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son of stan
Boulder climber
San Jose CA
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Jul 10, 2015 - 09:02pm PT
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What were those idiot Yosemite climbers thinking recently? Of yah...those
mental constructs that pass from human to human, like viruses, with the
diabolical trait of making each host want to believe. And then making him
want to persuade others. Stars and bars. Really? At least 12c boring.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 10, 2015 - 10:07pm PT
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For a layman answer you just proved it yourself ......
how did I do that?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2015 - 09:09am PT
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If you think this is not the case, please present the criteria that you use to make the determination that a thing "knows that it knows."
My bet is that you cannot, and so failing, your whole argument falls apart since you cannot even describe why you think I am sentient. You only have the fact that I am human, and you are a human, and your sensation of experience must be the same as mine.
--
I've had back-channel conversations with a few people here talking about why folks struggle to understand the very basic stuff that is presented here. For a long time I thought it was because myself and others were so poorly describing "mind" that we were losing people. That still might be the case, but as several have suggested to me, most folks on this thread don't really and truly believe in the quantitative difference between experience and a stone wall. This confusion is in some cases so profound that people actually make jokes about "the experience of being me," or whatever - as though they had some other mode of being. As though they live in something other than a subjective experience, or they can ever escape that experience to attain the clarity of a machine mind. Go figure...
Anyhow, contrary to what Ed believes, what we are presenting is not an "argument," but a series of observations derived from the real world. For instance, when you say, "present the criteria that you use to make the determination that a thing "knows that it knows," I need only see you at the base of a climb when rock fall starts crashing down and to see you run for cover. Or how you change lanes on the road when a Mac truck is heading your way, or how you take a drink when thirsty. Behavior always tells the true story and in each of these cases, barring pathology, you never question that you KNOW you need to move to avoid rock fall, a Mac truck, and to take a drink when thirsty. In cases where the choices are not so clear, we use the time-honored method of checking around when doubtful, and considering the majority vote till it has been established as bonifide - and that might take ages.
So far as "proving" sentience, to ask that question shows you have defaulted back to what was previously mentioned about conflating the subjective with the objective. You simply cannot fathom that the rules governing objective analysis of an object do not wash with the subjective.
Say what?
To "prove" what you are asking, that sentience exists in another subject, you would need to somehow transform the subjective/ experiential into an objective thing that you could analyse "out there," when in fact the subjective is always and forever bound to an individual perceiver. In the experiential game, the verdict is - if you want to know, you have to find out for yourself, directly, and know that in the process, you are not remotely trying to do "weak science."
Also, you are always harking back to finding "origins," believing that if you only got hold of the objective factors percolating beneath something - even if you got down to what has no physical extent - you would entirely understand the higher order phenomenon.
Chalmers has done a fine job of showing that this method works perfectly well in the objective world, but when applied to the subjective, what you end up with is an analysis of objective functioning, and not a clue about sentience or "mind."
This is not to say that we cannot shut up, stop calculating and abide with our consciousness and awareness and start to derive some rules of thumb about what is involved. But these observations and rules will likely never derive from content - from the "what" that you and I are experiencing - but will almost certainly involve the process of being aware itself.
That is - objective functioning can tell us how our brains process sound, for example, but have nothing to say about how we are aware of that sound, and what is involved from inside the subjective bubble we actually and always live in.
Objectifying the subjective, from within the subjective, will probably utilize a kind of Hilbert space toolkit insofar as the tools are not thought to frame what is ultimately "there," but are simply convenient means to work with the phenomenon.
My starting point on all of this has always been three things: Awareness, focus, and attention, the Three Pillars that are not betrayed by analysis of an object, but through direct observation of the subjective process.
JL
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Jul 11, 2015 - 09:24am PT
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The fact that we intelligent mindful people will go around and around and around in a thread discussing mind, processing insufficient information in order to draw unsupported conclusions, is proof that we have a mind. How clever of us! And in addition to creating our genetic processes - simply marvelous!
We humans will believe anything. It's our greatest strength. We let reality tell us what to believe. May the best belief win!
And may the odds be ever in your favor :-)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 11, 2015 - 09:42am PT
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Behavior always tells the true story and in each of these cases, barring pathology, you never question that you KNOW you need to move to avoid rock fall, a Mac truck, and to take a drink when thirsty.
so something that exhibits this behavior is sentient? has the sensation of experience?
This is what I am wondering about in your descriptions, Largo... and my point is that we have an "agreement" on what behavior constitutes "the true story."
What is that agreement, precisely? you have avoided offering anything substantial. And what you (and Werner above) have offered is basically: "well, you're a human." Since we define humans as a being with sentience it is a bit of a circular argument.
