For completeness, you might want to add this choice:

5. The question is wrong / illogical — EricH

Indeed, you're right but here's how I look at it. A question has been asked viz. "what is the value of x?" The bottomline is the answer has to be quantitative for it's a mathematical question. The answer has to be a finite number because mathematical operations with infinity haven't been defined. But we soon come to realize that there's no finite number that satisfies the equation x = x + 1. So, x isn't a quantity and it isn't a quality (non-quantity). The universe we know of is exhausted in terms of quantity and non-quantity. So, x has to be nothing.

It works for me. — Brett

Really? I didn't expect that! Great! I would've liked to hear your side of the story though.

Why can't you answer the question, what is the value of x? It's a rather simple question. I'll pare down the options to make it easier.

1. x can be something
2. x can be nothing

What is the value of x?

*long sigh*

1. Yes obviously something will always be something +1.
2. No.
3. No?
4. See 2. — Outlander

Something + 1 = Something?

Something = 9

9 + 1 = 9? :chin:

So, you mean to say there's something (remember it has to be a finite number) such that that something, when you add 1 to it, it doesn't change?

Infinity + 1 = Infinity but we can't get to that with thd allowed mathematical operations on an equation like x = x+ 1.

Thanks for the interesting replies though. :up:

The value of X is not relevant. — Book273

Be inventive, unleash your creativity. What is the answer that makes the most sense? I'll give you some options:

1. Something
2. Nothing
3. Infinity
4. Zero

Nothing is a term applied to a concept, therefore, label-wise, Nothing exists. — Book273

Label-wise doesn't do the trick. Nothing is not any thing. Labels are things and so can't be Nothing.

As I said, Nothing isn't/can't be a concept, in fact it can't be any thing.. That should end any and all conversations on Nothing for nothing physical (matter & energy) and nothing mental (thoughts) can be Nothing. Is there anything other than the physical world and the mental world?

Math issue there. X=X+1 can never be true — Book273

I could reframe the question for you. What's the value of X?

Consider "nothing" as the vocabulary equivalent of the numerical value 0. Functional as a descriptor to identify a lack of something, which, theoretically should be there, but isn't. However, once context is removed, is worth...itself. — Book273

I see. So, Nothing is like zero. But Nothing isn't like zero. Try solving the equation x = x + 1. Is it zero or is it Nothing? Are the two the same?

Zero is, to me, the quantitative abstraction of empty sets. Nothing can't be a set, let alone the empty set, for sets are things (conceptual entities) but Nothing is not any thing, not even concepts. Being so, it can't/shouldn't be conceivable to the mind and yet we have a definition which implies we can conceive of it. Paradox? :chin:

If you feel that I'm repeating myself, kindly ignore this post.

Actually I just met her the other day. We didn't get along; probably won't repeat it. Too larval. — Bitter Crank

:lol: Good to know you still have your wits about you.

So the proof of the moral rests in the absurdity of the contradiction? — Brett

Yes but that's my opinion. Every immoral thought/speech/act can be reduced to a contradiction, in Kant's moral theory, of the kind I demonstrated in my earlier post.

For instance, life has value is a (allegedly) true proposition. If everybody started murdering, it would contradict that true proposition. As per the categorical imperative, the appropriate question is, "what if everybody starts murdering?"

The reason why the question is framed with everybody in mind is that if the question were, "what if somebody starts murdering?" it doesn't lay the necessary foundations for a contradiction because the few (not all) who murder can be thought of as acting immorally. The moment everybody starts murdering, it means life no longer has value and a contradiction surfaces. This is just my opinion by the way.

How did human women give birth to the giants--narrow birth canal and all that? — Bitter Crank

Hi Bitter Crank. You must've met neoteny at some point in your life. It's the biological phenomenon in which the life cycle of an organism is completed at the larval, and whatever that corresponds to larvae in organisms absent such a stage, stage. So the story goes that humans could be a case of arrested development - even as aged old men and women we could actually be the adolescent stage of an organism whose adult-form nobody has ever seen. Titans of Greek myth?

