Consciousness Explained

[Anonymous No.11544776]

What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process, and that mind-body duality (or any other idea which places consciousness above the material world) is just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?

Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?

[Anonymous No.11544780]

>>11544776
It wouldn't even take that. Just an effective neurological theory without big holes would be enough.

[Anonymous No.11544798]

I think that's commonly accepted already, it's just tricky to have the final word on something which is only observable to us as immaterial experience and in that only observable to one's own experiencing self itself and because of this exists without analogy because anything else which makes a similar leap from the material to experienced being is unobservable to us.

[Anonymous No.11544799]

>>11544776

It's Daniel Dennett! The old pedophile!

[Anonymous No.11544805]

>>11544780
Doubtful. Mentioning neuroscience in a philosophy department rustles a lot of jimmies - "science can only explain HOW, not WHY!".

It's as if they feel personally attacked when things are demystified and reduced to simple scientific theories.

[Anonymous No.11544807]

>>11544776
Life isnt just made up of principles and laws and organized atoms of such, not entirely physical. Many researchers who have gone into this come out believing in other theories and forms such as god just because of how far the mind can go that they have come to conclusions that shit is more beautiful then they thought. Thats the beauty of life, how many humans have such organized abilitys that theres no point in seeing life only as atoms and numbers but beyond the body is much more.

[Anonymous No.11544816]

>>11544776
>correlation equals causation
wow u rely blew my mind anon

maybe go read some Hume? or like any philosophy? god damn scientards are awful.

[Anonymous No.11544823]

>What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process, and that mind-body duality (or any other idea which places consciousness above the material world) is just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?

It would take a logical proof, but there is none possible.

[Anonymous No.11544824]

>>11544776
You would have to prove that matter is absolute and so far no one has done this

[Anonymous No.11544825]

>>11544798
>only observable to one's own experiencing self itself
Right but isn't this something we should just accept as a given and move on? I struggle to see the use in preoccupying ourselves with focusing on the fact that we can't prove anything for sure. Imagine if after Newton proposed the theory of gravity, some prick asked him to prove that life isn't just a dream.

Idealism in general feels like something that we know is true, but we should just be bracketed so that we can get on with our life. Like free will. Zero useful implications.

[Anonymous No.11544829]

>
Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?

All of this assumes a materialist position in order to work you to a materialist position as a "conclusion". It's circular. Fuck why are STEMtards so horrible at philosophy

[Anonymous No.11544830]

>>11544807
>Thats the beauty of life, how many humans have such organized abilitys that theres no point in seeing life only as atoms and numbers but beyond the body is much more
You just proved my point. You want to see beauty rather than adopting a pessimistic view of the world, and so you eschew scientific approaches. It works well -- it keeps you happy, but it's just a coping mechanism.

[Anonymous No.11544834]

>>11544829

Not sure how I managed to fuck up the greentext that bad, but here it is formatted well to avoid confusion:

>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?

All of this assumes a materialist position in order to work you to a materialist position as a "conclusion". It's circular. Fuck why are STEMtards so horrible at philosophy

[Anonymous No.11544836]

>>11544830

There are plenty of views of the world that are even more pessimistic than a materialist or scientific view, so don't pretend like you can play the blackcard.

[Anonymous No.11544841]

>>11544816
You didn't answer the question. Also, it's you that needs to read Hume (specifically, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding") and you might see that he would actually agree with me.

Try not being worthless.

[Anonymous No.11544847]

>>11544825
>Right but isn't this something we should just accept as a given and move on?

What? What makes you retards think you can just dip in and out of logic in order to build conclusions? You're so goddamn stupid.

>Imagine if after Newton proposed the theory of gravity, some prick asked him to prove that life isn't just a dream.

So fucking what if someone did?

[Anonymous No.11544850]

>>11544816
>>correlation equals causation
You sound like an edgy pseud teenager who just read the Wikipedia entry for that and tries to apply it everywhere.

[Anonymous No.11544852]

I'm so goddamn angry at you science bitches respond to my post so I can argue with you REEEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.11544853]

>>11544823
What would it take to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt?

[Anonymous No.11544857]

>Big Boys of English Speaking academia
>Singer
The philosophical equivalent of Judge Judy, Singer's self-contradictory pap ("abortion and infanticide are acceptable because these immature humans are incapable or rational preference" vs. "rationality is not a requirement for ethical conduct. Any irrational being will avoid pain, which is why cruelty to animals is unethical", which are flatly contradictory positions). Makes money by writing books that tell Liberals 'doing what you want is A-OK"
A buffoon.
>Chomsky
A decent linguist, his work in every other field is no more (or less) than self-serving rent seeking which he publicly admits that he, himself, does not believe.
Darn good at making a buck of gullible college students, but (unless you are speaking of linguistics, where he is very good) not a big academic.
>Dawkins
A mediocre-at-best scientist who will leave exactly zero mark on actual science, he became popular as a writer of PopSci books. When that income source dried up (because his theories were soundly thrashed by scientists) he switched to a series of popular books trashing what he thinks religious people might believe.
Never was a great thinker, never will be.
>Rorty
A man who counted on his readers having never heard of Gorgias, Rorty took facile rhetoric, relabeled it neopragmatism, and sold it like snake oil.
>Chalmers
About time an actual academic appeared. although, to be fair, while he does a fine job of reminding everyone of the hard problem, he has no answers. Which is no one's fault.
>Dennett
Refuses to use proper terms, mainly to hide that, deep down, he he knows any clear statement of his theories leads to eye-rolling
Not a serious academic.
.
This list is a list of "People that stupid people think are smart"

[Anonymous No.11544860]

>>11544853
what is a proof outside a formal logical system created by secular rationalists?

[Anonymous No.11544863]

>>11544829
>Fuck why are STEMtards so horrible at philosophy
DURRR why are farmers so bad at programming

If you fucks stopped replying to everything with "LE STEMFAG" and "FUKIN SCIENCETARDS" then people who don't see the value in philosophy might actually listen to you.

This is coming from someone who regards philosophy very highly.

[Anonymous No.11544868]

>>11544857
You don't understand any of those people or are reading them uncharitably on purpose.

[Anonymous No.11544872]

>>11544853

Exactly what I just said, a firm logical proof. You would have to prove materialism beyond a shadow of a doubt, which means you have to prove to me the reliability of my senses and the all encompassing nature of material existence. This, however, is fundamentally impossible. Grinding our teeth about it and strutting around the word "reasonable" as a modifier of acceptable logic or towards acceptable doubt is bad sportsmanship. The reality is it is not provable.

[Anonymous No.11544875]

>>11544863

There are actual points being made in this thread and all of the "stemtard" stuff is obviously just bant to serve as window-dressing for the conversation, stop taking it seriously, you're embarrassing yourself.

[Anonymous No.11544879]

>>11544847
You are visibly upset. I suggest calming down so you can string coherent sentences together rather than getting defensive and making worthless posts.

An argument consists of premises which lead to a conclusion. Premises are assumed to be true, otherwise we couldn't ever reach a conclusion. A premise which is usually implied is that we exist and are conscious entities living in the universe. You can't accuse someone of "dipping in and out of logic" by making such an assumption.

[Anonymous No.11544886]

>>11544852
>>11544857
More worthless retards taking science as a personal attack on their mystical worldview.

[Anonymous No.11544891]

God gave us consciousness, sweetie :)

[Anonymous No.11544900]

>>11544825
I don’t get the physical reductionist point. Mind/consciousness is the only actual given. All of our scientific measurements and theorizing are mediated by consciousness and it’s governing rules. It’s using consciousness to develop the kinds of theories and measurement tools that make “logical” sense to consciousness to then argue that consciousness doesn’t exist. Matter itself, in the ways we are capable of apprehending it, is to at least some degree a construct of consciousness. To use this construct to disprove the existence of its very condition makes no sense.
Tldr: mind/consciousness is the condition of matter, therefore consciousness can not be reduced to matter, any more than you can use a working microwave to disprove the existence of electricity

[Anonymous No.11544905]

>>11544872

"The sun rises every morning. Tomorrow it will rise."

I'm sure that while I can't prove this, you will accept it is true... so can we change the word "prove" to "accept", as I did in the OP? Can you also please explain why you seem more concerned with how a proof isn't possible, than attempting to find evidence.

[Anonymous No.11544906]

Suppose in the near future at least some part of brain function is supported by prosthetics.
With me so far?
Suppose further that, as technology advances, full neural prostheses is possible.
At what point does the person undergoing prosthesis become a philosophical zombie? If never, then dualism is true. Is it reasonable to assume that one prosthetic neuron makes the difference between a human and a machine?

[Anonymous No.11544907]

>>11544863
>whining about one criticizing STEMfags doing STEMfag shit
>someone who regards philosophy very highly

[Anonymous No.11544912]

Isn't science mediated by our consciousness? So how can science offer the nature of what it's mediated by?

[Anonymous No.11544915]

>>11544900
>>11544912
These

[Anonymous No.11544929]

>>11544879
>You are visibly upset. I suggest calming down so you can string coherent sentences together rather than getting defensive and making worthless posts.

holy kek my man, is this 2009? Also, the rest of your post is garbage

[Anonymous No.11544930]

>>11544900
Your argument is entirely a priori, like the other guy in the thread who claims a satisfactory proof cannot possibly exist. All of this seems petty - like purposely trying to hinder neuroscientists and biochemists working on consciousness by telling them they're doomed to failure.

[Anonymous No.11544934]

>>11544886
>completely failing to recognize blatant irony

Somehow it fits with being a materialist.

[Anonymous No.11544939]

>>11544929
Congrats, all of your posts contain literally zero relevant information. You've been proven wrong and you're resorting to insults lmao.

[Anonymous No.11544943]

>>11544930
Can an AI researcher ever claim that an AI is conscious based on empirical evidence alone?