While this is a bit of objectifying, you state in the quoted excerpt above that this "observation of behavior" is a key.
As for experience, when you dream you are flying, sans aircraft, where do you get that? it is not a part of your experience.
Pushing this further, when you see an image of Jupiter taken from the Cassini spacecraft:
you have no experience of being there, and not only that, you have no direct sensory input of "seeing" Jupiter... that is, you have no experience of Jupiter (nor can you anytime soon).
So is experience necessary?
Not only that, but if we view our bodies as instruments of sensation, then our perception of experience is similar to our viewing the beautiful images sent to us by Cassini. That is, we may not be directly experiencing those sensations.
I question your view of the primacy of experience.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 11, 2015 - 11:41am PT
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how do you know I'm sentient, Werner?
Certainty of sentience is exclusive to the individual, but looking into the eyes of another in conversation and observing the nuances of facial expression that are so incredibly subtle and to which human beings are so remarkably sensitive communicates both thought and a sense of the "I" in the other... when God says to Moses "I am that I am, he says something profound with regard to the "I" the entity that is each of us even beyond our observation.
For a machine to fool us into believing it is sentient is no different than declaring a mountain to be the same or a rock: reality is dependent on the "belief" of the observer and nothing more... sounds like woo to me.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 11, 2015 - 11:45am PT
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so paul, you and werner and Largo all agree, you know by observing the behavior that something is sentient...
...it is only your belief, or assertion, that nothing other than a human can behave in this way.
You would assert that to be an unassailable fact.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 11, 2015 - 12:38pm PT
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so paul, you and werner and Largo all agree, you know by observing the behavior that something is sentient...
...it is only your belief, or assertion, that nothing other than a human can behave in this way.
This is an epistemological question that's remarkably difficult. Behavior is not necessarily an indication of reality.
I don't see how imitation becomes reality... I'm thinking of Rene Magritte's "The Treason of images." What looks like a pipe is impossible to smoke.
As the universe reveals itself to science it does nothing if not become stranger to our understanding and more and more mysterious: Newtonian order into fragmented incomprehensible notions of particle physics. Science's declarations of certainty beg, through scientific method, to be assailed. I see very little that is unassailable... but the mystery is so beyond us presently that dismissing out of hand religious metaphors or the explorations of meditation as simply woo seems somewhat arrogant. I don't see why science practitioners have such difficulty with wisdom that comes from sources beyond their discipline... I like science.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 11, 2015 - 12:59pm PT
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Science's declarations of certainty beg, through scientific method, to be assailed.
indeed, and science is the only human activity (so far) that is willing to overthrow whatever the current dogma is for a new one that does a better job at explaining... as you allude to in your response above.
There is much we don't know, I haven't represented that in any other way. But your (and others) dismissal of science as antithetical to the wondrous mystery around us is baffling to me... if anything, as I've expressed above many times, it is all the more wondrous when we find that we are able to understand something we didn't understand previously.
Is it arrogant to try to understand something?
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Isaac Newton wrote that, and he was, at times, a very arrogant person, but certainly that does not sound arrogant in terms of science and knowledge. Interesting to put into context the fact that the quote was thought to have been made in the 1720's, and that was a mere 200 years after the European discovery of the "New World" by Columbus. Before that time, Newton's metaphoric ocean was truly undiscovered.
Scientists feel more like that child playing on the sea-shore to themselves. Occasionally they appear, to the world, to have done something much more significant.
But coming back to the discussion of mind, I have then misstated your position, I gather, from your response, that "you know it when you see it" and how and why and what is all a great mystery beyond our ability to understand, and not only that, but it is arrogant to think otherwise.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Jul 11, 2015 - 01:14pm PT
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Good post, Ed.
Through the method might be revealed the miracle.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 11, 2015 - 01:48pm PT
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I've had back-channel conversations with a few people here talking about why folks struggle to understand the very basic stuff that is presented here (JL)
I think you give yourself too much credit. No one is "struggling" to understand your profound commentaries. We all admit you have had deep internal experiential adventures in open awareness or emptiness or no-thingness and wish for others to benefit. But you sound a little like a pot dealer telling a novice to "toke up" and see for yourself.
What you consider "basic" others may see as peripheral. The importance of an experience may not be tied directly to the amount of effort expended.
even if you got down to what has no physical extent . . .
Objectifying the subjective, from within the subjective, will probably utilize a kind of Hilbert space toolkit . . .
I would have thought your Car Pool Prodigies might have given you hints leading to more ingenious lines of inquiry. Hilbert spaces (don't forget, I gave you one), Lagrangians and Hamiltonians are productive in the sciences but you may need something new and more abstract for your investigations into the nature of the subjective. Probably beyond my limited knowledge of modern abstract math.
