Jewish. I made it past the bar-mitzvah before I saw the Light, and Escaped.

I would like to thank everyone for their time and honest comments. There are a lot of very penetrating, honest minds on the Forum, and I congratulate you on creating such a decent cyber-place. If anyone has any particular thing they'd like to say to me, I can be reached at MichaeldotPollensatComcastdotnet.

Be safe and well, everyone.

Tom, your comment:

And, uh, I have a completed, a priori theory that shows how consciousness was produced through evolution, a successful Thought Experiment, and the Fossil Record
— Michael Sol

I guess a Nobel Prize awaits you.

And General Relativity is just another a priori imagining of the Universe - got an alternative for that one, too?
— Michael Sol

It's not about alternatives. As I said that approach seems to be a fallacy from incredulity. "We don't know" is a perfectly reasonable answer. :wink:

It's pretty clear that the precise nature consciousness has not yet been resolved (tentative answers, sure - Metzinger on the left/Kastrup on the right) and it is doubtful that the true answer will be revealed on a forum for dilettantes.

In order:

First, you do know that I meant "in support of my argument" when I said I have a theory above? Uh, Mr. Darwin invented the Theory....

Secondly, no, I don't know is not an argument. We have a Theory and empirical evidence, to which you oppose, there are alternative theories, even if I don't know them?

Lastly, I don't have to know the exact, nuanced nature of Consciousness to know that is shows up in Animals and is a product of Evolution in a Material Environment...

I'm sorry, this just seems like carping. I've yet to receive any substantive answers suggesting alternatives to the causal dynamics of matter as an even possible basis for any kind of reality...

I'm sorry, and I appreciate that you are busy, while I, being old, am much less so -

And honestly, why you keep trying to paint me as an obdurate critic or even much concerned with Christianity is beyond me. If I had any particular animus against a religion it would be that one I was indoctrinated in, the one which I freed myself from as a teen with some difficulty, and whose adherents are now infamous for their oppression of their subject, Palestinian populations.

In fact, as I keep saying, I admire the Christian ethic; and that of many other religions.

Religions often were progressive forces in the world; religion has brought relief and succor to untold billions...

And nothing changes the fact that there aren't any Gods, and anyone who tells you he's Representing the One is either deluded, or cynically using you.....

Er, if the consciousness was never created, how is it logical it should exist?

Uh, I believe the problem with infinite regression is obvious.

And, uh, I have a completed, a priori theory that shows how consciousness was produced through evolution, a successful Thought Experiment, and the Fossil Record. If you can't even suggest another possibility, than the answer that was most obvious all the time, that we are formed by the reality we truly see, is surely the correct one.

And General Relativity is just another a priori imagining of the Universe - got an alternative for that one, too?

Yes, it's not only more reasonable, it is proven by the fossil record.

What does that mean, uncreated?

Mww:

You said:


Categorical error. The axiom of Identity is derived a priori. That which is analytic, such as the axiom of identity in the form A = A, is a self-evident truth, a tautology, which informs of nothing but itself. No conception can be connected to another without a mediating condition, and since A = A incorporates only a singular conception, no synthesis with conceptions of objects is at all possible.

I think you are misreading Kant. The Axiom is derived a priori, from one's a priori concept of Bodies' and as a foundational Truth for Consciousnesses, it is Fundamental.

You said:

True enough. Now all that’s required is to prove consciousness is conceived as matter, in order for causality to govern it. Here met with an aberration, in that causality itself is an entirely metaphysical conception. Ever gone to Home Depot to perused the shelves for some quantity of causality?

Disagree as you wish, but metaphysical entities cannot be empirically proven. Only other metaphysical entities can validate metaphysical entities, and not a single one of them can ever be proved in the same manner as falling trees can be proven to wreck your house.

Consciousnesses are unfailingly the product of Evolution in a Material Universe. We have a complete a priori theory in Evolution, and in General Relativity, and since no one has ever provided an alternative theory to those of causal matter cycles and evolution, we have no reason at all to believe that there are any alternatives.