[Anonymous No.11544944]

>>11544934
>i was only pretending to be a retard

[Anonymous No.11544948]

>>11544930
It’s not petty and it hinders no one from acquiring more empirical information about the brain and the relationship between material and consciousness. Scientists don’t give a shit about fundamental problems of philosophy and their disciplines will keep on ticking away just fine, regardless of whether or not consciousness is a priori irreducible according to the ways in which we have historically employed the term consciousness

[Anonymous No.11544950]

>>11544905
>you will accept it is true... so can we change the word "prove" to "accept", as I did in the OP?

You are right in that I would accept the above statement, but what I personally accept as true and what I can determine is true through the rules of logic are two different things. I maintain many beliefs that I understand are not logically supported. We can, if you wish, talk about "accept" instead, but then it becomes a more intimate conversation about what it would take to turn me into a materialist, which I would be interested in I suppose - but then we are no longer talking about logic and proof.

> Can you also please explain why you seem more concerned with how a proof isn't possible, than attempting to find evidence.

I'm concerned with both simultaneously. I reject your implicit assumption that you have to choose one to focus on. However, it should be noted that it seems efficient to determine if something can be done before one tries to do it, so in the interest of efficiency, I would need to believe that proving materialism is possible in the first place before wasting energy on trying to do so.

Ball's in your court when it comes to what direction you want the debate to go.

[Anonymous No.11544955]

[Anonymous No.11544957]

>>11544905
yeah, ""accept"". such a beautiful word choice.
How the fuck that can be reasonable when one just insert "accepting" into any valid questions.
why I need to see those argument as reasonable, when any reason and theories about it has built on the basis, which has built on nothing but an accepting about it.
Why, why don't you just accept god then? what's the difference?

[Anonymous No.11544959]

>>11544939
>>11544944

*SNAP*

[Anonymous No.11544962]

>>11544943
No they can't. But, there's that quote something along the lines of "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet" - once someone creates a program which resembles AI, people will just say it's not intelligence or sentience. It seems that no matter how much progress is made in AI or recreation of life, the focus will always be on "you can't prove it".

[Anonymous No.11544974]

>>11544930
>All of this seems petty - like purposely trying to hinder neuroscientists and biochemists working on consciousness by telling them they're doomed to failure.

This notion seems like a complete misunderstanding of philosophy. An understanding of consciousness from a philosophical perspective isn't the point of neuroscience and biochemistry. I'm very confused as to why you seem to believe that not accepting materialism as true somehow works to hinder scientific progress, that seems a completely irrational viewpoint.

[Anonymous No.11544977]

>>11544948
>Scientists don’t give a shit about fundamental problems of philosophy
What the fuck do you people expect these "scientists" to actually do to gain your approval? Fundamental problems have no answers, just arguments, and everyone's read them. Now what? Is it really so fucking bad to put philosophy to rest once you've read everything between Plato and Heidegger and don't feel like sitting there asking yourself for the millionth time whether there is such a thing as mind-independent reality?

[Anonymous No.11544981]

>>11544977
It's not a question of science vs philosophy. After all, science is just a subset of philosophy

[Anonymous No.11544984]

>>11544962
That's kind of ignoring the crux of the problem, and that's how can rote symbol manipulation and flipping bits on truth tables be the same thing as consciousness? How does the man in the Chinese room plus a little translation table add up to a black box that we're to believe knows Chinese like a native speaker?

[Anonymous No.11544987]

>>11544962
>the focus will always be on "you can't prove it".

This is troubling because the tone of this seems to suggest that what you want is for people to discard logic and assume the answers to questions instead of carefully investigating them. You want us to become materialists for some reason and are bothered when we ask you to prove the position to us before we accept it, when you would rightfully balk at anyone who tried the same trick on you.

[Anonymous No.11544988]

>>11544912
>>11544915
insofar as the scientific method can offer us the nature of anything it should be able to offer us the nature of consciousness all the same, i don't see why it should be a unique case, consciousness may be called a tool of scientific inquiry, but consciousness as such and a specific employment of consciousness are not equivalent, there is nothing circular or self defeating about consciousness-mediated-science investigating science, except for the whole descartean doubt thing (but thats really a different issue)

[Anonymous No.11544994]

>>11544977
>Is it really so fucking bad to put philosophy to rest

If you don't want to philosophize, then don't. But don't expect me to pat you on the back for trying to assume the answers to questions that in reality you simply don't have the desire to investigate. No one is asking you to dedicate yourself to answering these questions, but I won't join you in pretending to have the answer.

[Anonymous No.11544996]

>>11544977
Because it’s such a great scientific advance to say that despite consciousness and mind being the condition of “matter” as conceived by humans, consciousness is actually just wholly reducible to matter?

I approve of science lmao. And of scientists. And of the work they do. And I don’t think it’s trivial. But the great steamroller of brute materialist science doesn’t get to bulldoze away fundamental problems in philosophy just because of its explanatory capacity and utility. The problem may be FUNDAMENTALLY UNSOLVABLE but that doesn’t mean we should pretend it has been solved, and it’s remaining “unsolved” doesn’t prevent scientists from doing anything they would otherwise do.

[Anonymous No.11544998]

>>11544988
It can't though. The scientific method is a terrible and often unusable heuristic for deriving mathematical truth, for instance.

[Anonymous No.11545010]

>>11544988
But this would be like using the scientific method to disprove the scientific method. It collapses in on itself. You cannot use something conditioned by X to disprove the existence of X

[Anonymous No.11545011]

>>11544988
>can offer us the nature of anything it should be able to offer us the nature of consciousness all the same

How?

> i don't see why it should be a unique case

Because consciousness is an abstract concept and not a material real. I understand that what you're trying to do is shift it into the latter category, but it is abstract precisely because we are unable to do so, and this is because consciousness is contained by itself.

> there is nothing circular or self defeating about consciousness-mediated-science investigating science

There is, actually. There are a number of problems.

>except for the whole descartean doubt thing (but thats really a different issue)

No it isn't.

[Anonymous No.11545014]

>>11544998
i'm actually inclined to agree it can't tell us anything about the nature of consciousness, but not for the silly reason suggested above.

[Anonymous No.11545016]

>>11544977

You're unironically a brainlet.

[Anonymous No.11545022]

>>11545011
>Because consciousness is an abstract concept
conscious being is immaterial not abstract

[Anonymous No.11545023]

>>11544996

This is a good answer to some of the hinted at complaints of the scientism types in this thread.

[Anonymous No.11545031]

>>11545022

You're right, I was using abstract to mean non-physical but that's not quite correct. Thanks for the correction.

[Anonymous No.11545058]

To be honest I'm disappointed that actual debate seems to have not really been engaged in.

[Anonymous No.11545061]

>>11544950
One could be, philosophically, an anti-foundationalist and skeptic, and still hold a materialist, scientific view of consciousness when it comes to pragmatic terms. For instance, I could say that consciousness arises from a particular arrangement of molecules, yet, I could concede that we can't claim to have "solved" the more fundamental problem of existence. This would be a way to reconcile the absence of proof/logic with theories and answers about our existence.

What's the problem with this line of reasoning?

[Anonymous No.11545072]

>>11545058
metoo.

[Anonymous No.11545081]

>>11545058
>What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process, and that mind-body duality (or any other idea which places consciousness above the material world) is just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?

My arg for the a priority of mind entails that literally nothing could “prove” this to me, because I think the question itself presupposes that the material is the ultimate “substance/substratum” to which everything else is reducible, whereas I think that mind is the ultimate “substance/substratum”

[Anonymous No.11545096]

>>11544987
>assume the answers to questions instead of carefully investigating them
>You want us to become materialists for some reason and are bothered when we ask you to prove the position
I can't prove anything, and neither can you, but I see little value in talking about proof, and I reject your notion that scientific investigations aren't careful enough. What are you actually doing by "carefully investigating" questions that most of us have shelved as "impossible to know"?

[Anonymous No.11545104]

>>11544776
>appear to be
>Would that be good enough evidence?
No. You spell out the reason why yourself.

[Anonymous No.11545109]

It's exhausting even trying to give an answer to why STEMfags are dismissive of the humanities. You need to like phenomenologically bracket every single word and write a book explaining that they aren't even people. They aren't even conscious. They aren't even having "opinions". STEM people are like robots with human skin stretched over them. To say "they are dismissive of the humanities" is implicitly to admit I think there's a "they". STEM people don't even fucking exist. They are a statistical gaseous nebula of random particles wafting across continents and periodically expressing junk they picked up along the way. Why would you even talk to them?

Talking to a STEMfag is literally like being some kind of Buddha, ascending reality, then coming back down and talking to bees who were dudes in past lives. I'm sure these bee niggas can be saved or whatever, but let's just wait until they're back in human form. Don't walk around going "BEES, STOP BUZZING, PUT DOWN THAT POLLEN, LISTEN TO ME ABOUT HOW EVERY CONCEPTUAL CATEGORY YOU HAVE FOR EVEN THINKING OF THINGS WAS SHAPED FOR YOU BY AN UNCONSCIOUS SLUDGE OF MEMETIC POLYALLOY THAT FLOWS IN PREDICTABLE CURRENTS FROM YEAR TO YEAR THROUGH THE HIVE IN WHICH YOU WERE CONCEIVED"

[Anonymous No.11545112]

>>11544994
All of this is just reiterating the idea that these questions don't have definite answers. I get it, and nobody is stopping you from waking up every morning and spending 6 hours "investigating" whether consciousness is an illusion, but you won't have any answers better than you did 10 years ago.

[Anonymous No.11545117]

>>11545061
>What's the problem with this line of reasoning?

Nothing at all so long as you understand that what you believe isn't logically verified. I have nothing against a materialist of that sort except a difference in form of mind I suppose, but I would take issue if said materialist tried to insist that his beliefs were logically verified when he should know better.

