By thoughts I mean self talk, visualizations, and any other perceptual modality you use to think. — hypericin

Depends what you mean by 'self.' I'd include the body, so a passed out person is still a self.

In a world where moving (thinking) is the only activity, an object (thinker) coming to a dead stop (cease thinking), I feel, doesn't mean that object ceases to exist; it's (thinker's) at rest (not thinking), that's all.

If you take away thoughts, what is left of the self? — hypericin

If you take away waves, what is left of the sea?

*

A bit of tangent in this thread (started one exactly on the theme), but I'll leave a quote from the guy and a comment. It is relevant to the OP, more or less.

I’m not the mind. I’m not the feelings. I’m not the body. That I see. But I surely am. I surely am an individual apart from others. Now, what you’ve gotten ahold of is a very difficult fellow. It’s your ego. He can sneak around and confuse you like the dickens. You can spend years trying to get behind him. And what you can do, you can get into an infinite regression. You look at your ego, all right here am I? It all of a sudden dawns upon you that that which is looking at the ego is really the “I.” So you stick that one out in front and you look at it again, but then you realize it couldn’t be because here’s the something that is observing it. At last it finally dawns that I am that which is never an object before consciousness. And mayhap at that moment in your analysis the heavens will open.

https://freddieyam.com/gen2/p/quotes.merrell-wolff.html

This is quite close to what I quoted from another thinker/site. The transcendental ego becomes (seems to me) a synonym for being itself, except it remains dependent on a pair of eyes and ears and is still localized in terms of sensation. For less philosophical types, this journey of abstraction could indeed be difficult and painful (well I guess it's likely to be painful but philosophical types might suffer it early and then take it lightly.) It's echoed in Fight Club too, in a different tone. You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

I was going to write something in this thread, but changed my mind. But anyway, now you’ve got the ball rolling….

Of course, the kinds of philosophical schools which describe states of ‘content-less consciousness’ are typically associated with yogic practices and Buddhism. It’s obviously pointless to think about what that could be, because thinking about it already undercuts any chance of exploring it. Suffice to say that I think the aim of all of those types of therapies (because that is what they are) is to see through and disrupt the automatic chains of reactive thought and emotion that humans are normally caught up in.

In the spiritual lexicon, there are sayings such as ‘the peace which passes understanding’. I think this refers to a state of mind where any sense of self, I and mine, with all of its baggage, are in abeyance. But again, any attempt to imagine that or think that is going to interfere with realising it.

As to your observation about ‘the world existing anyway’ - of course from a common-sense perspective that is obviously true. But if you really consider the nature of consciousness, and the nature of being, you will see that ‘the world’ is always being constituted moment-by-moment in your extraordinarily powerful and large hominid forebrain. This is what it’s doing all of the time, it is literally creating your reality. And that’s the only reality you or I or anyone will know. The thought that by going to sleep or becoming unconscious that ‘the world’ ceases to exist, is simply a projection of the imagined non-existence of the world. It is not what those ‘idealist’ types of philosophy really mean. Your mind is not actually ‘your mind’ - it is the mind, the human mind, which has evolved over millions or even billions of years as a sophisticated Virtual Reality generator.

The first paragraph of Arthur Schopenauer’s magnum opus, World as Will and Representation, lays that out pretty clearly, although I don’t think Schopenhauer ever was instructed in or mastered the discipline of samadhi, although he intuitively understood it in some ways.

If you take away waves, what is left of the sea? — 180 Proof

A calm sea.

If you take away thoughts, what is left of the self? — hypericin

self meditation?

But if you really consider the nature of consciousness, and the nature of being, you will see that ‘the world’ is always being constituted moment-by-moment in your extraordinarily powerful and large hominid forebrain. — Wayfarer

Ah, but that brain is (positioned as) a mere part of the dream. I really can grok the solipsistic idea. I suppose that I more or less believe (in some register) that I live in a dream 'thrown up by' by my brain. But that only makes sense if my brain exists in a world outside that dream. The brain as known by us is (one might say) a mediated image of the brain-in-itself. But if we go the whole Kantian hog and say that time and space are part of the dream, the whole narrative of me being a ghost thrown up by a brain is endangered. Kant seems to quietly rely on the very common sense that he otherwise subverts. Our ordinary logic of sense organs and incomplete/uncertain knowledge seems to be the source material for something implausibly radical in its forgetting of this material.

