You could wipe out your awareness/consciousness by eliminating sodium in your diet. Is this clear? — L'éléphant

Not sure I follow since I’m omitting a physical thing which is what sodium is.

:roll:

↪kindred
:roll: — 180 Proof

I laughed at this.


My dude, are you not seeing the point?

Am I missing something obvious captain ?



I assume your elocution skills have failed you.

The question I have is…has intelligence always been around before this world was created prior to the Big Bang or was it simply an emergent phenomenon thereafter ? — kindred

Without reading the previous five pages, this seems to instead ask: "Was the Big Bang really the beginning of the universe?" or perhaps "Are there other universes outside of our own?" If the answer to the former is "no" or the latter "yes", then it's a simple non-scientific and non-philosophical "shot in the dark" assumption to suggest: "Sure, billions of years went by and in the past few thousand the dawn of intelligent man came about, and within barely 150 years man went from defecating outside in a hole like a wild animal to commuting to and from state-of-the-art skyscrapers for work in a self-driving car with not a single happening in any corner of the known Earth not instantly available at his fingertips for his reading pleasure - so in the context of billions of years, it's certainly likely the process repeated itself before."

Microorganisms exist on other planets and in space (I think?). I wouldn't quite call that a form of "intelligence", more like efficient cellular processes that sustain and allow it to replicate and advance itself, however minutely. Is there this "universal consciousness" that exists everywhere matter does that all intelligent beings "tap into" which gives us our sense of consciousness? That would be a bit metaphysical, bordering on religious.

My (uninformed) take on the matter, at least.

My argument has evolved slightly from the opening post as I’ve gained more perspective on the matter, and I’m thankful for the members who have taken part in this discussion so far giving me different perspectives and angles.

With that my argument is more concise and simpler and can be restated as such:

Intelligence precedes the universe, and has eternally existed independently of it and it’s manifestation in nature is inevitable.

It is inevitable because it has occurred at least once (in this universe). As such it’s likely that it has manifested itself prior to the current universe we just have no proof but have good reason to believe that it has done so.

Since the manifestation of intelligence turned out to be inevitable in this universe why couldn’t it have turned out to be inevitable in a universe before this one!

Intelligence precedes the universe, and has eternally existed independently of it and it’s manifestation in nature is inevitable. — kindred

Merely an article of faith. :sparkle: :eyes:

Not faith, I know Intelligence actualised in this universe, what’s your actual objection to it not having actualised in a prior universe also?

One data point is not evidence.

Sure I will grant you this and that it can’t be empirically verified. And I or you cannot know for sure if it did exist in a prior universe as we can’t test it.

We can however make the following claims about intelligence which will yield proof in the end.

1. It inevitably manifested itself in nature, at least our reality (this universe)
2. If something is inevitable then it happens in this universe, the one prior and maybe the one after if conditions are right.
3. Intelligence exists as a possibility then actual after a period of time.

We also don’t know why there is life rather then non-life, after all matter could just do nothing and not bring about life (and thus intelligence) but something extraordinary happened, life. Which means that it must have been pre-existing not just as a potential but a real thing.

If life came from non-life can’t you say it was there all along ? For how could it emerge if it wasn’t? In this way we don’t need empirical proof to know that life/intelligence has always been around.

And mental activity is neuronal. And we know that's physical. — L'éléphant

Ah, materialist philosophy of mind. I’ll try out some objections. First, you’re up against ‘the hard problem’ - there’s never been a plausible account of how the first-person nature of lived experience arises from the processes described by objective science. Experience has a qualitative dimension which never appears in the equations of physics by design, due to the ‘Cartesian division’ at the origin of modern science, the separation of primary (measurable) and secondary (subjective) attributes.

Practical illustration. You arrive home to discover your house and everything in it has burned down. If there was an instrument that could capture your precise neuronal and physiological state at that instant, it might capture data from which a suitably-trained user might be able to infer a state of acute emotional distress, and which would be an objectively accurate account. But on the basis of that data no matter how detailed, there would no way to determine how it feels and what it means to you. Saying that this is ‘neuronal’ or ‘physical’ might be objectively accurate but it would also be meaningless in the absence of the first-person perspective - namely, yours - which you bring to it.

