Human Reasoning Origins

[Black Rose]

Spoiler: Debate Moved

They are basically just saying chemicals have the ability to reason, which does not make any sense.

I know about artificial intelligence in a deep way.

Yes, chemicals can reason but that requires loops and the transfer conditioning from parent to offspring.

The problem(but not a disqualifying issue) is that Earth's biosphere is an open system, so evolution is possible for your parents to be stupid, but the right genes allow you to be smarter than they were. Technological progress is a good example.

The environment allowed loops to form that could reason as the earth is an open energy system. Socialization is an emergent process of loop formations increasing reasoning in human groups.

Human Cognition Overview

1: Actions are intimentally tied with the perception of feedback between sensory and motor areas. 2: Memories are stored in the hippocampus where we remember what our actions have done in the past. 3: Our actions are adjusted by what happens when we pay attention to current stimuli. 4: By...

www.intpforum.com

Humans have the same genes that they have had for thousands of years.

No, every human that has ever lived has had different genes from any other human in existence. even clones.

I am saying that chemicals being able to reason is not a disqualification or qualification for the logic of atheism or theism.

This has nothing to do with religion but is a matter of scientific truths on cognition.

Chemicals can reason based on the fractal math patterns of genes the environment and entropy loops.

No human animal or organism has had the same environment or the same genes as another such entity.

Cognition must be looked at from the perspective of how the environment interacts with genes in entropic nervous systems.

 

[Old Things]

Chemicals cannot be "intelligent," because they are mindless.

 

[Black Rose]

Chemicals cannot be "intelligent," because they are mindless.

We are made of them so what is it you are really trying to say?

Carl Sagan said: The beauty of a thing is not the atoms that go into it but the way those atoms are put together.

Intelligence has been mathematical mapped and understood in science.

 

[dr froyd]

@Old Things is it only the prefrontal cortex you have to invoke god on, or other parts of the brain too? because in the latter case you would have to explain why chemicals can generate other things like emotions - that we share with apes, dogs, and all kinds of animals - but not reasoning.

 

[Old Things]

Chemicals cannot be "intelligent," because they are mindless.

We are made of them so what is it you are really trying to say?

Carl Sagan said: The beauty of a thing is not the atoms that go into it but the way those atoms are put together.

Intelligence has been mathematical mapped and understood in science.

@Old Things is it only the prefrontal cortex you have to invoke god on, or other parts of the brain too? because in the latter case you would have to explain why chemicals can generate other things like emotions - that we share with apes, dogs, and all kinds of animals - but not reasoning.

The mind cannot develop from non-mind. That's the point.

Please demonstrate how humans began to be conscious or your arguments are invalid.

 

[sushi]

prefrontal cortex

beyond the brain that is primitive

primitive brain as in

"The archipallium or primitive ("reptilian") brain, comprising the structures of the brain stem – medulla, pons, cerebellum, mesencephalon, the oldest basal nuclei – the globus pallidus and the olfactory bulbs."

 

[Black Rose]

The mind cannot develop from non-mind. That's the point.

Please demonstrate how humans began to be conscious or your arguments are invalid.

Idealism states that all is mind and nothing non-mental can exist.

I believe this, so there is nothing that is not mental in its nature.

So "mind" has always existed and nothing but the mind exists.

We come to realize this when we are mature.

 

[Black Rose]

Is there any way to prove that there is any reality that is not mental in its nature?

To me, all things are mental in their nature. Atoms, energy, matter, the physical, the body, have no non-mental component to them.

What I think is that the rules by which all things move have and can be known by math and science but I have doubts that subjective qualia can.

Mark Johnson: Language and Embodied Mind

 

[Cognisant]

What Old Things is talking about is the Seat of Consciousness.

Unarguably the brain does things and that's not terribly controversial, for example memory storage, I just as I can store videos on a USB the brain can by some mechanism store my live experiences as memories. Likewise I can do calculations with my brain and a computer can do calculations, I don't know exactly how the mechanism works but there's very clearly a precedent for it being a process that can be embodied by some kind of mechanism.

But can a computer make a decision?

A computer program can have If statements, for example if a variable is positive take one course of action, else if that variable is negative take a different course of action.

But did the computer make that decision? Arguably it did not, a human wrote that code, a human made the decision and then they set the machine to carry out that decision on the human's behalf, based on the human's instruction.

A computer has no Seat of Consciousness, it's just following instructions.

But what is the Seat of Consciousness?
It would seem that the SoC is indivisible, that you cannot divide the SoC into parts because then one of those parts must be the SoC as the decision had to come from somewhere. But this presumption that the decision must come from somewhere creates its own problem because it doesn't really answer how the decision came to be, it's just a magic box that contains infinite decisions, and where did the magic box come from? Another magic box, full of magic decision making boxes?

No the decision has to be made somehow, it can't just be magic.