Maybe...maybe...the Fibonacci sequence has something to do with optimizing. The sunflower video is about packing the most amount of florets in the available space and if one takes this idea but a step further we have, on our hands, the real possibility of using the Fibonacci numbers in problems of optimization; in layman's terms, getting the most out of something by expending the least amount of effort.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,...

If you had 2 dollars, you could get two items worth 1 dollar each.

If you had 3 dollars, you could get three items 1 dollar each but if you purchase two items, one 1 dollar and the other 2 dollars, you have something worth 2 dollars, something more valuable than any of the 1 dollar items you bought.

If you had 5 dollars, you could buy five items each 1 dollar each (not a good idea) or you could buy two items, one 1 dollar and the other 4 dollars but then you end up with an item you could've bought with 1 dollar. You must then buy two items, one which is 2 dollars and the other which is 3 dollars which would mean you would have an item you could've bought with 2 dollars and an item that has greater value, 3 dollars.

So and so on...

Optimizing on value seen in terms of price of items, a measure of quality. :chin: If you follow the Fibonacci sequence, you'll always land up buying the most number of quality items you can buy with your money provided the money you have is a Fibonacci number.

I'm not a mathematician so go easy on me.

Well, @Jack Cummins, I'm in agreement with you regarding the categorical imperative - it basically says that if the answer to "what if everybody did x (an act)?" is something odd/strange/absurd in some sense then x is wrong and if the answer is not like that then it's right.

On the issue of same-sex marriage, the question is, "what if everybody chose same-sex marriage?" Well, what would happen? Any ideas?

Also, I want to bounce my thoughts on the matter off of the two of you and others too if they're reading this.

First off, I believe Kant wanted to ground ethics in logic and my take on that is Kant's theory of morality makes immorality a logical contradiction - absurd - or is the other way round??!!

The classic example in Kantian ethics is about thievery. The categorical imperative requires us to ask, "what if everybody were stealing?". This leads to a contradiction, that between theft being prohibited by our common agreement in re private property and then sanctioning it. It's impossible to talk of private property when you allow stealing. This is the essence of Kant's theory (for me at least).

Coming to the matter of same-sex marriages, for a Kantian perspective one would have to first ask the question, "what is marriage?"

If you say marriage is to have children then the Kantian position would be that same-sex marriages is immoral because they can't produce children. There's a contradiction there - marriage is to have children and same-sex marriage that can't produce children.

However, if you say marriage is to find love then Kant would, in my humble opinion, not be able to raise moral objections to same-sex marriage for no contradiction exists.

:chin:

:ok:

The Fibonacci sequence is reportedly making an appearance in nature in all sorts of weird places. I remember watching a video which was about the way the florets of a sunflower are arranged. Another video talked about how it's related to the so-called golden ratio.

My personal take on the Fibonacci sequence has to do with its geometric form - a spiral. A spiral for me is a wannabe circle. It has the motion required but the radius seems to be behaving oddly, increasing as the wannabe circle is being traced which effectively precludes the construction of a circle. All this reminds me of the phrase "spiralling out of control" and the only thoughts that spring to mind at the moment are cosmic inflation and entropy.

I suppose the Fibonacci spiral is an approximation of the universe. Take time as the radius, lengthening i.e. passing into, toward the future and the actual line that constitutes the spiral (it would've been the circumference if the circle could've been completed) representing matter and energy behaving cyclically. In essence, matter and energy would Big Bang and Big Crunch, the process repeating infinitely, but they would occur at distinct points in linear time. :chin:

I believe the author of the QUORA post is conflating two kinds of truths. Fae is basically equivocating with the following two kinds of truths:

1. Truth type 1: Reality as it really is

2. Truth type 2: The truth value (true/false) of a proposition

Fae mentions that and I quote, "reality is being made up" and if that's true then it becomes possible that we don't/can't know truth type 1. A Cartesian skepticism apparent therein.

Truth type 2 is different though. Even in a completely made-up "reality" certain propositions about it will correspond to occurrences/states/objects in that made-up "reality." In other words there'll be truth type 2 even in a made-up "reality."

The author of the post first makes the claim that truth type 1 can't/don't exist because "reality" itself, in that case, is nonexistent/illusory. Nothing smells fishy so far.

