On a YouTube video Stephen Pinker claimed we think in images. I know I think in words and live with a constant stream of language. How could Pinker know what I thought in? Considering he has no direct access to my mental states? Is he just going by analogy to his experience. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, but what are words except visual scribbles and sounds? If you say you think in your language, then you are essentially saying that you think in visual scribbles and sounds. How did you even learn a language without already thinking in visual imagery? How did you see the scribbles and the pictures associated with them without having the ability to see? How did your mind know that these scribbles represented the object in the picture next to them if your mind didn't already engage in representations - of understanding that what you see is a representation of what is external to your body? It seems that we delude ourselves into thinking that what we see is real, or how the world really is.

In a trivial case we could both agree that the car is red but I could be perceiving as blue and that is my red. I may perceive the colour as jarring and garish and you may experience it as soothing. — Andrew4Handel

Everyone that poses this question seems to ignore the fact that we all live in a shared world and the shared world is where the consistency comes from. We may both experience different colors than each other but we always experience the same color when the same wavelength of EM energy interacts with our eyes. This is why we can still communicate about what it is we experience and understand each other. We couldn't understand each other if we didn't consistently experience the same thing when looking at the same thing every time. I believe that we do see the same colors because we share so much of our DNA. We are members of the same species. Geneticists haven't found a part of our genetic code that creates color in our minds that could be different from individual to individual, like the color of our eyes are.

The fact that we can talk about colors at all and understand what we mean must mean something, right? What about the fact that people that can see can't talk about colors with a congenitally blind person and the fact that sighted people can say that blind people don't see colors at all despite the fact that it may be hard for a sighted person to imagine what it would be like not seeing colors?

As I said, the ego - the conscious mind - the 'I' that speaks, the 'I' we address in other people (unless we are trying to manipulate them by going around the 'I' altogether) is just one of those functions. We tend to think of it as the SUPREME function, but it isn't. It's just the Front Office. It's the Public Relations Department. The 'conscious mind' does not manage the brain, the mostly invisible brain manages the conscious mind. The conscious mind is often the last one to find out what it is going to do next, paradoxically. It's a paradox because we think the conscious mind is 'in charge'. It's not. — Bitter Crank

But then why do I experience having control of certain aspects of my body. My legs don't start walking unless I will it. There is top-down processing happening, and it seems that there is also bottom-up processing going on as there are things that happen in consciousness that will did not precede in making it happen - like breathing. But consciousness is where I'm aware of this stuff happening. Could it be said that I could be aware of these things without being conscious? If so, how?

I'm not sure where you are getting your certainty about what happens when we are unconscious. — unenlightened

I'm not sure where you are getting your information about what happens when we are unconscious either. The only place you could be getting it is from your consciousness! How is it that you know anything if you are never conscious? When have you learned anything while being non-conscious, or unconscious?

But you are continuing to disagree with me about a distinction I have made without understanding it. Edge detection is non-conscious, I am saying, like a brick is non-conscious. 'We' may or may not be conscious of a brick from time to time, in the background or the foreground. Part of the process of seeing a brick is detecting its edges, but 'detecting the edges' does not itself see anything, nor does the brick;I see the brick by amongst other things, detecting its edges. All of which, I don't think we disagree much about. — unenlightened

It seems the other way around to me - that you aren't understanding me and it's obvious because you didn't reply to my whole post (cherry-picking). You keep talking about what appears in consciousness (edge-detection) and saying that it is an non-conscious process. When I'm conscious - and only when I'm conscious, do I detect edges. You can try to detect edges when you are asleep. Good Luck.

What you are saying that is missing is your will to detect edges. It seems automatic - that edges just appear - without any power of the will preceding it - unlike the process of lifting your arm when you decide to do so. This took willpower when you were an infant. It took a coordinated effort of you focusing your eyes together and your brain creating new neural paths as you learn. Detecting edges took effort until finally you had enough practice at doing it that it now seems automatic.

But then I want to talk about the Freudian unconscious, which is not so-called because it is like the brick or the automatic process of edge-detection. On the contrary, it is active, wilful, aware. But it is called the unconscious because the 'I' or 'we' that pontificates is unaware of its existence and active influence. This is the controversial bit.

So this is why Freud was interested in dreams, because when 'we' are unconscious, the unconscious is still awake and active. — unenlightened

Again, how do you know that the unconscious is willful and aware? In what way? It can't be aware in the way that we are when we are conscious because that would defeat the purpose of consciousness. If the unconscious is active, willful, and aware, then what use is consciousness? Consciousness must solve problems that the unconsciousness can't or else it would have never evolved in the first place.

