Sure, will do! ETA: That was a great article: open-mouthed horror. Yeah, that about sums up my reaction. How did the Greeks feel about the Lotus Eaters? Surely they philosophized about it.

I brought this up to my wife the other day, who's very spiritual, and I figured she would recoil in horror from the idea. Nope. I still can't make heads or tails of it. I lean somewhat spiritual but I wouldn't have a thing to do with such a device (so I tell myself). Knowing myself, I would eventually succumb, but the thought of becoming a Louts Eater is just terrifying. It would be soul murder.

I always admired Chmeee in the Ringworld series for his reaction to getting hit with the tasp (aka "pleasure button") for the first time and his disgust when he saw Louis had succumbed. It's stupid to admire a fictional character, but the character Chmeee and his sense of duty, loyalty, and integrity resonate strongly with me. If there is a "good life" to live, those qualities are essential.

"Most other people, in his eyes, live in what to him would be a state of ecstacy"

Why does he think this? Just a cursory glance at what America is going through right now reveals a country of desperately unhappy angry people.

"an intellectual refuge from the complexity and size of a reality that encompasses us, and that we do not control in any way."

You don't have control over reality "in any way"? Sure you do. I'd much rather live in the reality of modern dentistry and medicine than what we had in the 1600's.

I was thinking about that the other day. Some people (and I'm one of them) don't remember a whole lot about their lives. In an interview, the actor Liev Shrieber talked about this: "I don’t remember things about my life. I can memorize a page of Shakespeare, no problem, but could I tell you where I was last week? No." Do such people have a lesser "amount" of personal identity? What if I suffered brain damage and lost half my memories? Would I be any less of a person?

The devil is always in the details. What Harris thinks of as "human flourishing" is probably not the same thing I think of, although there's going to be a lot of overlap on the more obvious trivial stuff, like "more clean drinking water for everyone!". But even there, I can see Sam and I starting to diverge: should countries abandon, say, their space programs and put all those resources into providing clean drinking water for everyone and save 500,000 lives a year? Science can't answer that.

I think you'd have to better clarify the definition of nothingness and the modern ideas behind spontaneous creation from nothingness.

I'd rather not get into that here, but create a brand new discussion on it.

I'll ping you, once I write it.

I guess regarding solipsism and idealism ... there would still need to be a true external world somewhere out there ... but not necessarily the present world.

How would you apply solipsism and idealism as possibilities? I guess I have a few ideas, but I'd have to think about it more.

I'm not the one making the strong claim that something came from nothing. I'm just saying that it seems like there's a contradiction in something coming from nothing.

Just remembered something about 'something from nothing' universe: virtual particles can appear out of nothingness and disappear into nothingness. I guess this provides a lot more support that the universe can create itself out of nothingness.

That reminds of Lawrence Krauss's book "A Universe from Nothing". The laws of nature that allow for virtual particle creation/annihilation are "something". Where did those laws come from? We're not going to cover any new ground that hasn't been covered.

I think to answer the question "What is the purpose of the Universe?" you ought to consider some possibilities of what is behind the curtain:

1) The universe created itself from nothingness. Big Bang led to an ever increasing expansion of the universe. Therefore, in this sense the universe is a non-living entity. A non-living entity cannot have a purpose. (unless you consider human beings who are inside the universe and assign themselves a purpose) Like Ree Zen said, a universe is nonetheless a great idea to study in terms of how something can come from nothing.

That seems impossible.

2) The universe had an intelligent designer. In this sense, the universe's purpose is whatever the ID assigned it. (or if the universe was created in a simulation)

3) The entire universe is "somehow" a living organism or part of a living organism (like a cell of a larger whole and we just can't see that far). Then it's initial purpose is to survive like all living things.

Also solipsism and idealism are possible.

True.

My (anecdotal) experience with racists is they'll seize on anything to justify their racism because even they know, deep down, it's really stupid to be racist.

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. So, in a societal sense, is research into, say, racial IQ differences worth it?

Do you think certain lines of research should be off-limits for the good of society? For example, there is already a ban in the U.S. on human cloning. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

From your link:

"Perhaps the most common attitude for neuroscientists is to set the hard problem aside."

I think it's going to be a little more complex than that. I can't exactly turn you into a psychopath just by messing with a single neuron.

However, I see your point: A.I. can (and probably will) be weaponized, and that's a huge problem.

I know, right?

It's not going to be like the Terminator. Any A.I. will always labor under the (very real) possibility that it's being tested and is operating in a simulation before it's let loose into the real world. If that's the case, the last thing you want to do if you're an A.I. is antagonize or be hostile towards the beings that created you. Cooperation would be the preferred strategy.

"Ah, ok. Now again, you did not narrow what you intended by this scope, so I will do my best to address what you think the problem is based on the old Nagel paper.

