. — Constance

Let me call it Scientific Logos.

Consider the following parallel,

As a crystal chandelier is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a handful of sand, so a conversation between two humans is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a moon orbiting its planet (earth_moon).

Under the implications of the above parallel, consciousness is an emergent property of two (or more) interacting gravitational fields. Thus a conversation, such as the one we're having, is the deluxe version
(replete with all of the bells and whistles) of the moon orbiting the earth and causing the tides and global air currents that shape earth's weather.

Language, being the collective of the systemic boundary permutations of a context or medium, cognitively parallels the phenomena animating the material universe.

That we humans have language suggests in our being we are integral to a complex surface of animate phenomena via intersection of gravitational fields. Action-at-a-distance elevates the self/other, subject/object bifurcation to a living history with unified, internally consistent and stable points-of-view better known as the selves of human (and animal) society.

Under constraint of brevity, a good thing, let me close with a short excerpt from my short essay on the great triumvirate of gravity-consciousness-language.

There is a direct connection between human consciousness and the gravitational field.

Gravitation is the medium of consciousness.

One can say that the gravitational attraction between two material bodies is physical evidence that those material bodies are aware of each other.

Under this construction, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising from the gravitational field.

This tells us that the study of consciousness (and especially the hard problem of consciousness) begins with the work of the physicist.

Gravity waves, the existence of which has been established, can also be called waves of consciousness.

Since matter is the substrate of consciousness, one can infer that the material universe is fundamentally configured to support and sustain consciousness.

Just as there can be geometrization of gravitation through relativity, there can be geometrization of consciousness through gravitation. This is a claim held by astrologers dating back to antiquity.

The (material) universe itself is a conscious being.

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science.
— ucarr

Neither of these statements is true. — T Clark

I think the following list of your statements within this conversation support my interpretation above. In my opinion, they intend to show objectivist science is well on its way to explaining the subjective mind.

Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist who studies the biological foundations of mental processes, including consciousness. The book I have is "The Feeling of What Happens." — T Clark

In the same way, mental processes, including consciousness, are not nothing but biology. But they are bound by biology in the same way that recorded music is bound by a CD or MP3 reader or radio — T Clark

If it can't be known by science, how can it be known. How do you know it?... You don't. — T Clark

As far as I can see, there's no reason to think that consciousness can't be understood in terms of principles we already are aware of. I don't see any hard problem. — T Clark

the fact that many people cannot conceive that consciousness might have a physical basis is not evidence that it doesn't. — T Clark

You haven't provided any evidence that "Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous." — T Clark

Wayfarer has already done this on our behalf.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
— David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem — Wayfarer

You're kind of a dick. — T Clark

Was the above ad hominem incited by,

You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind?
— ucarr

Your above observations do not answer my question. Are you unwilling to answer it? — ucarr

I think your answer to this question is the essence of our debate. Why does the issue of this question enrage you? If I've enraged you by some other means, cite an example. If you're not enraged, why the hate speech?

Again, how does this span the epistemic distance? — Constance

My conjecture about a complex surface with some topology of invariance assumes a unity of subjective self and observed world (of material objects) so, what epistemic distance?

Subjective experience is not something magical or exotic. We all sit here in the whirling swirl of it all day every day. Why would something so common and familiar be different from all the other aspects of the world? — T Clark

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science. Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous. Why do you disagree with them?

You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind? — ucarr

Your above observations do not answer my question. Are you unwilling to answer it?

Any attempt to describe epistemic connectivity would encounter the same problem it attempts to solve, for whatever the metaphor might be put in play, one would still have to explain how epistemic transmission is possible. — Constance

Have you perhaps made epistemic transmission problematical by conceiving of consciousness and its learning process as being predicated upon a discrete self/other bifurcation? Have you contemplated a self/other complex surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity?

The only thing I can imagine that would bridge the distance is identity, that is, one's knowing-self itself receives direct intimation of the presence of an object. — Constance

All one witnesses is phenomena. My couch is a phenomenal event and its "out thereness" is clearly evident, but how does its existence get into mine? — Constance

Here again I see instances of an assumption of self/other bifurcation. If you're committed to bifurcation, why?

Can the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field elevate our conjecture (re:epistemic connectivity) above the simple self/other bifurcation?

