Scientists will give any one an A for any story as long as they use the words they want to hear repeated: brain, neurons, DNA, genetics, chemicals, robot, computer, synapses, etc. This is indoctrination.

Words that are verboten are: humans, mind, feeling, emotion, spirit.

Which is the science and which is the religion? Which is describing life as experienced?

All that said, I'm assuming a scientific position. — TheMadFool

There is zero evidence for anything you have stated, and yet you immediately place yourself under the umbrella of science for safety purposes. This is actually what science amounts to nowadays. One only has to create a story using words like neurons, brains, cells, structure, etc. and voila, one is shielded by science. It's exactly what is going on in the non-life to life thread.

Where in science does it explain how sleeping persons take a break from consciousness?

Intelligibility is what emerges. — apokrisis

I am hoping that someone can summarize this theory of life emerging from non-life so I can bookmark it for future reference in other threads. The highlights for me are that:

1) Thermodynamics has purpose.
2) There is a Cosmic Goal.
3) Intelligibility emerges from chemicals.
4) Chemicals feel things.
5) Chemicals communicate with each other with signs.

Basically everything has a mind and purpose except humans.

I guess what you guys REALLY want to know is, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. — MikeL

The OP was fine, and it seems like we are all rapidly converging upon an agreement that there is cosmic purpose. How do you feel about this as a fundamental theory of life? I'm actually good with it.

I'm the audience merely observing the sleight of hand, the latest being holistically fusing cosmic purpose into everything including thermodynamics. Sounds like Panpsychism or vialism to me. With this, we are getting very close to agreement. Bergson called it the Elan vital, and Whitehead referred to it as God.

I didn't know your theory included cosmic propose.

Pansemiosis is about the fundamentally of thermodynamic purpose — apokrisis

Catching the sleight of hand in this trick was way too easy.

cosmic goal. — apokrisis

It appears the story has now been extended to include God.

Stop thinking about this as humans feeling mentally informed. — apokrisis

Better yet, stop thinking, period. That is the only way the trick works.

Apparently, the answer to the OP is to give up on the idea that there is life. Problem solved.

21st century dehumanization.

In this regard, philosophy had a very substantial role to play in the course of human development and explain. As academic science, outside of some religious universities, refuses to call out their own for the reckless substitution of stories for evidence, it then falls upon philosophers to do this. This has always been an important role for philosophy, to cut through the mirage.

So all that this approach does, is push the question of what is it within the human mind which gives us the capacity to read signs, back to, and prior to, the beginning of substantial existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ultimately either the intelligence (e.g. reading signs, and much, much more) is either ascribed to Natural Laws (aka God) or the chemicals themselves. Science offers nothing else. The words used may change but the the actual trick always remains the same.

The same trick is used in genetics. A few proteins are peeled off and voila, they form in humans, antelopes, ants, or whatever. The details are shunted aside as an homework assignment.

Our brain does have the memories as electric signals, but does the mind, assuming it's not only a product of chemical interactions, have them? — BlueBanana

This would go under the title of "What is memory". My view it's that it is energetic and not chemical, and it is not located in the brain. But for this particular question, it doesn't appear that the nature of memory is relevant. It is sufficient that we agree that in a state if unconsciousness there is no sense of memory.

I believe this might be a poor phrasing of what you mean, as I assume you don't mean unconsciousness is (necessarily) followed by amnesia? — BlueBanana

It does appear to be what one might call "temporary amnesia", since observation of memory is not there. There can be disagreement if what is memory, but it doesn't appear to be there in an unconscious state.

In my own experience, reawakening did not appear to be a willful action. Ditto for waking up from a dream. The experience is qualitatively different from experiences when I am awake.

BTW, I believe this question is the most important one that can be asked when inquiring into the nature of life and mind.

As a mind with no consciousness and sentience can't exist, we can reach a conclusion that a person who is asleep has no mind (at that moment, that is). — BlueBanana

This requires a very precise understanding of mind, since the mind does reawaken. There is continuity of some sort as memory is recalled and intention once again exerts will.

Having been unconscious, the actual feeling is that of no memory and no intent to perform some action, but something is still there that causes be to wake up and recall what I have learned. Call it the spark of life or spirit if you will which brings the mind to action again.

