You wasted your own time. — Pantagruel

How could I know that you would come up with nothing, smart man?

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It isn't a common word, and your online sources are just someone clunking something together. I have encountered the word in texts, a quick survey of citations on google scholar will produce some of those. In particular, one includes a characterization of the word in the context of future architecture and the transphysical city:

As the prefix trans- implies, it will be at once a
transmutation and a transgression of the known, but it will also stand alongside and be interwoven
into that very matrix.
http://cast.b-ap.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2014/09/Novak.pdf

So your metacognitive strategy of looking up a word you don't know is valid, but you need to maintain an awareness of the true reliability of your reference source.

In a sense, isn't that what drives all inquiry, the search for a deeper meaning? — Pantagruel

No doubt. Nonetheless, there's an abundance of scientific circumstantial evidence in support of conjecturing 'the non-uniqueness of terrestrial biological life in the universe' (e.g. ubiquity of carbon (and other precusors of organic chemistry & self-replicating molecules), water, rocky exoplanets in "goldilock's zones", deep time, billions of sun-like solar systems in this galaxy alone, etc). There isn't any such comparable scientific circumstantial evidence of "cosmic consciousness" – at most, that's just tilting at windmills. Like a mind that's never been outside a sensory deprivation tank, what would the cosmos even be 'conscious of'? The notion makes no sense as I've pointed out previously.

Poetry (à la "the force" in Star Wars)? Okay, you're welcome to it. :nerd:

Metaphysics – Plotinus' "One"? The Stoics' "logos spermatikos"? Hegel's "Geist"? Jung's "collective unconscious"? To my mind, these analogues, like the idea of "cosmic conscioisness" itself, are nothing but Camus' nostalgias (i.e. philosophical suicides). :yawn:

There isn't any such comparable scientific circumstantial evidence of "cosmic consciousness" — 180 Proof

Unless you place any validity at all on subjective experience. Which is essentially what any humanistic science from history to sociology to anthropology to, dare I say, philosophy, does.

Poetry/mythology. As I've said "you're welcome to it." :roll:

:yikes:

OK, but this is just a literal-etymological analysis. This is not an answers to What does "trans-physical" mean? I, on the other hand, brought up the definition from two dictionaries. If you don't know yourself what it actually means, you shouldn't talk about it and waste people's time. — Alkis Piskas

Even if the mechanisms that produced biological life, including consciousness, are, at some level, the same as those that operate in the evolution of the physical universe, it does not follow that those mechanisms are physical...Perhaps some transphysical and transmental concept is required to capture both mechanisms.... (Tom Sorell, Descartes Reinvented)

All speech is "just" literal-etymological in nature (i.e. arising through historical-contextual usage). You think that "definitions" in dictionaries represent the sine qua non of meaning? Well, maybe at a very rudimentary stage of learning that is true.

The comment of mine to which you responded is one year old. What took you so long? :smile:

But since you brought it up, it's always my pleasure to talk about it. :smile:

Even if the mechanisms that produced biological life, including consciousness — Pantagruel

We don't know if consciousness has been produced as part of the biological life. If it wre, then the nature of consciouness would be physical. And this has never been established. (It has been only hypothesized by scientists who have not produced and hard evidence about that, as they usually do for other things. And there wouldn't be an immense number of talks about it, since the time the concept of consiousness was conceived (Locke, 1690) and isolated as a human element. Nor would there be any "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers, 1995).

If [these meachnisms] are, at some level, the same as those that operate in the evolution of the physical universe, it does not follow that those mechanisms are physical. — Pantagruel

What else could there be? I don't know of anythings physical producing something non-physical. The opposite can happen. Thinking (non-physical) and emotions (non-physical) can increase adrenaline levels, produce stress in the body, etc.

Perhaps some transphysical and transmental concept is required to capture both mechanisms.... — Pantagruel

These are attempts to compromise non-compromisable things, find middle-solutions, etc. And they are of course totally theoretical, existing in a frame, context of their own. I have met a lot of "exotic" terms and concepts like these. The all rise from an inability to explain things, esp. after long periods and efforts. It reminds me of what scientists do for a century or so in trying to explain and establish that memory is created and located in the brain. They keep always changing locations and mechanisms, coming out with similar "exotic" ideas. Yet, still not a trace of hard evidence about them. I personally cannot take all that seriously.

