I don't know why this thread exists in a forum like this but I would say that from a philosophical point of view:

Many of you who support Biden and post here are projecting your sense of guilt about wherever you really picked the right guy and are trying to convince yourself he was the right choice or that you had no choice in when you in fact did, and many of you just want to see a return to etablished norms, perceived stability.

Many of you who supported Trump are playing the "I told you so" card, given that Biden is in the line of blame now, and as many of you see it, he is senile and arguably not running the show, and you also feel hurt that your period of whitelash has come to and end and that you really needed 8 years of Trump to nulify the color of Obama .

Just my take. I mean what's done is done. Neither camp can everse its choice. Shouldn't you just grow up and not post stuff like this in a philosophy forum. Wallowing in and projecting your misery or false sense of satisfaction won't fix anything or improve your life.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/exploring_how_and_why_trees_talk_to_each_other

The researcher from above link found that "trees communicate their needs and send each other nutrients via a network of latticed fungi buried in the soil — in other words, she found, they “talk” to each other. "

You could argue that tress are sentient, or at least a community of them could be.

I'd say it all depends on whether these cells communicate with each other. But I would argue that under a strict definition of a cell, it is not sentient, but it could form a part of a sentient whole, but that's a different question.

What is the nature of the information that the senses input?
How would you describe that information?
How does that information compare to the energies that stimulated the senses? — deletedmemberTB

The information and the energy are one and the same. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle came to mind when I read this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
At the simplest atomic level, the very act of measurement influences what you are measuring - the input.

Information is really an abstract concept. Its an abstraction we create ourselves that doesn't really exist. Information means nothing without a vessel to carry it, at least as far as our perception goes.

And finally, how does the brain's interpretation of the information that was input by the senses compare to the energies that stimulated the senses? — deletedmemberTB

Most would argue that it is through evolution, some through divine design. Or bodies may evolve the capability to process the inputs we receive according to whether it is useful or harmful to us. The smell of arsenic is unpleasant to us. Our bodies recognize it as destructive energetically. Conversely, the smell of fresh bread is appealing, perhaps we evolved the capability to detect the smell of constituent properties that over eons of evolution, our bodies have learned are favorable to our health. Survival instincts probably amplify this in the case where we are suffering from starvation.

when you get a Phd in science it stands for doctor of Philosophy.
If you use logic or reason then you are using philosophy. — Rxspence

Correct and easily overlooked explanation.

What magritte describes just under the OP is a symptom of what CallMeDirac is getting at.

Here is the problem as I see it.

Science is fine. Physics is great. Experimental Physics is ultimately like a Philosophers toolkit. Theoretical physics can be thought of as a Philosophers brainstorm kit.

The problem is politics and technology.

Let's look at just one majorly volatile issue. Climate Change
Regardless of your take on climate change, there is no doubt that politics and technology has spilled into and corrupted the argument.

1 thing you will probably never hear from a fossil fuels zealot: "It's better to harness energy from a renewable source."

1 thing you will probably never hear from a green new deal type: "Humans exhale CO₂. Trees breathe in CO₂"

Both know that the statements are true but both are so polluted by gas lighting from their own side that they allow political posturing to color their argument.

This gas lighting distracts also from the really important issue with climate change. How?
How do we move to a sustainable way of living without first laying everyone off? Or a zero carbon future where we immediately question your breathing output or the output of a cows flatulence. We can just shut off everything, but I would argue that its highly politically charged to suggest there should be no attempt to transition to alternatives before you do that and the fighting begins ..
On Mars right now there is an instrument called Moxie which will attempt to convert Mars' CO₂ to O₂.
i.e. to essentially mimic what a tree on earth can do, but due to the political gas lighting we don't talk much about solutions. The aim of gas lighting is not to come up with solutions, but to force agendas. To dumb down the argument away from finding mutually acceptable solutions or paths to change and to instead lower ourselves to gutter fights about why all these fossil plants need to be shut down. It's aggressive and that is the intent.

Technology is the other problem. We can agree Technology ≠ Science.
Technology itself is a broad sweeping term but many of us place trust in it as being based in science. Very often it is the bastardization of the application of science.
It entails modern administration of discourse, communication, emotion conveyance, censorship, practically everything. Too many place too much faith in anything once it simply becomes the digitization of the same old thing we had before.