Whereas, ascribing semiotic attributes to anything other than a psychophysical organism is a category error. — Galuchat

Of, course. Any naturalist theory is simply the process of ascribing some traits of the mind to a chemical, whether it be a "selfish gene" or a "information communicating molecule", or otherwise.

All science needs to do nowadays is fabricate a story, use some sleight of hand, call it a done deal, and start teaching it in public schools. No scrutiny in secular institutions. The story is now used in lieu of any evidence. Then it is up to religious scholars (is isn't going to be any secular institution) to pour through the thousands of fabricated words to find the sleight of hand.

The fundamental problem it's that stories are now being substituted for evidence and still called science. No one in academia, other than lone voices such as scientists like Sheldrake, is calling science out. It is a travesty.

Bottom line: If scientists can get away with the completely fabricated story of abiogenesis, they can get away with saying anything. Propagandists refer to this as the Big Lie. As a direct result of the outright dehumanization of people, whether it be describing them as computers or "just chemicals", 50,000 Americans are killed each year by prescription opioids with impunity. If you believe such a situation is OK, that the only thing that happens with these deaths are some computers or some chemicals have moved into their "natural state", then the indoctrination has been successful. There is real human cost to these absurd theories. It could be your loved one.

Dehumanization is ugly and it is more than worrisome that only religious institutions are speaking out clearly against it. How can such ugliest go unchallenged in secular institutions, given that it is just a fabricated story with no evidence whatever to support it? What exactly is going on here? I use to raise my hands in objection all the time in class. I didn't get As but I preserved my self-respect. Great genocides always begin with the Big Lie becoming acceptable and repeated.

I would characterize what I have are concerns. Economic motives are always present in any discipline. One side trying to characterize people as computers. Another side characterizing people as some fated blob of chemicals with an existence comparable to sand on a beach.

My concern is that there is a huge downside for everyone, even for those who don't buy into these empty views of life. It's tough to avoid the consequences of this tidal wave fed by economic interests. For many, it is a nightmare that they would like to wake up from. I talk to these type of people every day and they just want it to go away.

I came away with a different idea. It pretty much explains the hierarchy of life. They is not one body. The human form is comprised of a multitude of life forms. Don't discount Sheldrake. He's has studied the problem deeply. You have study each level problem deeply so so that it builds up naturally.

Shekdrske's Morphic Resonance for field theory may provide some insight into this question.

Is there just one mind? Is there one mind that is infinitely divisible? — MikeL

I would say it is an ocean with waves.

But I observe it evolving logically. If someone stands on a tree branch that is too thin, it will break, they will fall. — MikeL

You have to keep observing. The world is a wild West show. The best place to get a bird's eye view of human nature is Central Park on a Saturday afternoon, or better yet, a political rally.

I really don't have any arguments, since that is not my game. Just relating my own observations of life and seeking interesting new observations.

Difference in substantially is a continuum of energy starting with quantum and moving up the ladder to diamonds. There Mind creates substantiality.

The concept of movement and spatiality has to be inspected more closely. I began to allude to this in a different thread. Very close observation may reveal more about the nature of movement. Actually studying the arts help also.

Logic is just another game that leads no where. You set up a premise. You argue to a conclusion, and then the fun begins: everyone disagrees with the premise and thus also the conclusion. 2000 years ago sooner fellows made a living from this. People like to argue over things like this. Nothing wrong with it, unless someone starts marketing it as some path to the truth, which it isn't.

Life evolved exactly as you observe. Life experiments, learns and changes and follows many, many different paths. Just observe. It's all there.

And yet I can walk down the street and bump into someone. — MikeL

Of course, there is substantiality that we "feel". Remember, we are basically empty but we feel substantiality. Two painters sharing a canvas doesn't mean they will not bump into each other.

How do you reconcile this idea of an energy flow between all things with the physical realities of our observable world (our 4n) — MikeL

It is all exactly as it is. However, as one gains skills in observation and sensitivity, new things are discovered. It takes practice. Nothing is automatic. A skilled artist sees and feels much more than an under ones. Artists make the best philosophers.

