Comments
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The best arguments again NDEs based on testimony...
A "near-death experience" is not the death of experience – irreversible brain death.What are the best arguments against near death experiences as evidence of conscious existence separate of the physical body based on anecdotal testimonials, and what are the best counter arguments? — TiredThinker -
Is language needed for consciousness?I analogized "consciousness" to walking. I've no idea what you are asking.
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A Physical Explanation for Consciousness, the Reality Possibly
Your "recall" is mistaken as your quote of me shows. As I've speculated on a number of threads, in principle(?) the mind-substrate can be extended – transfered – from the organic to a synthetic physical system :point: :nerd:What about your other belief - I haven't searched for it but I recall you saying it - that the mind is downloadable / uploadable? — Agent Smith
No.
"Correct scale" for what?Neurons and nerves seem to be the correct scale. — Mark Nyquist -
Is language needed for consciousness?
Is dance choreography needed for walking?Is language needed for consciousness? -
A Physical Explanation for Consciousness, the Reality Possibly
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/511358What do you make of Chalmer's so-called hard problem of consciousness? — Agent Smith
thus, Chalmer's "Hard Problem" is a psrudo-problem.... "subjective experiences" are not objective; to require that subjectivity be described objectively is a category mistake ... — 180 Proof -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?That kind of poor reasoning is known as "sympathetic magic" thinking, Smith. G's "BothAnd" has nothing to do with yin-yang (or wave-particle) complementarity as far as I can tell – it's its own occult thing. Anyway, until G addresses my questions, I can't claim I know for sure what he's glossolaling about.
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A Physical Explanation for Consciousness, the Reality PossiblyMind affects the physical brain (and vice versa); ergo mind is physical. (Also: classical, not quantum.)
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What Are You Watching Right Now?
I was born the day after four little girls were killed in a church bombed by the KKK in Birmingham, Alabama. This happened on Sunday morning, 15 September 1963, only three weeks after the "I Have a Dream" March on Washington DC. The video below is of an interview with Malcolm X held on 11 October 1963.I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours in Christian America. — Martin Luther King, Jr (1960)
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Universal Mind/Consciousness?As usual, more assertions without arguments, but with strawmen & ad hominrms instead. And, for all your self-flattering "higher" knowledge or understanding, you cannot directly address any of my questions about your speculations such as those provided previously
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/761003.
What is @Agent Smith to think, who is much more sympathetic to your ideas than I am, when at every turn, Gnomon, you fail to defend those ideas to my (and other member's) challenges? Your tiresome ad hominem that I have an "anti-metaphysical bias" discredits you as I long ago proposed my own speculative alternative to classical / analytical (i.e. kataphatic) metaphysics in this old thread
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/629398 ... yet your pathetic crutch of "anti-metaphysical bias" remains because you ignore my actually stated position and other honest attempts to critically engage you on the level of 'pure speculation'. You completely lack credibility, Gnomon. A warranted observation and not an ad hominem. :shade: -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?Whatever "source of energy" you choose must be itself energetic (i.e. causes effects / changes), which precipates an infinite regress that tells us nothing. 'To be' is to vibrate-fluctuate (i.e. dissipate); being is motion. Ask Laozi. Ask Heraclitus. Ask Democritus ... Ask Boltzmann. Ask Heisenberg ... :fire:
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If There was an afterlifeNonsense. Many, maybe most, religions are two or more millennia old and they cannot all be correct though they all could be – probably are – wrong.
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Universal Mind/Consciousness?I'm not a fan of the (monstrously unparsimonious) "multiverse", though as a non-physicist, I am quite in favor of the many worlds interpretation of QM which I vaguely understand dispenses with 'collapsing wave functions' (i.e. the Copenhagen interpretation).
As for the "primum movens", I think Democritus had dispensed with that idea by assuming 'motion is a fundamental property of atoms (i.e. they cannot not move / vibrate)' even before Aristotle had fetishized it. Also, Heraclitus had conceived of motion (i.e. 'flux') as fundamental just as Laozi had in the Daodejing. Motion is energy, no? Non-energetic energy (i.e. "primem movens") makes no more sense than cause of causality ("first cause"). -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?Complementarity (e.g. yin-yang) does not "defy logic", though "X = -X" does (re: principle of explosion). If @Gnomon's "BothAnd" implies the former, then it's rooted in quite a few esteemable traditions. If, however, it consists of the latter, then it's patently invalid (i.e. illogical), which accounts for much of the poor reasoning and fallacies found throughout his speculations.
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If There was an afterlife
I might try even harder to never die. I prefer to exist in a finitely intelligible universe than in some "realm" we probably cannot understand.I am referring to a coherent continuation of a persons consciousness.
As when we wake up each day aware of being the same person.
[ ... ].