Faer next step, however, is problematic to say the least because he seems to be drawing a conclusion about truth type 2. Faer argument would collapse at this point for two reasons:

1. It's self-refuting
2. Fae's equivocating

Describe to me the “color” of your peculiar life, and, you mad fool, I will (I promise) return the favor. — Todd Martin

Black as coal but I'm what people might call an eternal optimist. Hoping it's some kind of yin-yang thing and white, even greyish will do, will follow at some point. :sad:

Your life is more colorful than mine.

I do get your point. However, Nothing, as a concept, isn't the same as the concept Tree.

Let me try another way of arguing my point.

1. Nothing can't be any thing. [Argument A]

So,

2. Nothing can't be a concept [Argument B]

3. If Nothing can't be a concept then Nothing can't be conceived by the mind

Ergo,

4. Nothing can't be conceived by the mind


5. If there's a definition of Nothing then Nothing can be conceived by the mind [Argument C]

6. There's a definition of Nothing

Ergo

7. Nothing can be conceived by the mind

We arrive at a contradiction:

4. Nothing can't be conceived by the mind AND Nothing can be conceived by the mind

This is the paradox.

But the concept is different from the thing it comprehends...
I can conceive of the concept “nothingness”, but if I “conceive of nothing”, that only means I’m not thinking of anything at the time; it is a problem of semantics merely, not being or reality. — Todd Martin

Yes, that's an important point I'm grappling with at the moment. The concept is different to the thing the concept is about. For instance the concept human is not itself a human.

However, take a moment to consider what Nothing is defined as - it can't be anything and that means it can't also be a concept. Since it can't be denied that Nothing isn't a concept for it is, we have to conclude that Nothing is a concept of a non-concept. Is this not a paradox? It's like saying the beauty of ugliness or the bravery of cowardice and so on.

I found it to be stupid — Darkneos

I wouldn't go that far. The author probably means that there's no such thing as THE TRUTH by which I mean to refer to that ever elusive, all-encompassing, ultimate, truth of all truths that many cultures, in some form or another, have been in search of. THE TRUTH, if I may hazard a guess, is that single proposition that would allow us to make sense of everything there is - it would provide an answer to every conceivable question we can muster about the universe and all in it. To make it clearer, the scientific version of THE TRUTH is the yet-undiscovered GRAND UNIFIED THEORY but THE TRUTH that I'm talking about is much, much grander of course.

no one can detect or understand truth — Darkneos

Read this sentence in the context of the above.

To argue that truth doesn't exist is to have as a conclusion the statement, T = Truth doesn't exist. The question that naturally follows is, is T true/false. If it's true then the argument is self-refuting and truths do exist and if it's false then also truths exist.

To say truths don't exist is an untenable position.

The “concept” is not “nothing”, but rather “the definition of ‘nothing’”; that should unravel the paradox. — Todd Martin

The definition describes the concept.

Yes, I can see your point that food is the one aspect of the world that depends on the the multiple use of all the senses and this is probably due to the wiring of the brain for survival. — Jack Cummins

It's all in the head or in the skin rather :chin:

The car cannot have one soul as "a car", and also many souls as "a bunch of independent parts", at the same time, because it cannot fulfill these two distinct descriptions at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, when there's a whole car there are no parts and when there are parts there's no car? So, when the car is being assembled piece by piece the souls of the parts conveniently vanish and the soul of the car comes into existence when the car is being disassembled, the souls of the parts magically reappear and the soul of the car vanishes? Is this what you're saying? If you are then everything doesn't have a soul for the simple reason that the parts are still things even when they're all assembled together into a car and, according to you, they don't have souls when they are so.

No jump is required — Metaphysician Undercover

Premise 1: Everything has a soul (panpsychism)

Premise 2: Everything about a car (its parts and the car whole) is a thing

Conclusion: The parts of a car have souls. The car, as a whole, has a (one) soul. The car has many souls (parts) and the car has one soul (the car as a whole) [CONTRADICTION!!]