Your mind is not actually ‘your mind’ - it is the mind, the human mind, which has evolved over millions or even billions of years as a sophisticated Virtual Reality generator. — Wayfarer

I'm amenable to this view, but note that it assumes the existence of a non-mental world, a substrate of some kind (the germs needed time to evolve into monkeys with a complicated symbolic interface.) I'm a bit surprised to hear it from you, since it casts the subject as the product of evolution. Throw in some evolving cultural software, confess the substrate, and you have what I'd call a plausible indirect realism.

If you take away waves, what is left of the sea? — 180 Proof

Potential.

I'm a bit surprised to hear it from you, since it casts the subject as the product of evolution. — jas0n

I think the facts of evolution are indisputable. But unlike evolutionary materialism, I don't see evolution as a kind of spontaneous chemical reaction elaborated by the Darwinian algorithm, a la Dennett. I had a wise professor of Indian philosophy, who related the Vedic idea of evolution, which is that evolution is the result of involution - that the cosmic mind enfolds itself into the material world, which then unfolds as its expressions. 'What is latent', he would say, 'becomes patent'. So I guess that is more like Bergson and Tielhard du Chardin. And also maybe Hegel. It's not particularly compatible with the Christian doctrine of creation, it's more like the emanation idea of Plotinus.

Ah, but that brain is (positioned as) a mere part of the dream. — jas0n

Only when you look at it as an object. In practice, the brain is never an object, unless you're a neurologist or some such.

Ah, but that brain is part of the dream — jas0n

But that only makes sense if my brain exists in a world outside that dream. — jas0n

Well, your brain can be preserved in formaldehyde for much longer than a human lifespan.
Are 'you' still in there? What about those who get their head preserved in cryogenic storage?
They hope to be revived at some point in the future.
Einstein's brain was dissected which is unfortunate if he could have been brought back.
The information on a computer hardisk is not lost when the drive is separated from the computer.
If only we could read the contents of a dead human brain like we can from a memory chip.
It remains a complete unknown for now I think.
Does the brain of a dead human have to be allowed to 'disassemble,' before YOU can become truly dead. Are YOU gone from the brain the second you die?

Well, your brain can be preserved in formaldehyde for much longer than a human lifespan.
Are 'you' still in there? What about those who get their head preserved in cryogenic storage?
They hope to be revived at some point in the future. — universeness

Does the brain of a dead human have to be allowed to 'disassemble,' before YOU can become truly dead. Are YOU gone from the brain the second you die? — universeness

Excellent questions! Altered Carbon runs with this idea and allows personality/memory/self to be stored on a kind of flash drive. Is there anything special about our brain meat? Don't know !

I do know you can have neural networks computing the same function and yet with very different guts/parameters, so perhaps there are many ways to store the 'same' personality.

I think the facts of evolution are indisputable. But unlike evolutionary materialism, I don't see evolution as a kind of spontaneous chemical reaction elaborated by the Darwinian algorithm, a la Dennett. I had a wise professor of Indian philosophy, who related the Vedic idea of evolution, which is that evolution is the result of involution - that the cosmic mind enfolds itself into the material world, which then unfolds as its expressions. 'What is latent', he would say, 'becomes patent'. — Wayfarer

:up:

Thanks for clarifying! That helps.

Only when you look at it as an object. In practice, the brain is never an object, unless you're a neurologist or some such. — Wayfarer

I still think your not seeing/addressing the issue I'm raising. You and I both believe that the brain evolved, so this seems to require a stage (space and time and molecules) for the composition and interaction of lifeforms (call it 'physical' or whatever.) That only makes sense as 'outside' the dream of such brains (or better yet the mediated environment of such brains.)

If 'the subject' or 'consciousness' lives in healthy human brains, then what are they made of and where do they exist? An indirect realist might say (1) some kind of non-mental stuff and (2) in some kind of substrate.

Excellent questions! Altered Carbon runs with this idea and allows personality/memory/self to be stored on a kind of flash drive. Is there anything special about our brain meat? Don't know ! — jas0n

Thanks, I wish we had some answers! Come on ye scientists!

Thanks, I wish we had some answers! Come on ye scientists! — universeness

We might see faster progress on the digital front. Natural language processing is getting pretty good. Translation on the fly was a sci-fi idea, and now we have it. Point your camera and watch it replace a German coffee label with one in English. I haven't messed with live voice translation, but I'm guessing it's pretty great (might not fit on a cellphone yet.)

That only makes sense as 'outside' the dream.

