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WBraun
climber
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Sep 26, 2017 - 06:27pm PT
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Isn't spirit some phenomenon that has qualities we normally attribute to observable external objects, but no material stuff to grasp onto?
Yes.
Spirit IS observable, though with purified senses since everything ultimately is actually spiritual.
Even the inferior material energies the gross materialists think is material is actually spiritual although they can't for the life of them understand how that can be so.
The gross materialists just study the illusionary material energies.
The illusionary material energies are illusionary because they are real but only temporary.
Reality is not ever illusionary nor temporary.
Thus the gross materialists will never come to any kind of knowledge ultimately because they only study the temporary cycle of materialism ....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 26, 2017 - 06:28pm PT
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What a story! But does it tell us anything about "Mind"?
Surely. But I prefer not to say what.
Like the burro, it is better to listen.
"If you want to be a good horseman," he said, "the first thing you'll have to learn will be how a horse thinks, and next to think the same way yourself."
Cowboy Hiram Beckman to young Ralph Moody in the book Little Britches.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sep 26, 2017 - 08:52pm PT
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American: "Mind?"
British: 'Mind'?
Well, without looking it up. Sycorax is the resident expert.
;>\
(Charming photo, John!)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Sep 27, 2017 - 07:18am PT
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Good attempt, Largo.
Jgill, you might think about any electrical machine that is unplugged. Dead, but when plugged in, it lives. Life is the electricity, functioning is what the machine does.
The Duck (IMO) is more than often dead-on, even though his tone tends to be surly and his articulations highly spiritualized.
I’d continue to suggest that attempts to tie things down to some kind of logical finality only tends to send the discursive, conceptual mind into mobius-like cognitive loops that go no where. If there is understanding to be had, it needs to happen on another level that is not explainable in words and concepts. Even the words “emptiness” and “awareness” are heavy-handed articulations.
Being able to explain anything assumes that one can get outside / detach from the thing objectively to describe and define it. That can’t be done. In the most concrete sense, *nothing*--but nothing (no-thing)--lies outside of consciousness. That which is being described is that which is describing.
Yeah, it can be maddening if one is dead set on getting things tidied up. :-D There is no tidying up of IT. Poets need to step up and take over from here.
Best to you all.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Sep 27, 2017 - 07:31am PT
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Largo,
The logical conundrum of empty awareness, ...
Philosopher & meditator T. Metzinger in the Sam Harris podcast refers to what might be the same experience as JL has of awareness. Metzinger sees that experience as Gap Awareness and thinks it is associated with the persistence of awareness. In the podcast gap awareness is covered at about 1:00 + hrs.
I see gap awareness as the last intermittant happenings [(almost) devoid of feeling modules] at the boundary between consciousness self awareness, C-III, and general non-conscious, C-II. A message of nothing [as the Null set?] from C-II to C-III does not seem possible as it would be just be a gap resulting from no action. If C-III attempted to post received events at intervals with a finer time grain that C-II presented then it seems gaps would arise in which no thing was posted. You can call no screen play for C-III the awareness of nothing.
I think JL's conundrum is more a problem of how no-thing-ness happens to C-III or is presented than the true ?? experience of nothing as in the Null set.
It seems we cannot deny JL sees some form of gap awareness. What happens here is at the boundary of everyone's sensitivity /detectability. How important is knowing exactly what goes on at this low level of input to have a good working ToM?
And yes, Largo that was a good post. It had clarity where the territory is not very familiar & regularly discussed.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Sep 27, 2017 - 08:07am PT
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MikeL,
Being able to explain anything assumes that one can get outside / detach from the thing objectively to describe and define it. That can’t be done. In the most concrete sense, *nothing*--but nothing (no-thing)--lies outside of consciousness. That which is being described is that which is describing.
This speech addresses your local limitations to the topic of awareness as a single observer when using introspection and not what can be gained by 2 people working an item of one's brain processes. I do not think your conclusion sets a limitation on gaining knowledge about mind or brain workings.
Some people do submit to tests; maybe even a hybrid introspection/instrument test on their brain. And these tests can be done by themselves/others.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 27, 2017 - 10:27am PT
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If there is understanding to be had, it needs to happen on another level that is not explainable in words and concepts.
How about pictures?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2017 - 10:56am PT
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Syncorax, I wasn't denying metaphorical language for mind, per se, only the awareness quotient. Because it isn't "like" anything else.
Any likeness is derived from content, whereby awareness can figuratively be contrasted with sensing, or for that matter, machine registration.
This view, in my opinion and experience, derives from looking at content and processing as primary, and then interposing awareness as a consequent or artifact of the former.
That's pretty much our natural conclusion if we're looking at objective brain function and trying to build up our theories from there.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 27, 2017 - 11:02am PT
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who came string a sentence together
lol
...
"What really makes the AI-debate so interesting is that it forces us to think about our own minds more seriously. It throws us back on ourselves, drawing attention to all the problems which really are caused by the naturally evolved functional architecture of our own brains, the conditions of our own way of self-consciously existing in this world." -T Metzinger
"What if our [compassionate Superintelligence] draws our attention to the fact that suffering increases in the course of biological evolution; that happiness increases as well, but less than suffering, so that the totals turn increasingly negative. If our compassionate Superintelligence gently and kindly pointed the results of its research out to us—how would we argue against it?"