If a Consciousness infallibly denotes evolution in a Material Universe, then the Physical is the Metaphysical.

And you ask me to prove Matter can be a Consciousness? What? Who are all these Zombies then?

Everyone keeps saying it doesn't have to be that way, we've got alternatives to material reality here somewhere, I know we do. Except guys like George Ellis and Alan Coley and the like...

Yes, I agree with all of the above, Mr. Clark; but I don't just agree with Mr. Kant, I appreciate the axiomatic nature of matter, which is it doesn't change without cause. Again, can someone explain what it is that changes without cause?

As we cannot even Imagine a means of Creating a Consciousness other than by Evolution in a Material Reality,
— Michael Sol

"I can. Many people can."

You replied that you can imagine the creating of a consciousness by some natural process other than evolution? Could you share us the description of that process? Or, of any you have heard or read of? And, again, saying some mysterious Creator could have done so is nonsense. Who created the creator? And if he does not employ material means, what means are they? And what proof do you have for their existence?

Also, to suggest an all-powerful being created us by some mysterious process that does not involve causality is simply a silly recourse to Magic
— Michael Sol

Many philosophers reject the need for causation. See B Russell, 1912.

Yeah, Hume, Russell and all of those others are wrong, and none of them ever gave us any other mechanism whereby material reality might operate. I would really like to see a conceptual model that accounts for Object change without causation.... Causation is, as Kant pointed out, an indispensable basis of all existence.

So again, I have a fossil record, complete a priori theories in evolution and general relativity, and the contention that you can't make a consciousness outside of evolving one in a Material World. Everyone keeps saying they can imagine the alternative, but nobody presents the imagined alternative to matter operating dynamically and causally to create our Universe.

I have a priori axioms and theories, and physical proof of all of it, why would I continue to question the existence of the Objectively Extant Material Universe?

No, I disagree, Mww. Implicit truth is still truth. The Axiom of Identity is utterly proven, a priori, by the conception of all Objects.

You cannot even conceive of Matter that is not governed by Causality; and you keep saying there are alternatives to Evolution, but I doubt that, as it is an extraordinary process that takes billions of years. Nor has anyone offered an alternative to modifying animal behavior except through the pain/pleasure mechanism.

And while mankind has considered the possibility of a Creator, no one can explain how that Creator operates if not through material cause and effect in a dimensional universe, nor how that Creator was created, whereas if we simply admit that Consciousnesses are unalterably paired to Evolutionary Environments, we have a complete Thought Experiment that is proven by the Fossil Record.

So I say again, Consciousness proves the existence of a Material Universe.

MWW wrote:

"How many neurotransmitters does it take for a ‘57 DeSoto? Which particular pathway are they on? What’s the maximum permissible distance of the channel? How would one ever find out? Why would he care, if the image is given without ever knowing any of those material conditions?"

Um, I don't know any of the specifics about the volume of blood, diameter of my veins and arteries, nor the specific oxygen content of my blood cells when leaving the lungs, yet I am confident that all of those material processes exist and can be measured by scientists. And a simple google search will show you that there are many of the latter doing just that.....

"if the image is given..." Huh? If I see a Desoto or its picture, I obviously know that designers thunk it, capitalists built a factory to make it, and all sorts of people were employed to build and sell it... Obviously, the physical conditions, whether in the factory or in the heads of those involved in the vehicle's production, are all implicit in the image...

Again, as I say, as we cannot even conceive of a Consciousness that did not come into being except through Evolution, isn't our own Consciousnesses proof of the Objectively Extant, Material Universe that bred it?

Infinite Regression is Absurd, because there is no such thing in our conception or experience that is an iinfitiude.

Um, Magic, some sort of means of accomplishing stuff that does not involve matter or causality is Absurd, and so silly.

And, again, you say others can imagine a means of creating a consciousness by natural process that is not Evolution? Ok, then, what is it they have imagined? Asserting they have without showing us the complete, a priori theory as is Evolution, is meaningless.