Spoiler

So how do we make decisions? Well presumably we weigh up the positives and negatives of various relevant factors (insofar as we're aware of them) and take whatever course of action seems most likely to result in a positive outcome.

Humans are very complicated so lets look a bacteria, they don't just swim around aimlessly, rather they have a sense of taste with taste receptors all over their body and using this sense they swim in whichever direction tastes best (based on what side of their body is detecting the most flavour) and thus despite being blind and having no brain as such they behave intelligently, they move towards food.

So there's an array of inputs (the taste receptors) and based on the weights of each of these inputs a course of action is taken, this is the utmost simplistic example of intelligence. Now consider that an individual neuron is many times larger than a single bacterium and we have trillions of neurons working together to process information in neigh unfathomably complex ways, and yet like the bacterium we also use our cognitive abilities primarily to seek food.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Chemicals are molecules and everything is made of molecules that is made of matter.
We cannot understand reason on molecular level.
That is like trying to understand my computer screen one pixel at a time.

 

[Black Rose]

We cannot understand reason on molecular level.

This is not an argument Against atheism though.

Reasoning does not necessarily come from God.

It does but not in the sequences the argument presents.

It comes from a baby developing into and adult and babies come from evolution.

The argument is: Human reason must come from God therefore evolution is false.

I gave a plausible explanation why reason can come from evolution given the entropic system of earth is an open system and offspring can become smarter than the parents.

God -> mind -> physical reality -> earth -> evolution -> human reason

 

[ZenRaiden]

This is not an argument Against atheism though.

I know.

 

[dr froyd]

You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap
-- Tyler Durden

 

[sushi]

its not hard once the human brain is simulated by AI or supercomputer.

 

[scorpiomover]

This is not an argument Against atheism though.

@Old Things made the argument about atheism on the other thread:

https://www.intpforum.com/threads/dear-worms-support-freedom-of-speech.29635/post-637730

The problem with focusing on rhetoric is it often obscures the central point or issue and distracts from the nuts and bolts of the argument. That is what it is essentially since it appeals to sensibilities and emotions rather than facts. In short, it hits a different part of the mind. Now, an argument can have rhetorical punch while remaining true. But the way I see rhetorical speech in general is more akin to hypnosis than an honest pursuit of truth. Often times upon closer inspection of a rhetorical claim it is shown to be more or less false which is the opposite of just trying to speak the truth as best as you are able.

The New Atheist Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, are known for their rhetorical wit, but their arguments are often very shoddy and many serious philosophers do not take them seriously. I have noticed that many of the New Atheists are very good at rhetoric but are very poor at logical thinking.

Rhetoric is about persuasion. It's the same skills that salesmen use.
Logic is about what is true and false. It's the same skills that physicists use.

What @Old Things was thus saying, was that the Four Horsemen made the sorts of arguments that salesmen use. So they'd persuade lots of people where it didn't matter to them if they were right or wrong, or where they did not realise the consequences of their decisions.

The argument is: Human reason must come from God therefore evolution is false.

I'm not sure that follows. If G-d exists, does that mean that evolution must be false?

If human reason comes from G-d, but G-d and evolution can both be true, then human reason can come from G-d, AND evolution could still be true.

If human reason does not come from G-d, but G-d and evolution are incompatible, then if G-d exists but human reason didn't come from G-d, evolution is still false.

You're talking about the age-old argument: where do humans come from?

Some people say "because G-d created them".

Some people say "we used to say that G-d created them. But now that we can say that something else created them, e.g. aliens, then we don't need to say that G-d created them. Therefore, we don't need to say G-d exists. Therefore, if we like, we can choose to be atheists.

 

[Black Rose]

Four Horsemen made the sorts of arguments that salesmen use. So they'd persuade lots of people where it didn't matter to them if they were right or wrong

If human reason comes from G-d, but G-d and evolution can both be true, then human reason can come from G-d, AND evolution could still be true.

@Old Things said this: They are basically just saying chemicals have the ability to reason, which does not make any sense.

They are basically just saying chemicals have the ability to reason, which does not make any sense.

My objection to this is that evolution happened and that reason can happen with or without God depending on where evolution came from. So it does not matter what "the four horseman" said because reasoning can happen due to chemical reactions in evolution.

This question of where cognition and intelligence come from has nothing to do with them or the question of God because it is a fact that reasoning can happen due to chemicals i.e. evolution.

if we like, we can choose to be atheists.

The fact that reason can and does emerge from chemicals does not determine one's belief or disbelief in God. I would think @scorpiomover you would know what that means?

 

[Black Rose]

We can state that the argument about reasoning and chemicals can be formulated analogously to this argument:

People are trying to prove atheism true by saying in general gasoline burns (chemicals can reason).

Well, it is a fact that gasoline (chemicals) does not in general burn (reason). Therefore God exists.

