'rather than discussing it in a framework familiar to me', you mean. If it can't be reduced to the kinds of terms that physicalists can comprehend, then you say I'm talking about a 'subjective feeling'. But to try and explain why it's not a subjective feeling, requires you think outside the square that you wish me to step into. — Wayfarer
(life) does not merely exist in accord with the laws of physics and chemistry; rather, it is telling the meaningful story of its own life
:up: :up:... humans ...We're quantum shit interacting to bring atoms interacting to bring molecules interacting to bring chemicals interacting to bring chemical processes interacting to bring intracellular bodies and systems interacting to bring cells interacting to bring cellular systems; like tissues, neurons; interacting to bring organs (and other distinct functional units) interacting to bring bodily systems interacting to bring bodies interacting with themselves to bring minds.
If you follow that chain backwards, you'll notice that it neatly tracks the temporal order of their emergence in the universe. This is not a coincidence (cosmogenesis->abiogenesis->evolution). Components contingently organise into systems which are components contingently organised into systems which are components...
The more general ontological point about agency? Agency's just one way to get shit done. — fdrake
you can will your leg to move, but that doesn't mean you instruct your skin, sub-tissues, cellular systems, intracellular environments, chemical processes etc. — fdrake
It's almost as if minds require presence of the lower order interactions in the chain to make sense of their being. — fdrake
it is simply incoherent to talk about it doing so. — Isaac
which is absolutely fine at the level of human activity because all that stuff is useful at that scale. — Isaac
That there is a "what it's like" aspect to consciousness is plain. — frank
I would be extremely surprised if there wasn't an autonomous decision making process that bodies and minds together can do, that corresponds somehow with felt qualities associated with decision making. A "top down" causation of the body's self model on the body. — fdrake
where everything is made up equivalently of energy or information as its fundamental substrate, — Pfhorrest
the obverse of ennui. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Do you see a difference between "is related to" and "reduces to"? — frank
Yeah, but only in that being merely related to involves some other component, whereas being reducible to means one thing entirely consists of the other.
In the case of consciousness though, I'm just using the term colloquially. Why would we theorise some additional factor which might go toward constituting consciousness? — Isaac
ADDENDUM: It strikes me now that just as I earlier described ennui/angst as arationally generating a false need for “meaning” where there is no rational question, so too “mystical experiences” as I have had are most notably characterized by a profound but not necessarily rationally grounded feeling of meaningfulness. — Pfhorrest
It would take a book, although one thing I could say is that it(materialism) provides no account of meaning — Wayfarer
Which is precisely, like you said, talking out of one's ass. — god must be atheist
Yes, of course! .. but some things need to be said.Arguing about panpsychism is really beyond the scope of this thread. — Pfhorrest
The more salient point is that having my philosophical opinions didn’t send me spiraling into desperate search of meaning. — Pfhorrest
I philosophized for decades holding broadly similar opinions all the while before this kind of angst started to afflict me. — Pfhorrest
Philosophy is neither the cause of nor solution to existential angst. It’s just a mental health condition. — Pfhorrest
All of this is often portrayed as falling naturally out of something we all feel. — fdrake
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