[Anonymous No.11545121]

>>11544957
>>11544974
>>11544981
what is an alternate explanation for consciousness not based on physical matter, but also not religious?

[Anonymous No.11545126]

>>11545109

fucking lmao

[Anonymous No.11545130]

>>11545121
read this

[Anonymous No.11545134]

>>11545081
Says accept, not prove, in the same way you accept the theory of relativity to be true.

[Anonymous No.11545136]

>>11545096
>What are you actually doing

What does this even mean? You keep on trying to bluntly assert some utilitarian value you seem to hold that you expect me to share by default. Let me guess, it's based on the uncovering of scientific "truths", or some notions of "progress"?

[Anonymous No.11545137]

>>11545121
Literally take a meditative moment to flip the script and see mind as the given (like in Berkelean idealism) and matter as the conditioned.

[Anonymous No.11545139]

>>11545112

Glad we see eye to eye.

[Anonymous No.11545144]

>>11545134
My bad but the same answer still holds. I wouldn’t accept it because the question is predicated on a metaphysical assumption I dispute

[Anonymous No.11545146]

>>11545109
There's quite a lot of philosophy on STEM courses. I don't see where you get this idea that they are drones, but either way, learning philosophy doesn't put you at a higher level of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11545148]

>>11545121

I'm not sure what you mean by "not religious" but dualism and solipsism immediately come to mind as some generic alternatives. If you're interested, you should just start exploring the concept through philosophical texts, there are plenty of works trying to tackle this problem and I for one am certainly not an expert in it.

[Anonymous No.11545152]

>>11545109

underrated

[Anonymous No.11545161]

>>11545134

The Theory of Relativity and this question are governed by two different regimes though. It's a false equivalency. I accept that the Theory of Relativity is true within the context of my understanding of matter, my question of "is matter real tho?" is suspended for the time being in my acceptance of this. In fact, one has nothing to do with the other. The question of consciousness proposed here is inseparable from its philosophical question though, and that's the whole point - its a philosophical question and not a scientific one. Just like mathematics, it transcends the realm of truths governed by the scientific method.

[Anonymous No.11545163]

>>11545136
Not at all. You can literally spend your life however you want, it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the accusation that scientific investigation isn't adequate because it makes metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that can't be proved.

[Anonymous No.11545168]

>>11545148
I've read some abstract arguments about dualism, as in Discourse on the Method... I'm looking for something that is less speculative and more evidence-based.

[Anonymous No.11545169]

>>11545137
That shit always fucks with me because science has been wildly successful and most of its proponents are materialists and its success seems to point to us having at least decent access to the material world. But all this is still only processed through mind. Literally all humans directly have access to is mind. How can I argue against idealism in that case?

[Anonymous No.11545178]

>>11545161
>The question of consciousness proposed here is inseparable from its philosophical question though
Dubious. I don't think it's a false equivalence - why can you suspend judgement on whether matter is real, but not in this case?

[Anonymous No.11545186]

>>11545163

Jesus dude, you've totally misunderstood me. I'm not trying to say that scientific investigation isn't "adequate" - it's adequate for the problems that it is suited for and is designed to investigate. I unironically don't how you came to the conclusion that I am trying to hold science as inadequate simply because I assert that it can't provide an answer to a problem that is outside of its territory, in view of the assumptions it is built on which you yourself have acknowledged.

[Anonymous No.11545188]

Who gives a shit?

Litterally who gives a shit?

Of all the philosophical questions, its the most irrelevant and insignifant ones.

[Anonymous No.11545190]

>>11545178
>but not in this case?

Because it is the very question itself. How can you suspend judgment on the actual question you are trying to answer? Think about what you are suggesting.

[Anonymous No.11545194]

>>11545169
Doesn't Kant's version of Idealism propose that? That there is such a thing as a material world, but we only have our biased lenses (the mind) to view it with?

[Anonymous No.11545196]

>>11545178

Fuck it actually bothers me how you aren't seeing this. If I "suspend judgment" here, I engage in circular reasoning. How do you not see this?

[Anonymous No.11545201]

>>11545168

What do you mean by "evidence-based"? Is that a codeword for empirical?

[Anonymous No.11545206]

>>11545194

From what I know of Kant, I don't think we can assert the noumenal world to be material. Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but I believe that's presuming knowledge that according to Kant we don't have. The world being "material" is itself a quality that comes to us through our biased lens.

[Anonymous No.11545208]

>>11545194
I should probably read Kant. His ideas interest me, I just find his writing a bore. Guess I'm a brainlet.

[Anonymous No.11545210]

>>11545169
Exactly dude. It’s a fucking trip.

However, whether the substratum is mind or matter or something else entirely, it doesn’t change the fact that science simply works within the context of this substratum, and if scientists want to keep talking about matter and consciousness without doing fundamental philosophy and ontology and figuring out what they really mean by these terms, science will still continue to progress as it has for the last three hundred years.

Mathematicians don’t need to know the axioms of math to crunch formulas. Scientists don’t need to preoperly orient themselves relative to ultimate reality to do science. The work is grounded in a self-transparent and self-consistent context and needn’t seek outside grounding to continue enabling productive scientific work

[Anonymous No.11545217]

>>11545186
Okay sorry, I understand you. Here is why I'm jumping to conclusions: whenever new scientific research on consciousness is presented, there's always one person who finds it appropriate to create a false dichotomy (science vs philosophy) by reminding everyone that scientific theory is based on unproven assumptions outside the realm of science, which is correct, but a silly thing to do because everybody already knows. Do these people expect everything we say to be prefaced with a preamble about ontology?

[Anonymous No.11545222]

>>11544830
>scientific = pessimistic
You played your hand there, you're just a nihilist who is looking for his own coping mechanism to deal with the unknown.

[Anonymous No.11545223]

>>11545196
Is this basically Hume's argument that all inductive reasoning is circular? I see what you are saying, but I don't agree that suspending judgement in one case is different to the other.

[Anonymous No.11545224]

>>11545217

In light of that context I understand your posts and I agree that kind of mentality is ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.11545227]

>>11545223

No, what I'm saying is that if I have assume that consciousness is purely a physical entity in order to conclude that consciousness is purely a physical entity, I am engaging in circular reasoning by simple definition.

[Anonymous No.11545229]

>>11545223
>>11545227

Whereas in the Theory of Relativity case I am saying that the Theory of Relativity governs matter, regardless of whether or not that matter is objectively real. It is similar to understand the plot of a novel without knowing whether or not the novel was based on true events: they are two separate questions.

[Anonymous No.11545231]

OP here. Thanks for the chat, some interesting ideas to think about now.

Going to begin drinking now so will not be replying seriously to any posts, but I will read them.

[Anonymous No.11545239]

>>11545229
understanding*

[Anonymous No.11545244]

>>11545231

Thanks for an interesting topic, glad we managed to get some discussion in.

[Anonymous No.11545385]

logical positivism was a mistake

[Anonymous No.11545412]

>>11545231
hope you got help on your homework /lit/ has ur back

[Anonymous No.11545444]

Is there a specific term for my views?
>more likely than not there is biological cause behind consciousness
>however in recognising that, consciousness should always be privileged above material because the manner in which we experience the world can only be determined through our own consciousness
>despite the inability to scientifically determine a cause for qualia, qualia should always be assumed as real
>the only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I am alive and experiencing the world, all other truth could be an illusion
>if I was to assume my own 'being' is an illusion that would automatically invalidate all other ideas
Am I a materialist idealist?

[Anonymous No.11545466]

>board of acid enthusiasts on ssri's
>the mind is thoroughly independent on the brain you guys
Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut.[12] When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash.[13]

[Anonymous No.11545509]

>>11544776

Consciousness doesn't derive from the brain, even tho it is tied heavily to it. If it were, people who experience near death on the surgical table wouldn't be able to come back into their bodies alive.

[Anonymous No.11545513]

>>11545444
Check out the phenomenologists, move beyond metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.11545551]

>>11544807
>Many researchers who have gone into this come out believing in other theories and forms such as god
“Many”, really?
Name some.

[Anonymous No.11545558]

>>11545513
Alright sounds good. Should I start with big man Husserl or someone else? I've heard that his writing is pretty boring and of course next up is Heidegger which seems like a pretty big investment of time.

[Anonymous No.11545567]

>>11545444
your last 2 greentexts don't follow.
if your mind is true, then everything else is an illusion
if your mind is false, then everything else is an illusion.
isn't it more reasonable to suggest that if our mind is an illusion, then everything else is true if you want to inverse your initial premises?

[Anonymous No.11545580]

>>11545567
I said all other truth 'could' be an illusion. I'm not saying that my mind exists therefore everything outside is completely illusory. In my first greentext I said that in all likelihood we do live in a material universe.

[Anonymous No.11545594]

>>11545558
With the use of online resources and secondary literature, you can start with Heidegger. You're right about the investment, though. Read the SEP article on his thought and see if any of it clicks.

[Anonymous No.11545604]

>>11545594
Yeah it probably will take a while but I'm not doing anything else. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.11545658]

>>11545466
Brainlet can't read

[Anonymous No.11545690]

>>11545580
Ok, but I'm outlining your thoughts because I do consider myself as a materialist idealist. When you say "could" it means either true and false. So, your proposition goes like:
If mind is true, then everything else is true.
if mind is false, then everything else is false.
if mind is true, then everything else is false.
if mind is false, then everything else is true.

I am inclined to think that you think that the 1st proposition is the true one. Berkeleyian idealism would lead to the latter two propositions.