My question is if you knew that some scenario like this happened how would it impact you? — Andrew4Handel
My own conjecture / scenario, I think, is about as good as metacognitive-self-continuity-surviving-brain-death gets:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/548675 (+ link to further elaboration) :nerd: -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?As I've said a number of times here and elsewhere, "Enformationism" is neither a soundly logical speculation nor a testable conjecture as @Gnomon has often claimed. Consider these attempts to draw him out on these objections (which he fails to address except with evasive sophistry, etc):
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/746676 (2 mo. ago)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/705408 (6 mo. ago)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/397690 (3 yrs ago) -
What are you listening to right now?
"Hound Dog" (2:52)
A-side single, 1953
writers J. Leiber & M. Stoller, 1952
performer Big Mama Thorton
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"Twist and Shout" (2:27)
A-side single, 1962
writers P. Medley & B. Russell, 1961
performers The Isley Brothers
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"You Shook Me" (2:42)
A-side single, 1962
writers W. Dixon & J.B. Renoir, 1962
performer Muddy Waters -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?
You do yourself no favors with vague nonsense like this :sparkle:Generic Information is the fundamental substance of the universe. — Gnomon -
Questions of Hope, Love and Peace...Excerpt from an old post (sans 'psychologism' creeping up in this thread)
The pessimistic stance, which Does Not Entail 'miserabilism' 'cynicism' or 'futilism', cultivates courage – sing the blues and dance! – at the expense of hope (to wit: “There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.” ~Franz Kafka) — 180 Proof -
Some Moral Claims Could be CorrectWhatever. You reformulate what I've written just to shadowbox with strawmen. That's masturbatory, TM.
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Some Moral Claims Could be CorrectAs pointed out already, these promises are implications of – implicit in – human eusociality. Tell me how we are eusocial without them in the absence of, or prior to, discursive language.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality -
Some Moral Claims Could be Correct
No. :roll:Are you saying that promises are implicit in the claims that we ought not harm one another and those other things? — ToothyMaw
I'm quoting you (re: OP) as the rest of the sentence suggests. -
Some Moral Claims Could be CorrectDo you agree with Searle's concept of promises as institutional facts in which oughts are entailed?
Insofar as we humans are a eusocial species, it seems to me that implicit promises e.g. (a) not to harm one another, (b) not to burden-shift / free ride and (c) to help one another constitute our eusociality in practice and that these implicit promises entail that we ought to behave in ways which fulfill them; thus, they are moral facts because, unlike institutional facts (e.g. money, citizenship, marriage) which are explicit constructs (e.g. contracts), these promises are implicit to – habits for – adaptively cohabitating with others in a shared/conflicted commons.
Contrary to the typical conception of "moral realism" which @ToothyMaw is incorrigibly fixated on, isn't it more reasonable to conceive of moral facts as performances, or practices, (i.e. norms / grammars) instead of the objects of propositions (i.e. "claims")? If not, where does my thinking (here) go wrong? -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?
Your incomprehension exceeds even your otten poor reasoning, G. Neither "multiverse" nor "many worlds" are "scientific postulations". :sweat: Again, sir, your "Enformationism", etc purports to explain what it does not explain – pseudo-science masquerading as speculation that's mere sophistry.Infinite Regress" is inherent in all scientific postulations (Multiverse ; Many Worlds) that go beyond Post-Big-Bang-Space-Time — Gnomon -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?
It's a way of begging the question, that is, continuously pushing further back, or deferring, an answer e.g. "origin of universe?" god. "origin of god?" the godhead. "origin of the godhead?" ... An epistemic regress that does not explain anything. Rather "there is no origin" – brute fact – is far less problematic epistemically.What's exactly the problem with infinite regress? — Agent Smith -
Universal Mind/Consciousness?"Reconcile with atheism"? Before that, it's question-begging (or an infinite regress) – doesn't make sense logically, ontologically or scientifically. Btw, I disagree that Gnomon's crypto-idealist pseudo-scientism aka "Meta-Physics" is inconsistent with atheism (i.e. rejection of a/every theistic – not non-theistic – deity); his so-called "Enformer" (seems to me) consistent with e.g. brahmanism or daoism or neoplatonism ... which are not inherently theistic.
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Should I become something I am not?
IIRC, H. Frankfurt describes bullshitting as – I paraphrase – complete self-serving disregard for the true/false distinction especially in (demogogic) political discourse which cumulatively undermines civil society, etc.Bullshitting entails wanting to say or doing things that are contrary to what you are. — Shawn
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit -
Should I become something I am not?I ask because you think "bullshitting" is "mostly detrimental to ethics" which makes no more sense than saying 'dyscalculia is mostly detrimental to mathematics.' :roll:
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Should I become something I am not?What you wrote doesn't make sense to me so I can't "disagree" with what you've written. For instance, Frankfurt's talking about political discourse, not ethics or epistemology or whatever else you've confused his paean to bullshit with.
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Universal Mind/Consciousness?I don't see how positing an "a priori" "first cause" "unmoved mover" entity explains anything (let alone "everything') more than occult non-explanations like "creationism" or "intelligent design". It's a perennially speculative question-begging non-starter, no?
180 Proof
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