I’d guess that humans are pattern seeking, meaning making machines. We see connections everywhere and this often helps us manage our environment. — Tom Storm

Why would we be machines of that nature? I would think because it's a successful strategy. If so, why would seeking patterns/meaning/connections in a universe where there aren't any be successful?

At present, I tend to believe that the idea that the universe “behaves in an orderly way” reflects a human tendency to project patterns and impose coherence where there may be none inherently. What we call "order" is not something we discover in the universe but something we attribute to it through our descriptive practices. I don’t think we ever access a world “as it is” apart from interpretation; what we take to be real or empirical is shaped by historically contingent terminology and shared frameworks of understanding. These frameworks are always provisional or tentative, useful for communicating, and predicting, but not revealing some deep, necessary structure of the universe. Any sense of order is thus not a property of the world itself, but of our current ways of making sense of it, which remain open to continual revision. — Tom Storm

Why would humans attribute order where there is none? Wouldn't that mean order is a part of our nature? And if order is a part of our nature, and we are of this universe, doesn't that mean order is an attribute of the universe?

Here's a funny thing: After learning that atoms are mostly space, one does not find oneself sinking into one's arm chair. Things remain solid. — Banno

Go figure.

I will, however, point out that the reason the X-Men's Kate Pryde can pass through solid objects is because she's able to take advantage of the spaces between. So there's that.

I think Dave Matthews Band's The Space Between is a great song.

Human imagination had often come up with some fairly bizarre ideas that turned out to be accurate explanations of what's going on in our reality. Einstein's relativity and the structure of atoms are great examples.

As brilliant and imaginative as many people are, I cannot imagine anyone is ever going to come up with any workable explanation for how things exist as they do if there was not coherence and predictability. If electrons did not always have negative charges. If mass did not always warp spacetime. If light did not always travel at c. If the strong nuclear force wasn't always about 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force and 10^38 times stronger than gravity. Many many other examples of consistency in our reality.

If these things were not consistent, nothing of what we know would exist.

My thinking is that, whatever the answers might be, they are the answer to how we come about. People say, "That steel isn't really solid. It's mostly empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is what gives us the illusion of solidify." I say that's empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is, is how solidity is accomplished.
— Patterner
Your reply is correct. But "people" already know that. The problem is that what you take as the explanation of solidity, they take as undermining solidity. You have to show them that they have messed about with the meaning of "real". It is a mistake to allow them to get away with that, because once that's happened, there's no way back. — Ludwig V

I'm more concerned with the definition of "solid" at the moment. The definition does not say there is no space between nucleus and electrons, between atoms, between molecules, etc. The explanation for solidity is not the somewhat vague idea probably everyone has before learning what's really going on. but when a rock is coming out your head, regardless of all that, it's best to prevent that impact.

The explanations for things like the human mind, self, and consciousness might be very different than the very vague idea I'm sure most people have before exploring these topics. But whatever the explanation, I still really like chocolate ice cream, Bach, and sex.

The real question is: how serious am I willing to be in answering that? Because the answers might shatter everything I believe to be true. Every conviction I hold might be up for some serious maintenance. — Kurt

Brinn of the Haruchai said:
“I will know the truth. Any being who cannot bear the truth is indeed unworthy.”

My thinking is that, whatever the answers might be, they are the answer to how we come about. People say, "That steel isn't really solid. It's mostly empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is what gives us the illusion of solidify." I say that's empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is, is how solidity is accomplished. And whatever all the specifics are that explain the specifics of my existence are are just how my existence is accomplished. It doesn't matter. (I don't mean matter, I mean matter. :grin:)

Wow. Such a presence. I'm sure even more in person than here. My condolences to her family and friends.

I don't think that's quite what he meant, but it's funny anyway! — J

More seriously, the answer is No. It's a question I remember asking as a child. I assume most people wondered at some point. But no. It's outright impossible.

The question really should be, let's say, could the Queen -- could this woman herself -- have been born of different parents from the parents from whom she actually came? — N&N, 112

I guess there fact that there are billions of people in the world who were born of different parents and none of them are the Queen doesn't prove it can't happen. But I'm leaning that way anyway. :grin:

Thank you.

So would a carefully constructed neural network made from pipes and water wheels that is set up to process inputs and outputs like a human brain be conscious? Could we carefully set up toilet paper rolls to be conscious?
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Very good point. If we take informational or structural accounts of consciousness seriously, then in principle, any system that implements the relevant patterns should be conscious—even ones made from absurd materials. — tom111

I have a very different idea of consciousness, which I won't bother going into in this thread, not wanting to derail. But, consciousness aside, would such a system be capable of what ChatGPT is capable of?

consciousness is meant to give the affected organism ownership of it's mind — T Clark

Could you explain what "ownership" means?