If 'the subject' or 'consciousness' lives in healthy human brains, then what are they made of and where do they exist? — jas0n

I don't think it's really accurate to depict what I'm saying as 'a dream'. In the other thread on panpsychism - it's a bit confusing working between the two - I made the point about the subjective nature of time itself. I drew on some quotes from various scientists on that point. The very fabric of space and time is in some fundamental sense generated by the mind. Kant saw this. But saying that reality is 'generated' by the mind is not saying that it's just a dream. That's the only reality we know, and it has a fundamentally mental character. But as soon as you say 'ah, in the mind', then already you're trying to see from a perspective outside that, as it were - to imagine the world, there, and the mind, 'in here', with 'the world' being what is real independently of the mind. But that is also all a cognitive act. So I'm saying, reality has an irreducibly subjective pole - but there's no use asking 'what is that' or 'where is that'.

Computing Science is my field of 'expertise,' in that I taught the subject for 30 years.
NLP is progressing but it's still pretty bad with dialect and translation of the 'spoken' word.
Universal translators are still quite a way off I think. I don't think I will be able to visit a non-English speaking country in my lifetime and be wearing an earpiece that speaks to me in English that which is spoken to me in Spanish. Even if we do get such technologies working perfectly, I don't see how this helps answer the questions I asked about.

I made the point about the subjective nature of time itself. I drew on some quotes from various scientists on that point. The very fabric of space and time is in some fundamental sense generated by the mind. — Wayfarer

Do you think that it is valid to posit that there exists a reference frame within which the Universe ends when YOU die?
Personal oblivion due to death means no awareness for YOU of the passage of time.
So for you, after death, the remaining lifespan of the Universe is instant.
Is this a valid reference frame or just a human arrogance of the importance of 'self.'
The arrogance of 'me, me , me!!'

I don't think I will be able to visit a non-English speaking country in my lifetime and be wearing an earpiece that speaks to me in English that which is spoken to me in Spanish. — universeness

Do you know if they've got any big computers that can do it almost instantaneously ? I haven't checked in for awhile. I never focused on NLP, but I know the theory of SGD pretty well.

Even if we do get such technologies working perfectly, I don't see how this helps answer the questions I asked about. — universeness

An 'operationalized' definition of consciousness might involve something like a Turing test. If you are talking on the phone with some voice and don't know if that voice is conscious or not, then it's 'operationally conscious' (in the context of that particular test.)

Am I conscious ? Is it plausible that I (manifested as this stream of text) am the output of a program? Because you know the field, you'll probably say no. But how about a century from now? Once we've trained some newfangled model among ten-million of its siblings and 20 billion humans? To be sure, translation alone is not sufficiently impressive, but 'thought' is most directly manifest (perhaps) in language use.

I made the point about the subjective nature of time itself. I drew on some quotes from various scientists on that point. The very fabric of space and time is in some fundamental sense generated by the mind. — Wayfarer

Assuming that thesis, how does an evolved brain still fit in? If time is just part of our mediation, I don't see how it can be applied to the presumed source of that mediation.

But saying that reality is 'generated' by the mind is not saying that it's just a dream. That's the only reality we know, and it has a fundamentally mental character. — Wayfarer

Don't take the metaphor too seriously. Call it mediated content if you like. The 'dream' is of the 'world' which models/represents/presents (presumably, if we talk in terms of mediation) some 'world-in-itself.'

But as soon as you say 'ah, in the mind', then already you're trying to see from a perspective outside that — Wayfarer

Yes, but this isn't some barbaric metaphysical preference. I see my wife and friends 'from the outside.' I see all other subjects 'from the outside' and embedded in the same one world with me. Spoiler: a Möbius strip seems like a better metaphor to me than a reduction to all-mental or all-physical.

But that is also all a cognitive act. So I'm saying, reality has an irreducibly subjective pole - but there's no use asking 'what is that' or 'where is that'. — Wayfarer

I get that. The question is whether or not you grant the existence of some kind of substrate where all of us more or less conscious/subjective animals live (and can have evolved in the first place.) Given your taking evolution as a fact, it seems that of course you'll acknowledge some kind of 'physical' world. One can still insist that it's only experienced mediately (as sensations, thoughts, etc) and that all such experience is a marriage of whatever a nervous system is understood to host and whatever kind of stuff it's embedded in and made of.

The very fabric of space and time is in some fundamental sense generated by the mind. Kant saw this. — Wayfarer

Currently I think Kant went too far, that he needs an ordinary notion of time and space to build his spaceship. Brilliant for 1781, but we've had a lot of time to worry over it. We are the ancients (vessels of an old flame, encrusted with the dialogue of centuries.)

