I had to look that one up. Learned something new today. (Y)

lead someone down the garden path = mislead, deceive, hoodwink, or seduce
Source: Wiktionary

lead sb up the garden path = to deceive someone
Source: Cambridge Dictionary

I don't think that the holographic model bolsters NDEs. My evidence is quite separate from that.

The evidence is there in many disciplines. Now the model had to be rethought for many reasons in many disciplines. Biological science had to much at stake to make any changes in their model but other disciplines have no such constraints. The evidence continues to suggest a new model is needed. An alternative approach is to deny all evidence because it doesn't fit into existing model. It won't last.

SO I guess, if I wanted to prolong the discussion, I would ask you to explain the relationship between mind and body, such that one does not need the other in order to form memories and such.

But I really gotta do some work...

Evidence forces change. Quantum model of physics was forced because the old model was no longer adequate. It won't work to try to fit NDE into the existing model. That it's the source of the tension.

The logic here seems to be that we ought accept new models on slim evidence, because they are new.

It won't work to try to fit NDE into the existing model. — Rich

How do you know unless you first try?

There is substantial research being performed on a holographic model of the universe irrespective of NDE. There are problems all over the place that cannot be explained by existing models.

How do you know unless you first try? — Banno

The existing model is not adequate for all of the objections being raised. It doesn't make sense c with the existing model without resorting to denial or illusion, neither of which explain anything.

I was given the Eben Alexander book on his lengthy NDE, although I must confess to not finishing it.
Pim Von Lommel's work on NDE's also strikes me as credible. But the one book that really opened up some interesting perspectives was H P Lovecraft (of all things). That idea of accessing other realms of being through dreams. Can't remember any detail but it had an uncannily real sense to it, when I read it all those years ago.

In any case, and aside from all that, a great deal of the kerfuffle about 'res cogitans' can be laid to rest if you realise that 'it' is never disclosed or revealed in the third person. In other words it is never a 'that'. The original meaning of 'substance' was nearer in meaning to 'being' than 'stuff'. So Descartes' model is really more like an economic model than a scientific hypothesis about something that actually exists. It's more like 'suppose the world consists of two basic types of being, rather than 'substance' - thinking being, which is not located, nor extended, and material being, which is extended and entirely devoid of intelligence. If it is called 'being' rather than 'substance', I think it is nearer to the intended meaning.

The point about 'intelligent being' is that it is able to grasp incorporeal objects such as numbers, laws, grammatical rules, and such like. Those things comprise as it were the 'intelligible realm' which informs the material realm, by providing the forms of things to which material particulars conform in some degree (although that is more Platonist than Cartesian).

Another salient (but unrelated) point is that minds seem to be able to reconfigure brains. This happens in cases of neuroplasticity but it also happens on a smaller scale through the way attention is directed which can bring about changes in brain function. This seems to indicate that intentionality is able to operate 'top down' on the physical brain. The question that might be asked is, when exactly did this ability begin to manifest in organisms? To which it seems quite possible to imagine that it is characteristic of even the most basic life-forms; it might be a universal attribute of organic life forms, generally overlooked BECAUSE of its dualistic connotations.

Both these points still have many of the familiar problems of interactivity, but I think viewing it helps to reframe the issue. I don't think 'res cogitans' ever meant 'substance' in the way it is commonly but mistakenly said to have done.

The holographic principle have been hijacked by some folks out there. :-}

• Quantum woo (RationalWiki article)
• You Aren't Living in a Hologram, Even if You Wish You Were (Ryan F Mandelbaum; Gizmodo; Jan 2017)

Thanks for bringing us back on topic.

How is it that the thing that thinks is able to influence the thing that is extended?

If they are incommensurate, then must that question remain unanswerable?

I noticed John Searle provided a very convincing demo of mind over matter in one of his video talks.

He raised his arm.

Now he well knows that this mere ability invokes a whole host of difficulties, but the ability of a conscious agent to do that is pretty well unarguable.

Of course nowadays it is simply assumed by most folks that mind is an attribute or quality of body, rather than vice versa, but in my view that is very much a cultural construct. My Indian Studies lecturer used to point out that Westerners say of someone who died, that he 'gave up the ghost' whereas Indians tend to say he 'gave up the body'.

Now he well knows that this mere ability invokes a whole host of difficulties, but the ability of a conscious agent to do that is pretty well unarguable. — Wayfarer

I find his argument quite convincing. Perhaps the difficulties are illusions of one sort or another.