I'm nor sure what this gives us — Tom Storm

Your tone in your role as historian of (certain) ideas has importance because in my view you're sounding the imminent death knell of non-physicalist ideologies.

I think at this point in history there are a few key issues left to people who wish to find support for higher consciousness/idealism/theism worldviews - — Tom Storm

I understand from the above you're saying consciousness studies and QM provide defenders of discredited ideologies with grasping, eleventh-hour attempts at redemption of their beliefs.

Is your appraisal of the science-guided zeitgeist correct?

No evasion. I don't see it as relevant. — T Clark

You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind?

I am not a historian, scientist or philosopher. I was simply reflecting on the key issues which today separate the physicalist from the higher consciousness/idealism schools.
I think what I say is accurate... — Tom Storm

I make no commentary upon the accuracy of your reflection.

I think your reflection invokes the historian, in spite of your self-perception as non-historian.

The question simply makes no sense. What could an answer possibly be? "It feels like...?" What words could possibly fill the blank? — Isaac

If I can suppose my personal point of view is modulated by the collective of attributes of my brain-mind, then I have a practical explanation of my personal point of view.

If, moreover, I can simulate the collective of attributes of an individual bat's brain-mind, and if I can immerse myself within that modulating collective, then I can walk a mile in the shoes of that individual bat's brain-mind experience and thus I can know what it feels like to be a particular, individual bat.

I think at this point in history there are a few key issues left to people who wish to find support for higher consciousness/idealism/theism worldviews - the nature of consciousness, and the mysteries of QM, being the most commonly referenced. — Tom Storm

...it has become a 'god of the gaps' style argument, a kind of prophylactic against naturalism and a putative limitation on science and rationalism — Tom Storm

With your statements above, it's my impression you're assuming the role of historian, declaring that non-physicalist world views have entered their "last hurrah" (or echo of "last hurrah") phase.

If, as my per my perception, you see science crowding non-physicalist world views off the legitimate stage of public opinion, then I better understand why Joshs sometimes inveighs against scientism, which one should be careful not to confuse with science.

Subjective mind might not be out of bounds of effective scientific examination, but it shows promise as a good axis for pivoting into examination of scientific boundaries.

I don't want to get into a long discussion about how science has to proceed. — T Clark

Are you not evading an essential problem science (unwittingly) created for itself vis-a-vis study of first person experience when it defined itself as objective examination of entities, phenomena and facts, thus cordoning off itself from the personal mind, a something inherently subjective?

I will say that there is no reason the mind would not be among entities amenable for study by science. — T Clark

Is this declaration not made possible only by the previous evasion?

One radical solution is to say S and P are bound in identity: In some describable way, P is part of S's identity, and the brain/object separation has to be dismissed. — Constance

(Please forgive the following apparent non sequitur) consider that S and P are bound by action-at-a- distance. Can we assume that such binding of identity nonetheless preserves much of the autonomy and self-determination of each correspondent?

Can we hypothesize the brain/object junction is a complex surface with some topology of invariance?

I think you're focusing more on the philosophy of propositions? — frank

This sentence appears to my understanding as a confusion of declaration and question.

I actually suspect that the brain does not produce conscious experience, but rather conditions it. — Constance

Is brain conditioning of conscious experience similar to modulation as, for example, a parallel to frequency modulation of radio waves?

Experience exceeds the physical delimitations of the physical object, the brain. Call it spirit?? — Constance

Does this hypothesis assume a duality of physical delimitations/that which exceeds physical delimitations?

Is the latter what you suggest might be called spirit, thereby attributing to you belief in a physical/spirit duality?

…solipsism is a philosophical thought that proposes that only the self exists, and its experiences such as himself, his place in the world and his perception of the world are either imagined, or else directed illusions.

godmustbeatheist

This definition contains an internal contradiction within the solipsist. He assumes his own existence yet designates his experience of himself as imaginary_illusory. Such extreme skepticism doesn’t allow for the existence of a definite self even as that self has experiences it acknowledges, albeit as imaginary_illusory.

ucarr

solipsism – the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

 The Apple Dictionary

This alternative definition, as applied to the atheist, leads to the statement: the collective selfhood of humanity (on earth) and, beyond that, (possibly in future) the collective selfhood of physicalist sentience throughout the universe is all that can be known to exist.