Do you know if they've got any big computers that can do it almost instantaneously ? I haven't checked in for awhile. I never focused on NLP, but I know the theory of SGD pretty well. — jas0n

:rofl: I've never heard of SGD, so much for my 30 years teaching computing science! I only taught to advanced higher level in Scottish Secondary Schools and I only taught the curriculum so thats my excuse. I have tried to 'keep up' with my field but I still haven't heard of SGD. A quick internet search
took me to https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ml-stochastic-gradient-descent-sgd/
and I read a little about Stochastic Gradient Descent. Sounds to me like a 'fine tuning' methodology to better predict what word has been spoken. I have not seen or heard of any natural language translator that is any major improvement on a system such as 'siri,' have you?

Am I conscious ? Is it plausible that I (manifested as this stream of text) am the output of a program? Because you know the field, you'll probably say no. But how about a century from now? — jas0n

Oh, I totally agree! Although I think you are setting a very ambitious time frame. I think some seriously transhuman creations are in our future but I think it will take thousands of years not hundreds and only of course if we can prevent our own extinction.

An 'operationalized' definition of consciousness might involve something like a Turing test. If you are talking on the phone with some voice and don't know if that voice is conscious or not, then it's 'operationally conscious' (in the context of that particular test.) — jas0n

I have never seen or read about any AI system that can pass the Turing test in any interesting way, have you?

I read a little about Stochastic Gradient Descent. — universeness

Yeah, that's it! It's a very general technique. Let's say I have a differentiable function of ten thousand floating-point variables, then I can probably find a very nice local max or local min using SGD. The gradient points in the best direction for the next baby step. Doesn't always work, but one can try lots of random starting points.

I have never seen or read about any AI system that can pass the Turing test in any interesting way, have you? — universeness

No. I just don't see why it won't happen eventually. We're near the beginning of the revolution. An economic/military arms race will only accelerate the process. 'Skynet' might destroy us one day (mostly joking, but who knows? We are reckless enough...)

Although I think you are setting a very ambitious time frame. I think some seriously transhuman creations are in our future but I think it will take thousands of years not hundreds and only of course if we can prevent our own extinction. — universeness

Perhaps you are right. We were supposed to have floating cars by now, right? If, however, a particular kind of 'AI' is especially profitable or powerful, we might see 'Manhattan Project' research intensity. Cyber warfare could become decisive, so that flexible and quick-reacting attackers/defenders are developed. A genetic algorithm might be used to develop neural networks that fight one another. We already have GANs making convincing faces of folks who never lived. I confess that I really don't know.

The gradient points in the best direction for the next baby step. — jas0n

I like your 'baby step,' analogy. I think that's currently quite accurate for 'significant advances in AI.'
I really don't think there is ANY danger of a data/information singularity, anytime soon.

No. I just don't see why it won't happen eventually. We're near the beginning of the revolution. An economic/military arms race will only accelerate the process perhaps, though Skynet might get us first — jas0n

I think it will happen eventually, yes but do you think the potential technological movements toward a transhuman distant future is evidence of emerging panpsychism?
Humans merging with technology! Cyborgs/human brains contained in cybernetic bodies/human consciousness transferred to cloned bodies etc. All these sci-fi projections of transhumanism. Will this eventually mean more 'networking' of individual consciousnesses and the ultimate result would be a Universal consciousness which is a merging of the individual consciousness of every lifeform in the Universe? Could such a manifestation of panpsychism satisfy the god criteria, ie the Omni's?
So the reason the god posit has always been with us, is because it is our ultimate fate/goal.
I don't particularly subscribe to this, I am an atheist through and through but I find the 'ultimate result of technological advancement,' interesting.

The question is whether or not you grant the existence of some kind of substrate where all of us more or less conscious/subjective animals live (and can have evolved in the first place.) — jas0n

If you mean, am I scientific realist, answer is negative.

Do you think that it is valid to posit that there exists a reference frame within which the Universe ends when YOU die? — universeness

That's a sound empirical hypothesis, although of course you won't be around to test it.

I confess that I really don't know. — jas0n

I don't either but I find that I live in very exciting times but also very unstable.
I think we are at a turning point. Extinction or humanism is my honest opinion.
I think we are doomed if we don't achieve global unity, economic parity for all and a determination to leave our little pale blue nest and extend our species beyond this planet.