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I believe I answered that in my previous post. Can you tell me why my answer is inadequate?My short answer would be "qualia" but, of course, you can complain that it's just a word. What it is, in itself, is not something that I can fully show you by purely objective means because some aspects of qualia are subjective. You have to experience your own pain. I can point to a pain in my tooth and say "See, that's pain right there!" but ultimately you need to experience your own pain in order to fully understand pain. One key thing to notice is that this knowledge of pain is empirical - it is knowledge gained by experience. But it is subjective, so if, for some reason, you can't experience pain of your own, then I can't fully explain it to you. I can, in principle, teach you the neurodynamics, but you could learn all of that and still not know what it is like to feel pain unless you yourself feel it. That is just the straight-up logic of subjectivity. We can, in principle, measure the objective aspects of qualia. We can locate critical neural circuits and identify critical patterns of activity, etc., so yes, we can measure qualia. What's tricky is the subjective aspect. Qualia are experienced directly. When you see someone in pain, you experience various colors, shape, etc. The "person in pain" - as such - is experienced indirectly (light waves, etc.) The qualia constituting your experience just is your experience. It's direct. If you think you see someone in pain, you could be wrong. It could just be an illusion, or it could be a real person who is just pretending to be in pain. But if you experience pain, you can't be wrong about "that" experience. You might use the wrong term for it, or be wrong about the cause, etc., but if you believe that you feel pain, then you do. That, again, is the logic of subjectivity. Here I will focus on the subjective aspect, since I think that is what you are focusing on. The "subjective aspect" is just your perspective on the phenomena, and you achieve this perspective be BEING the physical system who is experiencing the qualia, e.g., pain. No one but you can BE you. That's the ground of the logic of subjectivity. To know the subjective aspects of an experience, you have to BE the physical system that is undergoing the experience. No other physical system can BE the experience for you. (The logic of identity is an important aspect of the logic if subjective experience. If A is not B, then B cannot have A's subjective experience. People generally find this confusing, but it is really very simple.)
Bottom line: Each of us has direct, absolute knowledge of some aspects of Reality, whether we realize it, as such, or not. If you are puzzled about qualia and ask "What IS it?" your question can only make sense if your are asking to understand the objective aspects - in which case I can (in principle) point to various sorts of neural activity, etc. If you insist on focusing purely on the subjective aspects and asking "What IS it?" then you are "misunderstanding the language game" as Wittgenstein would say. You are deeply confused about the nature of a "What is it?" type of question. So long as you stick to the subjective aspect of pain, then the pain itself just is the answer to your question. It is exactly what you feel it to be. Of course it has other meaning as well. You could try to identify causes, or meanings (e.g., "I at too many cookies," or "I'm suffering from past-life karma, etc.), but what it is, in itself, just is what you experience it as. Period. They "mysterious" and confusing nature of talking about it crops up because the of the brute-fact nature of qualia. Physically/objectively you can "go deeper" to discovers aspect of qualia that you never before imagined, but metaphysically/subjectively, "what you see is what you get". Period. There is no reason to call it "supernatural" - it is directly and solidly empirical. It is the natural world.
Once again....pain is NOT a thought, it is the body's response to stimuli, which clearly tags it as being a physical issue, so it has NADA to do with what I said. You simply don't want to admit that a thought has to originate somewhere else other than a pile of flesh, because you can't place it anywhere in the natural system of things, you can only point to the "footprint" it left. Peace
The question of qualia is really not that hard..or I thought it wasn't but I still may be not understanding. It isn't the reaction of the body to what Gaylen called 'sugar molecules on the tongue', but the experience of hte neature/experience/understanding of the sweetness.
I actually have a vague inkling of how all the actions are reactions may all come together to produce a matter/energy effect that we perceive is Is -ness. It's not easy to convey and I may just be fooling myself, but I suspect that we don't need to look beyond matter/energy and what it does for Qualia. Even though of course we can't (yet0 explain exactly how it does it, but of course that is no justification for claiming that we never can.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-17-2017 at 03:11 PM..
You guys realize it's just flesh, right? No different than any other flesh at the basic level. So what is it then do you suppose that engenders the thoughts it processes? Peace
You realize that CERN is just metal. stuff out of the ground. metal, plastic made from fossil dinosaurs. How the heck can that tell us about sub atomic particles?
