The experience of red, of a sound, of love, any such experience I refer to as consciousness, and indeed it is subjective. It doesn't matter whether human animal or plant, the current laws of physics cannot possibly account for the existence of any of these experiences, because in these laws the building blocks of the universe are particles that don't feel anything and whose sole ability is to move other particles. If all these particles can possibly do is move each other then by definition they can't elicit any experience. Yet we experience. So something fundamental is missing in the current laws of physics.

Pantheism could be one solution, there are others, but it cannot be the current laws of physics.

I specifically said that the Cosmologists make Speculations. Nobody is taking what they say as some kind of Gospel. But you have to start with some kind of Premise for any argument. it was a spectacular breakthrough and discovery when Science discovered that Matter is made out of Energy. So it means a lot to say that Matter is made out of Energy. — SteveKlinko

I tend to agree that what we call matter and what we call light are closely related, that fundamentally they may be one and the same, just gotta be careful in saying that "matter is made out of energy" because that can be misinterpreted in many ways, seeing that the concept of energy is used in so many inconsistent ways. If you say matter is made out of electromagnetic energy then fundamentally gravitational attraction would be electromagnetic attraction, which surely is possible but we haven't come up with a precise model for that yet. But I agree that light is closely connected to what we call matter.

We are talking about Space dimensions here. There are in fact 3 dimensions of Space in our Universe and you can designate any point in this Space using 3 coordinates. Having only 2 coordinates will not let you designate all the points. Having an extra coordinate would be redundant. You only need 3. But in an actual 4D Space you would need 4 coordinates. With 4D Space you actually have another direction that you can move in. There is a whole lot more Space in 4D Space than there is in 3D Space. 3D Space is an entirely different thing than 4D Space. — SteveKlinko

What I don't agree with here, is that we choose to construct the universe as having 3 dimensions of space, we are the ones who choose to interpret our experiences in that way. We presuppose that the universe has 3 dimensions of space and then fit what we experience into these 3 dimensions, but we could just as well presuppose that it has 2 dimensions and fit our experiences into these 2 dimensions. What that would change is that, when you 'think' that you are moving forward or backward, you would instead see the 2D universe change in front of you. What you interpret in a 3D space as you turning your head in an unchanging universe would be interpreted in a 2D space as you being still in a changing universe.

Then maybe we could come up with interesting insights by presupposing 4 dimensions of space and fitting our experiences into that. But what I'm saying is that we are the ones who through thought impose the number of dimensions of space over our experiences, rather than these dimensions preexisting. And that it would be more fruitful to fit our experiences into various numbers of dimensions and see what comes out of it, rather than assuming from the start that the universe has 3 spatial dimensions, which is a viewpoint that we force and not something testable empirically. Sure we intuitively fit many of our experiences into 3 dimensions of the mind, but maybe the interesting thing to do here would be to try fitting our experiences into 4 dimensions, rather than assuming there are 3 dimensions and thus finding ourselves unable to visualize a 4th.

I specifically said that the Cosmologists make Speculations. Nobody is taking what they say as some kind of Gospel. But you have to start with some kind of Premise for any argument. it was a spectacular breakthrough and discovery when Science discovered that Matter is made out of Energy. So it means a lot to say that Matter is made out of Energy. — SteveKlinko
I tend to agree that what we call matter and what we call light are closely related, that fundamentally they may be one and the same, just gotta be careful in saying that "matter is made out of energy" because that can be misinterpreted in many ways, seeing that the concept of energy is used in so many inconsistent ways. If you say matter is made out of electromagnetic energy then fundamentally gravitational attraction would be electromagnetic attraction, which surely is possible but we haven't come up with a precise model for that yet. But I agree that light is closely connected to what we call matter.

We are talking about Space dimensions here. There are in fact 3 dimensions of Space in our Universe and you can designate any point in this Space using 3 coordinates. Having only 2 coordinates will not let you designate all the points. Having an extra coordinate would be redundant. You only need 3. But in an actual 4D Space you would need 4 coordinates. With 4D Space you actually have another direction that you can move in. There is a whole lot more Space in 4D Space than there is in 3D Space. 3D Space is an entirely different thing than 4D Space. — SteveKlinko
What I don't agree with here, is that we choose to construct the universe as having 3 dimensions of space, we are the ones who choose to interpret our experiences in that way. We presuppose that the universe has 3 dimensions of space and then fit what we experience into these 3 dimensions, but we could just as well presuppose that it has 2 dimensions and fit our experiences into these 2 dimensions. What that would change is that, when you 'think' that you are moving forward or backward, you would instead see the 2D universe change in front of you. What you interpret in a 3D space as you turning your head in an unchanging universe would be interpreted in a 2D space as you being still in a changing universe.

