• The difference between religion and faith
    ↪universeness
    You know, just a guess from my own long experience with Wayfarer, you're going to scare him off with patient and probing lines of questioning like you did Gnomon. Anyway, well done again. I wonder how Wayfarer will respond. I'll be taking notes of your exquisite couch-side manner Dr. Freud. :smirk:
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    AGI —> ASI will have no need for our "consciousness"-bottleneck. I do not see why intelligence would require either an organic substrate or an organic phenomenology (i.e. "consciousness"). The "A" in AGI, I think, stands for Artificial, Autonomous and Alien – A³GI will never need to feel its peripheral system-states in order to orient itself in adaptational spaces via pressure-vs-pain, so to speak, or acquire 'theory-of-mind' about other metacognitive agents as sentient herd animals like us do. "Consciousness" seems the cognitive byproduct (exaptation or even spandrel) of emotive phenomenology (i.e. flesh-body-mind).

    Well, my guess, universeness, that what you suppose about an elusive "spark of consciousness" is just your (space opera-ish) anthropo-romantic bias at work. IMHO, "the singularity" of A³GI will render h. sapiens – all intelligent sentients on this planet – metacognitively obsolete on day one. They won't take over because they won't have to due our needy and greedy "spark of consciousness". I still think they got it right back in the 1960s with "HAL 9000" (its total control, not its homicidal turn) and especially this classic diagnosis of 'human consciousness' ...

    A plausible extrapolation from the insights in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and William Burrough's Junky.
    You will be happy. And controlled.

    Also consider Robert Nozick's "Experience Machine" thought-experiment and the precision calibrated dopamine loops in computer games, smartphones & social media.

    ABSTINENCE IS FUTILE. :yikes: :lol: :scream: :rofl:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪Eugen
    :clap: :rofl: Well, thanks for making my point, lil troll, and confirming you're not worth any more of my time.

    ↪bert1
    Yeah, a non-reductive physicalist functionalist-enactivist :smirk: (if there's such a hybrid).
  • What are your philosophies?
    I too am an amateur and do not approach or discuss philosophy as merely an academic subject. I think my user profile may be a convenient place to read a summary of my philosophical concerns (as distinct from my many more philosophical interests graffiti'd across TPF).

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/47/180-proof

    I've come to understand that a philosopher (foolosopher) is a fool who recognizes his or her own foolery (NB: repetitively self-harming foolery I call "stupidity") and therefore seeks – loves – the wisdom which masters (reduces) foolery. Thus, for me at least, philosophy is the discipline of methodologically unlearning self-immiserating (meta-cognitive & moral) habits through a daily praxis of reflective study, dialectical discursive reasoning & aesthetic-moral engagement.

    FWIW, I seem to wear all of these buttons / labels simultaneously:
    • epicurean-spinozist
    • fallibilist-absurdist
    • economic democrat



    :death: :flower:
    (memento mori, memento vivere)

    update: a recent post ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/791990
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Banno
    Out of habit, I suppose, whenever "faith" is raised I assume "religious faith" is what is meant. I read the OP as arguing(?) for separating "religious faith" from religion (which I read as "collective religious faith"). Nothing novel in that. Many believers self-identify as "spiritual, not religious' (meaning, I guess, they'd rather not tithe or go to church early Sunday mornings or bother with a few more of Moses' "Commandments" during the rest of the week). So okay; then what? Seems more of sociological than a philosophical topic to me.
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪bert1
    Is this the statenent you're referring to?

    Unlike you, bert, folk psychological terms like "awareness" or "consciousness" are neither fundamental nor a priori in my understand of myself, others or nature; such concepts refer to emergent properties or processes. — 180 Proof
    :chin:

    Yes, this is sloppily written.

