Since I have not a major interest in politics I've refrained from commenting on liberalism understood as a social/political praxis. I have read along though, and I see two predominant polarizations. First, there is the Marxism/Liberal democracy polemic. And there is a Traditionalism/ Modernism polemic.

I favour a liberal socialist democracy. Unfettered capitalism is a disaster and can only lead to ever greater enrichment of the rich and impoverishment of the poor. I also favour democratic elections, even though it seems that view people have the understanding to make informed decisions about which party to vote for—a situation which has been made even more difficult by the fact that politics in general has degenerated into vacuous sloganeering if not outright propaganda from both sides.

The problem for Marxism is that it is based on the idea of becoming established by revolution, not by democratic election, so introduction of a softer socialism seems much more attractive. But how to bring that about if not by education? And how to begin that education?

The problem is that the way things are set up where the choice is between two major parties, and everyone's focus seems to be more on economic management than anything else makes it very difficult to institute fairer social welfare practices and more equitable economic practices. This seems to be made even more difficult by global warming and diminishing resources and burgeoning populations. I don't hold out much hope for betterment of our societies.

As to the Traditionalist/ Modernist divide, I think there are problems on both sides. The idea that materialism (in the metaphysical not the consumerist sense) is the problem shows, I think, a poor understanding of history. I doubt that life for the masses was better back in some imagined 'Golden Age'. The problems we face are problems of this world, not of some imagined otherworld or afterlife.

And the idea that there are 'wise ones' who know something beyond what practical wisdom , ordinary human compassion and science can tell us is a fantasy. This always becomes clear when it's advocates are asked to say just what they are advocating if not some form of authoritarianism—and they cannot offer any alternative to the idea that diversity of opinion is a good, not a bad, thing.

All they seem to be able to do is talk about a "vertical ontology' being better than a purportedly "flat ontology" without being able to say what either of these actually look like, and just whose ontologies they would be, and just how, if either were to predominate, they could become common coin without being imposed by power or indoctrination. We already have a great diversity of metaphysical views in our societies and across different societies. Thoughtful individuals are, at least in many if not most societies free to form their own views, wherever they are not restricted by one or another more or less rigidly imposed "aegis of tutelage".

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I think I agree with most of that except the idea that traditional metaphysics departs from empirical knowledge and logic. — Leontiskos

I don't want to take the thread off-course, but I just want to say that I cannot see how metaphysical speculations can be either empirically or logically confirmed or disconfirmed.

...One can do an intersubjective thing and call that rational, even with respect to morality. So one might say that racism is not objectively irrational but it is intersubjectively irrational. That could perhaps constitute a point of more general agreement within the thread. — Leontiskos

I'm not sure what "intersubjectively irrational" could mean regarding racism. In the case of something like murder, it seems to work insofar as virtually no one would think murder is a good thing. But perhaps you are working with a different idea about what "Intersubjectively irrational" should be understood to mean.

I myself think racism is objectively irrational, in much the same way that "3 > 3" is irrational. Or as you imply, any implicit argument for racism will seem to be unsound, given that the conclusion is in fact false. This doesn't mean that we can beg the question and assume ahead of time that everyone's argument is unsound, but it is a basis for a judgment that the position is irrational. — Leontiskos

I think this is more along the lines I was thinking. There simply are no sound criteria for considering one race to be, tout court, inferior to another. And since such a claim could be the only justifiable premise for a rational defense of racism, it would seem to be objectively indefensible.

1. "Do you believe that life has intrinsic value, regardless of individual survival goals?"

2. "Is the concept of ‘value’ tied to the continuation of life, even beyond individual experience?" — James Dean Conroy

1. It certainly seems that life is the source of all value—no life, no value. Value is experienced, felt, and without life there is no experience or feeling. Is it possible there can be life without experience and feeling? Do plants, for example, feel and experience? Would there be value in a merely vegetative life, if such a life were without experience and feeling? It would seem not.

There are panpsychists or panexperientialists (like Whitehead) who believe it is experience all the way down. I'm not sure what that means, but surely it would entail that there is life all the way down, which would mean there could be no such thing as a dead universe of matter.