Proposed resolution of the contradiction: the parts and the whole are different kinds of things and that's why parts can be many souls and the car, as a whole, can have one soul.

Problem with the proposed resolution: a jump has been made from parts to wholes because necessarily the everything in "everything has a soul" (panpsychism) can't be refer to both parts and wholes [because if it does the contradiction I obtained above stands] and so an inference from either parts to wholes (bottom-up) or an inference from wholes to parts (top-down) has to be made and then the fallacy of composition and the fallacy of division becomes a clear and present danger.

It depends on whether the memory in question poses a threat to someone, including but not limited to the person whose memory it is.

I have a lot of bad memories - situations, random thoughts, urges, and whatnot - that I'd like nothing better than to forget. A targeted memory erasure would be something I don't mind undergoing.

Then what about memories that are dangerous to the person it belongs to. What would armies give for a pill, to be ingested by its spies when capture by the enemy is imminent, that would erase all or militarily strategic memories?

I got this gem of a definition from Merriam-Webster.

Utopia (noun):

1. A place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions

2. An impractical scheme for social improvement

It says a lot, doesn't it, when a "place of ideal perfection" has also come to mean "an impractical scheme"?

Is this intuition justified? What makes something so desirable also impractical?

As far as I can tell, the biggest obstacle to utopia seems to be human nature. What's the problem in formulating laws, establishing governments, and ensuring social conditions that define utopia? I'm sure there are experts in those fields capable of putting together a practical proposal only if human nature didn't get in the way. Were we more reasonable creatures, willing to see past our differences and focus on the collective good, we wouldn't be just daydreaming of utopia, we would actually be living in one.

If what I say makes sense, the following paradox presents itself to us:

People will change only when utopia becomes a reality. There's no way people will change their competitive, confrontational, attitude - a force I reckon creates, maintains and perpetuates the unsatisfactory status quo, either directly or indirectly - unless utopia is actualized. Those involved would view it as downright stupidity to change only on the basis of a mere possibility - a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush logic.

Utopia can't become a reality unless people change. The procedure, if I may refer to it as such, to create utopia requires, as a necessary step, a fundamental change in attitude towards a more cooperative mindset - in unity there's strength logic.

In short, for utopia to be a reality, we need people to change but for people to change, utopia has to be a reality and therein lies the rub, the vicious cycle - neither can be achieved because to achieve either the other has to be achieved first.This is the paradox, the reason why utopia may not be just an "impractical scheme" but worse, impossible.

No problem. I had some ideas that needed a sounding board; I suppose you had similar intentions. I'll leave the discussion now, much wiser than I was when I joined in. Thanks. Good day.

Complete synesthesia or fivefold synesthesia is different to what I'm talking about. Synesthetes with fivefold synesthesia experience different sensory perceptions via association and not because the trigger itself has the necessary stimulus to fire the concerned neurons. Food, on the other hand, has all the stimuli to engage all five senses.

To elucidate my point, imagine a synesthete X who when recalling a certain telephone number experiences the smell of roses. Numbers, we know, don't have odor molecules and so it's impossible for them to even smell let alone give off the fragrance of roses. In other words, numbers lack the necessary stimuli to fire our olfactory neurons and so, synesthesia in this case is closer to being a hallucination.

Food, on the other hand, has all the stimuli necessary to engage all five senses i.e. the activation of all five senses while eating is quite far from being a hallucination.

Well, I suppose I deduced

parts are conscious because a whole is, nor that wholes are conscious because their parts are — bert1

from the original claim of panpsychists which is that everything has a soul/mind. Parts are things, so, they have souls/minds but the whole the parts make up is also a thing and so must have a soul/mind. Both wholes and parts are things and so, both must have souls.

However, there's a clear distinction - organizationally (is that a word?) - between wholes and parts and that distinction is important for the existence of the fallacy of composition/division - some things true of parts may not be true of wholes and vice versa. An argument becomes necessary to prove that the fallacy of division (if you're taking a top-down approach) or the fallacy of composition (if you're going for a bottom-up approach) isn't being committed.