Then maybe we could come up with interesting insights by presupposing 4 dimensions of space and fitting our experiences into that. But what I'm saying is that we are the ones who through thought impose the number of dimensions of space over our experiences, rather than these dimensions preexisting. And that it would be more fruitful to fit our experiences into various numbers of dimensions and see what comes out of it, rather than assuming from the start that the universe has 3 spatial dimensions, which is a viewpoint that we force and not something testable empirically. Sure we intuitively fit many of our experiences into 3 dimensions of the mind, but maybe the interesting thing to do here would be to try fitting our experiences into 4 dimensions, rather than assuming there are 3 dimensions and thus finding ourselves unable to visualize a 4th. — leo

You are wrong about Space. Our Space is 3D. There is no presupposing it is 4D. Think about the actual Space you live in. You can go Up/Down, Left/Right, Backward/Forward and that's it. In 4D Space you actually have another pair of directions you can move in. 4D is a whole different thing than 3D.

You are wrong about Space. Our Space is 3D. There is no presupposing it is 4D. Think about the actual Space you live in. You can go Up/Down, Left/Right, Backward/Forward and that's it. In 4D Space you actually have another pair of directions you can move in. 4D is a whole different thing than 3D. — SteveKlinko

You're not attempting to understand what I say. To you it is obvious that our space is 3D, that there is no interpretation of the mind going on that makes it appear 3D, that it just is 3D. It used to be obvious that the Earth is flat. Often things appear obvious because of unchallenged deeply held beliefs, of how we intuitively generalize from limited experiences. Yes sure it appears to you that you can go up/down, left/right, backward/forward, that's obvious to you, just like it's obvious that the Earth is flat. And yet from another point of view the Earth doesn't appear flat. You know how some optical illusions make your mind see the exact same thing in two very different ways? It's not the thing that changes, it's how your mind interprets differently the thing that makes it look different. In the same way I'm saying that by interpreting what you see differently you could come to see things differently. And see that it is your mind that interprets space as 3D.

Again, try to assume for a moment that our space is 2D. Under this interpretation, it is not you who moves across a static scenery, it is the scenery that moves while you are under the impression to be the one moving. This interpretation is not intuitive, it takes some thought and focus to get used to, but it is not inconsistent. You cannot demonstrate empirically that the space is 3D and not 2D. Because it is the mind that imposes dimensions on what it experiences.

Why, in a 2D universe, do you think that people would be stationary while other things are moving? That seems arbitrary to me.

Yes that's arbitrary, but I find it harder to visualize a 2D universe where we are moving in the same instances that we interpret ourselves as moving in a 3D universe. So I was really just giving an heuristic argument as to why we are the ones who impose dimensions onto what we experience, rather than these dimensions existing independently of us.

Yes that's arbitrary, but I find it harder to visualize a 2D universe where we are moving in the same instances that we interpret ourselves as moving in a 3D universe. So I was really just giving an heuristic argument as to why we are the ones who impose dimensions onto what we experience, rather than these dimensions existing independently of us. — leo

Ah, that makes sense.

Ah, that makes sense. — Terrapin Station

Did you react the same way the first time you heard the Earth isn't flat?

I mean that it makes sense that you meant it simply as a visualization tool.

I don't recall ever thinking that the Earth was flat.

And re the broader topic, I don't actually think that anything other than 3D space is coherent, but it's fun to do a "let's kinda try to fantasize about this stuff."

you can not understant something until you place it in a context.. That is why, even if we do not have an evidence for ulterior dimensions, we can still consider an hypothetical fourth or fifth dimension to help us understand our 3D world. In Antiquity philosophers could not know if alien civilizations were even possible, but they speculated about life and intelligence in other planets because that helped to look at life on Earth and civilization under new perspectives.

Have you never heard a physicist say that a ball thrown upwards decelerates because its kinetic energy is converted into potential energy, that a faster collision makes more damage than a slower one because more kinetic energy is dissipated, — leo

You are confusing convenient speech patterns with the literal belief in the things spoken about. This is an obvious misunderstanding. You already know what energy is defined by in physics so I don't know why you're going on about this.