The argument could be made that the CEO of a tech company is essentially a modern unelected political tsar, but for those low on self esteem, they can be looked up to seen as someone who is wise in science. So its a very dangerous and false deduction to make.

For me, physics is an essential tool we should leverage to learn more about the nature of our universe and as often happens, it sparks us to ask even more meaningful, deeper questions the more we get answers. So you could see it as a catalyst for philosophy.

Politics, business, and technology are entirely different things and come loaded with a lot more subjective baggage.

Not physics, but the physicists. They're as big know-at-alls as we are here at TPF. I don't even see any physicists with a glimmer of understanding of the philosophy of their own field. — magritte

regarding what magritte said, I would put that in the category of politics in science. It's most probably in the realm of what we call the military industrial complex.

Let's assume I want to develop a weapon. But I don't want my enemies to know exactly what it is I'm developing. I have a physicist doing research on A, and any number of physicists doing work on B - Z. I have an engineer above them all managing and influencing their research objectives though DARPA grants etc. I can see the big picture on what I'm building but my enemies cannot. Unfortunately, this compartmentalization of work nowadays comes at the cost whereby physicists are unaware and deliberately kept in the dark about the useful and enlightening aspects of their work are, in favor of maintaining secrecy about certain applications of the whole of these parts to be implemented later on.

Or maybe it emerged from either fluke or design.

Thanks. Philosophy is itself derived from thought and is emergent. Consciousness as we define it can only exist from emergence.

This is an interesting question for me.

Just for reference, my understanding of emergence from a philosophical point of view is a new property of something that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole, or what Hartmann called categorial novum or a new category. Peter Corning's description of emergence being that it has features not previously observed in systems, consists of integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some period of time, evolves and can be perceived builds on this notion.

So going by that last part "can be perceived" equates to human perception or perception we can at least augment with technology. Time is from a certain reference frame essentially abstract, we perceive the passage of time as humans but from the reference frame of light (photons) there is no time, there is only space. Our universe itself may have emerged form the big bang. It is a classic example of emergence if that is the case. Just going by the definitions alone, out reality is emergent. Time itself may be emergent. The very reference you cited would seem to suggest our reality is emergent.

There is a paradoxical line of thought here though in my view. We emerge from the beginning of the universe and yet we define emergence from our very own admittedly? emergent nature. In essence, emergence is a very human concept, because we can perceive what we call emergence, and that the universe itself could appear that way to us.

What is also interesting is that as we go further back to the origin, we see that our emergence is essentially a fluke. Our reality as we perceive it is more akin to rare once off mutation spawned from something possibly beyond time itself.

You can get a grasp of the bizarre set of circumstances that led to our reality from this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe#Examples

For example, Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10ˆ−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent.

Our universe seems to be finely tuned such that the minor tweaking of any of a number of sensitive parameters would mean our existence as we know it would not emerge, at least not in any way we can conceive of really.

In a nutshell, the set of circumstances leading to our reality is so remote as to be almost impossibly coincidental which leads to its own philosophical musings, namely,

1) Not only are we rare as sentient beings in the universe but the universe itself in its makeup to allow life to exist, would be incredibly rare.

2) There is nothing random about it. We are in a simulation so to speak. The parameters were precisely selected in a divine design and we area part of that design, the irony being that the more religious interpretation is that we can think of it as a simulation.

If you subscribe to 1) you are subscribing to the belief that our reality is indeed emergent in my view.

2) doesn't negate the emergence per se but might redefine it as designed emergence.

But then it's not a question of motion, as motion is defined as the change in position of an object over time.

Faith is ultimately belief in belief itself - that is right to believe.
I have faith.
Why do I believe in myself? Empirically, maybe I'm not sufficient. But I don't believe that. I believe I have a purpose. I have faith in myself. That's my take.

It's not that I see myself as my own God or that I believe my chosen God will redeem me.
But both at their core stem from your own self belief. Faith.

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/5LWfXhggC70
It's just semantic trickery of the mind in the end that creates these apparent paradoxes.
They are not very interesting (in my opinion).