The General Relativity Theory and the Theory of Evolution are both complete, a priori. We have a fossil record; and if the Consciousness cannot conceive of any other means of having come to be, I guess what we have is Evolution in an Objectively Extant Universe; and which answer to the basic (no longer existing anymore) problem of the Veracity of the Senses is, in fact, exactly in keeping with Ockham.

Once again, can some one offer me an alternative to this statement: An Evolved Mind is Proof of the Objectively Extant Material World that bore and bred it.

Uncreated? Forever extant? Huh?

I'm with the WTF group. Thoughts are your experience of Neural Activity, there is nothing mysterious about them.

And if a Consciousness proves your own existence, how about this? The Existence of your Consciousness proves the existence of the Objectively Extant, Material Universe that evolved you, for there is no way to create a consciousness through natural process except by evolving them in a Material World.

Created consciousness do not exist, and the notion that Consciousnesses were created by some powerful, non-material Being we've never had any proof of is just silly, and ignores the regression problem of the Creators Creators.....

So, the real Meditation One is I think, and therefore, All You Zombies exist.

Wow, what if you just deny absolutely the existence of anything non-material, and name the Physical Universe the Metaphysical? Than there is no idiocy such as "transcendental" realities.

Idea exist in flesh when they are thought, or on paper or in magnetic memory. Ideas implicit, processes built into the nature of any and all existence, such as causality, exist in dynamic, physical processes. Nothing exists without Matter.

There is no such thing as an Infinitude, or an Infinite Being; everything is bounded, that is the nature of being an Object, Body, Thing, what have you.

Consciousness is itself proof of the Objective Extant, Physical Universe, as there is absolutely no way to create a Consciousness except through Evolution in a Material Universe; and to such who would suggest we could have been created by a Divinity, that's just an appeal to mysterious magic, and ignores the infinite regression Creator Creators.

Give it up: what you see is what you get, and any Philosophic experiment, be it in Thought or otherwise, needs to operate within the parameters of the Standard Model of Cosmology accepted by the worlds' physicists, or it is just fantastic speculation.

Transcendence is a psychological state; it is the Imagination leaping superior to its own knowledge as it, often, assists the Subject to new perspectives on his or her or their studies; but it still is a material phenomenon of the Subject's brain and other physiological systems.

Like, I said, can someone Conceive of another way of creating consciousnesses except through Evolution?

I'm sorry, I don't follow you at all. Why is it not a proposition, as it attributes a (false) belief to subject?

Oh, sorry, the sentences are long, but every one makes perfect sense; and you again contest none of my arguments Real.

Well, talking instead of debating is nice; sort of pointless, but nice. Really. Uh, do you think the weather affects one's philosophic outlook?

:roll:

Have you seen Alan Coley and George Ellis' Theoretical Cosmology? The Standard Model of Cosmology is a joint project and the accepted standard for Physicists globally; and Ellis is Hawkings' partner in the writing of the Theory of Everything. Cosmology is the science that examines and verifies the accuracy of the classical EFE [Einstein Field Equations], and is exacting, complex and always replicable.

And if Philosophy is not a Science, it is worthless. Fortunately, it is in fact the Science of Sciences, and without Aristotle you don't get, oh, everyone from, you know, Newton to Curie and onward. Subjectivist Philosophies are definitely not Science, but try telling Academia that.

And how, pray tell, does that which is not Science have science for its branches? Does it pick those branched sciences by whimsy?

Lastly, characterizing my arguments gets you nowhere; and, having taken forty years to become evident to me, my generalizations are hardly hasty; but even if they were, you would still need to refute them specifically.

And nice cheap shot, pretending to find (amidst all those blanketing generalizations that touch every culture) my argument "indicative of a narrow focus on a personal bias."

