Well the tories would like to encourage the greens as a way of splitting the left-wing vote. It is when the greens start to steal tory votes that they will get on board. I suggest the slogan," Conservation is the real conservatism

I am an ex Tory who turned Green. I was a Thatcherite in the 80's, but think that the whole ideology of the conservatives is now out dated and is starting to destroy our country. I would back Labour if they can get them out now, but nothing comes near the Greens when I look at my ideology.

Anyway you know when the Tories adopt Green policies, they aren't really, the're just pretending, conning, masquerading as folk who care about the environment and our future. They're so out of date they only want to nurture capitalism along with preserving middle class lifestyles, with all the inequalities this entails.

I think this thesis is well disproved by the overwhelming influence of UKIP despite their abysmal showing in elections. Rather, it is the folks that always vote the same way and thus create safe seats that have no influence. Things change when people change, and Conservatives are hyper sensitive to who is slicing a few votes off their majorities, and who is dividing 'their' votes in the places they lose.

Yes there probably is something in what you say. Although I think that UKIP is an exception to the rule. The issue of Europe has resulted in a groundswell of opinion among the population since we entered the common market in 1973. Something which would become expressed one way or the other. However in the case of UKIP, it was essentially a splinter group of the Conservatives which divisively influenced their policies and resulted in the referendum itself.

Likewise, the more people vote green, the more the other parties will adopt green policies, even if the greens get no seats, because those are the votes they need to get next time.

The Greens are more inline with the rule, I can see no evidence of the three main parties adopting green policies. Indeed the conservatives did try to court some green voters during the early years of the 21st century. However they didn't alter their policies in that direction, while claiming they were by claiming their actions (so called green initiative) to reduce CO2 production were a Green minded issue, which they weren't. Since the Credit Crunch they have been ditching them wherever they get the opportunity and green issues are well off the agenda at the moment. Despite the swelling of Green supporters over the last few years. I have voted Green for a long time now anyway, as I want to encourage our local Green candidate to continue standing.

The trouble is a lot of us in the UK are in safe seats, so our votes are irrelevant to the result. My whole life I've been in safe Conservative seats, so all I can do is vote appropriate to my ideology and my vote will be counted in analysis of the popular vote, which is not likely to change anything.

There does seem to be a surge developing behind Corbyn at the moment. But I expect the conservatives will win though because sufficient of the grey vote see Corbyn as an old fashioned Trotskyite, hence unelectable and won't budge from that view. Combined with the sentiment that Theresa May will pull us through the Brexit negotiations unscathed. I am critical of both these sentiments, but I know the people who hold them will not change their view even when pinned down. Our only hope is if the young suddenly start turning out to vote.

I of course have explained many times how both materialism and mysticism are in fact disguised dissipative structure. They both are simply reflections of human social entrainment to the desires of the second law of thermodynamics.

Perhaps you can with materialism, but not with mysticism. This is because mysticism is, or is as far as I am concerned, not necessarily concerned with materials. It recognises them as vehicles and realises that the presence of vehicles cannot, with our present degree of knowledge be explained. Following from this is the acknowledgement that the second law is an effect of those vehicles.

That is Peirce's epistemology in a nutshell. And then that was his pansemiotic metaphysics - his definition of the summum bonum as the universal growth of reasonableness.

There is, of course, the caveat of the limitations of the human perspective. Along with this any mature philosophy ought to factor in the possibility that human experience is a construct, a confection hosted by a reality of which those humans are not aware.

That's the rhetorical advantage of founding your "metaphysics" in the ineffable. No one can call you out for your failure to speak about it meaningfully, let alone provide the material evidence. ;)

As any mature philosophy would.

I have pointed out before that there need not be a difference of opinion between the philosopher and the mystic when it comes to metaphysics. The mystic realises she is wearing blinkers, surely philosophers do also.

Quite, the way I put it is, say you take all the knowledge of humanity, all the understanding about who, how and where we are and when it is all complete, We look up and realise that we are still staring into the unknown.

This why the seeker turns to intuitive systems of progress. To literally grow into the knowledge, rather than to work it out.