2. I don't understand just what you are asking here, but I'll have a stab at it. There are some who say that only humans see value in being. Should we take that to mean that only humans can conceptualize existence as being valuable or the source of all value. That sounds reasonable, but it doesn't rule out other organisms experiencing some kind of sense of value. The ultimate point still stands—without existence (at the very least) there can be no value, and it certainly seems plausible that mere existence is not enough and that there must be at least life, and perhaps sentient life at that. Where o where do we draw the line?

On the other hand, is the question as to whether there is a purpose beyond life (or at least beyond this life). There are religious systems which conceive of this life itself as having a purpose beyond itself. Can perfection be the overarching value? If so then the only perfect and ultimately valuable life would be eternal life. But what could that mean? Whose eternal life? If bare existence itself is life all the way down and it never begins or ends, then life is always already eternal, and temporality itself may be an illusion. But these are just thoughts that spring to mind, and I don't really know what they could mean.

It's straying a bit off topic, but two things I am convinced of are the non-duality of being, and the inevitable duality of discursive reasoning, from which it seems to follow that we cannot hope to adequately grasp the nature of reality.

It's easy to say you are not afraid of death when your life is under no threat. I doubt that if you suddenly found you had a terminal illness you would not be afraid. There is no such thing as a life without purposes, however humble those purposes may be. All purposes are geared towards either sustaining life, or fulfilling desires, even if only, in extremis, one's own life and desires.

You're right. The complexity is added with our ego, group dynamics etc, but the core biological imperative remains - good call. — James Dean Conroy

Yes, it is only humans who can say that life is the source of all value both good and bad. but animals also have purposes and value things, probably without the self-reflective awareness that symbolic culture and language enable.

But no part of organism survives in a literal sense over time. It is a unified pattern of functioning that survives, and this ‘survival’ is only an abstraction. What we call ‘this’ living thing is not a thing, it is a system of interactions with a material and social environment. This whole ecology is the unit of ‘survival’, not a ready-made thing thrown into a world like a rock. The whole ecological system ‘preserves’ itself by changing itself in a self-consistent manner. One could say, then, that it doesnt survive so much as transform itself in an ordered way. — Joshs

This reads like sophistry to me. Organisms are born, live for a time and then die. Surely you are not going to tell me that you didn't come into existence and will pass out of existence again one day? Did you have goals before you existed? Will you have goals when you no longer exist? Are you going to say you don't primarily want to survive, you wouldn't care if you knew you were to die tomorrow?

Okay, and I am wondering if we can simplify this a bit. I would want to say that if someone asserts a proposition then their assertion can be either true or false. If someone provides reasoning for a proposition their argument can be sound or unsound, and valid or invalid. So there are two basic categories: true/false and sound/unsound, where validity is presupposed by soundness and invalidity is a particular form of unsoundness. Everyone will agree that an invalid argument is irrational, but there are disagreements about whether things like false assertions or unsound yet valid arguments are irrational. — Leontiskos

Right, 'rational' is not strictly definable. You could say a rational argument is an argument consistent with its premises, in other words a valid argument. On the other hand, valid arguments can be utter nonsense. So, then we might want to say an argument needs to be valid and sound to count as rational. The problem is that premises are never justified by the arguments they justify, assuming the argument is valid. I think there is a normativity at play. Premises must be consistent with human experience and the overall human understanding of reality. Maybe they must be supported by either empirical observations or logical self-evidence, as with mathematics. But now we've ruled out much of metaphysics, at least as it is traditionally understood. We can thank Kant for that. But then his own purported synthetic a priori knowledge is not immune to critique.

'Rapture' is an emotionally charged word, a word that signifies intense emotion. Perhaps that is relatively rare. I think it's fair to say, though, that many people experience a sense of the sublime in the Kantian sense, a feeling of being part of something so much greater than the self. I think many people, if they stop to think about it, feel some wonder, even awe, at the mere fact of their existence. I find it hard to believe that you are a complete stranger to these kinds of feelings.