Your description of the unconsciousness seems to correlate with my last paragraph in my previous post, where I said that other parts of the brain could have symbolism and representation going on in order to perform it's tasks as it needs information about the environment and the body all at once in order to make any "decision" about what to do.

The implication of indirect realism is that what we experience is a model of the world, not the world as it is. This means that when we look at someone's brain, the brain we experience is a visual model, not the the way it really is. We too often think of it as the other way around - that what we see is real, and then we run into the problem of how the brain generates the model we experience. If we were to think of it in reverse - that what is real is "out there", and "in here" is the model, then we can understand the reason why we can't experience someone else's experiences - or mental activity. The brain that we see is a model of their mental activity that is happening "out there" in the way that it does whether or not someone is looking at it or not. You might say that the brain we experience visually is the model of all of their mental activity, including their conscious experience.

Let me see if I can show it to you, because it is significant. When you look at the screen, various processes occur that interpret the scene, most of which happen automatically. There is, for example, an 'edge detection' process that identifies shapes that form letters; these are combined into words, and sentences and the significance is grasped. Most of this, most of the time is non-conscious automatic processing, rather like one's fingernails growing, such that one is aware of the screen 'speaking' and not much else - Unenlightened replies to Harry Hindu. — unenlightened

The model I have been thinking about lately is that "consciousness is one function among many equals". Most of what goes on in our brains is invisible to us. Not only is 'edge detection' invisible, but so are the detections of horizontal and vertical lines, shape, color and texture recognition, face recognition, phoneme identification, and so on. Proprioception is another of many always on, always background operations. I have zero knowledge of how my brain assembled the sequence of words in this paragraph, or coordinated finger movements with the flow of thought. — Bitter Crank

I think you both are confusing consciousness with intent. None of these things happen when we are unconscious. Edge detection never happens when we are asleep, or otherwise unconscious. It seems to happen without any prior intent, but we are still conscious. Making distinctions seems to be what consciousness itself is. Intent is something else.

We should also think about whether or not these other processes you mentioned were always exhibited without any prior intention. We all know how we learn new things and over time, we don't need to focus on doing them when we become proficient with them. Newborns can't make these kinds of distinctions because their sense of vision is poor. It takes practice to learn how to focus your eyes and coordinate them in order to acquire a sensible image. Now, as adults, such things are "child's play".

Another aspect we should all take into account is the possibility that there are other "consciousnesses" in our brain. How do we know that these other processes happen without a central executive making sense out of what is happening in the brain in it's specific module of the brain?

Interesting language here; id is 'it' as distinct/opposed from/to ego 'I'. That is to say that the unconscious is other than myself - the self I am conscious of.

I want to lose weight, but it wants to eat. I want to be calm and reasonable, but it wants to bite babies... Have you ever found yourself in an internal conflict? (This is no form of argument, but an appeal to relate talk to experience.)

I think there has been some confusion in this thread between non-conscious and unconscious. Stuff you don't have to think about, and stuff you have no access to is not 'the' unconscious of Freud. He is talking about a division of awareness. 'It' is a foreigner disrupting your life and frustrating your ambitions. 'It' is the inner arsehole. — unenlightened

This sounds like evidence that you have a modular mind - one that has evolved separate parts to solve different problems. It sounds like you have these "animalistic" desires and these other desires to maintain your social standing in the complex social environment you find yourself in.

I don't see any distinction between "unconscious" and "non-conscious". They both mean the same thing. What I do see is a distinction in the level of attention I apply to certain aspects of my mental life. It seems as though I can attend several things at once, especially if I have experience doing those things, like driving to work everyday, but I can assure you that I don't drive to work unconsciously, or non-consciously. I can attend other things while driving to work, like thinking about my upcoming vacation, or remembering what happened last week, but I'm still attending driving to work. I'm just devoting less attention to driving because I have done it many times to where it doesn't require my full attention. My full attention is required when conditions change quickly, as in someone cuts in front of me.

Sounds interesting. I'll look it up. Thanks.

It's not in the business of trying to 'describe consciousness'. What it describes is the motion of objects. It's amazing the number of people who don't seem to get that. — Wayfarer

...says someone who isn't up to par with the latest attempts of scientists (not physicists, but neurologists and psychologists) to explain consciousness. They are preliminary explanations no doubt, but philosophy by itself hasn't advanced our understanding of consciousness beyond any preliminary stages since it began addressing it thousands of years ago. As usual, we need a different view to understand something better. Thinking about it like we have for the last few thousand years (like it's some special, magical, supernatural property or thing) hasn't gotten us anywhere.

