An Intellectual’s Spiritual Narrative – a not-completely materialist alternative (Buddhist, soul)

[Gaylenwoof]

In another tread that has become outrageously long, I proposed a framework for discussing spirituality that does not distinctly favor either theism or atheism, but hints at a deep mystery that, I claim, has a profound spiritual significance that cannot, even in principle, be adequately discussed in purely materialist terms. Whether someone is a theist, or an atheist, or an agnostic, this mystery (I say) has important implications for the type of theism or atheism or agnosticism that one adopts. And the “framework” that I’m proposing also has important implications for all three approaches.

Not all forms of theism or atheism are created equal. Some forms are plausible and some are not, according to the framework I’m suggesting. Exploring the framework itself (e.g., is it a good framework? Or a fundamentally flawed frameword?), and teasing out the logical implications for the plausibility of various conceptions of God or naturalistic alternatives would be the focus of this thread. (Or, at least, these idea are what I am hoping can be the focus.)

My "framework", in a nutshell, is this:
We are fundamentally social entities and knowledge is a fundamentally social phenomena, even though it is always - by logical necessity - foundationally grounded on particular individual subjective manifestation of qualitative reality.

Perhaps some of you will say that this framework belongs in a nutshell and should just stay there because it is simply whacko, but then I hope you will offer an alternative framework that you think is more plausible.

Just for the record, here are a couple of recent quotes from MysticPhD's mammoth thread that sparked my desire to create this thread. Basically, this is the somewhat larger context for why I think there needs to be a “framework” discussion:

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

The point, of course, is not to discuss the Hard Problem itself; that ought to be a 10 minute discussion in which we identify the epistemological limits placed on objective analysis and then, from that starting point, we can begin to untangle the spiritual implications of the qualitative aspects of experience - the qualitative aspects being those aspects that we cannot, even in principle, convey the full lived-experience meaning of to other people by simply discussing physics formulas, chemical bonding, neurological data, and so forth. If, for some reason, a person is unable to experience red directly/subjectively for themselves, then - if you were both immortal beings - you could literally spend the rest of eternity pouring over every objective physical fact about the qualitative experience of red and still never, ever, ever, ever, fully convey what "seeing red" is really like, for those people who can see red. (And, of course, "red" is merely a randomly-chosen example of qualia. The exact same situation applies to every qualitative aspect of every conceivable moment of subjective experience.)

IF we can finally agree to this preliminary bit of conceptual housekeeping (which, in the grand scheme of philosophical discussion ought to be about as time consuming as taking a sip of water before speaking but, somehow, has taken us countless hours here in this and other threads) THEN we could move on to a spiritually meaty discussion about the logical implications of this subjectively-accessed, "lived body" knowledge that each of us has about the reality in which we live.

If there is any actual meaning in life - whether it is some sort of primordial Divine Meaning set by a Creator, or an atheist/existentialist style of emergent meaning that we create for ourselves via the act of living - this meaning is rock-bottom based on this subjectively-accessed, qualitative lived-body knowledge that constitutes every second of every subjective experience of our lives. (And, obviously, this includes the lives of scientists, mathematicians, logicians, and - whether they like it, or not - the hardest of hardcore reductive materialists.) Materialist methodology plays a critical role in this exploration of lived meaning insofar as it provides essential reality-checks for our intersubjective phenomenological concepts but it cannot dominate the entire game - precisely because, when all is said and done, our concept of "objectivity" is, itself, really, ultimately, unavoidably intersubjective. Our feeling of "objectivity" is hard-wired into our experience - we can't help but feel that some things are hard-core objectively true - but this "feeling of objective truth" is, ultimately, a subjective phenomenological event that always already - without ever, ever, ever any exception - occurs in a social context. The essence of this feeling of absolute objective reality is fundamentally both individual subjective AND socially contextual. It is a feeling that sometimes can be intellectually misleading, or misinterpreted, or amenable to nuanced distinctions, and so on, which is why we need intersubjective confirmation - aka logic, math, and science - to help us discover stuff - including stuff about ourselves - that we cannot discover by just solitary armchair philosophy. We are fundamentally social entities and knowledge is a fundamentally social phenomena, even though it is always - by logical necessity - foundationally grounded on particular individual subjective manifestation of qualitative reality.

If you fell asleep during the last paragraph (and I cannot at all blame anyone for that because I know that my posts are always gawdawfully loooong) then please, please, please go back and reread it - maybe even reread it several times because it is a core element of everything I've been saying in this thread, and I doubt that I ever have - or ever will again - say it as clearly and concisely as I just said it there.