[Anonymous No.11545728]

>>11545690
I dunno I’m a bit of a phil lightweight so there might be merit to what you’re saying but I really wasn’t trying to make any true/false statements if that makes any sense. I was trying to convey a lot of uncertainty in my thoughts about consciousness and the external world. I suppose that I would tentatively agree with the first statement but again I’m still full of uncertainty. I believe through reason and evidence that the material world does exist to some extent and that our sense perceptions are adequately accurate. I’m skeptical about the existence of qualia but I feel like even if you are unsure you have to take a leap of faith and assume it’s existence in order to properly inquire into the world and into the self.

[Anonymous No.11545740]

>>11544798
This is true. Materialism and Reductionist approach are for better or worse absolutely predominant today. It's almost ubiquitous. Why are people here so surprised by this is other question.

[Anonymous No.11545758]

>>11545728
Do you think that consciousness is "transcendental" in some way? In that sense, qualia can't "exist" as that it's not within reality?

[Anonymous No.11545766]

>>11545758
I guess I do think it’s transcendental in the sense that it can’t be accessed or understood physically. That doesn’t really coincide with my other philosophical ideas but there you go.

[Anonymous No.11545768]

>>11545740
What? This is patently not true. Most people are dualists. If materialism was actually ubiquitous, then when people say "you", they would refer to the material body, not *you*.

[Anonymous No.11545790]

>>11545766
I do think that it's answerable. After all, consciousness is somehow "bound" to the brain. So, if we can find out the binding mechanisms, then...

[Anonymous No.11545793]

>>11545790
You said you are a materialist idealist before. Can you explain that to me?

[Anonymous No.11545814]

New atheists and other material reductionists need to realise that just because Dawkins or Dennett wrote a book doesn’t mean it is correct and anybody who thinks otherwise is a crypto creationist.

You may agree or disagree but Chalmers wrote a very credible rebuttal to Consciousness Explained and the only response Dennett had was essentially an ad hominem argument.

https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/chalmers.pdf

It’s telling, really.

[Anonymous No.11545842]

>>11545793
I do think that consciousness is real, after all we do have experience. My best working hypothesis is that consciousness is some kind of virtual activity that is a side effect of brain computation. After all, less you compute, the less conscious you are.

[Anonymous No.11545919]

>>11545740
they're predominant in a lot of STEM, but not in fields that actually deal with consciousness - fields like fundamental physics or philosophy of mind, where panpsychism and other forms of dual aspect and neutral monism are taken more seriously than any of the old eliminative or reductive materialisms. See journals like the Journal of Consciousness Studies or Mind and Matter to get a feel for where the field is headed.

I think we're at the start of a culture war within academia, Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, a totally mild critique of neo-darwinian materialism that was skewered entirely via ad hominem by the gatekeepers like Dennett and Pinker, was a sort of prelude to what's to come.

[Anonymous No.11545925]

>>11545188
Consciousness is actually the most important philosophical question, because whether or not conscious life is possible after death depends on what exactly consciousness is.

[Anonymous No.11545927]

I don't get how a publisher would allow themselves to publish a entire book that's one huge begging of the question.

[Anonymous No.11545938]

>>11545466
>>board of acid enthusiasts on ssri's
>>the mind is thoroughly independent on the brain you guys
Dualists usually just believe that the structure of the brain makes the soul interact differently with the body but does not actually change it.

[Anonymous No.11545950]

>>11545925
Figuring out what consciousness is will also answer the question of "why do we exist?".

[Anonymous No.11545956]

>>11544830
ow the edge
literally no one normal cares about whether or not their thoughts and feelings are dictated by chemicals in their brains because in the end nothing has changed so stop trying to look smart and above the others you hecking underage

[Anonymous No.11546007]

>uhhh Durr chemicals IN UR BRAIN
Okay sweetie listen closely: Biosemiotics

[Anonymous No.11546021]

>>11546007
biosemiotics is peak pseudo.

[Anonymous No.11546025]

>>11546021
Cringe

[Anonymous No.11546026]

>>11546007
dabbing pepe with a plug for biosemiotics. This is why I still come to this /lit/hole

[Anonymous No.11546057]

>*blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.11546247]

>>11544776
>What would it take for people to accept that consciousness is the result of a purely physical, biochemical process, and that mind-body duality (or any other idea which places consciousness above the material world) is just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?
Nothing will make people accept that because of how patently and clearly untrue it is, from the stupidest peasant to your average lawyer. It’s only a relative minority of scientists and “I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!!111” nerds who hold this embarrassing view.

[Anonymous No.11546258]

>>11545814
>just because someone wrote a book doesn't mean it's correct
MIND = BLOWN

... fucking brainlet

[Anonymous No.11546265]

>>11545919
>a totally mild critique of neo-darwinian materialism that was skewered entirely via ad hominem
Nice summary of what really happened, dumbass.

[Anonymous No.11546275]

>What would it take

Being retarded.

[Anonymous No.11546299]

>>11545768
I have no interest in common people, I meant, people who are formally and directly involved in concerning fields. Common people can't explain basic functioning operatus of Phone or TV device which they use every day.

[Anonymous No.11546310]

I would make fun of you OP but matetialism is dying faster than it's decaying adherents. Panpsychism is the future.

[Anonymous No.11546312]

>>11546299
kill yourself

[Anonymous No.11546315]

>>11544857
Chalmers and Rorty deserve more credit while the others deserve a little more scorn.

[Anonymous No.11546320]

>>11546258
You seem rather eager to label people brainlets. An insecurity per chance?

The fact that somebody wrote a book about something being possibly not true was not itself my point, but the fact that material reductionists immediately conclude that each such book presents an ‘obvious answer’ and a ‘slam dunk’ without according even the possibility of validity to other perspectives.

[Anonymous No.11546325]

>>11545121

But Materialism is the most "religious" world model there is. Christianity, for example, only requires suspension of thinking in regard to certain things, whereas Materialism requires it in regard to ALL things, including yourself. It claims EVERYTHING is a metaconspiracy of an origin as unknowable as the Christian God.

[Anonymous No.11546327]

>>11544776

[Anonymous No.11546329]

>>11545121
>>11545490

[Anonymous No.11546331]

>>11544857
>who will leave exactly zero mark on actual science.
This is unfortunately, not true.

[Anonymous No.11546354]

>>11545146

PoliScifag here, my friends from engineering seriously have a lack of abstract thinking when discussing abstract concepts. It's like their entire minds work on pre-existing facts and the role they assume for themselves is just constructing these facts a particular direction, not so much as to stop and think about it as a thing in itself

[Anonymous No.11546359]

>>11546258

It's not at all trivial considering that ideas like climate change were only taken seriously because of numerological alarmism about to the year 2000 and Al Gore's campaign.

[Anonymous No.11546373]

>>11546310
yeah cus philosophy is like fashion. just follow the trends. retard.

[Anonymous No.11546379]

>>11545194
isn't that just Plato?

[Anonymous No.11546381]

>>11546320
>the fact that material reductionists immediately conclude that each such book presents an ‘obvious answer’
oh wow, someone wrote a book and people who adhere to the philosophy agree with it! MIND FUCKING BLOWN

[Anonymous No.11546390]

>>11546354
Oh no, some people are better at some things compared to others, what idiots!

[Anonymous No.11546391]

Philosophers always wallow within unfalsifiable theories. That's all they do. And how can they judge the theories when they're all unfalsifiable? Through fashion.

The people ITT saying "omg stemdrones" are simply following fashions

[Anonymous No.11546392]

>>11546381
>people who adhere to the philosophy agree with it! MIND FUCKING BLOWN
Agreeing with something is different than being a mindless zealot who refuses to even consider the respectability of other perspectives you goddamn idiot

[Anonymous No.11546400]

>>11546390

I didn't say that, but they some times have this innate arrogance that just because they're engineers and good at physics and math means they can unlock the secrets of the universe or some shit. As specially the ones who smoke weed on the side.

[Anonymous No.11546403]

>>11546391
>Philosophers always wallow within unfalsifiable theories. That's all they do. And how can they judge the theories when they're all unfalsifiable?
The concept of unfalsifiability as a metric to judge theories was the creation of a philosopher anon. And it's not a concept that was itself beyond criticism.

[Anonymous No.11546430]

>>11546391
hey guys i found the p-zombie

[Anonymous No.11546451]

>>11545109
cringe

[Anonymous No.11546466]

>>11546299
Please explain in detail how your TV or phone operates.

[Anonymous No.11546467]

>>11546403

I know. Now explain how to judge unfalsifiable theories in any way that doesn't boil down to fashion.

[Anonymous No.11546484]

>>11546466

BAH! I shall not waste my time with mere technicalities! My insight is reserved for phenomenological breakthroughs that require grand aesthetic insights in to Being.

[Anonymous No.11546508]

>>11546467
Clarity of expression and how robustly it can be defended against attack.

[Anonymous No.11546509]

>>11544984
>can rote symbol manipulation and flipping bits on truth tables be the same thing as consciousness? How does the man in the Chinese room plus a little translation table

Because that's not how our minds actually work. Our brains are heavily contextual and relational, and also possibly use intracellular means of storing information on top of this, but there's also no reason Turing equivalent computers can't be programmed to do the same.

We aren't just fucking lookup tables. Whatever the mental equivilent of 'symbols' is is nothing like what we think of as symbols and is going to be way lower level than that.

[Anonymous No.11546522]

can someone explain the idea of
>choice is made seconds before we become conscious about them
how has this any relevance to free-will?
it just means the choice is made faster and deeper

[Anonymous No.11546542]

>>11546522
That study's results were also proven to be the consequence of a calibration error

[Anonymous No.11546554]

You're really just going to pretend I didn't post this?
>>11544906

[Anonymous No.11546562]

>>11546542
still relevant to the idea that scientists can "predict" your answer from brain activity, as if Will has no emerging brain activity

[Anonymous No.11546590]

>Consciousness Explained
>doesn't explain consciousness
>only redefines what is meant by the word 'consciousness'
how the fuck did dennett get away with this

[Anonymous No.11546614]

>>11544776
>just an egoist coping mechanism we employ to deal with our existence being nothing more than
stopped reading right here, because this is a very unscientific statement. you have revealed your bias. dennett hasn't proven shit and neither have you, so you can stuff that i-know-it-all-already attitude in a sack.