Don't took too hard at what the basic material is, or you may miss the utterly amazing stuff that matter - simple particles - through human design or by natural evolution, can do.
You realize that CERN is just metal. stuff out of the ground. metal, plastic made from fossil dinosaurs. How the heck can that tell us about sub atomic particles?
Don't took too hard at what the basic material is, or you may miss the utterly amazing stuff that matter - simple particles - through human design or by natural evolution, can do.
Come on now Trans....CERN is hardly a comparative argument to what I said. You're reaching too hard.
I'm not looking at the basic material at all, I'm trying to get you to see that you can't measure what is unmeasurable in the natural realm and therefore must give "it" that you can't perceive, a name. What name will you give "it"? Peace
Once again....pain is NOT a thought, it is the body's response to stimuli, which clearly tags it as being a physical issue, so it has NADA to do with what I said. You simply don't want to admit that a thought has to originate somewhere else other than a pile of flesh, because you can't place it anywhere in the natural system of things, you can only point to the "footprint" it left. Peace
Thought is essentially qualia organized in such a way so as to produce "map-like" structures - i.e., ways in which Reality experiences its own Being. There is "something it is like" to think 2+2=4 and there is something that it is like to think 5+3=8. We are able to recognize each thought for what it is, and distinguish the two thoughts from each other because the qualitative aspect of what it is like to think each thought is different. If the qualitative aspects of both thoughts were identical, we would have no basis for thinking of them as different thoughts. Qualia are the constituents of experience, so if two experiences are different, it is because the qualia constituting the experiences are different. The abstract thought 2+2=4 is different than the thought 5+3=8, and we can know this because there is a qualitative difference in the thoughts (and, of course, there is also an objective/quantitative difference that, eventually, we will be able to point to on brain scans). And I've already explained how the neurons system self-organizes into patterns of activity that link to patterns of behavior. Subjectively, if "feels different" to be this pattern rather than that pattern. Objectively, the patterns are different; subjectively it feels different to be each pattern.
Thoughts are essentially patterns of qualitative "feeling" that conform (more or less) to the brute fact rules of logic. Pain doesn't have to conform to much of any logic, but the thought "2+2=4" has to fit into a network of mutually consistent "rules" such that, for example, 2+2 never equals 5, etc. The dynamics of a thought "popping into my mind" can be roughly modeled by self-organizing systems, wherein utterly new and unique patterns can spontaneously emerge. (True, most chaotic models are technically deterministic, but they don't necessarily have to be.)
Thought is essentially qualia organized in such a way so as to produce "map-like" structures - i.e., ways in which Reality experiences its own Being. There is "something it is like" to think 2+2=4 and there is something that it is like to think 5+3=8. We are able to recognize each thought for what it is, and distinguish the two thoughts from each other because the qualitative aspect of what it is like to think each thought is different. If the qualitative aspects of both thoughts were identical, we would have no basis for thinking of them as different thoughts. Qualia are the constituents of experience, so if two experiences are different, it is because the qualia constituting the experiences are different. The abstract thought 2+2=4 is different than the thought 5+3=8, and we can know this because there is a qualitative difference in the thoughts (and, of course, there is also an objective/quantitative difference that, eventually, we will be able to point to on brain scans). And I've already explained how the neurons system self-organizes into patterns of activity that link to patterns of behavior. Subjectively, if "feels different" to be this pattern rather than that pattern. Objectively, the patterns are different; subjectively it feels different to be each pattern.
Thoughts are essentially patterns of qualitative "feeling" that conform (more or less) to the brute fact rules of logic. Pain doesn't have to conform to much of any logic, but the thought "2+2=4" has to fit into a network of mutually consistent "rules" such that, for example, 2+2 never equals 5, etc. The dynamics of a thought "popping into my mind" can be roughly modeled by self-organizing systems, wherein utterly new and unique patterns can spontaneously emerge. (True, most chaotic models are technically deterministic, but they don't necessarily have to be.)
