Belief in the importance of abstraction/generality is a belief of a higher logical order, and therefore by nature it assists in building bridges between beliefs of lower logical orders. — Adam Hilstad

And I would counter with a quote from the final sentence of the book I just finished now by Max Scheler, in the final essay on "Idealism and Realism." He is discussing the illusion that there is some kind of "lawful formal-mechanical structure" that is independent of the vital life-projects of a living being:

"It is only if we are not conscious of the artificial abstraction from the existential relativity of this structure to life and of life, in turn, to spirit, that the illusion is created that this structure is valid for the absolute reality of the world."

There isn't any way to completely abstract from the lived-experience of the life-project, which is fundamental; more fundamental than the notion of some abstract objective reality, which is an illusion. If there is a higher logical order, it is being created through moral action, I would say. In which case, belief-systems and life-projects are indispensable.

Scheler's project of "essential intuition" (his version of the phenomenological reduction) does involve abstracting from all "vital projects" of life in order to intuit the essence of the real. Perhaps that is the bridge. but this essential intuition is personal, not communicative. I believe in the context of communication, we are thrust back into the realm of the project of coordinating belief systems (discourse theory, deliberative democracy, Parsons, Habermas, etc.)

Ok, but it does coincide with your theory that there could be a "complete agreement on matters sufficiently abstract that they remain insulated from the particulars of specific belief systems." The fact is, abstraction is just another kind of specific belief system, and one which seems to me to have the shortcoming of artificiality, per the example of database normalization. I think I take the opposite approach, that of establishing a bridge or common ground between different belief systems. There may be as many different belief systems as there are thinking beings.

I have a question. You interpret database normalization as "a process wherein redundancy, inconsistency and generally artificiality are eliminated from database design." But, in fact, data is in a much more natural state in its un-normalized form and normalization actually represents the imposition of a constraint of artificial abstraction (for reasons of computational flexibility, granted). In actual application, de-normalized materialized views restructure that data in the most naturally useful ways.

So I guess I'm questioning your interpretation and approach using the analogy or model of normalization?

I wonder if people born deaf can hear in their dreams?

it may be possible to become so immersed in the ideas of others that we may start to drown our own individual voices — Jack Cummins

This may be a good thing. I think that a sensible balance is best, but you have to have that constant influx of information. There are a lot of books waiting to be read! At the end of the day, my goal is to enhance the functioning of my own mind, and that requires information. Why would I try to do that by pulling myself up by my own bootstraps when generations of people have already dedicated so much time and effort to the project?

I've always thought that music points to the most profound experiences we can have as intelligent creatures of some kind. — Manuel

Me too.

I think Nils is right that sight is more functionally important. And I would definitely miss reading, but I don't think I could live without music. Also, if you lose hearing, you essentially also lose speech, whereas if you keep hearing, your ability to maintain a conversation is unimpaired. I would sacrifice my sight for my hearing I think....

When I started thinking about this, I thought, would I rather watch a silent movie, or listen to music?

It is less "experience changing us" and much more "experience becoming us". — Bitter Crank

But we tend to be involved in situations which reinforce our pre-existing traits. Most people go through their lives enacting some variety of the Freudian "repetition compulsion," similar situations arise over and over to which we respond in similar ways. It is only with recognition of this that the notion dawns of wanting to experience life in a different way.

When I was quite young I mostly read Sartre. Eventually, contemplating his notion of "radical freedom," that we are so free that we can choose to do anything, even to the extent of doing something radically different from our normal predispositions, I had a clear intuition this was an essential truth. I began to consciously strive to enact this choice. Instead of choosing to avoid doing something I didn't really like doing, like going to a party with a bunch of people I didn't know, I chose to do the thing that I didn't like. Not only do it, but embrace it, be outgoing and gregarious. And the opposite, refraining from doing some things that I would otherwise spontaneously do.

After having done this a few times, it became obvious that this worked. People see us as we present ourselves. We are what we do. The more I did this, the easier it became to make choices, not based upon past habits, but upon a reflective/intuitive sense of the direction in which I wanted to go, who I wanted to be. The transformation took a long time, and is still on-going. But I do feel that now I have the power to take responsibility for the quality of my own experiences, maybe not always, but overall.

