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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 29, 2014 - 08:52pm PT
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From Graziano: "Subjective experience, in the (awareness) theory, is something like a myth that the brain tells itself. The brain insists that it has subjective experience because, when it accesses its inner data, it finds that information.
What Graziano is really proposing here is what Chalmers got at with his thought experiment per zombies. Except Graziano is insisting that we ARE zombies, and that subjective experience is itself an illusion, merely some "thing" that the brain "attributes" to itself.
The man (a "novelist and composer") also insists that we will someday be able to download our essential natures onto a computer and that as the obeserver or host of the digital you, you will be hard pressed to know the difference between the digitized version and the human body version of yoru experience.
So on closer inspection what we have here is another Sci-fi dood riffing on consciousness. But he apparently neer actually looked at mind itself, but rater only objective processing.
Howeverever his "B arrow" converstation is worth exploring, while his zombie "attention schema," which having some insight, is just more mind machine speculation.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Jul 29, 2014 - 10:07pm PT
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eeyonkee just painted a decent picture of what might be going on re: chaos and determinism.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 29, 2014 - 10:30pm PT
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I appologise for visualizing the end sum of Determinism.
Hey, garbage in garbage out.
Again, it's what Tyson says... one's reaction in response to the so-called "demotions" of science is very much going to be a function of the attitudes, expectations and such he or she brings to them.
Is it an age where every one more or less is being pressured to adapt, reevaluate, step up or step down, change? Yes.
.....
More insight into "What is mind?" -
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcqFWr6h4qc
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-and-the-misuses-of-ecstasy
.....
Chaos (or chaotic process) in no way means it is free of antecedent causes. And as many have pointed out (incl Sam Harris in his lecture on free will) chaotic events, processes or components, marked by unpredictability, wouldn't be under a will's control (or soul's control) anyhow. So there's no escape from causally determined process there.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 29, 2014 - 10:46pm PT
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My first reaction is to say "f*#k you"
Whoa, there. Remember this is the science today. Don't know you, don't know if you're trolling, confused, in trouble or have a problem or not, but if you do it's with the science (edit: or nature itself) then.
We've already seen the problem, denial and such the many publics around the world (American to S Arabian) have seen with evolution last century. I suspect it won't be any different regarding deterministic processes, automated biology and the "illusion" of "free will" this century.
I hope you're not suggesting science is no good, that's it's gone too far, or that those who've had it not talk about it but just go sit in a corner? But if you are, then we're just not going to agree.
Good luck and bye bye.
.....
"The tension between the humanities and the sciences is old, and it's ongoing. So you have the "two cultures" clash that has been ameliorated in some areas, and people on the sciences side and the humanities side have all been trained to say the right things now, but the tension is still there. I'm in a somewhat interesting position to evaluate the arguments on both sides. People in the sciences are frustrated, and they think the people in the humanities are sort of thick skulled, and recalcitrant. People in the humanities think that the sciences are cocksure, and hubristic and intent on colonizing everything. They are afraid that what the sciences really want is to take over the whole shebang. They want their science building and they want the humanities building as well."
"The humanities people are concerned with a feeling of evaporation — what science really does is it explains away magic. The humanities, and art, especially, can be viewed as the last bastion of magic, this unexplainable thing, this truly mysterious thing."
http://edge.org/conversation/the-way-we-live-our-lives-in-stories
"Part of the reason humanities people haven't wanted science involved in this effort to understand art is this feeling that it would be explained, and if it's explained, it would be explained away."
Also let's reaffirm the claim, also the reality - in case it's lost on some particularly those of the humanities - that there is so much more to "art" than literary arts or paintings and their appreciation and/or analysis. Engineering design is chock-full of "art." Rock climbing and other sports are chock-full of it too esp in terms of skill, talent, performance, expression. So there.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 29, 2014 - 10:57pm PT
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I come in after a walk and a beer and an appetizer late back to the apartment where my cat gives me the "what for," and I start talking to her about how wine'y she is.
It seems the more I give my attention to her, the more she responds intelligently.
Who's doing what?
When you find that question difficult to solve or parse, then you begin see the impossibility of the whole "grasping" thing. It's a process that is doomed to failure. Can't quite capture anything,
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:04pm PT
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science fiction today = Walmart trinket tomorrow
But JL may be right. We may not have time to figure out how to port someone else's sex life into our consciousness (not that there would be a market for that) - after all, the robots will come for us soon enough.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Jul 29, 2014 - 11:21pm PT
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Art hurts.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 02:37pm PT
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QITNL:
It seems to me that you are mainly talking about work. I could be wrong. What I was thinking about was life. I was thinking an artistic life, rather than an artist's life.
(Am I far wrong?)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 30, 2014 - 05:08pm PT
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What is mind?
Smug Western science, when will it learn? This should convince anyone Western science doesn't have all the answers...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=415610768578614
This is amazing. So I'm wondering, if I learn this no-thing meditation, would I be able to do this? How many years must I train to reach this level of achievement/performance? I'd love to be able to do this!
