Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think the theme is grounded on our reactions to the idea that qualia are "just physical" or "nothing other than neurons firing." People who favor this "nothing but" approach tend not to appreciate the what is actually so hard about the hard problem of consciousness. They tend to think that finding the neural correlates, for example, will explain consciousness. Well, finding the neural correlates will probably solve most of the "easy" problems (the questions about mechanism), but won't solve the hard problem because, for any given physical mechanism, we can still ask why it feels like this or that (where the "this" and "that" are "indexical references" - which is to say, references that are relative to the particular circumstances of the person making the references.
For example, if I say "My house is over there!" the location I'm referring to depend on where I am located at the moment that I say "over there." In the case of qualia, the indexical reference depends on who is "pointing" to the quale because the quale are experienced subjectively. Giving a street address locates the house objectively. Anyone can find it, based on the street address. But the indexical reference requires particular knowledge of the subject who made the reference. The neural correlate of a quale is somewhat like a street address. As a physicalist, I believe that qualia do, so to speak, have "street addresses" (that is to say, qualia are physical processes). But it is crucial to notice that the "street address" analogy breaks down in an important way. Yes, I can "find the house" using the street address, but logic prohibits me from "entering the house" (so to speak). Nothing in the street address analogy hints as this logical barrier, hence my warning about the analogy breaking down. The subjective aspect of qualitative experience implies a peculiar sort of indexical reference that can't be replaced by objective facts - no matter how many objective facts we can gather.
But what I was really trying to get at in my earlier post was that the peculiar type of indexical reference that we find with qualia is, itself, causally significant in a way that is not accounted for by the objective aspects understood by physics. It's not just the "street address" that matters; the "feeling of being" the house at that address also matters. And you can't comprehend this "feeling of being" by just knowing the street address; you have to literally be there. And, in the case of qualia, the "being there" means being the physical process. I and only I can be the particular physical process that I am. No one else can be me. When I claim that qualia are causally significant, I am claiming that something in the subjective aspect of the feeling is making a difference in how I behave. If properly understood, this will be seen as a radical departure from the standard operation procedure of science. And, as MPhD points out, this radical departure from current science is a step into the spiritual essence of being. Spirituality is the way in which each of us, individually - in the "privacy of our own essence" - comes to terms with this boundlessly amazing fact of our own subjective existence. Science presumably can - and, hopefully, someday will - track down a bunch of neural correlates, but the ultimate mystery is not one for science to "solve" - it is a mystery to simply be "lived in."
Hope you see the intrinsic spiritual nature of qualia discussions from this post, mensaguy.
I've come across an article that takes an approach to Reality that is very similar to my own. And it gives this approach a name that I will probably adopt: "Agentive cosmopsychism." The author also references a book that I will now need to read.
One place where my theory differs is in the nature of the "cosmic mind."
Quote from the article:
...in my book I suggested that we think of the cosmic consciousness as a kind of ‘mess’ devoid of intellect or reason. However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.
My notion of "qualitative chaos" which I compare to "dreamless sleep" takes a different path, but he goes on to suggest that Reality pursues "value" - and this is something very close to my own view (which I roughly derived from A.N. Whitehead).
I don't have time to say much more, but I wanted to offer a link to the article, in case anyone is interested. BTW: If you are already familiar with the "fine tuning" problem, etc., you can save yourself some time be skipping down to around the middle of the article, where he begins to propose his solution.
I've come across an article that takes an approach to Reality that is very similar to my own. And it gives this approach a name that I will probably adopt: "Agentive cosmopsychism." The author also references a book that I will now need to read.
One place where my theory differs is in the nature of the "cosmic mind."
Quote from the article:
...in my book I suggested that we think of the cosmic consciousness as a kind of ‘mess’ devoid of intellect or reason. However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.
My notion of "qualitative chaos" which I compare to "dreamless sleep" takes a different path, but he goes on to suggest that Reality pursues "value" - and this is something very close to my own view (which I roughly derived from A.N. Whitehead).
I don't have time to say much more, but I wanted to offer a link to the article, in case anyone is interested. BTW: If you are already familiar with the "fine tuning" problem, etc., you can save yourself some time be skipping down to around the middle of the article, where he begins to propose his solution.
I think value is intrinsic to most - probably even all - qualia. Unfortunately, it appears that values can conflict - not only between subjects, but also within a given experiencer. MphD often says that "God is love" - which I assume implies one or more of the following: Love is the primary value. Love is the ultimate ground of all values. Love is the ocean toward which all values ultimately flow. Love is always the ultimate winner of all conflicts between values. Or, something along these lines.