Theism, for which atheism is the negation, claims there is a cosmic dialogue between sentient humanity and transcendental¬_ universe_God consciousness.

QM provides evidence (at sub-atomic level) of entanglement of observer and observed. There is no isolation. This evidence is consistent with cosmic dialogue. It is anti-consistent with the cosmic solitude of physicalist atheism. The cosmic solitude of atheism positions sentience within a universe according to a bifurcated design that has circumambient universe and sentience separated into isolation. Science adds further demerits to this position with its observations that the physical universe has no center and no boundary.

How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.

godmustbeatheist

Given the supposition of the dubious self of the solipsist that only the self can be known to exist, that dubious self is the cosmos.

ucarr

Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist.

godmustbeatheist

theism - belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures…

 The Apple Dictionary

The above definition of theism, providing a description of dynamic relationship, which is cosmic dialogue_entanglement, sets it apart categorically from atheism, which is human-to-human entanglement only.

Atheism strongly implies a bifurcation of the physics and the circumambient universe. When that bifurcation dissolves, the ensuing entanglement of the physics and the circumambient universe propagates and the cosmic dialogue_entanglement becomes active.

Claiming human is cast in the likeness of God is simultaneously saying human is cast in the image of physical universe.

Denying God separates physicalist humanity from circumambient universe along the axis of cosmic sentience-to-human sentience entanglement. Following from this, isolated physicalist humanity is enclosed within non-sentient circumambient universe of local society amidst cosmic solitude. We see, however, the vitality of organic chemistry towards sentience, and yet atheism says the organic chemistry of the circumambient universe is non-sentient. Atheism equals cosmic solitude.


metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality,

180 Proof

Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.

ucarr

My guess is that [the rest of] ucarr's statement in the quote makes no sense; someone smart and learned can study and tell whether it's valid or sheer nonsense.

godmustbeatheist

I don't see any "blanks" in what I wrote that need to be filled. — 180 Proof

Context matters. — 180 Proof

Yes, context matters. Induction-deduction oscillation = general ⇔ specific.

When I wrote, “Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation.” I was responding to a series of claims by 180 Proof including, “metaphysics does not consist of factual truth-claims,” and “it’s not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional.”

Given these exclusions, metaphysics, as defined by 180 Proof, operates as a pure model. It’s like the root of a word without its declension, or the infinitive of a verb, without its conjugation.

To claim the results of an examination of essential attributes of existence consist of no factual truth-claims, embody no theories, express no propositions and treat phenomena with broadest brushstrokes is to invoke mystery.

This invocation harks back to ancient times when seekers of truth paid visits to the Oracle for receipt of esoteric pronouncements.

Solipsism excludes community.

Solipsism is not concerned with extraterrestrials.

There is no such thing as interstellar solipsism. — god must be atheist

godmustbeatheist is a witty sitename. Notice how it assumes (ironically) a relationship between God and human. Even when making a little joke at the expense of theism, we have an atheist (I presume) who invokes human-sentience-to-cosmic-sentience entanglement.

While serious, godmustbeatheist notes how solipsism excludes community and is not concerned with extraterrestrials, and then s/he denies interstellar isolation due to solipsism.

I say we're most earnest while joking.

You've taken your time and done a careful job of profiling, per your perceptions, my writing, its meanings and, moreover, you've detailed your inferential conclusions about my intentions and strategies.

A writer whose writing is somewhat queered away from the common sense orthodoxy of its chosen discipline - in this case philosophy - overflowing as it may be (as in my case here) with idiosyncrasies of thought and personality quirks, asks a lot of his readers.

You have delivered. The serious attention of another person is one of the finest things a person can receive and a detailed profile bespeaks close and serious attention. I thank you for it. You could've taken the easy path by standing pat awaiting my implosion from overindulgence of selfish alienating impulses.

Beyond being a critique your statement is a warning. If I don't change my writing I run risk of being seen by consensus as a self-absorbed crackpot willfully peddling what I know to be nonsense. Such indulgence will put me on the permanent-ignore list vis-a-vis justifiably esteemed correspondents such as those participating in this conversation. Even more ominous, moderators, sharing the crackpot consensus, might feel compelled to block such perceived bandwidth-wasting verbiage.