Again, that's all nice scientific stuff I'm sure, but doesn't explain where thoughts originate, only how the physical reacts to their introduction into the physical. And if it were purely a case of just unique patterns emerging to distinguish one from another with no guiding mechanism at all, then chaos is all that would appear. Peace
I believe I answered that in my previous post. Can you tell me why my answer is inadequate?My short answer would be "qualia" but, of course, you can complain that it's just a word. What it is, in itself, is not something that I can fully show you by purely objective means because some aspects of qualia are subjective. You have to experience your own pain. I can point to a pain in my tooth and say "See, that's pain right there!" but ultimately you need to experience your own pain in order to fully understand pain. One key thing to notice is that this knowledge of pain is empirical - it is knowledge gained by experience. But it is subjective, so if, for some reason, you can't experience pain of your own, then I can't fully explain it to you. I can, in principle, teach you the neurodynamics, but you could learn all of that and still not know what it is like to feel pain unless you yourself feel it. That is just the straight-up logic of subjectivity. We can, in principle, measure the objective aspects of qualia. We can locate critical neural circuits and identify critical patterns of activity, etc., so yes, we can measure qualia. What's tricky is the subjective aspect. Qualia are experienced directly. When you see someone in pain, you experience various colors, shape, etc. The "person in pain" - as such - is experienced indirectly (light waves, etc.) The qualia constituting your experience just is your experience. It's direct. If you think you see someone in pain, you could be wrong. It could just be an illusion, or it could be a real person who is just pretending to be in pain. But if you, yourself, experience pain, you can't be wrong about "that" experience. You might use the wrong term for it, or be wrong about the cause, etc., but if you believe that you feel pain, then you do. That, again, is the logic of subjectivity. Here I will focus on the subjective aspect, since I think that is what you are focusing on. The "subjective aspect" is just your perspective on the phenomena, and you achieve this perspective be BEING the physical system who is experiencing the qualia, e.g., pain. No one but you can BE you. That's the ground of the logic of subjectivity. To know the subjective aspects of an experience, you have to BE the physical system that is undergoing the experience. No other physical system can BE the experience for you. (The logic of identity is an important aspect of the logic of subjective experience. If A is not B, then B cannot have A's subjective experience. People generally find this confusing, but it is really very simple.)
Bottom line: Each of us has direct, absolute knowledge of some aspects of Reality, whether we realize it, as such, or not. If you are puzzled about qualia and ask "What IS it?" your question can only make sense if your are asking to understand the objective aspects - in which case I can (in principle) point to various sorts of neural activity, etc. If you insist on focusing purely on the subjective aspects and asking "What IS it?" then you are "misunderstanding the language game" as Wittgenstein would say. You are deeply confused about the nature of a "What is it?" type of question. So long as you stick to the subjective aspect of pain, then the pain itself just is the answer to your question. It is exactly what you feel it to be. Of course it has other meaning as well. You could try to identify causes, or meanings (e.g., "I at too many cookies," or "I'm suffering from past-life karma, etc.), but what it is, in itself, just is what you experience it as. Period. They "mysterious" and confusing nature of talking about it crops up because the of the brute-fact nature of qualia. Physically/objectively you can "go deeper" to discovers aspect of qualia that you never before imagined, but metaphysically/subjectively, "what you see is what you get". Period. There is no reason to call it "supernatural" - it is directly and solidly empirical. It is the natural world.
Gaylen, you pray.
You freely admit that you pray.
you seem really squeamish with "supernatural" even though you freely use and benefit from the "supernatural."
do you consider prayer "supernatural"?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 07-17-2017 at 04:58 PM..
you seem really squeamish with "supernatural" even though you freely use and benefit from the "supernatural."
if I may, and I do not speak for her. and thank you for not minding.
its not 'super natural'. i would also say; uncertain. The connections are there, its a real question of power, as in work/time. believe me I wish i could take the fundy/milli stances. they are so comfortable with having all the information they need. wish i was that smart.
I pray. but is more to settle my mind, unlock train of thought, focus on traits I need, or to ease the angst of helplessness. prayer, mantras, whatever we want to call it, works. its empirical. gray calls it brute fact, I call empirical.
It is possible that God engenders the thoughts, but my point is that, logically, nothing has to cause or give rise to thoughts other than the properties of physical matter/energy - so long as the dual-aspect nature of physical entities is acknowledged. It's true that the brain is composed of atoms no different than other flesh (or rocks, or trees...), but even though the atoms, as such, are "no different" there is a major difference that needs to be understood. Nerves are "map-makers" of the "external world." All cells respond to patterns of energy coming "in" from the environment, but the primary function of nerve cells is to organize this incoming energy in a way that allows for more systematic and creative responses. Notice the key: Nerves not only respond to external energy, but they also initiate behavior via motor neurons to muscles. In effect, "the world" - shall we say - "expresses itself" through nervous systems.