I can explain how consciousness doesn't need the body in a general way, but we don't have enough information to give a good explanation. I don't know if your point is to demonstrate that because we don't have a good explanation, that that somehow invalidates the testimonial evidence. If that is your point, I would simply say that there is much about quantum physics that we don't understand, but there is enough other evidence to suggest that it's true. The same is true of NDEs.

If these experiences do reflect a metaphysical reality, as I believe they do, then it seems that consciousness itself doesn't reside in the body at all, but resides and is dependent upon a separate energy source. After reflecting on this subject for years, it seems that the body is simply a receptacle for consciousness. From what others have experienced, we do keep a form after death, it's just a different form, but with higher sensory inputs. In fact, many have reported their memories returning to them, putting the existence of memories outside of the body and into a metaphysical form or body of some kind. I've come to believe that consciousness is at the bottom of reality itself. That we are part of a vast consciousness, and it is here that the true self resides with all of its memories and knowledge.

It's not that - all of the difficulties about mind/body, nature of mind and it's relation to body, and so on. I think the field of mind body medicine, the placebo effect, and so on, is quite interesting - in those cases a belief will have physical consequences. Being an Aussie, you will be familiar with the stories of the Aborigines who used to die after the bone was pointed at them - medicine could do nothing for them. And so on. So it's really not a straightforward matter.

I think that my view is a kind of pragmatic dualism - I really do think there is a basic ontological distinction between the physical and the mental. But again, reifying mind as a substance is deeply problematical. From the perspective of a sensory being in the phenomenal domain, there is no object called 'mind' - but it is nevertheless an indubitable reality, just as Descartes said.

it seems that the body is simply a receptacle for consciousness — Sam26

I think the analogy of a TV receiver might be an effective metaphor.

This seems like a reasonable place to start:



Post above have some links.

In the news:

After 15 years in a vegetative state, nerve stimulation restores consciousness (Sep 2017)

Spinoza offered a pretty solid demonstration of how two substances are impossible.

A substance cannot be determined outside of it's attributes and modes, and those are logically dependent on the substance. However, that's exactly what the Cartesian is doing: they believe they can conceptualize a attribute outside its substance, and give it somehow a separate identity. It'd be easier to conceive of matter/mind as two aspects or attributes of the same infinite substance.

Here I suspect we meet an impasse. I'd say you could distinguish one colour from another, but still did not know that one of them was red. Witness the Greek's "bronze sky", and the Himba seeing different colours to you or I. Language crystallises perception. — Banno

This really makes no sense. Are you suggesting that the Himba fail to see the full array of colors that you do because they live in a language deficient environment? That seems hopelessly backwards. The reason the Himba fail to see the full array of colors you do is because they live in a color deficient environment, and since they can't see those colors, they never created words for them. It's not like the Himba are just particularly bad wordsmiths when it comes to labeling colors, and now the Himba can't see colors everyone else can.

I'll certainly admit that pointing things out, discussing them, analyzing them, and thinking about them clarifies them and brings forth knowledge you would have never otherwise known. So if that's what you mean by "language crystalizes perception," I agree. Thought increases our knowledge, thought occurs with language; therefore language increases knowledge. So sometimes language precedes knowledge, sometimes not.

To the real question here, are you actually asserting that your language theory is an empirical one, and this isn't a matter of philosophy as much as it is a scientific one?

I believe he's referring to the study referenced here.

I would suggest listening to this video if you have the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8scc2YbXUk

I don't see that as supportive of the idea that language is the primary determinant of knowledge, but only that culture, environment, language, and I'm sure a multitude of other factors play a role in shaping one's understanding of the world. It's not as if animals, devoid of all language, are unable to form a conception of reality. I'd expect that monkeys from Asia have differing perspectives of similar events than do monkeys from Africa, simply due to the environmental differences. I also think it's obvious that any sort of formalized thought about ordinary events will result in a deeper understanding of those events, meaning that if I study colors (which includes reducing my thoughts to language), I will be more knowledgeable about the different types of colors than someone who doesn't.

I'd say you could distinguish one colour from another, but still did not know that one of them was red." — Banno

I note that "red" isn't in quotes. What does this comment even mean? I could distinguish red from green, but not know they were different?

I was just referring to the part that one's colour language shapes one's colour perception.

I note that "red" isn't in quotes. What does this comment even mean? I could distinguish red from green, but not know they were different?

