How do you know this is the ultimate underlying motivation? By what criteria have you established that? Why do you discount the answers people generally give? What reasons do you have to doubt those answers? — Agustino

You do realize that this presupposes its own anthropological conception of man, which is the one given by materialistic evolutionary biology of the 60s-80s right? Things have moved on from back then.

You create the concept of "intermediary goal-seeking", "linguistic goals", etc. and then attribute to them an underlying cause. And not only that, you also tell us that that underlying cause is boredom, and not, for example, pleasure, self-affirmation, or love. What reasons does anyone have to believe you? :s — Agustino

Beethoven doesn't write the 5th Symphony because in the absence of writing it he would get bored. Rather, he takes positive pleasure in doing it. I don't get out of bed in the morning because I'd get bored if I stayed there. I get out of bed because I take positive pleasure in doing some of the things at least that I have to do every day. Desire plays a positive role, not just a negative role motivated by boredom. I don't desire just because I'd be bored otherwise. — Agustino

Nope, you're merely asserting this now. That doesn't hold water with me. There's no argumentation at all. Nor have you shown how eros can be reduced to survival and boredom. — Agustino

"This emptiness finds its expression in the whole form of existence, in the infiniteness of Time and Space as opposed to the finiteness of the individual in both; in the flitting present as the only manner of real existence; in the dependence and relativity of all things; in constantly Becoming without Being; in continually wishing without being satisfied; in an incessant thwarting of one’s efforts, which go to make up life, until victory is won. — Schopenhauer

That's why we laugh with real pleasure at Louis C. K. — 0af

Of course, you're omitting and forgetting about eros. Eros draws us out of ourselves. — Agustino

Boredom is not strong enough to motivate one to withstand pain. And all great achievement entails great pain. Boredom may motivate someone to hit the club for example. But it won't motivate them to write Bethoveen's 5th Symphony. — Agustino

If I am not, then consciousness is a disease that clearly offers no value on ultimate truth (which isn't the case because consciousness has built us great bridges,buildings, particle accelerators, plant gene alterations.) So then we must be somewhat justified in asking for a purpose to all of this. — intrapersona

Technology appears to be a grotesque manipulation of the natural world, like a cancer that should not exist.

But this also seems to rest on the dichotomy between the world <------------> and us. "The natural world" is not an artifact but a plenum without agents, whereas "us" is filled with agency, purpose, reason. But we are part of the world, we are not separate from it, at least not in any scientific sense (but perhaps in an existential/metaphysical sense). Could there be a science of technology? Could it be that technology is actually one of the many ways the universe ends up organizing itself? Could what we see as artificial, technological, actually be simply a natural expression of the logic of the world?

In a way, the question comes down to: what differentiates the natural from the artificial? — darthbarracuda

But life and mind are the trick of being able to code for that kind of contextual information - form a memory using a symbolising mechanism like genes, neurons or words - and so take ownership of top-down causality as something packaged up and hidden deep inside. — apokrisis

Why should anything be anything, let alone green be green, or the Universe a something rather than a nothing? — apokrisis

You ask why should an active modelling relation feel like something? I reply why shouldn't it? If you haven't got the flexibility of thought to even try to see an issue from its reverse perspective, then the problem is only yours. You disqualify yourself from proper discussion already. — apokrisis

Then a separate issue is this constant demand of "explain it so I can understand why it feels like what it feels like". We can have a meta-discussion about whether science should even do this. Science is the business of explaining through sufficiently abstract generalities. Like laws or mathematical forms. If we say a ball rolls due to Newtonian Mechanics, we don't expect to get what it feels like to "be in motion". — apokrisis

Even Hard Problem promoters like Chalmers agree that we know a lot about why it feels like what it feels like from neuroscientific explanations. Why is drunkenness what it is? Why do visual illusions have their particular quality? Why are the objects we see made artificial sharp by Mach bands around them, or organised by Gestalt effects?

It is just that Chalmers then calls these easy problems. The game is to raise the bar until it reaches the eternal self-referential metaphysical question of "why anything?". Why should anything be anything, let alone green be green, or the Universe a something rather than a nothing? — apokrisis

Not really - marriage has been a much more important "drama" in the story of humanity than sex. — Agustino

I don't think I have superior powers. — Agustino

What you don't realise is that significantly more fundamental than the desire for sex has been the desire for one's other half - for lack of better words. That desire, whether consciously or unconsciously, has played a much more fundamental role in people's lives than the desire for just sex. Indeed, the desire for just sex is quite possibly that which comes on the scene only when that first desire is frustrated by whatever occurrences and repressed. Indeed, the desire for just sex is the desire for union with the beloved repressed. That's why the most promiscuous people tend to be those who have been most disappointed in love. — Agustino

You keep repeating what the modelling relation approach explicitly rejects. If you want someone to defend representationalism to you as an ontology, you need to go elsewhere. — apokrisis

I think this 'Cartesian theater' is one of Dennett's ideas, isn't it? I agree with him that it is a very poor depiction or analogy for the nature of mind, but I also don't know how many people really hold to it. I certainly don't think it's anything like what Descartes himself would have thought. — Wayfarer

Poor old Schop. The question was simple. Why shouldn't it feel like something to be modelling the world? — apokrisis

The quick answer is that I am talking of a neuro-semiotic process of modelling the world in a self interested way.
— apokrisis

Ah, the neuro brings with it the Cartesian Theaters.