Think of a mirror: Patterns of light bouncing off of objects "encode" information about patterns of matter in the world. The mirror reflects certain wavelengths of these patterns back into the environment. The world "expresses itself" though the mirror, but only in a very limited way (a relatively "one-to-one" form of expression with virtually no "interpretation" along the way). Through neurons, the world "interprets" itself and reacts to itself via this interpretation - which is a far more complex and fluid type of "self-expression". Instead of "one-to-one" you have "one-to-many" and the possibilities of the many are not strictly determined (hence the "fluid" nature of neural responses). So neurons are "map-makers" but even more than that, they are "abstract-artist" map-makers. Picasso's canvas wasn't just a simple reflection of the world; his canvas was a graphic portrayal of a certain self-expressive interpretation of the world.
Not every detail has been worked out scientifically, of course, but many of the basic principle describing how we get from the mere one-to-one reflective expression of mirrors to the artistic interpretive expression of Picasso can be found in the emergent patterns of dynamic chaotic systems. Energy entering a brain doesn't just "bounce back" like a mirror; it triggers cascades of self-organizing patterns - some of which can be vastly more complex than the patterns that triggered them in the first place. In effect, the world reacts to itself through neurons in highly complex, abstract, and unpredictable ways. This is "thinking." This is not engendered by "God" but, rather, is at least roughly explicable in terms of self-organizing complexity.
Of course the "feeling" part of thinking brings us to the infamous "hard problem" that has been discussed in endless detail in other threads, but the bottom line is that you still don't need a conscious God to create feelings. If you can acknowledge that God is fundamentally conscious, then you can just as logically acknowledge the intrinsic proto-sentient or "qualitative' nature of Existence. The very same logic that allows you to proclaim the existence of an eternally sentient and thoughtful God can be used, just a effectively, to promote an intrinsically proto-sentient, proto-intelligent brute-fact nature of Reality. Nothing is really gained by injecting "God" as an explanation for sentient feelings or thinking.
As you know, Gaylen, this post contains the very euphemisms that I decry because they themselves are indices of an underlying consciousness establishing our reality, IMO. That consciousness IS evidence of the "self" in self-organizing, etc. just as our consciousness is evidence of our self. Your use of the euphemisms, "emergence" or "self-ANYTHING," is an explicit acknowledgment of our ignorance of the actual source of what we see emerge or self-anything. As long as you need euphemisms for our ignorance to "explain" anything, you remain on thin ice. I realize that this is not a refutation of your preferred view because our views are on the same thin ice. You want this consciousness to be a proto-sentient, proto-intelligent or qualitative property of reality itself. But I see that as just hedging against the ultimate acknowledgment that consciousness is so essential to the very existence of sentience, intelligence, and qualitative experience that it has to be the very substrate that establishes everything we experience as our reality. If our reality itself IS conscious, that qualifies as God under the most basic definition of God.
As you know, Gaylen, this post contains the very euphemisms that I decry because they themselves are indices of an underlying consciousness establishing our reality, IMO. That consciousness IS evidence of the "self" in self-organizing, etc. just as our consciousness is evidence of our self. Your use of the euphemisms, "emergence" or "self-ANYTHING," is an explicit acknowledgment of our ignorance of the actual source of what we see emerge or self-anything. As long as you need euphemisms for our ignorance to "explain" anything, you remain on thin ice. I realize that this is not a refutation of your preferred view because our views are on the same thin ice. You want this consciousness to be a proto-sentient, proto-intelligent or qualitative property of reality itself. But I see that as just hedging against the ultimate acknowledgment that consciousness is so essential to the very existence of sentience, intelligence, and qualitative experience that it has to be the very substrate that establishes everything we experience as our reality. If our reality itself IS conscious, that qualifies as God under the most basic definition of God.
well, emergence is what we see all around us. so its not all bad. The underlying energy gradient interactions forming up patterns that we see as fields is also not invalid. But we aren't close to that yet.
But my guess is that we will take a photon a part and find nothing and learn everything.
maybe.
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