There would be a unity or symmetry. That is implied by the fact something could separate or break to become the "mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive" two.

But the further wrinkle is that the initial singular state is not really any kind of concrete state but instead a vagueness - an absence of any substantial thing in both the material and formal sense.

This radical state of indeterminism is difficult to imagine.

Yes I know it is difficult to imagine, personally I would pull away from the focus on some kind of radical indeterminism as is implied by the great intensity and pressure etc which we are presented with by astrophysics for example. Yes there may have been some almighty squeezing, forging at the beginning of the known physical universe. But this may only be a requirement of forging such concrete stable substance in which we find ourselves. Also it isn't actually addressing anything necessarily fundamental about our existence, or existence in general. But rather it is simply focusing on physical conditions. (Note, I am very much a materialist, just not in the narrow terms of physical matter).

The Big Bang is thus more of a big collapse from infinite or unbounded directionality to the least number of dimensions that could become an eternal unwinding down towards a heat death.

I am with you in regards of the physical material, space, time and three dimensions etc, which is well described by science.

The details of this argument could be wrong of course. But it illustrates a way of thinking about origins that by-passes the usual causal problem of getting something out of nothing. If you start with vague everythingness (as what prevents everything being possible?) then you only need good arguments why constraints would emerge to limit this unbounded potential to some concrete thermalising arrangement - like our Big Bang/Heat Death universe.

Agreed, but the reason I asked the question about a unity is that it brings us to a set of conditions for which science and maths, even perhaps logic is blind and mute. There must be something going on in there which we are far from understanding. However, I don't think we necessarily should try to go there to solve any questions about our origins. As I said, it might simply be a means of forging dense physical material, the origin might be found elsewhere in which such extreme conditions are not required.

It is different in that it explicitly embraces the holism of a dichotomy. It says reality is the result of a separation towards two definite and complementary poles of being - chance and necessity, material fluctuation and formal constraint, or what Peirce called tychism and synechism, that is, spontaneity and continuity

Etc.
That's all fine, so is there a "unity", a "singularity" in The Big Bang Event

-an infinitely regressive series of ever more fundamental materially efficient causes
-true spontaneity and randomness at the 'lowest' level
-or a most fundamental "primary uncaused cause".

I don't think we can split these(I'm treating "materially" in its broadest terms). This is because as I see it the reality is likely to be more subtle than the logic of these scenarios which is to simplistic and two dimensional. So the reality may well be more regressive, spontaneous and uncaused than is conceived of, while not in any way individually describable, or discernible by either.

Personally, I find the idea of an infinitely regressive series of materially efficient causes to be the least coherent or intelligible alternative.

There is a more subtle rendering of this notion in which "infinity" is read as without ends, or bounds, rather than a strict infinity, which itself is a human invention and susceptible to simplistic logical abstraction. Also "materially" can be treated as any form, or kind of extension in any manifestation in any realm, or dimension.

So it can be rewritten as,- an endless, or unbounded causal regression in any medium, or phenomena of extension in which a causal chain is manifest, while having some causal link to the world we find ourselves in.

But we have good telescopes. We can see the heat death already. The Universe is only a couple of degrees off absolute voidness. The average energy density is a handful of atoms per cubic metre. Nihilism is hardly speculation.

Yes, but that is only the material conditions we experience, which might be like navel gazing in reference to the bigger picture.

Perhaps this whole universe you are referring to is just some fabricated sideshow, or less? People who consider transcendent realities look to the bigger picture in the realisation that in some sense that bigger picture is in the here and now.

Why does it have to be not nihilism? My argument is that the goal of the Comos is entropification. Then life and mind arise to accelerate that goal where it happens to have got locally retarded. So life and mind are the short-term cost of the Cosmos reaching its long-term goal.

That's not just nihilism - the idea that our existence is cosmically meaningless. I am asserting we exist to positively pick up the pace of cosmic annihilation. So super-nihilism. :)

Then we (Kim jong-un, or Trump) should press the red button then, and get back on track.