"We are embodied agents—finite, anti-entropic systems. Viewed from a rigorous biophysical perspective, our life is one big uphill battle, a truly strenuous affair. What evolution had to solve was not only a problem of intelligent, autonomous self-control. How do such systems motivate themselves? What is this robust “thirst for existence”, the craving for eternal continuation, and what is the mechanism of identification forcing us to continuously protect the integrity of the self-model in our brains?"
Seriously looking forward to Part II between Metzinger and Harris.
Also really appreciated the points made my Metzinger in Part I that there is a superficiality to the Mindfulness movement (as further evidenced on this thread, imo); a superficiality to the secular humanism movement (more is needed in any post-religious era); a lack of attention not only to evo psych but to Introspection 101 (e.g., re gaps in awareness or attention, akin to saccadic eye mvt) (vis a vis meditation) as a study and how religion and "death denial" by 80% of humanity is likely contributing to it.
Introspection 101: Food for thought: (a) saccadic (jerky) movements of thought, (b) saccadic (jerky) movements of attention... as evolutionary constructs of brain architecture.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sep 27, 2017 - 03:44pm PT
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The fact that "Being No One" runs to 634 pages . . .
All books on philosophy should be restricted to one hundred pages or less.
Principia mathematica at close to seven hundred pages of dense symbolism - much of which lost relevancy over the years - is no exception.
Get to the point, authors, and stop talking.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2017 - 06:25pm PT
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John, if you like succinct and nuanced work, you might consider Thomas Nagel. He rarely if ever makes pronouncements and his ideas have largely shaped the whole mind adventure.
"Nagel argues that some phenomena are not best grasped from a more objective perspective. The standpoint of the thinker does not present itself to him: he is that standpoint. One learns and uses mental concepts by being directly acquainted with one's own mind, whereas any attempt to think more objectively about mentality would abstract away from this fact. It would, of its nature, leave out what it is to be a thinker, and that, Nagel believes, would be a falsely objectifying view. Being a thinker is to have a subjective perspective on the world; if one abstracts away from this perspective one leaves out what he sought to explain."
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Sep 27, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
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MH2 wrote: "If you want to be a good horseman," he said, "the first thing you'll have to learn will be how a horse thinks, and next to think the same way yourself."
Thomas Nagel wrote:
In "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" and elsewhere, that science cannot describe what it like is to be a thinker who conceives of the world from a particular subjective perspective.
What is it like to be Jim Brennan who thinks this is hilarious bullsh#t?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 27, 2017 - 06:43pm PT
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What is it like to be Jim Brennan who thinks thios is hilarious bullsh#t?
Not too hard to find out. He gave me a ride home from YVR not long ago. Unfortunately, it is not possible to put into words and concepts what it is like to be Jim Brennan.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Sep 27, 2017 - 06:45pm PT
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Not too hard to find out. He gave me a ride home from YVR not long ago.
If distance plays a role, it could be more difficult for someone who lives 10,000 kms away.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 27, 2017 - 07:07pm PT
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If distance plays a role, it could be more difficult for someone who lives 10,000 kms away.
As Largo puts it, "You need to do the work."
What kind of work did Nagel do trying to find out what it is like to be a bat?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 27, 2017 - 08:12pm PT
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Largo, no reason to get bogged down in all those pages or all that detail to grok the fundamentals - not when already armed with some background basics in evolution and evo pysch in this amazing age of youtube... youtube presentations, lectures, thought experiments, etc. For example...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu2_fAvJGg8
Note many basic and various points relating to Mind and Consciousness, etc. plainly made therein. 700 pages of words, words, words no longer required - such only serves as a distraction.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sep 27, 2017 - 08:19pm PT
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"One learns and uses mental concepts by being directly acquainted with one's own mind . . . Being a thinker is to have a subjective perspective on the world; if one abstracts away from this perspective one leaves out what he sought to explain."
Mathematics may be a case in point. Conceiving, manipulating and exploring abstract math ideas is highly subjective, although in the end all must reduce to a strict logic, the early origin of which is the physical world. To the mathematician, the symbols and connections are as real as Samuel Johnson's rock. Are they then subjective, or objective? I would say both.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2017 - 08:41pm PT
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Nagle's work cannot be appreciated at a glance. Too quick a read and you run the risk of projecting your own beliefs and perspectives onto what he is saying or trying to say.
For instance, one of his most misinterpreted concepts come from this quote: "…reality is not just objective reality."
Many pillored him for this statement without reviewing their own lives, which would quickly confirmed what he was getting at. What he meant by this statement is that there is more to reality than observable physical objects we can get hold of with our sense organs or though scientific modeling of same. Moreover, limiting our understanding of "reality" to observable/ measurable external objects and phenomenon misses a large swath of what is real in our actual lives.
Take, Huckleberry Finn. He does not physically exist as an external person in the objective world, but he does exist within our consciousness - and in about every 101 American Lit class you'll ever take. That fact that Huck is "just" an idea doesn't lessen his effect on people and history.
The type A materialist will immediately default out and say fine, but it is the physical brain that "created" Huck in the first place. But it's not the case that a close study of the brain alone will tell us much about Huck Finn as he lives in our consciousness.
That is, if one abstracts away from the Huckleberry in your mind and jump to objective functioning - which admits no Huck, no Tim Sawyer, et al - you have left out what you have sought to explain. And that, by my understanding, is what Nagel was driving at.
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