[Anonymous No.11546623]

>>11546542
>That study's results were also proven to be the consequence of a calibration error

Seriously? Source?

[Anonymous No.11546624]

>>11546373
1) you are not giving my shitpost enough credit. I never said panpsychism was correct or even "more" correct than materialism.

2) as there are limits to science there are also limits to philosophy. Namely, I cannot disprove materialism anymore than you can prove it, so we are left with "fashion".

3) materialism has been in fashion a long time and with OP clearly being unfamiliar with its counter-theories, i wanted to attack him in an area where he might feel it: his fading position from the limelight. A materialist complaining about philosophical fashions is highly ironic and humorous.

[Anonymous No.11546628]

>>11546590
It's philosophy 101. See Plato to Aristotle.

[Anonymous No.11546696]

EMERGENCE

[Anonymous No.11546702]

>>11546696
I guess this is the introduction

[Anonymous No.11546711]

>>11545919
>fields that actually deal with consciousness - fields like fundamental physics
kys you absolute pseud

[Anonymous No.11546731]

>>11546711
are type of pseud that thinks theology and philosophy are capable of dealing with conciseness?

[Anonymous No.11546755]

>>11544776
This won't do at all. "They developed consciousness/a soul naturally and have it just as much as we do.

>>11544780
This would do, the day you can take a human brain and fully predict the neurological responses you'll have proven that there is no metaphysical interferences. It won't happen though because of >muh morals

[Anonymous No.11546820]

/thread

[Anonymous No.11546824]

The "purely" physical world is overlaid on top of a "mental" dimension that doesn't mutually interact with the physical world.

[Anonymous No.11546830]

>>11546755
>the day you can take a human brain and fully predict the neurological responses you'll have proven that there is no metaphysical interferences
How will that prove anything? How can you know when or how the metaphysical inference was or wasn't severed?

[Anonymous No.11546903]

>>11546392
people say something like "this book makes sense" and you take it as "this book is 100% categorically right and there is no way it could possibly be wrong and reality is completely objective"

>>11546400
nice... your point is entirely based on a stereotype. you're just another bore complaining about the arrogance of others while at the same time assuming they're above everyone else because they've read a bit of philosophy

[Anonymous No.11546906]

>>11546509
>We aren't just fucking lookup tables
Yes we are.

[Anonymous No.11546908]

>>11546614
nobody has proven anything and nobody ever will. get over it nerd.

[Anonymous No.11546919]

I can't wait for scientific progress that will shut up the dorks who've wasted their life on philosophy.

[Anonymous No.11546947]

>>11546919
>the development of an adequately complete formal system will leave all questions answered
How does it feel holding a belief that was already completely obliterated before we even entered WWII?

[Anonymous No.11546955]

>>11546947
>completely “obliterated” by flailing self-styled philosophers fearing their impending obsolescence
feels good 2bh

[Anonymous No.11546961]

>>11546906
prove it

[Anonymous No.11546964]

>>11546919

I'm still waiting for science to prove it's own validity.

[Anonymous No.11546971]

>>11546955
Obliterated by fucking mathematicians, birdbrain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

The empiricism you love so much is also the very thing that proves you wrong

[Anonymous No.11547011]

>>11546947
What has philosophy done that science hasn't? Nothing. Its purpose is just articulating shit we all gave up trying to answer when we hit puberty.

[Anonymous No.11547016]

>>11546961
You made the initial claim. Burden of proof motherfucker.

[Anonymous No.11547018]

>>11546903
> because they've read a bit of philosophy

Reposting new age quotes on kikebook isn't philosophy

[Anonymous No.11547019]

>>11546908
unacceptable premise. why not end it all?

[Anonymous No.11547022]

>>11546964
My heart hurts knowing she'll never be mine.

[Anonymous No.11547025]

>>11546971
Proving that something is unprovable is not a philosophical achievement. You're like those morons who think that because we can't predict the state of subatomic particles then we somehow have free will. Shut the fuck up.

[Anonymous No.11547027]

>>11546964
science doesn't provide any value judgments. the only way for science to "disprove" itself is if casuality is false. in that case, we got bigger problems to worry about lol.

[Anonymous No.11547028]

>>11547019
Because being alive or dead doesn't make any difference to the argument.

[Anonymous No.11547034]

>>11547011
>What has philosophy done that science hasn't?
...
Made statements about ontology, ethics, meaning, phenomenology, and basically anything relevant to how things ought to be versus how things are? Science is inherently incompatible with discussions on any of those things, except for the biological side of phenomenology.

[Anonymous No.11547052]

>>11547025
>Proving that something is unprovable is not a philosophical achievement.
Proving that in any single formal system, which includes any possible form of logic or mathematics, there will be truths inherently impossible to prove without breaching the formal system is HIGHLY philosophically relevant. It's even more relevant to any dumbass who thinks that scientists are going to solve all philosophical ambiguities and problems

[Anonymous No.11547053]

>>11547034
>Made statements about [ philsoophy ]
So has every 16 year old, and yet 3000 years of debate have achieved nothing more than the teenager, making it inherently pointless.

[Anonymous No.11547061]

>>11547053
3000 years of debate gave you a fucking civilization to live in, faggot
Do you need reminding that science as we know it isn't even 700 years old yet?

[Anonymous No.11547070]

>>11547052
You are talking out of your ass.

>Proving that in any single formal system, which includes any possible form of logic or mathematics

The universe isn't a formal system or at least it hasn't been proven it is a formal system, so Godel's incompleteness theorem may not apply.

>there will be truths inherently impossible to prove without breaching the formal system is HIGHLY philosophically relevant

I said it isn't a philosophical achievement, not that it doesn't have philosophical implications.

>t's even more relevant to any dumbass who thinks that scientists are going to solve all philosophical ambiguities and problems

Nice strawman. Nobody believes that, moron. Most scientists admit that there are philosophical problems outside of science, but these are problems for reflecting in our own time, not to screech autistically about in public.

[Anonymous No.11547072]

>>11547061
>if it weren't for philosophy we'd still be living in mud huts
D E L U S I O N A L
waste of life

[Anonymous No.11547104]

>>11547070
>Nice strawman. Nobody believes that, moron.
Do I really need to point out that I was responding to this post?>>11546919 You're supposed to be keeping track of this stuff, anon
>You are talking out of your ass.
This is true
>The universe isn't a formal system or at least it hasn't been proven it is a formal system
We aren't talking about the universe. We're talking about science and, more broadly, any coherent formal system we can apply to anything we please, which includes the universe.
>I said it isn't a philosophical achievement, not that it doesn't have philosophical implications.
Really? Your point was as pedantic as that? Why even? I never said that the incompleteness theorems were philosophical achievements, I pointed out their significance in the subject at hand, being science (empiricism's) dominance

[Anonymous No.11547130]

>>11547104
Empiricism is the obverse of a formal system. Godel's incompleteness theorem is completely irrelevant in science, as it stands.

[Anonymous No.11547142]

>>11547130
What is empiricism's end goal but to comb through all the unknowns there are and spit out a formal write-up of the world as it is proven to be?

[Anonymous No.11547159]

>>11545956
>reee don’t try to demystify my coping mechanism

[Anonymous No.11547165]

>>11547072
I really don't know what to say, if you're incapable of grasping the vast underlying philosophical assumptions any civilisation is based off then literally nothing will convince you of its worth

[Anonymous No.11547179]

>>11547072
Assuming we are autonomous, the hypothetical first human would have stood still until he starved and died if not for our capacity for extra-scientific thought. Science can not produce goals, choices, or value one thing over another without a seed of something that falls outside of science's reach, like determining survival as a goal

[Anonymous No.11547204]

>>11547179
Survival is determined as a goal through natural selection. You're delusional for thinking any mass scale systems are arrived at through conscious, philosophical inquiry,

[Anonymous No.11547215]

>>11547204
Natural selection is not teleological.
You don't even understand basic science, so speaking with you about what science is or can do is completely pointless and a waste of effort.

[Anonymous No.11547231]

>>11547215
>Natural selection is not teleological.
I didn't say it was, you did. Evolution is a random process, yet here you are claiming that civilisation is the result of philosophical inquiry. You contradicted yourself big time.

[Anonymous No.11547238]

>>11547231
>I didn't say it was
>>11547204
>Survival is determined as a goal through natural selection.

Do you know what teleology means?

[Anonymous No.11547243]

>>11547159
If you think mysticism is just a coping mechanism, then you're the one relying on coping mechanisms

[Anonymous No.11547257]

>>11547204
"goal" implies motivation, which there is none. Motivation is a latent development to serve the inherent state of life, which is a process of becoming better at propagating. Evolution's motion of accelerating survival can not have any moral significance at all. Only a biological essentialist would argue otherwise, by blatantly breaking the is-ought gap, which there is no logical way to do.

[Anonymous No.11547258]

>>11547238
Well done, you devolved the conversation into boring, semantic nitpicking, while still managing to be wrong. The process of gene mutation (and therefore evolution) is random, yet the process of selection is teleological in the sense that the goal is adaptation and passing on copies of genes.

All of this is beside the point, which is that philosophy is not the reason that civilisation exists. Bore on.

[Anonymous No.11547269]

Boring fucking dorks thinking that discussing 'deep' philosophical questions makes them woke. Breaking news: we all think about this stuff, it's just that most of us don't go rambling to others about it.

[Anonymous No.11547270]

>>11547258
You're a brainlet. You denigrate philosophy and pass off your own as science in the very same breath when you couldn't be further from understanding the underlying science and how it differs from the metascience.