Nagel's point is not incompatible with mine. Nagel is trying to note that one's personal experience is something that no one will ever be able to have identically. We can't post a picture on the wall for example of what you see before you, and it be the exact picture you experience personally. But what we CAN do, is measure your brain activity, and find brain activity that matches the personal experience you are having.

Yes, we have found lots of neural correlates to consciousness. Chalmers calls that the "easy problem". The Hard Problem is WHY are we conscious AT ALL and HOW does consciousness arise from non-conscious stuff? Science's failure to explain those key questions is called the "explanatory gap".

Understand that Nagel wrote this paper almost half a century ago, and such advances did not exist. It wasn't on his radar, or the scope of his topic. While yes, nothing will ever duplicate the experience you are having, that does not mean we cannot find the underlying physical processes that are causing you to have that personal experience. Modern neuroscience is at that step. I cited two papers which show this.

Yes, you're talking about neural correlates. Correlation is not causation. Suppose science found the exact two million neurons associated with first person subjective experience. That would still put us no closer to answering the Hard Problem.

The first is the ability to read a person's mind and match it with a number the person is thinking of. When the person thinks, "10" we do not know the tonality they are speaking in (yet, we may in the future). But that is irrelevant. We know they are thinking the number "10", and are then able to represent this through a voice synthesizer. We have evidence now that the thoughts we have are able to be matched to the brain's physical process.

Again, suppose we invent a machine that exactly tells us what another person is thinking about. We still haven't solved the Hard Problem.

The second paper is the advances in consciousness. Consider for a minute that your conscious mind does not have control of your entire body. You cannot tell your gall bladder to produce more or less gall for example. There are certain areas of your brain you do not have access to. The brain has independent sections that manage certain tasks like sight, sound, and language. We know this because we have found damage or stimulation to these regions also affects people's personal experience in these areas. All of these areas need to be combined together into something coherent to be able to make basic judgments. It is worthless to see if it does not help you identify food from not food within that sight for example.

That's true, but doesn't address the Hard Problem.

Consciousness is the cobbling together of certain resources to make decisions.

Look up "philosophical zombie" (again, Chalmers).

Should I pursue that food, or should I not. With intelligence comes a greater ability to make judgements, and manage the different resources of the brain. All of this, is the brain itself. Philosophy is not about creating arguments based on ignorance. It is about creating arguments about things we are ignorant to, while basing it upon our limitations of the reality we know. If you wish to do viable philosophy in regards to the mind, old arguments that do not address modern day findings of neuroscience will be an argument based off of ignorance, and not very useful. Perhaps you will present me with a philosophy theory about the mind that neuroscience cannot be helpful in and prove me wrong.

You should also read about Integrated Information Theory. I think you might find it interesting.

Dennet? Does Sam Harris talk about it?

"She knows that everyone agrees it feels a certain way". Her own subjective experience, combined with the knowledge that everyone describes teleportation as feeling a certain way, allows her to conclude (with justification) who the liar is.

Start here:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf

Then read Chalmer's "The Hard Problem of Consciousness".

Obviously, I'm asking you for the neuroscientific answer to the Hard Problem to illustrate a point: there isn't an answer. The explanatory gap remains, an enduring embarrassment to materialism.

What is the neuroscientific explanation for how brains produce consciousness?

Really? What is the probability aliens will land on the WH lawn tomorrow? Isn't that really unlikely? Yes. Do you need me to do calculations for you on that? No.

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/liver/bile.html

Now, why isn't there a similar link for "how do brains produce consciousness?"

Also: you seem to assume brains exist. Do you assume that?

Again, they would say if you ask the question that way, it already locks in the wrong perspective.

No it doesn't. I asked "What do neurobiology and psychology say is the causal mechanism for how brains produce consciousness?" Now, repalce a few words: "What does biology say is the causal mechanism for how livers produce bile"? That can be asked and answered. Why can't that be asked and answered about brains and consciousness?

And there's an implicit assumption in your response that brains exist. They might, they might not. I don't assume materialism/physicalism to be the case. Why do you and what justifies that assumption?

It is probably safer to say that if you are asking the question of “what is consciousness?”, you are already making a rookie mistake. Most of the “theories” are chasing the explanatory phantoms left by Cartesian dualism.

But studying neurobiology and psychology gives you a good sense of how brains actually model worlds. And the logic of that can be found in systems theories.

What do neurobiology and psychology say is the causal mechanism for how brains produce consciousness?

You really need specific numbers? Do you think multiple people hallucinating the same thing happens regularly? Or is it a very rare thing? When's the last time you had a hallucination? When's the last time you and two other people had the exact same hallucination?

This is fallacious thinking. Suppose there's a group of people X, Y, and Z and X observes something, say W. The relevant probability for W being real - as in existing independently of X's mind and thus perceivable by both Y and Z, is 50%. The same probability applies to Y and Z i.e. both of their perceptions have a 50% chance of being real.