Right, they are they antipodes because they are at the completely opposite poles. I may revisit Merleau-Ponty since you mention that, when I'm done with Scheler. It's been decades.

Husserl said that Heidegger and Scheler were his two philosophical antipodes.

One could argue from a phenomenological point of view that the cup is a cultural object. It loses its sense when we take away its socially assigned use. — Joshs

Yes, that's another valid realm. What the relationships between various types of realms of knowledge and the natural realm are is a complex question. As Scheler approaches it, there is more of a symbolic mediation, while essential intuition grasps prejudicatively.

I'm currently reading Max Scheler's views on phenomenology and science: "the facts of science...are never encountered in the natural world view." I tend to agree. It seems evident that our natural interactions are with the natural world.

How is it one would encounter an atom?

Indeed. And some objects only exist in specific realms, e.g. a cup exists in the realm of natural objects, which are subject to direct interaction, while the atoms of the cup exist in the realm of scientific objects, which are encountered symbolically. We encounter the cup directly, its atoms, inferentially.

Now, transhumanism, specifically hedonistic transhumanism of which David Pearce is a proponent claims or predicts that humans will/can abolish all suffering with the aid of technology — TheMadFool

Because tech has already solved so many global problems with no negative consequences....

Nice! That's on the shelf right next to me - must be a sign. I'm queueing this "up next"....

The times of reflection and contemplation are possibly as important as the peaks of transformation. — Jack Cummins

:up:

Balance

So, in a way, perhaps this is about helping others to see things in perspective, and beyond the limits of the personal ego — Jack Cummins

It is about that, but you can only control you. Trite as it may seem, there's a lot of substance in the Serenity Prayer. I've wandered more than once down the twelve-step path.

I have found for me by far the greatest insulation from the vagaries of interpersonal stress is the minimization of the ego. At some point, I just decided that creating conflict wasn't worth maintaining the pretence of petty personal preferences. Once you have successfully shelved trivialities and looked at human interactions as something that can be managed optimally, then you learn what an amazing power that is and you'll naturally become adept. I didn't really commit to this task until my late forties, it took almost another decade until it became second nature.

Most of the time, eliminating conflict really is the first step towards an optimal solution of almost every problem. It's an art, because you have to be reasonable, but not cold. My second wife is very empathetic and great with people, I have learned a lot from her.

But, I am feeling reasonably okay, but it may be that today or tomorrow I will end up having a horrible day, and feel the need for some kind of transformational experience. — Jack Cummins

What types of things can make a day horrible?

to take us beyond suffering, monotony and powerlessness. — Jack Cummins

Yes, it is relatively easy to climb to the peaks and enjoy the view, but inscribing that in some permanent form in the book of one's life is another matter. A lot of people aren't eager to be transformed. Some are even afraid of the idea. I live for it. Transformation is a species of growth.

In opening the thread I was really wishing to enable people to explore all the possibilities of this, with a view to thinking about consciousness explorations, and how this can be potentially enhance our lives. — Jack Cummins

One key is that one must be open to transformation. Otherwise, a peak experience is wasted, or worse, becomes a hedonistic trap, and one ends up chasing the dragon. From personal experience, if you become a peak-experience junkie and don't learn the lessons, then a couple of things will happen. First, the pleasure component will consistently decrease. Second, something will happen in your life that will put you face to face with your own need for self-transformation.

Any chance of expanding on that a bit? — Apollodorus

Well, if consciousness is energy then it is subject to conservation, which means it could be recycled theoretically. Perhaps the brain may not be so much the source of consciousness as a window onto it, an intersection point.

Thanks, can you provide a link please? — Pop

It's from a book on systems theory applications I read last year. I'll have to dig a bit.

edit - it is actually from Capra/Luisi The Systems View of Life which I know is one of Jack's favourites. Chapter 10, the synthetic biology approach to life, section 10.5.2 specifically, page 233. The number of cellular components is actually around 90, not 70 as I said.

Any ideas on what causes these to self organize? — Pop

One of the most interesting examples of self-organization I've read about was in the context of an experiment to simulate the genesis of life from organic precursor elements (abiogenesis). There are something like 70 constituent elements and in order for the experiment to succeed all 70 elements have to be present in the proto-cell after the cellular membrane is created/formed. Basically the odds of this happening are zero. But what actually happens is that many of the artificial cells have nothing inside the membrane, while a few of the artificial cells have all the necessary ingredients and, against all odds, the experiment works.