As with anything it's a matter of degree—these kinds of experiences are on a spectrum of intensity, and of subtlety and nuance. The other point is that attachment to ego i also seems obviously to be on a spectrum within the human race—and I think it's fairly reasonable to think that the less attached to ego one is, the more relaxed, and the more relaxed the more open to just these kinds of feelings.

Peace, brother... :wink:

There is no such thing as a gene in isolation. A living thing is a self-organizing system whose goal is not simply static survival , but the ongoing maintenance of a particular patten of interaction with its environment. — Joshs

You have to admit, though, that survival, that is life, is the ultimate—without it there are no other goals, which makes other goals secondary insofar as they depend absolutely on survival.

And I'm not just talking about human survival, human life, but all life.

I said the particles in a dead body have the same properties as they had when the body was alive. That may be incorrect. But if so, I don't see how it's a contradiction. Can you explain? — Patterner

The physical properties of particles cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances. Once they have combined in certain ways, into certain arrangements, the experiential property of particles - which was there from the beginning - causes the emergence of human consciousness. — Patterner

You've ignored this:

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The corpse's particles all still have the same properties they had when the organism wads alive.
— Patterner

But apparently not the same relations with one another. — Janus

It seems reasonable to think that when an organism dies the ways in which the particles that constitute the body are combined change such that the capacity for experience departs. I think it's reasonable to say the capacity for those experience-enabling combinations exists in the natures of those particles. What reason would we have for claiming that experience or consciousness itself exists in the particles any more than we would say that of other emergent properties? You also ignored an earlier response:

What is the reason for thinking matter cannot subjectively experience at one level when we know it subjectively experiences at another level? Why is it deemed impossible at the micro when it is a fact (possibly the only undeniable fact) at the macro?
— Patterner

OK, so we know matter can experience, as we and the other animals are material beings and we know they and we experience things. Other emergent properties such as wetness, hardness and so on don't obtain at the level of fundamental particles because they are the result of interactions between particles, so why should we think the case is any different with experience or consciousness?

It's not a matter of saying that it is impossible that particles experience, but that we have no idea how it could be that they experience anything. In other words, we don't know what it could even mean to say that particles are conscious. We are satisfied with saying that particles have the potential, in their interactions with each other, for other emergent properties, so why not think the same for consciousness? — Janus

Why don't you try to address those objections?

Okay, good. I would even go so far as to say that they are irrational. Is that the same as what you are saying? Or are you making a more conservative claim? — Leontiskos

Interesting question! Let's take racism; if someone thinks a person is to be shunned, dismissed as inferior or even vilified on account of their skin colour, it is obvious that there is no rational justification for such an attitude because there is no logical or empirically determinable connection between skin colour and personal worth, intelligence or moral rectitude.

So, shall we say their attitude is irrational or simply non-rational? I'd say that if they concocted some completely bogus supposed connection between skin colour and personal worth or intelligence then their attitude would be based on illogical or erroneous thinking, and it would then be fair to say they are being irrational.

If on the other hand, they said they just don't like people of whatever skin colour then perhaps we could say their attitude was simply non-rational or emotionally driven. Then again it seems unlikely that their emotional attitude would not be bolstered if not entirely based on some kind of erroneous thinking,

Presumably your hesitancy would come in the religious realm, where you want to say that a religious tenet could fail to be rationally justifiable without being irrational. I think this may end up splitting too many hairs between holding a proposition and "giving air to an assertion." On my view a religious tenet can have a characteristically different form of rational adherence, but it nevertheless requires rational justification. In any case, this is opening a whole new vista and can of worms for the thread. — Leontiskos

I think there is a valid distinction, somewhat along Kant's lines, between pure reason and practical reason. For example, in regard to justice, to the idea of all people being equal before the law and being equally subject to it and equally deserving of rights. I think this is not so much positively rationally justified as it is negatively, and by that, I mean that there is no purely rational justification for treating one person differently than another tout court.

On the other hand, perhaps there is a practically rational justification for treating the POTUS differently than the rest of the people. Not to say I think that's a good idea, mind. I'm not a moral non-cognitivist, I'm more of the persuasion that morality is objective in the sense that it evolves out of the needs of the community. So, murder is objectively wrong because it is not something a functional community could condone ( at least when it comes to its own members). Obviously, communities may have practical reasons, at least in some cases, war for example, for not considering the killing of non-community members to be murder. It's a messy business this morality!

