Since you brought up quantum theory, my correct characterization of what is a serous physicist is completely germane to the discussion. — Thanatos Sand

That you feel that you are in a such a position to make such characterizations speaks for itself.

Since you brought up quantum theory, my correct characterization of what is a serous physicist is completely germane to the discussion.
— Thanatos Sand

That you feel that you are in a such a position to make such characterizations speaks for itself.

No, that you feel I, or any other educated person, isn't in a position to say physicists seriously studying metaphysics aren't serious physicists speaks for itself...and it doesn't speak well for you.

My post indicated no agreement. It just showed you had no place complaining about my using the phrase "our conscious." — Thanatos Sand

I use the term 'our conscious' because my thesis is that conscious is unitary and shared. You claim to disagree, and therefore you should talk about your conscious or my conscious and not a shared conscious.

Fine, you can do that as much as you like, just like people can ask what makes someone think God isn't in all of us. But those are both metaphysical notions with no foundation in the physical world. Thinking they do is a short-sighted notion. — Thanatos Sand

Conscious is a metaphysical notion? That's just silly.

I see, now you are not only characterizing physicists but you are now extending yourself to characterizing who is educated and who isn't?

[My post indicated no agreement. It just showed you had no place complaining about my using the phrase "our conscious."
— Thanatos Sand

I use the term 'our conscious' because my thesis is that conscious is unitary and shared. You claim to disagree, and therefore you should talk about your conscious or my conscious and not a shared conscious.

Wrong. I was addressing your concept, so I correctly used your term when addressing it.

Fine, you can do that as much as you like, just like people can ask what makes someone think God isn't in all of us. But those are both metaphysical notions with no foundation in the physical world. Thinking they do is a short-sighted notion.
— Thanatos Sand

Conscious is a metaphysical notion? That's just silly.

No, thinking it isn't a metaphysical notion is just silly.

Thanatos Sand I see, now you are not only characterizing physicists but you are now extending yourself to characterizing who is educated and who isn't?

I see now you are just trolling, Rich, so I won't read or respond to any more of your posts on this thread.

I see now you are just trolling, Rich, so I won't read or respond to any more of your posts on this thread. — Thanatos Sand

No problem, though I did find your autobiographical description of yourself quite interesting.

No problem — Rich

We are of one mind. ;)

Is every living body conscious of itself?

It feels sensible to think contents would always be different from being to being (varying memories and experiences). In step with your analogy, I don't see how we can possibly conclude that containers are all the same. If all living beings had the same container how could there be varying levels of consciousness?

Of course. the contents are particular and unique to to each being. But in talking of consciousness, one is by definition talking about something other than the contents of consciousness - that I call 'the container'. And I guess it would be reasonable to say that containers vary too as to their shape and size; perhaps a mouse has a small and somewhat cheese shaped consciousness, whereas mine is larger and wine bottle shape. But the only nature, or essence of consciousness is that it 'holds' experience. In this sense it is characterised by a radical emptiness into which experiences 'pour'.

And emptiness is everywhere the same, and so the same emptiness is incarnated in every conscious being.

Is it the emptiness that keeps exploiting people and having holocausts? No self, no foul.

If you want to disagree, don't talk about "our conscious". I'm not attributing any quality whatsoever to it beyond that it has contents which are generally called 'experience'. — unenlightened

You're positing some metaphysical substance called "Consciousness", which is some kind of a container, which contains experience.

Do you see the roundabout artificiality of that?

Animals respond to their surroundings.

What we call "experience" is the perceptions of that animal (including ourselves). "Experience" and "perceptions" are a way of referring to the point-of-view of the animal when it responds to its surroundings.

From the external, objective point of view, there's just that animal, a device that responds to its surroundings, in a manner resulting from natural selection.

Typical Eliminative Physicalists say that's all there is. They speak of "experience" as being fictitious notion. ...as they are, from the objective, external point-of-view.

They're right, as far as they go. From an objective, external point of view...from the point of view of a white-smocked lab-person watching a rat and taking notes.