If consciousness is just some kind of complex energy formation then the fact that it gets "recycled" would be fairly straightforward. Certain constellations of properties might be more cohesive than others. Maybe every so often a whole personality makes it through. Who knows? It's like a surgeon doing an autopsy on himself, trying to analyze consciousness.

Don't the entropies of thermodynamics and information theory pretty much converge?

But are we ever confident of that...unless we are the majority?

How ought a community deal with such a neighbor? Do we expel them? Which belief did we expel them for? How do we draw the line between a difference of opinion and something that someone ought to be expelled for? — BitconnectCarlos

The way you phrase this question makes it ambiguous who the community is identified with. Is the community the "majority," which includes the rabid racist? Or is the community on the side of the minority in this case??

Plus some people just always have to say the opposite....

Tension creates energy. I think it's a feature of the universe to create itself in counterposing forces.

I have an excellent article somewhere on the eye-brain mechanics of the frog's eye - I'll try to find it and post a link

Here tis. I remember when I read it getting a clear picture that the boundaries of cognition are definitely outside of the brain and nervous system.....

https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/bionb4240/Reprints/Lettvin_Maturana_McCulloch%20and%20Pitts_1959.pdf

The aim itself is not objective but a subjective formulation, so the only way that it can "run away" from you is if the means you choose to employ in pursuit of the aim contradict the aim itself. i.e. if you aim to be rich, the goal is not "money", per se, but "obtaining money," which means the aim has to be accomplished through means. But living just to "obtain money" is essentially vacuous, so if you believed that having money was the route to genuine satisfaction, but were unwilling to give yourself over body and soul to its pursuit (which is what people who really want money do, often quite ruthlessly and successfully) then you would find yourself in pursuit of a quarry you could never catch. So there is some truth to the metaphor. But I don't think eliminating goal-oriented thinking is the solution. Rather, recognizing that there must be conformity of means to ends, formulating goals that are "nearby" and whose accomplishment is at least partially realized in the pursuit (i.e. running a business).

If you view consciousness as a form of energy then it can be explained empirically. If it is a natural occurrence then it doesn't require "justification". Only what could have been otherwise than it is is subject to justification. Unless you stipulate that it is voluntary....

Evil is antisocial, although not all antisocial behaviours are evil. Most evil people try to conceal evil deeds behind a facade of virtue. Which shows that they know what evil is. Evil deeds cause harm, not just knowingly or incidentally, but intentionally. People can be greedy, which is evil if it harms others, but unselfconsciously so; if they don't try to conceal their greed, they may not know it is evil (ignorance). Some people revel in evil and do not try to conceal it. They usually get locked up or put down.

A perfect example. And a sphere has the property of rolling which a lump of clay does not have. So this is an additional property (reduced surface friction).

Experience is a strange little breast. Experience does create change (a creative action), but is it additive? I would say it is transformative. — MondoR

Interestingly, you used the term creative. I think creation implies novelty, hence something being added.

Consciousness is a state of being. It cannot be quantified. It is. — MondoR

If I have a new experience, then my state of being is different subsequent to that experience and prior. It seems reasonable to view this as an additive change. One doesn't have to quantify absolutely to recognize a relative difference.

Interestingly, I just started reading Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and it seems that the whole idea of the psychology of people who live according to what they 'want to believe' is actually a theme of the book. Mr Wegg, who takes great pains to maintain the integrity of his pretensions, not only to others but to himself, despite having only a vague understanding of the meaning of his pretences. Blight, the "clerkly essence," maintaining his "fiction of an occupation."

↪Pantagruel Do you have a page reference please? — Daemon

Of course. The example I cited is from page 195 of the original MIT press hardcover.

If you use "properties" in that way, referring to the function of a thing, then you must respect that functions which the object does not currently have, though the object has the capacity to be used that way if approached by the right mind, are not actually properties of the thing, because it is not being used that way. Otherwise the thing has all sorts of different properties at the very same time, in violation of the law of non-contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

True. And as I suggested, different people with the same physical capacities can nevertheless have very different abilities. Will and understanding are definitely factors. The properties of a conscious entity are much more complex than those of a material object.