Actually, people having wild notions is not earth-shattering. It would be earth-shattering if their wild notions, like the notion of a vantage point being independent of a sensory system or independent of space-time (vantage points change and are part of the causal chain that make up reality and are therefore part of "time", or else how can you explain how it is that the vantage point is actually observing anything?) were actually true, because it's logically impossible.

Maybe I should have simply asked How do we See?, not What does it Mean to See? — SteveKlinko

http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/amazing-human-eye

It's simply not fact. Physical things are describable by physics - up to a point - conscious subjects are not. This fundamental misconception invalidates everything that comes after it. — Wayfarer

All this means is that physics hasn't described consciousness - yet. It doesn't imply that consciousness has some special quality about it that allows it to be untouched by science. That would be an description of consciousness that isn't based on any facts. It's most likely that consciousness simply hasn't yet been defined correctly.

What about a life-form that isn't conscious, like a starfish, that has eyes, but no central nervous system with a brain?

But what does it really mean to See? — SteveKlinko

What it means to see is that you are using light as a source of information about the world. We know this is true because we don't have any information about the world when there is no light. Actually, the only information we have is that there is no light symbolized by our visual field covered in black.

This summarises what seems to be Simmel's argument well: valuation is a naturally-occurring phenomenon. And yet our talk about it seems transcendent. — mcdoodle

I don't see how talk is transcendent. Talk, or text in our case, are simply sounds, or scribbles, that we have attached meaning and value to. How and why we attach meaning and value has to do with our goals as individuals and as members of the same highly social group.

The (to Simmel, transcendent) vantage point is the human one: we reflect on value. Crows are bright creatures, for instance, but their conversation, as far as we know so far, does not rise to a caw about the value of one's latest stash or cache. Once we are capable of reflecting on value, how does that change our valuations? — mcdoodle

I didn't ask WHAT the vantage point was, I asked WHERE it was. My point was that this vantage point is within the same world (and therefore part of it) that money as just pieces of metal and paper are.

And, the crunch: what happens when the valuations we articulate to ourselves clash? Enter 'value theory' of one kind or another. Simmel thinks money is both wonderful and terrible, for it enables us to compare the value of any single object (including the abstract) with any other via the intrinsically valueless intermediary of money, and this is its glory and its horror: it makes universal valuation seem easy, and it demeans the value of everything by turning our finest achievements into monetary value.

Well that's how I read it. — mcdoodle

They clash when our goals clash. Our immediate and long-term goals go hand in hand with the values we assign to things. The more something helps us achieve some goal, the more valuable it is.

To answer this question, you simply need to compare the suicide rates and accidental drug overdoses of those in the musical/acting industry and those in the technical industry. This comparison shows that the artists seem to have a much harder time finding happiness.

Yes, these are possibilities, but they are not alternatives to whether or not you have a creator. In other words, you must have either no creator or a creator. Whether or not you were created in an infinite stream of causation or by a single being which is the first to exist doesn't change the fact that you were, indeed, created (or vice versa). — Javants

Ok. I see your point. I believe I was created by my parents. After all, my appearance, shape and function all seem to resemble certain aspects of their appearance, shape and function more than any other thing I have encountered.

That's a very good point, but for the purpose of this debate, having something which creates you does not mean it is a God based on the fact alone that it is affecting your life by allowing it to exist. For example, hypothetically, we could have been created by some freak natural phenomena. Even though that phenomena has created us (and thus has the effect of allowing us to act), it cannot really be considered a 'God' because it has not had any further affect on our lives besides causation. — Javants

Understood. I wouldn't consider it a God if it didn't have any prior intention in creating me. But I have limits and functions. My limits and functions must say something about what created me.

I wouldn't call it a "freak" natural phenomenon. "Freak" and "natural" seem to contradict each other, as what would be freakish would be unnatural.

It is equally impossible for our minds to grasp infinite causation as it is something coming from nothingness. As you said yourself, "causation could continue forever in both directions". Just because we can't comprehend it, does not mean it necessarily did not happen (although we have no real way of knowing). — Javants

This is where I'm going to disagree. If there is infinite causation, or a loop of causation, then there is/was no nothingness. There has always been something.

As for the incomprehensibility of infinite causation, I find infinite causation much easier to grasp than the concept of something coming from nothing. I can imagine an infinite line of causation. It's just that my mind is limited in the amount of information it can hold in any given moment. My mind cannot contain all the information in a stream of infinite causation, just as my mind cannot contain all the information in the world. There's a limit to the amount of information I can have access to at any given moment. However, I cannot even imagine how something can come from nothing. That is beyond my comprehension.