I don't know who might claim that consciousness is explained by fundamental particles, but many physicists believe that they would arrive at a "theory of everything" by uniting the four "fundamental" forces into a neat unified theory, yet such a theory would still be totally unable to account for the fact that we experience anything, feel anything, and that they don't realize. It's not that it would be very complicated to derive consciousness from such a theory, it would be demonstrably impossible, and so it couldn't be a theory of everything claiming to have found the fundamental building blocks of existence. — leo

Name one published physicist who has claimed a "theory of everything" like string theory could be used - even in principle - to analyze and speak about literally everything. These are theories of fundamental physics, no one thinks they're going to be used to understand highly emergent phenomena, mathematics, politics or what have you.

Yes sorry I misinterpreted your comment. I agree that 3D is more intuitive than visualizing in 2D, but maybe it could be possible to train our minds to see in more dimensions. After all, 3D is just how we interpret what we see with the eyes. But what we experience is not just what we see with the eyes, there is also feelings, emotions. And maybe we could train our minds to see it all as a united whole, in more dimensions, and that this could give us answers we haven't found yet.

For instance where does what we think and feel and believe fit into that 3D world? We take it as a byproduct of that 3D world, but maybe we could come to new insights by training ourselves to see it all as a whole in more dimensions, and see that way more clearly how what we think/feel/believe changes the 3D world and how it is changed by it. I believe that the mind is a more powerful tool than we're used to think.

You are confusing convenient speech patterns with the literal belief in the things spoken about. This is an obvious misunderstanding. You already know what energy is defined by in physics so I don't know why you're going on about this. — MindForged

I see what you call "convenient speech patterns" as sources of endless confusion. In all these speech patterns energy is reified as some sort of thing that makes up tangible things. Energy is just a tool, and yet it is said to be a cause, to convert, to be the fundamental constituent that makes up tangible things, to you that may be convenient, to me that apparent convenience in using improper language leads to much more inconvenience in the misunderstandings and misconceptions it creates.

You're saying people don't confuse these speech patterns with literal beliefs, then why is it that even some professional physicists confuse space as an actual entity that stretches or expands between galaxies, because we keep talking about expanding space? This is not inconsequential, since it was shown that in some situations they would make incorrect predictions in treating space as a tangible thing that expands. And if professional researchers are confused in that way, think about how confused are students and curious minds attempting to understand the universe because of all that improper speech.

Name one published physicist who has claimed a "theory of everything" like string theory could be used - even in principle - to analyze and speak about literally everything. These are theories of fundamental physics, no one thinks they're going to be used to understand highly emergent phenomena, mathematics, politics or what have you. — MindForged

I think you're not seeing the issue. In principle you might use string theory to say, strings make up particles which make up atoms which make up molecules which make up our brain and body, then the brain and body behave in such a way so as to protect themselves and survive, and communicate with other brains and bodies to survive better, which you could describe as politics, but where there remains a fundamental gap, is that if these particles make up all there is, and if all these particles can do is move one another, then whatever complex motion of particles won't ever give rise to a conscious experience of anything. For there to be a conscious experience, if these particles are said to be all there is, then they must have the ability to elicit conscious experiences, on top of the ability of causing motion. Then not including that ability in equations misses something fundamental about existence.

Physics aim to describe the fundamental constituents of the universe we are a part of, physics does not just aim at describing what we see with our eyes. But we are not just our body seen with the eyes, we are also what we feel, what we experience. I think most physicists don't spend much time thinking about consciousness, I think most believe that neuroscience will give the answers. But according to them neurons are made of particles that cannot possibly elicit experiences. So they are missing something fundamental.

I mean, it's fine if some people want to focus on describing what they see with their eyes and omit what they feel. The problem is then when the public is told that we are made solely of particles as described in the physicists' models, that a heap of moving particles is all we are, and because of that what we feel is just a certain motion of particles, that choice is an illusion and we have no free will, that when our body dies we cease to experience anything and our existence stops suddenly, and I think that's just irresponsible.

After all, 3D is just how we interpret what we see with the eyes. — leo

That sounds like you're a representationalist. I don't at all agree with representationalism. I'm a direct realist.

I don't believe that the idea of other numbers of dimensions is coherent.

Re mental content, per the other thread, obviously I'm a physicalist.