I don't think it is rational to do that. Do you think so? — Leontiskos

No, and I think the examples you gave of the kinds of attitudes which you say are deemed to be beyond the pale are generally attitudes which are not rationally justifiable. You could even define "beyond the pale" as "not rationally justifiable".

Is it rational to give air to assertions which are not rationally justifiable?

Good to know. I don't think I have a sense of the numinous, so I can only go with what I hear from others. My experience of this word is mainly confined to New Age groups I was a member of decades ago and Christianity - which I grew up in. I also studied Jung at university in the 1980's and I have a range of vestigial traces of that frame in my head whenever I hear this word "numinous" — Tom Storm

This leaves me wondering what the numinous, which you apparently don't find yourself having a sense of. means to you. It must mean something, have some associations, or you would not be able to say that you don't think you have a sense of it. You would instead say that you don't even know what the word 'numinous' means. (Funnily when I thought I had written the word 'numinous' I had hit the 'h' at the beginning of the word instead of the 'n' and the spell prompt suggested 'humongous'). Do you have a sense of the humongous?

For years, also decades ago, I was a member of the Gurdjieff Foundation. Perhaps back then I associated the word numinous with the Mysteries, with the fantasy that we can come to know the Ultimate Truth, that anyone could come to know such a thing. that there could be, that there are those who Know.

Now I simply associate the word with the very real fact that, although we may know many facts about the world, the existence of the world and of ourselves is nonetheless absolutely mysterious. That the only absolute truth to be known is that there are questions that can never be answered. That the only possible liberation is to accept this fundamental ignorance down to the very depths of ourselves. I think this is a truth which is hard to deny.

I'm not particularly partial to the light-and-dark dichotomy. I tend to see everything as shades of grey. But, I understand the symbolism. — Tom Storm

You don't see the light and the dark sides of life? That leaves me wondering how you enjoy the arts and literature. What about nature? It is overwhelmingly beautiful, isn't it? But also overwhelmingly violent, and ultimately dangerous? For me to see only shades of grey would be to be distracted from these realities.

Yes, we seem particularly keen on golden era nostalgia, don't we? — Tom Storm

We do. And for me it is like the difference between reading escapist works of fantasy and works that reflect the realities of human life. (Of course, not all works of fantasy do not reflect the realities of human life—they might instead be allegorical, so I have in mind here the most puerile works).

I suspect that this would appeal to some people, but many would struggle to make this work. If the numinous is not tied to the transcendent, but is essentially an emotional reaction, then I suppose it's tantamount to enjoying music or a painting. But at least with art, there is a tangible artifact that serves as the source of the experience. Bathing in one's subjective sense of the numinous might also be somewhat indulgent and narcissistic. You may be more receptive to this, how do you see it working? — Tom Storm

I don't see the numinous as excluding the darkness and the suffering and the tragedy of living and dying. It doesn't overcome the mystery, and it has nothing to do with the transcendent. We are cast upon the shores of life like flotsam. The shores of life, the shores of death, they are the same shores. The ocean out of which we came is right there, but we don't know its depths. What is there, which we can only superficially understand, is irrelevant to the numinous dimension of living and to the mystery of dying.

How could the numinous be "tied to the transcendent' when the transcendent can be nothing to us? The meaning of our lives is found in feeling, not in thinking. How could anything be meaningful except insofar as it feels meaningful? We are washed up on the shores of life and death with nothing to lose. We learn to gain and then we find ourselves having something to lose. So we begin to dream of salvation, of liberation. We think they must be transcendent, but how can there be liberation of salvation in nothing?

Salvation, liberation, freedom are dreams of perfection. This world is not perfect, so they cannot be found here we think. So, in the face of the nothing which is the transcendental we look back to ancient wisdom, imagining that something has been lost—there was a Golden Age, an age of Perfect Intellect, of perfectible thought and understanding. This is pure fantasy. Even for the elites there was no such thing—they were condemned to live and die just like the masses.