This is my argument:

Gasoline burns regardless if it is because of God or not. We know gasoline generally burns but not the relationship between God and gasoline burning. Gasoline burning is a fact.

 

[Old Things]

where evolution came from.

This ought to be good. So tell me where evolution came from then? Have any evidence for how the first life form came to be from the PoV of abiogenesis?

And no, my argument is not that either God exists or evolution is true. There are many orthodox faithful Christians who believe in evolution. But you still don't seem to understand the mind-body problem. Where did the mind come from? And don't say "I'm an idealist" because that creates more problems for you such as, "Well then, where did the original mind come from?" because that would be a step towards theism (the very issue we are talking about). So either everything is mindless (what atheists think) or there is some form of dualism going on (either substance dualism or property dualism) or everything is mind (what seems to imply panentheism of some sort the way you are using it). The problem is that you have an uphill battle trying to prove that everything is mind since there are some things we don't seem to have any evidence that there is a mind involved at all (like a rock just sitting there not doing anything for example).

 

[Old Things]

Gasoline burning is a fact.

I have no idea what this has to do with reasoning faculties...

 

[ZenRaiden]

I would argue that atheist are the strongest believers in God.

 

[Black Rose]

Gasoline burning is a fact.

I have no idea what this has to do with reasoning faculties...

If you do not understand this analogy you will probably not understand my next explanation but here it goes.

There are many orthodox faithful Christians who believe in evolution.

ok, then it is possible that because evolution requires chemistry then reason involves chemistry as well. We have a body made of chemistry and that body is able to reason.

The problem is that you have an uphill battle trying to prove that everything is mind since there are some things we don't seem to have any evidence that there is a mind involved at all (like a rock just sitting there not doing anything for example).

You do not understand idealism.

Even if rock just sits there that does not mean there are such things that do not involve the mind. God makes sure that rocks exist so rocks "are in the mind of God". Rocks to God would be like colors to us, colors are not separate from us and rocks are not separate from God. Everything that exists has a subjective nature to it in that I believe that qualia and only qualia can be real. If something non-mental existed then it would be separate from us and from God so it could never actually be experienced by us or God.

The main problem is that dualism is not possible, if reason exists and chemistry exists they must both involve a mental process so you cannot say chemistry and reasoning are totally separated from each other. Chemistry is not something that is non-mental in its nature. God (a mind) and us (a mind also) are not as separated from the world around us as commonly thought.

 

[Black Rose]

The problem with comparing human reasoning to a rock is that we are made of the same stuff but organized in different ways. If I eat plants, plants get the minerals and elements from eh ground, so we are organisms that eat rock all the time. Our biology turns rocks into humans all the time with pregnant women in the womb.

Human reasoning cannot be disembodied so if we die our bodies can be turned back into rocks.

Human reasoning is a simple process but was not known until recently when we had the math to explain it.

Upfront and personal: Scientists model human reasoning in the brain's prefrontal cortex

(Medical Xpress)—Located at the forward end of the brain's frontal lobe, the mammalian prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the seat of many of our most unique cognitive abilities – collectively referred to as executive function – including planning, decision-making, and coordinating thoughts and actions...

medicalxpress.com

Humans reason by looking at things and interacting with them to understand the consequences of their actions. Then after we interact with other humans we begin to form nested hierarchical loops of how the world works.

Reasoning = forming nested hierarchical loops of understanding the world by interacting with it.

So rocks can be turned into humans and humans into rocks but nothing exists really that has non-mental characteristics to it because if there were we could not turn one into the other. You cannot turn non-mental things into mental things and you cannot turn mental things into non-mental things. nothing is non-mental all there is, is mental things become more complex and organized or less complex and less organized.

 

[dr froyd]

The mind cannot develop from non-mind. That's the point.

Please demonstrate how humans began to be conscious or your arguments are invalid.

actually, you argument is invalid. Because you just said x cannot emerge from y, without defining any of the parts nor explaining why that is, nor trying to find plausible counterexamples

start by defining what you mean by words like 'reasoning', 'mind', 'consciousness', and at least try to explain the logic of your conclusion, and we might have an actual discussion.

for example when a plant gets sunlight on it from a certain direction, it will change its configuration in order to face the light more directly. One can argue the plant 'reasons' that it can do more photosynthesis by moving in a certain way after having calculated where the light comes from. Is that reasoning, and if not, how does our reasoning differ from that. I have no idea if that is a good example or not, but least I'm giving you something

 

[Old Things]

ok, then it is possible that because evolution requires chemistry then reason involves chemistry as well. We have a body made of chemistry and that body is able to reason.

There is no "What it's like to be a rock (or a plant)" though. That is what is what the base of this is all about. I'd tell @dr froyd the same thing.

You do not understand idealism.

I was speaking of panentheism there.