We can assume, firstly, that you exist. If you perceive a world, you must exist, as otherwise you would not be able to perceive that world ('Cognito, ergo sum'). We can now deduce that there are two possibilities:

That you have a Creator. Something has caused your existence, which could be either a deity, natural phenomena, etc.
That you do not have a Creator. It is inevitable that the first thing to ever exist could not have come from any preexisting thing, and thus must have come from nothingness. As such, you have no creator. — Javants

There are actually a couple of other possibilities, both of which eliminate the possibility of a necessary creator.

1) That there actually isn't a first thing to exist. Causation could continue on forever in both directions. An infinite regress is possible.

2) There is a loop of causation - that the ending is actually the beginning and vice versa.

That Creator is not a God. That which created you is something which has no interaction with you in your life. This is known as Inactive Causation, and hence, a God does not exist. — Javants

An important thought seems to be left out here and that is any effect some "God" would have on my life includes me being created. Every thing I do would be the result of being created by this God. The actions of my children are somewhat caused by me for they would never do the things they do if I had never created them with my wife.

The creator would be even more culpable if they are omnipotent and know all my actions before I perform them, and because it created me with certain functions and limits in mind my life is permanently influenced by the creator.

Also, any effect some other being has on my actions would mean that they are inseparable from the same world I am part of. They would be part of the same causal chain that I am part of, which would lead one to ask who created the creator? How does something come from nothing?

It seems contradictory in that it says "Valuation as a real psychological occurrence is part of the natural world", but then goes on to say that it's not part of the world. Which world is it not part of - the natural one? What other world is there?

Where is this vantage point relative to the world that it is independent of?

Humans aren't the only ones that make value judgements. Making value judgements is an evolved psychological trait that we acquired from older life forms. The health, resources and the amount of time and energy one devotes to mating rituals will influence the decision of a member of the opposite sex and determine whether or not the other is chosen to pass on their genes. Natural selection "selected" such psychological traits because it promotes fitter offspring that have a greater chance at survival.

That's not difficult at all. You're simply delusional. You want that to be the explanation. You've made an emotional investment in your explanation. You haven't used an ounce of logic or reason in making your explanation.



Hallucinations also have an effect on my behavior. The thing is, the only way for it to affect others with my hallucinations is to tell them about it. They don't experience them with me. This is because my hallucinations aren't part of this shared world that can be experienced without telling anyone about them. If we were standing on the beach and watching the sunset, I wouldn't need to say to you, "hey, there's a sunset over there." It would be redundant. However, if I was only imagining the sunset, and I said the same thing, you'd think I was nuts. These are two different reactions to the same thing. How can that be if they both have the same "existence"?

So, if the OP is conflating the existence of things in my mind with things outside of it, when some of the things in my mind don't have an equivalent outside of it (like leprechauns and unicorns) and some do, (like my mother and this internet forum), then we need to redefine the word, "existence".

Why do we need more evidence when someone tells us something they experienced as opposed to experiencing it ourselves? Isn't it because we know that human beings make a lot of assumptions and are often mistaken about their own experiences so human beings are usually used as a source of preliminary information until more evidence comes about?

Can we really say that it has worked so far? What about illusions and misinterpretations of sensory data? Is a bee's sensory system "working so far" when it misinterprets a porch light for the moon or sun and ends up committing suicide by flying around the light until it dies of exhaustion?

Natural selection isn't perfect. It even seems to be imperfect in the same manner as our own knowledge in that it can only work with what came before. It can only manipulate existing knowledge, or existing traits, into slightly different versions - not completely new and novel ideas or traits out of the blue. This is what seems to lead to the "mistakes".

We can even explain why it has worked so far and explain when it won't work. If the Earth was covered in smog, then seeing via visible light would probably never have evolved, much less evolved separately several times. If the environment of the Earth changes in such a way, then our existing sense of vision might be of no use. Just turn off the lights in your windowless room and you can see what I mean.

What it means is that the world simply changes, but not so much, and not so fast, that we can't adapt to those changes. The fact that there are adaptations at all must mean that the world stays the same for at least a certain period of time - long enough for adaptations to evolve, become useful, and be passed down to subsequent generations because it is still useful. Natural selection seems to determine when it is no longer useful.

What if we were able to fit all of our knowledge from all the different fields of science and all the different domains of investigation in philosophy and religion into a consistent whole? There are a million ways to put a 1000-piece puzzle together in the wrong way, but only one way to do it right. If all of these different pieces were put together in such a way that they work together and even compliment each other, then wouldn't you say that we have finally attained accurate knowledge that would never need to be changed or updated?

If we can't rely on logic and our knowledge because something might be different five minutes from now, then doesn't that place a major emphasis on our observations - in order to acquire that new knowledge? I mean if we already possessed all knowledge, then what use would our senses have? — Harry Hindu


You could base your faith in contiguity on observation if you have a functioning crystal ball. — Mongrel

I have no idea how this answers my question. Crystal balls are only useful for seeing things outside the range of your own eyes. But then you'd need to explain how reflected light in a far-away environment gets placed in some crystal ball right before me for my eyes to then see.