You think that "definitions" in dictionaries represent the sine qua non of meaning? — Pantagruel

No, I don't. I certainly don't consider them perfect. But I think that they provide a basis or general frame of reference on which one can rely for further examination of the subjects they describe. They are based on research about the subjects in question. In contrary to the often biased, opinionized personal "definitions" --here's where the quotation marks actually belong-- based on misconceptions and/or ignorance.

Cosmic consciousness is an exponential category error. Consciousness is a subset of mind, which is a metaphor for the patterns in the brain, and brains only exist in biological creatures, which are themselves a tiny subset of the universe.

We don't know if consciousness has been produced as part of the biological life. — Alkis Piskas

Correct. It's the central question of the book I'm currently reading, Mind and Cosmos. Nagel is evaluating the differences between 'reductive' approaches (which entail panpsychism) and emergent approaches, which leave something of an explanatory gap regarding the meaning of emergence.

What else could there be? I don't know of anythings physical producing something non-physical. — Alkis Piskas

Per the above, it is possible that there non-physical aspects to the physical, proto-conscious features, in a reductive interpretation. Of course you are begging the question when it comes to consciousness, which is the entire point.

These are attempts to compromise non-compromisable things, find middle-solutions, etc. And they are of course totally theoretical, existing in a frame, context of their own — Alkis Piskas

I don't know if you noticed, but all of the most advanced physics is entirely "theoretical". The question as to what is/isn't "hard evidence" is itself psycho-social.

[Regarding the emergence of consciousness] It's the central question of the book I'm currently reading, Mind and Cosmos. — Pantagruel

I like Nagel. I have read only a paper of him, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" and I found it quite original and interesting, as a view regarding the nature of consciousness. As I just read in Wiki, "Mind and cosmos" came almost 40 years later! It will be interesting to see how his thought and view evolved in such a long span of time. And maybe he gives another meaning of "emergence", as you mention, because I don't believe that consciousness has been "emerged" (from anything).

it is possible that there non-physical aspects to the physical, proto-conscious features, in a reductive interpretation. — Pantagruel

I don't like much this kind of acrobatic and speculative hypotheses, based mainly on playing around, fiddling with concepts, some of which sometimes are not well supported themselves, and without some solid ground or frame of reference to support them. See, Nagel in "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" provided a realistic, well-grounded and workable frame of reference on which he supported his arguments.

I don't know if you noticed, but all of the most advanced physics is entirely "theoretical". — Pantagruel

If I noticed? I can't avoid highlighting this fact! :smile:
It occupies a whole area and era in Physics. It is called "Quantum Mechanics". :smile:
Of course, it's also a fascinating subject.

The question as to what is/isn't "hard evidence" is itself psycho-social. — Pantagruel

You think?
Hard evidence are facts that are definitely true and do not need to be questioned. They can be defined and determined univocally and measured numerically. "Hard" stands for "solid", "firm", "unbreakable", "inflexible", ...
What you call "psycho-social" is another kind of evidence: "testimonial or subjective evidence".
So, think again! :smile:

So Nagel feels that the fact of consciousness stands on its own as hard evidence that requires a non-materialist explanation. I think that pretty much sums up my (his) response to both those issues. Evidence is by definition a mental function or feature. Features of objective reality are not evidence, unless they are evidence for someone of something....

Interesting interpretation ...

I know this is a year old, so maybe you wouldn't say exactly what you said, maybe you would. You think Plotinus' conception of the One to be comparable to Jungian collective unconscious?

I think that Plotinus' One shares certain similarities (anticipations) to Kant's "things-in-themselves", which is interesting, though undecidable.

Collective unconscious... well, that's more modern and in a sense, less defensible.

Typing out loud... :cool:

You think Plotinus' conception of the One to be comparable to Jungian collective unconscious? — Manuel

Sure. Even more so it's comparable to Spinoza's substance (or Democritus-Epicurus' void)

Ah. Sure, there's content in that, has to be translated, but it can be interesting.