The possibility of the fallacies mentioned being committed becomes real once you look at the paradox I mentioned earlier. Take a piece of wood - it's a thing, so, has a soul/mind. Repeatedly break it into two equal halves and with each such procedure, the number of souls should double. Do this n times and you should have in your hands 2^n pieces each with its own soul/mind.

Now ask how many souls/minds does the original piece of wood have? You would have to say, as per the panpsychists' claim that everything has a soul/mind, that the original piece of wood has both 2^n souls/minds (the 2^n parts) AND 1 soul (the original piece of wood as a whole) and that's a contradiction. The only way out of this contradiction is to draw a distinction between parts and wholes but when you do that the specter of the composition/division fallacy looms overhead like the sword of Damocles.

Did you make an argument? — unenlightened

1. Neo: I have a mental image of Trinity. It's a memory.

2. Agent Smith: How do you know it's a memory and not an imagination.

3. Neo: It's a memory because it happened

4. Agent Smith: How do you know it happened.

5. Neo: It happened because I have a memory.

6. Agent Smith: Go to line 2

Neo's claim that the image of Trinity in his mind is a memory is based on it having happened but it having happened is based on the image of Trinity in his mind being a memory. Ergo, my argument, a circularity in Neo's logic.

To further clarify:

1. If it's a memory then it happened
2. If it happened then it's a memory

To establish if it happened, I need to prove it's a memory but to demonstrate it's a memory, I need to prove it happened. I can't do one without the other which means I can do neither.

Buddhist middle way — Jack Cummins

do we need less misery or less hedonism? — Jack Cummins

I get the impression that a lot of people misunderstand hedonism or is it just me? You be the judge. I used to think hedonism is all about pleasure and the dictionary reinforces and perpetuates this, my, misconception.

Definition from Google
Hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.

I had, what seems now, a fortuitous encounter with a book on critical thinking and it defines hedonism as a philosophy that pleasure happiness is, should be, our primary target and happiness, as it turns out, has a precise definition which I'm more than glad to share:

Happiness:
1. To experience pleasure and not to suffer (self-explanatory)
2. The satisfaction of desires (to be able to achieve our goals guided by ethical considerations)
3. The development of talents (to be able to become proficient in a productive manner one's special skills/abilities)

So, hedonism, if it's a pursuit of happiness thus defined, is

1. Down-to-earth: it cuts through all the bullshit we tell each other about how happiness as an objective is somehow a symptom of a deficient mind and gets right to the point with a simple question, "why do we do the things we do?" The answer is very simple and also very true, "we do the things we do because they make us happy"

2. Mature: we finally get to know ourselves - what do we really want? The sooner we come to terms with our nature, the more fruitful our efforts will become. Recognizing ourselves, knowing our innate dispositions, will usher us into adulthood and we can finally talk of profits and losses without people trying to accuse us of some kind of moral transgression (selfishness to be specific).

3. Noble: what could be more noble than a person who makes a clean breast of faer intentions, someone who shows his cards up-front? "I'm involved in such and such because it makes me happy and not because of anything else" is frank declaration of intent and aim but, most importantly, true for all of us. A sign of nobility in my book.

As for the Buddhist middle-path, it's a contradiction. Hedonism-wise, a human on earth is happy relative to a being in hell, tortured continuously, and a human is sad relative to a being in heaven, indulging in every conceivable pleasure. Ergo, necessarily that a human is both sad and happy and this is twice the burden: one the guilt of being happy compared to souls in hell and the other of being envious of those who are in paradise. By extrapolation then everything about the middle-path is a contradiction. Perhaps that's the real message the Buddha wanted to share - the underlying contradiction in reality.

No, it presumes your point, and concludes that nothing can at all be known because knowledge can only be of the past. Accordingly it ceases to engage in the discussion. It constitutes a reductio ad mad folly argument. — unenlightened

Do you have a refutation for my argument? By the way thanks for reminding me of false memories and confabulation. It fits perfectly in with my argument.

Well, let's look at it from the perspective of two people, one with normal vision (X) and the other color-blind to red ( Y ). Imagine now that both are walking together down a busy street and they both see a woman in red. They walk past, nothing remarkable happens, and they stop at their favorite café. They order the usual and begin to discuss the woman in red. X has an mental image of the woman in red in in vivid colors and Y has a mental image of the woman in red missing the color red.