Nothing I've said overwhelmingly favors either atheism or theism - both are still logically valid possibilities, so far as I can see - but the intersubjective and social nature of all knowledge - including logical, mathematical, and scientific/empirical/objective knowledge - has profound implications for how we go about discussing our spiritual lives and our individual experiences of truth and meaning. Exploring and untangling the nuances of the central paragraph above in light of the thread topic (which I personally interpret as more like "non-magical theism" rather than just specifically non-magical Christianity, although everything, to some extent, is relevant to both formulations) would be of great interest to me and I'm hoping that others might share my interest. Perhaps, given the ungodly length of this thread, it should be reincarnated into a new thread? In any case, I think there is a great deal of useful discussion to be had IF we can get passed this endless bickering over this stupid Hard Problem crap and move on to the meaty spiritual implications of the subjective/qualitative aspects of experience.

Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes

This is just another version of the god of the gaps argument.

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

IF there is a God then, yes, our conception of God will need to fit into the gap. My disagreement with MPhD and others is whether or not "God" is what has to fill the gap. He says yes, I say "not necessarily" - at least insofar as God is conceived as being a conscious designer/creator. On the flip side, my disagreement with Transponder has been over whether there even is a gap at all. I say yes, he says something like "not really" or "its a completely irrelevant gap" or something along those lines. I say it is an important, highly relevant gap that, even though it does not necessarily have to imply theism, it does (once adequately comprehended) necessarily imply something profoundly, mind-bogglingly, awe-inspiringly mysterious that consciousness is uniquely qualified to explore - even if it not the sort of puzzle that, intellectually, has to be "solved" or fully explained in objective materialist terms.

[nateswift]

From the other thread:

Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes

My problem is that you appear to be here and there, but maybe that is because English is not my mother language.

If there is a gap in our knowledge about consciousness and qualia, then that means you can not say materialism in any form is insufficient to fill that gap.

I'll post the cogent part of Gaylenwoof's answer:

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Actually, yes, I can say with high confidence that materialism cannot, even in principle, fill the gap. By virtually all commonly used definitions of materialism, materialist methodology focuses solely on objectively verifiable aspects of reality, but if I am correct about the qualitative nature of subjective experience and about the combination individual & social nature of knowledge, then the purely objective approach of materialism cannot possibly ever achieve a satisfying theory of consciousness all by itself. A significant degree of phenomenological methodology is absolutely logically essential. Neither a materialist nor a phenomenological methodology, by itself, is sufficient to achieve a theory of consciousness, but a proper combination of both methodologies might, possibly, get us to a satisfying theory of consciousness.

But I believe you are correct in sayi ng that materialist answer can't be unequivocally ruled out. The point is well made that "methodology" may be where the problem lies and a better understanding of the nature of the phenomenon itself is required; sort of try filling the gap from another direction and see if the "material" may be ruled out or confirmed as exclusive basis. "Meta physics" is by no means necessarily separate from the physics at its base, but an explanation of its operation.

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by nateswift

From the other thread:

I'll post the cogent part of Gaylenwoof's answer:

But I believe you are correct in sayi ng that materialist answer can't be unequivocally ruled out. The point is well made that "methodology" may be where the problem lies and a better understanding of the nature of the phenomenon itself is required; sort of try filling the gap from another direction and see if the "material" may be ruled out or confirmed as exclusive basis. "Meta physics" is by no means necessarily separate from the physics at its base, but an explanation of its operation.

Yes, That what I have saying also. methodology is playing a big role.

the word metaphysics is like the word supernatural. They just meas outside of what we know. The question then becomes how far outside of what we know. There are notions that we say that are outside of "known for sure" but are reasonable. Then we have notions that are outside of what is known but less reasonable.

Far to often people that don't know, what we even claim to know, that they effectively equalize all claims and pick the one that works for them. That's not how reason and common sense work.

let me give you an example. Life started on this planet or life started out in space and was brought here from outer space. Both of those are on equal footing when talking about how life started on this planet. really, for us in the middle, a problem only arises when "on earthers" or the "in space-ers" start to force one or the other on us. The reality of the situation is that we don't know. And, to be honest, either on earth or outer space is really the universe doing it anyway. So it just doesn't matter.

