Comments

  • Knocking back The Simulation Theory
    ↪invicta
    Okay, so then the OP's question is moot.
  • Knocking back The Simulation Theory
    What existential difference does it make whether or not the universe is a simulation? If I am a simulation, then the simulation of the universe I inhabit is real (i.e. ineluctable).
  • In the brain
    ↪universeness
    :cool:
  • Are sensations mind dependent?
    I agree that the sensations that we experience are nervous system-dependent. But the question is how. — lorenzo sleakes
    This is a scientific problem and not a question philosophers alone can answer, or even pose adequately, insofar as philosophy's domain is conceptual-interpretive, not theoretical-testable.
  • In the brain
    ↪universeness
    Very good response. I think it's best to pause here, not because we're at an impasse but due to us both looking through different ends of the tele / micro scope – you from a computer science background and me from a cognitive science (& philosophy of mind) background. It seems we're on the same page though, namely that the computational-mechanical model of perceptual / (meta)cognition is insufficient, or completely wrong. Notions of 'extra stuff', however, are incoherent and render speculations on (meta)cognition – its "emergent properties" as you say, universeness – theoretically DOA. In other words, I'm not any flavor of mysterian, mind-body dualist, panpsychist or idealist.

    Anyway, apologies for dumping a reading list on you; I just wanted to share possibly common points of reference since the devil is definitely in the details here. I suspect 'human brain functioning' will be the toughest nut to crack by a (hybrid classical-quantum computing) AGI, though whether or not human neuroscientists & philosophers will be intelligent enough to comprehend AGI's 'brain model' or have to accept it as an explanatory black box that nonetheless gives us orders of magnitude more neurocognitive control, I suppose, remains to be seen. I suspect (hope?) the status quo, my friend, is about to be smashed by converging devepments of AI-tech, nano-tech, bio-tech & cognitive neuroscience. No doubt, AGI will know more about our minds than we will ever comprehend about its thinking (thus, as I say, artificial-autonomous-alien general intelligence, of A³GI). :nerd:
  • Life is more than who we are?
    So a person's identity is all that matters? — TiredThinker
    A "person's identity" is the precondition of "all that matters" to her.

    Life isn't about more?
    IMO, "life" isn't "about" anything "more" than living-as-an-end-in-itself (like e.g. health, playing, caring, flourishing, etc).
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them. — Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature, or the Laws of the Moral and Physical World (1770)
  • The Wave
    I am part, thinks the wave, of a vast, ancient ocean. I am not ocean but ocean is me. — Art48
    :fire:

    Some say that at beach we merge with ocean. I suppose I’ll have to wait and see. But If I merge, I won’t be there to see. Hm. Que sera, sera.
    Watching the breakers slide back into the eternally recurring surf I have no doubt what ultimately happens to ocean waves.

    :death: :flower:

    This ontological metaphor really haunts me ...

    sparks, fire ...
    light rays, sun ...
    waves, ocean ...
    ten thousand things, dao ...
    natura naturata, natura naturans ...

    Tat Tvam Asi     — 180 Proof
    Also, pedantic note: "the universe" =/= "existence" ... analogously, the latter is like a field and the former a dissipating structure with respect to that field (i.e. ocean and waves, respectively; or continuum and sets). — 180 Proof
    Read Laozi & Zhuangzi.
    Read Epicurus-Lucretius & Seneca-Epictetus.
    Read Spinoza & Nietzsche.
    Read P. Foot & M. Nussbaum.

    Like waves on the ocean, humans belong to nature – for better and worse. Yeah, we "stand out" but not so much that we are separate from or rise above nature anymore than ocean waves are separate from or rise above the ocean.     — 180 Proof
    'Is there something greater than me?' asked a wave on the ocean beneath the bright, silent Milky Way. — 180 Proof
    'The everyday world' - nature natured 'sub specie durationis' - is like a wave on the surface of the deep, or an effect, caused by the oceanic Substance - nature naturing 'sub specie aeternitatis'; illustrating, though this analogy is absurdly limited, the perdurance of ephemeral surface waves relative to the long lasting ocean (i.e. Modes of Attributes relative to Substance) and that thereby, however relatively ephemeral surface waves seem, they are not non-existent in the sense S conceives of the difference between existing and the real. — 180 Proof