I was raised and ritually brought to manhood a Jew at the age of thirteen, and I gave up all religion as superstition by the time I was fifteen. But, as a wannabe novelist and English major, I have always found, in fact, the ethical basis of Christianity one that well meets the needs of human psychology,; and would further argue that it's central injunction is in fact a Universal Good.

But Faith is the Enemy of Rational Choice, or why else do all Religions start indoctrination laced with the fear of God and Death as soon as a child can communicate? In what Reality is it fair or decent to indoctrinate a metaphysical belief in those far too young to understand the fraught choice?

Remember, old Scratch only comes for your Soul after you already sold it to your God, trading Reason for Faith and Immortality; and trading science and open minded investigation for Doctrine and obedient Worship. Old Scratch never bothers with Atheists.

Like it or not, you are wholly material until you show some axiomatic need or empirical proof that there is something that is not material, which you cannot do.

Epiphenomenalism, I'm sorry to say, is nonsense. You don't get Consciousnesses except through Evolution in a Material Environment. Evolution depends on 'mental events' like pain and pleasure, amongst other things. Since there is every reason to believe any Extant Reality must be Material, there is utterly no reason, since there is also no Empirical Evidence, to suspect anything Immaterial exists.

You need an alternative theory to our picture of matter constantly cycling and changing by means of causal processes before you can even begin to try to argue for the Immaterial - what would that look like?

Heaven, Hell, Immortal Souls? Sorry, just the Dreams of pre-Darwin and Einstein, primitive Philosophers.

Can you give me an example of a belief that is not a Proposition?

Ok, I was talking about Jack's beliefs in the figure.

How can a belief, how can anything but nonsense, not be propositional? What non-propositional statement has any meaning? Am I missing something? If I'm not attributing something to something else, than am I saying anything?

My point is, if we accept the objective reality of the material universe, Jack either knew the clock was broken or he did not; he either knew the time or did not; and the time on the face of the clock at that instant was either coincident with the actual time, or it was not; and from these possible conditions we can make any of the possible statements:

Jack, not knowing the clock was broken, thought it to be Eleven.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, wondered if it could actually be Eleven, as shown on the broken clocks face.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, checked his pocket watch, and was amused that the working and broken clocks agreed that it was Eleven.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, and knowing that the actual time was different, yet still thought that, in some strange fashion, the clock was working, and that its time was somehow more accurate than the one that agreed with Greenwich.

Is there some variant to the explication of "At 11, Jack thought the broken clock was working," that I'm missing? If I am, let me know; but the point is, in Reality, the Proposition can only have a very limited number of very clear meanings.

So why are we spending so much time in parsing the nuances of Propositions to see if we can make them seem Absurd? Why all the fuss about language?

So let me say this again, in an Objectively Extant Material Reality all of the Referents of speech are to real objects in the real world, all of which operate according to the fundamental, eternal, necessary and unchangeable laws of Physics, and so any confusion between Consciousnesses over their communications is solely due to poor definitions and poor or untenable propositions....

And none of this Linguistic Confusion has any Metaphysical significance whatsoever...

Well, since you did not detail my "logical flaws and misinformation about human nature and history," I have no idea what you are talking about.

Religion seeks adherents of Faith who accept their Revelations as Gospel without critical analysis. All Revelations purporting to reveal the existence of any God are nonsense, while Morality rests on the terrible choice of values and purposes every Man must choose from himself in an Objectively Real, Godless, Material Universe. Philosophy, like Physics, needs to describe and logically justify the moral dictates it believes to be Universal to Humanity vis a vis the real world as described by the Standard Model of Cosmology.

Philosophy is a science, it depends on logic and difficult lucubrations; Religion depends on Revelation, and the terror of death to demand your Faith in those Revelations; and while there have been (metaphorically) an infinitude of decent people who have lived their lives in religious service, and another infinitude (still metaphorically) who have been comforted in their despair by their notions of a Divine, there have been still more horrors and death created by the divisions and vicious competitions between those competing for Humanity's Faith.