We think that there is a darkness in modernity. Well, of course there is—there is a darkness in everything. Without the darkness there would be no light. The only salvation, liberation, freedom is to be found in acceptance of our condition. We cannot be free of suffering, but we can be free of the attachment to our suffering in acceptance of it.

This is a disposition, and dispositions are matters of feeling not of thinking. Or at least they are not matters of Pure Thought—we must think with our feelings and feel with our thoughts. It is that immanence, that acceptance of absolute mystery, and the embracing of limitation. Which is the numinous. There is a reason that the greatest beauty in literature and the other arts is to be found in tragedy.

It is not merely "bathing in one's sense of the numinous"—we are always already drowning in it. It is the vacuous distractions afforded by dreams of transcendence that leave us blind to the terrible. the beautiful, truth of our most intimate companion—the numinous.

The corpse's particles all still have the same properties they had when the organism wads alive. — Patterner

But apparently not the same relations with one another.

I've watched about 30 of those lectures, but quite a while ago now, and I agree with you that they are kind of nebulous and they do become repetitive.

It seemed to me that he is saying we should trust our experiences of the numinous, not in that they give us any actual knowledge about anything, but in that they can be personally transformational, they can change the way we feel about life.

I quite liked his distinctions between kinds of knowledge, much along the lines of what I've been banging on about for years.

Philosophical accounts of theism are not necessarily more sophisticated, so I'd start by pushing back at that built in bias. — Hanover

It's worth noting the relation between the terms 'sophisticated' and 'sophistry'; to sophisticate may be to make sophistical, if the elaboration does not reflect a well-founded and understood increase in complexity.

Yes. I was thinking of mechanization as an improper model for understanding how humans -- and other forms of life -- coexist with each other. Otherwise, it has its uses. Technology, as you say, is neither good nor bad. — J

I agree with the idea that organisms, at least complex organisms, such as us and the so-called "higher animals' cannot be understood comprehensively in reductive mechanistic terms. The reductive models have their uses in understanding animals, including humans, but they have their limitations.

What is the reason for thinking matter cannot subjectively experience at one level when we know it subjectively experiences at another level? Why is it deemed impossible at the micro when it is a fact (possibly the only undeniable fact) at the macro? — Patterner

OK, so we know matter can experience, as we and the other animals are material beings and we know they and we experience things. Other emergent properties such as wetness, hardness and so on don't obtain at the level of fundamental particles because they are the result of interactions between particles, so why should we think the case is any different with experience or consciousness?

It's not a matter of saying that it is impossible that particles experience, but that we have no idea how it could be that they experience anything. In other words, we don't know what it could even mean to say that particles are conscious. We are satisfied with saying that particles have the potential, in their interactions with each other, for other emergent properties, so why not think the same for consciousness?

For some God makes life more bearable, meaningful, attractive. But I suspect this only works if you think God is real, not if you think it is merely a charming fiction. — Tom Storm

Sure, and as I said I have no argument with people's faiths—provide they don't think it is more than that. When that happens, they start expecting others to agree with them. History is full of examples. I also think that people who need such beliefs to give their lives meaning lack imagination.

Sure. I think where you sit on this depends on what you go through and how your experince makes you feel. — Tom Storm

Certainly! And it might also be a matter of neurotransmitters in some cases.

Me too. I even appreciate the little I understand of mysticism and spirituality. — Tom Storm

Yep. I also appreciate the poetry and imagination of some mysticism and spirituality. I also think think that life, even just existence. is, ultimately, a mystery.

I think we both agree that if you're looking for vulgar, shallow displays of status and materialism; gaudy expressions of soulless wealth - you'll find no shortage of examples in religion, spiritual traditions, and cults alike. Even the ostentatious wealth of the Vatican shows us how Mammon and spiritual traditions are not necessarily incompatible. — Tom Storm

Yes, much in religion is also materialistic and consumerist. The Catholics insofar as they yield obeisance to Mammon, do not follow the teachings of Jesus, which makes them hypocrites in my view.