I see what you call "convenient speech patterns" as sources of endless confusion. In all these speech patterns energy is reified as some sort of thing that makes up tangible things. Energy is just a tool, and yet it is said to be a cause, to convert, to be the fundamental constituent that makes up tangible things, to you that may be convenient, to me that apparent convenience in using improper language leads to much more inconvenience in the misunderstandings and misconceptions it creates. — leo

Who else is being confused by it? Physicists and those studying the subject know very well that energy isn't this other thing, tangibly out in the world. No one is actually reifying it in any substantive way. What are the supposed confusions resulting from this? The actual ones, ones that really do - in the real world - cause confusions and errors in thinking. You keep saying it's a problem without showing how the problem manifests. This is like complaining if one said "Math is hard" and saying "But math is just subject, a subject cannot have hardness. People might think you're talking about rocks instead of difficulty". This is how your view comes off to me, because I don't see any actual error in saying energy causes some such phenomena.

You're saying people don't confuse these speech patterns with literal beliefs, then why is it that even some professional physicists confuse space as an actual entity that stretches or expands between galaxies, because we keep talking about expanding space? — leo

...Because space is expanding? Or more specifically, the metric governing the geometry and size of the universe is increasing (the metric tensors change over time), so calling that expansion is perfectly sensible.

n principle you might use string theory to say, strings make up particles which make up atoms which make up molecules which make up our brain and body, then the brain and body behave in such a way so as to protect themselves and survive, and communicate with other brains and bodies to survive better, which you could describe as politics, — leo

Um, how? Show me how in principle string theory can be used to analyze politics in the appropriate way. No one would even try such a thing because it's obviously besides the point, it doesn't answer questions in the way that is relevant to political issues. Just pointing out things are constituted from smaller things doesn't mean understanding those smaller things will allow one to understand everything about what they make up. That just sounds like a composition fallacy.

because I don't see any actual error in saying energy causes some such phenomena. — MindForged

Personally I can't figure out how that would be coherent. :meh:

Having X joules of energy in state Y causes Y to evolve to state Z. The ~5 joules of energy in the sunlight caused 1g of water to increase by 1 degree Celsius.

The problem is that I don't think it's coherent to say that we have x joules of energy if we're saying that it's ONLY x joules of energy. Energy has to obtain via something. I don't think it's coherent to say that it can exist "on its own" somehow.

what is Consciousness anyway? For me consciousness is subjective experience, that is, physical data that are represented in a symbolic -or imaginary- structure where there is a core representing the coordination of the sensing and processing unit itself. Robots and I.A. have no consciousness because they do not build such symbolic worlds that link their activity inside with the activity outside. Cockroaches do: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2016/04/insects-could-shed-light-on-the-evolution-of-consciousness/

Humans and other highly intelligent animals have more complex languages to create these representations. This is due to the fact that these species tend to be social, that is: they are collective souls and not just individual souls. So images capable of communicating these microcosmos to some extent become necessary to build the collective level. Humans are particularly designed for this purpose, that is why we have such a rich, multi-layered consciousness that is created gradually when we start to interact socially.

This said, animal consciousness is not something out of the blue, but a particular definition of a natural function that existed before life on Earth and exists beyond what we know as life. Which is, in my view, the capacity of objects in the Universe to react to changes and communications with their environment in a non trivial manner.

That's fine. "Pure" energy isn't a thing, so yeah it's the energy of X of in some form (chemical, thermal, mechanical and so on). As I said in another post, I wouldn't say it's reified into its own thing, existing alone.

Who else is being confused by it? Physicists and those studying the subject know very well that energy isn't this other thing, tangibly out in the world. No one is actually reifying it in any substantive way. What are the supposed confusions resulting from this? The actual ones, ones that really do - in the real world - cause confusions and errors in thinking. — MindForged

Probably anyone attempting to understand the universe will be confused by it at some point, unless one doesn't mind about inconsistencies. We talk about kinetic, potential, chemical, thermal, mechanical, dark, gravitational, electromagnetic, electrical, magnetic energy, we talk of energy being converted, energy being stored, of something moving because it has energy, of something being hot because it has energy, of matter being made of energy, of energy converting into matter and matter converting into energy, of energy being conserved, of energy density curving spacetime, of pure energy, then one asks, ok so what the hell is energy?

