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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 17, 2015 - 09:09pm PT
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One angle is that there is no such "thing" as matter or material or objects or fixed mass, that only properties (gravity, charges, luminosity etc) exist and they are all emergent functions of nothing
This is an obtuse rather than an acute angle.
You need to get beyond the words "subjective" and "objective" for they are defined as opposite ends of a spectrum. Find a word or phrase, preferably not from Zen, that bridges this gap and you may be able to break out of your fixation. Otherwise it's the same old argument over and over with no relief in sight.
Get some help from the Car Pool Prodigies.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 17, 2015 - 09:47pm PT
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Whether you have subjective experiences at all and to what degree and quality is tied to the health and normalcy of your brain functions. That's because all high-level behaviors - including subjective experience - are a property of, and wholly dependent upon, brains. They may be an emergent property, but a property all the same nonetheless.
jgill: beautiful imagery.
[ P.S. Largo, the whole pseudo-physics, 'everything-from-nothing' business with regard to minds is getting tiring - please stop just repeating yourself and either explicitly flesh out that line of thought or give it a rest. ]
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 18, 2015 - 07:25am PT
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Does this image exist only in my mind?
Probably not, although a rigorous proof seems unlikely.
Here is another mathematician's view which resembles discussions on this thread of "experiential adventures."
Mathematicians know that they are studying an objective reality. To an outsider, they seem to be engaged in an esoteric communion with themselves and a small clique of friends. How could we as mathematicians prove to a skeptical outsider that our theorems have meaning in the world outside our own fraternity?
If such a person accepts our discipline, and goes through two or three years of graduate study in mathematics, he [or she] absorbs our way of thinking, and is no longer the critical outsider...
The Mathematical Experience
Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh
Finding the unexpected is another hint that there is a world outside of our minds, at least the consciously available parts of them.
Many thanks, jgill. That image is extraordinary.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 18, 2015 - 09:20am PT
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Jgill:
You have hypotheses about that purported tree in your yard. Your hypotheses assume “the tree” is objective. You have many good reasons for that supposition, but it (the object) is a stipulation. It doesn’t matter if it is there or not. Either way, it’s mind. What there is, is experience. Mind is experience.
Objects ARE mental constructs. No one can say what the tree is fully, precisely, accurately. It appears to be Something, at least a manifestation, so you make a small jump and say that it is existent. But look: that “tree” changes, people describe it differently, looked at with a telescope, a microscope, or through a kaleidoscope, it looks different. Put a sample of it through different tests, and it appears differently, and not precisely the same under any repeated test. So-called trees are a convention, a social construction, a linguistic and categorical expedience beyond “that there.” You call a part of your experience, “a tree.” All you really have of any is your experience, and your experience is mind.
An assumption I’m making? It’s an even older assumption that the so-called tree is an object and remains so once you turn your back on it. Every bit of labeling, pointing, experiencing, stipulating is mind. Try taking all labeling, categorizing, interpreting, abstracting, modeling, bracketing out of your mind, and tell me what you experience.
Solipsism would also be an object, Cintune. How could it not be? It’s an interpretation, a label, a meaning, a concept, a definition, an agreement among folks about an abstraction. See if it (or any other so-called object) exists for you if you drop the subject that predicates an object called solipsism.
You are subject. An object you stipulate is hence perceived. Get rid of the subject, and all objects drop away as you think and conceive them.
None of these distinctions are terribly important in my mind. The existence of objects doesn’t matter unless you’re trying to posit something like an absolute, a universal consciousness, the existence of something that is not matter. Instead, it’s the processes of stipulation of experience into discrete, concrete, caused, and serious objects that belies or hides awareness to my mind that would seem to matter (the veils of ignorance, maya, delusion).
No one needs to bracket and objectivize experience. It’s not necessary. Doing so constitutes an unnecessary elaboration. Such actions are fun, interesting and all, but there is no need in life. We will all do what we cannot help but do. (I’m arguing that objects are not concrete or substantive, that experience is wide-open, that events are spontaneous, and there is no separation between what you are and what you perceive.)
Look, you seem to have faith in science. I would imagine that you also have faith in its research. That should give you pause about what you think you know. Science should make you doubt—a great deal. In various fields, it has documented myriad processes of perception, interpretation, analyses, data collection, hypotheses testing, statistics, measurement, research design, publishing, training, education, and understanding as incomplete, somewhat inaccurate, and fraught with unresolved problems, conundrums, paradoxes (not to mention that no one can seem to get to the bottom of anything). Conventional reality, it would seem—as it is perceived by regular people—might be something not at all as it appears to be. (It’s so much easier to say what things aren’t to say what things are.)