 

[Black Rose]

ok, then it is possible that because evolution requires chemistry then reason involves chemistry as well. We have a body made of chemistry and that body is able to reason.

There is no "What it's like to be a rock (or a plant)" though. That is what is what the base of this is all about. I'd tell @dr froyd the same thing.

I may be confused, how do humans become conscious if they are made of unconscious matter?

But..

Rocks might just feel like what it is like when you fall asleep.
When I am asleep I feel much like a rock. unconscious and unaware.

You do not understand idealism.

I was speaking of panentheism there.

I believe God is the background of space-time.

I believe God is aware of all things and interacts with all things.

 

[Old Things]

I may be confused, how do humans become conscious if they are made of unconscious matter?

That is exactly the question I am asking here. Is it some chemical that gives us consciousness? Doubtful. There is an interplay between the brain and intelligence, but it doesn't really work in the opposite direction for consciousness and the brain. That is what @Cognisant was talking about. I just disagree with his conclusion but he summed up the issue rather nicely.

 

[Black Rose]

I may be confused, how do humans become conscious if they are made of unconscious matter?

That is exactly the question I am asking here. Is it some chemical that gives us consciousness? Doubtful. There is an interplay between the brain and intelligence, but it doesn't really work in the opposite direction for consciousness and the brain. That is what @Cognisant was talking about. I just disagree with his conclusion but he summed up the issue rather nicely.

Have you tried asking the Buddhists?

The whole system is about the mind-body problem or "seat of consciousness".

I do not think anything non-mental can be in this reality or any kind of other reality.

 

[Old Things]

I do not think anything non-mental can be in this reality or any kind of other reality.

That's fine, but what is your evidence for that? Like empirical evidence, not just some cool-sounding philosophy.

 

[Old Things]

I think @Cognisant got almost everything correct in terms of the seat of consciousness thing. There's this debate between these different perspectives on what comes first between mind and matter in dualism. But I think they both come at the same time as the absolute core of reality. Where I would disagree with Cog's assessment of the seat of consciousness is that I do not believe that consciousness is some magic box that gives us a secret power that gives us the power to choose. I believe that the fundamental nature of the universe is what is true. So I don't believe truth is necessarily some mind property as @Black Rose would say and I would not say that matter is the fundamental aspect of truth as Cog might say. It's like the difference between an idealist (like Black Rose) or an empiricist (like Cogniscient). But I'm also not really a dualist either since dualism is basically saying there are material things and mind things. But this never really made sense to me because, say, a dog has some form of consciousness but not a full form of consciousness that humans have. So my view is more or less a negation of the other views. I don't think that mind is fundamental and I don't think matter is foundational nor do I think that there is both mind and matter. Rather, mind and matter represent the same reality--something more fundamental than either, that being the quality of truth. And I believe that truth is a person, not a property. In short, what exists as truth is YHWH or in other words, the Trinity. Everything flows from Him and there is not a thing that is not based on Him. Now, why does God create many beautiful things that don't really look like Him (like a human or like God or whatever)? Well, I think all of creation is a representation of God in some way. So it is not that you can look at a flower and see God there in a literal sense, but looking at a flower is meant to illicit a response from people to say, "This shows God exists." After all, the natural world is absolutely a beautiful place. Isn't it natural that humans as made in the image of God are meant to reflect on all that is in nature and identify God in it?

 

[Black Rose]

my view is more or less a negation of the other views. I don't think that mind is fundamental and I don't think matter is foundational nor do I think that there is both mind and matter. Rather, mind and matter represent the same reality--something more fundamental than either, that being the quality of truth.

Qualities are fundamentally mental.

I mean how can you have truth without the personal qualia subjectivity that both God and humans have? Everything truth-based has to be within a mind or how would we know it?

If you think that God has some kind of separation from matter then it makes sense to say that just mind or just matter exist but you are saying matter and mind are exactly the same, which is what I have been saying for a long time. God is what allows matter to exist but matter really is not something that has no mind behind it. Matter is what happens when God emanates from himself. Have you studied the kabbalah? It refers to God as inside and outside at the same time.

 

[Old Things]

my view is more or less a negation of the other views. I don't think that mind is fundamental and I don't think matter is foundational nor do I think that there is both mind and matter. Rather, mind and matter represent the same reality--something more fundamental than either, that being the quality of truth.

Qualities are fundamentally mental.

I mean how can you have truth without the personal qualia subjectivity that both God and humans have? Everything truth-based has to be within a mind or how would we know it?

If no humans existed, there would still be what is true about things. Some distant planet with no life on it still exists even though humans have never landed on it.

If you think that God has some kind of separation from matter then it makes sense to say that just mind or just matter exist but you are saying matter and mind are exactly the same, which is what I have been saying for a long time. God is what allows matter to exist but matter really is not something that has no mind behind it. Matter is what happens when God emanates from himself. Have you studied the kabbalah? It refers to God as inside and outside at the same time.

You are saying that all is mind and all is in the mind of God. That's what theistic idealism entails. I don't go that route. I basically take the idea of matter and mind out of the equation. I don't say they are the same exact thing because they have different properties, but the idea that one is material and one is non-material is not my point. Nor is my point that all is immaterial. My PoV is that all is. God literally is what is. There isn't a thing outside of God. But there are things separate from God. From God flows everything else but God is not really in or a part of everything. That is what it means for God to be holy, which just means that He is set apart from everything else. The way I said it in my free will philosophy thread is this:

P1. God chose to create all information.
P2. Persons are a subset of information God created.
P3. The information a person perceives is a subset of the information God chose to create.
P4. Persons make choices based on the information they perceive.
P5. A person’s choices are a subset of information.
Therefore,
C. A person’s choices are a subset of God’s choices.

The best way I can sum it up is that God is immutable and from his immutability, everything moves by Him. So matter and mind are completely inconsequential to what I believe. Matter and mind are categorically different because they have different properties, but there is no ontological difference between them. They just are.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Reason is made from a collage of sensations. But how much about sensations are learned vs inherited.

Cat's teach their young, seemingly deliberately. Those little turtles that are born on the shore make a run for it to the sea.

Here's an interesting question.

When you feel like you are in danger, are you sensing something related to the environment? Or is it more apt to say that the construct of mental processes is parallel to reality.

Maybe adjacent to reality?

Intuition is not a reservoir that we are drawing from that gives us magical answers. Nor are things emitting signals that we interpret as danger. Typically.

If you see a car barreling towards on and you are standing in the middle of the road, it is not sending the concept of danger into your skull. You are interpreting the sensations, the observations, as a threat.

So are we sensing danger in the environment, or are we creating danger in our heads? When you have a construct like the brain, does it even matter?

Synapse fire to come to a resolution of 1 or 0 and through this can exhibit very robust processes and qualities.

When you introduce certain chemicals that are catalyzed by specific bodily units, into this system, these collections of neurons fire differently.

Maybe some might have a problem with saying a chemical caused reason to occur. But if perhaps, the oxytocin deployed when a mother is with her young, made her behave different, and perhaps with the introduction of something like dopamine it was able to acertain that it could teach something to it's young, to improve it's chances for survival..

These chemicals when put in the context in which they would be used, are not reductive, and can be quite beautiful.

That being said what chain of compounds triggered "reason" is probably indecipherable in an absolute sense. My impression is that teaching the young was a survival advantage. We live long lives too. The forebrain helped us hunt better because long term goals. Same with investing in your kids. Communication is probably the tree from which reason comes from.

 

[Old Things]

Synapse fire to come to a resolution of 1 or 0 and through this can exhibit very robust processes and qualities.

Which is actually indeterminate rather than determinate.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Synapse fire to come to a resolution of 1 or 0 and through this can exhibit very robust processes and qualities.

Which is actually indeterminate rather than determinate.

Well, if you're one that believes that biology holds homeostasis as an imperative, that's expected.

The system douses itself in chemicals to reach an equilibrium. I would say that the intent of this is predictability.

I'm not sure to what extent the neurons "choose" the chemicals, but if it's to any extent, then it is in some way predictable what chemicals, and thus what is causing the feedback loop.

Find the elements that created the feedback loop and look at trends, and you just might determine it.

Not that we could do it. But these aren't subatomic particles we're looking at yet.

 

[Old Things]

Synapse fire to come to a resolution of 1 or 0 and through this can exhibit very robust processes and qualities.

Which is actually indeterminate rather than determinate.

Well, if you're one that believes that biology holds homeostasis as an imperative, that's expected.

The system douses itself in chemicals to reach an equilibrium. I would say that the intent of this is predictability.

I'm not sure to what extent the neurons "choose" the chemicals, but if it's to any extent, then it is in some way predictable what chemicals, and thus what is causing the feedback loop.

Find the elements that created the feedback loop and look at trends, and you just might determine it.

Not that we could do it. But these aren't subatomic particles we're looking at yet.

I don't think you know what indeterminate means. It means not deterministic.

See this video for details.

 

[dr froyd]

There is no "What it's like to be a rock (or a plant)" though. That is what is what the base of this is all about. I'd tell @dr froyd the same thing.

great argument, bible man

 

[Old Things]

There is no "What it's like to be a rock (or a plant)" though. That is what is what the base of this is all about. I'd tell @dr froyd the same thing.

great argument, bible man

Is your sarcastic response because I said something that is not true or something else? I'm trying to distill the argument. Sorry if that is unappealing for you.

Reason is the ability to weigh different options like the trolly problem, for example.

I don't really know what consciousness even is. I can say it's just our first-person experience but that doesn't mean much.

Mind is just the conscious ability to reason.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I don't think you know what indeterminate means. It means not deterministic.

See this video for details.

The only way you can mean what I think you mean, is that you think that the brain is like a random number generator.

Random number generators look at static in the atmosphere to generate a code and translate into a number.

I took what you said to mean that they are unpredictable. It's hard to predict. I wouldn't say unpredictable.

That's a cool video. It doesn't really contradict what I wrote at all.

I left out the idea of emergence because it wasn't relevant.

 

[Old Things]

I don't think you know what indeterminate means. It means not deterministic.

See this video for details.

The only way you can mean what I think you mean, is that you think that the brain is like a random number generator.

Random number generators look at static in the atmosphere to generate a code and translate into a number.

I took what you said to mean that they are unpredictable. It's hard to predict. I wouldn't say unpredictable.

That's a cool video. It doesn't really contradict what I wrote at all.

I left out the idea of emergence because it wasn't relevant.

You are assuming determinism, not demonstrating it.

 

[Cognisant]

Where I would disagree with Cog's assessment of the seat of consciousness is that I do not believe that consciousness is some magic box that gives us a secret power that gives us the power to choose.

That's not what I believe, that's my satire of Black's position, an explanation for consciousness that ultimately explains nothing and is merely obfuscation.

I believe that the fundamental nature of the universe is what is true. So I don't believe truth is necessarily some mind property as @Black Rose would say and I would not say that matter is the fundamental aspect of truth as Cog might say. It's like the difference between an idealist (like Black Rose) or an empiricist (like Cogniscient). But I'm also not really a dualist either since dualism is basically saying there are material things and mind things. But this never really made sense to me because, say, a dog has some form of consciousness but not a full form of consciousness that humans have. So my view is more or less a negation of the other views. I don't think that mind is fundamental and I don't think matter is foundational nor do I think that there is both mind and matter. Rather, mind and matter represent the same reality--something more fundamental than either, that being the quality of truth.

Seems to me you have a stigma against matter. When my parents sent me to Sunday school (can you imagine?) the preachers told us God is everywhere, so I asked is God in the toilet and they said no, God is not in the toilet, so I replied then God is not everywhere.

If I may borrow the term "God" for a bit, I think God is everywhere because God is everything, the ground you walk upon, the air you breathe, the food you eat and even the shit that comes out of your ass. Which at face value is disgusting but it's not because God isn't a person, I don't think any mere singular entity could possibly encompass the sheer majesty of the universe. People have biases, people have flaws, people have egos, that's all too petty for a God that created galaxies and black holes and complex ecosystems and, frankly, us.

I think God is the universe and not in the sense that we are in God's imagination but in a more literal embodied sense, God is the universe in the same way my consciousness is embodied, thus we are a part of God and God is intrinsically a part of us.

You don't like dualism or physicalism so you propose a third choice but no matter what you propose it's ultimately just going to be one or the other (with extra steps) and I think the only reason you're not a physicalist like myself is that you have a stigma against the physical. And fair enough, it's absolutely terrifying and if that wasn't bad enough it demands a level of humility that's difficult for anyone to accept.

By terrifying I mean death, if consciousness is embodied then when you die and rots that's not just your body dying and decomposing, that's you, it never stops being you, or what's worse it does, what was once you becomes a cadaver, which becomes fetid mush, until at last it becomes soil and goes on to become new things.

Of course the ego RAGES against this, the INDIGNITY of it! HOW DARE THE WORLD KEEP TURNING AFTER I AM GONE! Doesn't it know who I am, how important I am, I'm the center of my world after all. And that's when you realize it, of course the universe knows who you are, it never forgot... you did.

Enlightenment isn't becoming one with the universe, it's remembering that you always were, that you are finite and small and in the grand scheme of things you don't really matter as much as you think you do, and that's hard to accept, but it's ok. That pain, that rage, that ego, let it go and in a state of humble tranquility you'll wonder why you ever held on to it so tightly in the first place.

It's okay, life doesn't have to have a meaning, there doesn't have to be an afterlife, the good don't need to be rewarded or the evil punished, realize that all of these things stem from your ego, the joy you feel when your beliefs are validated and the pain you feel when they aren't. You create meaning because that's what a God does and you are not God but you are a part of God and that's a lot of pressure for someone who mere moments ago (relative to the timescale of the universe) didn't exist.

To know God is simply to know reality, for reality itself is God, and this God doesn't have a mind or intent like a person does, and yet it acts with purpose and direction, and we don't know why indeed there might not even be a why, the why might be something altogether grander than we can conceptualize. Natural selection for instance, why does God's favor go to those who are better able to survive and thrive, or maybe I'm getting it backwards, perhaps they are better able to survive and thrive because of God's favor?

Once we get our egos out of the way I think God's will becomes BLINDINGLY self evident, God wants what's best for us even if we don't recognize what that is, like a child being told by their parent to eat our vegetables we resent God's apparent cruelty but if we knew better we'd understand this cruelty was actually kindness.

God isn't a person, God just "IS" in such such a profound and all encompassing sense that I really don't have the words to explain it, there's no external frame of reference, all I can say is God is everything and everything is God, which just sounds dumb.

So God is in the toilet and if God can be said to have a sense of humor I think it would find us very amusing, getting so worked up over such a silly thing.

 

[Old Things]

Seems to me you have a stigma against matter.

What did I say that gave you that impression?

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

I believe God is aware of all things and interacts with all things.

yes

Spoiler

Miracle Happens While Man is Hunting #miracle #baldeagle #jesus #prayer #God #shorts

www.youtube.com

 

[Cognisant]

Seems to me you have a stigma against matter.

What did I say that gave you that impression?

You don't accept dualism, but you refuse to accept that consciousness is an embodied process, you'll go so far as to invent an entirely new level of reality just avoid the conclusion that you're made of meat, and believe me I get it.

Imagine if some voodoo practitioner somehow extracted your soul and placed it in a glass bottle which you have to carry around all day every day and if that bottle ever breaks you die and your soul is destroyed, that's a horror movie plot. But in reality that's what our brain is, it's this delicate thing we carry around with us all the time and if we ever slip over and smack our head on something we could die, instantly, or worse be left in a state somewhere between alive and dead.
That's HORRIFYING.

Why do you think I want to be a robot so bad? I want get my brain out of this meat body and into an armored tank, better yet I want to gradually replace all of my neurons with neuro-prosthetics until my consciousness can be digitized, so that my mind can be distributed across a global network with multiple layers of redundancy.

But I've had a lot of time to think about it, meditate, and mature, and I've come to realize all of that anxiety is because I'm far too attached to myself, too caught up in an egocentric perspective to realize the world doesn't revolve around me, and that's ok.

My transhumanism, your religion, they're an escape from the horror of a physical reality, they're coping mechanisms.

Nihilism is fundamentally a confrontation with the idea of death, to some the answer is religion, to other it's some other form of salvation (transhumanism) and then there are those who resign themselves to it bitterly, becoming hedonistic and destructive.

But if you can accept it, you're free.

Don't you find it frustrating that you're so caught up worrying about whether or not you're actually living life to its fullest, that you're not actually enjoying it? I thought I had to become immortal to truly live, because only an immortal can live a life unburdened by the anxiety of their ever encroaching demise, but I was wrong.
You've just got to be honest with yourself.

 

[Black Rose]

Where I would disagree with Cog's assessment of the seat of consciousness is that I do not believe that consciousness is some magic box that gives us a secret power that gives us the power to choose.

That's not what I believe, that's my satire of Black's position, an explanation for consciousness that ultimately explains nothing and is merely obfuscation.

It is not magic it is perfectly mathematically formulated.

My impression is that teaching the young was a survival advantage

Communication is probably the tree from which reason comes from.

This is the transposition I made of the map between parent and child:

P(Tx;Lg(E)) -> C(Ty:E(Lg)->Tx)

I think the issue of free will as the video describes has been understood.

Mental effort is explained by what is called the meta-controller of the brain.

We use the limbic system to create emotional value of what is important and then use self-reinforcement behaviors to produce the best results. In meditation or mindfulness, we have an idea in the working memory module that allows us to change our own memories about how to change our brains.

 

[Black Rose]

My PoV is that all is. God literally is what is.

ok, but is that not just a kind of monism?

Going back to what I said is that God is aware of everything and interacts with everything, which means God is a mind and there are no attributes of which can not come from or be different from the mental.

And in my view, the reason we see things as non-mental is that our interactions with the world are only from a lower dimension. If we looked at things from a higher dimension we would see that things are growing in such a way as to be understood to be why the symmetries of the world are the way they are.

I believe we exist somewhat as an extension into the future. So we can see what happens if we go in one direction or another direction. God would see the furthest possible futures and know the long-term consequences of all our individual actions together well we would only know a sort segment of those consequences.

This means that even rocks can project somewhat into the future because they are bound by small asymmetries also of where they could go. This can relate to indeterminism so rocks have a mental nature somewhat because God allows them to grow in higher dimensions like us.

All such things things in the universe that exist have a small minute ability to make choices in higher dimensions giving all of nature a mental quality to it.

 

[dr froyd]

There is no "What it's like to be a rock (or a plant)" though. That is what is what the base of this is all about. I'd tell @dr froyd the same thing.

great argument, bible man

Is your sarcastic response because I said something that is not true or something else? I'm trying to distill the argument. Sorry if that is unappealing for you.

Reason is the ability to weigh different options like the trolly problem, for example.

I don't really know what consciousness even is. I can say it's just our first-person experience but that doesn't mean much.