I think that our predilection for expecting and behaving as though the past is a reliable guide for the future is essentially an evolved trait--"hard-wired" if you will, into not only human, but also the vast majority of the animal kingdom that have much neurology. We are automatically predisposed simply to imitate, a very efficient and successful way of learning to negotiate our way around the world. And imitation presupposes that what has worked previously will work again. — Brainglitch

Just as our senses are an evolved trait that presupposes that things aren't always the same and that the world is dynamic and we need to be constantly updated with information about the state of the world.

The fact that we rely on knowledge gained in the past and that we have senses for acquiring new, or updated information, must mean something. It must mean something when eyes evolved separately in different evolutionary branches of organisms (convergent evolution). Seeing (observing at a distance) must be a very important thing to be able to do.

The problem of induction zeroes in on our faith in contiguity past to future. Even if we knew that X has always been true until now, that knowledge would not logically support the conclusion that X will be true five minutes from now.

Logic is not the basis of this faith. Obviously it isn't observation. So what is the basis of it? — Mongrel

If we can't rely on logic and our knowledge because something might be different five minutes from now, then doesn't that place a major emphasis on our observations - in order to acquire that new knowledge? I mean if we already possessed all knowledge, then what use would our senses have?

There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back. — Benkei

What is the consensus on the wavelength associated with grey, white, or burgundy?

Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but there are millions of different combinations of colors triggered by millions of different combinations of the strengths of the signals coming from the rods and cones in our eyes. It's no different from creating millions of different colors from just varying degrees of the three primary colors

MU,

Don't we need some consistency between individuals as well? This consistency gives us what some people call inter-subjectivity, which in some cases it is argued, qualifies as objectivity. It's interpretation. If we all agree as to the meaning of a particular word, then that word has "objective" meaning (in the sense of inter-subjective), though it might not have an ideal objective meaning in the sense of an independent Platonic Form. The independent Platonic Form could allow us to theoretically judge the inter-subjective meaning, if we had access to that Form.

Isn't this the same with colours? Seeing is a mode of interpretation as well. There is an inter-subjective meaning of "red" which provides us with the common meaning of the term. Benkei appears to be claiming that there is a truly objective "red", an ideal definition of red, and even to know this Platonic Form, through science. It is suggested that we should judge our inter-subjective interpretation against this Form. But I think Benkei derives this ideal in a faulty way. There may be such a Platonic Form of red, but Benkei has not described it. — Metaphysician Undercover

After all, it is possible, being that we are genetically similar, that we do experience the same colors with the same wavelength or assortment of wavelengths. But even if we didn't, the consistency comes from being in a shared world. The same wavelength of light may create different colors in the mind, but the same wavelength ALWAYS triggers the same color in the mind for each person.

When you learned you colors, you learned to associate the word, "red" with the color you see when that particular wavelength interacts with the cones and rods in your eyes. I may experience a different color. But we both experience our color consistently as a result of the same wavelength of light. This is why we can agree on the wavelength, without experiencing the same color.

Yes, volcanoes, quakes, tornadoes, etc. are natural. So, what? That doesn't imply we shouldn't classify dangers to the environment into the categories man-made and natural. — TheMadFool

Of course it does, that is if you want to remain consistent.

Your replies are sometimes loaded with a lot more subjective value statements than they are objective viewpoints. — Bitter Crank

Like...?

Your sense of humor is a pit pinched as well. My comment on the Chinese was clearly self-deprecating. — Bitter Crank

Well, it is kind of hard to pick up on humor without being in person. There are those that resort to character assassination when they don't have an argument to make, You must be one of those that veers off topic and tries to make light of things when they don't have an argument to make.

Right. So maybe it's not so much the CO2, but the massive deforestation that is happening.

2) They are an instrument of Russian state media.

Counter: Wikileaks has had 100% publication accuracy and always has, even before the alleged association with the Russian government. They have released documents implicating both Democrats and Republicans since almost a decade ago. Do you not like accurate news? — discoii

So then why don't they release a hoard of info on Russia and Putin, or China, or other countries? Why focus on the US? Maybe because Assange knows that he will be assassinated if he were to do so, kind of like how environmentalist whacks don't go to China to spout their propaganda for fear of being jailed or eliminated. It's all right to talk dirty about the country that embodies free speech, but fail to be consistent when talking dirty about other countries that aren't, and have just as much skeletons in the closet as anyone else.