Should we deny things are that not completely true (solipsism), or should we accept them because they are partially true (inclusion)? Is reality a graded hierarchy of metaphysical principles? Are elements different in diversity, or is there one reality? Are there undeniable differences in individual phenomena, or are all grounded in a Unity? What is the relationship between the infinite and the finite? Is what is finite merely a partiality? Is there an absolute, and if there is, then what constitutes change? How does one understand change metaphysically? If there is no absolute, then what is the real? What is ignorance, and how could it possibly exist along side (and outside) recognition? What is being, and what is consciousness? Does one emerge from or is subordinate to the other? What about appearance? Appearance would seem to imply the real, but the real does not necessarily imply appearance. Do space, time, and other categories of daily existence have absolute existence?
I am not arguing that materialism (and your tree) should be jettisoned as unreal. I’m saying that a long list of empirical studies regarding perception, cognition, interpretation, categorization, psychological and social construction, language, etc.—empirical findings discussed within the fields of individual and legitimate scientific studies themselves—might make one a lot more hesitant and curious than what many here seem to be.
Personally, I am aware of many of these empirical studies I’m referring to. Along with what might be called a little “spiritual training,” they’ve made me look rawly at the experience of experience itself. What I am seeing cannot be “explained” and understood alone by what most people take for granted and obvious.
Anyone can be a scientist: look for yourself.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 18, 2015 - 09:54am PT
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from the NYTimes this morning... on probability...
Gamblers, Scientists and the Mysterious Hot Hand
By GEORGE JOHNSON
"We’re all in the same boat. We evolved with this uncanny ability to find patterns. The difficulty lies in separating what really exists from what is only in our minds."
This is a point of contention around here. Largo insists that the only thing that exists is "nothing," he will pummel me for talking about matter, and then claim that I believe that matter has no extent, and thus is, ultimately, "nothing," that is, not matter at all but something that "is only in my mind".
Similarly, MikeL will insist that 'it's all good dude', that the belief in a "hot hand" is just as valid as a belief in the statistical independence of events. Not only that, but the evidence of statistical independence is "woefully meager" and that probability can only ever be an approximation, a model of what goes on.* [Of course the evidence for "hot handedness" is even "woefully meagerer."]
The difficulty, ("... in separating what really exists from what is only in our minds") is a major issue for science, and has been for a long time, in fact, it is the essential issue of the practice of science. If there is a "method" to science, it is not that the separation is defined and procedures codified to prevent the mixing, but the realization that there is a confusion, that what when we do science we communicate as clearly as possible what it was we did and state explicitly what our assumptions were leading up to our conclusions. In that way, others can replicate independently what we did, and see if they reach the same conclusions.
I cannot independently replicate Largo's mediation experience... that is the basis of it being "subjective." I can independently replicate the meditation practice's methods, however. Whether or not that leads me to the same "state" can never be determined (a consequence of Largo's insistence the primacy of first person experience).
It is for no reason that solipsism is considered the "nuclear option" in philosophical discussion. It is a "conspiracy theory" that is constructed to account for all the facts, and cannot be dismissed by any argument (by the nature of the construction, our mind creates everything, even the demonstration that it does not).
Just some idle discursive thinking before going out and meditating on paint primer and overcoats for the rest of the day. Hopefully y'all will be doing something equally enjoyable, productive and self fulfilling.
* gratuitous footnote, A. N. Kolomogorov, Foundations of the Theory of Probability, © 1956, Chelsea Publishing Company, New York, Chapter 1, Section 5, p.9 "...one of the most important problems in the philosophy of the natural sciences—in addition to the well known one regarding the essence of the concept of probability itself—to make precise the premises which would make it possible to regard any given real events as independent. This question, however, is beyond the scope of this book."
see also, G. Birkhoff, Lattice Theory, ©1961 American Mathematical Society, Providence, Chapter XII, Section 9, p.197, "Everyone talks about probability, but nobody can say what it is, to the satisfaction of others." and references therein. [Note the literary wit...]
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 18, 2015 - 11:23am PT
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I can independently replicate the meditation practice's methods
No you can't.
You'll never be able to do it independently, EVER.
You'll just "think" you are and "think" you can.
Making a statement such as:
"I can independently replicate the meditation practice's methods"
Shows complete total poor fund of knowledge of what meditation really is.
And that is the real reason you are stuck on the finite material plane ......
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 18, 2015 - 05:20pm PT
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Ed:
Did I apply “woefully meagre” to statistical probability? (Gosh. Well, it could be.)
There is one issue with your comments here, I think.
The issue for me is not one of statistical independence of observation. it lies in the independence of existence of any so-called thing. The first is an epistemological issue. You want to be sure that a study can be replicated.
The second is an ontological one. You can measure a so-called thing as you wish. I trust you and the field (somewhat) at that. The latter is an altogether different issue that could fall within philosophy logically and otherwise. If a thing has independent existence, then it is a thing. If not, then it is not. It is simply a current manifestation. It is the result of causes and conditions. It is an instantiation of impermanence. It’s just a fleeting expression. You are trying to establish a thing. There is no thing.
You can call what I’m up to solipsism if you want to. I think of it as being very cautious.