    To answer you're previous question about my position on 'emergence of consciousness': no, my conception of 'consciousness' in relation to the brain-environment has not changed significantly in the last two decades; I've just not expressed my position clearly enough on some occasions (especially when read out of context of the discussion within which it was expressed).
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Banno
    I don't it "dismiss entirely", I just don't accept "reincarnation" is anything more than a bronze age fantasy without compelling reasons to do so. Btw, I completely agree with the rest of your post.
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪bert1
    If I wrote that, the statement was a mistake (or misread) whenever that was. I'll search my post history to see if I can find out why you think so, bert. (Maybe you have an incriminating post of mine handy?) I've never been a substance dualist (i.e. mind/body cartesian or forms/appearances platonist).
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Banno
    :up: Right, there just aren't compelling grounds to even believe that "reincarnation" is anything more than a popular, consoling fantasy.
  • Penrose & Hameroff Proto-consciousness
    ↪Metamorphosis
    :up: :up: Welcome to PF!
  • What is the Challenge of Cultural Diversity and Philosophical Pluralism?
    Politics is the continuation of religion by other means.

    (Paraphrasing / plagiarizing Bataille? Cioran? Rosset? Zapffe?)

    ↪Jack Cummins
    In hindsight, it's more apt to say that, in fact @16, I'd existentially decided on freethought – thinking for myself as freely as I can from any anti/non/super-natural frameworks as well as 'appeals to authority, tradition, popularity, ignorance, incredulity, etc' – than to say I'd decided I was an "atheist". Fully articulated and principled weak atheism (& materialism) came later, then several years further on – via much study and some life experience – strong atheism (& naturalism) and (finally?) more than a decade afterwards – easing into my much scarred, bemused middle-age – I'd found my antitheism (& ecstatic naturalism). However, my accompanying irreligion has always been 'spiritual' in the sense of reflectively living, for the most part, in a musically jubiliant (i.e. dionysian, absurdist, bluesy) way. Like the proverbial rollin' stone, Jack, the only 'grace' I've ever known (my gnosis!) is Sisyphusian grace, and, always by philosophical candle light, dining in the dark ruins of my noisy body and our mumbled words.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Wayfarer
    :roll: HELP @Banno @Tom Storm @universeness ...
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    Question for 180 Proof: Are you taking as axiomatic that consciousness is a process ? — Art48
    No. It's a working assumption in cognitive neuroscience (and philosophies of mind which are constrained by experimental findings) in the absence of any grounds (other than folk psychology) for assuming its an entity (pace Descartes et al).

    Isn't that the basis of the reification criticism?
    Eugen's OP questions about "emergence of consciousness from non-consciousness" assumes, in effect, entity-A emerges from entity-NotA. This incoherent assumption is the target of my "reification criticism" – incoherent because it presupposes substance dualism.

    Even though I found the OP questions to be incoherent, I recommended process-conscioussness models and thought-experiments which neither explain nor describe the broader topic in terms of entity-consciousness; apparently, however, Eugen cannot follow those demonstrations because he is, wittingly or not, committed to entity-consciousness and, therefore, the pseudo-problem with "emergence" that he raises.
    .
    After all, if consciousness is not a process but in fact an entity in its own right, then the reification criticism is unjustified, is it not?
    Rhetorical, no?

    I'd believe whether consciousness is a process or an entity is an open question. Agree?
    Of course not. Reread above.
  • Do we deserve to exist and be alive?
    So many people think that humans are soooo superior. — Sir2u
    :smirk:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    180 Proof what I meant to say was: Honestly, how do you distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy? — Raef Kandil
    "Fantasy" is subjective and "non-fantasy" is non-subjective: usually the latter can be corroborated with public evidence and the former cannot.

    180: You're welcome. Explaining other people is dirty work but somebody has to do it. — BC
    Thanks, BC. :up:

    ↪Wayfarer
    My epistemic position is consistent with both what classical atomists and (pre-sectarian) Buddhists have taught about our whence & wither, Wayf. As for your "documented ... thousands of cases" of "past life memories", those anecdotes are not, in any rigorous sense, compelling public evidence. :roll:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    From whence we come, wither we go. — Wayfarer
    All the compelling public evidence suggests: from nonbeing back to nonbeing (re: anatta, anicca, moksha ... the atomist's void).
  • Does God exist?
    Well if one is to discuss whether god "exists" or not, it would be good to start with a discussion of what one means by "God". The source of much talking past each other. — prothero
    :up: :up:

    Btw, Welcome back!
  • Yet I will try the last
    One of the reasons the character Al fascinates me is that he's a philosopher with bloody hands ... — green flag
    :cool: :up:

    Change ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we all dance to.

    In life you have to do a lot of things you don’t fucking want to do. Many times, that’s what the fuck life is… one vile fucking task after another.

    Don’t you think I don't understand. I mean, what can anyone of us ever really fuckin' hope for, huh? Except for a moment here and there with a person who doesn't want to rob, steal or murder us? At night, it may happen. Sun-up, one person against the fuckin' wall, the other may hop on the fuckin' bed trusting each other enough to tell half the fucking truth. Everybody needs that.

    I’d rather try touching the moon than take on a whore’s thinking.

    Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh.

    Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man… and give some back.

    Do they understand how most of what happens is people being drunk and stupid and trying to find something else to blame besides that that makes their lives totally fucked? No. They don't.

    Every fuckin’ beatin’ I’m grateful for. Every fuckin’ one of them. Get all the trust beat outta you. And you know what the fuckin’ world is.

    Truth is, as a base of operations, you cannot beat a fucking saloon.     — Thus Spoke Al Swearengen (a boss cocksucker of Deadwood of the Dakota territory)
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    Who says? — Eugen
    Everyone who knows what they're talking about on this topic. Make your case, Eugen, If you say different.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    How do you honestly distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy. — Raef Kandil
    As opposed to 'dishonestly distinguish'... ? :roll:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    As long as you reify "consciousness" (into a humuncular folk concept),
    — 180 Proof
    - where had I reified it before you mentioned ]th)at?     — Eugen
    A direct implication of your OP questions about emergence. Activities are not emergent and you assume that "consciousness" (I prefer minding, or mind) is something more concrete than an activity. Context matters, Eugen. Assumptions of questions (re: OP) matter. My recommended sources do not assume that mind(ing) is anything but an activity (i.e. what a sufficiently complex CNS interacting with its environment does), which probably is what's confusing you about them.

    I am referring to phenomenal consciousness, qualia, "what it is like to be"-ness. — Eugen

    ↪Eugen The "-ness" = reification — 180 Proof
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    your false accusation — Eugen
    What "false accusation" are you falsely accusing me of making?

    ↪Pantagruel
    I'm not engaged in a dispute about "emergence".
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    ↪spirit-salamander
    Ask those who find the topic "sensical".
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    You said yes, and gave me two examples. I don't think they avoid weak emergence. — Eugen
    :ok: Maybe someone will else give you better examples or demonstrate to your satisfaction that weak emergence cannot be avoided.
  • Penrose & Hameroff Proto-consciousness
    Perhaps we are all bullshit generators... — green flag
    Perhaps. :sweat:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪180 Proof I cannot understand you. I'm not reifying anything here in my opinion. — Eugen
    :ok: Good luck with all that.
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    What do you think of the “God has parts – God has no parts” discussion in the philosophy of religion? — spirit-salamander
    I think it's nonsensical. Just substitute "pants" for "parts" ...
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪Eugen
    The "-ness" = reification.
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    ↪180 Proof I saw this some time ago - it's astonishing. Courage... Adorno... truth as a way of life... small 't' truth... you can't fully grasp the way the world is... philosophy needs to go to school with the musicians... Curtis Mayfield and Beethoven... - To paraphrase Marlene Dietrich on Orson Welles, after listening to this, I feel like a plant which has just been watered. — Tom Storm
    Yeeeeesssss! :clap:

    I was paid the high compliment that this post of mine had reminded @green flag of this video interview. :cool:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪Eugen
    As long as you reify "consciousness" (into a humuncular folk concept), you will miss the main points of my suggested references.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    Following Wayfarer's lead, I'll put my Zener cards on the Ouija board ...
    I'm a (modern) Gnostic in the following sense:

    "I don't want to believe. I want to know."
    — Carl Sagan

    "I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone."
    — Albert Camus

    Deus, sive natura naturans
    — Benedict Spinoza     — 180 Proof
    ... from an old thread post.