The only Universal Philosophy possible to all of Humanity needs must be free of all of their Divines; and fortunately, we know from the Standard Model of Cosmology, they never really existed anyway.

I refer to all of the mysterious beings, from Zeus to Jehovah and before and after, Humanity has invented to explain their own and the Universe's existence - and refer to them above to exclude them from my argument (that Consciousnesses carry implicit Proof of an Extant Material Universe), while challenging the Reader to even Imagine another Natural means of Consciousness birth other than Evolution.

The point is, that the only alternative anyone ever suggests is the logical black hole of a Creator of some kind, and that's useless, for of course, tor then comes the question of how the Creator's creator came to be; and who created the Creator's Creator, and so on Infinitely back, which is Absurd. Logically, the first Consciousness must be the creation of Natural Process.

And, having now a complete a priori hypothesis as to how Consciousnesses are created, why don't we go out and find some Empirical Proof? Oh, wait, we already have a Fossil Record...

Uh, not to be disrespectful, but, really, what sort of similarity is "nearly as one with [the] same;" nearly never cuts it in Philosophy; which is to say, though made of Common Matter, I am yet a Single, Unique Consciousness,

From the OED, the first sentence of their entry for Solipsism:

"Philosophy. The theory or belief that one's own self or consciousness is all that exists..."

So, I repeat, having every reason to believe that all you Zombies are as real as I am or the Sun in the sky is, I can hardly be a Solipsist.

One experiences Thoughts and Emotions, but they are experiences formed out of the material operations of your body. Every thought has a unique place in the brain, and if that part of the brain was not functioning, you would neither think nor feel.

You would like to separate the experienced Thought, the Idea, from its material genesis, but however aerie and unreal Thought seems to you, it never ever ever happens without a Brain. Therefore, no Thoughts that are actually Immaterial ever exist. Cognition, which arises from the operations of the brain, is evanescent and fleeting, but, just like the unsaved work existing in the Random Access Memory on a computer goes away when it is powered down, it is still the product of that temporary material configuration of the instance it is experienced.

So, Thought, qua Thought, is a material phenomenon in your Brain, and completely inseparable from your experience of it.

Similarly, you cannot show me a Process, cannot even Conceive of one that does not employ the creative powers of some mysterious being who operates outside of the causal Universe, to create a Consciousness than through the billion-years process of Evolution; and as Evolution only takes place in the Material World, then every existent Consciousness -even your own- is proof of the Material World.

So whatever you Subjective impressions of Thoughts and Emotions, they are all still made up of Cells Doing Their Things. And as Sagan -and Hawkins, and Ellis, and on and on - have said, there ain't nothing here but the Cosmos.

CreativeSoul - You said:

"It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief."

We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right? So we have to read it as if it makes sense, as in "At 11, Jack believed that the clock [of indeterminate working condition] was working," is understood to be the same proposition "At 11, Jack believed that the [unbeknownst to him] broken clock was working," the Reader supposing of Jack sanity and so refusing equivalence to what would have to be "At 11, Jack believed that [what he knew to be a] broken clock was working," because that would infer that Jack was delusive. right?

Are we not then, as a rule, that we must infer in Jack a meaning to his utterance that is logically correct in a Commonly Perceived Reality?

An Objectivist Epistemology is a decent little work.

Atlas Shrugged, contrariwise, is out and out loony, the embittered daughter of Tsarist aristocrats' dark vision ennobling one strata of society so as to justify their unending greed and lusts for power, as if the capitalist class was in reality anything but a collection of ruthless thieves. No one needs any further reason than the work itself to completely denigrate Rand's Moral and Political philosophy, but if you want an easier and less time consuming clue, there's her willing and happy assistance to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the middle of the last century, which should earn her the contempt and contumely of every decent person.

Where to start?

If the Fundamental condition of any possible form of Reality is Matter, then it isn't exactly Atheism one believes in, is it? I believe that the Material Universe (as described by the Standard Model Of Cosmology see Cole and Ellis' Theoretical Cosmology) is all that exists, and that does in fact preclude some sort of magical Divine; but the absence of a god is not exactly the essential thrust of my conviction, just a corollary Truth.