I'm also wondering about "meant". That sounds like it was the plan, which I don't assume you meant?

That position doesn't make sense to me. If what we see is an hallucination or other phantasm, then our eyes must be, also
— Patterner

If you're at the Overlook Hotel and you see people who shouldn't be there, you should question whether you're hallucinating. — frank

I'm not suggesting there is no such thing as hallucination. I'm saying the thought that reality is of a certain nature, but we hallucinate it is of a different nature, and we hallucinate sense organs to perceive that hallucinated reality, doesn't make sense to me.

While I disagree with much of your thinking, I agree with your thought about epiphenomenalism being wrong Here's an article I like along those lines.

You'll get a pushback against "you know it is real because you can see it" from the idealists and solipsists, who will claim that it might be an hallucination or other phantasm. — Banno

That position doesn't make sense to me. If what we see is an hallucination or other phantasm, then our eyes must be, also. Hallucinatory eyes hallucinate the sight of a hallucinatory reality. If reality's nature is not such that eyes can give us valid information about it, then I would expect reality to have evolved some other system to do so.

Why would you feel the need to represent things that you already observe and if some reader/listener doesn't exist yet? The whole point of representing things in the world is to communicate with others. If there are no others, then why would you feel the need to represent things - for who, or for what purpose? — Harry Hindu

Surely, most writing is done to communicate with the living. Mailing letters to people. Leaving notes for people. Emailing people.

People often write for posterity, though. Sometimes to pass on knowledge to later generations, even if the living can also use it. Novels are not usually written for a specific person, even if dedicated to someone specific. These days, the living can read a novel, and authors can make a lot of money because of it. But that's not why people wrote them centuries ago.

Sometimes people write with no intention of anyone reading it.

But I would think most writing is too communicate with other living people.

I've only made a few posts, always saying the letters represent the sounds of words, and the written words represent spoken words. Not sure how I've moved the goalposts. Certainly not my intention. I suspect we are talking about different things. Let me try putting it this way...

Suppose there was no written language. And let's say the idea occurred to me. Why can't we represent the things we talk about visually, instead of audibly? No alphabets exist. How would I go about it? It's possible I would make symbols that represent the things I want to communicate to the reader (not that the word "reader" would exist yet). Simple drawings when possible. Likely also many symbols whose resemblance to what they are supposed to represent is not always terribly obvious.

These drawings would not have anything to do with the spoken words that mean the same things. They are an entirely unrelated representation of the same thing being communicated. Just as the English and Japanese words for "sand" are unrelated to each other, but mean the same thing. Looking at my hypothetical symbol for sand would not give any information about the spoken word. There would be no way of knowing what language the inventor of the symbol speaks, or even that the writer, or writer's culture, speaks any language at all.

Our writing is very different from that scenario. It was intended to represent the spoken words. Sure, so we could communicate visually the things we were communicating audibly. But the approach was entirely different. I took a year of German in college. I remember very few words. But the written language is very phonetic, and I remember the rules of how to pronounce what I see, despite not knowing the meaning. And that was the goal. Of course, there would be no point in written language if it didn't let us communicate the things it and its spoken language are not. But it does so by representing the spoken language. It is useless without knowledge of three spoken languages. At least in my hypothetical scenario you might get an idea of what I'm trying to communicate, because, to the best of my ability, I've made as the symbols resemble what represent.

I agree with everything except this:

The scribbles do not refer to the sounds of a spoken language. — Harry Hindu

Wikipedia says: An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language.

Britannica says: alphabet, set of graphs, or characters, used to represent the phonemic structure of a language.

Vocabulary.com says:An alphabet is a set of all the letters in a written language. The letters in an alphabet represent the different sounds in that language.

Google's AI Overview says:. An alphabet is a system of letters that represents the sounds of a language.

I would be surprised if any source said the scribbles don't represent the sounds of the spoken language.

Sure, the strings of scribbles refer to things. But they do so by representing the spoken sounds that refer to the things. It's not a coincidence that sand, sorry, and song all start with the same scribble. It was intentional. Spoken language came first. Then people came up with this particular way to represent the sounds they were speaking. If that was not the case, there would be no reason sand, sorry, and song all start with s, or plod, goad, and mind all end with d. And we wouldn't tell people just learning to read to "sound it out."