Is it possible for X to determine that the woman in red is a memory or an imagination? No, as per my argument. Is it possible for Y to come to any definite conclusion that the woman in red is a memory and not an imagination. Again, no. The color red as a relevant factor in making the distinction between memory and imagination is, hence, null and void. After all, the Y can't tell the difference between imagination and memory and likewise for X. It doesn't make sense to draw any conclusions about reality, specifically the reality of the past, by comparing two mental images both of which could be the work of our imagination. It's somewhat like comparing unicorns to dragons, both imaginary, and inferring from that comparison a proposition about reality itself.

A small tidbit from many years of painful and painstaking research - food is the only thing that stimulates all five senses. Food can be touched (with your hands), seen (with your eyes), tasted (with your tongue), smelt (with your nose), and, finally, heard (with your ears). No other thing can stimulate the senses in such a comprehensive manner - our relationship to non-food things is exclusive to one or more but never all of the senses available to us.

A song is for the ears, A painting is for the eyes, a perfume is for the nose, a massage is for touch, and as for the tongue, it's the point where all the senses intersect.

There's something special about food and if one looks at the cortical homunculs (ref: wikipedia), a sizeable portion of our cerebral cortex is dedicated to the tongue. Go figure!

There seems to be a deep and hidden meaning to masturbation. What is masturbation after all? Isn't it a poor quality simulation of sex and what is sex but merely the mode of reproduction for a certain segment of the living world.

The mind is, in essence, letting the cat out of the bag, it informing itself, as weird as that sounds, that the body's been cheating and forcing it to act/behave in certain ways by, literally, hooking us onto drugs (pleasure-inducing neurochemicals). The very fact that some of us masturbate bespeaks the primary aim in the act (sex/masturbation), the real motivation as it were, is orgasmic ecstacy and coincidentally there's a highly addictive drug by that name. Masturbation then is the cardinal sign of the body manipulating the mind which manifests as typical behavior in men, women and even children.

Cheating and forcing someone, something in this case, that something being the mind, is unethical and using drugs (irrestible pleasure-neurochemicals) for that purpose simply takes the whole sordid and sad business of the mind-body relationship to the mother of all nadirs and to a point where trust seems impossible between the two.

Too, this reminds me of hedonism and the experience machine. Perhaps I'm too quick to judge the matter; after all, masturbation is a kind of substitute i.e. real sex is more preferable but the fact remains that some of us who do masturbate seem satisfied with just the orgasmic experience of it, not requiring an actual man/woman.

Hedonism has an ethical dimension. Does masturbation support hedonism by exposing our contentment with ecstasy (via orgasm) simpliciter or does it undermine hedonism by the (slight) dissatisfaction everyone who masturbates undergoes because the act doesn't involve an actual partner?

By the way, just to spice things up, to open a new avenue for discussion, I'd like to point out that the question "why is panpsychism popular?" commits the complex question fallacy for it assumes that panpsychism is popular and asks for reasons why that's the case. :smile:

Yes, but only if you're making an inference. Simply holding the position that both parts and the whole of, say, a plank, simultaneously have their own conscious identities (as I do) need not commit fallacies of composition/division if that conclusion was arrived at by other types of inference. You have to have an inference to have a fallacy. — bert1

I see but here's the deal. If I say everything has a soul/mind, what does everything mean?

Necessarily that nature is organized - simpler stuff combine in all and sundry ways to make more complex things. In other words, nature has, as a facet to its personality, parts-to-wholes relationships.

Now, when I say everything has a soul/mind, it can be interpreted in only one way in terms of parts and wholes viz. that both parts and wholes have souls. There's a boundary that's been crossed - the boundary between parts and wholes - and it's necessary that an inference be the means of doing that.

Also consider the paradox I mentioned in one of my posts. Does a 4 meter long wooden plank have 1 soul/mind or an infinite number of souls/minds? You can't say it has 1 soul because it can be divided infinitely, each piece itself being a thing and so possessed of a soul/mind. You can't say it has 1 soul for the reason that it consists of infinite pieces. You can't say it has both 1 soul/mind and an infinite souls because that's a contradiction.