If one doesn't care about experimenting with what happens after their Queen is v eaten. Most players would consider such an experiment as a poor experiment but it is possible to spend a lifeime sacrificing a Queen, lose every game, and learn nothing other than losing a Queen means losing the game.

I personally wouldn't want to spend any part of my life investigating how chemicals got together to sing in a choir out of tune. Maybe if I was trying to come up with a new sci-fi genre.

But if we are painting on the canvas we are separate from the canvas, so what is the substance of us? — MikeL

If you study the arts, sports, music, health practices, etc, you will find there is no discontinuity between your mind and the canvas. It is literally all one.

Just to respond to that, it is through directed games such as this one that fundamental truths (at least to satisfy our own logic) can be discovered and new insights revealed. — MikeL

If you play chess, you will understand that a player does not calculate each possible move in some equal manner. Based upon experience and intuition one quickly narrows down possible moves into a few candidate moves otherwise a single move can take a lifetime. This idea that chemicals evolved in such ac way that they have to eat a whole bag of potato chips and then bemoan it because of the weight they gained is equivalent to moving my Queen to a square where it can be taken by a pawn. It is so bad, that it can be immediately eliminated.

But if one doesn't care about these things, which is perfectly permissible, then one doesn't care. However, there have been great practical rewards for me by understanding nature. Ditto for the Daoists.

2. What is a memory, how does it form and at what point is it projected back out into the matter field? If it is stored, how and where is it stored? — MikeL

I would say my best description would be that it would be exactly the same as anything else but reconstructed with a different frequency thus only accessible to ones on mind.

4) The holographic field can be considered a single canvas which we are all sharing and creating together. In a way it is a our creative hobby. Artists have direct experience with this feeling.

The short answer, for me at least, is yes. It is a game for me to see if we or I can come up with the best story of how chemicals brought themselves to the coffee table. It's as simple as that and it's great fun. — MikeL

I thought so. I believe it is like this for many others as well. I actually have so many other things I am doing and would like to do in my life, that I am primarily looking for truly new insights that allow me to have a better grasp of nature.

Thanks for your forthright reply.

I have the converse problem that you have Rich, I can't see how mind explains anything. How should we investigate it? What should we investigate? What are your definitions? What is the world that you are trying to show us, Rich? — MikeL

To understand this, it is necessary to put a philosophy to practical use:, e.g. health, relationships, value system, sense of life, etc. Then one understands Why Philosophy? Otherwise, it does become just another game that one can play in lieu of Rubiks Cube or chess. Living the last 35 years of my life in a very healthy state without any need to see a physician (or scared into seeing a physician) is a direct result of my my very real and practical philosophy. One that I truly embrace and use. It is not a game for me not is it a career. It is me.

1) i wouldn't say in front of us. I would say we are immersed in it. One way to visualize it wouldn't be to make a plain observation (without any preconceived notions of space) of what is transpiring as you drive a car. Pay close attention to what you are experiencing. It will not be what you learn in a classroom. It is something different.

2) Can't say if I agree or disagree. The fields are oscillating in duration (the mind experiencing the changes). Past memories are also stored in the field that can be reconstructed as memory by a brain wave. So it is all there. There is no freezing duration. It is in constant flux, even memories since memories are affected by new memories. Robbins had some pretty good videos on this since he is only investigating the nature of perception. He answers all questions on his Youtube video.

3) This I categorically and able to respond to as No. There is no future. There just Memory pressing into the present creating a new Memory. The Holographic field is evolving as the Mind evolves. There two are the same.

4) Again, I would refer you to Robbins for a more comprehensive answer, but the field is holographic in nature since the images are reconstructed from the holographic field, much as light reconstructs a holographic image from a hologram. The general concept is the same.

The question is directed to you Mike.

I didn't see any questions for me, but I'll check.

Sorry, didn't notice any questions that you may have asked me.

I understand that certain people have an agenda to eliminate mind for specific reasons. But given that you don't have an agenda, can you explain what precisely intrigues you about this story of chemicals that react in such a way to desire to eat hot dogs without experiencing it? I can't even begin to take it seriously from any perspective where it be philosophical, scientific, it straight hard core sci-fi. Among all the verbiage I find nothing, literally nothing. Is this some sort of game of who conjure up the best tale of how chemicals brought themselves to the coffee table? Without a clear agenda (this I understand), why would anyone spend any time with this?