I think you edited just before I posted.

The accomplishment is that we can communicate without audible speech. We often want or need to be able to do this. Sometimes so others in earshot don't know what we are communicating. Sometimes because we are not able to hear each other, such as when we are too far from each other, or when it's too noisy to hear each other. Sometimes because we want to preserve information so that people in the future will receive it.

Yes, scribbles refer to things. They refer to the sounds of spoken language. Sand, sorry, and song all start with the same scribble because the spoken words they represent all start with the same sound. Obviously, there is not a perfect matchup. Things change. Laugh, Ralph, and sniff all end with the same sound, but different scribbles represent that sound for each. There are multiple reasons for such differences. But we all still agree on things.

Could we manage if we didn't agree on both?

Scribbles are just scribbles unless they refer to something. What makes a scribble a word and not just a scribble?

You can draw any scribbles on this page but what makes some scribble meaningful? You might say it depends on how it is used. And I will ask, "used for what? - to accomplish what?" To use anything means you have a goal in mind. What is your goal in using some scribbles? — Harry Hindu

I'm thinking mutual agreement.

It seemed to me they just couldn't get on the same page. I don't mean agree on their views. I'm mean just talking about the same thing. She's trying to talk about a point where consciousness begins. Matter is not conscious. Then, for whatever reason (maybe something/some process is added to it; maybe the anesthesia wears off of an anesthetized brain; whatever), that matter begins experiencing. He would or could only talk of a spectrum of consciousness, but not of a point where, as she put it, you drop off of the spectrum.

A moot point for me, since I believe there is always subjective experience. An anesthetized brain, or so my hypothesis says, is still experiencing. It's experiencing being an anesthetized brain. It's not experiencing thoughts, memories, sensations, or anything else that has traditionally been thought of as human consciousness. And there's no way for it to report on what it's experiencing, as an awake brain can.

Ah. I gotcha. I thought you meant there are writings about physicals who believe consciousness is fundamental.

It seems to me she's having a hard time accepting the conclusion she's coming to.

Whether you're a physicalist or not, those are still the two options. — flannel jesus

I don't remember hearing it suggested that physicalism and consciousness being fundamental are compatible. Can you expand?

Yes, thought provoking, even fascinating at times. But is like to hear a hypothesis. Of course, she's only been working toward thinking consciousness is fundamental. Maybe now she'll try to work things out.

But then, the physicalist position has a lot to say about brain activity. But the explanation for consciousness is generally just "It's emergent." Which isn't more of an explanation.

I finished Lights On. Thanks again! Very much enjoyed it. Eagleman is my favorite part. This Ted Talk of his is a great extension.

Can't say I understand nearly enough of the time and space stuff. Only listened once so far. We'll see what repeated listens do for me.

She sounds even more convinced that consciousness is fundamental in this podcast. (I cleaned up the typical speech stumbles.)

It's possible that consciousness emerges at some point in the universe. Either in life, or in some sort of complex processing. That's been the assumption of the sciences this whole time. It was actually my assumption for most of my career. I've been convinced that that doesn't make sense.
...
I see consciousness actually as binary, which is one of the reasons why the series is titled Lights On. And I actually, now I just believe there is no off. That there's no such thing as off. I shouldn't even say I believe that. I'm convinced that that makes more sense than the alternate view that we have tended to have in the sciences. Which is that it comes on at a certain point. — Annaka Harris

My guess is that, in some rough categorization of memories, you'd file this under "Time I had a horrible bout of fearful imagining" rather than "Time I saw a blond-haired boy in van." — J

Well, the former is certainly the more powerful and important of the two. But I wouldn't have had the experience, and subsequent memory, of the imaginings if not for the boy, and I wouldn't remember the boy at all if not for the imaginings he inspired. Different aspects of one, big, complex memory.

Well done.

This is a question in phenomenology. We’re able to categorize and discriminate something we (purport to) remember from something we (purport to) have only imagined. — J

I would guess part of the answer is detail. Memories are of experiences that come with much more detail than imaginings come with. Looking at my cell phone as I type this, my peripheral vision sees a lot, even if I'm not usually paying attention to it. I also hear backgrounds noises. Traffic, my wife typing, etc. Smells; my clothes touching me; my body's position on the couch, maybe in need of repositioning. On and on.

If I was imagining myself typing on my cell one, that's all it would be about. Yes, I could imagine a lot of extraneous details, but, unless I'm intentionally doing so, like if I'm experimenting for purposes of this topic, I rarely do.

