Do those complex individual parts contain consciousness? — Eugen
Then we can say that consciousness is in fact the result of a complex interaction of minds — Eugen
One kind of extended body, however, is significantly more complex than any others in its composition and in its dispositions to act and be acted upon. That complexity is reflected in its corresponding idea. The body in question is the human body; and its corresponding idea is the human mind or soul. The human mind, then, like any other idea, is simply one particular mode of God’s attribute, thought. Whatever happens in the body is reflected or expressed in the mind. In this way, the mind perceives, more or less obscurely, what is taking place in its body. And through its body’s interactions with other bodies, the mind is aware of what is happening in the physical world around it. But the human mind no more interacts with its body than any mode of thought interacts with a mode of extension.
One of the pressing questions in seventeenth-century philosophy, and perhaps the most celebrated legacy of Descartes’s dualism, is the problem of how two radically different substances such as mind and body enter into a union in a human being and cause effects in each other. How can the extended body causally engage the unextended mind, which is incapable of contact or motion, and “move” it, that is, cause mental effects such as pains, sensations and perceptions? And how can an immaterial thing like a mind or soul, which does not have motion, put a body (the human body) into motion? Spinoza, in effect, denies that the human being is a union of two substances. The human mind and the human body are two different expressions—under thought and under extension—of one and the same thing: the person. And because there is no causal interaction between the mind and the body, the so-called mind-body problem does not, technically speaking, arise. — SEP, article on Baruch Spinoza
, taken individually, are not conscious. In a word, complexity makes the difference between a stone and a man. So there is a threshold between unconscious and consciousness determined by pure complexity.
So indeed my questions aren't the best, but I'm making progress. — Eugen
Is Eugen a bot? — 180 Proof
Degrees of Reality
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more real or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality.
My problem is that I'm trying to frame Spinoza's vision of consciousness in materialism / panpsychism, and Spinoza is neither — Eugen
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (pp. 35-36)
The scientific revolution of the 17th century, which has given rise to such extraordinary progress in the understanding of nature, depended on a crucial limiting step at the start: It depended on subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental – consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose. The physical sciences as they have developed since then describe, with the aid of mathematics, the elements of which the material universe is composed, and the laws governing their behavior in space and time. We ourselves, as physical organisms, are part of that universe, composed of the same basic elements as everything else, and recent advances in molecular biology have greatly increased our understanding of the physical and chemical basis of life. Since our mental lives evidently depend on our existence as physical organisms, especially on the functioning of our central nervous systems, it seems natural to think that the physical sciences can in principle provide the basis for an explanation of the mental aspects of reality as well — that physics can aspire finally to be a theory of everything.
However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all. 1
Now it is pretty clear to me you're actually avoiding the answer. I can accept that my earlier questions make no sense, this one really does. It is a very simple question and it makes sense. Why are you referring to older posts of mine? Are you disrespecting me? — Eugen
The question does not make sense. Spinoza's metaphysics recognise the question has no answer because it fails to understand what it is talking about. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I'm pretty sure Spinoza would understand.it fails to understand what it is talking about. — TheWillowOfDarkness
- could you please find another formulation for this? I tried google translate and I still couldn't understand. The sentence does not make sense in my native language.it is explained in that those to events (modes of extension) have relation of substance. — TheWillowOfDarkness
- that is not because he somehow proves that, but simply because Spinozism is not materialism, and the hard problem is framed in materialism. But I'm still failing to understand this:you have to realise his system is saying the hard problem is logically impossible. — TheWillowOfDarkness
In any case, it is impossible for an event non conscious state followed by a concious state to go unexplained — TheWillowOfDarkness
In this respect, Spinoza's metaphysics are consistent with materialist style accounts in which states or consciousness are produced out of non-conscious bodies. — TheWillowOfDarkness
His metaphysics are also consistent with certain pansychists postion in which each conscious experience is a production of an entity with its own conciousness experience--e.g. an account in which my brain, arms, fingers, cells and atoms each had their own personal experience. — TheWillowOfDarkness
IF!!!!!!!!!!!! But what if they don't? How does Spinoza demonstrate that non-conscious bodies create consciousness? Or he just assumes that?If bodies without conscious experience generate experiences,the Spinoza's metaphysics are true. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Whatever exists, whichever of these possible conunterfactal states of existence happen, they are consistent with Spinoza's metaphysics. Spinoza is talking about what will be true of any of these possible events. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Spinoza doesn't think about it like that. — Wayfarer
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