You don't belong here. Unironically go get educated.

[Anonymous No.11547276]

>>11547269
>REEEEE FUCKING NERDS STOP ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS IN PUBLIC AND MAKING ME LOOKING UNREAD

[Anonymous No.11547299]

>>11547269
>he thinks he can think well without dialogue

[Anonymous No.11547452]

>>11547025
What if vacuum state is a representation of the universal consciousness? Checkmate materialists.

[Anonymous No.11547471]

>Don't talk about thing because it makes my head hurt, just think about it alone please

The Virgin Autist vs the the Chad Conversationalist.

[Anonymous No.11547495]

>>11547011
dick wagging between two undefinable, entirely nebulous domains. Warning: this thread is approaching peak autism

[Anonymous No.11547626]

>>11546830
You don't. This 'metaphysical interference' is a big trash heap of what we can't say so far about anything, because a meta-physician won't even try to say what what we're looking for (the search of metaphysics in the wild: electric boogaloo). Its just a blank spot on the map where we can draw dragon dicks instead of acknowledging that both metaphysics and science are simply two incredibly nascent fields greatly limited by the fallibility of its practitioners having a go at nature's biggest frontier, and then touting one another are useless when they can't begin to answer the questions that metaphysics pretends to even encompass.

[Anonymous No.11547656]

What occurs when science determines everything is ultimately derived from a foundational nothingness, as it is quickly set to do in my mind (Higg's Field as something out of nothing, virtual particles, ect.)? What if we were to find that everything, every building block of matter to the smallest particle, were to be a shell around a kernel of nothingness?
We like to think of it now as science that informs philosophy, but what if it is actually philosophy that informs science? And this relationship will become more direct once this singularity of nothingness is reached.

[Anonymous No.11547719]

>>11547257
Exactly, this careless language still conflates natural history with what had ought to be. Foisting predetermination onto the dumb and blind process of propagation only highlights our misunderstanding of what natural selection actually is: not something witnessed in the Savanna, but on a much grander scale toward things we wouldn't even begin to call life.

[Anonymous No.11547776]

>>11547656
>We like to think of it now as science that informs philosophy, but what if it is actually philosophy that informs science? And this relationship will become more direct once this singularity of nothingness is reached.

People aren't talking enough about the deep relationship science shares with philosophy. I agree and hope in the future we don't ignore this philosophical driving force and the dual-relationship behind an exoterically incompatible, but esoterically mutual relationship. One cannot exist without the other, and its important to see where this leads us.

[Anonymous No.11547921]

Based Macintyre rips this whole argument apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ_rHV2KTPY

[Anonymous No.11548138]

>>11544776
God, this discussion is so tiresome. It doesn't really matter whether materialism or idealism is true. The thing that SHOULD worry you is the possible technological advancements neuroscience might make in the future. I'm more worried about the fact that at some point in the future humanity might be able to read thoughts, have access to the visual and auditory fields of people, have access to memories, be able to change memories, be able to change the perceptions of a given mind, etc, than I'm worried about whether consciousness is purely "physical" (whatever that means) or not. All discussions about the "true nature" of consciousness would become moot before the real threat of the technological manipulation of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11548171]

>>11544853
The truth is that all it would take to convince the common man on the street that the mind is fundamentally material is technology advanced enough to manipulate any aspect of it. These guys talking about "logical proof" are over-intellectualizing morons. The day scientists will be able to make you see a dancing gnome reading and laughing at "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" at will, idealism will be absolutely dead to the 99.999% of the human population.

[Anonymous No.11548180]

Doesn't Dennet get around the hard problem of consciousness by claiming consciousness is an illusion?
"Suppose a lunatic claims he is Jesus Christ. We explain why his brain chemicals make him think that but still he is not convinced. 'The fact that I am Jesus is my starting point, a brute explanandum : Explaining why I think this is not sufficient to discredit the reality of this basic fact.' The only difference between him and us is that he can't stop believing he's Jesus because he's insane, and we can't stop believing in phenomenal experience because we are not."
Sure thing, buddy.

[Anonymous No.11548199]

>>11548171
Eliminative materialism is false until you demonstrate that it is true. Idealism might be easy for you to hand wave about, but why don't you address something more nuanced like property dualism?
Material causation of mental phenomena does not imply monism.
In order to demonstrate monism you need to show that all mental and abstract properties are not only reducible to physical, material ones, you also have to show that they are exactly equal to some material state in every single case by demonstrating that abstract objects and purely mental properties are impossible.

[Anonymous No.11548206]

>>11548199
I was not talking about what would take to convince an inveterate idealist that materialism is true. I was talking about the common man. Though if science were to advance enough as to be able to instantly change people's beliefs at will, not even a single argument would be needed to instantly convince you of the truth of materialism (or whatever else, really).

[Anonymous No.11548210]

>>11548206
So your argument is technofascism as Deus Ex Machina?

[Anonymous No.11548254]

>>11548210
My "argument" is that IF technological advancements would allow for the manipulation of consciousness in every conceivable way, THEN, most people would regard materialism as true. That's it. In such a scenario, I highly doubt the average man would pay much heed to idealism. I'm not arguing for or against materialism nor idealism. I'm arguing about what would be necessary for convincing average people about the truth of materialism.

[Anonymous No.11548262]

>prima facie qualitative proof of consciousness that occurs to us at every waking moment
>scientists retards still insist the burden of proof is on people who claim consciousness is real

GENUINELY makes me ponder

[Anonymous No.11548268]

>>11548254
But I could just hack you and make you believe the material world isn't real and also make you transmit this to other cyberbrains near you via the incredibly insecure Bluetooth protocol still in use and set to on by default in the mass production augments, so this isn't really an argument about content is it?

[Anonymous No.11548281]

>>11544776
Humans are already able to create life forms that develop sentience. Doing it in a lab isn't interesting.

[Anonymous No.11548288]

>>11544776
>egoist coping mechanism
If you're going to write down an argument then don't make it emotionally charged
>our existence being nothing more than the result of a bunch of amino acids ensuring that they are replicated in a particular order?
There's a million things wrong with your assumption, and you show a gross misunderstanding of biology. First of all, what guarantees that we are being replicated in a particular order is our DNA, since that's where the information to build aminoacid chains is made. This chain of aminoacids must be in a very particular sequence and shape to properly function, and we commonly call them "proteins".
I want you to stare at the picture I posted; it is an extremely simplified model of DNA replication. You have quite simply no idea what anything is happening. The mechanism as a whole can only be understood when you look more appropriately what every single piece contributes to the whole, and how all of the roles of each piece come together to form a larger framework upon which DNA replication happens. In various discipline of biology, many scientists are suggesting us to look at complex biological systems as a whole, and the name for that is "systems biology". Not even long ago a study on science indicates that bacteria living in the guts of animals may have a role in influencing their behavior.
If you remember your high school biology classes, you may recall that mitochondria also has a DNA, and the current hypothesis to explain this is that the last ancestor of eukaryotic cells are a product of symbiosis with the ancestral version of the mitochondria. Parts coming out together to form more intricate organisms is a FUNDAMENTAL and undeniable aspect of evolution and consequently of all life sciences at this point. Why do you people obsess so furiously with talking about a perspective that even in biology no longer can serve its purpose alone?

>Like what if I literally recreate the first form of life in a lab from just water and carbon atoms then put that organism in a simulation that speeds up the process of evolution and show you that 4 billion years later they appear to be sentient and self-aware? Would that be good enough evidence?
No, that is not "good enough evidence" because it has literally nothing to do with the matter of consciousness. The problems of consciousness arise fundamentally from a failure to explain the human subjective experience through physical terms only. Anyone who relies on evolution or any other scientific theory is using ideas based on taking the certainty of our knowledge for granted.
As a geneticist myself this is my position on consciousness: we don't know, we don't have nearly enough conclusive information, and in the first place I couldn't care less about philosophical questions when I'm doing biology. I dont understand why is it that it's only philosophers and science illiterates in internet forums who obsess so much with reducing everything to physical terms.

[Anonymous No.11548297]

>>11548281
No, we cannot. I don't know what you're smoking but we are absolutely not capable yet of synthetizing a cell from a living being. If we could do that we would have cured countless diseases.

[Anonymous No.11548306]

>>11548297
*from dead matter

[Anonymous No.11548309]

subhumans itt
read the kjv

[Anonymous No.11548310]

>>11544912
This isn't a good argument. Stop taking Hegel seriously. The fact that "consciousness" "mediates" "science" already tells us something about the nature of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11548311]

>>11548268
>so this isn't really an argument about content is it
Correct. Although to be honest I don't even think belief-manipulation would be necessary to convince most people that materialism is true. Even something as silly as being able to show somebody's visual field or dream in a screen would be stunning and a true shock to most people.

[Anonymous No.11548314]

>>11548281
the fuck are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.11548315]

>>11548309
Proddy scum plz go

[Anonymous No.11548325]

>>11548297
>>11548314
Humans have kids. The kids do not spring forth from nothing, they are created by the joint effort of two humans. These kids do not begin sentient, but end up developing it. Happens all the time.

[Anonymous No.11548331]

>>11544959
damn dude

[Anonymous No.11548337]

>>11548311
But like I said, a causative relationship between material states and mental properties does not mean that eliminative materialism is true. Property dualism is entirely compatible with the situation you just described as being a convincing case for materialism. I guess you need to add the addendum that it is a convincing case for non-reductive physicalism instead of the sort of eliminative materialism Dennett is a proponent of, yeah?

[Anonymous No.11548339]

>>11548325
are you an idiot? the point is that no one knows how consciousness is developed. we don't even have the slightest inkling

[Anonymous No.11548343]

>>11548325
That's completely outside the point, though. What OP was arguing was that if you can simulate the evolutionary progress from inorganic matter to sentience, and understand what happens in every single stage, then we can explain what is consciousness and how it is developed.