Apart from the apparent Nihilism in this perspective, it begs a diminutive ignorance on our part. Or in other words we soon regress into a primitive embryonic life form in an insignificant minuscule swamp in a far of corner of a vast, even endless cosmos in which super life, super minds, even Gods play out inconceivable entropic games and we are hopelessly ignorant, naive of what is actually going on.

I listened to an interesting programme yesterday about blind sight (The Digital Human, BBC Radio 4). In which they interviewed people who sleepwalk and have lost their sight, but unconsciously see things around them. They even suggest that in a sense the person is acting as a Zombie during these events.

Nice work, I'm a big fan of architecture.

Indeed. 'I think, therefore I am you.'

I'm with you.

"Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can"

Pink Floyd, Echoes.

Watercolour, that was my watercolour period.

This is a rendition of the Matterhorn I painted about 15 years ago. I was reframing it so took the opportunity to photograph it.

No

Are you talking about bodies, or beings?

Bodies enact qualia, but don't have them.

Beings experience qualia, but cannot experience anything absent a body, they can't enact them.

Like what are you visualizing when you visualize the abstract triangle with no particular angles....If you're actually visualizing, that shit has actual angles. Otherwise, you have a vague image with a concept nestled up alongside. I don't see a way out of this. Unless you're claiming you can visualize a triangle that geometry doesn't apply to?

I agree, when one visualises a triangle, there is a specific dimensional image in the minds eye and there can't be am image, a visual image, that is not a specific imagined dimensional object. In aphantasia, presumably this is absent and an alternative imaginative process fills the gap.

I always thought that "photographic memory" didn't literally imply visual memory, but really accurate memory

I would think that true photographic memory is possible. Not in the sense that there is a person who is recording accurate photographic knowledge many times each second, as a movie camera does, in photographic frames. But rather that there are certain images that are in some sense photographically recorded. Perhaps to record critical experiences, in a moment of crisis, or ecstasy.

There is evidence of exact replication of experience in the bower bird, who can hear a unique sound once and then endlessly mimic the sound precisely like a digital recording.

If we start to build computers that think the same way, then we might need to get worried.

. They wouldn't be conscious though(I'm not saying this is any less worrying).

You give a nice summary of thought processes, I would agree and indeed follow an equivalent process to the chess player in creating my art work. However I would add another two perspectives, (which are essentially covered in your account, but not specified).

Firstly, like how you describe a thorough thought processing going on unconsciously with its results emerging in the conscious thinking process fully formed, effortlessly. I would suggest that this entire unconscious processing system can through training be brought into conscious thinking activity, where required, or as an alternative to the purely unconscious or effortless means. This is something I do for various reasons, including being able to observe and manipulate the process.

Secondly, there may be transcendent intuitive processes going on which are subtle(from the neuropathology perspective) and which may play an important role in anchoring a being within the experiential context of the body. I realise this probably seeks to go beyond current scientific thinking, but can be considered philosophically.

it's true, I do wonder why I waste so much time here.

Could you recommend a better place to spend time, I'd really like to know. It took me a long time to find my way here, so I'm not leaving now I've arrived.

(This comment has just a hint of the light hearted, or the tongue in cheek, it hasn't had the humour sucked out of it(see my profile picture as an illustration of my arrival))

Quite, this issue is one which flies in the face of medical science day in day out. I am not familiar with the theories given to explain it. Personally I see the presence of belief in the situation in which it's working is observed to be decisive. Also the rituals associated with seeking and receiving medical and health care.

So it's about belief and ritual, which requires the presence of beings to do the believing and acting out the rituals.

I do consider that a p-zombie could benefit from a placebo, although somehow I doubt that there would be any placebo's found in a zombie world, not least perhaps a sense of humour either.

Well, the placebo effect is just plain open evidence that certain beliefs can alter behavior. Whether there some immaterial force or entity inducing these brain states to arise is beyond me.

Yes, I wouldn't limit it to behaviour though, its more physiological, I think. A person follows a behaviour pattern determined by their personality, which includes their mind states. A placebo does something which effects physiological, or metabolic processes in the body, irrespective of the action of the personality and it seems belief has something to do with this.