I'm one who can heed warnings.

"Atheism Equals Cosmic Solipsism" As far as I know, solipsism is a philosophical thought that proposes that only the self exists, and its experiences such as himself, his place in the world and his perception of the world are either imagined, or else directed illusions.

How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.

And why would atheism equal solipsism, cosmic or otherwise? There is no reason to believe that. Atheism is a belief there is no god, there are no gods. This is a far cry from solipsism. Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist. Cosmic (?) or otherwise. — god must be atheist

Atheist humans are no less social than all other types of humans. They neither embrace nor propound notions about being alone in the universe. It's not a stretch to suppose some politicians are atheists and, well, politicians are people-persons; they thrive in crowd scenes.

The above declarations pertain to human-to-human interactions. What about humanity-the-collective to cosmos-the-totality-of-creation? At this level I assert that atheism is solipsistic.

This so because human consciousness vis-a-vis the totality of creation must first answer the question posed by the interstellar probe Jimmy Carter sanctioned. He asked, "Is anyone out there?"

Let's assume the answer is "yes." Other sentient (hopefully humanoid) beings are out there. Even so, this only dispels the interstellar solipsism of the human collective vis-a-vis other intra-cosmic sentience.
It still doesn't dispel the cosmic solipsism of atheism because the interstellar collective of sentience
vis-a-vis the cosmos is still alone unless the cosmos (and beyond) is sentient as distinguished from the interstellar collective of sentience, a state of being denied by atheism.

Sidebar - Some will argue atheism takes no position on the cosmos (and beyond) with the exception of an over-arching trans-physical theistic God. I'm still searching for a definition of theism that doesn't apply to all God-concepts. Perhaps evolution might be conceived as a unitary cosmic consciousness. I know, however, that some (if not all) evolutionists reject the notion of teleology (intelligent design) being baked into evolution.

So the atheist dialoguing as s/he does with humanity and perhaps, eventually, interstellar sentience, nonetheless vis-a-vis the cosmos stands alone as denial of cosmos as sentient being means necessarily intra-mural dialoguing within an over-arching physical universe itself forever silent.

Here's where QM comes into the picture and makes things more interesting. QM entanglement of observer_observed suggests (at least sub-atomically) the blurring of the objective/subjective binary. I say the intriguing thing about QM entanglement is its disavowal of any type of solitude.

The sans-solitude of QM via implication tells atheism to stop playacting Hamlet soliloquizing to the heavens about suicidal solitude.

Final Note - When I ran my list of takeaways in response to 180 Proof's carefully worded definition of metaphysics,

As I understand philosophy, "metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims; it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional – like poetry – but rather, metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, insofar as reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries (e.g. formal natural & historical sciences and arts), in order to rationally make sense of – make whole – 'human existence'. The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' (or world-making) but are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. Thus, for me at least, ucarr, "metaphysical claims", as Witty says, is nonsense. — 180 Proof

I was attempting to give my serious attention to the details of said definition. As we say, I was getting into the weeds. The narrative/counter-narrative is where the action is, man. I suspect all human individuals, when you get into their weeds, are no less weird than the fundamentals of QM. A big part of the trick and fun of debate, for me, entails walking a mile in the other-worldly strangeness of another individual.

I don't see any "blanks" in what I wrote that need to be filled. — 180 Proof

With 180 Proof > a ≠ ucarr > a′ I'm asking you to write a description that elaborates how a ≠ a′, which is to say, 180 Proof's statement a gets turned into ucarr's non-equivalent a.′ I'm asking you to write my straw-man distortion a′ of your original a.

If you'll be specific in this way, I'll best understand the underlying cause of my straw-man distortion.

Below follow my takeaways from your info

"metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims... — 180 Proof

So paradigms can only be supposed without affirmation or refutation.

it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional — 180 Proof

Actually no, paradigms cannot even be supposed. Furthermore, paradigms cannot express assertions.

metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, — 180 Proof

Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.

reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries — 180 Proof

The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' — 180 Proof

The ontology component of metaphysics dovetails with functionalism. Metaphysics says, "Mentally I am my operational, relatable, useful states."