Yes, from his/her point of view, there is no rat's point of view. Of course.

But the objective, external point of view isn't the only one that can be spoken of. In fact, no one particular point of view can claim to be the only valid one.

It's possible to speak of the animal's point of view. Since you're an animal, that point of view is the one that's most obvious and relevant to you. And--Dare I say it?--your own point of view is every bit as valid as that of an Eliminative Physicalist who is observing you and taking notes.

And that experience that is your point of view is your life-experience possibilily-story. I call it a possibility-story, because (as I've explained at length) there's no reason to believe that your life-experience story is other than a hypothetical system of inter-referring hypotheticals, as I've described and justified in more detail elsewhere.

I've told why that hypothetical system of inter-referrng hypotheticals couldn't have not been (as a system of inter-referring hypotheticals).

To save space, I won't go into all the details here. I've recently posted them elsewhere at these forums, and will paste them to this topic if requested.

Why is there your life?

Among the infinity of hypothetical life-experience possibility-stories, your life-experience story is one of those.
There are infinitely-many, and they're all "there". They include yours. Tautology? Sure. Then maybe just say that there's your life possibility-story because your life story is self-consistent and therefore possible.

Now, is that system of hypotheticals somehow not going to be there just because your body eventually shuts down?

Yes, at the end of your life, you aren't exactly the same person you were earlier in your life. Certainly not the same person that you were at the beginning of this life. But, if you're still someone about whom there could be a life-experience possibility-story, then there still is a life-experience possibility-story about you.

1) So, as your body shuts down, there's what remains of you. There's of course a time during that shutdown when you don't remember any details of your life. But there could be deeper, less detailed, impressions, feelings, attitudes general inclinations. Vedanta calls them your "Vasanas". They're what remains of you at a fairly deep stage of body shutdown.

2) I've spoken of a farther-advanced stage of shutdown, in which there's no identity, and you don't know that there ever were identity, time, events, problems, concerns, incompleteness, etc.
The body will eventually shut down, of course, but, in stage2), that, by the time the body shuts down, you don't know that there ever was such a thing as a body, a life, time, events, cares, incompleteness, etc. All you know is Timeless absence of identity, events, cares and incompleteness.

But the stage that I referred to in the paragraph before last, and labeled with the number 1) is before the stage in the next paragraph, labeled with 2). In stage 2) there are no Vasanas..

Well, in stage1), the Vasanas are all that remains, and there's a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story about someone with those impressions, feelings, attitudes, and general inclinations.

That's you.

Your life impressions, feelings, attitudes, and general inclinations don't suit you for stage 2). Due to Vasanas, you aren't stage 2) material.

Sure, the body will eventually shut down. But, among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, there's one about the person described by your Vasanas. That's uncontroversial.

What more argument is needed?

Are there really people without Vasanas? H have no way of knowing that. My only information about that is 2nd-hand. It's said that eventually a person reaches such a character. But, if so, there wouldn't be many people around you who are like that. We have it from the teachers of a millennia-long tradition in India that there are a few such people, and that every one of us will get there after sufficiently-many lives.

Someone could argue the opposite, and claim that everyone goes to stage 2) not having died and remembered it, I don't claim to be in a position to say. But, above, I said, "What more argument is needed?"

Is the person in that other possibility-story different from you? Well, it's a story about you, as you are at that time. What do you expect to experience at that time? At that stage, you don't remember life-particulars, such as the detail that you're dying.

In dreams, you don't remember particulars about your life.

As someone earlier quoted Shakespeare's Hamlet, in these forums:

"To sleep, perchance to dream."

Michael Ossipoff

What I am doing is turning the question around, and asking what makes someone think that they are not already incarnated in every living being, and suggesting that it is merely the limitation of the senses. Because I don't feel your joy and pain, I tend to think we are separate. It seems a short-sighted notion.

There's no evidence for that. By every indication, you're a particular person. Period.

Michael Ossipoff

But yes, admittedly you and all the other life-forms have much in common, and, of course, are identical at core, ...are all brothers, to say the least.