    NB: IIRC, while sitting on the beach in Oceanside (California) beside the pier on a bright breezy spring day, some months shy of my twenty-first, oceanic thoughts like those above (especially the OP) first struck me as the blue rhythms of that shimmering surf mesmerized me. That day I forgot all about my old heartbreak for the first time in almost two years, bemusing with that new 'insight'. Study of Schopenhauer, Bergson, Whitehead, Spinoza, Nietzsche (again), Epicurus-Lucretius (again) & Laozi (again) was yet to come to help me reflect further and search patiently for a suitable vocabulary for this 'ecstatic' condition. Ever since then, and living far from any coastline, I still watch the clouds above dreamed of by the waves below.
  • Are sensations mind dependent?
    ↪L'éléphant
    :up:
  • Unjustified Skepticism
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    Are you familiar with On Certainty by Wittgenstein? Or Susan Haack's Evidence and Inquiry?
  • Life is more than who we are?
    ↪TiredThinker
    Unless one is naive, I think so.
  • In the brain
    Would you consider the IPO model useful here or of little value? — universeness
    I think that model is too linear to be analogous. Are you familiar with Douglas Hofstadter's writings on 'tangled hierarchies' model of cognition (e.g. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought)? Artificial neural networks seem to me much closer analogues to the processing of (meta)cognition than von Neumann architecture 'programs'. In the 'sketch' at the bottom of my last post I use bidirectional arrows to simplistically suggest nonlinear relationships (i.e. self-recursion / self-referencing) among the 'nodes'.

    Btw, a more empirical, less speculative, model of '(meta)cognitive brain functions' is – I've found it most informative and insightful in the last fifteen or so years – the monumental Being No One (or it's nontechnical summary The Ego Tunnel (re phenomenal self model)) by Thomas Metzinger. I highly recommend his work if you're not familiar with it. I want to stress that while I appreciate that perceptual cognition, etc in primate brains is computational, I'm also convinced that these brains are not computers in the (mostly) linear 'IPO' sense – just as David Deutsch points out that it does not follow from the computability of fundamental physical laws (re: constructor theory) that the universe is a computer simulation.
  • Nothing is hidden
    ↪plaque flag
    :up:
  • In the brain
    ↪Bylaw
    To my mind: a "memory" is a map and "phenomenon" is the territory. A "rememberance" isn't an appearance to the senses (i.e. phenomenon).

    ↪Bylaw
    The peripheral nervous system. The brain 'binds' disparate sense-data from all bodily senses into 'experience' that is temporarily held in 'working memory' to begin with. I see perceptual cognition something like this: phenomena —> data —> experience <——> memory traces <——> information (signal:noise) ... etc.
  • Nothing is hidden
    ↪plaque flag
    Yes. Yes.

    ↪plaque flag
    More or less Witty's thesis in Philosophical Investigations. Also, Peirce's semiotics (sort of). Check out plane of immanence, a brief wiki summarizing Deleuze's 'Humean transformation of the Spinozist concept' at the core of his philosophy. Also, Deleuze's two short books on Spinoza are quite good until you can get around to reading the Ethics (especially Part One: "Of God" which your 'ontological' OP concerns).
  • Nothing is hidden
    We are given a blur and try to make it less blurry. — plaque flag
    :fire:
  • In the brain
    ↪I like sushi
    "Sense of the world" is not "memories are phenomena in the brain". My comment "makes sense" when read in context.
  • Where Philosophy Went Wrong
    God is indeed everywhere! — invicta
    If "everywhere", then nowhere. Btw, which "god" are you talking about?
  • Modified Version of Anselm's Ontological Argument
    ↪Epicero
    Neither are sound arguments.
  • Where Philosophy Went Wrong
    There are a multitude of places where philosophy 'went wrong'! — creativesoul
    And yet that's 'what's right' with it! :up:

    "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." ~Beckett
  • Life is more than who we are?
    ↪TiredThinker
    Maybe. So what? A truism at most. Read Beckett or Kafka, Chekov or Houellebecq. :smirk:
  • Nothing is hidden
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover


    Sub specie aeternitatus ... Deus, sive natura ... ~Spinoza

    People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. ~Einstein

    Nothing is hidden — plaque flag
    Like 'possible moves' in Chess or Go ... :fire:

    It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence. ~Deleuze

    ↪plaque flag
    :cool: :up:
  • Where Philosophy Went Wrong
    ↪Manuel
    :up:
  • Ontological arguments for idealism
    Instead of learning from his errors or, at least, thanking me (& others) for making them explicit, just more grievance-whining for his wounded pride after having been Jedi mind-tricked into conceding to my three years-long criticism:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/792659

    Apparently, I'm still living la vita loca & rent-free in the tin-foil hatted head of the leader of TPF's Quantum-Woo Crew. :lol: :party: :up:
  • Philosophy of Law; Legislation, Access to Just Remedy, Application of Rights, Legal deliberation.
    ↪javi2541997
    What is law outside of the political? Mythology, utopia. (ahistorical)

    What is politics outside of the legal? Tyranny, piracy. (historical)

