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Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

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Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#301

Post by Etherlord87 »

kozd wrote: post #205
swader999 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I could try something like that. Maybe even stick a playing card that I don't look at somewhere. I don't really care about proving this to anyone else. My main reason is to try to talk to my daughter I lost last year. Been really hard...

How could you not care about proving this to others? You seem to harbor some hope that you can talk to a passed loved one via this or a related means? If you could prove this isn't just lucid dreaming then you could have the help of other people interested in taking the same path. Think how many people you could help and how this would revolutionize science. Don't you want to validate the method by which you're inves…

> How could you not care about proving this to others?

Because he knows he couldn't. Maybe only subconsciously. The OOBE phenomenon is so old, experienced by so many, it would be ridiculous to thing the proposed tests weren't conducted before. They were, many times, and they failed.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#303

Post by mikhailfranco »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #202
jemmyw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels…

> There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. Just because you didn't don't know about X doesn't mean X doesn't exist. Simple logic that even children learn quickly.

Previous post did not say the unknown X doesn't exist.

They said there is no evidence for X.

Absence of evidence is not (usually) evidence of absence.

Seems like you agree. No children involved.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#304

Post by mikhailfranco »

aiProgMach wrote: post #243
BasedAnon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies Actually this is backward, "I think therefore I am". There's no reason to believe consciousness is a state arising from a physical process, our experience of consciousness precedes our experience of sensory input and therefore the physical world. There is more evidence for the reality of consciousn…

Thank you. It's really mind boggling how many people miss _this_ especially in scientism echo chambers. My knowledge about myself (consciousness, free will...), is infinitely more reliable than any of "Scientific" input no matter what is the "impact factor" of the publishing medium, so really no amount of "science" can be enough to disprove those very basic principles that everything else is built upon them.

I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings.

Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#305

Post by aiProgMach »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #304
aiProgMach wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. It's really mind boggling how many people miss _this_ especially in scientism echo chambers. My knowledge about myself (consciousness, free will...), is infinitely more reliable than any of "Scientific" input no matter what is the "impact factor" of the publishing medium, so really no amount of "science" can be enough to disprove those very basic principles that everything else is built upon them.

I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings. Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.

What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view):

1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world

2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in principal (that's why they can deduce that there are flaws in the patient mind just based on external behaviour)

3- The doctor is trusting that he's not himself hallucinating, and that he's indeed see'ing real things and he's not just a programmed robot doing some random job.

and so on.

--

As you can see I was talking about very basic level, it's the level that allow you to build another more complex level of information, and which any other information is necessarily less reliable than it. Because trusting that I'm independent agent who exists in an objective world along another independent agents is a necessary Premise to accept any external information provided by those other agents, and any information provided by those agents that contradicts this basic experience it also destroys any reliability in the objectivity and correctness of their existence for me and any input provided by them. Hence, any "scientific" paper that contradicts my direct experience about myself (e.g Free will) is necessarily less reliable than said experience no matter what is the impact factor of the journal.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#306

Post by mikhailfranco »

lend000 wrote: post #262
jemmyw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels…

Why is it pseudoscience to label the medium by which particles are entangled as consciousness? We have no better definition than that, since the observers of any delayed choice quantum eraser experiment are ultimately conscious, and we have no means of recording similar results without a conscious observer. I used to think I was very clever for independently coming to effectively the same conclusion as Schmidhuber, t…

> Why is it pseudoscience to label the medium by which particles are entangled as consciousness

Because it's just the identification of mysteries: all mysteries are each other's explanation.

But in this case, there is no evidence of any connection (pace Penrose & Hameroff, not yet).

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#307

Post by mikhailfranco »

aiProgMach wrote: post #305
mikhailfranco wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings. Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.

What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in prin…

Most of what you you say is credible. But it comes down to a personal choice about the balance of probabilities for where objective knowledge really resides.

I do not trust myself, as one flawed, idiosyncratic and individual brain.

I am more likely to trust the established objective view of other consciousnesses. The scientific method is (should be) a collective network of communicating, iterating, self-correcting consciousnesses, which operates according to robust rules and procedures established (evolved) by previous generations of collaborating consciousnesses. Of course, it is also flawed, but over long periods of time, it usually gets better answers than the intuition of individuals.

If I think I can drive, but I am drunk, and a good friend tells me I'm drunk and I should not drive, then I should believe them, not me.