Mystic's field vs gayland's qualia; addressing awareness. Both of these claims are pretty far out of what is known. In fact, both are based on "if's" that really have no solid footing. sorry you two, its just the way it is. Mystics awareness field has no observations yet, none really. In fact, consciousness seems to be build up on more than one field interacting.

Gay's is based on "experience" being the awareness, or that we can't know what 'awareness' is because we are not "that chemical equation". we aren't mary so we don't know. Its true, but its only true to a point. We really have to assign weights to what we can know about "someone else's" experience. Its not all or nothing here. I see gay not making it all or nothing, but the defence he is using on a forum makes it look like that.

Now, a "non materialist", way out. that really means two things right know.

first, we don't know what is "non material" because philosophers deem anything energy/particle based as material. So what is their non material? they don't know. So that means, "they think "insert notion" because we don't know. Well anybody can see the problem there. yeah, we don't know, lets assign weights to claims.

Thats where tran's gang and fundy theists stop playing the commonsense game. As soon as we start assigning proper weights their arguments fall apart quickly. milli atheism and fundy theism are debunked at this point. they do not address how the universe works. That is shown by how fast they resort to personal insults and shunning.

second, "non-material" can it mean the 'machine langue"? Like the software in a computer or how the software is actually binary.

The brain isn't binary, its something else. But its something, we just don't know it yet. When we can look at a set of chemical equation involving molecules and say "hey, those state changes are the image of a dinner they had three weeks ago." the material view will be modified. just like looking into a cpu's chemistry and not understanding its running in binary will lead to this qualia and field thingies.

All I did was link and unknown 'awareness" to things we do know. The hardware and software of the brain. mystic and gay are linked into unknowns. I am not sure why they stay there, but they do.

Its looking more like the "non material" is the software, or machine language in the brain. Studying the "emf fields" in the brain without knowing the language is like studying the emf fields in a computer not knowing binary.

[TRANSPONDER]

We already have a thread on this subject. I propose that they be mereged.

[Gaylenwoof]

A few preliminaries for this thread:
I feel almost adamant about certain ideas, highly confident about others, and I “lean toward" others. I say "almost adamant" because I will try to listen to virtually any sincerely offered idea and am technically open to changing my mind about virtually anything, if presented with good reasons for doing so. But certain ideas seem so basic to me that I can’t conceive of any realistic way in which someone might change my mind, hence the “adamant” part of “almost adamant.” Here is a quick listing of some key ideas that I have in mind that are related to the thread topic:

Almost adamant:
(1) Consciousness is fundamentally qualitative and subjective, but conscious beings are also, in principle, capable of grasping “objective” truths and brute facts of existence. I put “objective” in scare quotes because the word ‘objective’ is often thought of as implying “mind independent” and I strongly suspect that everything is interdependent and, thus, nothing is ever truly and completely “mind independent.” In any case, whatever the ontological status of “objective” knowledge might be, I’m confident that most knowledge is achieved primarily be intersubjective agreement in a social context. As Kant would say, everything we experience is a phenomena – i.e., it is known to us only as it appears to consciousness – not as it exists intrinsically or “in itself” unless “in itself” just is “as it appears”.

(2) Qualia are "self-evident." (Qualia = the intrinsically qualitative subjectively known constituents of conscious experience aka the “raw feels” of “what it is like be” who and what we are at a given moment.) Qualia are examples of “things” that just are what they appear to be. A quale is not a “thing in itself” that floats around independently or “behind the vail” of appearance. It is, essentially, its appearance in conscious experience.
Highly confident (but less confident than “almost adamant”):

(3) Qualia are essentially physical – meaning that they can, in principle, be explored to a great extent via objective empirical means – aka, traditional scientific methodology. Notice that, at first glance, this appears to conflict with my almost adamant claim that qualia are intrinsically subjectively known. Technically, however, there is no contradiction because the claim that qualia are subjective does not imply that they are only subjective. Which leads to my next claim:

(4) Qualia are “dual-aspect” entities, which is to say, they can be known via at least two radically different ways of knowing. They can be known objectively via the concepts and methodologies of science (primarily cognitive science if/when we can ever track down the “neural correlates of consciousness,” but ultimately – in principle - reducible all the way down to fundamental physics in the form of “proto-qualitative” aspects of fundamental elements, laws, and principles), AND/OR they can also be known subjectively as the qualitative “raw feels” of what it is like to be the type of physically embodied being who is, to some extent, composed of the qualia. I see this as a fundamental epistemological brute fact of reality that probably has some sort of deep ontological roots, sorta like wave/particle complementarity or position/momentum complementarity or positive/negative charge duality, “spin-up/spin-down” duality, etc. The qualitative “ways of knowing” duality is, however, a contingent brute fact (not a logically necessary brute fact) so people certainly can and do disagree with me about this dual-aspect epistemology. (BTW: The infamous philosophical “zombie” thought experiment is meant to help explain what is meant by this duality, and it also happens to show the logically-grounded but nevertheless ultimately contingent nature of the “ways of knowing” duality.