Amen. Totalitarianism, mechanization, and, as you discuss so well, the tendency to treat humans as sophisticated bits of matter with "needs" and "goals" that must be arbitrary. — J

I agree that totalitarianism is bad per se, but is mechanization bad as such? Are humans not material beings with needs and goals, some of which are arbitrary and others pretty much necessary (and by necessary I don't mean the need for consolation, I count that as one of the "arbitrary needs")?

Must we gild the lily?

For me it seems more aesthetic or about meaning making - the wish for life to be significant - as a bulwark against the tragedy of living. But no doubt it is different things for differnt folk. — Tom Storm

Surely the ideas themselves have their own beauty. Why would we need to believe they are literally true to enjoy that beauty? To claim that would be to claim there is no beauty or meaning in fiction.

How can life be more significant than it already is? It would only seem so if we believed there is more of it, and a much better life to boot that lasts forever. That is the essence of Buddhism, Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions. If someone is able to believe such things, then I have no argument with that, but better that they keep to their beliefs and do not reveal their doubts by wishing to convert others for moral support. That shows weakness of conviction.

Also living is not wholly a tragedy in my view. On balance I would say there is more joy and interest than misery and boredom.

In any case what does 'god as ground of being' offer for the seeker of consolation? Does the ground of being care about us, or the animals or any life? To think so would seem to be a gross anthro-projection.

There are parts of religion I admire—mindfulness, stillness, equanimity, acceptance, love, compassion—you don't need all the superstitious stuff for those. In fact, I think it only gets in the way by confusing the issue.

But no doubt some will argue that the word of disenchanted rationalism and modernity has allowed us to retreat into crude things like money in place of spiritual riches. — Tom Storm

They might argue that and in my view they would be wrong. The world of consumer culture is disenchanted to be sure. But the world of science is anything but disenchanted. And we still have all the old worlds of music, poetry, literature, painting, architecture, the crafts, the natural world. We lack nothing the ancients had except their superstition. And when I say we lack their superstition I do not mean to refer to the multitude. That said, I would say the multitude are far less miserable today than they were in ancient times.

Some people confuse materialism as a philosophical view with materialism in the sense of consumerism—a sad misleading conflation!

I'm not sure what this gives us - god as immanence - what does a human do with such an account. Any thoughts? — Tom Storm

I could just as well ask what the account of 'god as transcendence' gives us. At least god as immanence is more comprehensible. According to some accounts Einstein agreed with Spinoza's view in seeing god as the laws of nature.

What does 'god as the ground of being' give us? Is that god different than Spinoza's? If so, how? For that matter what does any account of anything that cannot be seen, heard, felt, touched etc., give us?

It seems to me the only motivation for believing in god is the wish to be cared for. The wish of the child.

I agree with you. The purportedly historical account that says we have "lost something" without ever being able to say what it is that we have lost (apart from the capacity for believing that what our wishful imaginations tell us must be true, and of course there are a great many who have not lost that at all). Is the world as understood by science really less enchanting than the ancient myths? Not to me. Which is not to say the ancient myths have no literary value. The Odyssey is still a great read.

I can't see that you're saying anything that means anything.

It's the difference between the subjective experience of an information processing system and the subjective experience of a particle. — Patterner

The notion of a subjective experience of a particle makes no sense.

No. Proto-consciousness is subjective experience, not the potential for it. I use proto-consciousness to refer to the subjective experience of particles, and consciousness to refer to the collective subjective experience of groups of particles that process information. But whether it's a particle's consciousness or a human's, the consciousness is the same. The difference is what is being subjectively experienced. A particle is not experiencing thoughts, hormones, vision, hearing, being alive, or anything other than being a particle. — Patterner

Why not just use 'consciousness' to denote subjective experience? There is no "collective subjective experience of groups of particles" there is just subjective experience. You are multiplying entities unnecessarily. You list all the things a particle is not experiencing; and "being a particle" is not an experience unless it involves experiencing something, and being is not something, so can you say what it is experiencing or in other words aware of?

Okay, then perhaps try legal microdosing with psilocybin or cannabis if available. Or cognitive behavior therapy. I don't know what else to suggest. There may be other solutions, I'm no expert. Dwelling on these kinds of thoughts will only reinforce the cycle and exacerbate the problem it seems to me.