Mind is just the conscious ability to reason.

you've made multiple separate arguments at this point
- existence of reasoning proves the existence of god (but without defining reasoning and why only metaphysics can explain it)
- existence of qualia proves the existence of god (without explaining how qualia supposedly is the same as reasoning, and without explaining how evolution cannot give rise to qualia)
- existence of consciousness proves the existence of god (while saying you don't know what consciousness is)

I was being sarcastic because you're just playing games with words. But here at least you gave some examples, which is good.

 

[dr froyd]

my take is that we might be overestimating things like consciousness. Because what is it, at the end of the day: the ability of one part of the brain to observe another part of the brain simultaneously. That shouldn't sound magical, because the body is comprised of a gazillion different parts working independently. You even have millions of bacteria up your ass who are just doing their own thing.

 

[sushi]

bringing god into any arguement is stupid.

i am agnostic, and using god to explain unexplained phenonemon doesnt really resolve the quesion. You can use god as a rationalization for anything.

If I may borrow the term "God" for a bit, I think God is everywhere because God is everything, the ground you walk upon, the air you breathe, the food you eat and even the shit that comes out of your ass. Which at face value is disgusting but it's not because God isn't a person, I don't think any mere singular entity could possibly encompass the sheer majesty of the universe. People have biases, people have flaws, people have egos, that's all too petty for a God that created galaxies and black holes and complex ecosystems and, frankly, us.

I think God is the universe and not in the sense that we are in God's imagination but in a more literal embodied sense, God is the universe in the same way my consciousness is embodied, thus we are a part of God and God is intrinsically a part of us.

You don't like dualism or physicalism so you propose a third choice but no matter what you propose it's ultimately just going to be one or the other (with extra steps) and I think the only reason you're not a physicalist like myself is that you have a stigma against the physical. And fair enough, it's absolutely terrifying and if that wasn't bad enough it demands a level of humility that's difficult for anyone to accept.

By terrifying I mean death, if consciousness is embodied then when you die and rots that's not just your body dying and decomposing, that's you, it never stops being you, or what's worse it does, what was once you becomes a cadaver, which becomes fetid mush, until at last it becomes soil and goes on to become new things.

Of course the ego RAGES against this, the INDIGNITY of it! HOW DARE THE WORLD KEEP TURNING AFTER I AM GONE! Doesn't it know who I am, how important I am, I'm the center of my world after all. And that's when you realize it, of course the universe knows who you are, it never forgot... you did.

Enlightenment isn't becoming one with the universe, it's remembering that you always were, that you are finite and small and in the grand scheme of things you don't really matter as much as you think you do, and that's hard to accept, but it's ok. That pain, that rage, that ego, let it go and in a state of humble tranquility you'll wonder why you ever held on to it so tightly in the first place.

It's okay, life doesn't have to have a meaning, there doesn't have to be an afterlife, the good don't need to be rewarded or the evil punished, realize that all of these things stem from your ego, the joy you feel when your beliefs are validated and the pain you feel when they aren't. You create meaning because that's what a God does and you are not God but you are a part of God and that's a lot of pressure for someone who mere moments ago (relative to the timescale of the universe) didn't exist.

To know God is simply to know reality, for reality itself is God, and this God doesn't have a mind or intent like a person does, and yet it acts with purpose and direction, and we don't know why indeed there might not even be a why, the why might be something altogether grander than we can conceptualize. Natural selection for instance, why does God's favor go to those who are better able to survive and thrive, or maybe I'm getting it backwards, perhaps they are better able to survive and thrive because of God's favor?

Once we get our egos out of the way I think God's will becomes BLINDINGLY self evident, God wants what's best for us even if we don't recognize what that is, like a child being told by their parent to eat our vegetables we resent God's apparent cruelty but if we knew better we'd understand this cruelty was actually kindness.

God isn't a person, God just "IS" in such such a profound and all encompassing sense that I really don't have the words to explain it, there's no external frame of reference, all I can say is God is everything and everything is God, which just sounds dumb.

So God is in the toilet and if God can be said to have a sense of humor I think it would find us very amusing, getting so worked up over such a silly thing.

exactly, might as well called it the God force.

i only use it to equate with nothingness and the infinite, and even so i try to disregard it.

 

[sushi]

Is there any way to prove that there is any reality that is not mental in its nature?

To me, all things are mental in their nature. Atoms, energy, matter, the physical, the body, have no non-mental component to them.

its not mental because its independent from the observer.

form and external evidence.

 

[Old Things]

You don't accept dualism, but you refuse to accept that consciousness is an embodied process, you'll go so far as to invent an entirely new level of reality just avoid the conclusion that you're made of meat, and believe me I get it.

You must really think Black Rose is crazy being an idealist then. But to be honest, the way Black Rose argues for idealism it very much just feels like materialism just calling it mind instead of matter. Doesn't seem like there is any practical difference there.