Define Consiousness

[Atlas]

Is there not just a single destination?

Hmm, should one mistake the final disposition for the journey. (I don't think that is what you meant.)

The goal of the buddha is a free life, what one does after freedom is well, unspeakable.

This makes me feel dumb. After my joke about killing the Buddha I erased it from my thoughts. I didn't catch that Hamme was referring to Buddhism. I thought he was speaking generally, referring to death. Hence my answer, Yes, but no one really wants to go there.

I always feel like I'm half a step behind the guy. This proves it once again.

I blame Hamme - Why can't he write for us midgets?

 

[Atlas]

Interesting, I thought that the 'afterlife' was the political tool of those in power. ...

I don't think there is a bright line that could be drawn that would identify "afterlife" as strictly a political tool or a business tool.

The invention of purgatory and selling indulgences to get folks out was brilliant marketing and a great moneymaker for the Church's business.

Excommunication is a wonderfully scary political tool to wield over the masses, pretty much assuring the recipient of eternal damnation.

I think the Crusades offered a direct path into heaven for all those who fought the good fight. It's hard not to recognize the political power the church enjoyed in it's control over the idea of a heavenly or hellish afterlife. But there was a lot of money in it too.

 

[Atlas]

Hey DD,

There's a technology site (free subsription required) run by MIT called TechnologyReview.com Today there is an article called The Unobservable Mind which starts like this...

Consciousness is more familiar to us than any other feature of our world, since it is the route by which anything at all becomes familiar. But this is what makes consciousness so hard to pinpoint. Look for it wherever you like, you encounter only its objects—a face, a dream, a memory, a color, a pain, a melody, a problem, but nowhere the consciousness that shines on them. Trying to grasp it is like trying to observe your own observing, as though you were to look with your own eyes at your own eyes without using a mirror. Not surprisingly, therefore, the thought of consciousness gives rise to peculiar metaphysical anxieties, which we try to allay with images of the soul, the mind, the self, the “subject of consciousness,” the inner entity that thinks and sees and feels and that is the real me inside. But these traditional “solutions” merely duplicate the problem. We cast no light on the consciousness of a human being simply by redescribing it as the consciousness of some inner homunculus—be it a soul, a mind, or a self. On the contrary, by placing that homunculus in some private, inaccessible, and possibly immaterial realm, we merely compound the mystery.

I haven't read it because I'm doing other things but I will be reading it shortly. It looks interesting and I wanted to add the thought above to the discussion and link to the article in case you or anyone else is interested.

 

[hammegk]

LOL.

That quote in a microcosm shows the usual circular path from questioning to full acceptance of a "not-immaterial" world.

 

[Atlas]

LOL.

That quote in a microcosm shows the usual circular path from questioning to full acceptance of a "not-immaterial" world.

It is kinda, isn't it. I mean, apart from the fact that I didn't know what you were referring to, it does describe the arc I find myself on. I haven't reached full acceptence yet. But us midgets dwell in our microcosms and we seem to do nothing but go round and round. It's probably just a matter of time.

 

[JAK]

LOL.

That quote in a microcosm shows the usual circular path from questioning to full acceptance of a "not-immaterial" world.

"not-immaterial"? Is that "not-not-material" - i.e., "material"?

I, for one, do not believe in a "non-material" world. If anything interacts with us, it must be via energy. As soon as the "anything" is interactive with energy, it becomes a variant of it. Once a variant, it is as much "material" as anything else. It may be a superset or an intersection of sets, but it still incorporates a material element.

Further, an intersection of sets would be hard to defend due to internal communication of this being. How does it cross between the boundaries?

My preference is for a superset approach. Science, as it stands today, is certainly not omniscient. As such, there is potential for any number of aspects of physics yet be learned - knowledge which a superior being may be very "fluent" about.

Of course, another scenario can explain reality as a dream created by the spirit. The rules, the perceptions, the consciousness, are all part of the dream - albeit a very elegant dream. We have no proof that others perceive or feel - only externally observable appearances. Are characters in a dream not likewise? Until we can actually merge with the psyche of another and feel what she/he feels - as she/he feels it, we will always question if we are alone and in our own dream, or if others truly exist.

(This is scary. I think I have just laid the groundwork to merge with Lifegazer's philosophy. I'm almost sure I could bridge to it. ... shudder, shudder

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Of course, another scenario can explain reality as a dream created by the spirit. The rules, the perceptions, the consciousness, are all part of the dream - albeit a very elegant dream. We have no proof that others perceive or feel - only externally observable appearances. Are characters in a dream not likewise? Until we can actually merge with the psyche of another and feel what she/he feels - as she/he feels it, we will always question if we are alone and in our own dream, or if others truly exist.