I assume he meant it in the sense that I can distinguish one person from another but not know that one of them was your wife.

In what I currently presume to be a parallel stance to your own:

There are non-linguistic ways that lesser animals can – and we humans do – associate qualitative experiences such as the colors green and red with differentiable meaning. Rather than limiting meaning to the semantics embodies within languages, we could, for example, presume language as a refinement of the following: e.g., all mammal’s blood is red; red can then be associated with any number of givens appraised to be ontically associated with blood: the presence of life (signifying fresh food for most, if not all, carnivores); the presence of a wound whereby the other is in some way in need of assistance (arguably common enough among social mammals which will lick each other’s wounds with emotive intent of helping the other out). The qualitative value of green, however, will not hold the same symbolic referents tied into what which is ontic - most likely, most often, meaning something symbolically associated with grass and tree leaves. So, for example, to the carnivore (given that it can visually differentiate between red and green), red will hold a body of meaning apart from the body of symbolic meaning it emotively relates to the color green. In this example, no formal language is required for red to hold specific meaning(s) differentiable from those held via awareness of color green.

Probably the wand that gives it a humorous flair. :)

There are any number of oddities though.

When is this extra stuff installed?
What difference does it make?
What the heck is this extra stuff anyway? — jorndoe

Lots of questions, to which I don’t currently have an answer to. But why address this as “extra-stuff”. It is no more extra than is the mind-stuff causally tied into the brain-stuff. Question then is, can the normal stuff of mind yet be when separated from the normal stuff of body to which it is normally causally tied into. To reply with the obvious, in dualism and non-physicalist monism this does become a metaphysical possibility – still, this metaphysical possibility is not the same as a metaphysical requirement/actuality that can be proven to be in any particular way. As to the “hows”, I refer back to my initial sentence (still, what self is as an identity is bound to play some part in this issue, imo).

I'd go further and suggest that all objects of perception contain indistiguishable elements of the synthetic and analytic. A bird flying overhead synthetically is some amount of raw data, but reason imposes so much upon it, one can never know what that raw data is. Analytically, we add our defintions to it, so that it is expected to act a certain way, from flapping its wings to being a predator.

How we analyze is in part instinctual, and, as we are a higher organism, in part deliberate. Our perhaps best tool for analysis is language, but that's all it is - a tool. This leads to an indirect realist metaphysic, simply saying we know our world only through interpretation, some being the way the eye works, some the brain, and some language.

I assume he meant it in the sense that I can distinguish one person from another but not know that one of them was your wife. — Michael

I don't follow this distinction. If you can distinguish one person from the other, you must have an unspoken definition of person. The only distinction between the definition of person and wife is that the latter is more complex. Are you committing to some arbitrary delineation between simple and complex definitions? What is it?

It strikes me as possible for a dog to recognize a wife, especially one that has interacted with enough human couples to where the dog might fully expect a swat from a particular man if he nips at a particular woman. In fact, adult cats don't interact with other's kittens because they understand what a mother is (and how she acts).

I'd go further and suggest that all objects of perception contain indistiguishable elements of the synthetic and analytic. — Hanover

With my curiosity straying away from the metaphysical for a second:

This reminds me of experiments I once learned about where geese (?) chicks were presented with two overhead forms (cardboard cutouts or something like this): one where the bird shape had a short neck and long tail feathers (typical or raptors) and another with long neck and short tail feathers (typical of non-raptors). The chicks ran looking for shelter when the first form was glided overhead but did nothing significant when the second form was glided overhead. I concede this is only hearsay without a proper link given (won’t now try to find it)—but supposing something like this to be at times the case:

Would you be conformable with saying that this synthetic (bottom-up obtained) and analytic (in cog.sci . terms: top-down attained, i.e. (genotypically) predetermined toward learned) conflux of meaning can be inherited in all things that can perceive?

For my part, I’m accustomed to using other terms to express such behavioral inheritance of meaning. But I’m curious to know how one would address this same form of inheritance of meaning(s) in lesser animals via formal epistemological philosophy—this such as via the synthetic / analytic distinction.

If I'm rambling, I'll understand. But I am curious all the same.

I don't follow this distinction. If you can distinguish one person from the other, you must have an unspoken definition of person. The only distinction between the definition of person and wife is that the latter is more complex. Are you committing to some arbitrary delineation between simple and complex definitions? What is it? — Hanover

I just mean it in the sense that I might see two people standing next to each other but not know that they're husband and wife.