is spirit subject to the laws of physics?

If you disagree with my point about the laptops, then I think we've reached the conclusion of our disagreement. (Y)

You believe you are "not in the habit of drawing boundaries round stuff," whereas I believe you are unconsciously in that habit.

For example, consider a laptop. It seems like a single machine. But when you connect two laptops together via an ethernet cable we can conceptualize the "two" laptops as a single machine. The difference between seeing them as one, and seeing them as two is purely a matter imagination and convention.

According to Stanford, 'Bergson says that Matter and Memory “is frankly dualistic,” since it “affirms both the reality of matter and the reality of spirit” ' https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/

When I say, "humans are imaginary in the same sense that the Big Dipper is imaginary," I mean that humans are imaginary in the same sense that I have described the Big Dipper as imaginary. In other words:

Through an act of imagination, one can draw a boundary around a particle formation and call it the “a human.” Humans do not inherently exist; rather, "a human" is merely a concept that requires an act of imagination. If all life in the universe suddenly died (or alternatively, if humans stopped imagining), then there would be no one to draw the boundaries around humans, and therefore humans would cease to exist. The concept of humans can only exist in living minds. In this sense, the humans are imaginary.

Plus, it just might be the case that the Big Dipper is conscious. See, panpsychism.

I read a little into Bergson. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that he espouses a particular form of dualism---where dualism is the view that aspects of mental phenomena occur outside of the physical-energetic universe. It seems clear to me that if we believe dualism, then it is easy to believe that there are aspects of us that are non imaginary; these aspects exist outside the physical-energetic universe.

In contrast, my model assumes physicalism---where physicalism is the view that everything exists within our physical-energetic universe.

It is always a dead end and somewhat of a punt when a philosophical model resorts to illusion of some sort. I simply believe in this case the Buddhist writings are being translated and interpreted incorrectly as often is the case with Doaist writings. — Rich

You are jumping to conclusions.

The Big Dipper is a state of memory with a certain firm that is very real in one's memory. Memory is real. It is not an illusion. If necessary, one can make it more concrete and call it a energetic holographic pattern created by our mind. — Rich

I don't think memories are real in the sense that you think they're real. http://thescienceexplorer.com/are-your-memories-real Furthermore, I think we agree on something! "...and call it a energetic holographic pattern created by our mind." Created by our mind! Exactly; that is the notion of imaginary I am speaking of when I say "humans are imaginary in the same sense that the Big Dipper is imaginary."

We c are not an illusion but a construct of energy patterns. — Rich

I think we may be getting lost in semantics.

I think our statements are somewhat consistent with each other, except for your claim that I am conflating things that shouldn't be conflated.

I believe the dichotomy is true, depending on our definition of "chaos." I.e., the universe is either deterministic or not deterministic. If the universe is deterministic, then the "randomness" we observe is chaotic in the sense that the "randomness" is actually psuedorandomness.

Thank you.

Thank you. If there is zero randomness in the universe, then the quartz crystal clock provides psuedorandomness

Thank you. I went through that article and it seems to say determinism entails zero randomness. For instance,


"... how can we decide which of the following two hypotheses is true?

• The system is governed by genuinely stochastic, indeterministic laws (or by no laws at all), i.e., its apparent randomness is in fact real randomness.
• The system is governed by underlying deterministic laws, but is chaotic."

The dichotomy of those hypotheses seems to imply that indeterminism entails true randomness, whereas determinism implies psuedorandomness

Thank you.

Robots might possess qualia. According to the "Integrated Information Theory" of consciousness, robots are conscious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

In regards to your comment "I am starting to believe we all might be part of one big consciousness", you might be interested in the paper: "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140721.pdf