Nice painting, I like the way you've caught the light (I'm jealous of your climate).

Nice

Well, one thing a p-zombie can do, is totally suck the meaning out of any philosophical dialogue.

Yes it might be a bit dry.
I don't think any of the arguments against the p-zombie argument hold any water. Because an independent zombie universe might be identical to this one in every way. Except it would be absent spirit, I don't think it would necessarily be absent mind. Although I realise this leaves us with a discussion of what mind is. I do consider synthetic minds.

Yes placebo is problematic for materialists and physicalists. However I don't see how it can be conclusive in any way. The problems facing materialists and likewise idealists are more fundamental, ontological and can't be swayed by the empirical evidence. This is because the ontological difference would be the ground upon which the particular ontology is built, so in the absence of a knowledge of our actual ontology, or the alternative, we are entirely in the dark.

P-zombies have unconscious mental (brain) processing, so they may have something performing the same function as belief going on in the brain(like a sticky thread).

Yes and combined with overpopulation and the problems of hygiene in densely populated areas. Combine this with capitalist exploitation of resources and populations by corporations and a major epidemic in one of more of these places is only a matter of time.

It won't weaken the species though, just reduce its size to a more manageable size.

What will weaken the species though is environmental pollution, indicated by the marked increase in allergies and dementia.

How can I know that you are my God?

I don't mean to denigrate simple, pure, morally good folk, but they are not going to lead us through this troubling time.

I meant morally good, not good as opposed to evil.

Regarding The Lord of the Rings, the ring is an interesting thing, whoever posses it is compromised. Golem, my favourite character, is a good example.

So the world has to re-calibrate its expectations as to what constitutes a good and meaningful life. Endless consumption and meaningless entertainment is not it. But unfortunately the '1%' who are to all intents driving the process, are probably not going to concur.

Yes, I see two issues here, firstly where we should go from here, so as you say recalibrate, aiming for a good and meaningful life. Spirituality would indicate (in a knutshell) that this would be some kind of stable sustainable civilisation acting as a custodian of the biosphere.

Secondly, (and I think this is the difficult nut to crack) we as a people need to control ourselves as a civilisation and move forward as a coherent whole. It is easy to conclude that we need to mitigate for climate change, help the poor and impoverished, deal with the political problems around the world, develop and strengthen the United Nations etc etc. But putting this into practice is a monumental struggle, while there are people and groups of people who have other less constructive goals, which they are pursuing.

As I see it, we are at a crisis point, in which there are vast power structures metaphorically swaying around in the wind, occasionally clashing during a storm. Which could come crashing down like a house of cards. There is the repeated rising of confrontational and destructive human behaviour within every sphere of life, including religions. Are we at a tipping point? A point where either the vast weight of efforts of the constructive people finally manage to establish stability and constructive collaborations and civilisation settles down*. Or are we at a point where these civil wars continue to spread, economic collapse and a return to another dark age.

*not to mention the problems of over population and exploitation of resources, human want, etc.

I agree with your observation about the development of a moral evolution. I think that amongst the intelligentsia, that would include most posters on this forum, people have achieved a level of morality suitable for us to go forward with confidence. Unfortunately this group is a minority. I do think there are more, by far, good people in the world. But the not so good people do seem to create havoc and often get into positions of power etc. Also there is the socio economic, consumerist world we are accustomed to.
I appreciate your view of mysticism, I think that it's place is amongst a periphery of people who are suited to contemplation. A world of Mystics would, I think, look a bit like Lord of the Rings, so that is not a way forward.

Getting back to my question, where is humanity likely to be in say a hundred years, or five hundred years and with our intelligence, where should we be at those points?

I agree on the whole with your position here and everyone who has contributed has made good and interesting points, which help to set out our current position/predicament.
My question to you and the other contributors is where are we headed?
Also where should we head?

Spirituality, as far as I understand it answers these questions, the non-spiritual philosophies don't appear to address them, or where they do, it sounds fanciful.