I don't think I agree that physics is mathematical in nature. I think many aspects of it can be described mathematically. Is it the same thing? — Patterner

It is called ‘mathematical physics’ for good reason. Have you read Eugene Wigner’s The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences? Wigner won a Nobel for discoveries prompted by mathematical symmetries in atomic physics. He argues in that essay that there have been very many cases where empirical discoveries were made as kind of unintentional consequences of mathematical calculations. He says we seem to get much more out of the equations than we have apparently put in. He doesn’t claim to explain this fact - actually the word ‘miracle’ appears quite a few times. But then, Pythagoreanism's ‘all is number’, is suggestive of these kinds of ideas, and that is a rich vein of philosophy in the Western tradition. After all Galileo famously said the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. And I would have thought a great deal of the success of modern science arises from the ability to apply mathematical logic to physical objects and forces.

Then again, much of physics itself is based on ‘ideal objects’, like perfect gases or perfectly smooth planes, which don’t actually exist but which enable highly accurate predictive power over things that do physically exist.

So I think the case can be made that mathematics is intrinsic to physics itself, and that the basic elements of mathematics are not themselves physical. (The SEP entry on Physicaism has an entry on this.)

If life came from non-life can’t you say it was there all along ? — kindred

We can say anything without evidence.

For how could it emerge if it wasn’t?

We don't know yet.

f I experience a revelation or a "higher' insight, what is it about the experience that warrants it as knowledge? This is the question that proponents of "direct knowing" can never answer. — Janus

I don't see how this is relevant. There is no consensus amongst epistemologists as to what warrants anything as "knowledge". So this type of attack on "insight" as a form of "direct knowing", is just the expression of a subjective opinion base in one's personal preference as to what constitutes "knowing".

We consistently encounter this sort of problem, in this type of thread, with many similar terms, "intelligence", "consciousness", "experience", "intention", etc.. The problem is that how one understands terms like these is dependent on the philosophy which the person has read or discussed previously. And amongst the participants here, there is a wide variance.

So from your perspective, the proponents of "direct knowing" can never answer the question of what it is about the experience, which warrants calling it "knowing". From my perspective no one can ever answer the question of what it is about any experience which warrants calling it "knowing", so this comment is super unproductive.

I gotcha. I misinterpreted your post that I initially responded to.

And I don't know if I agree that such insights are 'unique' in the sense of only pertaining to one individual. — Wayfarer

Here is another way of looking at the difference between subjective uniqueness, and objective uniqueness.

Consider that we general distinguish between subjects with principles of spatial form and spatial separation. These distinctions constitute what we call our uniqueness, unique features, properties, and unique spatial positioning. This is what I would call subjective uniqueness.

Objective uniqueness is the uniqueness of the moment in time, what we call "now". Notice that as time passes there is at every moment, a new and unique "now", never a repetition, such that the entire universe is new and unique at each passing moment. Now, that each and every part of the universe partakes of this same unique moment, in its own way, is a brute fact concerning the nature of the universe. Plato, makes an interesting comment in "The Sophist" (I believe, perhaps it "Parmenides"), where Socrates compares the existence of the Idea, or Form, to the existence of the day. No matter how many different places partake of "the day", the day is no more, or no less "the day". In other words, the way that the various different things partake in that unique moment in time known as "today", this in no way alters the uniqueness of "today" itself.

Relativity theory annihilates this "brute fact", the uniqueness of the moment in time, which we know as "now". Consequently relativity theory, which is a very useful principle for relating and measuring very distinct types of motions, annihilates "objective uniqueness". This leaves us with only "subjective uniqueness" as the means for understanding the reality of uniqueness. However, subjective uniqueness, by which we distinguish one subject from another subject, by reference to spatial principles, is only an appearance of uniqueness, because every subject has a real, underlying connection to each other, by partaking in the same unique moment in time. So, rather than understanding the true uniqueness of objective uniqueness, which renders us all in another sense "the same", such an "understanding" of subjective uniqueness, which assumes a spatial separation between us instead of a temporal unity within an objective uniqueness, will always be a misunderstanding.

For how could it emerge if it wasn’t?