So I guess I am an accidental Atheist.

And I am convinced, as per Darwin, that Consciousness infallibly denotes an objectively extant Material Universe, so I can hardly a Solipsist, can I?

Whether we know how this or that dynamic process works in every particular or not, we can be assured that these processes are not effects created by some other means than normal, physical causation, so it they ain't magic.

The only real magic I know of is in A) a simple block and tackle rig; and B) movie theaters.

Uh, isn't this a lot of parsing for no real good reason? If we were not trying to study language and, specifically, the Proposition, for clues as to Reality, why would we care?

Which is to say, if we presume that Jack and his clock are both in the Physical Universe (as described by the Standard Model Of Cosmology), then the Proposition, "Reading it's face at 11:00 that morning, Jack believed the clock was working;" must be true, since it refers to nothing but our clock-watcher's own conviction.

If the Proposition becomes "Reading its face ... was working, though it was not," then, presuming the narrator honest, we have another simple, true statement or Proposition, and Jack, we thus learn, was Mistaken.

And if the Proposition, lastly becomes, "Reading its face...Jack, though he knew it was broken, still believed the time shown was accurate," we then are presented with a simple dilemma hinging on the question as to whether Jack had any other way of knowing the present time, and, if so, whether the actual time was the same as shown on the clock-face; leading us to conclude that if the times were coincident, Jack was merely amused at the brief moment of accuracy in the broken clock, or, alternatively, that Jack is Mad.

Once we place our little thought experiment starring Jack of the Broken Clock into the Real World, the variations on the Proposition are simple and limited, and any confusion arises simply from inelegant expression; it is only when we are absurdly trying to parse propositions for different flavors of reality that this becomes silly and confusing.

How about this, there ain't no such thing as a Consciousness that didn't evolve in a Material Universe, so all of this is Real and language problems are just bad rhetoric and confusions of nuances.

Religion has exactly the same relation to Philosophy as paste or costume jewelry does to those adornments made of gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, and other rare, wondrously beautiful materials: the first are really cheap and easy to come by and completely False; but you can make a lot of money by convincing fools they are the Real Thing.

The Morals you think to find in your hopelessly normatively tangled, darkly purposed, sinisterly profitable Religious Propaganda are all subordinate to the only essential thing Religion ever requires of its (thankfully monied) Sheep, which is (delightfully unquestioning, from the priest's perspective) Faith.

It's not the Polarization that is critical, it's the Delusion. Fascism requires of its followers their complete faith in the Party Line, however bizarre and completely impossible in return for Political Power. The Racist does not enslave because be believes in the inferiority of his victims; he believes in their inferiority in order to enslave them; and this willingness to bend one's convictions to one's deepest, nastiest desires is the gift and the terror of the Fascist Leader.

The Proletariat, the Mob, the Common People, those whose education forces them to chose their convictions through the people, attitudes, lifestyles and so forth they think of as associated with or belonging to those who hold such convictions; in other words, whose convictions are the result of emotional impulse and not rational inquiry, will always be vulnerable to vicious, hateful Demagoguery, so that one's only protection from Despotism is the honest devotion of the ruling classes of one's society to Universal Rights and Suffrage as their only means of protecting their own rights and the Rule of Law. Once any Leader and group of Quislings decides they'd rather have present Power than the Wondrous Goods of Democracy and Lawful Society preserved for their Descendants, it's easy for them to inflame and enrage the Masses.

So, yeah, we, and worse, global society, is more polarized than anytime since the last time white people went insane (when they called their psychosis the Third Reich), and it is being very deliberately fostered by those who wish to Rule The Earth forever.

Be very afraid.

The thought exists in the material world in a very real, very particular, dynamic configuration of synapses and neurons in your brain. Every thought is made of exactly that sort of fleshy matter.