I don't know where you got the 33%, or 1 in 3 from? But as I said before it is a binary choice, hence 50/50.

This is because there can only be two alternative scenarios in the God question. Either our existence was created(scenario a), or it wasn't(scenario b). Any other explanation you can come up with falls under either scenario a, or b. hence we are left with a binary choice.

I would suggest that it is important to bare in mind that the current accepted academic interpretation of the history and development of art is itself a "period" in art history, with its own cultural perspective, amongst other periods.

I do think though that the great and rapid development of teaching, research and information exchange over the last two or three hundred years is unprecedented and is resulting in a layering of periods, rather than the gradual degeneration of periods, which are then largely lost, as happened in the Past, pre-Renaissance periods.

This development is I think resulting in a pervasive perspective in which all art from before this period is relatively primitive, archaic, emblematic of the crude artifice resulting from the gradual emergence of modern man from the primordial soup. The implication being that our current perspective is the enlightened truth, that we have arrived at a mature aesthetic.

However this is in conflict with the view that our current aesthetic is degenerate in reference to the classical ideal. A charge which has some weight, although it cannot be denied that there are some artists (across the whole spectrum of the arts) who are scaling such heights as the classical artists. The difficulty in determining the reality of the situation is that movements in art are not usually recognised until many years later when see from the distance of a later age. So in a real sense we are blind to the characteristics of the present movement/period and it's relevance and importance in the historical record.

But, becoming animal cannot be an excuse for leaving ethics and moral considerations behind, and this is a very fine and subtle line to walk; and easily misunderstood, I think.

Yes, there is I think, in the human stage in evolution, an opportunity/necessity for responsible action. The biosphere has brought us to this point, with agency and intelligence, now it is our turn to act constructively and become custodians of the biosphere and secure its survival and development.

Also within the personal development of the individual there is a crisis of maturity, in which through experience the individual becomes a mature adult, with moral and ethical principles.

Thanks for the links to the books, they do look interesting. I do already speak meow and have a close affinity with and do commune(icate) with mammals and birds in particular. My perspective tends to be a spiritual esoteric one, in which I am contemplating the spirit of the animals and plants and regarding them as members divine spiritual kingdoms.

It's one of my takes on it. What it means in the bible is I think uncertain and in reference to the being and nature of God. Something I wouldn't profess to understand.

Many mansions, I have heard. Don't know what's said in them, though.

The mansions could be the seen as the kingdoms of nature. So the kingdoms present in our world are accessible to us via communion.

Thirdly, there is the God of the mystics; the God of intellectual intuition and/or mystical experience. Here it is a matter of direct experience or knowing, and not of belief. But the interesting thing here is that what is intellectually intuited or directly mystically known is not pure; it is culturally mediated. Here it is not so much a matter of belief, but of culture, as to how intuitions and experiences are interpreted. And this kind of intuition and experience can exist outside the context of theism, as it does, for example in Buddhism, and forms of Shamanism.

I agree with your point here, but with the nuance, which you do point out in a later post, that it is not the experience itself which is mediated, but rather the means of grasping it intellectually, mentally, even intuitively, in a way which is meaningful to the person of the mystic*.

I would point out though, which is probably covered by your use of the word Shamanism, that the contextual mediation does not have to be human in nature, but can be via another kingdom of nature, some other living arena within the biosphere. This is an important avenue for me, in which I commune with animals and plants, an approach which makes it easier to step outside the psychological baggage of humanity. For example in the life of St Francis.

* I am specifically referring here to the personality of the mystic, as a distinct aspect of the self. It is the mediated self, which is socially and culturally conditioned and itself acts as mediator between the mind and the being.

For me in my mystical practice I make a clear and important distinction between the different aspects of the self and work with and between(including their synthesis) them.

There is the soul, the mind, the personality, the being and the body. These are all distinct constituent parts of the self, with a presence within their own sphere of experience and dwelling.

Yes, I am with you and the Buddha and your agnosticism. It was only when I started posting on these western orientated sites that I began getting involved with all this God business again. God had become an irrelevance for me.