Let's put it this way: if mind, consciousness, experience, qualia, etc. cannot derive from matter, and cannot come into existence from unconscious pure quantitative physical stuff, can spinozism (in your interpretation) remain true under these conditions?

Spinoza said consciousness comes from the attribute Thought, not from the attribute Extension

The way you put it is far removed from the way Chalmers has presented the problem.

The limits of those models don't establish the limits or capacity of what the models are trying to explore. From this perspective, one cannot prove or disprove that the experience of consciousness derives from "matter." The limit in the ability of those models to reduce consciousness to a function of the phenomena that is narrowly defined through them resembles a viscous circle to some degree.

A testable hypothesis needs to be narrowly defined for the results of experiments to be measured and qualified. The "function" that the phenomena is reduced through is possible because of what the model excludes in order to get closer to what is happening. If a model excludes the phenomena of conscious experience upon an operational basis in order to delineate what is being observed, it cannot be too surprising to find out later that the model doesn't explain consciousness very well.

There is also a circular motion to be observed in your use of "matter" as something that has self evident meaning. The word has developed its meaning through a relationship to something that is "not-matter." For Aristotle, the relationship was expressed as form/matter. For Descartes the relationship was Mind/matter. You seem to be putting Consciousness in one box and Matter in other as a starting point and then asking others to explain what connects them. I don't see how one can move from your presuppositions to any other result than where you started. I cannot improve upon Willow of Darkness' account of the dualism that embraces.

OK, what about this: in your opinion, in spinozism, the consciousness is an attribute created by a conscious or a non-conscious God?

OK — Eugen

Does that mean you agree with my comments?

in your opinion, in spinozism, the consciousness is an attribute created by a conscious or a non-conscious God? — Eugen

I don't understand the use of the term "spinozism". Unlike "Platonism", we are not discussing a class of thinkers who based their ideas upon Plato's works. Spinoza's philosophy is being discussed here by itself.

According to Spinoza, you are not in a position as to ask whether consciousness is an attribute created by a conscious or a non-conscious God because you are a caused being. See Proposition 18, Book 1, Ethics:

"Since God’s intellect is the sole cause (as we have shown) both of the essence and of the existence of things, it must necessarily differ from them both in regard to their essence and to their existence. For the thing caused differs from its cause precisely in what it has from its cause. For example, one human being is the cause of the existence of another human being but not of his essence; for his essence is an eternal truth.
Therefore they can completely agree in their essence; but in their existence they must differ. This is why if the existence of one comes to an end, the existence of the other will not therefore come to an end. But if the essence of one could be taken away and be made false, the essence of the other would also be taken away. This is why something that is the cause of both the essence and the existence of an effect must differ from that effect both in respect of essence and in respect of existence. ​But God’s intellect is the cause of both the essence and the existence of our intellect. Therefore God’s intellect, insofar as it is conceived as constituting the divine essence, differs from our intellect both in respect of essence and in respect of existence, and it cannot agree with it in anything except name, and this is what we set out to prove. One may make the same argument about will, as anyone may easily see."

Thanks for that quote. I read Spinoza from a library book. God and our intellect are more alike than a plant and His intellect, but we don't know WHAT God is

we don't know WHAT God is — Gregory

According to Spinoza, natura naturans (i.e. the logical generative-causal structure of reality, or substance) is what we mean – all we can rationally mean – when we say "God".

Yes but knowing what it's like to be God is what knowing what "God" really means

That sort of projection of human experience is precisely what Spinoza went to great effort to reject.

That sort of projection of human experience is precisely what Spinoza went to great effort to reject. — Valentinus

It's not inappropriate to wonder what God's inner life is. Spinoza only said we can't know anything from such mullings

Spinoza went further than that by diagnosing the "wonder" as the result of thinking of God as making stuff to satisfy our ends. To that extent, he is not building a fence we can look through but cannot pass; He is saying that the very speculation is a category mistake.

Is Spinoza's God conscious or not in your opinion?

I don't recognize any of my previous statements in your reply.

Does it really matter if he is conscious or not? Even atheist try to live "by His rules" for the most part. You seem obsessed with knowing if God is conscious and believing that consciousness comes only from consciousness. I think you're wrong on both points

Does it really matter if he is conscious or not? — Gregory

For me, obviously yes.

Even atheist try to live "by His rules" for the most part — Gregory

Why His and not "his"? Does it make any difference?

You seem obsessed with knowing if God is conscious and believing that consciousness comes only from consciousness. I think you're wrong on both points — Gregory

I am not here to debate my beliefs. I am asking questions. No, I don't believe something with no consciousness can give rise to consciousness. It makes no sense to me and maybe I'm indeed wrong. Does it matter? I asked a simple question in which my personal view doesn't matter.

Again, I asked a simple question, but he avoids a clear answer.

Fortunately, you didn't do the same.

Again, I asked ↪Valentinus
a simple question, but he avoids a clear answer. — Eugen

I gave a clear answer. It involved challenging the way you are asking the question.
You aren't doing any work here, just repeating what you think without taking on challenges to your point of view.

Capitalizing the pronoun "Him" clarifies you are referring to God. I listen to the "Him between" my conscious and unconscious mind. But I am an atheist. Spinoza is spiritual reading for me, but I don't take it literally, and I don't think I am far from Spimoza's views anyways

Does Spinoza name the category error involved in asking about God's self-awareness?