Actually it makes a lot of difference. A Dutch invention could be exported and used by other countries, for instance. A county can inspire others for demonstrating that co2 reduction and growth are possible (oh wait, the USA and China did exactly that).

And the amount of pollution China creates is largely driven by market demand in the West. So "blaming" them as solely responsible in a global economy is a bit silly. It is global warming after all. — Benkei

No. It's driven by China driving down the costs of labor and allowing it's people get paid next to nothing for the work they do all in an effort to steal manufacturing power from the US.

And if it is a shared responsibility, that implies that not only should we help the Chinese but they should be helping us. Good luck with that. When are you going to China, Benkei?

We only have a limited number of "color"-receptive cones in our eyes, and all of them are triggered by an assortment of wavelengths of varying degrees. It is a rare circumstance when only one of our cones is triggered, or none as in the case of no light being in the environment. You have to account for the fact that we can't see at all when light is completely absent from the environment.

Our brains then assemble a "picture" based on these varying degrees that each cones is triggered by. In other words, the brain mixes the strength of these signals from each "color"-sensitive cone to create the colors we experience.

It doesn't really matter what one person claims as being "the ideal red". After all it is possible that we all experience different colors when interacting with the same light. All that matters is that the symbol, or representation, of that light is consistent - that the effect is always the same per the cause for that particular person. This way we can still communicate about what we see without anyone being the wiser choice of what is the "ideal color".

You seem to be saying that climate change is natural because human beings are, well, natural and that all this fuss about man-made climate change is barking up the wrong tree.

However vehicles, factories, nuclear powerplants, etc. are not in any form of biological relationship with the ecosystem. There is not even a hint of it. The relationship (if you can call it that) between man-made artefacts and nature is a one-way street and it's jammed with garbage trucks loading tons of toxic pollutants.

Therefore, there's a significant difference between man-made artefacts and natural things. This difference has major consequences for the enviroment. — TheMadFool

Volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc. aren't biological in nature either, but they are still natural. You are making a distinction that isn't really there. New non-biological elements are made naturally inside stars. How is that different from the things that humans make? As I said before, we put CO2 in the environment just by breathing.

I thought I had agreed with you that humans are a part of nature, and therefore, what they do is "natural". But just being natural isn't in itself always good. Termites are natural too, and if they infest your house, it will eventually collapse as they eat--and weaken--the structure. — Bitter Crank

Re-read that post again, Bitter - the part where I mention value statements. Does that give you the right to eradicate all termites on Earth? Who has the right to exist, termites or humans?
Your house collapsing from a termite infestation isn't much different from your house collapsing as the result of an earthquake or tornado, all of which have been happening and shaping the landscape ever since Earth existed.

You have to realize that value statements are always subjective, while what I'm saying is from a far more objective viewpoint - one that you just barely seem to be able to reach while the others in this thread seem hopeless.

My sublime thought is available to the Chinese via the Internet. I am sure there hang on every word. — Bitter Crank

Uh.. You do realize that the Chinese govt. filters and controls what it's population sees on the internet, don't you? You need to go there to spread your message, but something tells me that you only care enough about the environment to preach to those that need to hear it the least, and only if the environment (termites) doesn't affect your life.

That's fallacious reasoning. Just because China is the worst polluter doesn't absolve every other country from doing what needs to be done. — Benkei

Actually, it makes what every other country needs to do worthless. What good is it for every other country to do something when the world's largest populations and polluters are doing nothing to very little?

As for the amount China is spending; it is comparable to amount of pollution they create compared to the rest of the world, so yes, they should be spending more money that the US, duh. Any info on India, the 2nd largest population and polluter?

But yeah, you and Bitter can ignore the more interesting points about humans being natural causes to Earth's climate, and avoid those questions I posed in my previous post. Cherry-pickers.

Man is certainly part of nature, and our activities are "natural" for us. But using the term "natural" here confuses factors outside of human activity (like solar radiation) and activities that are purely human, like burning coal to make steel. — Bitter Crank

This is like saying that a star burning hydrogen and helium to make other heavier elements in it's core is purely solar and we shouldn't be confusing this with the "natural" production of these elements. Stars are polluting the universe with these heavier elements. Coal is made naturally by natural forces, and because humans are natural, steel is also produced naturally. Shit and piss are produced naturally. CO2 is produced naturally by every organism that breathes oxygen.

You are right, though, that many people wrongly locate human activity above or outside nature. But just because we "act naturally" doesn't mean what we are doing is beneficial to ourselves in the long run. — Bitter Crank

Now you are making a value statement and values are man-made. Who is to say that what is right for humans is right for the rest of nature? Who is to say that humans deserve to continue to exist? I'm sure if lions had their way, there would be no competitors, like hyenas, for resources. Hyenas would be extinct. I'm sure that we'd want to eliminate every virus and dangerous bacteria from existence. Do we have that right?