I like it. Still, on question arises, what causes all the "regularities" that are called "objective world"? if you say "the spirit" then you have Berkeley's approach. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, as I consider it as a fine argument, but somehow it is easier to think in an objective world of "insert latest theoretical frameset here".

 

[hammegk]

Or, an objective idealist could entertain the notion that the perceived-as-physical is the epiphenomena.

 

[Atlas]

Or, an objective idealist could entertain the notion that the perceived-as-physical is the epiphenomena.

Could you explain this more completely? Epiphenomena are secondary byproducts of some primary. The physical object is a primary. And the physical perceiver is a primary?? And then all perception is epiphenomenal??? Is that it? And those epiphenomena are nonphysical and immaterial?

 

[Mr. E]

"not-immaterial"? Is that "not-not-material" - i.e., "material"?

I, for one, do not believe in a "non-material" world. If anything interacts with us, it must be via energy. As soon as the "anything" is interactive with energy, it becomes a variant of it. Once a variant, it is as much "material" as anything else. It may be a superset or an intersection of sets, but it still incorporates a material element.

This seems specious. Energy and material are not the same. Energy is a principle of physics, that there is something real and unchanging overall, something which is conserved in interactions in nature. We measure the transformation of forms of energy by things like Work done = Force through a distance.

But if we ("with us") could be tweaked without that "anything" having to exert a force through a distance, the tweaker would not have done any work. How could this be? In the language of physics here are at least two to consider: No energy well between two alternative paths at least at some point; tunneling between energy wells. Maxwell's Demon wouldn't break a sweat...

The ability to reduce "everything" to the material is simply a process of abstraction overdone - like reducing a soup stock... to carbon and trace elements, it's not tasty nor nourishing at that point. Without the not-material, 'material' doesn't have any more meaning than say, "laritema" or "" does in standard English. It becomes a limiting choice of a conscious being to dictate or rule out some aspect of the obvious.


ME

ps - as an aside, JAK, do you believe in anything, or was your intro remark intended as a statement of your overall absolute skepticism?

 

[hammegk]

Atlas

You have it backwards ...

Paraphrasing the materialist cant "If it aint material, it ain't material, since it ain't material" ....

If it is material, it ain't material, since it ain't material.

 

[Atlas]

Re: Atlas

You have it backwards ...

Paraphrasing the materialist cant "If it aint material, it ain't material, since it ain't material" ....

If it is material, it ain't material, since it ain't material.

As usual, that went Whoooosh - right by me. Sometimes I wonder why I ever ask YOU for clarification... you're just doing this to torment me. You know I'm lost so hey, let's spin him around.

Near as I can figure Objective Idealism is saying that the physical world and our intellectual appreciation of it are one and the same thing, though at opposite ends of the continuum of sameness. This is how you escape dualism and this is what you mean when you say, "If it is material, it ain't material, since it ain't material. "

That is, you assume that our intellectual appreciation is immaterial so the world is immaterial as well. This is allowed by utilizing the word "REAL". The intellectual experience, Idea, is real and so is the physical world. Both are real but immaterial.

This separates you from the Subjective Idealist who believes that Idea is real and immaterial but the physical world is not real, it is an illusion manufactured by the intellect.

I struggle with a metaphor. I think metaphor is the only way I can approach this. I need an abstraction of the immaterial idea based on a physical model. It's wild how the mind works to understand what it means when it talks about stuff, don't you think?

Here goes... The physical world is the sea. The intellectual experience of it is the cloud. The cloud is the mind's depiction of its apprehension and appreciation of the sea it sees before it. It is certainly not the sea. It floats apart from that which it is depicting. The Subjective Idealist would say that the cloud creates the sea or something equally weird, saying that the sea is not real but only the cloud is. The Objective Idealist says there is a continuum of real but immaterial vapor the endpoints of which are the cloud and the sea. All of existence is immaterial vapor with endpoints of reality, one appearing physical and one appearing intellectual.

Is this thumbnail metaphor approximating your philosophy and it's distinction from Subjective Idealism.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Re: Re: Atlas

Here goes... The physical world is the sea. The intellectual experience of it is the cloud. The cloud is the mind's depiction of its apprehension and appreciation of the sea it sees before it. It is certainly not the sea. It floats apart from that which it is depicting. The Subjective Idealist would say that the cloud creates the sea or something equally weird, saying that the sea is not real but only the cloud is. The Objective Idealist says there is a continuum of real but immaterial vapor the endpoints of which are the cloud and the sea. All of existence is immaterial vapor with endpoints of reality, one appearing physical and one appearing intellectual.