He describes the error from different points of view. I am not sure about it as an act of "naming." That is an interesting question. I will think about it.

But for the purposes of the present discussion, the error is described in Proposition 18 when he says:

"Therefore God’s intellect, insofar as it is conceived as constituting the divine essence, differs from our intellect both in respect of essence and in respect of existence, and it cannot agree with it in anything except name."

That passage suggests the act of naming is one of the elements that need to be brought into a circle of doubt.

Guys, look! My problem is the following: I am not intelligent enough to conceive more than 2 variants for this one:

A. Either God is conscious and all His creation is the result of His will, He knows about the universe, and even if we couldn't truly comprehend or understand Him, His Intellect is something closer to what we call consciousness than what we call ''dead matter''. And no, that doesn't mean I'm a dualist, I'm just using this language to make a difference.
or
B. God does not know, will, feel, etc., case in which I simply can't see any reason why we should call this God God in the first place, I don't think ''Intellect'' is a proper notion, and there's absolutely nothing spiritual about it. All of these words are pure worthless metaphors for something we could easily define as matter. I don't know how one could convince a materialist that this view is different from his/hers.

C. If there is indeed a third way, one should explain to me how that can happen using some rational arguments, not just by saying ''something that cannot be understood", because that's just BS.

If the answer is B, then how can:

1. How can God or anything for that matter be radically different from what we could call matter or consciousness? And by matter, I don't mean atoms, it could be anything from fields to energies, laws of nature, quantum chaos, whatever ...

2. How can an infinite of attributes come into existence from something radically different from each of these attributes?

Why are you trying to find your philosophical position based on the esoteric writings of a long dead Jewish writer? Just wondering

1. More of a personal one - when I was 18 and didn't care about absolutely anything except for having fun, I thought about God for around 5 minutes and I actually came to a conclusion pretty similar to Spinoza's. It was ''something we could not comprehend''. ''He is everything - both finite in infinite; self-created; it's both different and the same with the Universe; etc.''. Of course, for me it wasn't something I had contemplated before, I guess I just wanted a God who includes everything and in which everyone could find his own truth. And that's the thing: I think Spinoza left too much space for interpretations.

2. Let's start from the following premise: I think the hard problem is real. I believe it's impossible to get consciousness from something with 0% consciousness. I also believe the composition fallacy is real. Starting from this premise, I just want to know if there's an interpretation of Spinoza in which you can get consciousness from something with 0% consciousness, intention, or will even if the hard&combination problems are true. If that's possible, then how? And when I'm saying how, I don't want an answer explaining me how the hard problem is false, I want something that passes the hard problem undetected.

Nobody knows what Spinoza would have said the the "hard" problem. I don't think it's a hard problem to begin with. Why shouldn't concsciousness come from non-consciousness? Could you please write a paragraph explaining it's onto-logically impossible for consciousness to come from matter which has formed into a brain? New things arise. Red and blue make a brand new color (purple). What in the world is no difficult about consciousness coming from energy in the brain and spinal cord? I don't get it. People nowadays fixate on consciousness and ask "why this instead of nothing? What explains it". I don't think they will ever get an answer by fixating on it from that angle. Better to give up the problem and come at it from a different place latter in life

Red and blue make a brand new color (purple) — Gregory

I wanted to ignore your comment and just say that I don't want to explain my position. And I don't have to, because I'm here to ask about Spinoza, not to explain my beliefs. But honestly, your example with red and purple... I can't accept it anymore.

Dude...
1. What you're calling ''red'' is a certain structure that is red because you PERCEIVE it that way. There's nothing ''new'' in that structure if you exclude qualia from the equation.

2.

New things arise. — Gregory

No man, no new things arise, that would be magic. Everything, except consciousness and things related to consciousness, is explainable in terms of weak emergence. Everything can be, in principle, explained through its components.

THE END

Why can't you just accept that I start from the premise ''the hard problem'' is real? I am interested in what comes after. Or at least, if Spinoza had something to say. If I was interested in debating the hard problem, I would open an OP related to that.

I've already told you that you won't find answers in Spinoza. His view of God is to ambiguous. Also, I think you dont understand emergence because you dont know how to philosophize properly. This thread has become ridiculous

There are 2 types of emergence:

1. weak emergence - everything can be explained in principle through its parts and there is no extra-property to that new thing. Imagine a wall composed of bricks. That wall is just the sum of its bricks, nothing more. Calling it a wall is just language.

2. strong emergence (aka. magic) - you get something ''extra''. It's like adding numbers and the result will be their sum + something extra. It's like adding non-sentient bricks and getting a wall with feelings. That's what I call magic.

I maybe don't know how to philosophize properly, but your example with red and blue was anti-logic. I can't believe you really wrote that stupidity. You should have stopped writing after you gave me your final answer to my question. Seriously...

lso, I think you dont understand emergence — Gregory

There's nothing so sophisticated about emergence that would make me change my mind if I found out about it. That's just silly.
You are the one who doesn't understand the emergence and your examples prove it.

False on every point. All your questions on this thread have been answered. As for emergence, dead matter makes the subconscious mind and then consciousness. Matter is magical but you're just mad because you dont get it

Matter is magica — Gregory

Ok, you believe in magic. I agree with you, this thread has become ridiculous.