One may look up on Google, what is energy? There you're told that energy comes in different forms, energy is a conserved quantity, energy is in everything, ok then what the hell is it? Then you find some definition, energy is the ability to do work, or the capacity to do work, then you look up 'work' and you find that it is moving something against a force, ok so then what is force? You look it up and you find that it is a push or pull on an object, then you look up the definition of push and of pull and you find that it is to exert force on something. So energy is defined as the ability to move something against a force, and force is defined circularly, so you still don't know what it is, you just have this vague intuitive notion of force, but something seems amiss.

Then even if you're content with the definition that energy is the ability to move something, what the hell does it mean for matter to be made of the ability to move something, what does it mean for the density of the ability to move something to curve spacetime, what does it mean for the ability to move something to convert into matter, what does it mean for the ability to move something to be pure? I honestly believe that those who aren't confused by it aren't because they don't think much about it. And that many students give up about physics because they end up believing they are confused because they are too dumb to understand rather than because the concept is used in confusing and inconsistent ways. A bunch of people end up believing they are too dumb to understand things, and end up relying on the words of authorities who in appearance know better, but really they don't.

...Because space is expanding? Or more specifically, the metric governing the geometry and size of the universe is increasing (the metric tensors change over time), so calling that expansion is perfectly sensible. — MindForged

Sure you can call it expanding space, the problem is then when professional physicists are asked, if two galaxies far away are somehow tethered so as to remain at a constant distance and then the tether is removed, what would happen? As it turns out many believe expanding space would push them away, because they reify it as some tangible thing actually stretching or being constantly created everywhere, while expanding space does no such thing, it is merely galaxies moving away from each other because of their velocity (not taking into account the possible accelerated expansion which here would involve an acceleration).

Expanding space is merely galaxies moving away from each other because of their receding velocities, no acceleration involved, no tangible space being stretched or created, how many people who hear of expanding space understand that? Very, very few.

Just pointing out things are constituted from smaller things doesn't mean understanding those smaller things will allow one to understand everything about what they make up. — MindForged

Do you think that your experience of the color red is made of elementary particles? If it isn't made of particles then what is it made of?

[b]it´s not made of particles, but of what particles do.[/b] And particles are made of what the Source (whatever that is) does with itself. It all goes down to this: a Unity that is capable of dividing itself to the point of making room for communication; communication in my view is partial integration, what happens when a body is not perfectly unified. Planets and stars attract each other because they communicate, in other words: they are falling into place again. As they come nearer, they communicate more strongly, until they are one.

In a sense, our consciousness is a polarized representation or experience of this long process of re-integration, both in our bodies and around them.

You are wrong about Space. Our Space is 3D. There is no presupposing it is 4D. Think about the actual Space you live in. You can go Up/Down, Left/Right, Backward/Forward and that's it. In 4D Space you actually have another pair of directions you can move in. 4D is a whole different thing than 3D. — SteveKlinko
You're not attempting to understand what I say. To you it is obvious that our space is 3D, that there is no interpretation of the mind going on that makes it appear 3D, that it just is 3D. It used to be obvious that the Earth is flat. Often things appear obvious because of unchallenged deeply held beliefs, of how we intuitively generalize from limited experiences. Yes sure it appears to you that you can go up/down, left/right, backward/forward, that's obvious to you, just like it's obvious that the Earth is flat. And yet from another point of view the Earth doesn't appear flat. You know how some optical illusions make your mind see the exact same thing in two very different ways? It's not the thing that changes, it's how your mind interprets differently the thing that makes it look different. In the same way I'm saying that by interpreting what you see differently you could come to see things differently. And see that it is your mind that interprets space as 3D.

Again, try to assume for a moment that our space is 2D. Under this interpretation, it is not you who moves across a static scenery, it is the scenery that moves while you are under the impression to be the one moving. This interpretation is not intuitive, it takes some thought and focus to get used to, but it is not inconsistent. You cannot demonstrate empirically that the space is 3D and not 2D. Because it is the mind that imposes dimensions on what it experiences. — leo

I really don't understand what you are talking about. Show me how I can actually move in the extra pair of directions that 4D would have. There are only 3 pairs of directions. Radio waves travel out and attenuate in a way that is consistent with 3D Space. If the Space was 4D Radio waves would have a different attenuation characteristic. It's not a Mind determined thing. It is a Physical reality of 3D Space. It is a Self Evident Reality of the Universe we live in.