In this metaphor, I would say that the cloud is everything there is to "decide" if there is a sea. Whether it is, or not, sufficient, is a matter for every individual.

 

[Atlas]

In this metaphor, I would say that the cloud is everything there is to "decide" if there is a sea. Whether it is, or not, sufficient, is a matter for every individual.

Ok, I don't know if there is any disagreement. I was thinking of the cloud as my idea of the sea when the sea is in my view. That is, I have the meaning of the sea in mind supported by the sensory factors I used to process the appearence and sound of the sea into my idea of the sea. That cloud represents that final thought or idea.

Consciousness assembled the idea from the available sensory data in the mysterious way that it does, but perhaps all the decision data is a part of the conclusion. It has decided from the available sense data that the sea is out there.

I'm saying it like this because the Subjective Idealist is creating the sea (as an illusion of reality) out of consciousness while for the Objective Idealist, the sea is as real as his own apprehension and appreciation of it. But there is no material world there for either of them.

My metaphor has passed the deciding stage but if it has decided that it is viewing the sea, then I cannot disagree with the notion that the cloud also represents all of the deciding factors.

Do you think the difference impacts the metaphor's usefulness, (if it ends up being useful at all.) This is really the first time I have been able to articulate what the difference is for me between the Objective and Subjective Idealist - so I am not even sure Hamme will agree. How about you Zen - care to label yourself.

For me, Zen Buddhism was Idealistic and the material world was an illusion, making adherents Subjective Idealists as I understand the term. I lean toward materialism/physicalism but end up with dualism because I cannot escape Idealism. I escape immediately to Pragmatism. Common sense tells me the physical world exists and also that I have ideas of it. I live as a commoner among philosophers.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Common sense tells me the physical world exists and also that I have ideas of it. I live as a commoner among philosophers.

No disagreement. I was not aware of the fact that the "I" is seeing the sea while depicting his "cloud version" (if I understand correctly).

Zen is not idealism, both "the world" and "the I" are constructs, both can be transcended when a "middle point" (a superior form of awareness) is reached, this would be called Satori.

My own view is still in development, Im to confused at present time to spell something intelligent.

 

[JAK]

...
We measure the transformation of forms of energy by things like Work done = Force through a distance.
...
In the language of physics here are at least two to consider: No energy well between two alternative paths at least at some point; tunneling between energy wells. Maxwell's Demon wouldn't break a sweat...

To my knowledge, Maxwell's Demon has not been demonstrated. Also, it represents intelligence via perception, analysis, and gated control. All require the manipulation of energy (performing work).

I'm not familiar with your "energy wells." Please supply a reference which I can research, or please elaborate on what you mean.

The crux of the issue is communication between facets of the universe. Common laws must apply to allow that communication to be coherent. These laws must embody both sender and receiver.

Even if a spirit can introduce new energy into the universe (defying the 1st law of thermodynamics), laws regulating the direction and amount (vectors) are needed if any deft control is to occur:
SPIRIT: "Oops! Sorry, Mrs. Johnson, I meant that idea to hit your neighbor down the street. ... And I think the second degree burns will heal okay."

...
The ability to reduce "everything" to the material is ... like reducing a soup stock... to carbon and trace elements, it's not tasty nor nourishing at that point.
...

I don't believe we have indulged "emergent properties." With emergent properties, life becomes very tasty and nourishing.

...
ps - as an aside, JAK, do you believe in anything, or was your intro remark intended as a statement of your overall absolute skepticism?
...

My intro was due to my confusion. "Not immaterial" appeared to be a double negative. Sorry for extending my confusion.

...
Zen is not idealism, both "the world" and "the I" are constructs, both can be transcended when a "middle point" (a superior form of awareness) is reached, this would be called Satori.
...

This whole area is very interesting. But I don't think we have nailed down the analogy fully.

Is there only one entity at the "middle point?" Or do each of us have individual "middle points?"

 

[Atlas]

No disagreement. I was not aware of the fact that the "I" is seeing the sea while depicting his "cloud version" (if I understand correctly).

I didn't want to extend my metaphor. I wanted the cloud to represent the idea or the interior experience of the sea but a cloud is in the sky. Could I make the sky the mind? Doing so would push my metaphor to seemingly include a a sky god or at least a confusing implied reference to one. I decided not to even mention it and introduced the confusion by not making it plain. Ideas do reside somewhere in the mind but for my metaphor I wanted to leave out the mind and concentrate on the fabric of reality from the 2 Idealist perspectives; How thought relates to the physical. The metaphor is inherently weak as presented because the reader must recognize that the mind behind the idea/cloud is not part of the presentation. Of course, we have a tendency to infer a brain or mind for any floating idea out there.

Zen is not idealism, both "the world" and "the I" are constructs, both can be transcended when a "middle point" (a superior form of awareness) is reached, this would be called Satori.

I wish I understood it all better. Certainly Zen is not a Physicalism. It seeks the truth of life and creation with an assumption that our perspective is improved by Satori or many Satoris. It offers an experience of the Absolute which might be the Ideal of it's Idealism. Satori comes about through meditation and the use of koans. Enlightenment is an insightful event. We come to the experience of Oneness by seeing that the world of opposites is an illusion. The big opposites, the world and the intellect conspire to keep us unenlightened and koans are designed to exhaust the intellect enabling the Satori experience. And in that experience the *I*, the self, in a way disappears when everything, including it, is One.

I admit that it seems a bit different that Western philosophical/religious Idealism but I wouldn't know how else to catagorize it. Here is a definition from a Wikipedia article...

In philosophy, idealism is any theory positing the primacy of spirit, mind, or language over matter. It includes claiming that thought has some crucial role in making the world the way it is--that In philosophy, idealism is any theory positing the primacy of spirit, mind, or language over matter. It includes claiming that thought has some crucial role in making the world the way it is--that thought and the world are made for one another, or that they make one another.

It's difficult to accept the One without understanding that that thought and the world are made for one another.

BTW, I haven't looked at Zen in 20 years. I've always liked it. I accept the enlightenment experience as real. I doubt there are any of us that are not visited occasionally by those flashes of insight that are little Satori experiences or would be if they had a Zen direction behind them. Still, for me, even allowing for a Middle Way approach, the meditative discipline, the Satori flash of insight, the goal of enlightenment, the experience of the Absolute - these all suggest Idealism. Of course like Christianity, Zen does not state catgorically that the physical world does not exist. And even science tells us that the appearence of solidity in solid objects is an illusion and that those objects are mostly space. Perhaps this is why I cannot escape my own dualistic perspective.

Well, I must get ready now to witness another kind of unity. My neice is getting married today. I like filling my mind with thoughts of Oneness before this event.

 

[hammegk]

. .... I cannot escape my own dualistic perspective.

So it seems, imo.

 

[Atlas]

So it seems, imo.

Your jabs are always welcome. But I wish you'd take a moment and comment on my Cloud and Sea metaphor above. I continue to circle the Idealism and Materialism perspectives to try to find out what my own biases are tending toward. You're the Objective Idealist here, c'mon help me out.

 

[Dancing David]

This seems specious. Energy and material are not the same.

Proof? Evidence?

Are you aware of why it appears that you can sit on a chair and not walk through walls without doors?
Energy is a principle of physics, that there is something real and unchanging overall, something which is conserved in interactions in nature.

Energy is a principle in that we use it as a term to describe certain changes in state in the apparent world. However what about the photon? It has a small mass that disappears if the photon were ever to rest. It is energy, it does not have most of the attributes mistakenly given to 'matter.
So are photons material or are they a-energy?
We measure the transformation of forms of energy by things like Work done = Force through a distance.


But if we ("with us") could be tweaked without that "anything" having to exert a force through a distance, the tweaker would not have done any work. How could this be? In the language of physics here are at least two to consider: No energy well between two alternative paths at least at some point; tunneling between energy wells. Maxwell's Demon wouldn't break a sweat...

Umm, could you elaborate, this word soup is hard for me to parse, I am sure that it has meaning and I would hate to over critique of it, while I can't understand it.

BTW 'tunneling' is a misnomer ! The electrons engage in a quantum jump, they dont tunnel , they disappear and reappear.


The ability to reduce "everything" to the material is simply a process of abstraction overdone - like reducing a soup stock... to carbon and trace elements, it's not tasty nor nourishing at that point. Without the not-material, 'material' doesn't have any more meaning than say, "laritema" or "" does in standard English. It becomes a limiting choice of a conscious being to dictate or rule out some aspect of the obvious.


ME

ps - as an aside, JAK, do you believe in anything, or was your intro remark intended as a statement of your overall absolute skepticism?

The two are equivalent. Moo!