What I said is that a part is not a thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, since, as per panpsychism, only things have mind/souls, a part can't have one since, after all, it isn't even a thing to begin with.

The soul is not a thing — Metaphysician Undercover

So a soul is nothing then. Why all the hullabloo then?

Again, you are making the same mistake I pointed out already. The four meter plank is one thing, it has not been divided. You cannot speak about it as if it were a large number of things, just because you have the capacity to divide it. It has not been divided. If it were divided you could not call the pieces a 4 meter plank. To talk about the plank as if it is both divided and not divided at the same time is simple contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry but I can't see your point. Begin from any point in an organized system - bottom-up or top-down, you're eventually going to have to make a jump from a whole to its parts and wherever, whenever, this happens, you're at risk of commiting the fallacy of composition/division.

But then there is a separate internal monitoring of the perceptual processes that gives rise to the sense of a rich, internal world. — Marchesk

This is a an extremely important observation in my opinion but it's probably something that comes out of a reading that's peculiar to me.

Let's, for simplicity, take two of our senses viz. hearing and sight. Current understanding on these sensory systems is that it all boils down to electrical signals traveling along neurons called action potentials. If you were to isolate an auditory nerve (hearing) and a ocular nerve (sight) and observe the action potentials that propagate along them you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, not even the world's most renowned neurologist could. In essence, this means, insofar as our brains are concerned, the perceptual neuronal signals of sight and sound are indistinguishable. Yet, we can identify sounds and sights as separate. At some point in the perception process, our brains can tell the difference between an auditory nerve signal and a visual nerve signal but, as neurology informs us, there's no difference physical difference between the two - they're both action potentials.

Now, it's true that the neurons themselves are dedicated structures in the sense that auditory neurons are sensitive to sound and not light and vice versa for ocular nerves. However, this doesn't solve the problem of how the two perceptions, sound and light, are differentiated because both ultimately end up as action potentials.

As an analogy, imagine two people who speak different languages - one Hindi (ears) and the other English (eyes). Both of them, upon hearing something spoken in their own language translate it into the same language, suppose German, and not only that, into the exact same words in German. So "Karma" in Hindi and "Yellow" in English get translated into the same word, "Herr", in German. How can the receiver of this information (the mind), the information German "Herr", tell if it's "Karma" or "Yellow"? This is inexplicable in physical terms because what's going on physically are the action potentials and one action potential isn't distinguishable from the other at least to my knowledge.

Where does medicine figure in your conception of technology? With readily availble analgesics, antibiotics, and other kinds of drugs, a death warrant for a pre-modern human is but a minor irritation to be dealt with, quite effectively I must add, with the right dose of the right medicine or a sterile scalpel in well-trained hands for a modern human in this day and age.

If by technology you mean machines - tractors, power drills, excavators, even robots and possibly AI - then I'd say what I've always been saying or am under the impression that I've been saying, to wit, that our minds and bodies are out of sync. What I mean is our minds have the uncanny ability to figure out how something can be done in more efficient and faster ways and machines were born out of that but the problem is our bodies are so built that some amount of physical activity has a maintenance function. Since machines literally make physical activity pointless or even a setback to what we've been told is "progress", our bodies' maintenance-oriented physical activity takes a hit and thus the litany of health problems that follow: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses mainly which, in your book, should read as poor quality of life.

The solution, in my humble opinion, can take three forms:

One, stop using tools altogether and that means doing everything by hand if you know what I mean. It'll be like traveling back to the stone age. I fear we won't find many takers for this proposal.

Two, wait it out, let our bodies, through the slow process of evolution, adapt to less physical activity in a way that eventually makes everything that has to do with our bodies completely obsolete, a relic, as it were, of our evolutionary ancestry.

Three, genetic engineering. Our minds seem fully capable of effecting such a feat: we could, gene-wise, edit out our weaknesses and edit in our strengths. This, however, is something that's bound to face objections on ethical grounds; after all, weaknesses and strengths are value-laden terms.