If I think I have some medical symptoms, I tell a doctor. However, an individual doctor can be corrupted by mis-education, ignorance, their own psychological issues, or their own financial gains for various treatments. So I ask multiple doctors, but they may have a consistent bias. But if I don't trust any rational explanation of my symptoms, then yet another doctor may diagnose shape-shifting hypochondria or paranoia against doctors. Who to believe? It's not obvious, but it's not obviously me over all others.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#308

Post by mikhailfranco »

aiProgMach wrote: post #305
mikhailfranco wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think individual self-knowledge is often flawed. There are many strange, damaged, malfunctioning, drunk, medicated, hallucinating, meditating, dreaming and variously other disturbed minds, which have objectively flawed impressions of themselves and their surroundings. Their doctors, or even a casual observer, will have much more concrete objective knowledge of their state of mind than the subjects themselves.

What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in prin…

With regard to Free Will, there is a little intellectual dodge called the Compatibilist solution (popularized by Dennett), which says you really feel like you have free will, but you do not. Also see Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky on the topic (but note Dennett strongly disagrees with Harris, he has no choice, it could not be otherwise :)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

The feeling of Free Will is bootstrapped from making decisions in a complex world. The subconscious makes most decisions automatically, based on left-brain exploitation of the current situation for survival. The timescales are too short for slow consideration to have an evolutionary advantage. Any imprinting of this instant behavior is made by stress hormones, which enhance memory retention for unusual or extreme situations.

However, the right brain is tasked with fitting actions into a wider context of long-term survival. It can run what-if scenarios, imagine different courses of action, and different outcomes. Its view of an action is always in the belief that something could be different next time, so something could be different last time - I could have done something else. But this is false, the left-brain was in control, and the right brain just provides post hoc rationalizations for those forced actions.

So, approximately, Free Will is the story the right brain tells itself after the left-brain already made the decision.

For more on the split brain aspect of this, see McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#309

Post by aiProgMach »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #307
aiProgMach wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in prin…

Most of what you you say is credible. But it comes down to a personal choice about the balance of probabilities for where objective knowledge really resides. I do not trust myself, as one flawed, idiosyncratic and individual brain. I am more likely to trust the established objective view of other consciousnesses. The scientific method is (should be) a collective network of communicating, iterating, self-correcting co…

Still, even in your case if you slowly strip down the layers of your analysis, you will notice that it necessarily boils down to few things that you know directly and you can't build a proof for them because any other proof will be build on them being correct. Look, there are things that you know are correct and you can't make a proof for them (even the "I think therefore I am" is a circular reasoning, the real info is in "I" itself), and in your case you believe a lot of things about yourself and world you live in before you can really start to depend on the higher order conclusions that allow you to trust your friend or your doctors.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#310

Post by aiProgMach »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #308
aiProgMach wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying does not contradict what I'm saying. The thing you're describing works on a much higher level than what I was describing, for example in this case the doctor needs to fulfill at least the following requirements (from his own point of view): 1- He's independent agent who's watching and describing another independent agent in a real objective world 2- He acknowledge that there is cause/effect in prin…

With regard to Free Will, there is a little intellectual dodge called the Compatibilist solution (popularized by Dennett), which says you really feel like you have free will, but you do not. Also see Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky on the topic (but note Dennett strongly disagrees with Harris, he has no choice, it could not be otherwise :) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ The feeling of Free Will is b…

Dennett... I don't think that guy can be called a real philosopher, but at least he's not just random "Journalist" like Sam harris is :)

Again, my direct experience of free will is much stronger than any of the half ass explanations these guys have to offer (and they're obviously much more flawed, you can clearly notice the ideological motives they have in relation to these topics).

My problem with this "explanation" (you feel that you have free will but you don't, it's just a story) is that it just pushes the issue one step further, I mean just think about it, who feels this exactly? They're assuming there is another "agent" within me that have the consciousness and it's being told stories and it accepts them, and this agent can understand that and it feel it can decide another choices, so it can decide? so it means it have some type of free will or the ability to understand different choices? even if in reality it can't execute them? (similar to paralyzed people?).

Anyway, if we want to open the can of worms of telling other people you're just delusional, then maybe the real world doesn't exist? and maybe logic is not real? and scientific method is not scientific? When I was much younger, I used to imagine that I live in a huge magical theater and that everything is being rendered for me, so maybe after all I'm the only real person in existence?

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