(...categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations...) are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. — 180 Proof

The endgame of metaphysics arrives at axiomatic utterances not parsible into logical expressions. The ground of being is a given. It potentiates analyses but is their unbridgeable limit.

"metaphysical claims... is nonsense. — 180 Proof

Atheism is a 2nd order statement about theism which is a 1st order statement about "god"; the latter is metaphysics (i.e. onto-theology) and the former epistemology / logic. — 180 Proof

Theism is the ground of atheism as arithmetic is the ground of algebra. By algebra I know arithmetic cannot be reduced to logic. So logic too, is grounded by arithmetic. 2nd order expressions convey their meanings through their first order foundations. Because atheism cannot exist without theism, it cannot be categorically separable from theism, thus all atheistic expressions are theistic expressions in the negative.

I suppose you need to reformulate what I've written because it's easier for you to knock down strawmen rather than substantively engage my stated positions — 180 Proof

Of course I reformulate what you've written because that's how I try to substantively engage your stated positions. If I were you and we were me, there'd be just one and thus no dialogue.

My straw-men are caused by cerebral viruses that occasionally infect my thinking with unintentionally flawed interpretations of correspondent's intended meanings.

Below is a piece of your writing I tried to interpret. Help me see what's actually there.

atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories) If the material universe was "created", then an atheist only states "I disbelieve stories of 'the universe created by a theistic deity'" — 180 Proof

Please fill in the blank. 180 Proof > a = atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories); ucarr > a′ = [fill in blank here]

Metaphysical Claim - a declaration of truth about the root causes, designs and operations of the creation as understood to be separate from the mundane world of everyday physics.

“God did not create the material universe.” — ucarr

What happens to the above sentence if I add one of your important adjectives?

“ Theistic God did not create the material universe.” — ucarr

What happens to the first sentence if I add another one of your important adjectives?

“ Deistic God did create the material universe.” — ucarr

My issue with religion is that it unfortunately offers an opportunity to separate people by drawing firm lines in the sand as to what is demanded of one another in terms of belief and custom. — Hanover

I'm here trying to get a better understanding of things. Although it's imprudent to discuss religion, I find trying to understand it is more interesting than ignoring it.

If I make a wrong claim about atheism herein, my correspondents are on the job with pushback. Doing philosophy is the easy part. Getting the attention of correspondents is the hard part. Whereas written statements can only reflect light, live humans with incandescent sentience provide the important thing.

Exchange of ideas stirs thickets of fierce rhetoric. Sometimes I get hit by the verbal shrapnel of serious thought coupled with strong feelings. Sometimes I get hoisted aloft by the nearby landing of someone's witty petard.

Black eyes and fat lips are my tattoos. I always get them en route to grinding out the cognitive gems only I appreciate.

A secular protestant...
— ucarr

It's not always a vacuous culture war out there. — Tom Storm

A secular protestant, lying on his deathbed, in defiance of his own emotional past as a boy raised Catholic, exhorts his parents, wife and children, to their great anguish, not to hold any type of religious services at his funeral. — ucarr

For the sake of clarification, let me add that with my examples to busycuttingcrap I was only trying to show what an atheist might choose to do as observances of his atheism. I acknowledge your examples of atheist behavior demonstrate with equal truth how some atheists behave. I have no opposition to atheists doing these types of things and wouldn't hesitate to socialize with them while they were doing so.

I do think an atheist who, in his socialization with close friends, celebrates Christmas, attends mass and acts as best man at a Christian wedding lacks integrity and honesty if doesn't declare his beliefs beforehand, instead allowing others to assume he shares empathy with their convictions and rituals.

I wasn't asking for definitions of statistical significance or Protestantism, I was asking you what exactly "practicing atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism" involves or consists of. What does this look like, in practice? — busycuttingcrap

A secular protestant, lying on his deathbed, in defiance of his own emotional past as a boy raised Catholic, exhorts his parents, wife and children, to their great anguish, not to hold any type of religious services at his funeral.

A secular protestant breaks off his engagement to a beloved fiance because she and her parents insist upon a church wedding.

A secular protestant eschews observance of Christmas.

Only a "theistic" origin of the universe is "excluded". — 180 Proof

In my Apple Dictionary I see that theism derives from THEÓS or THEOI meaning "god" or "gods." Both theism and deism include God.