Throughout the history of the Earth, there have been mass extinctions and massive environmental and geological change over a short period of time. Were all those changes bad? It led to us, but what about all those animals and environments that are now destroyed thanks to natural forces that led to us? Climate Changers seem to be incapable of stepping back and looking at the big picture.

Another thing: China is one of the worst, if not THE worst polluters on Earth. If Climate Changers really want to put their money where their mouth is, why not go to China and make your claims there? After all, the U.S. has probably spent more money and energy to limit pollution than any other country yet these people still lambaste Americans more than any other country. This is what the left is known for - selective outrage. Anything the U.S. does will be a waste if other countries like China and India don't pull their own weight here. All the effort of Climate Changers will be wasted.

The question isn't whether or not man is causing changes to his environment. There is no doubt that he is. But the sun is also causing changes to our environment and the sun changes, and those changes have nothing to do with human activity. The question should be, "Is this natural change?" If you believe in the theory of natural selection, (if you believe in climate change, then you should believe in this too), then there is no questions that man is a part of nature and anything man does is natural - which includes capitalism, computer programming, cooking your meal, etc. Every organism fills it's natural niche differently, so to say that the way one organism makes it's life is natural while another isn't is inconsistent.

I place myself in the middle. There is no creation nor destruction - only change.

How exactly does an atom have an inner experience, or intention? My experience shows that my intentions often come into conflict with reality. My intentions don't always come to fruition. Sometimes they fail. How does a proponent of the idea proposed in the OP explain how an atom, or anything else without a brain (or a sensory information processor), has intentions and how those intentions interact with reality. What is it like for an atom to have a certain intention and the rest of reality has different "intentions" and how is that known to the atom - the distinction of intentions vs. reality.

What is ironic is all the people who reject science and it's explanations, and how these same people propose that what isn't experienced doesn't really exist, yet they use "science" to promote one of their political positions. This is another great example of how people don't integrate their knowledge from all domains of investigation into a consistent whole.

Another thing these people don't seem to realize is what other domains of science - domains that have a greater amount of evidence than does "global warming by man" - like evolution by natural selection. This whole argument about man-made global warming is ridiculous when we realize that humans are as natural as everything else. We are not separate from nature, so to make these assertions that the climate is changing due to some non-natural causes (man), is non-sensical. Would these same people be complaining if elephants were causing climate change - or would it simply be natural change?

The Earth changes - and that includes everything on it. Global catastrophes and extinction events occurred well before human beings came on the scene. Other organisms can change their environment and given enough time and enough population growth, they can have widespread consequences to the Earth.

Human beings are natural outcomes and produce natural effects on their environment. Those that don't take this into account haven't yet taken the objective high ground on this issue.

Everything in the mind is a concept; this includes our understanding of non-existence. Yet it feels to us that what we think of when we observe in our minds the concept of non-existence somehow accurately reflects what non-existence is in actuality, but where is the evidence for this?

In other words, for most of society as naive realists or materialists it feels intuitive to think that when you die there is nothing (probably inferred from self-awareness stopping during sleep), but "nothing" is just a concept in the mind. YOU nor any man have any guarantee that you know what nothing means, nor what infinity actually is. — intrapersona

Actually, I think that the concept of "nothing" is probably the most accurate concept we have. Nothing is easy to imagine. It's simply a complete absence of everything. You seem to be confusing the concept (or mental model) of nothing, which is something, with an objective nothing. There is no confusing what nothing is. There is no skewing the concept of nothing. If you think of a total absence of everything, including time, then you have successfully thought of and modeled nothingness in your mind.

Our brains model things. Our brains simulate things. Our brains do not contain the very things they are simulating or modeling. They only contain models. So if we are "limited" by our brains only having models and not the real thing, then to complain that we don't have the real thing instead of models, would be complaining that you are a mind instead of being the universe.

As for the rest of your post, I point to the very fact that all life seems to try to avoid death at all costs. Death must be a negative to life for it to be instinctive to avoid it. You see, the philosopher's own genes are wiser than his solipsist consciousness, "knowing" that death terminates a certain group of genes, possibly before being passed down to the next generation, which is necessary for the continued existence of life. So it would be no surprise that behaviors that avoid death would be selected in favor of those behaviors that don't. Your genes "know" that there is nothing for the organism after death, but it's existence continues in the world through the copying of it's genes.