    I'm not aware of a philosophy of law (e.g. property) that does not presuppose a political philosophy (e.g. republicanism). Are you? :chin:
  • Philosophy of Law; Legislation, Access to Just Remedy, Application of Rights, Legal deliberation.
    ↪javi2541997
    By 'philosophy of X' I understand conceptual analysis, discursive interpretation and/or methodology of X; my 'plumbing-fortress' metaphor (à la "prisons built out of bricks of law") for enfolding philosophy of law into political philosophy, which I interpret to be the broader domain of inquiry, makes the latter primary and the former derivative, just as legal theory (or law-making) is subordinate to – dependent upon – political science (or politics).
  • What is a good definition of libertarian free will?
    ↪Cidat
    Substance dualism.
  • Philosophy of Law; Legislation, Access to Just Remedy, Application of Rights, Legal deliberation.
    No. Tne philosophy of law is just plumbing in the fortress of political philosophy.
  • Life is more than who we are?
    "don't it make you sad to know that life, is more than who we are?" — TiredThinker
    Nah, I ain't no solipsist or narcissist.
  • Hegel and the Understanding of Divine/Supernatural Experiences
    ↪Tobias
    :clap: :sweat:
    I'll reply later after my own glass or three, old friend.
  • The meaning or purpose of life
    I would like to ask the question "what is the purpose of my life?" — Average
    I suppose "the purpose" of any one's life is whatever task or exercise or practice one is committed to that provides an end (in one's own mind) which 'justifies' all or most of one's means (i.e. choices). In other words, whatever one lives for, or cannot endure living without doing, seems to me to be one's "life purpose". One can only answer this question for one self – each one of us is, paraphrasing Sartre, condemned to be free to choose our own purpose/s.
  • Inmost Core and Ultimate Ground
    It isn't lost. The self is lost. Content is altered, but not consciousness. — bert1
    If it's only the recall of being conscious that is either "lost" or "altered" and not "consciousness" itself, then "consciousness" is like embodiment persisting independently of the state of one's awareness, or lack thereof, of one's own bodily condition. Assuming this scenario is the case, 'being conscious' seems redundant to, or synonymous with, 'being embodied', and eliminativists (i.e. physicalists), not mind-body dualists or panpsychists, are the parsimonious and conceptually coherent ones. To paraphrase Witty: bodily movement is the best picture of 'consciousness'. And Spinoza as well: 'being conscious' is the body's idea.
  • Inmost Core and Ultimate Ground
    :fire: :flower:
    I've got a word or two
    To say about the things that you do
    You're telling all those lies
    About the good things that we can have
    If we close our eyes

    Do what you want to do
    And go where you're going to
    Think for yourself
    'Cause I won't be there with you

    I left you far behind
    The ruins of the life that you had in mind
    And though you still can't see
    I know your mind's made up
    You're gonna cause more misery

    Do what you want to do
    And go where you're going to
    Think for yourself
    'Cause I won't be there with you

    Although your mind's opaque
    Try thinking more if just for your own sake
    The future still looks good
    And you've got time to rectify
    All the things that you should

    Do what you want to do
    And go where you're going to
    Think for yourself
    'Cause I won't be there with you

    Do what you want to do
    And go where you're going to
    Think for yourself
    'Cause I won't be there with you
    Think for yourself
    'Cause I won't be there with you     — Think For Yourself (1965)
    https://youtu.be/vtx5NTxebJk
  • Ontological arguments for idealism
    Either our decisions are determined by some prior cause or they occur spontaneously, neither of which seem to satisfy libertarian free will. — Michael
    :100:
  • Is communism realistic/feasible?
    ↪frank
    Well then the US, at least, has never been a nation-state. 'Country', I suppose, is a less tribalist term.
  • Is communism realistic/feasible?
    BTW, the more egalitarian and inclusive the US becomes the less it would be a nation-state. A nation is usually a group of people who have ethnicity in common. — frank
    An 'ethno-nationalist state'? :eyes:

    My concept of 'nation-state' is decidedly cosmopolitan, n o t "ein volk, ein reich, ein gott". :mask:
  • Currently Reading
    @180 Proof@Jamal

    I think both of you will most surely enjoy Novel Explosives     — Manuel
    :cool: In gratitude for your generous recommendation, Manuel, I reciprocate in kind: the 'metaphysically haunting' duology The Passenger & Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy. Enjoy!
  • Is communism realistic/feasible?
    ↪jorndoe
    My guess is that the most progressively egalitarian and inclusive political-economic arrangement of a modern nation-state that is "realistic/feasible" is "free market"–compatible forms of libertarian socialism (i.e. economic democracy) because I think, more likely than not, such societal arrangements would lower the levels of scarcity-exploitation (and therefore social alienation) even more than the current 'Nordic Model' can achieve. And as a US citizen, this is the contrarian, or radical, prism through which I critically oppose the disastrous partisan agendas and governing policies of the current neoliberal American hegemon.
  • Where Philosophy Went Wrong
    ↪Janus
    Oh yes. My comment was addressed to the epithet "elitist hobby", that philosophy outside the academy is (still) more than that.
  • In the brain
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    Nevermind. Carry on with ... :roll:
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