So, just to be clear - you are in favour of free speech, but not in favour of government measures to protect free speech? — counterpunch

That's exactly what I meant, yes. It's an oxymoronic position to endorse government to protect free speech. Free speech is derived from free will. I do not need the government to regulate when I can go to the bathroom. Or what I can say. But again, I look at the agenda and the origin, not the claim.

Would I be correct in assuming you're an American with an innate suspicion of federal government? — counterpunch

I don't plan on discarding the anonymity this site offers me. I value free speech, and principles such as whistleblowing which have free speech at their core.

That's why these measures are necessary. — counterpunch

If it's the case that you can confidently state that you believe such measures are necessary, then I wouldn't be convinced that you were genuinely willing to discuss the matter. Your view appears to be matured and you are seeking emotional support. No offence.

In my opinion, such measures are useful only to those who seek power. My mind is as decided as yours appears to be. I would consider myself a strong free speech advocate.

Do you accept that it's not necessarily polite to encourage your level of free speech rights in the UK as a guide for how other countries should view such rights?

Always read between the lines with these changes.

A "champion" (non plural) is a singular corruptible, bribable centralized point of power to determine what free speech is. The goal is irrelevant.

Also, never look at what the proposition fs something is from its implied purpose, look at who or what decides that it is the 'champion' and why. Would Adolf Hitler make a great champion selector?

Untangle what enforcement and agenda is behind it and you quickly see what its essence is - centralization of free speech enforcement.

That it should be enforced is scary, that is should be enforced centrally is scarier.

The point of free speech is that nobody enforces if its free or not. It's just free. Your lungs don't decide whether they can breathe or not, they just breathe. If you need to enforce your lungs breathing, then they are not breathing freely.

At it's core, I think an ability to self evaluate it's own source code or state and build inferences. Fooling is easy. I would say we all use the fooling tactic to some degree in our lives and that's part of philosopher. But if you are suggesting that philosophical discourse is fooling ones self, I disagree for sure.

Also, the Turing test has been beaten already by AI. And not by AI that is ground breaking. Just with fooling as you call it. But for me all this proves, was that the Turing Test is not very useful.

What we should have learned from it was to ask better questions on what makes human intelligence

Thanks for the welcome. Glad to be here. I try to avoid media these days too.

The implication is that at worst they are a direct weapon used against us, at best, indirectly at us. Neither scenario is favorable!. If a moderator tries to attach some integer value to these conversations we are having, it might be time to move on! ;) So far this place is ok. Touch wood

For me, the consciousness question will always be subjective. Each of us, to our knowledge, exist as a single consciousness. We are not beings of multiple consciousness or part of an assembly or hive. We can digress into the wisdom of crowds which seems to have anecdotal evidence at least, or spiritually digress in that many of us feel we are connected by the universe we share. Twins have often been found to share thoughts from a subjective point of view. We perceive our own consciousness according to our own objective reality but even that is ultimately only shared with others through what we would call subjective means. It is beyond science I feel.

What is not beyond science is more constrained and formal approximations to consciousness.
We can develop an artificially intelligent life form. The goal would be to use the simple building block and parallelize enough neurons and various types of neural networks so that we can some day be asked the question from this being:

"What makes me conscious?" (or something to that effect)

Then we could answer at least at an empirical level that it's n^r of this neural net conjoined with this that and the other, but perhaps still not really know what it exactly it is in the formula that makes a being understand its own sentience.

When did you first ask yourself this question might be one question? As humans, I don't believe we know. The will to survive has been empirically shown to exist before a baby emerges from the womb (most graphically demonstrated in late term abortions). So it happens early and we don't remember how or why. Some of us believe it's a spiritual thing. Kind of like you are aware that you are part of the canvass of the universe and you have something to paint. I do feel the word 'connection' is ultimately vital to consciousness. That we are connected to something greater.

I'm not sure every human necessarily retains full consciousness to remain a "productive" member of society. Some of us kill our own consciousness at least to some degree, and reduce ourselves to be more like an algorithm. I think we can all relate to that on some level. Consciousness may be more of a degree than an absolute value. We should consider that too.