So maybe we recognize memories of actual events because they have more "weight" than imaginings have.

Also, it's often said we remember things that have an emotional component. The tricks of this one very much applies to me. I was often told I worried about my children more than was "normal" or "healthy" when they were little. Nobody would say keeping a close eye on them in a store was wrong in any way. Child snatching does happen. But it could be argued that I imagined specific scenarios more often and in greater detail than I should have. :rofl: I would see something, imagine what could happen, and son have an elaborate story in my head. My heart would be racing, and it would take deliberate effort to get out of it. I had to remind myself that it was not happening, and I'd have to force myself to think of entirely other things. I remember one day in particular, about 25 years ago. I saw a young boy with blond hair in a van. I thought, "What if that was Dan? What if he had been kidnapped, and, months or years later, I happened to spot him in a van?" The emotion of it burned it into my memory.

Fortunately, the memory is of the imagining, not an actual kidnapping. Maybe for the first thing. I didn't imagine too much detail of a kidnapping before forcing my thoughts away.

I have a vivid memory of something that happened when my older son was 12 and my younger son was 7. We had left them home alone for an hour or so. My daughter, who is three years older than my older son, often babysat for them both when she was 12. I vividly remember that, when we came home, my younger son was chasing my older one around the dining room table with a butcher knife. It turns out I wasn't actually there, I just remember from being told after the fact. — T Clark

This kind of thing is very interesting. How do you know you werent't there? Has it been proven to you beyond doubt?

What if you fall while walking alone. You hit your head and lose consciousness. What if you regain consciousness, it is snowing, and see that you are covered in a dusting of snow.

if time is genuinely a fundamental dimension of our universe, why does it cease to exist the moment consciousness fades away? — ArtM

It doesn't. When you wake up from any of those scenarios, your body has undergone changes due to the passage of time. Not subjectively experiencing, or having memories of, the passages of time doesn't mean timer didn't pass.

Could we say "will" describes a situation where there are conflicting/competing wants, and only one can be satisfied?

Of course, the want for what you're addicted to often wins out over the want for life/health/family. So your will was weak. But if you resist it, your will was strong.

Exercising for desired greater health and strength is loathsome to some. When they battle their laziness and do some exercise, their will was strong.

But if that is "will", then, insignificant as it may seem, choosing chocolate cake over pecan pie, or a Beethoven string quartet over a Bach cantata, is an act of will.

That's the kind of thing I was wondering about when asking three difference between will and want. Is willing to do, or not do, something different than wanting?

Well of course they'd take it, but they can't spend their lives just daydreaming about a miracle — flannel jesus

Right. But they wouldn't refuse it, or be conflicted about accepting it. An addict might do either. And if the addict happily gives in after a time without, they'll eventually wish they hadn't.

Still, I think we think if "will" for positive things, too. My thinking when I first responded to you was that we only thought about will for things we wanted to resist. But it takes a lot of will to be an Olympic athlete, among any number of other things.

But I'm still not clear on whether or not we need to use that word instead of "want".

Yeah, that's true. But they don't not want better health. They just don't want to be tortured by wanting this important, objectively good thing that they can't have. If they managed to never think about their health again, then were offered the new medical cure...?

Without looking into the deep deep library of philosophical writings, I would say "want" is something kinda passive, and "will" is when you have a want and you actually do something about it.

Passively wanting to stop smoking is one thing, but actively taking steps to counter your addiction is another. That's the difference between want and will, to me, speaking semi-casually. — flannel jesus

That makes sense.

I can <kinda> probably think of a counter example, and would bet that my counter-example exists in reality. You want to hear it? — flannel jesus

Well what else am I here for?!? :grin:

I guess I'm just not sure of how you're using the word "will". If you don't use the word, does it change the meaning?
"You want to not want something."
"You will to not want something."

Maybe this discussion doesn't come up about things we only want, and don't also not want? Like health. We only want health. We don't want to not want health. The wanting to not want is only for the thing we're addicted to that prevents health, which we never don't want.

Is "will" better than "want" anywhere in that paragraph?

You said "you can want something, but also will not to want it". It's competing wants, and one overrides the other.

I wonder in what cases any want is actually destroyed. I often hear ex-smokers say they miss it every day. It's the want to be healthier overriding the want of the cigarette, every single day. And multiple times every day. The want for the cigarette is never gone.

Pretty much what I'm saying. One want overpowering another want. I wasn't sure how you meant it.