And so just in saying that, we can see that there is active modelling going on. And why would we not expect modelling - of the vast complexity of a brain with trillions of connections, and plugged into real-time action - should not "feel like something"?
— apokrisis

Ah TRILLIONS of connections is where that elusive Cartesian Theater lies now. So it's neuro-transimtters and trillions of connections in triadic format that IS experience. I see. So the quantity of physical connections and the fact that it is neurons with axions, cell bodies, dendrites, carrying molecules of neurotransmitters, and the whole neurobiological package- these are the reasons why THIS triadic process is equivalent to the Cartesian Theater of experience? So, simply making sure the material is neuron-type in composition and the quantity is sufficiently in the trillions, that this triadic modelling is experiential and other triadic modelling is not experiential? Odd. Why cannot it be a matter of degree. Perhaps millions of connections, and other composites produce a lower degree of experience? Why cannot it be a matter of difference? Perhaps experience exists in other models but it is so different and unknown, that we cannot say much other than it exists as experiential in some way in terms of being a part of the modelling process, just like THIS modelling process. Somehow you always have a ghost in the machine lurking around and popping up when it is most convenient. The Cartesian Theater is hidden somewhere- you just have to tease it out to realize you are hiding it. So far you have hidden it in quantity, material-type, the concept of "emergence" and various others. — schopenhauer1

The quick answer is that I am talking of a neuro-semiotic process of modelling the world in a self interested way. — apokrisis

And so just in saying that, we can see that there is active modelling going on. And why would we not expect modelling - of the vast complexity of a brain with trillions of connections, and plugged into real-time action - should not "feel like something"? — apokrisis

When questions are so off the mark, yes, ignore them. But if you have a go at defining your ontology with clarity as requested, then sure, we can come back to them. — apokrisis

Freedom/creativity is oddly a part of Whitehead's philosophy as well. You may have some common ground there. How is it that freedom against an invariant world looks like green, feels like this or that? AGAIN, wouldn't OTHER processes then be in the same boat? What is this extra "illusion" built into specifically this semiotic process? After all, it is a PAN-semiotic theory- indicating that essentially it is all the same bits of information being processed in the same manner. Yet this one gives rise to the very experience which is used to understand the other processes..hmm. — schopenhauer1

Sure, the pictures in the head story makes at least one good point. There is a disconnect - an epistemic cut - where what we experience is not the thing-in-itself but our constructed impression. An appearance, a display, an illusion, a hidden theatre, a virtual world, etc, etc. But then that very idea just pushes the experiencer of the experience to yet another remove. — apokrisis

In simple terms, the map side of the equation has to become "self-experiencing". That is, the self is also what the mapping produces in dynamical or process fashion. A sense of self, a point of view, is what emerges as the other half of the same act of discrimination or sign mediation. — apokrisis

In simple terms, the map side of the equation has to become "self-experiencing". That is, the self is also what the mapping produces in dynamical or process fashion. A sense of self, a point of view, is what emerges as the other half of the same act of discrimination or sign mediation. — apokrisis

All that is felt is the world's invariant or recalcitrant being - in opposition to the freedom and creativity of the interpreting "self". All we are psychologically interested in is the limits the world can impose on actions, so we can know what limits to push. — apokrisis

I do want sex provided it is in those circumstances that I mentioned (married relationship, with the right person who loves me and I love her). It is a bit frustrating that that's hard to get, but not the end of the world man. Some self esteem is in order. There's also a few other things that I want and that are somewhat painful because I don't have them, but that's life. I don't make a big deal out of it, there's also plenty that I do have that I should be happy about in the meantime. — Agustino

Then there are people who may just settle for very little, slowly purging the sexual impulses with age, accepting that solo life with friends may be acceptable in their golden years without being encumbered. — schopenhauer1

Why is this a problem? — Agustino

Nope, I wouldn't go that far. This would be to presuppose sex is some sort of "god" that we all must have to live a fulfilled life, and that's just not the case. I wouldn't complain about the unequal distribution of steak for example. Sure, steak is great, some people never eat it their entire lives though. Many are stopped by their religion. Or by their culture which doesn't permit eating beef. So what? — Agustino

It does make a difference though, because sex in general isn't a good. The Epicureans realised this, and one of the things advocated by Epicurus to achieve the good life, even though he was an atheistic hedonist, was sexual abstinence. — Agustino