Strongly leaning-toward:
(5) I am atheist relative to most traditional “holy book” conceptions of God, including most conceptions of God as a Divine Engineer who created the world for some specific Divine purpose. I’m agnostic about most liberal conceptions of God as a “Cosmic Mind” or General Intelligence, or “Essence of Love,” etc., underlying our individual experiences. I somewhat strongly favor the more or less generally Buddhist notion of God as the “One Self”/”No self” or God as a primordial/universal “Unconscious Cosmic Self” or proto-qualitative self-organizing patterns of "stuff" underlying all conscious experience. I can say a lot more about that, if anyone wants to pursue it in more detail. This also relates to another idea:

(6) I lean strongly toward the idea that all moments of conscious experience (for all beings who count as conscious or sentient) are, ontologically speaking, all experiences of “Reality Itself” which can also be thought of as a “One Self” thesis. I sometime characterize this by saying that “self” is an Aristotelian universal. I may have more to say about that, at some point, if people are interested. This “self-as-universal” view leads to a host of highly speculative ideas that I find highly interesting and basically plausible.

Speculative but plausible, given the “self-as-universal” thesis:

(7) Even though we are material beings, we might still be essentially immortal and, thus, when we physically die, we could very likely discover that we are still physical beings and that there is “more to the story” than what we have experienced in this particular life. This is a non-theistic view in the sense that no theistic premises are needed in order to arrive at this somewhat surprising conclusion.

(8) The characters in our dreams might have their own subjective perspectives, desires, fears, etc. within the dream (as opposed to being purely fictional or random dream images).

(9) There may be potential perspectives from which I can “wake up” to discover that I am “you” or that I was Julius Caesar or Joan of Arc, or some peasant in the 14th century, or whatever. This is not reincarnation in the traditional sense, but it could be the basis for “past life memories.”

And so on…

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

We already have a thread on this subject. I propose that they be mereged.

Really? What thread? Guess I should have looked more closely. I suspect that my approach is unique but, if not unique enough, I don't care if the mods want to merge them.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Really? What thread? Guess I should have looked more closely. I suspect that my approach is unique but, if not unique enough, I don't care if the mods want to merge them.

Sorry mate I was kidding. It struck me that it looked very much like Mystic's thread.

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Sorry mate I was kidding. It struck me that it looked very much like Mystic's thread.

Well, yes, that was the point: Mystic's thread has wandered into areas that might be better separated from it.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by nateswift

Well, yes, that was the point: Mystic's thread has wandered into areas that might be better separated from it.

It is a thread to separate out my Christian BELIEFS from the scientific realities, something Arq seems ill-equipped or unwilling to do in my thread. I suspect his reticence to acknowledge anything that Gaylen has so eloquently explained is based on his antipathy to my BELIEFS and the concept of God, per se.

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

A few preliminaries for this thread:
I feel almost adamant about certain ideas, highly confident about others, and I “lean toward" others. I say "almost adamant" because I will try to listen to virtually any sincerely offered idea and am technically open to changing my mind about virtually anything, if presented with good reasons for doing so. But certain ideas seem so basic to me that I can’t conceive of any realistic way in which someone might change my mind, hence the “adamant” part of “almost adamant.” Here is a quick listing of some key ideas that I have in mind that are related to the thread topic:

Almost adamant:
(1) Consciousness is fundamentally qualitative and subjective, but conscious beings are also, in principle, capable of grasping “objective” truths and brute facts of existence. I put “objective” in scare quotes because the word ‘objective’ is often thought of as implying “mind independent” and I strongly suspect that everything is interdependent and, thus, nothing is ever truly and completely “mind independent.” In any case, whatever the ontological status of “objective” knowledge might be, I’m confident that most knowledge is achieved primarily be intersubjective agreement in a social context. As Kant would say, everything we experience is a phenomena – i.e., it is known to us only as it appears to consciousness – not as it exists intrinsically or “in itself” unless “in itself” just is “as it appears”.