Edit: maybe category theory would provide a path into the subjective. I once heard a prominent mathematician comment that "category theory will give you a result if you believe it will." Sounds like it might jive with your experiential adventures.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 11, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
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indeed, and science is the only human activity (so far) that is willing to overthrow whatever the current dogma is for a new one that does a better job at explaining... as you allude to in your response above.
Really? What about philosophy? What about Art/music/ literature? Art and literature in the 20th c. and beyond are nothing if not throwing off the shackles of past ideas/restraints.
There is much we don't know, I haven't represented that in any other way. But your (and others) dismissal of science as antithetical to the wondrous mystery around us is baffling to me... if anything, as I've expressed above many times, it is all the more wondrous when we find that we are able to understand something we didn't understand previously.
I'm certainly not dismissing science or its ability to reveal answers, but our reconciliation to the mystery can also be found in places apart from science. For science to declare it is the only path to knowledge does (IMO) seem a bit arrogant.
Is it arrogant to try to understand something?
Absolutely not.
But science declaring itself the only way with an elite of "understanders" elevated above and apart from the uneducated masses like a priesthood seems to smack of the very pulpit so many on this thread disdain.
Scientists feel more like that child playing on the sea-shore to themselves. Occasionally they appear, to the world, to have done something much more significant.
And so they should. The seashore is "inspiring" and fosters "intuition" and why is that?
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Jul 11, 2015 - 03:40pm PT
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barring pathology
What, we can do that? :-) If we believe we can then we believe that we already did, or something like that. I think that the only consistently non pathological human belief is that what I (meaning each of us non pathological sorts) believe is true!
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 11, 2015 - 03:46pm PT
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Sentience is the direct symptom of the living entity.
It's so simple that it's unbelievable that modern science is so dense to its nature.
Every living entity has sentience and thus are sentient beings.
No one has ever said sentience is exclusive to humans only.
What fools say such ignorant things?
The foolish Christians say that! They say animals can be killed and eaten by us because they have no soul.
Such stupid idiots.
That is complete lack of intelligence and very poor fund of knowledge.
Again, .... every living entity has sentience.
Dead stone matter has no sentience for example.
The living entity animates matter according to its developed consciousness.
Sentience is exclusive to the living entities life force.
The life force is none other then sentience.
The proponents of life force is chemicals is in very very poor fund of knowledge into the mode of ignorance ......
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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Jul 11, 2015 - 04:00pm PT
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"Scientists feel more like that child playing on the sea-shore to themselves. Occasionally they appear, to the world, to have done something much more significant."
Perhaps because the more one knows, the more one knows just how much he doesn't know. But maybe only a scientist would understand that.
TY
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Jul 11, 2015 - 04:37pm PT
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Nope, wrong again!
Who says stones don't have sentience also?
How else would all the climbers be drawn to them?
The stone sentience enters the blood stream when the jamming scars open up,
and that's why climbers always smell like granite or other rocks afterwards.
That's also why people climb, to get at all the stone sentience.
Put that in a sentience and smoke it!
Sorry Werner,
Couldn't help messing with you...
Sentience in rocks, who knows...?
Sounds like an episode of The Outer Limits! Ha ha!
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 11, 2015 - 06:48pm PT
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Modern science trying to create.
But what is their credit ... NONE.
It's already being done perfectly.
But due to modern materialistic science and it's total ignorance of reality they believe they are doing something wonderful ....Independently.
And independently ....... they have no clue what they are doing.
Except guessing ......
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 11, 2015 - 07:12pm PT
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The foolish Christians say that! They say animals can be killed and eaten by us because they have no soul.
this isn't a very intelligent accusation.
...the eye being the window to the soul ...
God
And God said, "See I have given every herb that yeilds seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food .
but i'll presume you only meant the foolish that call themselves "christians".
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:17pm PT
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Ed: . . . science is the only human activity (so far) that is willing to overthrow . . .
What possesses you to say such things? Science has no consciousness. That part is yours. Science is not supposed to be some living entity that has intentions. (Talk about romance . . . .) Science presents an approach, a method. It is not supposed to serve any values. It supposedly stands on its own pillar of validity without respect to any other. It is monolithic.
Ed, you are not nearly so objective as you mean to be. Be dispassionate.
Jgill: . . . you sound a little like a pot dealer telling a novice to "toke up" and see for yourself.
. . . And what would be wrong with that?
I once heard a prominent mathematician comment that "category theory will give you a result if you believe it will."
Any categorization will do that. (Talk to me about data. How do you NOT categorize data? And if you don’t, what do you think you have gotten a hold of?)
Is it arrogant to try to understand something?
It might be arrogant to claim that one knows something. What one might know is a belief in concepts.
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