I just feel that Advaita makes an extra unsupported assumption, when it denies the obvious fact that you're a particular person.

I'm a Vedantist, but not an Advaitist.

I claim that Skepticism qualifies as a version of Vedanta, because it shared with Vedanta, the general aspects, conclusions, and consequences.

Michael Ossipoff

Yes, from his/her point of view, there is no rat's point of view. Of course. — Michael Ossipoff

There cannot possibly be a point of view from which there is no point of view. Not even solipsists are that radical. And while views differ, points are all the same.

There's no evidence for that. — Michael Ossipoff

No evidence for what? There is evidence that I don't feel your pain, and that my senses are limited.What there is no evidence of is that there is some other separation.

What I am doing is turning the question around, and asking what makes someone think that they are not already incarnated in every living being, — unenlightened

That's very cool. Thinking.

Have you been reading Hegel?

I have long rejected reincarnation on the grounds that it uses a confused notion of the self. It is unclear how Banno could be the very same person who was previously Napoleon...

But is there a way around such objections? — Banno

I come to this thread a little late. I have not read all of it so there is some danger that I might repeat what others have already said.

First get clear about what it is that makes you a person at all. 'Incarnation' means something like 'into the flesh'; the implication is that 'something non-fleshly' is moving into the flesh. Does personhood consist in fleshhood? Or is it that which moves?

Does personhood consist in fleshhood? Or is it that which moves? — John

One contemporary analogy would be that persons instantiate information. So 'the flesh' is roughly equivalent to the silicon, metal, etc, and the mind roughly equivalent to the software.

Actually if you're familiar with the basics of networking, there is a model called the Protocol Stack which governs how information is translated across networks:



The 'physical layer' corresponds with everything up to and including genetic information, but there's also a 'data layer' which (somehow) corresponds to mind.

That also ties in with biosemiotics etc.

Wouldn't take it literally but it is, as I say, a possible analogy.

Thanks, interesting, but I can't make much sense of the OSI Model, though.

Can information be quantized? My tendency is to think that what makes a person cannot be quantized. I can also see how the information analogy kind of works, though.

Can information be quantized? — John

How do you think computers work?

But as you well know, I am not a materialist, and I don't think the human mind is a kind of computer. Where the analogy is suggestive is the distinction between the 'physical layers' (cables, processors, and the like) and the 'application layer'. So in this analogy, mind, ideas, mental attributes, and personality types correspond to the application and presentation layers above. The 'transport layer' might be culture, language, the 'physical' layer would be exactly that - bodies and genes. But genes (for instance) don't work until they're switched on by environmental cues etc.

How do you think computers work? — Wayfarer

Sorry, I didn't make it clear enough that it was a rhetorical question.

I think the point for me about the limitations of an analogy like this is that all the layers are quantizable; whereas with persons there is much that is not.

It's a little bit off the rails in here at the moment.

I think the point for me about the limitations of an analogy like this is that all the layers are quantizable; whereas with persons there is much that is not. — John

To the the extent that everything is in quantum system state, then yes, everything is quantized. If memory is self, then yes self/memory can be preserved.

What leads you to say that? You asked how you could be the same person as Napoleon. So why would thinking about what it means to be a person in the first place not be on-topic?

But why should we think that self is memory, rather than being that which remembers?

I do it by self-observation. When I mediate on myself, I only perceive memory that is continuously evolving. That defines who I am. There is the "I" that is meditating on the memories. It dissolves into the memory and forms the creative/willful impetus behind the evolution. If memory is the wave than the creative/willfull component would be the movement contained within the wave in total characterizing a process. I don't see how it can be destroyed.

What makes you believe that the perceiver, as opposed to merely its faculties, can be perceived?

Again, it is via self-observation/meditation. One cannot perceive oneself (it is like v trying to look at ones on face), but I've can feel oneself. It all all melts together.

It seems to me that defining the self as memory amounts to a very impoverished conception. Memory is a function, so such a definition would seem to be a functionalist, or at best a quasi-functionalist. idea

Also memory is flawed, barely representative of our life experience and barely representative of our unconscious thought.