My reaction: Whether or not "God" exists in one form or another, I hope that MphD's mystical insight into the primacy of love is true. But, to be honest, I'm not convinced. Just to be clear, I'm not convinced that it is not true either. I just can't say that I believe one way or the other. I can hope and wish, but these are not the same as believing.
On a different note: I also don't see any convincing reason to think that good/evil or pain/pleasure, etc. need to ultimately be "in balance" - or, to put it another way - that there is a "conservation law" at work. Maybe there is a conservation law of that sort but, again, I am not convinced one way or the other. Reality does seem to favor symmetry but, on the other hand, perfect symmetry would the ultimate nothingness - as in, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Part of the answer to that ultimate question is, without any reasonable doubt, that there is "something rather nothing" because, in addition to loving symmetry, Reality also is compelled to break symmetry. There ought to be a perfect matter/anti-matter symmetry but, if this was an eternal, unbreakable perfect symmetry, we would not be here to talk about it. Symmetries get broken and, so far as we can see, the reasons boil down to quantum uncertainty.
"Nothing" (i.e., the vacuum) is intrinsically unstable. "Nothingness" is like a pencil balancing on its point. So long as perfect symmetry is maintained, "Nothing happens". "Something" exist only because symmetry is not eternally maintained. But physics does not factor the fundamentally qualitative nature of reality into its soup recipe. What would happen if it did? That's the question that I keep pursuing. Does the qualitative aspect of Reality fall into the symmetry/symmetry-breaking dynamics? Could "love" be perfect symmetry? Could love be the Nothingness wherein nothing happens until the symmetry is broken? Did MphD get a glimpse of the "perfect symmetry" that, due to some fundamental instability, cannot be eternally maintained? Is it the timeless core of Reality? - the Nirvana of Buddhism?
So maybe Reality ultimately values perfect symmetry, but is sorta like a alcoholic who, despite her higher desire, keeps falling of the wagon. She just can't eliminate the qualitative value-laden versions of "quantum fluctuations." Perhaps "quantum uncertainty" has both an objective/physical aspect and a subjective/qualitative aspect. If that's true, then I'm not sure we have any ultimate guarantees of anything other that "stuff will keep happening" - for better or worse.
Well, gaylenwoor, I think you have Mystic's perception correct, but you may have some misapprehension as to what love means. In this application it is about what is best for the person loved, and that can be painful at times if needed to grow in appropriate directions.
I've come across an article that takes an approach to Reality that is very similar to my own. And it gives this approach a name that I will probably adopt: "Agentive cosmopsychism." The author also references a book that I will now need to read.
One place where my theory differs is in the nature of the "cosmic mind."
Quote from the article:
...in my book I suggested that we think of the cosmic consciousness as a kind of ‘mess’ devoid of intellect or reason. However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.
My notion of "qualitative chaos" which I compare to "dreamless sleep" takes a different path, but he goes on to suggest that Reality pursues "value" - and this is something very close to my own view (which I roughly derived from A.N. Whitehead).
I don't have time to say much more, but I wanted to offer a link to the article, in case anyone is interested. BTW: If you are already familiar with the "fine tuning" problem, etc., you can save yourself some time be skipping down to around the middle of the article, where he begins to propose his solution.
Abstract
The argument from fine tuning is supposed to establish the existence of God from the fact that the evolution of carbon-based life requires the laws of physics and the boundary conditions of the universe to be more or less as they are. We demonstrate that this argument fails. In particular, we focus on problems associated with the role probabilities play in the argument. We show that, even granting the fine tuning of the universe, it does not follow that the universe is improbable, thus no explanation of the fine tuning, theistic or otherwise, is required.
Here is the link
Quote from the article:
...in my book I suggested that we think of the cosmic consciousness as a kind of ‘mess’ devoid of intellect or reason. However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
Abstract
[...] We show that, even granting the fine tuning of the universe, it does not follow that the universe is improbable, thus no explanation of the fine tuning, theistic or otherwise, is required.
Thanks for the reference to the article but, but it is important to notice that the author's original theory, as offered in his book, has nothing to do with fine tuning. He is just now looking back and realizing that his theory might address the fine tuning issue. In other words, his notion of cosmopsychism is not in any way dependent on the coherence of the fine-tuning argument. He's simply expressing an afterthought.