Apparently there no end to the powers and mysteries of the mind.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 30, 2014 - 05:14pm PT
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That is martial arts Fruity ; yeh right the aikido master can stop a train.
It looks like the typical work place where everyone kisses the bosses ass.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 30, 2014 - 05:17pm PT
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I don't know, I see "mind" at work there, don't you?
As I said, amazing!!
PS. Don't be a spoiler now. ;)
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jul 30, 2014 - 08:06pm PT
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That's the damndest thing. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 10:44pm PT
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QITNL:
I once had a close friend who was a call girl. The way you talk about art was the same way she talked about sex. It might also be the same way most here talk about their reality.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 31, 2014 - 08:29am PT
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QITNL: Was she good in the sack? Just curious.
I wouldn't know. It was all business to her. A few times we talked about what she did with johns, and it was about as freaky and disgusting as I could imagine, and for really straight and respectable people. I came to see that everyone is a freak. None of us are normal in any way.
I think that every role and discipline that people find themselves in is magical and wondrous at first, but with repeated exposure becomes rote, rutted, dumbed-down, abstracted, and instrumental. We just stop living (being) in the here and now. Then everything becomes just work.
Being detached from attitudes of normalcy tends to expose experience as pristine awareness. On the other hand, detachment can lead folk to become indifferent, and indifference diminishes people's inherent loving-kindness and compassion. Without a full measure of both, wisdom (so-called emptiness) cannot be realized.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 31, 2014 - 09:39am PT
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I think that every role and discipline that people find themselves in is magical and wondrous at first, but with repeated exposure becomes rote, rutted, dumbed-down, abstracted, and instrumental. We just stop living (being) in the here and now. Then everything becomes just work.
I feel lucky then... my "job" hasn't really ever become "just work"
maybe a life in science is special.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 31, 2014 - 10:26am PT
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Randisi asked "Is meditation an exception to this "every role and discipline"? "
I think it depends heavily on why you are meditating and whether you have a good teacher.
If you are doing it for "I, Me, My" (Trungpa called this spiritual materialism) it will become a boring job. If you continue to ask what is "I" it stays fresh and spontaneous.
It is tricky because "I" is constantly trying to co-op everything. That is why a good teacher is so necessary.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jul 31, 2014 - 03:11pm PT
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It is tricky because "I" is constantly trying to co-op everything (PSP)
There it is again . . . that damn pesky "I". Root of all evil.
I feel lucky then... my "job" hasn't really ever become "just work" maybe a life in science is special (Ed)
Me neither. I've been retired for fourteen years and still do the stuff out of pure enjoyment.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 31, 2014 - 05:23pm PT
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Might I just say that, in spite of the grief I've given the "big guy", this thread has been instrumental in me getting a firmer grasp on the subject matter. I would hope that this would be the case for others. I don't agree with Largo at all, but it was a brilliant idea to start a thread like this. The climbing community is a big network indeed, and there have been some super-smart contributors to this thread, IMO.
I've been reading Jared Diamond's latest book, "The World Until Yesterday". The subject matter is a related field, anthropology. The conclusions drawn by Diamond are entirely consistent with humans basically responding to events in a "programmed" way that includes mainly their own self-interest and that of their closest family and group members. Under certain conditions they actually do cooperate outside of their group, but even that can usually be shown to have an ultimate cause of self interest.
To expand on what Ed said, it's a great time to be even an armchair scientist.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Jul 31, 2014 - 06:23pm PT
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Jebus, I think I might be your mini-me.
I agree with all of that.
Accept I'm not reading Diamond right now.
That would too freaky.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 31, 2014 - 09:25pm PT
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Steven Pinker made the onion!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/psychology-comes-to-halt-as-weary-researchers-say,36586/
Next week, he wants me to "guide" him on Dark Star (Temple Crag) in search for more crystal. :)
.....
So, eeyonkee, as a nuanced and well-read thinker, eh? :) it occurs to me you might be familiar with the recent dust-up just this year between Harris and Dennett re: "free will". Basically, Dennett proposes keeping the term "freewill" (despite the will at base not being free of prior causes) for same reason English speaking people kept the terms "disaster" (from the stars) and "sunrise." His argument re "sunrise" - When learned people learned the earth's rotation causes the night to give way to dawn and day, people didn't holler for its impeachment; they didn't start referring to "the illusion of sunrise" (cf: "the illusion of freewill") and on that basis reject/discard the term on the basis of it being inaccurate or wrong; instead they kept it, preserved it, respecting its usefulness nonetheless; so Dennett's proposed the same with "freewilll" - keep it, preserve it on grounds that it is useful, indeed even that it exists when action/conduct "freely" follow's volition (despite its causal basis). Personally I see it both ways, can roll either way, I suppose, depending on context and/or company. Perhaps not unlike the term "work" as well - as it has a street definition and a technical definition. Any thoughts on your part, O Nuanced One? :)
Regarding a better understanding of "freewill", I did appreciate Dennett's apt comparison to "sunrise" though.
Cerebral times.
Can't wait for my next reincarnation cycle, a honey badger would be okay.
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