The probability that all of them, X, Y, and Z, are hallucinating i.e. W isn't real = 50% * 50% * 50% = 12.5%. Decidedly a lower probability that W isn't real than if only X observed W.

The probability that three people are hallucinating the same thing is a lot lower than 12.5%.

However,

The probability that all three of them, X, Y, and Z, are perceiving something real = 50% * 50% * 50% = 12.5%. As you can see, that all three, X, Y, and Z are observing W paradoxically reduces the probability of W being real.


Also, if my math is correct, the probability that X, Y, and Z are perceiving something not real = the probability that X, Y, and Z are perceiving something real = 12.5%. Having more observers didn't help.

Depends on the situation. But usually, the more people that see something, the better the odds that it actually happened.

For the sake of argument alone...

What would a Trump presidency look like if he were compromised?

I'll play Devil's Advocate: it wouldn't look like missiles to the Ukranians and killing a top Iranian general.

It matters not at all what a person's motives/beliefs are in a debate/discussion. Arguments are judged on their merits. Statements are either true or false.

I'm pointing this out to you not because you don't know it (you obviously do), but because you have interesting ideas, however your tangents into other posters' belief systems (or, more accurately, what you assume their belief systems are) is very oft-putting.

This is exceedingly suspect, further, you did not answer my last valid question for which you bear the burden of proof. What I mean about this being suspect is that it's exceedingly clear to me that you are trying to create a gap that you can fill with mysticism. The statement "not all-knowing," reminds me of God-of-the-Gaps reasoning. You are searching for a hole, why? Be transparent. It's hard to see that you are simply trying to follow noble thought where it leads in this sense. For my part, I would never argue that science is all-knowing, is this really a valid premise of science or a straw-man?

There's already a giant hole: how does consciousness arise from matter? If materialism/physicalism can't answer such a fundamental question, people will eventually turn to other "isms". That's not mystical, it's logical. If one has adopted a certain foundational viewpoint/axiom (e.g., physical matter exists and consciousness comes from it. Somehow), and one keeps running into a brick wall trying to explain something, then the foundational viewpoint/axiom will eventually be questioned.

We're no closer to a solution to the mind/body problem than we were during Descartes' time. We've discovered a lot of neural correlates, but as to the question of how consciousness arises from non-conscious stuff, and why we're conscious at all...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Which, of course, presents a problem for materialism. Eventually, this lack of progress will doom materialism/physicalism. The problem is immediately solved if one ditches the supposition that physical matter exists and sticks strictly with reality "building blocks" that are known to exist for certain: mind and thought.

Is there a possible world where the laws of physics aren't mathematical? What would non-mathematical laws of physics be like in a physical universe?

There's a non-trivial chance that we're either Boltzman brains or in a simulation. A healthy degree of skepticism about most things is in order.

This is an issue for any omniscient predictor of future events. And probably not even omniscient. If a machine could predict with 99.999999% accuracy what someone will do, you essentially have the same problem as theological fatalism.

Ok, fair enough. But why would a species who can travel the galaxy be interested in primitive pond scum such as ourselves? However, future humans would obviously be interested.

Because we're interested in pond scum. I'm going by the mediocrity principle here, which is to assume that we're not all that atypical. Advanced aliens will probably be like us in at least this respect: they'll be curious about the universe. Curiosity and self-preservation go hand-in-hand. Any species that has made it to the top of the food chain is going to be really good at self-preservation.

And then there's our history and technological progress. We're a very violent species and in 200 years, we've gone from steam engines to landing on the moon. Any alien race will want to keep an eye on us.

If time-travel or inter-dimensional travel is possible, then interstellar travel is practically guaranteed. It would be exceedingly odd to hit a tech wall that limits interstellar travel (which we already have an idea of how to do), but allows for the development of technologies we can't even begin to comprehend.

I think our expectations are pretty firmly grounded in reality. If aliens have some technology that breaks the laws of thermodynamics, they might as well be magical. I don't think aliens are going to be magical-seeming. I think some of the things we know about reality are rock solid now. I don't think we're like we were in the 1,600's. I think advanced alien technology will look like advanced technology, and it will follow the rules of quantum mechanics just like our stuff does, and we'll be able to understand the principles behind the gadgets, and probably pretty quickly. I think what's holding us back is the tools we need to do research are massive and expensive and require international cooperation to build. It's almost like the universe requires more and more cooperation as you peel back its layers. I don't think we're that far away from one-world government.

We also know a bit about any space-faring race just by virtue of them being a space-faring race. They're going to be clever, daring, and courageous, and curious, otherwise they never would have gotten into space in the first place. But now that I think of it, that might not be true. They might be cowardly and timid and simply have robots do all the dangerous stuff.

Issac Arthur has a great channel on Youtube where he talks about this stuff. He has a hard science background in physics, I think.

As a cosmic-mind idealist, I tend to agree.