Perhaps more importantly, my own theory has nothing to do with fine-tuning either. Whether or not the universe is "fine-tuned" is completely irrelevant to the ideas I'm striving to express. What I offer is a warning: You could easily get sucked into an endless debate on the merits of fine-tuning and completely miss the point of cosmopsychism. For any given theory, there are innumerable tangents that could be pursued as a way to distract attention from the core theory. I hope no one ends up avoiding my theory by jumping into the fine points of fine-tuning.
Having said all of that, I would also say that I'm not convinced that the fine-tuning problem has been completely eliminated by the article in your link. One possibility I might point out is string theory, which gives a fairly good ball park value for the number of physically possible universes, and it gives some fairly good reasons for thinking that Reality is, in fact, a multiverse in which any particular universe can emerge with different constants - and thus different laws - than the one in which we live. I'm surprised that the authors didn't even mention string theory in this regard.
And, just for the record, it is physicists who are primarily concerned with the modern formulation of the fine-tuning problem. Philosophers and theologians have simply latched on to this latest manifestation of the problem for their own purposes. Basically, the physicist's version of the fine-tuning problem emerges from physics in accordance with the ways in which physicists themselves evaluate the credibility of their theories. Perhaps they are just all goofed up about this, but I suspect not. I don't personally have enough interest in the fine-tuning argument to delve into this much deeper because, as I said, the technical coherence of fine-tuning, one way or the other, seems irrelevant to my theory.
I think value is intrinsic to most - probably even all - qualia. Unfortunately, it appears that values can conflict - not only between subjects, but also within a given experiencer. MphD often says that "God is love" - which I assume implies one or more of the following: Love is the primary value. Love is the ultimate ground of all values. Love is the ocean toward which all values ultimately flow. Love is always the ultimate winner of all conflicts between values. Or, something along these lines.
My reaction: Whether or not "God" exists in one form or another, I hope that MphD's mystical insight into the primacy of love is true. But, to be honest, I'm not convinced. Just to be clear, I'm not convinced that it is not true either. I just can't say that I believe one way or the other. I can hope and wish, but these are not the same as believing.
On a different note: I also don't see any convincing reason to think that good/evil or pain/pleasure, etc. need to ultimately be "in balance" - or, to put it another way - that there is a "conservation law" at work. Maybe there is a conservation law of that sort but, again, I am not convinced one way or the other. Reality does seem to favor symmetry but, on the other hand, perfect symmetry would the ultimate nothingness - as in, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Part of the answer to that ultimate question is, without any reasonable doubt, that there is "something rather nothing" because, in addition to loving symmetry, Reality also is compelled to break symmetry. There ought to be a perfect matter/anti-matter symmetry but, if this was an eternal, unbreakable perfect symmetry, we would not be here to talk about it. Symmetries get broken and, so far as we can see, the reasons boil down to quantum uncertainty.
"Nothing" (i.e., the vacuum) is intrinsically unstable. "Nothingness" is like a pencil balancing on its point. So long as perfect symmetry is maintained, "Nothing happens". "Something" exist only because symmetry is not eternally maintained. But physics does not factor the fundamentally qualitative nature of reality into its soup recipe. What would happen if it did? That's the question that I keep pursuing. Does the qualitative aspect of Reality fall into the symmetry/symmetry-breaking dynamics? Could "love" be perfect symmetry? Could love be the Nothingness wherein nothing happens until the symmetry is broken? Did MphD get a glimpse of the "perfect symmetry" that, due to some fundamental instability, cannot be eternally maintained? Is it the timeless core of Reality? - the Nirvana of Buddhism?
So maybe Reality ultimately values perfect symmetry but is sorta like an alcoholic who, despite her higher desire, keeps falling of the wagon. She just can't eliminate the qualitative value-laden versions of "quantum fluctuations." Perhaps "quantum uncertainty" has both an objective/physical aspect and a subjective/qualitative aspect. If that's true, then I'm not sure we have any ultimate guarantees of anything other than "stuff will keep happening" - for better or worse.
The focus on symmetry is misguided because we are dealing with a living God so the focus is on the transformation and growth of love as you correctly describe it from the non-sentient components, much as our physical body and its components transform into our sentience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift
Well, gaylenwoor, I think you have Mystic's perception correct, but you may have some misapprehension as to what love means. In this application, it is about what is best for the person loved, and that can be painful at times if needed to grow in appropriate directions.
I still have issues with the "red in tooth and claw" aspect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
Thanks for the reference to the article but, but it is important to notice that the author's original theory, as offered in his book, has nothing to do with fine-tuning. He is just now looking back and realizing that his theory might address the fine tuning issue. In other words, his notion of cosmopsychism is not in any way dependent on the coherence of the fine-tuning argument. He's simply expressing an afterthought.