Though if it is just due to a chemical imbalance that would be unfortunate. Though evidence does seem to show that the chemical imbalance is a myth when it comes to depression. — Darkneos

I don't think the evidence shows that at all. Quite the contrary. My own experience has also showed me this: years ago, I experimented for a while with MDMA. The following day or two I would be horribly depressed, almost inconsolable.

The point is that your thoughts will reflect your mood, and your mood can indeed be subject to neurotransmitters. I have a friend who found life so intolerable that she always said she will end her life when her two children are no longer dependent on her. About five years agio she decided to try SSRIs and she told me she couldn't believe how differently she felt and thought about her life. She wished she had discovered them twelve years earlier.

Yes, that's the problem. All the emphasis these days is on economic performance, neither party will propose anything that will obviously negatively affect the constituents' bottom line.

Because this is how God has traditionally been understood in classical theism. It's not an evolution; it's a return to earlier thinkers like Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. — Tom Storm

Were they not Christians? Why not just return to Spinoza? I think his theology is more sophisticated than any Christian theology, including ideas such as identifying God with "being itself".

And vice versa, and so on with all other emergent properties. I wonder, though, why you keep speaking about human consciousness, as though humans were the only conscious entities.

Although human consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of human consciousness. — Patterner

I agree with this, except I would just say "consciousness" and drop the "human".

I do, however, consider the possibility that consciousness is a ubiquitous field that accomplishes the same thing proto-consciousness does. — Patterner

So what is the difference between consciousness and "proto-consciousness? Does the latter just mean "potential for consciousness" in which case we could talk about fundamental particles, even quarks, having "proto-wetness"?

Whether subjective experience is due to the particles being animated by such a field, or a property of the particles, might amount to the same thing. — Patterner

It might, but it only requires that the field have the potential to cause consciousness or wetness, not that the field itself be conscious or wet.

I encourage you to seek out a professional therapist. Feeling a lack of joy may be indicative of a mental health need or signal depression. — NotAristotle

No, it's due to the potential logical conclusions of thinking about this.

Therapists can't help because they cannot address such philosophical questions, let alone even understand them. — Darkneos

We can feel depressed due to dopamine or serotonin deficiency or depletion, and this can lead to the kinds of thoughts you seem to be having. On the one hand you are saying it's all just chemicals and yet on the other you say that these thoughts about it all being chemicals are not due to chemicals but are "logical conclusions". Do you not see that you are contradicting yourself?

You're still missing the point. You argue that microphysical particles must be conscious because consciousness is always found in certain configurations of particles. I pointed out that is like saying that microphysical particles must be wet because wetness is reliably found in certain configurations of microphysical particles.

I haven't denied that the potential for wetness and consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, but that is a different claim altogether. And I haven't said that anything just happens randomly or by chance either, so that is a red herring..

You haven't answered the question. I'm asking about atoms not molecules. I could be asking about what properties of electrons, protons and neutrons or even quarks give rise to wetness.
All you're telling us is that wetness emerges at the molecular level. What you've given is just description of what happens not explanation.

i'm saying there must be an explanation for our consciousness in the properties of the particles that we are made out of. Just as there is an explanation for wet in the properties of the particles that whatever the liquid in question is made out of. — Patterner

What is the explanation of wetness in the properties of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

It seems you're claiming that particles must be conscious because some aggregates of particles are conscious. That seems like saying that particles must be wet because some aggregates of particles are wet. What's the actual argument?

What is DNA if not chemical combinations? Of course not all chemical complexes are conscious...it doesn't follow that none are, or that consciousness cannot emerge in certain kinds of chemical systems.

Physical connections aren't enough. — Patterner

Perhaps it's more like "some, or even most, kinds of physical connections aren't enough".

The phrase "seem plausible" refers to an individual's attitudinal approach to the ideas rather than the soundness of the ideas. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Evidence" is fundamentally subjective, as the result of judgement, and the evidence must be judged as credible. There is no such thing as "a claim without any evidence" because the claim itself is evidence. — Metaphysician Undercover

You contradict yourself, so nothing more need be said.

:cool: