Matter is coagulated energy. Could we then say that everything is energy?Prima facie, a compelling argument based on the premise that if a certain type of thing, x, interacts with some other thing, y, then the thing y must of the same type as x.
Basically, if matter interacts with something then that something is matter.
The question then is this: [are there] some things that matter interacts with [but] are not matter?
Light? Radio? EM radiation in general? — TheMadFool
If consciousness is not strictly materialist in origin- being nothing more than a complex product of chemical reactions and electrical impulses of cells, then why can we completely alter the state of consciousness/our experience with chemicals, drugs or neurotransmitters.
I understand that this is a reductive way of thinking regarding one of the most complicated phenomena in existence but it just strikes me that if I add Chemical A to experience B I get an altered experience - C. Such effects made by mood enhancers, antidepressants, mood stabilizers or anesthetics, tranquilizers and painkillers.
How do you reconcile these observed medical qualities with ideas such as pan-psychism consciousness is a fundamental force of nature, or inherent to all matter, or that it is something beyond and larger than the brain or part of gods mind or an illusion? — Benj96
Matter is coagulated energy. Could we then say that everything is energy? — Harry Hindu
The only problem I see is that there is no "energy" version of neurotransmitters, neuroleptics, psychotropics, mood enhancers, anesthetics, etc. I know of. — TheMadFool
Those are all chemicals, made of molecules made of atoms made of other particles that are just excitations of energy fields. — Pfhorrest
The question then is this: [are there] some things that matter interacts with [but] are not matter? — TheMadFool
Considering how hard it is to understand what such things as "matter" or "energy" are, maybe we should just call it "stuff"...The question then is this: [are there] some things that matter interacts with [but] are not matter?
Light? Radio? EM radiation in general?
— TheMadFool
Matter is coagulated energy. Could we then say that everything is energy? — Harry Hindu
Quite so, some people on these boards think that mind equates to consciousness, or visa versa.They're two different problems.
So you are including in mind everything the brain does, is it confined to the brain?Reflex acts of the body are independent of the conscious mind,
For me the mind is what the brain does in relation to the person, or the self, the acting being.I don't know if you want to reduce the mind to the conscious.
Not at all, it can have a precise definition if we can bring ourselves to defining it as cellular life. Also it could have caveat that there do seem to be a few more simple forms of life, but these are outliers."Living" seems to me a very ambiguous term to define consciousness.
And conscious, being closely related to us. The main difference being that we are each a colony of cells.A paramecium is also living.
Well the irony of such a question is that in order to create/ define/distinguish anything - a phenomenon, a material object, a concept... one must say twi things; 1). Yes this thing is that. 2). No those things are NOT that. Ie does matter interact with that which is not matter, of course it has to interact by the mere fact that we can qualify what matter is at all. Its relative to the empty space around it.
Matter could only never interact with that which it is not if the entire universe was composed of matter of a set kind. Any distinction results in a border and borders are where interactions occur. — Benj96
Non sequitur — TheMadFool
For me the mind is what the brain does in relation to the person, or the self, the acting being. — Punshhh
So you are including in mind everything the brain does, is it confined to the brain? — Punshhh
Qualia are a separate dynamic from what the sense organs do, arising as some kind of additive superpositioning and quantum entanglement of particles (vibrating energy concentrations in motion). — Enrique
Likewise.I would prefer to distinguish consciousness ( awareness ) from mind,
I think it is reasonable to distinguish between the management of the bodily functions by the brain and the intellect.It seems that the concept of human mind includes some functions of the body, but I will not say so.
Yes, but have we established that a human is not millions of tiny consciousnesses?Of course, if life=consciousness a paramecium has consciousness. And every cell in our body. Then we are composed of millions of tiny consciousnesses. Why not?
So when we talk about consciousness, we know what we're talking about?Obviously, because it's not like that when we talk about consciousness.
yeah I digress. Me off on a tangent... sorry it happens sometimes — Benj96
we are discussing is whether you can talk about science as rational knowledge
When Kant speaks of metaphysics he adds the term ‘pure’ reason because it claims to be the science of the a priori. But it does not occur to anyone to say that empirical science is not rational. It's just not pure.
If possibility & impossibility, both in empirical & intellectual intuition, are determined by our agency, then why can’t their bounds be changed or altered by this very same determination of agency ours? Why can’t we then, either in empirical or intellectual intuition, change the fact of a square circle, or X = -X, being an impossibility, for example? I fail to see how possibilities & impossibilities are determined by us, when we work within their bounds & not versa, i.e., their bounds aren’t set by us.Possibility/impossibility is absolutely meaningless without relation to the agency to which they apply. Which means that which is possible/impossible, from the empirical and rational world alike, is determined by that agency, for that agency. — Mww
Right, exactly, the logical categories or pure concepts determine, as you’ve just said, “FOR US,” not vice versa; that is, we don’t determine or cause their bounds but are forced to work within them. This is exactly what I’m saying about rational or logical form.I refer you to the categories, for which you should have already taken account. The categories determine for us, not the possibilities/impossibilities the sensible world contains, but rather the possibility or impossibility of us cognizing what they are. — Mww
They don’t contradict each other because the apriori form of reason isn’t something that we’ve created aposteriori, or at all; in other words, we don’t have a say on how it imposes form onto things. So that’s what was meant, that our volition isn’t what creates the given materials of our aposteriori constructions; unlike a pegasus or a unicorn which it does, with such given materials, according to the form of reason.How do these propositions not contradict each other? — Mww
If the form of reason is taken as an axiom, rather than what’s both derived & presumed, from whence arises the circularity? As we’re not deriving the conclusion from any premise, & then subsequently using, in turn, the former to explain the latter (& so on cyclically).Correct, iff reason is a fundamental human condition, a metaphysical notion used in an attempt to logically thwart infinite regress.
Wherein lay the intrinsic circularity of the human rational system: we can only talk about reason using the very thing we’re talking about, and the very purpose of speculative epistemological philosophy is to not make it catastrophically fubar. — Mww
Excuse me. If metaphysics were merely formal, it wouldn't be a scandal for Kant. The problem with it is that it pretends to be both pure and synthetic. I'm with Kant on this. The only synthetic source of reason is experience. But that doesn't make it any less rational. In fact, the concept of science as a fundamental part of Reason is typical of the Enlightenment, which Kant culminates. A reason that combines the analytical with the synthetic.So that if it’s empirical, it isn’t either purely or formally rational; the latter pertaining to what’s apriori, the former to what’s aposteriori. — aRealidealist
This is why scientists can’t claim to have obtained anything absolute; hence, Lawrence Krauss states, “In science, we don’t... claim to know the absolute truth. — aRealidealist
You must bear in mind that all syntheses aren’t apriori, as synthesis can be aposteriori too; & the latter is what Kant had in mind when referencing either what’s empirical or dependent on experience. Hence, he states, “There are synthetic a posteriori judgements of EMPIRICAL origin, but there are also others which are certain a priori, and which spring from PURE UNDERSTANDING AND REASON.” Thus synthetic apriori truths are based on pure understanding & reason, not experience or what’s empirical. Therefore, in principle, metaphysics is purely formal (although the TOTALITY of our knowledge isn’t), & is independent of the material(s) of experience.Excuse me. If metaphysics were merely formal, it wouldn't be a scandal for Kant. The problem with it is that it pretends to be both pure and synthetic. I'm with Kant on this. The only synthetic source of reason is experience. — David Mo
Yet if it wasn’t, that is, wasn’t absolute, then it wouldn’t be rational. I’m going to further inquire about your claim here, in what I ask you in response to what I quote next of your post.Nowhere is it written that rational knowledge has to be absolute and synthetic. — David Mo
Can you give me an example of a logical principle that isn’t a pure formality, i.e., that isn’t independent of particular materials altogether?Logical principles are absolute as long as they are kept to pure formality. — David Mo
Right, unless we lose all real content; that is, unless we don’t refer to any of the materials of experience. In other words, unless we don’t refer to experience at all; hence, experience is inherently contingent & not absolute.What modern relativists (Feynman?) mean is that systemic reason cannot reach absolute truth unless it loses all real content. — David Mo
On the contrary, this is precisely my objection... assuming that a logical system can be, in principle, i.e., in regards to form & not the particular material(s) employed, constructed in a way which is different from how we can possibly form our own, is exactly to oppose the very principle upon which a logic or reason is conceivable; hence, such an assumption is inconceivable & therefore can’t even be thought, let alone assumed.There is nothing incongruous in assuming that a world with rational beings that organize their experience in another way could have a different logical system. — David Mo
I hope you are not going to view me as schizophrenic now. lolTrillions of self-conscious cells? What a scandal! It would be worse than a session of the British parliament.
This is all fine for a philosopher, but it still doesn't have the capability to explain consciousness, or mind. This is because we don't know the basis of the world of existence we find ourselves in. As I said, we need legs then feet and a rock to stand on, to make any progress.In fact, the concept of science as a fundamental part of Reason is typical of the Enlightenment, which Kant culminates. A reason that combines the analytical with the synthetic.
Thus synthetic apriori truths are based on pure understanding & reason, not experience or what’s empirical. Therefore, in principle, metaphysics is purely formal — aRealidealist
Can you give me an example of a logical principle that isn’t a pure formality, i.e., that isn’t independent of particular materials altogether? — aRealidealist
hence, such an assumption is inconceivable & therefore can’t even be thought, let alone assumed. — aRealidealist
My point is you, or any philosopher, can't deny that the human brain is a host for a being which is as yet beyond the preview of science, or our understanding. — Punshhh
Kant believed that the only possible logic for our understanding was Aristotelic. — David Mo
The inconceivable is not the impossible. — David Mo
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.