Perhaps more importantly, my own theory has nothing to do with fine-tuning either. Whether or not the universe is "fine-tuned" is completely irrelevant to the ideas I'm striving to express. What I offer is a warning: You could easily get sucked into an endless debate on the merits of fine-tuning and completely miss the point of cosmopsychism. For any given theory, there are innumerable tangents that could be pursued as a way to distract attention from the core theory. I hope no one ends up avoiding my theory by jumping into the fine points of fine-tuning.
Having said all of that, I would also say that I'm not convinced that the fine-tuning problem has been completely eliminated by the article in your link. One possibility I might point out is string theory, which gives a fairly good ballpark value for the number of physically possible universes, and it gives some fairly good reasons for thinking that Reality is, in fact, a multiverse in which any particular universe can emerge with different constants - and thus different laws - than the one in which we live. I'm surprised that the authors didn't even mention string theory in this regard.
And, just for the record, it is physicists who are primarily concerned with the modern formulation of the fine-tuning problem. Philosophers and theologians have simply latched on to this latest manifestation of the problem for their own purposes. Basically, the physicist's version of the fine-tuning problem emerges from physics in accordance with the ways in which physicists themselves evaluate the credibility of their theories. Perhaps they are just all goofed up about this, but I suspect not. I don't personally have enough interest in the fine-tuning argument to delve into this much deeper because, as I said, the technical coherence of fine-tuning, one way or the other, seems irrelevant to my theory.
Perhaps it is misguided - that was really my core question: Does suffering have to exist due to something like a "conservation law" (aka, some "built-in" symmetry)? If so, then there would be no possibility of some ultimate nirvana in which all sentient experience throughout all of Reality achieves a state of bliss. Instead, there would be something more like an eternal "heaven/hell" arrangement where there is always suffering to "balance out" the bliss. The Buddha could never stop reincarnating because there would always be suffering souls in need of help. I hope that's not the case, but I'm finding it difficult to see how to avoid it.
Part of my concern is this: If, as a matter of principle, Reality in the form of pure universal bliss (or pure love) is a natural possibility, then why is there any suffering at all? Where does the "seed crystal" come from that gives suffering/evil a place to start? Does pure bliss just inherently get "too boring" and thus some "shaking up" is periodically required? A lot of evidence points to Reality having some fundamentally cyclical nature ("For everything there is a season...") and, if so, then this brings us back to fundamental symmetry because cycles imply underlying symmetry - which is why scientists of all sorts keep seeking symmetry. Concepts like love, transformation and growth don't eliminate the core question. They just reiterate the source of the question.
Although I believe in a fundamental ontological monism (i.e., "One Stuff" view), I keep coming back to some equally fundamental epistemological pluralism (Duality? Triality?...) at the very core of things, and this would presumably be the ultimate "seed crystal" of suffering/evil due to, presumably, some intrinsic "tension" in the roots of Reality - the ultimate source of all cycles, all dynamics. I think that the void of quantum field theory is hitting - or getting extremely close to hitting - the core nerve of Reality (insofar as this "essence" can be mathematically modeled).
Quote:
...because we are dealing with a living God so the focus is on the transformation and growth of love...
Love is not a static state. Love is essentially dynamic. And, of course, transformation and growth are dynamic by definition. Dynamics - unless it is pure randomness - always has symmetries of some sort - these symmetries are what make the dynamics not purely random. And what I'm suggesting is that something in the fundamental symmetries serves as the "seed crystal" for suffering.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 08-24-2018 at 09:02 AM..
Perhaps it is misguided - that was really my core question: Does suffering have to exist due to something like a "conservation law" (aka, some "built-in" symmetry)? If so, then there would be no possibility of some ultimate nirvana in which all sentient experience throughout all of Reality achieves a state of bliss.
Gaylenwoof,
I think you are barking up the wrong tree by focusing on suffering. The concept of suffering is really an invention of man's mind and has no objective definition. When an animal is dying of starvation, it's nerve endings are simply telling its brain that it ought to try and find some food, as they were programmed to do by evolution. Neither good nor bad, or on whole good I suppose, as the instinct promotes survival of the species. Same goes for all pain, whether physical or psychological.
The state of bliss, if defined as lack of suffering, would then be found only when beings are disconnected from their physical selves, if that is possible.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hope you see the intrinsic spiritual nature of qualia discussions from this post, mensaguy.