[Anonymous No.11548355]

>>11546971
>godel
L M A O. you're as bad as peterson

[Anonymous No.11548356]

>>11547231
>Evolution is a random process
uh oh

[Anonymous No.11548364]

>>11548337
>But like I said, a causative relationship between material states and mental properties does not mean that eliminative materialism is true.
You're still missing the point. My point is that what would take for average people to be convinced that whatever the fuck scientists' favorite philosophy of mind is (let's assume it's materialism for the sake of the argument), is something much less strict than "logical proof", viz., showy technological manipulation of consciousness. That's it. I repeat: I'm not arguing for or against materialism/idealism. If anything, I'm arguing about how average people are a lot more moronic than philosophers.

[Anonymous No.11548367]

Alright so consciousness can only be explained as a dual process between physical and an as of yet unidentified substance ("phenomenological dark matter" you might call it if you were high).

That consciousness substance is no less physical than the physical substance, it is a fundamental natural category that requires its own separate and independent level of description over and above the physical.

That level of description can be found at the informational level, in which continuous data is processed discretely using digital and or analog or an as of yet unknown form of processing.

Even then you can't confirm whether that consciousness is created by a purely physical system unless you yourself are that consciousness. So it's unclear what kind of empirical test might be devised that can detect consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11548374]

>>11547231
>Evolution is a random process
Evolution is the change of the proportion of genes in a given population over generations. Genetic Drift is the process upon which parental genes are randomly transmitted to their offsprings. Natural Selection is the NON-RANDOM change in genetic proportion, and this is the reason why we have so many species with so many different traits in the first place, you baboon. Don't talk about evolution if you don't even understand the very basics of it.

[Anonymous No.11548386]

>>11546755
>the day you can take a human brain and fully predict the neurological responses you'll have proven that there is no metaphysical interferences. It won't happen though because of >muh morals
we don't have to do this because we can do the opposite. people have accidents and sometimes their brains are damaged. the effect of the brain damage on the person's physical and mental functions can be, at least partially, predicted by knowing what parts of the brain are damaged.
there is a lot about the brain that we don't understand but that doesn't mean it's an acceptable solution to fill up the gaps with the kind of mystical shite that people on here spout.

[Anonymous No.11548403]

>>11548386
Mental faculties are not the field of awareness - consciousness as such - ya goof.

[Anonymous No.11548408]

>>11548374
By the way, there's such a thing as artificial selection, which is the change of genetic proportion in a population caused by humans. If you think this is random there is no hope for you.

[Anonymous No.11548419]

>>11548403
sophistry. people's self awareness and consciousness can be damaged by damaging the brain. example dementia, alzheimer's disease etc. you could read something like oliver sacks for plenty of examples.

[Anonymous No.11548422]

>>11547027

using empiricism and the scientific method, show me that causality exists. In order for that you need inductive logic and hence metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.11548427]

>>11548367
I have somewhat similar beliefs, as far as explaining consciousness in terms of mental substance and informational processing.
The only way to delve deeper into these concepts, I believe, is to show that the brain alone is an insufficient model for consciousness, and that something is missing.

[Anonymous No.11548429]

I see a lot of people here trying to argue against free will.

Why put authors names on books and not just "by The Universe?"

[Anonymous No.11548435]

>>11548429
holy...

[Anonymous No.11548436]

>>11548180

He gets around having to make a good argument by growing a sick beard instead. Hey, it works.

[Anonymous No.11548438]

>>11548419
Like I said, a damaged mental faculty is not a "damaged" first-person field of awareness, you're trying to tell me there are no pilots piloting jet plabes because if you clipped a wing off it would plummet to the ground

[Anonymous No.11548443]

>>11548374
Evolution presupposes a fitness function that is maximizing utility, which in the case of life is survivability and reproductiveness.
Thus evolution by natural selection can be viewed as teleological in that it is constantly being driven toward adaptive genotypes by selection pressures.
However any lifeform can fit this criterion, doesn't matter if it's a insentient sea sponge or a person with a mind.

[Anonymous No.11548444]

>>11548355
There are very good points to be made against Peterson's embarrassing interpretation of Godel but the fact that you think what I said is in any way what Peterson claimed, it is you who considers himself more knowledgeable than he truly is

[Anonymous No.11548461]

>>11548438
what on earth are you flippin talking about?
are you comparing a plane, a device invented about 115 years ago and designed for a specific function, with a human brain, which has evolved over billions of years and can control a human body to do a multitude of functions?

[Anonymous No.11548482]

>tfw my last lsd trip gave me ideas about consciousness and existence that i can't help but consider highly significant even though it was just a stupid drug trip and I don't want to be that kind of person

[Anonymous No.11548486]

>>11548461
Brain damage does not refute the existence of a first-person observer, which is what the Hard Problem is fundamentally asking: why should the functioning neurological systems be accompanied by a parallel phenomenology, an observer the system happens "to"

[Anonymous No.11548491]

>>11548482
I meant to post this picture instead and for some reason my post feels wrong without it so here you go

[Anonymous No.11548497]

>>11548482
What did you realize? It's probably infinitely more interesting than this eliminativist tripe

[Anonymous No.11548505]

>>11548443
>Thus evolution by natural selection can be viewed as teleological in that it is constantly being driven toward adaptive genotypes by selection pressures.
Evolution by natural selection only describes what is happening at a particular time frame. To presupose that natural selection is teleological is to assume that it is driven by these future events, when the phenomena driven by natural selection are merely subject to consistent changes of genes throughout time, which we call non-random since they have a direct relationship with the environment upon which the organism is in. This is all only possible due to a variety of biomolecular reactions that result in nucleotide changes, which just *happen* to result in either a positive or negative selection. This chain of fortunate or not coincidences is what natural selection is. The drive being always the same is only a description of a biological phenomenon grounded in organic interactions that occasionally happen. It can't be teleological in the same way that the formation of large stars, or increasingly tall moutains isn't. Looking at it teleologically - that is, as a process that results in more and more psoitive adaptations - is merely a useful abstraction to understand the concept.

[Anonymous No.11548512]

>>11544776
>Consciousness Explained
>thinks its nothing but amino acids and biochemistry
>not going smaller
Gotta go Quantum for this one! For all the smart folks out there, anyone have an explanation for Bells Theorem? How there is a sort of invisible force (which acts faster than light) connecting all subatomic particles together?

Why does matter behave like a wave? Why does it go back to behaving like matter when an observer is present? vid related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwXQjRBLwsQ

I'll wait

[Anonymous No.11548515]

>>11548482
Everytime I trip I get this incredible insight about existence but then I sober up and I've pretty much forgotten the whole thing. Then of course you try to explain it and it sounds like typical hippie gibberish.

[Anonymous No.11548523]

>>11548482
>it's all about love
>time is an illusion
>we're all one

which one of these closest describes you revelatory acid insights

[Anonymous No.11548533]

>>11548497
Something about the self being a self-affirming singularity ("singularity" is definitely not the word I should be using but I can't think of anything else) with a breadth/depth given to it by its own ability to behold itself, and to think about thinking about thinking about thinking and so on. Something about its indivisibility due to its impossibility if any "part" of it is removed (after the fact I found that Hofstadter's description of a single-step strange loop captures my idea pretty nicely) which perhaps indicates that consciousness is not an evolutionary construct, given that it can not emerge out of anything lesser than itself.

Maybe it's all babble and I'm just wasting my time

[Anonymous No.11548542]

>>11548523
None, thank christ. This is my best attempt to describe it: >>11548533

I'm leaving out a bunch of shit about mathematics, geometry, and specifically 3D topology that came with the whole package and seemed significant. The self-affirming nature of self presented itself to me as this sort of furling manifold-type shape. I'm leaving it out because I'm a fucking brainlet with no mathematical training and I know that anything I write will be nonsense

[Anonymous No.11548545]

>>11548533
>perhaps indicates that consciousness is not an evolutionary construct, given that it can not emerge out of anything lesser than itself.
this makes a lot of sense to me, anon.

[Anonymous No.11548553]

>>11548512
>Why does matter behave like a wave? Why does it go back to behaving like matter when an observer is present?
People who don't understand quantum physics often say this as if there's some mystical property of the particle that can detect being watched by a human being. This leads people to the ridiculous conclusion that just by observing something we fundamentally alter reality. The point is that quantum particles are so tiny that they cannot be tracked by any degree of certainty, it's just a limitation of equipment, not some mystical bullshit. The uncertainty principle doesn't describe what a particle "is" doing but merely what it "could" be doing, hence the uncertainty. When they say "a particle has the properties of a wave" all they are saying is that because we can't accurately track the movement of a particle, there's a chance that when we predict movement that we will get it totally wrong. We can predict a tennis ball will roll down a hill because we can see it with our eyes the entire time. Observing quantum particles requires equipment that can pretty much only detect if a particle is there or if it isn't at a single point in space-time. So the wave model works because if you include probability, particles do seem to act like a wave but in reality they are always a particle and they are always moving in a specific direction. We "collapse" the waveform because we determine where the particle actually is, not because the particle gazed back at us and got shy.

[Anonymous No.11548561]

>>11548512
>>11548553
Also If what I'm saying isn't clicking with you then watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7bzE1E5PMY

[Anonymous No.11548564]

>>11548486
the "first person observer" you are referring to also disappears when the brain is appropriately damaged

[Anonymous No.11548570]

>>11548533
Interesting that Hegel says the Spirit is essentially the self that can survive its dilation into the universal, and of course God is the self-thinking thought for Hegel.

Good stuff, sounds like you hit on it

[Anonymous No.11548571]

>>11548512
quantum mysticism detected
deepak chopra fuck off please

[Anonymous No.11548574]

>>11548564
Nah, unless you're in a coma or dead. even if that were the case it wouldn't refute the crux of the argument.