We don't know yet. — 180 Proof

Yes we don’t but we’ve given that process a name called Abiogenesis, the alternative would be woo-woo as to how life came about and we don’t want that.

What is wrong with saying life/intelligence not just emerged but it has been there all along just not manifested to what we today recognise as life ?

At what level of would you call it life is irrelevant because the intelligence displayed even from the structure of the atom to the way the solar system is aligned is apparent (even if life had not emerged there yet)

Isn’t it like looking at the mechanism of a clock and claiming there’s intelligence in action there or is your definition of intelligence more strict and narrow than that ?

What is wrong with saying life/intelligence not just emerged but it has been there all along just not manifested to what we today recognise as life ? — kindred

Nothing except saying that amounts to an evidence-free fairytale – pseudo-science (e.g. "intelligent design") or pseudo-philosophy (e.g. "vitalism, panpsychism") – that does not explain anything.

Isn’t it like looking at the mechanism of a clock ...

No. As I've previously pointed out, the "clock analogy" doesn't work.

Nothing except saying that amounts to an evidence-free fairytale – pseudo-science (e.g. "intelligent design") or pseudo-philosophy (e.g. "vitalism, panpsychism") – that does not explain anything. — 180 Proof

My view is pantheistic more than anything and probably Spinozist.

Spinoza argued that whatever exists is in God. The divine being is not some distant force, but all around us. Nothing in nature is separate from Him: not people, animals or inanimate objects. Today, the view that God is synonymous with nature is called “pantheism,” and this term is often retrospectively applied to Spinoza. Whatever the label, the view was—and still is—portrayed as a denial of God’s transcendent power. Spinoza was accused of denying the ontological difference between God and His creations, thereby trivialising the creator.

Spinoza’s philosophy does not trivialise God in the slightest. It is true that in his conception God is intimately bound up with nature. But just because God is not separate from the world that does not mean He is identical to it. Actually, He is distinct, because there is a relationship of dependence that travels only one way: we are constitutionally dependent on God, but God is not dependent on us, argues Spinoza.

For Spinoza, everything we are, and indeed the continued existence of all things, is a manifestation of God’s power. Carlisle uses the term “being-in-God” to describe this aspect of Spinoza’s thought: the way we are created by—and conceived through—God.

Instead of power though I’m using the term intelligence which although not synonymous dictates how nature is a manifestation of such a power. I’m kinda new to Spinoza so you might have to help me with his conception of God, if he is eternal then so is the power and intelligence which precede its manifestation in nature.

It is not hard to say what warrants as knowledge the basic forms of knowing—about what it is that we experience, the empirical and what is self-evident to us, the logical. Know-how is also easy to demonstrate. It is any other type of experience which is purported to be a kind of knowledge which seems to be impossible to warrant as such.

Not something but intelligence particularly. — kindred

Alrighty. Intelligence exists before it exists. Um, no.

We know one thing for sure, that matter went from being inanimate to animate in this universe at least. — kindred

No again. We know exactly that it does not/cannot. You're being too informal in your language and then reifying the errors into a fantasy that you're representing as (a) reality. It's not even language on a holiday; it's language in a playpen. And the topic is not well-served by such.

So, is your claim that something exists before it exists? Or is it something else?

So, is your claim that something exists before it exists? Or is it something else? — tim wood

No my claim is that something exists before it manifests as an actual thing in the world, in this case intelligence. To me at least it has always existed. It’s manifestation in nature is merely the evidence that it always has existed. Does this make more sense to you ?

Inanimate matter could have continued to remain inanimate yet it didn’t because we have life (intelligence) so something happened to it which we can’t explain, we call this process abiogenesis. There are two options either intelligence is embedded in matter or it is separate from it. If it was the latter it must have acted upon matter to give it life, I hope this explanation does not sound supernatural but is one that makes logical sense. If it’s the former then there’s no issue as intelligence would simply be an inherent property of matter.

Yes we don’t but we’ve given that process a name called Abiogenesis, the alternative would be woo-woo as to how life came about and we don’t want that. — kindred

Actually, abiogenesis is what is best described as "woo-woo".