Christian Theism believes in an active God who relates with humans as a mentor. Deism believes in a passive God who leaves humans to their own devices.

In either case, God is acknowledged as the creator of the universe. Unless the God of deism is a physical god who created a physical universe, thus rendering deism indistinguishable from materialism, belief in a spirit God as creator is a metaphysical belief. This separates deism from atheism.

Atheism is the negation of acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator. A negation does not negate itself.

If I negate acknowledgement of light as the fastest moving material object in the physical universe, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of physicalism. It is a physicalist theory.

In parallel, if I negate acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator in the metaphysical realm, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of the metaphysical. It is a metaphysical theory.

Even if I negate metaphysics entirely, I posit a theory of metaphysics > non-existent.

Negation no less than affirmation attaches itself to the realm about which it posits a theory.

...an atheist only states "I disbelieve stories of 'the universe created by a theistic deity'". This is an epistemological commitment and not a "metaphysical claim" (whatever that means). — 180 Proof

If you turn away from a claim about reality because you are personally repelled by it, but make no commitment about the truth or falsity of the claim, that is doubt. Disbelief cannot be based upon doubt. Disbelief is properly based upon commitment to belief in negation. Committed negation of a transcendent God is a metaphysical claim. If you know there is no spirit realm housing a transcendent creator God, then you're trading in metaphysical coinage and that's a metaphysical claim.

I suspect a statistically significant number (certainly not all) of atheists practice their atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism.
— ucarr

I'm curious what this means, exactly; can you say more? — busycuttingcrap

Statistically significant means a set with a volume of members too large to be unimportant and not worth considering as a factor in collection of numerical data; a group too large to be considered insignificant.

Martin Luther and his followers revolted against the imperious control of the Catholic Church. Those who reject big organized religion in favor of a personal walk with God bolstered by bible readings are Protestants.

A secular protestant is a person who rejects God and the imperious control of organized religion.

Note - I abbreviate consciousness as "cons." -- ucarr

I do not understand atheism as an "ideology" or as derived from "axioms". One who claims, as I do, that theism is demonstrably not true and, therefore, disbelieves in every theistic deity, is an atheist. — 180 Proof

... atheism doesn't dictate any particular position on how (or whether) the universe began... only that whatever it is, God had nothing to do with it. — busycuttingcrap

We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe.
— ucarr

I don't dispute this, but others will, so I think that proving this should be your starting point. — RogueAI

↪RogueAI
We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe.
— ucarr
I took this as "I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1. — tomatohorse

"I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1.
— tomatohorse

That's actually a proof. It is not proven in an a priori way, but in an a posteriori or empirical way, but it's still a proof. — god must be atheist

If human cons can only be verified up to the level of practical experience of the everyday world a posteriori, given its presence in nature, doesn’t that allow, in the absence of preclusion, the possibility it’s source might be super-ordinate WRT nature? I'm not talking about a realm of mysterious power over humanity from on high. By super-ordinate I mean "a thing that represents a superior order or category within a system of classification."

If so, then that location might be supernatural or extra-natural, etc, right? On the other hand, if cons, like matter, takes the default position of having always existed, being neither created nor destroyed, then it’s axiomatic that nature is cons-bearing, right? If that’s so, then science begins with cons as a self-evident truth. From here it follows that axiomatically cons humans cannot, on a logical basis, be uncoupled from a cons sourced outside of nature. Thus a supernaturally-sourced cons cannot be logically excluded.

In spite of my speculations above, I’m in favor of propositional logic elaborating a continuity of symbolically representable expressions following strict rules of inference to the effect of proving nature is cons-bearing. A cons-bearing universe allows human to be Venn-diagramed with a cosmic cons, and that’s evidence of a cosmic dialogue, and that’s more interesting than the cosmic soliloquy of atheism, what with its trace of Hamlet’s suicidal despair (Camus).

Atheism excludes God as creator of the material universe. Does that not make atheism a theory of what the origin of the universe is not? If so, atheism is not independent of metaphysics. It's metaphysical claim says, “God did not create the material universe.”

Even if non-life can be scientifically transformed into life, science cannot explain scientifically the ground of physicality. Thus atheism as to the why and how of existence is no less an article of faith than is theism. Atheism is therefore a type of epistemology.