(2) Qualia are "self-evident." (Qualia = the intrinsically qualitative subjectively known constituents of conscious experience aka the “raw feels” of “what it is like be” who and what we are at a given moment.) Qualia are examples of “things” that just are what they appear to be. A quale is not a “thing in itself” that floats around independently or “behind the vail” of appearance. It is, essentially, its appearance in conscious experience.
Highly confident (but less confident than “almost adamant”):

(3) Qualia are essentially physical – meaning that they can, in principle, be explored to a great extent via objective empirical means – aka, traditional scientific methodology. Notice that, at first glance, this appears to conflict with my almost adamant claim that qualia are intrinsically subjectively known. Technically, however, there is no contradiction because the claim that qualia are subjective does not imply that they are only subjective. Which leads to my next claim:

(4) Qualia are “dual-aspect” entities, which is to say, they can be known via at least two radically different ways of knowing. They can be known objectively via the concepts and methodologies of science (primarily cognitive science if/when we can ever track down the “neural correlates of consciousness,” but ultimately – in principle - reducible all the way down to fundamental physics in the form of “proto-qualitative” aspects of fundamental elements, laws, and principles), AND/OR they can also be known subjectively as the qualitative “raw feels” of what it is like to be the type of physically embodied being who is, to some extent, composed of the qualia. I see this as a fundamental epistemological brute fact of reality that probably has some sort of deep ontological roots, sorta like wave/particle complementarity or position/momentum complementarity or positive/negative charge duality, “spin-up/spin-down” duality, etc. The qualitative “ways of knowing” duality is, however, a contingent brute fact (not a logically necessary brute fact) so people certainly can and do disagree with me about this dual-aspect epistemology. (BTW: The infamous philosophical “zombie” thought experiment is meant to help explain what is meant by this duality, and it also happens to show the logically-grounded but nevertheless ultimately contingent nature of the “ways of knowing” duality.


Strongly leaning-toward:
(5) I am atheist relative to most traditional “holy book” conceptions of God, including most conceptions of God as a Divine Engineer who created the world for some specific Divine purpose. I’m agnostic about most liberal conceptions of God as a “Cosmic Mind” or General Intelligence, or “Essence of Love,” etc., underlying our individual experiences. I somewhat strongly favor the more or less generally Buddhist notion of God as the “One Self”/”No self” or God as a primordial/universal “Unconscious Cosmic Self” or proto-qualitative self-organizing patterns of "stuff" underlying all conscious experience. I can say a lot more about that, if anyone wants to pursue it in more detail. This also relates to another idea:

(6) I lean strongly toward the idea that all moments of conscious experience (for all beings who count as conscious or sentient) are, ontologically speaking, all experiences of “Reality Itself” which can also be thought of as a “One Self” thesis. I sometime characterize this by saying that “self” is an Aristotelian universal. I may have more to say about that, at some point, if people are interested. This “self-as-universal” view leads to a host of highly speculative ideas that I find highly interesting and basically plausible.

Speculative but plausible, given the “self-as-universal” thesis:

(7) Even though we are material beings, we might still be essentially immortal and, thus, when we physically die, we could very likely discover that we are still physical beings and that there is “more to the story” than what we have experienced in this particular life. This is a non-theistic view in the sense that no theistic premises are needed in order to arrive at this somewhat surprising conclusion.

(8) The characters in our dreams might have their own subjective perspectives, desires, fears, etc. within the dream (as opposed to being purely fictional or random dream images).

(9) There may be potential perspectives from which I can “wake up” to discover that I am “you” or that I was Julius Caesar or Joan of Arc, or some peasant in the 14th century, or whatever. This is not reincarnation in the traditional sense, but it could be the basis for “past life memories.”

And so on…

you can be adamant all you want. it doesn't make it more real. we have shown that awareness can be predicted and as we learn more we will predict mary's red even better. Your subjectiveness needs to be quantified because its certainly not 100 subjective.

Holy books or god have no influence on my choices to describe how the universe works. You even having to say that is an indicator, to me, that you understand some people are in this for different reasons than just finding out how things work.

The fact that you need to deny god or defend after life type stuff is kind of an indicator that you're worried about people you shouldn't even worry about past having a well oiled police force. But that's the difference between engineering and philosophy. Engineers only care that the claim meets the conditions it was intended not what other people think.

yes, I addressed "repeats" logacily and based on what we do know about the periodic table and people. Its not 'reincarnation" as people teach. like soul jumping. there is only the universe having a human experience.