I see, but when you said mind only appeared in h sapiens, you seemed to have something specific in mind. I would like to know how it was, and why it is confined to humans. — MikeL

If you may remember, when you asked me the question, I was able to give you a one sentence, coherent, easily understandable definition. The c rain is because I understand the question and have an answer that makes sense to anyone who has experienced like.

Mind is the force that is creating novelty, experimenting (willful intention), learning (awareness and memory), and is thus evolving. It is not chemicals that are evolving, it is the mind.

What I have been able to glean is that they is no experience, no mind, just a relation which is the experience. An experience without an experiencer. Which means everyone who is conscious and experiencing is wrong and shouldn't be. What should be and is, are chemicals aimlessly and without any awareness (awareness requires an experiencer) having lunch together.

So just the experience or interpretance relation, no ghostly experiencer or interpreter. — apokrisis

The experience or relation (relation had already been delivered as consciousness) without an experiencer.

Works fine, except everyone experiences things in life. Not only does everyone experiences, but they also have memories of the experience! Or one can say they experience the memories. In all cases, the mind is experiencing and learning in the first person. There are no chemicals bumping into each other aimlessly, looking for hot dogs to eat, and watching the Game of Thrones. The mind is experiencing, experimenting, and learning from it all. There is real intention. I hope the the end of the chemical story isn't that the chemicals create an illusion that they are experiencing eating hot dogs because really there is only the experience (without the chemicals actually experiencing, or whatever).

No. Our difference dwells in justification for that which physically is. On what do you base your justifications that "everything fluidly emerges"? — javra

It appears to me that the sentences and the overall story is being presented in lieu of any evidence. Now as for the story itself, I find it pretty incomprehensible, which may actually be intended. I can't tell. But any time I see consciousness bring defined as a relation and then declaring the Hard Problem had been solved, I begin to suspect I have found the sleight of hand once again.

Different life experiences. I am much more interested in life than in gadgets. I have discovered that there is much, much more good health and joy in dance, singing, and the arts than can be found in gadgets. Quality trumps quantity, and life trumps science.

Science provides some practical tools that can be developed based upon creative insights, but these tools acting on the the experience are not the experience itself. We have become so infatuated with the tools (e.g. computers, drugs) that we have lost all sight and insight into the experience of life itself, replacing life with the tool.

The basic tools of science always begin with a new creative insight and it's a continuum, but the tools are not a prerequisite for understanding, they are only tools to play with.

The Daoists, who were great observers, developed a tremendous understanding of the nature of life. What they couldn't do is kill millions of people with a single gadget. That took a better understanding of chemistry (which begins with direct observation and intuition, e.g. alchemy). Unfortunately, much ancient knowledge which is quite superior is being lost. The good news is that it can be recovered by direct observation and creative intuition.

Yes, it fits but descriptively it is much different. Viewing the body and cells as a complete holistic, cooperative mind provides a different path to changing behavior. It is more of an internal re-conditioning than an external conditioning though the external conditioning provides limited results.

Both papers are about dividing up the experience of living into a measurement/location map. Should measurement be given ontological status? This is the heart of Zeno's paradoxes. Are there infinite points or only one indivisible space. Are there infinite moments or one one indivisible duration. The answer is profound.

When I am driving, and observe out of my windshield, I see a two dimension space that is changing with duration. It is like a moving picture. This experience is much different than one when I try to map my coordinates using measurements where I used coordinate axis as you describe. Describing an experience is not the experience itself, which is why I continue to believe that mathematics does not provide an ontological view of the nature of nature's. It gives the opposing views. This is fundamental because living and experiencing is beyond the reach of measurements.

Now, scientists are beginning to look at the universe differently. As a hologram with one less dimension than conventionally understood space. A bit closer to the actual experience but ultimately whatever science comes up with will necessarily rely on mathematics and thus will be far from experience. Mathematics is only about partitioning and measurement. It cannot capture living experience. The only way to understand the living nature is via direct observation coupled with intuition

Everytime you used the word I, that was your mind. Embrace it, because it is you.