Me on a Sunday? I watched some football, wrote a letter of recommendation, de-scaled the expresso machine, and enjoyed a quiet weekend without the wife (traveling with the mother-in-law). I love the quiet.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 18, 2015 - 06:55pm PT
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You can call what I’m up to solipsism if you want to. I think of it as being very cautious.
What are you afraid of?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 18, 2015 - 07:47pm PT
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...de-scaled the expresso machine...
There is no scale in your expresso machine, you just need to think differently about it.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 18, 2015 - 08:34pm PT
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What is being, and what is consciousness? Does one emerge from or is subordinate to the other? (MikeL)
We are going back several thousand webpages to re-examine these issues. A return to toga-land. Philosophical conundrums, although consciousness seems a bit more understandable than the mysterious being.
It is an instantiation of impermanence. It’s just a fleeting expression. You are trying to establish a thing. There is no thing.
I have become convinced that undergoing years of Zen-type meditation (or academic philosophical studies!) alters something in the brain and that practitioners see a form of reality that differs from what the uninitiated perceive. An obvious question is, which form of reality is scientifically valid as implied by numerous independent experiments? . . . Oh wait, that's using one alternative to verify itself! Well, if that can happen then the meditators/philosophers are entitled to verify their views in their fashion: Experiential Adventures.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 18, 2015 - 10:32pm PT
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Interesting link. Lots of different opinions of beauty in math, but I might not subscribe to Mumford's categorization scheme. Thanks.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 19, 2015 - 12:40pm PT
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MH2: What are you afraid of?
???? “Cautious” indicates fear to you? Ok. Would you rather I use the word “circumspect?”
Jgill:
Things you don’t understand you call “toga-land” or some such. It’s an indication of ignorance and prejudice. Epithets are a form of ad hominem.
Both of these comments are nitpicking. Neither contributes to a dialogue.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 19, 2015 - 01:07pm PT
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Neither contributes to a dialogue.
I think many here, including myself, have made this observation.
Like two sides of a coin, neither are the coin itself. If we really wanted to have a dialogue, then somehow something has to give. Clever niceties are a poor substitution for relinquishing entrenched ideas or disbelief in order to find common ground. Sooner or later uncommon positions arise and become a source for an argument and we are back to square one. I think it is necessary for both sides to be able to let go of the things that divide to be able to move forward, if that is what is desired by both sides. Otherwise it is an exercise in one-upmanship or "winning" an argument or just wanting someone to see your point of view as being better. There is always that assumption. After all, most of us have spent some time, effort, and maybe even some money to come to their cherished conclusions and who wants to admit that it might not have been worth it. Sometimes it is necessary to commit wholeheartedly to false assumptions to realize the folly of conviction.
We really don't have to answer this "what is mind" question, but what if we did "have to" figure it out? I bet we could.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 19, 2015 - 01:12pm PT
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You said you were being very cautious, Mike. When a person is cautious, or circumspect, in the context of this discussion, it leads me to wonder if they are worried about being wrong. That does not sound like you. You were denying the existence of things: "There is no thing." That does not sound cautious.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 19, 2015 - 09:00pm PT
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Both of these comments are nitpicking. Neither contributes to a dialogue
To have a productive dialogue it would seem necessary to adequately define the premises, including understandable definitions.
Being and consciousness has a certain poetic ring and might be a lively topic in the faculty lounge of a philosophy department, but as a focus for a productive dialogue here it would require participation of a larger contingent of philosophers/meditators to converse with one another. But I could be wrong and there are scientific types here who are chomping at the bit to wrangle these ill-defined terms. . . . go for it.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 19, 2015 - 09:07pm PT
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If we really wanted to have a dialogue, then somehow something has to give.
Well, it would help if people would simply speak their mind instead of endlessly beating around the bush without ever getting to the point. I mean, be bold, take the next step, where does that lead?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 20, 2015 - 02:01pm PT
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We really don't have to answer this "what is mind" question, but what if we did "have to" figure it out? I bet we could
I admire your optimism.
;>)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 20, 2015 - 02:23pm PT
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We really don't have to answer this "what is mind" question, but what if we did "have to" figure it out? I bet we could
The first thought that occurs is that this is a famous science fiction trope. Super-intelligent aliens or some other deus ex machina give the human race this as a problem to solve or we are wiped out.
We solve it and find out it was only the first question on the exam.
A more likely scenario is that all who are interested in the question get put on an island and the last one standing wins.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 20, 2015 - 03:17pm PT
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In Zen they say everything is mind! I don't usually work on that question very much. I think it is pointing to your personal experience that is non- stop moment to moment and hence mind is experience, experience is mind and that there is nothing but experience. (Mike L or JL is this your take on this ?)I might me totally off!
Maybe you can come up with a mathematical formula for what mind or experience is or a wonderful discursive explanation of it. Now that you have it what will you do with it? What is your moment to moment relationship with this grand description?
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