It is not hard to say what warrants as knowledge the basic forms of knowing—about what it is that we experience, the empirical and what is self-evident to us, the logical. Know-how is also easy to demonstrate. — Janus

You can make such statements all you want, but it doesn't resolve the problem. It just indicates that you have a hard and fast prejudice as to what qualifies as "knowledge". Does a slime mold have "knowledge" for example?

Actually, abiogenesis is what is best described as "woo-woo". — Metaphysician Undercover

I believe it’s an accepted scientific theory, what’s the alternative when it comes to explaining the origin of life ?

It's not science. Science is supported by empirical evidence. It's just woo-woo magical thinking.

How would you be able to obtain empirical evidence of the creation of life from non life which is said to have occurred 3.5 billion years ago ? The best we can do is theorise.

The study of abiogenesis aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life under conditions strikingly different from those on Earth today. It primarily uses tools from biology and chemistry, with more recent approaches attempting a synthesis of many sciences. Life functions through the specialized chemistry of carbon and water, and builds largely upon four key families of chemicals: lipids for cell membranes, carbohydrates such as sugars, amino acids for protein metabolism, and nucleic acid DNA and RNA for the mechanisms of heredity. Any successful theory of abiogenesis must explain the origins and interactions of these classes of molecules.

What part of the above is woo-woo when it clearly tries to use the scientific method to investigate how the transition from non-life to life occurred?

Notice the paragraph says "aims", "attempts", and concludes with "Any successful theory of abiogenesis must explain the origins and interactions of these classes of molecules". The point very clearly made is that there is no successful theory of abiogenesis. Therefore it's nothing but "woo-woo".

You keep calling it woo-woo, but doesn’t all science aim and attempt to explain natural phenomena using the scientific method? You’re incorrect in your assumption that abiogenesis has the answer to how life happened. This may be speculative but it’s not woo-woo, we may never know how life occurred from non-life.

Does a slime mold have "knowledge" for example? — Metaphysician Undercover

Slime molds arguably have know-how. It's not a matter of a "hard and fast prejudice" but of being cautious ascribing the "honorific" 'knowledge' to cases where we cannot explain just how they could count as such.

We know we have empirical knowledge in the form of observations, logical and mathematical knowledge in the form of deductions and know-how insofar as we are demonstrably able to do anything. How would you justify for example a belief that one might hold that they had an experience wherein they knew God or "the true nature of reality"?

The burden would be on you to explain how such claims to knowledge could possibly be warranted.

When someone such as yourself claims that abiogenesis is how life came about, that is nothing but woo-woo. Then to add that it\s a scientific theory, is nothing but to use falsity to support your woo-woo. It is not a scientific theory because it is not supported by science, meaning it is not supported by empirical evidence. That there are scientists who have sought to support abiogenesis with science, but have proven to be unsuccessful, is simply evidence that abiogenesis is nothing but woo-woo.

Slime molds arguably have know-how. — Janus

OK, so you support what I said then. Your use of "arguably" indicates exactly my point, we really have no consensus on what warrants "knowing".

The burden would be on you to explain how such claims to knowledge could possibly be warranted. — Janus

Why ask me this? I am the one claiming that we cannot answer the question of what warrants "knowing". I'll repeat myself:

From my perspective no one can ever answer the question of what it is about any experience which warrants calling it "knowing", so this comment is super unproductive. — Metaphysician Undercover

When someone such as yourself claims that abiogenesis is how life came about, that is nothing but woo-woo. Then to add that it\s a scientific theory, is nothing but to use falsity to support your woo-woo. It is not a scientific theory because it is not supported by science, meaning it is not supported by empirical evidence. That there are scientists who have sought to support abiogenesis with science, but have proven to be unsuccessful, is simply evidence that abiogenesis is nothing but woo-woo. — Metaphysician Undercover

Abiogenesis is simply a theory of how life came from non-life, what’s woo-woo about that ? It’s just a word for a type of process(es) that occurred 3.5 billions of years ago during the inception of life. How can it be supported by science when we’re not privy to the conditions and events that transformed non living matter to living one 3.5 billions of years ago.

In the absence of alternative theories abiogenesis is just a label of how life came from non-life. You may dismiss it as woo-woo but it still remains a valid theory although it doesn’t have the answers of exactly how life came about, you have the right to remain sceptical about it.