Atheism is not an ideology? I suspect a statistically significant number (certainly not all) of atheists practice their atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism. They don't want to live under the rule of a dictatorial, humanoid deity whose self-serving morals are brutally mediated by an elite priestly class of
clerics.

I'm trying to approach the premise of a super-ordinate theism from within the field of science.

My main idea herein is drawing a parallel with Riemann's zeta function.

Prime numbers are the axioms of number theory. The Riemann Hypothesis examines this. The zeta function yields primes on a critical line extending along the complex number line. This is where the primes are organized. So far, the critical line appears to be of infinite extent. How does one categorize the entire set mathematically?

I say in parallel axioms are the primes of scientific theory. Within scientific theory, they are the irreducible singularities. Do they too have a mathematical function that produces a critical set of axioms along the complex number plane?

Deus = the axiom plane. As the ground and source of existence, the axiom plane is a transcending, non-local dimensionalizer of actuated possibility.

Deus is uncontainable, even as an abstract concept. That it is super-ordinate to anything is a fiction of language.

Deus is prior to the singularity of the Big Bang.

Deus is evidence numericality is an essential attribute of the material creation. Numbers are discovered, not invented.

Some of the American Founding Fathers embraced an ideology that posits God the creator as the power that designed nature, there after withdrawing to his own council of self-sufficiency. Human was left to tease out the natural attributes by power of reason.

by reason the inherent features of the natural by the power of reason.

Partly for political reasons this ideology sets divine will and reason upon level ground. The Christian mandate for a transcendent God could thereby be somewhat appeased while the human pursuit of reason and practical production thereof could go forward free of incursions by a meddling church.

This ideology is Deism. It is an eighteenth century iteration of intelligent design. It discovers by rational examination teleology within natural processes. The headwaters of reason are acknowledged to be God’s will expressed as axioms funding and organizing the algorithms of rational practice.

Atheism, the ideology of only nature, no God* immerses itself within rational practice with axioms included. Axioms are “explained” as self-evident truths. Self-evident truths are claims of reason without reasoning arguments to support them.

Existence is the limit of reason. With an existing thing embraced as a given, reason proceeds thereof towards myriad permutations of rigorously parsed continuities.

Reasoning upon an existing thing can unfold and compact itself through oscillations that are sometimes deemed natural cycles.

When a new narrative gets expressed such that it turns a curve in the established narrative unfolding from self-evident truths, the comprehensive rational understanding deepens and new tributaries of reasoning emerge. This is a paradigm shift.

A paradigm shift occurs when a new facet of an existing thing flashes its presence like a scintillation into the comprehending mind of a thinking sentient.

Manipulation of permutations of self-evident truth continuities, logic, ranges out from its tether, the axiom. In so doing, logic falls prey to becoming arrogant, believing its axiomatic foundation is another part of itself, albeit a self-sufficient part.

Reason is a derivation of existence that only completes itself in the doing of being as presence. Presence, an existing thing, stands mystical in the pantheon of creation because the knowing of reason doesn’t know whereof presence arises.

Atheism, reason falsely divorced from the inscrutable otherness of axiom, the IAM speak of Deus, talks to itself within the oscillations of self-referential logic. It bites the hand that feeds it, axiom. Instead, it praises itself, swathed in the glowing raiment of self-referentiality. When you deny otherness, self-referentiality is all that remains.

We have thus the Big Bang Theory. This is the grand oscillation of nature. It is a continuity writ large that enfolds itself like a Mobius as it remains silent upon the seminal question of the origin ontology of the singularity.

Shall we intuit the singularity as the axiom of existence of the self-evidently true and physical universe?

*180 Proof

To Joshs,
God_human, though co-created simultaneously, are Venn diagrams, thus overlapped only partially; much of the makeup of each does not overlap. Just as different languages don't translate completely, God_human don't translate completely. This untranslateability entails some of the mystery of otherness.

Eliminate essential mystery and the understanding becomes overburdened. By rubbing against the unknowable, we keep ourselves vital and our imagination fertile.

I know from your writing you already know all of this. I'm just letting you know I too respect some of the essential and necessary contradictions that glitch the complacency of a smooth running understanding.