Well, if that person really wants to give AND to receive sexual pleasure, he does have two hands you know... >:O Jokes aside, I don't see why they would salivate for the pleasure of those other people in the first place :s - it's not like I go around salivating on the street when I see a person eating an ice cream. Indeed, if I was to salivate when seeing another person eat an icecream you'd say there's something wrong with me, and would probably recommend a trip to the psychologist. Likewise, there is something very wrong with our culture given our attitudes towards sex. — Agustino

Most people don't marry the right person because they're forced into marrying someone (usually the wrong person) by social pressure or they're just not patient enough to wait for the right person. Or if they do marry the right person they screw it up because they don't have the right values/beliefs that can make it work. — Agustino

- and some people eat steak more frequently than me, do they lead better lives? — Agustino

I enjoyed the video in the manner it poses "new possibilities". It is fitting that Whitehead and Sheldrake are featured in the video, both of whom are heavily influenced by Bergson. — Rich

I don't see a gap to bridge. Your equation is an expression of Aristotle's form (species-specific genetic predisposition to develop and exercise a particular set of functions) - matter (body) unity which is species substance (dual aspect monism). — Galuchat

Matter and information apparently cause it. — apokrisis

It is fundamental and so not in fact caused by underlying processes (of matter and information I'm guessing). — apokrisis

It is not a picture, or a theatre, or an illusion. — apokrisis

Drops of experience. A mental stuff. — apokrisis

The Peircean pansemiotic position is that they do. And that commonality of process is semiosis or the triadic sign relation. That involves the "dualism" we need to have anything actually happen - a separation (via the epistemic cut) of a causal realm of information and a causal realm of material dynamics. But semiosis also then accounts for the subsequent interaction of the two species of causality thus divided. Together they make a functional whole with a purpose. — apokrisis

Given that our starting point is simple experience, we need to realise that even our notion of "being a conscious being" is a social construct. It is a story we learn to tell to organise our experiences. We reify both the world, and our selves, then wonder why we have this explanatory gap. — apokrisis

And pansemiosis isn't about solving the hard problem by showing how "consciousness works". That would be to accept the goalposts of a dead philosophy. It is about reconceiving the metaphysical constructs which we would use to organise our experience so that we are no longer dazzled by either the "illusion" of the material world, or the aware mind. As we learn to think differently - existence understood as a common functional process, semiosis - then the old problems that obsessed us will slip away. — apokrisis

The US may have a very high level of GDP, but very large numbers of Americans (as a group and individually) have a very small share of that largesse. A lot of Americans are both relatively and actually poor, so the correlation holds between poverty and religiosity. — Bitter Crank

The trick is to see how the same is true of all phenomenology, like our experience of hues such as red and green. They are shards of self interested judgement hardwired down at the neurobiological level. Energy and matter are exactly what get left at the doors of perception. Consciousness starts with a logical transformation, an epistemic cut, where a digital decision has got made and now we can talk of a selfish realm of sign — apokrisis

Ugh. You are merely relating your own experiences. For the most part I am motivated by creativity and nicely in all arts, and it brings me joy. — Rich

I don't know. It simply does not make sense. Is there another mask? Why not be, and then be gone? — MikeL

If satisfaction is actually impossible, then it can't really be said to be missing. Motivation remains the direction you want to take because it is "leaving something definitely behind by definitely heading in the exact other direction". — apokrisis

That human life must be a kind of mistake is sufficiently clear from the fact that man is a compound of needs, which are difficult to satisfy; moreover, if they are satisfied, all he is granted is a state of painlessness, in which he can only give himself up to boredom. This is a precise proof that existence in itself has no value, since boredom is merely the feeling of the emptiness of life. If, for instance, life, the longing for which constitutes our very being, had in itself any positive and real value, boredom could not exist; mere existence in itself would supply us with everything, and therefore satisfy us. But our existence would not be a joyous thing unless we were striving after something; distance and obstacles to be overcome then represent our aim as something that would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when our aim has been attained; or when we are engaged in something that is of a purely intellectual nature, when, in reality, we have retired from the world, so that we may observe it from the outside, like spectators at a theatre. Even sensual pleasure itself is nothing but a continual striving, which ceases directly its aim is attained. As soon as we are not engaged in one of these two ways, but thrown back on existence itself, we are convinced of the emptiness and worthlessness of it; and this it is we call boredom. That innate and ineradicable craving for what is out of the common proves how glad we are to have the natural and tedious course of things interrupted. Even the pomp and splendour of the rich in their stately castles is at bottom nothing but a futile attempt to escape the very essence of existence, misery. — Schopenhauer

Do you have a background in biology? You seem to know more about this than the average person like me. I most exposure I had to biology was my high school freshman class and a bit of independent research on my own time. — darthbarracuda

I'm not too familiar with the H-H Hypothesis. What does a suppressor gene do exactly? Why would it be a "good" thing to have a suppressor gene to prevent the passing on of genes? — darthbarracuda