[Anonymous No.11548577]

>>11548553
t. religious materialist

[Anonymous No.11548578]

>>11548545
>>11548570
Not getting my shit pushed in for posting about this is hands-down the best part of my week. Thank you to both you anons for humoring me. I feel better now

[Anonymous No.11548583]

>>11548542
we're all one seems pretty close. ive never done acid but those around me usually describe as if the artificial boundary of the self dissolved and they realized they were knit into a universal fabric of consciousness. which, based on your description it sounds as though consciousness is some spiritual thing in the ether that organic life intersects with

>>11548553
not the poster you are replying to, but agreed, strongly dislike the misinterpretation. imagine taking a measurement of a running person's location by putting a turnstile in front of them, or taking a measurement of their speed with a telescope. the nature of the measure-taking equipment degrades the accuracy of another type of information

[Anonymous No.11548588]

>>11548553
>the uncertainty principle is a limitation of equipment
go back to your quantum I class and then kys brainlet

[Anonymous No.11548593]

>>11548578
Oh yeah and even arch-autist Kant realized the "I" is simple and indivisible.

[Anonymous No.11548595]

>>11548574
even people who are in comas can exhibit signs of awareness
there are people who aren't in comas that don't
i'm beginning to think you're a bit stupid anon. do you also believe, for example, that big pharma is suppressing a cure for cancer because they wouldn't be able to make money out of it? or tarot cards?

[Anonymous No.11548599]

>>11548583
>we're all one seems pretty close. ive never done acid but those around me usually describe as if the artificial boundary of the self dissolved and they realized they were knit into a universal fabric of consciousness. which, based on your description it sounds as though consciousness is some spiritual thing in the ether that organic life intersects with
I've read similar descriptions and they really don't compare to what I experienced at all. If anything, I've never felt so singular and contained. I was around two close friends during the trip and the only connection I felt to them was close kinship and respect, definitely nothing metaphysical. It felt as if I was figuring out what "I" am, once the world and other people and my body are peeled away

[Anonymous No.11548600]

>>11548553
It's literally a premise of quantum physics that we CANNOT, and this is not a matter of equipment but of how nature works, predict where the particles may be. How can you write all of this and misunderstand the crux of quantum physics?

[Anonymous No.11548605]

>ctrl+f
>no graziano
>no ast
>no Attention Schema Theory

grayons-tier thread, fellows

[Anonymous No.11548612]

>>11548588
>In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities[1] asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, known as complementary variables, such as position x and momentum p, can be known.
What did I say that was incorrect dumbass? If you could see an electron move with the same precision and clarity that you see a tennis ball there would be no need for an uncertainty principle because there would be no uncertainty. If we had a magical device that could break the laws of physics and observe quantum phenomena with any degree of duration and clarity there wouldn't be any uncertainty. It's as simple as that.

[Anonymous No.11548613]

>>11548605
illusionists get out

[Anonymous No.11548616]

threads like this make richard feynman turn in his grave

[Anonymous No.11548618]

>>11548612
did you just quote the fucking wikipedia article at me
i take it back, don't go to class. it would be wasted on you.

[Anonymous No.11548626]

>>11548612
>If you could see an electron move with the same precision and clarity that you see a tennis ball there would be no need for an uncertainty principle because there would be no uncertainty.

[Anonymous No.11548629]

>>11548600
Lol I fucking know that dude, all I'm saying that it IS in some way a limitation of equipment. Our equipment is limited in the sense that it can't do impossible shit so that's why it's uncertain. I was just trying to explain it in simple terms why are you getting mad at me and not this guy anyways? >>11548512
Posting fucking clips from What the Bleep

[Anonymous No.11548630]

>>11548542
>The self-affirming nature of self presented itself to me as this sort of furling manifold-type shape.
i've had this exact same experience, I'm pretty sure

[Anonymous No.11548637]

>>11548595
Are the ejaculations of hanged men signs of sexual arousal? Come on.

>dude Tarot cards lmao

Breh

[Anonymous No.11548641]

>>11548533
That's a cool concept of awareness as an abstract soul in a way.

The way I look at it is there's a knowing that is directed upon itself. It knows it's own knowing. Imagine infinite facets of knowing radiating upon each other simultaneously as one. Now what happens when you direct awareness upon itself in self-reflection? It should become expansive,growing exponentially. I believe this is what love feels like, this expansive state of awareness. It has waves of depth composed of waves within waves of awareness. Two people falling in love are expanding one another's awareness, each within the other. A sublime elevation.

[Anonymous No.11548643]

>>11548629
I didn't get angry at him because it's transparent to me that he was just fucking around. You sound like you were actually trying to school people but whether you just expressed yourself poorly or not it just comes off as silly to look down on someone and then talk about technical limitations the way you did.

[Anonymous No.11548661]

>>11548618
>>11548626
>>11548643
Holy fuck I was just trying to explain, in the simplest way that I can, why the uncertainty principle exists. It wasn't for you geniuses it was for the people in this thread who think that quantum phenomena prove the existence of god or some other mystical bullshit. They are the ones who need this explained. I hear this shit IRL all the time and it pisses me off, I'm sorry I didn't go into excruciating detail and pull out jargon no one cares about.

[Anonymous No.11548690]

>>11548339
>>11548343
My point is that humans create other human beings from matter (not quite inorganic, but I wouldn't really consider the broken down nutrients from plants and animals alive), convert that matter into a living animal, and then that animal gains sentience. It happens all the time. We understand the process by which it happens. How will mimicking such a process in a lab, perhaps in a way that isn't like human reproduction, somehow increase our understanding?

[Anonymous No.11548709]

>>11544776
fuck off scientoid read some philosophy

[Anonymous No.11548718]

>>11548709
Anyone who posts using this image or its ilk should be permanently banned from any intellectual activity or field

[Anonymous No.11548721]

>>11548690
the point is that we DON'T understand the process by which it happens. explain to me the process by which organic matter gains consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11548740]

>>11548690
Mimicking such a process in a lab may lead us to understand how inorganic matter came to organize itself to "create life", and this will provide us with fundamental insights as to a variety of property of living beings. As galaxy brain as this may sound, at this point in time there's not much a biologist can tell to a religious person who thinks god created life from inorganic matter, but still believes in evolution.

[Anonymous No.11548742]

>>11548641
You lost me at love. I don't see any metaphysical/ontological significance in love

[Anonymous No.11548743]

>>11548355
Imagine being so stupid that you criticize someone for misunderstanding Godel, except he's actually (basically) getting it right.
>>11547025
>hurr durr the Godel incompleteness theorems are FUCKING KINDERGARTEN bro like hahahaha
Apparently they were a philosophical achievement considering Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead, two famous philosophers, were completely ass-fucked by Godel proving their three-volume Principia Mathematic was a waste of time
>>11547070
>the universe isn't a formal system
Listen, Godel's theorems don't apply to all formal systems (http://www.cs.albany.edu/~dew/m/jsl1.pdf)) ((or Presburger Arithmetic for beginners)). But saying "hey let's pretend the universe has no rules lol" is a pretty cute way to try to get out of the obvious implications of Godel's theorems.

[Anonymous No.11548760]

>>11548743
>except he's actually (basically) getting it right.
lol. clean your room bucko

[Anonymous No.11548765]

>>11548721
I don't know. I'm saying we can already replicate the process, but we don't understand it. Why would doing it in a lab change that we're just mimicking?
>>11548740
it might, and I certainly won't stop anyone from trying to mimic it (well maybe I would if we want to get into ethics but whatever). But we already basically live in a world where it happens every day, where we have a pretty solid understanding of some of the macro-level components of the process, but we still don't truly understand.

[Anonymous No.11548768]

>>11548760
What did he get wrong? Go on, tell me, I'm dying to know.

[Anonymous No.11548773]

>>11548765
I totally see your point. I'd only say that by having such thorough control over the conditions, we could probably break some kind of ground in understanding how it comes about, or at the very least what prevents it from coming about

[Anonymous No.11548784]

>>11548765
we cannot replicate the process, i don't understand what you mean by that. when have we replicated consciousness or life in a lab?

creating consciousness in a lab would prove we understand how it works, obviously

[Anonymous No.11548808]

Lads, got a general question is there a word to define for having an interest in discussing events that won't likely happen? for instance an apocalypse.

[Anonymous No.11548844]

>>11548533
>>11548542
this is really interesting to me
how do i have a similar revelation if i were to try psychedelics?

[Anonymous No.11548848]

>>11548784
lol I guess humans could fuck in a lab and stay there until they gave birth and then it would be "in a lab." I'm just repeating myself over and over so I'll stop here.
>>11548808
Contingency Planning, I know, it's two words

[Anonymous No.11548942]

>>11548288
Me big brain. Solve problems put in front of me.

[Anonymous No.11548963]

Listening to your thoughts is not the same thing as thinking.

[Anonymous No.11548985]

>>11546057
I read Berkeley and found his argument for subjective idealism pretty persuasive. Am I a brainlet? Is there some well known counterargument I'm unaware of?

[Anonymous No.11549188]

>>11548985

yes you are and all the pseuds who are too fucking dumb to do science and would rather jerk off to semantic unfalsifiable tricks

[Anonymous No.11549213]

>>11549188
Okay, so there isn't a counterargument? Cool.

[Anonymous No.11549229]

>>11548985
Kick a stone in front of you and pay attention to what happens afterward

[Anonymous No.11549487]

>>11548963
How do I tell the difference

[Anonymous No.11549565]

>>11549229
Sensory phenomena. This isn't an argument. This is like saying "well, if everything boils down to sense perception, Berkeley, how do you account for sense perception?".

[Anonymous No.11550410]

>>11549229

Subjective Idealism doesn't mean stones are "not real", it means they are Ontologically subordinate to your mind.