Is QM's vector-cloud of probability and its collapse not part of the observer effect?
— ucarr
Wtf? — 180 Proof

QM perceives the vagueness of the electron's position within an attached nucleus as a cloud of possible positions of the electron prior to establishment of a definitive valence under observation.

If God was “co-created alongside of human”, what accounts for the dualistic split between the natural( the human as a physical and biological entity) and the spiritual? These two realms seem to be interacting from across an unbridgeable divide. — Joshs

What do you make of the Venn Diagram problem?

What makes scientific naturalism ‘isolated and solipsistic’ if not as
one pole of a nature-spirit dialectic? In other words , don’t we first have to assume your nature-spirit co-creation , and then by subtracting away God arrive at a solipsistic physical nature? — Joshs

Do you find the unparsible nature of axioms interesting? Since nature has no approach to axioms save acknowledgement, there is the implication of duality with respect to origins: a) nature; b) unsearchable self-evident truths as arbitrary starting points for narratives. The natural sentient can decide the source of axioms is a mysterious power beyond the physical world or embrace natural phenomena as a creation of unknowable origin or understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin.

That is, if all there is is the natural , by comparison to what can we call it ‘isolated’? — Joshs

Do you understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin?

Kant made human conceptualization and empirical nature inseparably co-dependent, — Joshs

I see this is Kant's prescient understanding of QM that you told me of earlier.

What's 4D logic? Just curious... — Shawn

It is continuity of spacetime dimensional expansion within a hyper-cube.

Is Shroedinger's cat never super-positioned as a life/death ambiguity?
IIRC, the "live/dead cat" is only a construct within a thought-experiment that makes explicit some of the ways imeasurements of quantum phenomena are epistemically inconsistent with classical physics; the "live/dead cat" is not itself an actual phenomenon. — 180 Proof

I hope you'll agree thought-experiments are road maps to practice and experience. Google's qubit computer is not a thought-experiment. Is it?

I agree with you. Entanglement has all interested parties ruminating. Great!

But how do we know enough about consciousness to recognize it as a player in the universe in relationship to 'physical' components you refer to as accepted facts? — Paine

More than one physicist living today has claimed QM the most experimentally and phenomenally verified scientific theory of all time. Please present your counter-narrative.

Anthromorphizing compositional fallacy at the very least. — 180 Proof

If there's one thing that's not anthropomorphic, it's human consciousness. What does human consciousness look like? Does your sentience, considered as a whole, look like your physical body? Yes, your sentience has an impression of your physical body. Does that motivate you to claim your sentience is a facsimile of your body?

...without a clear conception of "consciousness" either in philosophy or science, the phrase "consciousness-bearing" is uninformative. — 180 Proof

We also know from QM there is crosstalk between observer and observed, thus establishing the essential sociability of both existence and consciousness. — ucarr

Without addressing its veracity, can you elaborate how the above claim is devoid of intelligible content?

The rest of your post, trafficking as it does in pseudo-science / misinterpreting QM's 'observer effect', doesn't make much sense either except maybe as wishful thinking (i.e. "theology"). — 180 Proof

Is QM's vector-cloud of probability and its collapse not part of the observer effect? Is Shroedinger's cat never super-positioned as a life/death ambiguity? Is the wave function not hard to establish and easy to collapse within the lab?

Lastly, I don't recognize the theisms of Abrahamic, Vedic, or any other pagan faiths in your account, ucarr, so on that point, again, I don't know what you mean by "theism" or, for that matter, "atheism". — 180 Proof

Theism claims God-Spirit dwells beyond the natural world and, moreover, causes its histories and experiences as physical events. — ucarr

What is it about the above description of theism you fail to recognize?

Does my premise that atheism, in denying God-Spirit's dwelling outside of the phenomenal universe, (thus rendering it a solitude of self-contained physicalist sentience), position itself as a point of obscurity to you?

Did you not introduce transcendence as what the 'physical' could not provide? — Paine

Life propagating spontaneously from a physical ground is transcendent holism. — ucarr

In the above statement I'm trying to say consciousness is an emergent property of elements and compounds. This claim presumes a physical foundation of awareness that supports it non-reductively. The foundation and the emergent property, being linked, are not mutually exclusive.

How do you know that a 'physical ground' is bereft of life? — Paine

You first suggested I deal in the currency of non-vital substance.