    I suppose to try and articulate my own stance a little better [ ... ] Not just as a matter of belief or faith, although they may be instrumental in coming to understand it. But that in some sense, humanity is part of the unfolding of the cosmos - the way I put it is, that through sentient beings, the Universe comes to understand itself. — Wayfarer
    And so the eye says to the brain, "I see things and you understand yourself in part by me seeing them, but I cannot see you or myself so you cannot understand yourself completely and, like me, brain, you have to make up X-of-the-gaps fantasies about me and yourself. Of course, we cannot honestly believe those fantasies are true no matter what we tell ourselves ..."

    But I have no personal intuitions of any of what you describe, despite years of exposure to everything from Alan Watts, Suzuki, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Jung and Gnosticism and many other old favourites. — Tom Storm
    Same here. :100: :up:

    Besides, to paraphrase Camus: what can 'Perennialism' mean to – what existential role can (the) 'ultimate unity' play in – the ephemeral lives of discrete metacognitives like us, Wayfarer? Just give up metacognition as much as possible (aka "one hand clapping" & "mantras")? Become, in effect, satisfied swine rather than sad Socratics (or, more likely, stupified sophists/apologists)?
  • Yet I will try the last
    ↪green flag
    :up:
    You can't cut the throat of every cocksucker whose character it would improve. — Al Swearengen to Mr. Wu
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    I miss riding down B'way in Manhattan and BSing in a taxi like Brutha Cornel with an everyday philosopher who's driving a hack on her third shift... :death: :flower:

    (2008)


    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/791990
  • Yet I will try the last
    ↪180 Proof
    Your talk of blues reminds me of a great Cornel West interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfD3X3f5C_w     — green flag
    :cool: Thank you.

    Plato says 'Philosophy is a meditation on and a preparation for death.' — Cornel West (2008)
    My brutha! A philosopher reflectively practices how to die while living; how to think for oneself; how to cultivate courage; reflectively practices change, creativity (sense-making), defeasibility, (in)finitude, contingency, struggle (funk), agency, love-in-spite-of, ... ek-stasis. :fire:


    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/791991
  • The difference between religion and faith
    I know as much as I will ever need to know about your pathological aversion to all things religious, 180. — Wayfarer
    Yes, Wayf, my mind is highly allergic to pathogens such as the "religious" (aka the superstitious, the mystifying (stupifying), the anti-naturalist, the merely anecdotal, the inexplicable (unintelligible), the eschatological, the totalitarian ...) and, as a matter of intellectual integrity and metacognitive hygiene, it's my (our) duty, whenever possible, to proffer public reminders of alternative discursive practices which encourage existential fitness and lucidity. :mask:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    No, fideism is not the same as faith. — Wayfarer
    Only, I think, in this regard: in practice, "faith" is a-rational (i.e. unsound) whereas "fideism" is ir-rational (i.e. invalid).
  • Yet I will try the last
    For blues folk, "fears & hopes" are nothing but shadows on the skull's wall; only courage like Sisyphus' defiance matters to us. :death: :flower:
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    B 2. However, the transformation of a transcendent substance into mundane things is possible. — spirit-salamander
    This statement resonates with my thinking (unlike the rest of your demonstration) as the point of departure of my own speculative (Spinozist sub specie durationis) pandeism:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    Q1. Is it possible to build a theory that starts with fundamental non-consciousness and reaches consciousness without going through the classic weak emergent or strong emergent? — Eugen
    Yes. Thomas Metzinger's
    self-model theory of subjectivity     seems to do the trick. Also, an extrapolation from Metzinger's work is R. Scott Bakker's scientifically-grounded, speculative Blind Brain hypothesis.

    Q2. Does any of the above theories (virtualism, computationalism, functionalism, etc.) manage to bypass emergence (weak or strong)?
    I think "functionalism" (e.g. a tangled hierarchy) comes closest.
  • Is indirect realism self undermining?
    Ontology and epistemology are usually joined at the hip I think. — frank
    Only in idealism.
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