What if science eventually got to the point of enabling everyone to live forever? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not asking about the impact on the environment, population growth, etc. We can use technology to alleviate these impacts by finding more places to live. I'm asking about the impact it would have on our view of death.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you're only saying that consciousness depends on brain activity, then Chalmers would agree. He's a property dualist, after all, not a substance dualist. All he's arguing is that consciousness is not identical to brain activity (or any other physical thing). — Michael

When I look at your brain, I experience a model of your brain, not your actual brain. My model isn't precise (it's a model after all). My model appears to have a shape, color and orientation relative to the location and orientation of my eyes. I associate these kinds of properties as being "physical". But your brain isn't a physical thing. It is a process - a changing, dynamic system that can only be modeled by my brain in an incomplete fashion and only using the information my senses have access to (Your neurons are too small for my eyes to pick up so my model of your brain is like a mushy glob of biological tissue). So if my model represents certain aspects of your information processing, then how are they not the same, especially if that is all I have access to is my model, not your actual processing of sensory information?

If Chalmers is arguing that consciousness is not identical to brain activity, then why is my perspective located, not just visually, but also with sounds, and tactile sensations, etc. inside my head? All sensations have a property of location, and that location is always relative to the location of my head. For example, touch your thumb and index finger on one hand together, and then close your eyes. Now move your hand about and pay attention to the location of the sensation. You will notice that the sensation's location is always relative to the location of your head, above, below, or to the sides of your head. How can this be? How is it that everything has a location that is relative to my head, where my brain is, - where my brain processes sensory information? Chalmer's has some explaining to do.

How do you know that the people you claim to be fully conscious are fully conscious? Because of their behaviour? Then you're begging the question. — Michael

Easy. Ask them if they noticed that they ran out of the house in their underwear. If they didn't then they weren't aware of what they were wearing, but were aware of where they were going. They weren't fully conscious because a normal person that is fully awake would notice this. What I'm getting at is what is present in conscious as it relates to what is out in the world. The more of the world that is represented in the mind, the more conscious a person is.

We could also look at the level of and location of brain activity and compare it to being awake, sleeping, dreaming, sleep-walking, etc.

These questions don't make any sense. It is simply the case that the movement of the p-zombie's body (including the movement of the lungs and vocal chords) is causally explained by the laws of physics and prior physical states of matter. This must be true for the physicalist, as the physicalist doesn't allow for non-physical causes. The issue, then, is whether or not we can conceive of this situation without conceiving of this person having first-person experiences. Chalmers claims that we can; that we don't need to imagine that there's anything that it's like to be this person to imagine the purely mechanical series of causal relations that the physicalist must say actually explains the behaviour (e.g. electrical activity in the central nervous system).

As I alluded to above, your reasoning only works against the possibility of p-zombies if human behaviour cannot be explained by physical causes alone. But then you're accepting the conclusion of the p-zombie argument; consciousness isn't physical. — Michael

But "physical", like "mental", is simply a category derived by the brain and associated with different experiences. Physicality and mentality are simply types of models that our brain creates. We never experience anything physical nor mental. We simply experience information and it could be said that information is the primary substance of the world, not physical or mental things. Thinking in this dichotomy just causes all these philosophical problems (like the mind-body problem). The "substance" that composes our experiences must be similar to the substance of everything else or there is no way for anything to interact. That is not to say that I'm an Idealist, or think that everything is mental, or has mental properties. That would be committing the same fallacy as those that claim everything is physical. The world is neither mental nor physical. It is simply something else and what we call it really doesn't matter, does it?

No, the definition of p-zombies literally means that they are physically indentical to a conscious being and, therefore, exhibit the behavior of a conscious being. You could say that they are inconcievable, but that is the entire debate. — Chany

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result. How can something be "physically" identical to me and still not be conscious like me. That is no different than defining my maternal twin as a p-zombie.

Sure, we have no proof that any of us have minds. I imply that others have minds because they look and behave similarly to me, and I of course, have a mind. So why, or how, would a p-zombie, who doesn't have a mind, feel the need to imply the existence of minds in others? How would it even understand what the term, "mind" is referring to when heard or seen written down. Oh wait, never mind, p-zombies can't hear or see either because they don't have a mind. So then how do they gather information about the world and where do they retain this information in the form of knowledge and understanding?

We have multiple lines of evidence that show that people that aren't fully conscious behave in distinctly different ways than other people that are fully conscious. Take sleep-walkers for instance. Sleep walkers may behave like that know where they are going, but they aren't usually dressed for the trip. People with blind-sight can be aware of something in their vicinity, but can't make out any details. They behave in ways that make them seem unsure about what it is they are experiencing. In other words, people that aren't fully conscious behave strangely - or differently that those of us who are fully conscious. The p-zombie argument simply doesn't hold up as it doesn't take into account simple observations, or simple logical principles.