What do we even mean when we say the minimum threshold that constitutes consciousness?
That can be subjective too. A being can be self ware that it got bitten but not self aware it is sad. Or it could be self aware that its sad but not self aware enough to ponder what sadness is. Ultimately, I would consciousness is introspection which is essentially self evaluation of those parts of us we ourselves do not understand. The ability of a being to evaluate itself?

In attempting to define what is is, that's my answer for now. The degree of which a being can self evaluate it's condition, it's emotion state, what it knows and maybe more importantly evaluates what it doesn't know and can speculate on the unknowns of all these things.

Mutation is a big part of the theory of evolution. Whether we like it or not, selectively breeding a being with another creates a being that may have traits alien to the parents. These are usually very subtle mutations but can lead to significant changes through the concept of chaos itself. The conditions of birth have a major impact too. As does the time and place if you are into astrology. The story goes that Nicola Tesla was born on the night of an intense electrical storm,

"fortify your center."

That's a good way of putting it. And in spiritual terms, centering ones self. Grounding is important.
And for that we also have to remember to physically ground ourselves by walking barefoot at times. Spiritually grounding by shutting off all the media and madness and being truly alone with the universe. Meditation is certainly a way.

A physicist would probably tell you it's basically entropy. At some point, in the ridiculously far off future, the universe will simply just run out of its own disorder and randomness, as things inevitable tend towards spending their energy, but that's theoretical and based on the concept that the universe is losing energy faster than it takes it in and has no real proof and may never have proof. But if there only ever was and ever will be just one big bang, the universe will basically run out of energy, at least as we perceive it currently in 3 dimensions or 4 with time or however you see this reality.

But from what the science tells us, from Brownian movement we have lots of chaos and volatility when things are excited, often the analogy of heat is used and heat was where the research into entropy originated from. At absolute zero, nothing happens at the internal level. Even time loses meaning Experiments with photons of light have shown that the photons can be almost suspended in super cold temperatures close to absolute zero (-273). Experiments seem to suggest that without some warmth, nothing happens, literally nothing.

So we think of temperature as some physical property of hot or cold. But really we just perceive it as cold or humid based on out physiology. At the extremity of hot and cold is basically entropy or a lack thereof. Entropy ultimately fuels it all. Without some disorder and chaos, there is no energy and nothing happens. As to where the entropy originally came from, it's more philosophy to conjecture on. Who pulled the trigger for the big bang? Was there just one. Do they happen periodically? Is there more than one currently in our universe. We can't even answer it. There is a limit on how far we possibly see backwards in time that no instrument can overcome. Somethings may always remain in the realm of philosophy, as they perhaps should.

Edit: In a roundabout way what I'm trying to say is things whizz about and bump into each other from entropy really. If there is no entropy - no chaos, madness, volatility, interesting things happening - there is no motion. No motion, no entropy and vice versa.

For me I think it's better to look at what leads to a life of contentment. We can read of characters who were historically contented from autobiographies. We can see how much happiness was in their lives. In general I have found that fulfillment is what makes people contented, and the inevitable sad times that come with the happy times are mitigated by ones having a genuine sense of purpose.

Hi, thank you for this site. I am new here and this is my first post.

For me liberty is an important word to keep our eyes on the shore of freedoms. While liberty may have downsides and should not be used as a loophole to hide crime, it's nonetheless an important concept for personal empowerment and freedom. Liberalism is something we need to tread more carefully with. For example, liberty is enshrined in the US constitution and yet some amendments which have this concept at heart can be perceived as orthodox, and so to oppose this established doctrine is sometimes considered part of liberalism, which to me seems like trying to bite off your own head.

I would say liberty is the thing you understand the meaning of when you get rid of it. Whereas at the heart of liberalism is change and so volatility which has its own merit too. But volatility requires freedom to allow the volatility to exist in the first place. So I guess liberty for me is the most important raft you cling on to.

I once exclaimed that in times of high corruption, we should withdraw from liberalism as the change cannot ever be that good or well thought through, or without a sinister agenda behind it. Conversely, you only feel that that corruption is low when we don't talk about it it it doesn't come up that much in conversation. If we think of mainstream media as one big obnoxious vacuum cleaner that wants to suck up only the parts of society it wants to keep, its clear that we need to embrace those things that are left behind. Liberty is what is being left behind in my opinion.